Checked the page for innocent child, https://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Innocent_Child : Hm. it does mention that a certified townie is indeed a priority target for mafia nightkill, but it also stresses that leaving the reveal for an endgame moment could be a fruitful strategy. It's subjecitvely too risky for my tastes, but I have to take it in account.

Still, the "mafia don't care, mafia targets elsewhere" argument itself is entirely wrong, and as such, strongly suspicious.

This is opinion, not fact. So is my own view, so to each their own.

An Innocent Child will always be that but their value only depends on the player and their interactions within the game and only to a certain extent. When claimed it will remove a distraction, yes, if that player is distracting. It would not guarantees said player's reads/opinions in any way. If they get killed during the Night nothing changes for them anyway, so nothing of value is lost in terms of game-centric ability while potential PRs remain in the game. On the other hand it does in fact dilute the scum target pool and if you say it doesn't you're being obtuse on purpose. It also keeps a question mark for the scum in the game as they can't not consider the Mason's presence when making fake claims and such.

Feel free to suspect and vote for me because of my standing but I'll die on that hill.

I make extensive use of the favourites, the issue was that I forgot how long the night was supposed to be and when it started. I basically just forgot about the game and didn't visit the forum TBH. No good excuse, mea culpa.

It's halloween themed.
______

On the subject of the mason, as people have pointed out: they're not far off an innocent child. We know they exist and while scum could false claim, there's no reason to do so as it would put us in a "lunch one then the other" situation with a 50% chance we lunch the scum first and don't even need to lunch the other. That's a net win for town at this point. If we get stuck at LYLO, that's when it could be used in the scum's favour.

Basically, I think dedo's reasoning is bad.

The bold part is not true and you even acknowledge it later in the post. An Innocent Child gives the town a numerical advantage as they reduce the possible scum pool without increasing the scum voting power.

Right.

Forum mafia. Two opposing teams.

One is numerically weaker but gets its strength from knowing which players to target or not.

One is numerically stronger but gets its weakness from having to investigate and guess which players to target or not.

Which team benefits from certifying an affiliation or keeping it obfuscated ?


Vote dedoporno.

What I think is being obfuscated when it comes to the Mason is the sheer among of activity we have had for Day 2. With my forum settings set to 20 posts per page:
1. Day 1 lasted from Page 1 to Page 14.
2. Day 2 started on Page 14, and we're only on Page 17.

Yes, Day 2 is still in progress... but it does feel like we're nowhere close to lynching anyone. It's making me very conflicted about where to stick my lynch vote.

On the one hand, there's Scene and his cop reveal trap suggestion. (See Second paragraph of Post #285) I can't tell if that was just town guy making a bad suggestion or if that was mafia guy intentionally making a bad suggestion. Part of the issue is the lack of activity just has me wanting to grasp for anything even slightly off. At the same time, I feel like the town cannot afford any more mislynches and especially of players that have some level of activity.


We have a bigger issue in that PookaMustard hasn't posted since Post #276, which was two days ago. Since then, we had a vote for Liftraisal by Scene (Post #279) which was also two days ago yet no vote tally occurred in the last two days.

Edit Post #336 by Way of Posting:

When I said: "What I think is being obfuscated when it comes to the Mason is the sheer among of activity we have had for Day 2. With my forum settings set to 20 posts per page:"

What I meant to say was: "What I think is being obfuscated when it comes to the Mason is the sheer LACK of activity we have had for Day 2. With my forum settings set to 20 posts per page:



Since I'm making a second post, I may as well add that the only reason I'm not putting up a lynch vote for Scene is because this would essentially be a fourth lynch candidate. We're running out of Day 2 time and need to consolidate around one person to avoid a no lynch.


Also breakfast is done, so I'll be AFKish.

I wouldn't be opposed to that wagon, though. As I said, my suspicion goes to those trying to prevent/postpone a townie certification. But also, there is that shift :

From Buck 274 : "The big issue with the other mason claiming at this point is that we have no way of verifying the validity without AZ's input. Granted if the mystery player and AZ were throwing hints in their posts and someone provided such hints as proof I would be inclined to believe them. I will say that at this point I personally do not see a massive RISK in the other mason claiming. As scumm would surely want to try and snuff out a stronger PR than someone who is now basically a glorified VT." to Buck 297 : "I will also have to say that I am on the side of keeping the remaining mason hidden. I just don't see them being all that enticing to the Mafia, and giving scum the knowledge to hone in on a better potential Power Role NK sounds less than ideal to me."

And

From Scene 285 : "I do like Lift's idea of the other Mason claiming their role. If there's no counter claim we have a confirmed Town player. If there is a counter claim, we get to lynch at least 1 Scum in the next 2 nights" to Scene 288 : "This is a very good point. We're more likely to lose a power role if the Mason is outed. It depends on the value of having a confirmed Town. Maybe it's better to hold off on that claim for now in order to protect power roles."

People can change their mind, discussions and arguments exist for that. But there's the fact that they are both based on the same fallacy that mafia would kill randomly instead or restoring ignorance (even that reference Mafia website stresses out that an Innocent Child is a nightkill "bait"), and there's the odd irony that they seem influenced by you ("very good point") but are maintained even as you seem to distance yourself from your point (if I interpret post 333 right). And I wonder if there's been some daychat injunction behind those synchronized shifts.

Of course, you could also have changed your view after a daychat discussion. It's less likely to me because, well, one view is scummy and the other is not, and also because two shifts are more striking than one.

Especially as they are sharing a bad argument (again, referring to that web page, a debatable -even if contextually weak- argument would have been "isn't it worth to maximize the reveal impact by keeping it for later", but not "lol, mafia doesn't care for certified towniness").

Still, all of this requires more input and participation from more people, and this day has been lacking. So again, Pook, you should consider postponing the night and/or nudging some players.

I'm learning about the role as I go. I initially thought Lift's idea of claiming innocent child made sense. I then changed my mind after reading CatVenturer's point that not claiming would mean it would be harder for Scum to hit other power roles. You disparage this, but it's still a difference of, for the sake of example, 5/11 versus 6/11. Not totally inconsequntial. But like you say maybe they just prefer to remove the innocent child. Does this help Town?

According to the MafiaWiki holding back the claim of innocent child also has the benefit late in game if the innocent child survives. So your concept of anyone not supporting the innocent child claiming now, is not backed up by MafiaWiki whatsoever.

Either way 1 Mason has not claimed and this could be for any of the following reasons:

1. They want to use the claim as a trump card late in game

2. There is 2 masons still alive and they want to protect each other.

3. The Mason is an innactive player.

What we do know:

Neither Telika, Lift or Scene are Masons and Catte very probably is not either.

It wasn't apparent during class, but Natsume-sensei hasn't had much sleep at all. By the time she woke up out of her surprise doze, lunch break was already halfway over.

She decided to survey her surroundings.

----

Scene, his name is "Lifthrasil", not "Liftraisal". But I'll make it what TVTropes calls an "Ascended Meme" for the heck of it.

VOTECOUNT:
Liftraisal? (2) - supplementscene (#279), JoeSapphire (#319)
JoeSapphire (1) - Liftraisal? (#323)
dedoporno (1) - Telika (#335)

Not voting: catte, csanjuro, dedoporno, Catventurer, Atlo, bucktoothgamer

In case there's any errors in the votecount, please let me know.

----

"Ah yeah, the girls are arguing about their favorite manga again." Just as Natsume-sensei was about to turn her attention away from the the classmates, she realized something was quite wrong.

Haru has been strangely quiet since yesterday, and now, even more so.

Natsume stood in front of Haru, calling her. "Akemi-san?"

Haru tried to say something, but nothing came out of her mouth.

"Akemi-san, please speak."

Once more, Haru opened her mouth but not a single word came out.

Natsume-sensei sighed. "This isn't a joke, say something please."

She continued flapping her mouth silently. Haru herself realized that she couldn't say a word anymore. That's when she pointed at her mouth, and draw an X in the air in front of it.

"Fuck." Natsume mumbled under her breath. "What is going on with this school?" And with that, she started the processes of sending her to the infirmary for basic aid, at least before any hospital transfers.

----

Haru Akemi (csanjuro) is now in the school infirmary.
If possible, I will substitute csanjuro with another player.

It's kind of ironic because csanjuro not only broke rule 10, but has somehow also broken the meme rule 15 by not even trying to have fun with the game.

To accomodate for this change, I'll extend the Day by two or three IRL days.

I'm sorry for the experience so far and I hope to rectify it anyway I can.

1. I specifically stated that I have an issue with Scene's comment about the cop reveal. It should have been obvious that I got my post number wrong... or more accurately since I'm here to clarify, I'm a bit busy and neglected to mention that Post #285 is noteworthy in relation to Post #306.

In Post #285, we have Scene looking for the Mason. He's suggesting that everyone use all their night actions protecting the Mason... even though following this advise would leave absolutely everyone else vulnerable.

I'm going to quote #306:

Now we have Scene looking for a cop. This is why in #308, I said that Scene may as well ask if there's a Doctor in the house.


2. I've already said that I can see some merits to the Mason claiming versus not claiming. This doesn't change. The only thing I am willing to add is that it largely depends on exactly who the Mason is, which is why I'm not big on going on a Mason fishing expedition.

Example #1 - Mason is a mostly inactive player.
A role claim at this point isn't going to help Town if the person goes back to being mostly inactive. The Mafia actually benefits in the short-term from knowing that the Mason is someone who isn't participating.

Example #2 - Mason has said some odd things.
I think it's given that the Mason is not Scene but if he was the Mason, then a role claim would tell me and everyone else that his bad advise wasn't out of any malice towards the Team Town.

I've also already stated as Scene pointed out in #339 that there is also value in a late game claim after you've lynched two mafia to corner either the last remaining mafia member or a hostile third-party role.


AFK Again -
The cats finally lost interest in the Christmas tree so back to decorating. (The only downside to having four cats is a ton of breaks when Christmas decorating.) Also it's almost lunch time here.

Mafia killing a certified town ? No of course it does not help town at all, that's why they do it. Because of the importance of a certified town role. You people speak of "protecting power roles", but the mafia knows very well that being a certified townie is, by itself, an important power role. It's, as I said, like a one-shot cop had cleared a player (except that he wouldn't even need to die for his claim to be trusted).

I have mentioned this right as I was linking to that article. But not only this aspect (risky as this powerful role is as subject to random night kill as any other power role would be) certainly applies more to hidden surprise reveals than to mason situations where the mafia already knows that it will pop up, most importantly : you didn't care about that aspect at all. It was not your argument. As I said in post 331 : "it also stresses that leaving the reveal for an endgame moment could be a fruitful strategy. It's subjecitvely too risky for my tastes, but I have to take it in account. Still, the "mafia don't care, mafia targets elsewhere" argument itself is entirely wrong, and as such, strongly suspicious".

This wrong argument is the one you used to argue against the reveal. You weren't motivated by the other. Which makes your current reference to that other argument look very much like a case of "my point doesn't hold, quick quick let's find another reason to justify my pre-required conclusion". Preventing the townie to be revealed is the end, the swappable arguments are the means. And I said that I'm focusing on the arguments themselves.

If they are two surviving masons, they have nothing to conceal or protect. On the contrary, they'd be validated by Ambitionz's death and we'd have two certified townies by now, a total disaster for the mafia. Again, a fake argument against town certification.

But when you really analyse roles and interactions, there's only... I'd say, two or two and a half candidates for being the remaining mason. And they're not ideal. Still, sufficiently helpful to town for the mafia to prevent a reveal. Especially as they've all been suspected (or "suspected") at some point.

And precisely, your first strategy was "hey, fellow townies, let's put all our protection over there" (as I said in post 288, offering mafia the consolation prize of knowing where protective power roles go). Which implies an awareness of the importance of "confirmed townies". And when Cat suggested an alternative - the idea of not claiming at all to "protect power roles", you jumped on it : even better, the town certification could be avoided. And suddenly, to support this, well, certified townies weren't anymore such a big deal that they would have warranted the mobilization of all protective roles.

When I point it out, in post 288, you essentially derpclear (despite having more forum mafia experience than me - or at least equivalent : you say you didn't last long, but in, like, twice as many games as me). You also didn't answer post 312, about the experience gained in your games.

I'm not super at ease with you because I find it hard to take sides between you and Lifth (a suspect in rehabilitation), but yes, you're deep in the scumcloud.

Also, you want to keep the mason secret but you still start an elimination process narrowing his possible identities ? Even I didn't share my own narrowing (and its rationale) because unilaterally "outing" the mason would still feel wrong.

I think you meant to quote Scene in post #339 here.)

And about that list he posted... It makes me think that if he's not a Scum Lord, Scene is signalling to everyone (including the Mafia) that he is in fact not the Mason. This makes me not comfortable.

However since he had to go there and do that, I'm going to have to go there and point out that:

1. There's no rule saying that the Mason can't be participating in this discussion, pretending to be in favor of the Mason doing a role reveal just so see how other people react.

2. There's no rule that the Mason can't be someone who is quasi-active / inactive.

So I'm removing Telika, Lift and Catte from Scene's "no Mason here" group and put them all back into the potential Mason group.


I'm going to think things over a bit while I eat pandoro cake. Be back shortly. :)