Upick 2: Electric Boogaloo

[Elenna]

I'd probably prefer to not kill Book Wombat tbh.

Because I feel like he'll just protect himself and I won't get a kill off at all.

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This is where I admit I lied and I can kill anyone voted not just the most-voted.

I see what you mean, but it seems worth it to me because I don't have any other good targets that are worth the risk of losing a townie when we don't have to. Better to shoot at BW and fail than to hit a townie. But then I tend to be cautious (maybe too cautious) using town vig powers.

Shooting Taff is certainly a tactically smart way to avoid that risk, but for my part I'm nearly certain Taff is the real Survivor and I feel bad.

My other suggestion is Supagoof but obviously that has it's own risks.

Which appears not to be the case, so... Taffimai, did you change the name inside that quote? If so, why?

I expect it was an honest mistake somehow, since it doesn't make sense to lie in such an obvious way. But I'd still like an answer from Taffimai.

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Oh look 49 pages.

If it takes some time to get a second thread approved, I assume whichever phase we're in at that point will be lengthened by that amount of time?

[moonfly7]

To clarify further: I've got access to a kill ability, it's not fast though, unfortunately. Like I said, similare roles, not the same. I'm aware its not the same, or as good as that Lazer ability, but it's what I have to offer.

[Rogan]

Realistically as town, we don't need the survivor alive. It's not like we want them dead, but it doesn't hurt us at all if we're wrong. So, it sucks for the survivor, but tactically just butchering the neutral claims is a realistic choice. Not saying that's what we do, but I certainly can't say that town will be effected by it too much, you will, but town won't.

And if you remember, I think it's been said that nobody can copy a dead characters abilities this game. But maybe I'm just missremembering. Anyways, I have access to approximations of said lost abilities, not exact duplicates, in my power suite. So please no one say "copy this" and then when I don't, use it as evidence against me, because I don't have that capability. That being said, I don't think Taff was trying to do that, I did certainly make it sound like I might be able to copy dead powers. But for the record: I cannot.

Yeah, keeping the survivor alive is nice, but not required. It's better for town than hitting another townie by accident.

The thing about the abilities of the dead came up in regards to AVs info about Xihirli and her block. I don't think we got narrator confirmation about it.

[Elenna]

If Taff is the real survivor, we don't gain any more from their death than we do from failing to shoot Book, though.

On further thought, IMO our chances of a good result are higher if we shoot Book and hope he's lying about the protective power, rather than shooting Taff and hoping she's lying about her role. Depends how certain you are of which one's the real Survivor.

[Taffimai]

Testing to see if some forum issue is affecting the quote.

When I first read Elenna's question I wanted to weigh in on it and multi-quoted it but then I read the next page where it was already answered. Now (several hours later) I had forgotten that it was still saved in my multiquote, and habitually deleted all text behind the quote till right before the bit I wanted to respond to in Moonfly's without noticing it was the wrong name. Not a forum issue, just me failing to read.

Also giving bladescape options is great, but I don't really think one of those options should be mechanically confirmed town (Meta is via lie detector and surviving AV's anti-SK power).

Allow me to point out that openly deciding to have the only two known baners cover Rogan and AV makes it really easy for the wolves to get rid of the town vig, aka the other definite townie.

[moonfly7]

If Taff is the real survivor, we don't gain any more from their death than we do from failing to shoot Book, though.

On further thought, IMO our chances of a good result are higher if we shoot Book and hope he's lying about the protective power, rather than shooting Taff and hoping she's lying about her role. Depends how certain you are of which one's the real Survivor.

I absolutely agree that we need to whack bookwombat, and for the record I think Taff is probably what they say they are, I was just making the point that what Taff said about killing the Neutrals isn't really true. It does not hurt town near as much as killing a towny would, so given our options shooting wildly into our neutral pool is safer than shooting wildly everywhere else. Not that we are doing that, or that we should, but that if we did so, wild neutral whacking would have less of an effect on the town. Again though, I think random unchained murder is no a good idea, I was just pointing that out.

[AvatarVecna]

If Taff is the real survivor, we don't gain any more from their death than we do from failing to shoot Book, though.

On further thought, IMO our chances of a good result are higher if we shoot Book and hope he's lying about the protective power, rather than shooting Taff and hoping she's lying about her role. Depends how certain you are of which one's the real Survivor.

If taff dies as survivor, that tells us one of two things is true:

1) This game started with two survivors.

2) Book Wombat is a liar.

1 is absurd, so let's look at the second:

2-1) BW is town who fakeclaimed survivor.

2-2) BW is mafia who fakeclaimed survivor.

2-3) BW is serial killer who fakeclaimed survivor.

2-1 is absurd. We can hem and haw about whether 2-2 or 2-3 is more likely, but the fact remains that town doesn't actually give a **** about the difference. If taff flips survivor, BW is scum of one flavor or another, and needs to die. The alternatives are absurd nonsense. It would be better if we could shoot Book directly to test their claim since it's the weaker and more suspicious of the two, but ultimately testing two people both claiming the same neutral role isn't really that hard. It sucks for taff if they're the real survivor, but that's only an issue if we think they might be baned too.

[Unavenger]

Oh look 49 pages.

If it takes some time to get a second thread approved, I assume whichever phase we're in at that point will be lengthened by that amount of time?

I'll finagle the exact time to be a reasonable time so that I can actually end the day at that point and am not, like, asleep or whatever. New thread has been requisitioned, so we'll see what happens.

[Rogan]

When I first read Elenna's question I wanted to weigh in on it and multi-quoted it but then I read the next page where it was already answered. Now (several hours later) I had forgotten that it was still saved in my multiquote, and habitually deleted all text behind the quote till right before the bit I wanted to respond to in Moonfly's without noticing it was the wrong name. Not a forum issue, just me failing to read.



Allow me to point out that openly deciding to have the only two known baners cover Rogan and AV makes it really easy for the wolves to get rid of the town vig, aka the other definite townie.

Losing blades would be bad. But getting an answer to "the ultimate Question" would be game over. Well, I didn't do the math for some worst case analysis, but it doesn't seem like scum can kill town faster than town can kill scum. And there are more townies than scum.

[AvatarVecna]

Losing blades would be bad. But getting an answer to "the ultimate Question" would be game over. Well, I didn't do the math for some worst case analysis, but it doesn't seem like scum can kill town faster than town can kill scum. And there are more townies than scum.

This is the main issue. If either Rogan or myself gets the power off (we aren't roleblocked, and we're not dead), then that's game. A reminder: here is the question we're both getting an answer to unless screwed with:

Who are all the players in this game with an anti-town role?

If either of us gets an answer to that question, and is alive to speak it come D3, that's game. Period. End of discussion. None of the rest of this matters. Pulling that off requires a successful block or kill on both of us simultaneously. The more people who go all-in on defending us, the harder it is for scum to counter. Even if I'm telling the truth about my auto-self-bane being gone, there's a town!baner on each of us. Maybe one of those is actually a scum!roleblocker, which means they can block that person's question, but what are the odds they have two roleblockers? They've got the faction kill and a couple powers. That's...maybe enough? It gets easier if they can coordinate with the Serial Killer to get two kills off, hopefully ones that can pierce banes, or hopefully get two roleblocks off. But that ability to coordinate is a big if.

So if they decide to aim their kills elsewhere? If they're not devoting all their resources to keeping me and Rogan from coming in 4 hours from now like "here's all the bad people"? Sure, fine, let them. I generally feel like vigilante is an anti-town role anyway, since even at its best, it's rare that it hits scum. blade dying isn't bad because they're vig, but because they're confirmed town. But who cares, if the question gets answered.

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I absolutely agree that we need to whack bookwombat, and for the record I think Taff is probably what they say they are, I was just making the point that what Taff said about killing the Neutrals isn't really true. It does not hurt town near as much as killing a towny would, so given our options shooting wildly into our neutral pool is safer than shooting wildly everywhere else. Not that we are doing that, or that we should, but that if we did so, wild neutral whacking would have less of an effect on the town. Again though, I think random unchained murder is no a good idea, I was just pointing that out.

This, essentially. Vig roles are notoriously unreliable, even in the hands of veterans who know what they're doing. It's the one upside to the circumstantial nature of both my kills: I'm extremely unlikely to hit anybody at all, but I was probably just gonna hit two townies anyway so it's a good thing both were doomed to miss. Here we have an unambiguous situation where no matter who we aim at between BW and Taff, it's better than targeting anybody else that we're unsure about. One of these people is a neutral who isn't on town's side (even if they're not explicitly against us), and the other is either a second survivor (super weird), a townie fakeclaiming survivor (whyyyyyyyy), or an anti-town role (burn them with fire). If we miss with the first shot, now we know where to find scum with another kill later.

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I'm really saddened by all this "well just kill one of them at random who cares if we kill the survivor" talk. There are other ways to check us, and seriously I've been angling for it right from the start. Stop hating on the blues!

Welcome to the downside of claiming neutral. Even if you're telling the truth...you may not be against us, but you're not with us either. And we're going to constantly keep that in mind. Claiming your win condition as a non-townie (even if you're not explicitly anti-town) is a bad idea in general. It's just a negotiating tactic: if you tell the other guy what you want, they now know exactly how to apply stick and carrot to get you dancing to their tune. In this case, we know you'll do anything for survival. If we get an answer to The Question and gang up on the remaining scum, and they suggest some cockamamie plan to you that can get scum/survivor to win the game together but they absolutely need your help to pull it off, then getting you to not join them is really easy:

"If you help scum win even though we earned this, then we're going to take you down with us, and daykill you here and now"

Welcome to claiming neutral. You're a hired gun on nobody's side, and despite what your win condition says, that means everybody is set against you. In the previous Upick, for all they knew I very well could've been a Survivor who was fully honest with town from D2 onwards, gave them extra lynches, and personally caught three wolves. And it didn't matter, because they know they can't really trust me to be on their side - I'm on my side, and will shift as necessary to survive. Counterclaiming BW as Survivor is a pro-town move, yes, but it's not a pro-Survivor move.

bladescape's kill is a contingency plan, but if we have to pick somebody to shoot, shooting one of our two neutral claimants is the best option for town. It minimizes the risk of vig'ing another townie, and it'll (probably) tell us where the SK is one way or another.

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Let's suppose we shoot one of you two, and you flip SK. Rogan and I both die in the night, boo hoo so sad. That's rogan's list confirmed, which now has several people who can no longer be mafia or SK and are now confirmed-town by default. Even without an answer to The Question, that's game set match right there.

[moonfly7]

This is the main issue. If either Rogan or myself gets the power off (we aren't roleblocked, and we're not dead), then that's game. A reminder: here is the question we're both getting an answer to unless screwed with:



If either of us gets an answer to that question, and is alive to speak it come D3, that's game. Period. End of discussion. None of the rest of this matters. Pulling that off requires a successful block or kill on both of us simultaneously. The more people who go all-in on defending us, the harder it is for scum to counter. Even if I'm telling the truth about my auto-self-bane being gone, there's a town!baner on each of us. Maybe one of those is actually a scum!roleblocker, which means they can block that person's question, but what are the odds they have two roleblockers? They've got the faction kill and a couple powers. That's...maybe enough? It gets easier if they can coordinate with the Serial Killer to get two kills off, hopefully ones that can pierce banes, or hopefully get two roleblocks off. But that ability to coordinate is a big if.

So if they decide to aim their kills elsewhere? If they're not devoting all their resources to keeping me and Rogan from coming in 4 hours from now like "here's all the bad people"? Sure, fine, let them. I generally feel like vigilante is an anti-town role anyway, since even at its best, it's rare that it hits scum. blade dying isn't bad because they're vig, but because they're confirmed town. But who cares, if the question gets answered.

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This, essentially. Vig roles are notoriously unreliable, even in the hands of veterans who know what they're doing. It's the one upside to the circumstantial nature of both my kills: I'm extremely unlikely to hit anybody at all, but I was probably just gonna hit two townies anyway so it's a good thing both were doomed to miss. Here we have an unambiguous situation where no matter who we aim at between BW and Taff, it's better than targeting anybody else that we're unsure about. One of these people is a neutral who isn't on town's side (even if they're not explicitly against us), and the other is either a second survivor (super weird), a townie fakeclaiming survivor (whyyyyyyyy), or an anti-town role (burn them with fire). If we miss with the first shot, now we know where to find scum with another kill later.

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Welcome to the downside of claiming neutral. Even if you're telling the truth...you may not be against us, but you're not with us either. And we're going to constantly keep that in mind. Claiming your win condition as a non-townie (even if you're not explicitly anti-town) is a bad idea in general. It's just a negotiating tactic: if you tell the other guy what you want, they now know exactly how to apply stick and carrot to get you dancing to their tune. In this case, we know you'll do anything for survival. If we get an answer to The Question and gang up on the remaining scum, and they suggest some cockamamie plan to you that can get scum/survivor to win the game together but they absolutely need your help to pull it off, then getting you to not join them is really easy:

"If you help scum win even though we earned this, then we're going to take you down with us, and daykill you here and now"

Welcome to claiming neutral. You're a hired gun on nobody's side, and despite what your win condition says, that means everybody is set against you. In the previous Upick, for all they knew I very well could've been a Survivor who was fully honest with town from D2 onwards, gave them extra lynches, and personally caught three wolves. And it didn't matter, because they know they can't really trust me to be on their side - I'm on my side, and will shift as necessary to survive. Counterclaiming BW as Survivor is a pro-town move, yes, but it's not a pro-Survivor move.

bladescape's kill is a contingency plan, but if we have to pick somebody to shoot, shooting one of our two neutral claimants is the best option for town. It minimizes the risk of vig'ing another townie, and it'll (probably) tell us where the SK is one way or another.

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Let's suppose we shoot one of you two, and you flip SK. Rogan and I both die in the night, boo hoo so sad. That's rogan's list confirmed, which now has several people who can no longer be mafia or SK and are now confirmed-town by default. Even without an answer to The Question, that's game set match right there.

To sum up the whole claiming neutral thing in simple terms: Great plan morally, letting us know that we can trust you to not be mafia, but tactically, it was unwise.

[Book Wombat]

I bet Unavenger is having a ton of fun watching this.
Only thing I can do is just wait till the Night is over as I'm pretty sure nothing I say will can be convincing enough to clear me. Oh well.

[Metastachydium]

Losing blades would be bad.

I just realized that this is an impossible outcome. We won't lose bladescape, whatever he or anyone else does tonight.

[Taffimai]

Losing blades would be bad. But getting an answer to "the ultimate Question" would be game over. Well, I didn't do the math for some worst case analysis, but it doesn't seem like scum can kill town faster than town can kill scum. And there are more townies than scum.

That question also solves the puzzle between Wombat and myself. What you're all saying is that it's not worth it to wait a night so you definitely don't kill the survivor. That's what's sad.

[Rogan]

I just realized that this is an impossible outcome. We won't lose bladescape, whatever he or anyone else does tonight.

Huh? I would say very unlikely, but impossible?

Are you suggesting Blades has an immunity?

Regarding the survivor... It's always a mixed bag to claim survivor. As long as you are trusted, you are relatively secure since you are not hostile. But when in doubt, you are a better target than risking a towny.
And, as AV said, you are not automatically pro town. Even if you start this way, you can change your mind or pressured into action later.
JeenLeen said he might help the aliens in CI. Or he could have gone for a solo survivor win. In the end, he was on towns side, but it was never guaranteed.

[AvatarVecna]

That question also solves the puzzle between Wombat and myself. What you're all saying is that it's not worth it to wait a night so you definitely don't kill the survivor. That's what's sad.

The Question absolutely solves the game. That's why we can assume scum will be working to make sure it doesn't get answered. But town can't just assume it'll get answered, the world isn't fair like that. We need a contingency plan.

There are two groups that definitely have one scum in them. One is the five-person group where me and Rogan are mong the shoot able people. Of those, shooting Rogan gets the most info (confirming/denying the first question he asked), but it also risks The Question not getting answered by anybody. Killing me is similarly problematic. Killong gac loses access to dead chat, killing Supagoof might be wasted if his own bane kills him. That leaves Book Wombat.

The other group is you and BW. One of you is a liar, and you both are basically 100% not town. Killing the survivor when we might not need to sucks, but Killing nobody and then having no answer to The Question would sick even harder. And the only upside to maybe sparing the real Survivor tonight is that in a world where The Question goes unanswered, we won't have wasted a kill on somebody we don't need dead? Except it still tells us which of the two of you definitely needs killing, so shooting the real Survivor is still better than actually shooting a townie.

It sucks. It's only a contingency plan. But that's the Neutral game. You counterclaim as neutral, you outed yourself as not on our side. Even if you're not against us, you're not with us either. It sicks, but the best move is for Blade to shoot one of you to find the liar...and you're the easier one to shoot. If you had a Bane, you would've mentioned it ny now as a reason to not shoot you either.

[Rogan]

That question also solves the puzzle between Wombat and myself. What you're all saying is that it's not worth it to wait a night so you definitely don't kill the survivor. That's what's sad.

It's not guaranteed that we will get an answer. It will be hard to stop us both, but it's not impossible, as far as I know. So instead of relying on one plan, we also prepare a backup.

From my point of view, you don't need to die, since Book looks much worse. He is not the target for claiming survivor. He is the target for many little holes in his claims. This includes the fact that two survivors are unlikely, but it doesn't stop there.

So, for town, helping neutrals win is nice, but the top priority is a win for the team.

[Unavenger]

New thread is here. Please move to it so we don't go over the limit.