Mafia: Lemmings 2 Edition

[Clam]

Welcome all to Mafia: Lemmings Edition 2 Lemmings 2 Edition!

Links to scenes:
Night 0
Day 1
Night 1
Day 2
Night 2
Day 3
End

Sign-up is closed. Signed up players:
Simon
RubiX
NaOH
Giga
geoo
möbius
Ramon
ccexplore


The setting is Clamifornia Beach, and the beach bum lemmings have just rolled in for the beginning of summer. They go surfing swimming in the daytime, gather round the clampfire in the evening, and retreat to their sandcastles at night.

(Scroll right or zoom out to see the full picture)

Side note: As unlikely as it may seem, beach bum lemmings are actually incapable of surfing. The original Beach Tribe were provided with no Surfer skills whatsoever! But Clamifornia Beach is more of a swimming beach anyway; the waves are pathetic!

(Thanks to Simon for the pic, +10 clampoints for you!)

But all is not well. The first night of summer has just passed, and Jimbo McLemming, cousin of Jimmy (of Storybook fame) and popular local surfer swimmer, has disappeared without a trace. Rumour has it that among the beach bum community is a group of rogues who seek to dispense with the innocent bums and make off with their clampoints. (Clampoints are the official currency of Clamifornia. The fact that they have any clampoints at all makes these particular beach bums wealthier than most!)

The perpetrators must be clamptured and brought to justice, before this clamitous series of events (and clampuns) clamtinues!

The residents of Clamifornia Beach are staunch believers in Clampital Punishment. What’s that, you ask?

That giant clam isn’t just for decoration, you know! When the bums find out (or think they’ve found out) who’s responsible, they won’t hesitate to feed the guilty party into the clam, who will gleefully munch them. 8()



How to Play:
Welcome, resident lemming (or possibly lix or clam)! Some of you -- you're not sure who -- are members of a mischievous gang of rogue lemmings who -- for ill-explained reasons -- are bent on ruining the lives of all the other inhabitants of Clamifornia Beach.

Each night, the rogue lemmings arrange for the unfortunate demise of one poor lemming. They do this by furtively discussing amongst each other (via PM) and then messaging me.

Then, In the morning, the residents awake to the tragic news and noisily argue (write posts) about who they think is responsible. Of course, the actual miscreants are in the crowd and surreptitiously voicing their opinions, too. Voting takes place to determine who (if anyone) shall be executed by clam, and then night falls.




Rules
Some of these are different to the first game so please read! For the most part I’ve opted for simplicity and reverted to standard rules.

Roles
Roles are as follows:
Innocent Resident: The majority of residents are innocent to some degree; you'll want to avoid losing your head.
Rogue Lemming: each night, you privately discuss amongst yourselves who's gonna get it, and PM me with your final decision.
Scooper: The Scooper always has the inside scoop on what goes on at Clamifornia Beach (yes, I renamed the role just to make this joke). At the start of the game, and each night thereafter, the Scooper chooses somebody to spy on (and PMs me with their choice), and finds out what their role is. The Scooper is also an innocent resident. There is only one Scooper, though I may reconsider if we get a lot of players.
No Blockers this time. They don’t work outside of the Classic tribe anyway

At the beginning of the game, each player will be assigned a role at random. The number per role will determined by the total number of players (for balance), and made public when the game starts. The identities will not be made public of course, but the rogues will know each other’s identities.

You are definitely allowed to lie about what role you have. In fact, it's encouraged. You just can't support your claim with evidence.

When somebody is voted off, I will reveal their role. When somebody is slain by the rogue lemmings, I will not reveal their role.

Discussion
All public discussion about the game in progress must be made in this topic and during the day. Keep it off the IRC channel. Only live players may discuss. The rogues may discuss in private at any time. Other private discussion can’t technically be prevented, but is discouraged (and shouldn’t be trusted ).

Voting
Each lemming, innocent or otherwise, can vote for the execution of up to one other resident. You may change or withdraw your vote at any time by making a new post to that effect. [edit] Please put the name of the player you are voting for in bold for the benefit of readers. Execution is by majority vote, i.e. over 50% of the population must vote for the same lemming before an execution occurs. When a majority vote is achieved, or daylight runs out (see below), the condemned lemming (if there is one) gets munched by the clam, and night falls again. Rinse and repeat until either all rogue lemmings are eliminated, or vice versa, or the result is inevitable.
Note: If a majority is reached at any time, I will consider that as final, even if votes change again before I check the thread. I will post voting summaries occasionally to help with counting. Please refrain from editing or deleting your voting posts!

Timing
The game begins in daytime, following the disappearance of Jimbo McLemming. This means the first vote takes place before the rogues kill an actual player.
Day lasts until there is a majority vote, with a limit of 72 hours to keep the game moving.
Night lasts until the rogues send me their decision as to who they will take out, but shouldn’t take more than 48 hours without good reason.
Actual timing may vary depending on my availability.

Death
If you are dead, you may not post in the topic again until the game has ended. (Nobody can hear you from inside the clam.) However, as compensation, I will tell you everyone’s role, so you get a Clam’s eye view of the game. If you prefer, you can opt not to receive this.

Victory
If all the rogues are eliminated, the innocent bums (including scooper) win.
If at any time the rogues reach 50% of the population, or will do so after their next kill, the rogues win – at this point they have enough votes to block any proposed munching.

Note that you don’t have to survive to win – if your team wins, you win! Only survivors get to share in the clampoints though 8()



That’s it for now. Rules aren’t set in stone until the game begins (or later if I’ve overlooked something, which is likely).

Roll on up to Clamifornia Beach for some fun in the sun! (Or in the dark, depending which team you’re on!)

[Simon]

Signing up!

-- Simon

[RubiX]

Rub the nub
reporting for duty

[NaOH]

I'm on this like lemming blood on a clam.

[GigaLem]

where do I sign up because I want to join

[Clam]

Amendment to rules:

The Scooper finds out one player's role on the night before the game starts. This means there's something meaningful to talk (or lie!) about on the first day, and the scooper definitely gets to do something before getting killed

To be fair to non-scoopers who want to start the game, you'll have 24 hours to choose before I pick somebody at random.



Keep on rolling in folks, the more the merrier! 8()

[Clam]

where do I sign up because I want to join

Just post in this topic (as you've already done). I'll add you to the list

[geoo]

I'm on this like lemming blood on a clam.

I thought they munch lemmings as a whole...

Anyway, I'm in too.

[GigaLem]

where do I sign up because I want to join

Just post in this topic (as you've already done). I'll add you to the list

Thank you 

[mobius]

yeah

I'm on this like lemming blood on a clam.

gross NaOH... gross                 

btw that big Clam pic in the first post frightens me. 

the penny pic is good. This should be real as this is about what a penny is really worth--nothing but a joke

it is time to go to the mattresses! 

[Ramon]

I don't know how I missed this topic 

Signed up yet again, for the laughs. Don't make me a miner 

[ccexplore]

Since this game could use more people and I visit the forum pretty regularly anyway, I've decided to sign up.  I'm only expecting to look at PMs for any private communications (if applicable), but if the need arises people can ping me over PM to check the IRC logs.

[Clam]

All right, we're up to 8 already! I'll keep it open for another day or two days, then get underway.

Roles have to be assigned randomly, but at a 1/8 (or lower) chance you're not likely to get Miner.

And welcome in, ccexplore! I hope you can find enough time to be at least reasonably active in the game

[Clam]

Actually, in the interests of fairness, I should be specific about timing

The game will start in 48 hours from the time of this post. (Remember, the first 24 hours is just for the miner, so the real action begins in 3 days from now.) Updates will usually happen about this time of day, plus or minus an hour or so. (I can already tell you Friday's update will be on the early side.)

You can still sign up if you haven't already!

[Clam]

24 hours left to sign up!

The more the merrier! 8 may or may not be extremely awkward, I'm not sure 

[Clam]

Clamifornia Beach drew a record crowd of 9 lemmings this summer. (Whether that’s a record high or record low, I’ll leave up to speculation…) Among them are…

• 5 innocent lemmings, who actually came to this swimming beach to swim unlike the rest of you suspicious folks
• 1 scooper who, distrusting the other beach bums, brought a shovel with which to poke around at nights
• 2 rogues, who brought a flamethrower for lighting the clampfire but were quickly corrupted by its power…
• Poor old Jimbo McLemming
• And, as noted - No surfers.

Tragically, our friend Jimbo didn’t make it through the first night. But while the rogues were out seeing to him and most of you were snug in your sandcastles, somebody was snooping around the village...

---

The roles have been assigned and you’ll get yours by PM shortly. The Scooper will then have 24 hours to choose who to spy on first. After that, Day 1 dawns and the fun begins in earnest

Note: due to RL commitments I'll post Day 1 a couple hours early, provided the Scooper gets back to me (otherwise it'll be a couple hours late).

[Clam]

You, the seasonal residents of Clamifornia Beach, have woken on this early summer’s morning to the terrible news that Jimbo McLemming has gone missing. His sandcastle is empty – his clampoints are gone, and even the flag is missing. Did he swim too far out to sea and get swept away? Did he wander too near the clam on the way home? Was he buried alive in the sand? Whatever happened, it surely wasn’t an accident. Late last night you heard two faint “yippee”s in the sandcastle complex. These two must have done it! But you couldn’t pin down the direction, and of course all lemmings have the same squeaky voice so you couldn’t identify them that way either.

---

You may now discuss publicly (by posting in this topic). You may vote for any player to be munched. Remember that this time execution is by majority vote, i.e. 5 of 8 players have to vote for the same player. If a majority is not reached, the day ends 72 hours from the time of this post and nobody gets munched.

[Ramon]

Pretty quiet around here! I accuse NaOH for the murder of Jimbo McLemming!

[mobius]

well it looks like Ramon is quick to point the finger! A little too quick if you ask me.....

 

[ccexplore]

If we are going to reference past games, I guess geoo has no choice now but to talk about the optimal strategy or else risk suspicion of having a special-role agenda.

[NaOH]

Thanks, Ramon. I really appreciate the vote of confidence. 

Since we need a majority vote, actually offing somebody will be difficult. However, it's strictly necessary, since every day nobody gets clammed is more beneficial for them than for us. Basically this means we need to bandwagon together so we can get enough votes in; at least we can have a chance at winning this if somebody is offed. I was planning on just blindly seconding the first accusation I saw to get some momentum going, but... well, I know for sure that's a bad idea in this case.

Sooo instead, I'm going to blindly second the next person to vote for somebody (other than me! Yikes), just because I'd like to see somebody offed. Even at the risk of a rogue lemming seeing this and capitalizing.

Here are some thoughts I had about making accusations:
-Ramon already voted against me. I don't want to start a schism, since the rogues can do smart things with group divisions (such as plant one on each side), so I'd like to discourage anybody from accusing Ramon. Besides, even though he accused me, it seems that he was just trying to kick off the game, rather than specifically eliminate an innocent lemming. No hard feelings.
- The most important trait an innocent surf... ah, swimmer can have is being good at psychology. This means, all else equal, we should put low weights on Simon and... geoo? geoo is at least good at logic. And ccexplore helped crack the Lemmings 1 file format, I believe, so there's a smart cookie too. (And geoo I know did the same for L2.)
- This leaves people whom I don't know well enough to be sure they're good at psychology. RubiX, Giga, möbius, and I'm a bad psychologist. (You can tell because I just put my own name on this list.)
-Clam is going to munch us all anyway, and you know it.
-RubiX spent the entirety of last game as a ghost. All else equal, maybe let's be nice and go for the remainders? Giga and möbius.

[Simon]

I was a little busy these days and only read IRC instead of writing much there, but people have cleanly refrained from discussing the game there. It's good sportsmanship to keep it in this therad.

Wildly accusing out of the blue is viable. At 8 players, a vote of 5 must be scratched together in 2.5 days remaining, with everybody voting for only one other player. I can't bring it over my heart to kill the bunny that doesn't post bunny pictures and thus uses a drawn approxiamation for avatar. So, I'll randomly accuse ccexplore for now -- but I will probably pull back this accusation later, if people agree with this:

It might be interesting to not lynch at all now:

• 1. Prolonging the game gives the detective more turns to investigate.
• 2. Higher win rate by sheer luck. On a bad lynch today, the next day starts with 2 mafia versus 4 townsfolk, and every lynch must be accurate. (When the day starts with equal mafia and townsfolk, mafia wins.) On the other hand, when lynching no one today, the next day starts with 2 mafia versus 5 townsfolk, guaranteeing higher hit rates on all future lynches, and one bad lynch is still allowed!

To recap, we can make up to one bad lynch in the entire game, whether or not we lynch today.

-- Simon

[NaOH]

Okay, as promised, I'm voting for ccexplore (edit: bold). I reserve the right to change my vote later, though.

However, I am highly suspicious of Simon's post.

Prolonging the game gives the detective more turns to investigate.

Yeah, okay, this is true, but it's a very minor advantage compared to the cons, especially since the detective will gain information regardless of whether somebody dies today or not.

Putting the minor gain aside of getting the detective more time (which will happen anyway), intentionally preventing anybody from being clampitally punished just means giving the mafia a free extra night

2. Higher win rate by sheer luck. On a bad lynch today, the next day starts with 2 mafia versus 4 townsfolk, and every lynch must be accurate. (When the day starts with equal mafia and townsfolk, mafia wins.) On the other hand, when lynching no one today, the next day starts with 2 mafia versus 5 townsfolk, guaranteeing higher hit rates on all future lynches, and one bad lynch is still allowed!

It's strange that Simon should say this, since over IRC a few weeks ago he presented some irrefutable arguments that having an even number of players is far more advantageous for the innocents than having an odd number of players, IIRC. I'll see if I can dig up the logs.

[Simon]

The paper I quoted in IRC last week assumes that N mafia vs N townspeople leads to a random lynch. The mafia prefers an endgame with 1 mafia vs 2 townspeople at day, compared to 1 mafia vs 1 townsman.

Clam's rules make N mafia vs N townsfolk a win for the mafia. Thus, the better endgame for the mafia is N mafia vs N+2 townspeople now, and not anymore N mafia vs N+1 townspeople.

This is an important change and reverses odd-even.

(If people don't agree still or point out errors, I'll be up for lynching.)

-- Simon

[GigaLem]

Living in a beach area all by myself now is quite the journey
but I better watch myself around these parts
*Puts a weapon into my holster*

[NaOH]

Oh yeah, okay, Simon's right. I think. Somebody should check his math. I'm too tired.

I think it's actually beneficial then for us to switch to an odd number of players. At the moment, if two people die every day/night pair, this will end up with, in all likelihood, N mafia vs N+1 townspeople, which is optimal for townsfolk.

Hmm. My vote stands, regardless.

And I am a skeptical fish.

[Clam]

48 hours left in Day 1. Votes so far:

ccexplore: 2 votes (Simon, NaOH)
NaOH: 1 vote (Ramon)

Remember to bold your votes to make sure they get counted! (Apologies if this wasn't in the rules, but it was established last game anyway.)

[ccexplore]

I was out for most of the evening (UTC-7), and yay, I came back to this an hour or so ago.  I guess I'm going to have some trouble falling asleep tonight.

I'm definitely confused right now on two things:

  a) Is Simon's no-lynch suggestion better than NaOH's lynch-someone-today suggestion?  I do have to say at least Simon's point #2 sounds convincing, but coming from me, an accused person, I guess it doesn't mean much.

  b) If Simon truly believes no-lynch is better, isn't he undermining confidence in his own suggestion by making a random accusation right now?  "I don't think it's in the innocent lemmings' interest for anyone to be lynched today, but let me cast my vote onto someone random to get the ball rolling on getting someone lynched anyway, even though I think it's worse strategically?"  I can't even quite tell right now what exactly he means about the possibility of pulling back his vote--is he saying that if it looks like I'll end up with 5 votes he'll then withdraw his vote to pull it back to 4 instead?  Or maybe the other way around (4->5)?

Well, enough thinking over this, it just makes my head spin.   I need some major sleep and thus probably won't be online for the next 12 or so hours.  Guess I will see how things go after that (then again if today is any indication, I should probably just expect more silence ).

[Simon]

Well, enough thinking over this, it just makes my head spin.

It was just to get lynching done in time (2 days left for a vote of 5) in the situation where people don't accept my proposal. It's easier to pull back (5 -> 4) the vote than to organize a last-minute lynch.

I'll be around in the upcoming hours to see what others think. Should there be a sudden rabble, I'll change my vote. You don't sound overly suspicious after all.

-- Simon

[Ramon]

Good, now there's a few statements we can work with  I retract the accusation of NaOH for now (I unbolded it in the previous post as well).

Let's have a look at the player list (in alphabetical order as not to favor anybody):

ccexplore
geoo
Giga
Jimbo McLemming
mobius
NaOH
Ramon
RubiX
Simon

So far, geoo and Rubix haven't said anything. Perhaps they want to stay under the radar. Giga has let out a role-play post that didn't actually contribute to the discussion at hand. Simon, ccexplore and NaOH have brought up a couple of valid points that we can start working on, and möbius had apparently been very eager to quickly point that finger at me...

[RubiX]

I just got worried after being offed immediately last game. 
When people start writing a lot, accusations seem to come at them. 

Does look odd at a quick accusation from Ramond though, then trying to point out at people who haven't spoken. 
Nervous much?
Yea thats my accusation.

[GigaLem]

Today is a nice day to relax
*looks to his side*
hey what's going on there?

[geoo]

I had written anything up to now as I was on a campsite without WiFi and even no readily available electricity (which was not planned; neither was locking myself into the washroom of a tourist information when it was rainy outside), and I didn't want to use my mobile data for lowly matters such as this. I mean, I'm just being lazy hanging out at the beach, too lazy to write or actually vote for someone to lynch.

But yeah, I agree with Simon's analysis not to lynch anybody today (though we have to ensure that the same won't happen tomorrow). There's not much to add, so I'll just go back to beach-bumming. Simon's analysis being sound doesn't mean he's innocent though...that's just how he plays I think.

For some reason I believe Giga is innocent though.

[ccexplore]

I had written anything up to now as I was on a campsite without WiFi and even no readily available electricity (which was not planned; neither was locking myself into the washroom of a tourist information when it was rainy outside), and I didn't want to use my mobile data for lowly matters such as this. I mean, I'm just being lazy hanging out at the beach, too lazy to write or actually vote for someone to lynch.

Fair enough, your real life activities certainly sound far more exciting than the beach here, for now.

[mobius]

I don't think Ramond is nervous. Btw, he's played this game before, [this was mentioned during first game]. I'm guessing he randomly picked somebody like I did in the first game and my post was just a jab at him cause he did the same thing to me.
---------------
Anyway after thinking about it a little as much as I don't like being swayed by others I have to say I agree with Simon's reasoning a little. That is I think I'm in favor of not lynching anybody on the first night.
Ignoring his maths; let's look at it this way:

-We vote randomly-->ends up in our favor and a mafia goes-- good for us, bad for mafia

-We don't do anything--> so-so/bad for us --good for mafia, they escape death

-We vote randomly- we vote off a good guy--> very bad for us, we're down two in the first night [+the mafia's killing] very good for mafia.

[if our votes based solely on luck...]--was going to calculate percentages but I'm retard and can't do maths.
It's better imo, to do a no lynch on the first night [than any other time] with the max amount of people because... I lost my though. Well this is the round in which we all have the least amount of information.

6-2 means it's not very likely we'll get lucky and hit the mafia by total chance.
Myself, I am NOT a gambler and I often like to play it safe, so lets give the scooper more time to get info. Now, while I'm mentioning this, I'd like to say; if you are the scooper DO NOT reveal yourself! do not even hint abut it!

Plus, I will admit the advantage of this possibly earning me favor with the mafia or at least removing myself as a potential early target. 

NaOH had a good point however, in that next round we do need to bandwagon together and definitely off somebody. Your mission, should you choose to except it for this round, is to gather evidence and try to decide ahead of time who we might vote off.

A lot of names have been mentioned. I'm already gathering evidence, but like before I'm not going to open up about it yet. Just saying enough to make the mafia sweat--mwahaha ---Anyway--- I will go out on a limb and say I don't think ccexplore seems guilty either. However, I just realized, I am and have been particularly skeptical of people who say others sound innocent. idk why...

NaOH, I would argue one strategy a good psychologist/mentalist could use is to pretend he isn't good at psychology. [which you have sort of done...] 

and somewhere in this long post I've probably screwed myself 

P.S. I like Clam's avatar better with something going into the mouth.////do not take that the wrong way 
-----------------
EDIT:
so yeah, next round or whenever is when I'll be talking about who I really find suspicious.

-We vote randomly-->ends up in our favor and a mafia goes-- good for us, bad for mafia

-We don't do anything--> so-so/bad for us --good for mafia, they escape death

-We vote randomly- we vote off a good guy--> very bad for us, we're down two in the first night [+the mafia's killing] very good for mafia.

Also something I didn't consider at all; the different types of insight we might gain by each of these outcomes. Someone else wanna talk about that? So my final conclusion might be not that great at all....

[GigaLem]

Its just that its so hard to post
because you don't want to break the rules

[NaOH]

Fair enough, your real life activities certainly sound far more exciting than the beach here, for now.

I, for one, am digging this beach. B)

if you are the scooper DO NOT reveal yourself! do not even hint abut it!

Yep, definitely agreeing with this. Scooper, please do not reveal yourself; you're our best hope.

Its just that its so hard to post
because you don't want to break the rules

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you can say absolutely anything you like on here any time you like (unless Clam posts saying it's night time) so long as you don't actually prove your role. (So, don't post Clam's PM to you.)

Example: I am a purple elephant with cucmbers for legs and wurst for a trunk. See? :-)

-We don't do anything--> so-so/bad for us --good for mafia, they escape death

Ah, what you're missing is that Simon did some Mathemagics and showed that a 5 v 2 situation is actually better than a 6 v 2 situation, assuming all future rounds end in a lynch. (Which is not something that we can guarantee, btw; this is why I'm hesitant to not lynch somebody. Also because I haven't checked Simon's math.)

Soo, I highly recommend everybody to vote together, even if we can't be sure that person is a Mafia member clampoint thief. If anybody else votes for ccexplore, I will likely not change my vote. However, I still think that Simon is highly suspicious, if only because he seems to be using more exclamation marks than he did last time. Therefore, if the next vote is for Simon, I will change my vote to Simon as well.

[RubiX]

Help me scoopeyonekenoopi you're my only hope

[NaOH]

Help me scoopeyonekenoopi you're my only hope

WTF no Star Wars in this forum

edit: whoops, quoted mixed up.

[Clam]

24 hours left in Day 1 (minus a few minutes because I got distracted).

Votes:
ccexplore: 2 votes (Simon, NaOH)
NaOH: 1 vote (Ramon)
Ramon: 1 vote (RubiX)

---

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you can say absolutely anything you like on here any time you like (unless Clam posts saying it's night time) so long as you don't actually prove your role. (So, don't post Clam's PM to you.)

Correct.

Also, just to make sure you’re aware of this point in the rules, which I may have edited in shortly after posting them (sorry if you missed it because of that!):

Note: If a majority is reached at any time, I will consider that as final, even if votes change again before I check the thread.

- 8()

[Ramon]

Let us look at the following from this point of view. We vote off randomly now, there are cases A B C or D:

A: Hit a Rogue Lemming!
Obviously, the best possible outcome, albeit with only a little chance.

B: Kill an innocent lemming.
While not especially favorable, don't forget that means the scooper has one less potential "innocent" target upon inspection the following night.

C: Clam the scooper.
Worst case scenario, but if the scooper is going to get lynched he should just reveal himself and tell us what he's found out. (In fact he might just PM the lemmings that he knows are confirmed innocent.)

D: Me.
Too bad, redirect to case B.

So while voting somebody off this round already may sound dangerous, I still ultimately think it would reveal more information than any other option. Remember we can still no-kill the next day to stay at even odds in case we get no information.

[geoo]

That's a fair point about reducing the choices for the miner, but it also reduces the choices for the mafiosi making it more likely to hit the miner. Besides, the voting shenanigans already give us a bit of information about who thinks what, and we'll get more of that tomorrow so by then I think we have a way better chance to kill a rogue.

If I had to vote, I'd vote for RubiX right now. I find him suspicious. I don't know about NaOH, she seems a bit suspicious too but I have nothing to compare against.

Completely contrary to all of what I just wrote, I second the accusation against ccexplore. EDIT: retracted as of 20:59:14 UTC

EDIT: I find the format where we lynch as soon as someone gets absolute majority a bit scary btw...

[mobius]

-We don't do anything--> so-so/bad for us --good for mafia, they escape death

Ah, what you're missing is that Simon did some Mathemagics and showed that a 5 v 2 situation is actually better than a 6 v 2 situation, assuming all future rounds end in a lynch. (Which is not something that we can guarantee, btw; this is why I'm hesitant to not lynch somebody. Also because I haven't checked Simon's math.)

I'm assuming that the Math here is based on "if all lynches are random guesses"? Which they are (or will eventually be) surely not. Sometime you can attempt to explain it to me on IRC or something. [After this game ends, since right now I do not trust you!  ]

Maybe I shouldn't be saying this because it's a strategy I may use in the future games;
If I was the scooper, I would definitely try PMing people. If you scoop an innocent person, PM them. The more people we rally together without the mafia knowing the better. Remember they already begin the game with advantage of knowing themselves.

B: Kill an innocent lemming.
While not especially favorable, don't forget that means the scooper has one less potential "innocent" target upon inspection the following night.

this is a good point. However also keep in mind scooping out an innocent means he/she's still gaining insight and narrowing down the people who could be rouge. PLus, actually if I was scooper I wouldn't mind finding an innocent at all so I could do the above.


Since there is already I majority vote I guess I can't do anything and will just... whatever. I still feel a little uncomfortable with voting off ccexplore because he doesn't seem guilty to me, but it's really based on nothing and I should probably stop saying that. Unfortunately the people I am suspicious of don't have any votes so me mentioning them won't do anything but cause more confusion and schisms right now.

ccexplore didn't really do much to defend himself but then there really isn't much to do.

Simon seems suspicious to me but I think this is mostly because he was mafia last time and I found out

[NaOH]

If I was the scooper, I would definitely try PMing people. If you scoop an innocent person, PM them. The more people we rally together without the mafia knowing the better. Remember they already begin the game with advantage of knowing themselves.

Drat. This is a problem. Now mafia members are going to PM people saying they're the scooper. The lesson: do not trust anything you receive in a PM.

[Ramon]

Drat. This is a problem. Now mafia members are going to PM people saying they're the scooper. The lesson: do not trust anything you receive in a PM.

But if they happen to PM the scooper by chance at least one of the rogues gives themself away, no idea if they'll take that chance 

[NaOH]

Drat. This is a problem. Now mafia members are going to PM people saying they're the scooper. The lesson: do not trust anything you receive in a PM.

But if they happen to PM the scooper by chance at least one of the rogues gives themself away, no idea if they'll take that chance 

Then the scooper might give themself away by targeting the one who PM'd them. Or maybe that's a stretch.

[geoo]

I'm going to bed and thus retract my accusation against ccexplore. I was hoping someone would bandwagon trying to get the kill done (especially interesting if none of the previous votes are mafiosi, as then they could just pull it off together), and I could retract my accusation immediately after, with the suspicion that the voter is evil and ccexplore good. But being asleep that's not possible for me, and I don't want to see ccexplore killed.

[Simon]

I thought PMing people was discouraged anyway.

möbius: You don't have to trust any math, you can verify everything yourself. Yeah, the math is based on random voting. If we find a prime target with reasonable accuracy, it's viable to kill him right away, steering other people's attention to more useful things. So I recommend only with care to go by the pure-random math. It's just an idea.

Edit: The ccx accusation despite the math leads, even though explained, to understandable attention. Not sure why more exclamation points in this game make me suspicious though, when I wasn't using them so much in the last game.

There's also geoo's comment on how Giga is likely innocent. Giga hasn't posted in a while before this game, I wouldn't make this assumption yet.

-- Simon

[mobius]

you guys chatted in IRC that you didn't like PMing but Clam didn't put it in his rules that I recall. I thought it could make the game more interesting even if harder. I sort of expected the rouges might pull something like NaOH mentioned in the first place that's why I suggested it.

I don't think it will be a problem however, since most of you seem to be totally against it.

[Clam]

The goofy smiling sun sets on Day 1, and night falls.

Votes haven’t changed since the last update, except for one vote that’s since been retracted:
ccexplore: 2 votes (Simon, NaOH)
NaOH: 1 vote (Ramon)
Ramon: 1 vote (RubiX)

A majority vote was not reached today. So no one shall be munched tonight, and the clam goes hungry.

You sit around the fire discussing and arguing for a while, but eventually realise it’s no use. Downcast (or relieved!), you head back to the sandcastles for a nervous night’s sleep.

---

The rogues may now convene and decide who doesn’t make it back to their sandcastle tonight!
The scooper may now pick another player to learn the role of.
And the moderator may now chew over the rules for a moment, which will be nice since he has no lemmings to munch! Expect another post in the next few hours 8()

Day 2 dawns in 48 hours, or 24 if the rogues and scooper have made their choices by then.

[Clam]

Some rule clarifications, which hopefully don’t amount to amendments:

- PMs about the game in progress are banned, except between rogues. (This isn’t technically enforceable, as I’ve mentioned). [edit: late-night rant removed]

- After the deciding vote, you may continue public discussion until I post to mark the end of the day. This was essentially implied when I said:

If a majority is reached at any time, I will consider that as final, even if votes change again before I check the thread.

since voting is part of the public discussion. I’ll keep these posts to a consistent time of day as far as I possibly can, so you can work around this.

- 8()

[mobius]

I don't care about the rules and I'm not arguing but I'd just like some explanation:
I really don't understand why PMing is considered so bad. How will it spoil the game? I don't see what "harm" PMing would do other than possibly make the game more difficult/add more psychology to it.

In any case, this way, it's less work/attention I have to devote to the game.

[Clam]

Embarrassingly enough, I don't have a ready answer for that. All I can really say is that, AFAIK, it's normal not to allow PMs in online mafia.

Anyway, the time to discuss this is after the game. For now, it's night.

- 8()

[GigaLem]

*wolf howl in the distance*
*looks out the window*
I just know that something is going on

[Clam]

It turns out everyone made it back to their sandcastle after all. But somebody won’t be getting out of theirs this morning:



Somewhere under there is NaOH’s sandcastle. She was buried alive early in the night, and by morning it was too late to save her.

It must have taken two lemmings to shift all that sand in one night! Who could have perpetrated such a horrible act? Why did they pick the poor little bunny beach-bum as their victim? And where did they get that off-coloured sand from? The bums demand answers!

---

Residents of Clamifornia Beach as of Day 2:
Simon
RubiX
NaOH Killed Night 1
Giga
geoo
möbius
Ramon
ccexplore

---

You may now discuss in public and place your votes. 4 votes are needed for munching. Day 2 ends in 72 hours, maximum. If a majority vote is reached, I’ll close it off at the same time of day as this post (0700 GMT/UTC).

[geoo]

Hmm, so our former game-master is dead now, that's not very nice.

Anyway, to get things started, I accuse RubiX. We need to get someone lynched today either way.

[Simon]

I've skimmed through the thread to psych myself, and would like to accuse geoo for now.

He has made more speculations on innocence than everybody else, and tried a test lynch with an elaborate apology.

As a coincidence, geoo also found the min-skill solution to Beach 9 via trigger-happy use of the filler (so almost sand pourer) to release an attractor, just to delay the release further.

-- Simon

[RubiX]

Naoh    

Yes I do find the accusations coming from geoo very random.
Would someone want to put themselves into the spotlight so much if they were bad though.
I guess i havent played enough of this game to know how people think.

What are your thoughts on him being so vocal for lynching, before I throw an accusation that way too.

[mobius]

This is not good. For reasons I will not disclose, I have a feeling NaOH was the scooper. 

I second the nomination for Rubix. I'll write more later when I have time.

As a coincidence, geoo also found the min-skill solution to Beach 9 via trigger-happy use of the filler (so almost sand pourer) to release an attractor, just to delay the release further.

Clam, is this an actual thing that you might do? That is use; vague/and or not so vague clues to give hints? I'm assuming it isn't.

[geoo]

Ok, so maybe I should explain the things I've done so far.

So first I said I suspect Giga is innocent. I don't actually have any feeling on whether he's good or evil. I just wanted to make a statement out of the blue that seemed to have no basis so maybe the mafia would suspect that I'm the scooper, and then kill me during the following night, thus sparing the life of the real scooper.

Then I thirded the accusation against ccexplore, only to pull it back later. As already said, this was an experiment to see whether somebody would bandwagon, trying to get ccexplore killed for real (after the 4th vote for ccexplore I would have immediately pulled back my vote. Because that's not possible while I'm asleep, I pulled it back before I went to bed). Such a person giving the 4th vote to ccexplore would probably be evil, and it'd also give evidence for ccexplore being good, as most of us agreed that killing no-one would be better and only the mafia would have interest in getting someone (innocent) killed.

Now I'm accusing RubiX in the same vein Ramon was accusing NaOH to stir some discussion, but also to increase the chances of someone dying today (we need to get someone lynched, and I rather have me start a bandwagon than someone else because I can trust myself, but then that argument applies to anyone).

As for the scooper, unless he checked NaOH or was NaOH, I wonder whether it might be worth revealing yourself now. Definitely if you know that our bandwagon is going in the wrong direction, or if you're getting votes; maybe not if you happen to know that the bandwagon that we got going is going in the right direction. We'd get information about two more people, narrowing down our choices quite a bit, while things are getting more dangerous from now one (one lynch and another mafia kill before the scooper gets another piece of information).

Having (n-2) on someone is always scary, as the mafia might just team up and get the kill done. That's what I mean with the format being scary.

EDIT: 1. I just accused RubiX as I personally find his behaviour suspicious, though I'm fine with someone else too.

2. Having someone verified to be good would been nice, as they could just start a bandwagon and we know that it's at least without bad interests. If mobius' suspicion is right that NaOH was the scooper (re-reading the comments, I see hints like 'I'm digging this beach', etc), we might have reason to believe that Ramon is indeed innocent. Therefore I'd be interested to hear his opinion/accusation, and then maybe have that be a bandwagon instead (I'd gladly change my vote there).

[RubiX]

ok some good detail, fair enough.
I think I would rather go for someone who appears to be trying to follow in anothers shadow then.
My accusation is for mobius for now.

[mobius]

ok. I rused to get a second on geoo just to get some things started. Now that I was thinking about the game during work, let's take a look at who NaOH was accusing...

First she said she'd nominated the first person somebody else nominated; ccexplore. ccexplore was supposedly chosen randomly by Simon. Then Simon introduced the idea of not lynching anybody which was a sound theory however did work in mafia's favor.
[I don't regret doing that as I'm still not convinced ccexplore is guilty/innocent]

She then accused Simon, somewhat out-of-the-blue. Yes, the reason was his suggestion and supposedly slightly different attitude compared to last game. Yet she seemed to try and stress his guiltiness.

Let's assume the worst and say she was the scooper; she accused ccexplore (only because somebody else did...) to hide the fact and put Simon's name in to at least try to warn people. BUt, assuming she scooped out Simon, why would she back up voting for ccexplore, knowing most likely that this was obviously a ploy therefore ccexplore must be innocent. Of course Simon did say he'd retract his vote if he wanted to...The only other reason I thought she was the scooper was her comment "I for one and digging this beach". Perhaps a subtle hint? But after thinking it over, this is probably unlikely. But it would be nice to let the mafia think the scooper is dead.

ccexplore didn't really give much in way of accusing other people only defending himself, slightly, in his post questioning Simon's suggestion, this may have been a ploy  by them.

In any case, both Simon and ccexplore are the people she accused and therefore I am suspicious of both of them, I think we should try to get rid of at least one as soon as we can. Simon being my main target.
The other people I am highly suspicious of right now are: Giga and Rubix. Simply because both of them have said very little so far, Giga especially. Oh and Rubix voted for Ramon out of the blue after NaOH warned why it was a bad idea.
This does not mean I definitively trust Ramon or geoo. I feel like trusting both but again, this may just be because they both were innocent last game. I'd like to hear more from Ramon as well.

<<<<<<to summarize>>>>>>>>
So that's four people, which is too many... Since Rubix was already mentioned and he didn't do much to defend himself yet, I'll stick with him. Simon would be my next choice. But those two are my top choice right now. If you agree/disagree with any of this, please explain. We must have a lynching, and we must have lynching forthwith.

I was mentioned once before now I've been nominated again, by Rubix, but I haven't been targeted by anyone else yet. I don't know how to defend myself other than saying my decision to not lynch first round may have been a grave mistake... I found it interesting that despite.. 3? people's efforts a lynching didn't happen. I don't know what to make of this right now and my power is going out. 

[EDIT]-after reading the latest posts, it seems geoo has some similar thoughts that I've had, this makes me... trust him more? maybe? idk anymore.  Also his test idea is very nice, I must admit, and wish it could've worked...
I don't know if I'm ok with the scooper revealing himself yet however. There is still a ways to go...  yeah DON'T reveal yourself.

-The TEST will be who gets killed next. that's how I think I'm playing--follow the dead bodies..

-----------------
Also, to give full disclosure; before Clam made the no-PM rule, I PM'd NaOH, asking her if she was the scooper, unsurprisingly she didn't respond. But then made her post of not trusting people, probably thinking I was mafia.
Also I probably could've worded my PM better... If for some reason because of the rules it's felt nessicary to somehow reveal exactly what my PM said I'm ok with that. (I didn't keep it in my outbox however).

Then about the maths: it's not that I didn't distrust the maths, it's just that I didn't like the idea that its based on voting blind; randomly. I never planned to do that and don't think it really applies very well henceforth.

This post is way too long. I'm screwing myself for future games. But I'll talk about that at some other point...

[RubiX]

An interesting post mobius, but I think you have slipped 

"Also, to give full disclosure; before Clam made the no-PM rule, I PM'd NaOH, asking her if she was the scooper, unsurprisingly she didn't respond. But then made her post of not trusting people, probably thinking I was mafia.
Also I probably could've worded my PM better... If for some reason because of the rules it's felt nessicary to somehow reveal exactly what my PM said I'm ok with that. (I didn't keep it in my outbox however)."

Knowing that NaOH is now dead and in this 2nd edition dead people can't talk.  You are trying to put forth all this honesty about what you did.  I don't think you really did PM her, but are trying to 'come clean' with false information to try make yourself look like no threat and a good guy. 

Sorry.  I have now made a final decision that wont be changing, that part of your post seems too obvious to me.   I have to accuse Mr Mobius of 'a nice try mate' 

As for defending myself, well I just don't know how you can say 'it wasnt me'  and have people believe anything like this when this game is built around deceit.

oh and btw  it wasn't me.

[geoo]

mobius' long post seems genuine, and RubiX' reply to it just makes me more suspicious of him. Still, I would also follow the bandwagon if we wanted to off Simon instead of RubiX, who is mobius' second choice.

@Giga, ccexplore and Ramon: Out of RubiX and Simon, who do you find more suspicious? And/or who else would you accuse?

[mobius]

I mentioned my PM just in case somebody pointed it out somehow, for example if NaOH would after the game. I already got in trouble once for "cheating" at Family Feud  in a similar situation so I decided to 'come clean' ahead of time to avoid confusion/blame later. I knew it sounded stupid/and or suspicious before I posted it but I wanted to do it anyway so I wouldn't get accused of breaking the rules.
I didn't keep in my outbox, but it's still in NaOH's box for all I know. But now that I think about it it does sound pretty dumb the way I said it and I do look suspicious...   

[GigaLem]

All attention seems to go to RubiX
but we must find evidence before we can close this case
(poor poor NoAH )

[RubiX]

I've tried find where I may have sounded suspicious in my previous posts in this thread but I feel confident that it actually has nothing to do with this 2nd edition.   
Its got me thinking why else put me in the spotlight, and believe this may have something to do with the 1st game.

i'll explain why I think i've been targeted
As I was killed immediately in game 1, maybe people will think I must be given a chance to live longer in the 2nd game.    A good position would be to make Rubix a rogue to give me more chance at a real game.   I have a feeling geoo has thought about that and this is the thing that gives him suspicion of me.    I think making that assumption vocal might be looked at as lame on his part , so he hasn't actually said it outloud.  Maybe I understand that.

I may be err digging my own grave from being the one to actually bring it up about myself.  When you think about it, it makes sense.   
Yea, i've really been thinking about this a lot today.   As long as you know I did try to save myself.   Remember it 

[Simon]

I don't think NaOH was the scooper.

But since someone has to be that, I'm pondering that mobius is either scooper or mafia, maybe scooper but with no good results so far. You gave pretty restrictive instructions on scooper behavior, even though a scooper would remain silent without information.

Rubix's reasons, I can't follow them entirely. Do you think Clam wasn't assigning roles randomly? If you think mobius is mafia, then who should be the scooper (NaOH after all)?

The only distinction of geoo has been the early and erratic voting with long explanations.

mobius or ccx, are you sure that you aren't going to to contribute some data from the ground-removing branch of the trade? >_>

-- Simon

[Clam]

Voting update!

RubiX: 2 votes (geoo, möbius)
geoo: 1 vote (Simon)
möbius: 1 vote (RubiX)

48 hours left in Day 2, minus 20 minutes because Windows decided its own updates are more important than Mafia game updates

[Ramon]

Sorry guys, I'm not really able to follow all your thoughtlines here 

In any case I'll be voting for RubiX for now and see what he has to say for himself.

[Simon]

Rubix has already given a defense, but it didn't convice me either.

I'm changing my vote from geoo to Rubix.

-- Simon

[RubiX]

As soon as people start jumping on the bandwagon like this, theres really nothing I can say that is going to change anything. 
But read the last sentence in my previous post again.  I'm not going to spell it out for you, thought it was easy enough to see.

I'm sure to enjoy reading what happens the following morning of my death though. 
 

[ccexplore]

Sorry, there were some work matters I had to deal with yesterday which distracted me a bit.  Though I think would've just ended up joining the bandwagon anyway, given that there's unlikely to be any additional information to surface here and we can't just keep avoiding lynching people.  So one belated vote for Rubix I guess.

[ccexplore]

Okay, looks like I'm not quite out of woods on the work stuff, and given how much timing/distraction has already screwed me at this point I better just do this now:

I'm the miner and Simon is rogue.  Unfortunately I also scooped NaOH so that's all I know.

Yeah, I know this sucks and I probably did cost us the game this round.  Sorry.

(I obviously don't have time now (ie. work stuff) to immediately defend accusations on this claim being genuine or not, but seriously, I don't see how my announcement now can possibly be a sound strategy agreed upon by 2 rogues.)

[mobius]

some interesting things happening. I think I'd like to hear what others have to say first before commenting. There are a lot of possibilities... I'm open to changing my vote. Fortunately I have off work tomorrow.

I will say; @Simon why was ccx and I singled out as possibly being the scooper? [wait I re-read your post but still confused at look at ccx]

and I found it a little odd/suspicious? that Ramon had little to say 

[ccexplore]

(Managed to squeeze some time in for a quick word...)

Mobius, I don't think you quite grasped what happened.  As soon as Simon casted the 4th vote for Rubix the voting is done by Clam's rules.  Rubix is going to be lynched regardless of what you (or anyone else) say or do now.  This is why I panicked and cursed myself when I finally saw what happened after being mostly absent for hours.

Also as I had some time now to more thoroughly think over how things might play out from this point, what I did is actually probably rash and will not actually result in me getting killed during the night (and conveniently let me put more focus into unplanned real-lifework stuff I need to get done as I had in mind), and instead will potentially result in me surviving and the other rogue or maybe Simon claiming to be the "real" miner for day 3.  Oh well.  I guess you'll have to decide then whether I just played badly as a miner or crazily as a rogue.

[add: in case people are confused: my 1st response after Simon's 4th vote is an attempt to plan to forge on but stay under the radar. My 2nd response was changing my mind due to possibility (now in hindsight probably over-worried) of more work-induced absentee hours during day 3 which may lead to the same sort of vote-over situation that just happened with Rubix, potentially even before I had the time to provide my input, leading me to decide to better just get out of the game and reveal now.]

[Clam]

Votes cast on Day 2:
RubiX: 5 votes (geoo, möbius, Ramon, Simon, ccexplore)
möbius: 1 vote (RubiX)

---

The village has spoken, and RubiX shall be thrown to the clam, never to be heard from again!

At dusk, you gather around the fire and do the deed. You sit and watch, then resolve to look away next time...


(Just look at that glee!)

When he’s done eating, to everyone’s surprise, the clam speaks in a booming voice that echoes through the village:

“RubiX was a Rogue.”

More than a little spooked, but satisfied with your day’s work (or quietly quaking in your magno-boots!), you rise to your feet as the boombox starts up, and dance long into the night.

---

Residents of Clamifornia Beach as of Day 2:
Simon
RubiX (rogue) Munched Day 2
NaOH Killed Night 1
Giga
geoo
möbius
Ramon
ccexplore

By the way, this list is in order of sign-up for the game. Since somebody asked.

---

Day 3 dawns in 48 hours. Due to RL stuff this won’t be brought forward.
The remaining Rogue may now choose a player to kill.
The scooper [if still alive] may now choose a player to spy on.


Sorry about the delay, I got waylaid at the crucial moment! I'll stick to this later time though, if anything it's nicer for me.

[mobius]

turned out I had work today after all. No comments yet? 

ok, I must admit I'm a little baffled and have a few points/questions:

-thanks for the clarification ccx, I did not exactly realize that.

-first of all; yay, victory for innocent team! 

-If ccx is telling the truth, that means that Simon purposely voted for Rubix, either in mistake, not realizing the rules exactly as I did, and he planned to retract. Or he made an extremely risky move which backfired since ccx spilled the beams....

-ccx's lying/ he is rouge OR he is trying to protect the real miner [who could've been NaOH].

yeah I don't really know. 

oh and belated poor NaOH 

[GigaLem]

Day 3
2 out of 8 are Dead
We could only ensue and hope to stay alive
it is my job to rid evil and that's if I can do it
who knows what day 3 has in store for us 

[ccexplore]

Yo, it's still night 2 and some of us are trying to get some sleep here, quit your yappings already!

[Clam]

You’re not sure who brought balloons to the munching party, but it turns out they had malicious intent!



While the lone rogue may be quaking in his magno-boots, they kept him safely on the ground as he handed on the balloon to geoo! The crafty rogue took away the fan too, so geoo couldn't Go Back to Fanning and was doomed to float forever upward

---

Residents of Clamifornia Beach as of Day 3:
Simon
RubiX (rogue) Munched Day 2
NaOH Killed Night 1
Giga
geoo Killed Night 2
möbius
Ramon
ccexplore

---

You may now discuss and vote. 3 votes are needed for munching. Day 3 ends in 72 hours, or when a munching is decided (again, I’ll close it at this time of day).

[Ramon]

Town is still allowed 1 mistake, so it's kind of a win-win situation. Simon shall be munched for obvious reasons!

(Assuming ccx is telling the truth. If he's lying he must be the last rogue and he can be munched the following day.)

[Simon]

If the game teaches anything, then it's how people react to the simplest stimulus whenever they have fear.

Put the facts together and see that the ccexplore lynching wins one day earlier, due to his:
* ample delay during the main disussion phase to avoid attention,
* an extra vote against Rubix,
* getting people to not talk during night,
* and maybe even the obvious kill of geoo as a frame against me.

-- Simon

[ccexplore]

Really, we are still doing this?  But Ramon is correct.  With 1 rogue and 4 innocents, basically you can choose to lynch me or Simon in either order and it will still be a win for the innocents.

Anyhow, my vote is of course on Simon.  One more vote against Simon will make it final.

In the event that this actually leans towards resolving to a 2-2 with a lone holdout (or some variant thereof), I am also willing to switch my vote to myself (ie. suicide) just to prove beyond doubt I'm truthful. Just promise me in that case no one will be confused anymore on day 4 and put Simon to rest.

[ccexplore]

Actually, this reminds me: Clam,  in the event of a scooper lynching, do you reveal that the person is scooper or merely that he is innocent?

[GigaLem]

Tensions are high, im worried 

[mobius]

I'm not gonna be able to change it anyway, so Simon.

this game sure took a few unexpected turns. ...I hope it doesn't take another 

btw that's a good question, ccx

[Simon]

gg wp

Hi Simon,
Your role for the Mafia game is:
Rogue Lemming.

Yeah, it's impossible to salvage the game after cc's outing.

-- Simon

[ccexplore]

Yeah to be fair, Simon played the rogue role extremely well and under other circumstances would likely have won.  Things were stacked against them in numerous ways the moment I lucked out scooping him on day 0 actually.

I'll say more about my choices later tonight, right now I want to catch up on some RL stuff.  For the fateful day-0 scoop when no in-game information are available to inform my choices, I was basically choosing amongst the set of people who I thought are most likely to make the craftiest moves regardless of their roles, so as to minimize chances of me getting misled.   So based on past discussions and the first game, it was down to a choice of Simon vs geoo.  (I probably need to add NaOH to the list for future games.)

[Clam]

Day 3 votes:
Simon: 3 (Ramon, ccexplore, möbius)
ccexplore: 1 (Simon)

---

The bums swiftly decide that Simon is today’s clam fodder!



The clam nonchalantly gulps down the porcupine quills, and speaks up again:

“Simon was a Rogue.”

And then, his work done for the summer, he closes his googly eyes and goes to sleep.

The evil rogue beach-bums have been thwarted, and Clamifornia Beach is saved for another summer! Cue wild sunset party!



...well, as wild as you can get with just four lemmings

---

Residents of Clamifornia Beach - final
Simon (Rogue) – Scooped Night 0, Munched Day 3
RubiX (Rogue) – Munched Day 2
NaOH (Innocent) – Scooped Night 1, Killed Night 1
Giga (Innocent)
geoo (Innocent) – Killed Night 2
möbius (Innocent)
Ramon (Innocent)
ccexplore (Scooper)


Thanks for playing, and hope you enjoyed the game!

The floor is now open for comments and prep for the next game. I'll add my own thoughts when I get a moment (note of course that it's currently PUZZLETIME!).

[RubiX]

Thanks for the efforts of NaOH and Clam for putting together the 2 first games of these.
They are good fun.

[geoo]

I guess we were a bit lucky that my RubiX pick was right and everyone following my pick, and then with ccx' outing there was a winning strategy (even if he had lied and was rogue himself) as we could still afford one wrong munch.

I can host the next round, unless someone else wants to.

[Simon]

Thanks to Clam for hosting, and to ccx for assuming strong play by me.

geoo hosting is a good idea. With him visiting me for a week and sitting right next to me typing, it would suck if both of us were playing the game.

-- Simon

[mobius]

funny, I said I didn't like the idea of using luck based reasoning and most of the results of the game ended up being lucky. \\eh I didn't word that right. THe innocent team got really lucky a few times.
That was a bold move by Simon, I'm almost sorry it didn't work 

[grams88]

Interesting game and some nice looking pictures from clam as he was very hungry.  I was looking at the sad clam beside the four lemmings, that clam sure isn't eating any more, he's had enough dinner. (No more lemming kebab)

It was fun seeing who people vote for also the way people talk might be the clue to whether someone is the rogue or Innocent.

[GigaLem]

The Mafia is done for
Most of the innocent is safe
and everyone on the beach can live in peace
The beach is safe......for now
The innocent have won!!
NoAH and geoo your death wasn't in vain

[ccexplore]

Incidentally, NaOH, I'd like to know whether your comment about "digging the beach" was intentional or not (eg. mobius thought you were the miner because of it).

[NaOH]

Haha! No, it wasn't a secret signal. There were some players who had to attend to real life and/or didn't want to pay the internet bill to connect to the forums  , so I just wanted to voice my support for Clam for hosting this.

[Clam]

Right... I had a bunch of things to say about this and then got epically distracted (and not just by puzzlehunt). Let’s Go!


My source for rules and theory:
http://wiki.mafiascum.net
This is an amazing treasure trove, and the host site is still impressively active, though the wiki entries are some years old. Things like majority vote required, instant lynch at majority vote, 'twilight' (between majority vote and night), PM ban; all came from this site. There's also an impressive array of roles, some more sensible than others , and with no shortage of Lemmings 2 skills to map them to!

To make this open-source, here's my R code to randomly assign roles, in case R is your cup of tea:

Code: [Select]

# MAFIA: LEMMINGS 2 EDITION
# Randomly choose a role for each player

# Seed for reproducible results
set.seed(22934)  # obligatory Lemmings 2 reference

# List of players in order of signup
players = c("Simon",
            "RubiX",
            "NaOH",
            "Giga",
            "geoo",
            "mobius",
            "Ramon",
            "ccexplore")

n = length(players)

# Choose roles: 1 scooper, then 2 rogues, then the rest innocent
roles = sample(players)
names(roles) = c(rep("Scooper",1), rep("Rogue",2), rep("Innocent",n-3))

# Print the list of players and their roles
roles


Thoughts on rules:

• The rule that you can’t pull back from a majority vote is apparently standard on MafiaScum. I’m not sure of the rationale behind it though. We can reconsider this for the next game.
• I was a bit indecisive about timing for the end of days/nights. This game moves very fast sometimes and very slow at others. It’s hard to strike a balance between keeping the game moving and giving less-active users a fair crack. Night is especially awkward in that regard, since only a few players can participate, but you have to give enough time for busy people, and if you start the next day as soon as the night decisions are in you risk outing night-roles based on their login time (unfortunately this is an actual strategy).
• When announcing a role (either to all players when lynch occurs, or to the miner) there are two ways to go about it: (1) announce allegiance only (town or mafia), or (2) announce the role, eg. if the detective gets lynched, this gets announced as ‘detective’. Afaik the latter is ‘standard’, and it’s what I would have done if the situation were to arise.

Thoughts on this round:

• I suspect 2v6 with a miner is unbalanced in favour of the Town again. But 3v5, while maybe more balanced, opens the possibility that the Mafia can win on Day 1. The miner has a surprisingly large effect on balance! I wonder whether we should try no miners next time.
• The miner actually gained all possible information in 2 nights. This came with some luck (picked a rogue first, and the other got munched without mining), but isn’t overly lucky I think. One or two more special roles - not more miners! - would give some more interest to this.
  
• The role picker (see above), with the seed I fed it, happened to pick all the roles in blocks (both rogues, then 5 innocents, then miner). But there are a few different ways to pick blocks like this, so that's random enough. Also when I tried adding more "players", it would always pick the last signed up player as miner. Not sure if this is meaningful, but I thought I'd share anyway

Glad you all enjoyed the game! It sure was fun to write (and/or draw). Looking forward to playing in the next one, and let's get m0ar players signed up to make it even more interesting!

[ccexplore]

Also when I tried adding more "players", it would always pick the last signed up player as miner. Not sure if this is meaningful, but I thought I'd share anyway

Wait really? Did I read you correctly? How can it be random if it does that?  This cannot work for future games especially for a role like miner.  Too bad I don't know R so I can't properly assess the code.

================

I vaguely recall someone or some website mentioning that with random lynchings and no special roles (ie. only Mafia and innocents), number of Mafia should be approximately square root of total number of players for 50% Mafia win.  So you might be right that 3 vs 5 might have been better especially given the innocent's advantage with the scooper.  That said, the way this game played out should probably be considered atypical, with the Mafia getting discovered/lynched so early.

One thing I just realize as I read through mafiascum.net is that I didn't realize the no PM rule applies to Mafia as well during daytime (even though that should've been obvious considering how you'd play in person rather than over a forum).  I was therefore incorrectly assuming a higher degree of "agreement" amongst Mafia members than would be the case.  For example, during night 1 when I had to decide 2nd person to scoop, I decided that mobius and Ramon are more likely not Mafia, partly because both of them mentioned during day 1 the idea of the scooper PMing the innocents, while Simon responded by saying he thought that was against the rules.  I decided that kind of disagreement to be unlikely amongst fellow Mafia members, but I was mentally thinking that the Mafia can still PM each other during daytime to discuss the game, so I actually relied on this kind of signal far more strongly than I should've.  (Granted, I would still likely have ruled out at least mobius as Mafia based on the length and manner he talked. )

I also have to say, being the lone scooper is kinda stressful! You have the added pressure that comes with your role, yet at the same time you can't covertly share or discuss any of the secrets you've learned with anyone else (at least not until the time is right), whereas at least the Mafia can discuss amongst themselves during nighttime (not to mention they start off with far more information about roles than the miner).  As you saw with end of day 2, I was rather distraught when I thought I may have failed to prevent Simon from doing evil and turning day 3 into a tense 2 vs 3.

[Clam]

Also when I tried adding more "players", it would always pick the last signed up player as miner. Not sure if this is meaningful, but I thought I'd share anyway

Wait really? Did I read you correctly? How can it be random if it does that?  This cannot work for future games especially for a role like miner.  Too bad I don't know R so I can't properly assess the code.

Just for the seed I chose. If you want to use this when hosting a game, you will use a different seed of course (and not tell anyone what it is ).


On probabilities:
http://projecteuclid.org/DPubS?service=UI&version=1.0&verb=Display&handle=euclid.aoap/1211819786

[...] the two groups have comparable probabilities of winning exactly when the total population size is R and the mafia size is of order √R.
We then show that even a single detective changes the qualitative behavior of the game dramatically. Here, the mafia and citizens have comparable winning probabilities only for a mafia size linear in R.

Quite a difference

[ccexplore]

Incidentally, skimming through the mafiascum website you linked to, one setup that they seem to have tried multiple times that may be worthwhile to explore here is the so-called "friends and enemies".  The only special role featured (ie. besides the required rogues and innocents) are "Masons", who are similar to rogues in that they know all other Masons immediately at start of game and can PM amongst themselves during night.  But they have no special powers to directly discover anyone else's role or affect anyone's abilities and alive/killed status, and therefore are just like innocents in all other aspects.  This setup might be interesting to try in that it is slightly less plain than having only rogues and innocents, but not having the game too easily affected by the luck of a lone detective (ie. miner) role.  You can search the website to find the page on it and the relevant distributions of roles to use for that setup.

===================

As for the "cannot un-vote once majority reached", I'm unable to find an explanation around it on that site, but it is clear from reading through game transcripts that with all participants fully aware of the implications of the rule, it simply becomes an ingrained element of gameplay and participants will act and react accordingly cognizant of the point-of-no-return, with reaching N-1 being a big deal (and votes cast leading to N-1 or N under more scrutiny accordingly).  Instead of casting a vote and pulling back later, you might instead say that you are inclined to vote someone without actually casting the vote immediately, instead using that threat to elicit responses, defenses, etc. from that person and others.  I think one negative effect of not having the rule is that a lynching can potentially be more easily derailed by last-minute vote changes.

[Clam]

As for the "cannot un-vote once majority reached", I'm unable to find an explanation around it on that site

They call the deciding vote hammer:

The player who has been hammered is considered beyond salvation as of the moment the hammering vote has been placed