Newbie Student Mafia XIX - Page 94

On January 31 2016 13:15 Trfel wrote:

"How to Play Mafia" with Trfel!

This will be a guide on "how to play mafia". Hence the title. I know, I'm creative.

Step 1: Whenever you make an awesome post, give it a big title and at least one awesome song (from Youtube). This is mandatory to being a good mafia player.
Step 2: Have awesome reads. You can look at my posts for examples.
Step 3: Everyone who disagrees with you is wrong. If you don't believe this, just look back at Step 2.
Step 4: Win the game. This is a gimme step, as if you did Steps 1-3, this step is automatic.

Okay, seriously though, here's what I have.

But more seriously, listen to those songs. They're more than worth it. I've played a lot of mafia, and there's a good chance that this is the last piece of analysis I ever write, so I have to make the songs really count.

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Player List
PepperMintTea
Tumblewood
JesusIncarnate
darthfoley
Ikidomari
nooniansoong
_MexicanAlien
Eden1892
Shapelog

First, start off with the confirmed town.

Darthfoley is town because he claimed vigilante. If he is mafia, he dies when the two town power roles claim or die. This is a losing play, so darthfoley is town.

_MexicanAlien is town. His early posting was extremely town-indicative. Mafia doesn't come into the thread asking what to do. They'd ask their teammates in the scum qt. That aside, _MexicanAlien demonstrated a drive to get the game started and to progress towards solving the game that basically never comes from mafia. Yes, he's dropped off a bit recently, but he's town anyway. Look at how much his play has improved. He went from this to this. That drive to get better and contribute is town, no matter how hard his activity drops off.

Shapelog is town because he's made so many posts. In addition to his activity, he's been constantly contributing. He's been discussing, questioning, sharing feedback on other people's reads, and making his own reads. He's provided tons of original thought. He has the longest filter in the game. He's been very open to ideas and willing to interact, and his progression doesn't show mafia agenda.

Nooniansoong is town primarily for filter length. Nooniansoong generally doesn't post so much, and generally doesn't get very involved. His activity in this game is extremely higher than it is in his mafia games, and still higher than in most of his town games. Don't underestimate how strong filter length is as an argument for townreading people. Also, his roleblock claim could give him a lot of trouble later if it were false (if there is a veteran instead of a doctor, for example, it looks really awful for him).

This leaves five people, with three mafia among them.

PepperMintTea
Tumblewood
JesusIncarnate
Ikidomari
Eden1892

Here's where it gets interesting. There are more reasons for these reads, you can check filters. I'm not giving every reason, because there would be far too many and this post would be unreadable.

Ikidomari is mafia because of his large amount of apologies early on in the game. His activity also fits mafia motivation, instead of displaying a desire to solve the game. There are also several inconsistencies in his play. One example of this is that he repeatedly says that he is a good lynch because he is a weak player.But, the third statement doesn't match. Town doesn't say "lynch me, you should lynch me, but here's some defense". Town will, in rare circumstances, ask to be lynched and/or vote for themselves, but there is always some sort of possible town motivation behind it (generally proving that their scumreads are genuine). Here, there is none of this. He's asking to be lynched and asking to survive at the same time, which makes him mafia.

One other thing to look at is how Ikidomari has been playing after the Day 1 lynch. He posted analysis, fine. He didn't have time before the lynch, so he didn't push anything or stay up to date, fine. He comes back and posts analysis, fine. Here's what else happens. Eden, arguably the person most vocally scumreading him, townreads him. Then he leaves, and comes back later with this weird post, which caused Shapelog and I to say that it was a bit towny. Then, once we said that, he just vanished. No push, no reads, no updates, just gone. And he hasn't returned since. This is extremely mafia motivated, because he's playing to survive, instead of push mafia.

Ikidomari is my most confident scumread, I'm nearly positive that he is mafia.

Tumblewood is mafia because his reads have matched the thread sentiment suspicions. Every time. He doesn't show any drive to find mafia or solve the game, just goes with the flow.

Then there's his weird read on Shapelog, which I described here. Okay, it's possible that this comes from town, but the emphases of his scumread on Shapelog don't match. Further, the second quote from Tumblewood I quoted here, look at it. He's saying that people are townreading Shapelog too easily, because Shapelog's early play was so scummy. If he really is concerned about this, it would make sense for him to bring up all of these new reasons that he has to scumread Shapelog. But he doesn't. It feels like he doesn't actually care about pushing Shapelog, or about making people scumread Shapelog.

So, he was still really suspicious of Shapelog, and has been talking about Shapelog all this time, but votes for JesusIncarnate because "unless I see something that convinces me he's town". Presumably just JesusIncarnate's low activity. This feels like he wanted to fit in, and this isn't how town approaches a lynch.

There are some points where Tumblewood seems to be thinking about the game and trying to figure out alignments, but these are few and far between, especially compared to the large amount of evidence that he is mafia.

JesusIncarnate is town because there's no reason to call him mafia, because everyone is pushing onto him so easily, and because both Ikidomari and Tumblewood voted for him. His confident tone doesn't make sense from mafia, especially from mafia with such drastically low activity. I can see mafia being confident and dominating the game, but low activity puts JesusIncarnate in a position of weakness (with his activity, extreme weakness). His attitude simply doesn't make sense from mafia at all.

There is a counter-argument to this, though.He's scumreading Shapelog for putting a target on his back. Maybe JesusIncarnate is used to mafia making themselves targets instead of hanging back and blending in. But I don't understand this, and I feel that a much better explanation is that JesusIncarnate is town.

In addition, while JesusIncarnate hasn't made very many reads, the reads he has made are original. He doesn't sheep anyone, he doesn't follow the thread sentiment. This is more likely to come from town.Here's the biggest example. At a time when most people were scumreading me, JesusIncarnate calls me town because my post was bad, which makes me town. Mafia doesn't say this. JesusIncarnate is likely town.

PepperMintTea is town because their posts demonstrate critical thinking and have many original ideas. The initial townread of Shapelog for haphazard posting is one example of this, since Shapelog was widely scumread at this point. PepperMintTea's initial question/push on Tumblewood is another example of this, because this wasn't something that had been brought up before. PepperMintTea's sudden switch to scumreads seems strange, but there's a definite focus on preparing for the lynch. Finally, this post detailing PepperMintTea's approach to the Day 1 lynch seems very towny. The thought process is very sensible and shows insight and critical thinking. PepperMintTea's activity has dropped off recently, but being set on lynching JesusIncarnate is a sensible reason for this. I feel that PepperMintTea is probably town.

Eden1892 is mafia because I needed to get three scum reads. But seriously, the lack of focus and leadership in his play doesn't make sense from town. Instead of guiding people, he's very willing to let people do whatever and lynch whoever. This isn't a town approach, and especially not from Eden.

Eden's approach to the Day 1 lynch is mafia indicative. He started out by being fine with seemingly whatever lynch (between Trfel and JesusIncarnate, it seemed). He said that he would sheep onto JesusIncarnate, and that darthfoley's case and nooniansoong's push were good. You can see this here. Then he makes his case on Ikidomari (in the same post), and goes so far as to call the other wagons lynch bait (presumably JesusIncarnate, who he just said he was happy with lynching). You can see this here. Eden ends up saying that he doesn't want to lynch JesusIncarante because there are too many people willing to lynch him for poor reasons, despite him saying how good the wagon was earlier.

Eden then takes his vote off of Ikidomari, and then votes for him again. Then Eden comes back a bit before End of Day and says he could lynch Kuragari42 for his reads (after he's the leading wagon), and says that he prefers the Ikidomari lynch and that Kuragari42 could flip town, but he's fine with it anyway (source). No push, just saying that he has a better lynch without doing anything about it. This is very mafia-motivated. Then, he says that Kuragari42 is claiming mafia for a read inconsistency with regards to JesusIncarnate, in which JesusIncarante is a mafia power role. So, why doesn't he lynch JesusIncarnate, since he's a power role and Kuragari42 is just a goon? This also doesn't make sense.

This is not how town approaches the game. He's letting others take the blame for the mislynch while covering his bases in case Ikidomari is lynched, and taking the opportunity to lynch town instead while he can. He's been very opportunistic with his scumreads, as well, shown by making JesusIncarnate one of his strongest scumreads despite so strongly defending him on Day 1. Eden is mafia.

Conclusion

The mafia team is Ikidomari, Tumblewood, and Eden1892.