Sleeper Cell Mafia

On April 25 2011 11:53 Mr. Wiggles wrote:
Keep in mind that scum can kill scum as well.

I think something we should watch out for is people trying to manipulate or send messages to scum about how to act, as that will help us pick out the GF. As soon as a few scum start popping up, we should be able to draw connections between them and other players, and hopefully find a common point in the GF. The hard part will be when we kill the GF, because then a new one is selected. When that happens we have to be careful to observe who is changing their behavior towards other players unexpectedly, because this could be a sign of the new GF who suddenly has all the other agent names.

On April 25 2011 12:29 Mr. Wiggles wrote:
Of course scum-hunting is going to be the best way to find scum, but breadcrumbs are also a good way of finding out the cell leader. It looks like he can only send one PM to one of his people per morning/evening, which means that he's going to have to find a way to get information out to them otherwise, or else he'll have no way to contact more than a couple of them. We can't really rely on the connections between players in this game, so if someone starts acting weird after PM time, maybe they're scum. Also, when we kill the GF, we can go back and look at who he was trying to direct, and who he was paying special attention to, and how.

On April 26 2011 07:20 Mr. Wiggles wrote:


I'm just thinking we can look for things that are people trying to direct mafia. We can assume that the GF is going to find a way to make himself known to his agents. This is why stuff like:



Looks somewhat scummy to me because of:



Say Darm is scum, this could be him posting a potential hit target for the other cell members, in saying who he thinks is blue. As a general rule, I don't think people should point out who they think is blue or not. If they do an analysis, and figure someone is blue, they can just as easily call them town to protect them from sniping.

I *really* like this point, I though it was evident as well, but it merits pointing out and wiggles gets a town point from me for making this point, as it warrants saying, on the other hand though it makes it obvious for any scum that missed it, which was my reason for leaving it there and hoping it stayed buried.



Well, pressure doesn't work very well when the person isn't around to see it. :p

I think you're voting for me because I made a couple posts, went to bed, and have been at school until just recently, so it looks like I'm lurking/inactive. This isn't really the case, I'm reading the thread, just a lot of my reactions and ideas will be delayed and concentrated in a few posts instead of all over until two days from now. That, or you think one of my ideas is scummy, but I just pointed out what I mean by leading the cell and breadcrumbs if that's the one you're worried about.

This is actually the reaction I would expect from a town player, if wiggles were scum I would expect a more panicked reaction, its not a very solid tell but it partially assuages the churning in my stomach that his earlier posts caused

As for breadcrumbs, you can look for people posting odd things, pictures, rhymes, ciphers, etc. Changing their signature and/or profile, writing things with the first words of every sentence or every line, stuff like that. It might be clever for scum to try, but I'm not going to obsess over it. I'm just saying that if there's something super apparent, it could easily be a mafia breadcrumb.

I think this paragraph is redundant, no mafia is going to outright post a cypher or a easy breadcrumb like the first word of every sentence/line (and yes, I am checking for that)

Now, to answer Ace. My three picks (with reasoning and follow-up) would go:

1. Ace. He's an experienced player and has a reputation as a good analyzer/arguer.
2. GMarshal. I have experience playing games with him, and think he's a good all-around player.
3. Jackal58. He tunnels a lot, and is a very aggressive poster. It would be good to get him in the know so I could use that to my advantage, and to avoid friendly fire.

Message: "Follow PI Bear, Profile" 19 characters, 4 words. All they'd have to do is look into my profile, and see the picture I have there right now, as well as the first joke sentence underneath, "Hi, I'm Mr. Wiggles the Detective Bear! No matter the type of grisly discovery, I'll always be first on the scene! I've barely been stumped in my entire career!". This would easily alert them to my identity.

This part triggers my gut once again, as its thought out way in depth, it also spells out what a non-obvious message means, which in my mind is explaining it to any of his scumbuddies to whom he might have sent the message. I'm not willing to FoS based on that but it makes me more uneasy


The next thing I would do, is at some point, either post a scumlist that contains all of the sleeper agents, +/-1, or a scumlist that contains none of them +/-1. I would be sure not to provide much reasoning, and play down it's importance, so that no one would take it too seriously. I'd then hope the one's I've contacted would be smart enough to figure out that if they're on it, others are, or if they're not on it, no one else is, as they know I'm the Cell Leader, and must be up to something.

Again detailing his plan in detail and also including how he is going to be communicating with his buddies if he is scum. If wiggles ever posts a scumlist I'd be interested to see the alignment of some of its members, as its possible wiggles has just detailed his plan so his buddies can see it. Again, it could be that wiggles has thought this out in depth, which is good, or it could be he is scum. Its not a tell for me either way, but it does make me decidedly uneasy

Follow up messages would be: "PI Bear, Profile, List (or else Not List)" to notify everyone within the shortest amount of time of who I am, and to look at the list, or not at the list.