XCOM 2: War of the Chosen Mafia Game Thread

[Zetsu]

Hm...upgrading the probability of a Jace and Sslam scumteam to about 20% again. I'm starting to see the benefits to both Slam's and Jace's actions in the event that both are scum.

(doubt i need to explain this but 20% is a fairly arbitrary number, the important thing is that the doubt has shifted from 'eh it's technically a possibility but not one im taking seriously' to 'i dont think this is what's happening here but i think it's a possibility worth considering')

[Irina Ivanov]

Holy heck I forgot this is a 14 person game, a three person scum team is pretty dang dangerous considering we haven't got any of them down yet and we took down the investigative role day one ;-;

Also, Blizz has already unvoted, so I'm not sure if that makes her less suspicious or not, but she's also said multiple times that yeah, she thinks Jace is a flailing VT more then anything despite her having some scum suspicious towards Jace? Not seeing her as anymore then a passive townie though. Does she usually do this? Also talk more pls (Same with MS) Also, I'm liking the conversation going to other people. If Jace gets killed later on and he's town, at least we have some other points to read off on.

On another note, what do you see Slam and Jace's interactions as being benefitting to one another, Zetsu? Jace has been scum reading Slam the hardest out of anyone he thinks is scum.

[Jace]

Yeah Irina already covered this but I'd like to know what drives your hunch that I'm scumbuddies with Slam when we've been trying to get each other killed indirectly or directly since I started pushing against Dodd. Like of all people you could suspect of being scumbuddies with me, Slam is certainly one that surprises me.

[Latin For Dragula]

Lise I love you very much but remember when you thought you were being super obvious scummy scum as Jester and literally everyone hard townread you into endgame?

Consider your scumdar might be less than accurate

[Grand Moff Hissa]

The thing is, messing up game setup stuff is hardly bus-worthy material. In fact, in a vacuum, I'd read it as townie. It's a very cheap scumread, which makes perfect sense if boogie is scum trying to mislynch jace town, but no sense if boogie is scum looking at a scumbuddy.

Someone hand-planted into my little model zone so I'm pretty distracted tonight and have been slower than anticipated--catching up now.

The one side thing here (and I need to read back to check how hard Boogie pushed--this may be off-base) is that sometimes throwing a crummy case at a scumbuddy is smart because then town shouts you down and later when one or the other flips you look more distant.

Though of course I think this was actually a pretty good case.

[Grand Moff Hissa]

even when half of us are expecting me to flip town,

I'm gonna call citation needed on this one.

Also mulling the swing to Jack--frankly right now Jace is like a whole lot scummier to me? Like, quite a lot. And it's weird because every time we flirt with the idea of doing something someone else comes up.

BUT

also there are some pretty good points in the "someone else" zone and ~4 pages of stuff I have yet to read. Further thoughts as I do that.

But like... remember the "VTs are expendable until suddenly they're not" angle. Bar some incredibly exonerating flips that more or less confirm him, Jace is here to stay and if town's sitting at a spot where a failure to pick off scum loses the game and he's still around without some heavy material changes in game circumstances that's gonna be a massive risky situation.

[Jace]

even when half of us are expecting me to flip town,

I'm gonna call citation needed on this one.

I didn't literally mean half of us. I know you didn't get through it all yet but after I posted that and went back and checked who actually had, I saw that it was Irina, Blizzard, and Slam that did.

And again, three people saying they expect me to flip town and still voting me when we already have two dead town which would result in 4 dead town (by their logic) seriously isn't setting off alarm bells? Even when Slam's pushed it so hard and refused to allow anyone to change the topic? tbh just the simple act of ignoring that feels scummy in itself @everyone that has done it.

[Grand Moff Hissa]

I like how you get the shout out for mass posting while lise who has nearly as many posts as you and mw combined isn't part of the conspiracy

I did notice this.

Also I'll go ahead and say the tap-out defense is not a good look. It effectively stalls and kills discourse and while I wasn't super duper seeing the Jack case at first the escalation here was ppprrreeeettttyyyyy steep in a way that's odd to me.

[Grand Moff Hissa]

Also I'm ngl, seeing people legit give up on participating bc they're mad they're under a microscope is starting to suck the fun out of this game. Y'all complain and moan about me being the center of attention well that's bc I've been under a microscope for like 40 goddamn pages by the exact people complaining about it, among others. Then as soon as someone else has to deal with the spotlight for a little bit they give up, call us kids, and dip lmao I'm sticking with my vote no matter what now - I'm tired of this.

A couple things:

1. I think you may be conflating complaining about the game discourse centering around you in the context of "Wow it's real hard to get reads outside of this Gordian Knot!" with complaining about the game discourse centering around you in the context of "Wow this is unfun and/or you suck!" Mafia's a game of a heck of a lot of complaining (and accusations, and deception, and nightkilling Zetsu two nights in a row when she replaces back in...) but for most people, for me at least, it's not personal. I'll say all sorts of stuff in the context of our little murderous barbecue but it doesn't mean I don't like y'all as people, and I'd just caution about taking anything anyone says in game too seriously.

Especially since a bunch of them are lying to be non-constructive! Maybe including you!

2. I do not love the hell-or-high-water vote declaration. I've used it a bunch so hypocrisy time, but... it's for when you're betting your life on someone being scum. Refusing to change a vote impedes town progress unless you force town onto scum, and while I'm seeing bits of the case much more clearly, that... does not read as the reasoning at play here.

[Grand Moff Hissa]

Hm. Think I’m staying on the jace train for now.

Okay thank goodness someone said this.

[Jace]

Mafia's a game of a heck of a lot of complaining (and accusations, and deception, and nightkilling Zetsu two nights in a row when she replaces back in...) but for most people, for me at least, it's not personal. I'll say all sorts of stuff in the context of our little murderous barbecue but it doesn't mean I don't like y'all as people, and I'd just caution about taking anything anyone says in game too seriously.

Especially since a bunch of them are lying to be non-constructive! Maybe including you!

2. I do not love the hell-or-high-water vote declaration. I've used it a bunch so hypocrisy time, but... it's for when you're betting your life on someone being scum. Refusing to change a vote impedes town progress unless you force town onto scum, and while I'm seeing bits of the case much more clearly, that... does not read as the reasoning at play here.

1. Fair point.

2. Also a fair point but the reasoning at play is the reasons I listed out before I voted. I admittedly just got frustrated, as I stated in my EBWOP a few posts later. I'm sticking with it because I believe he's scum, not out of spite.

[Grand Moff Hissa]

inb4 slam decides jace and I are scum buddies now who planned this without scum chat because we're just that good

I will say I've got an eyebrow slightly edging up here because you've been hard on the Jace train except every time it actually pulls close to the station you help it change track. Also:

Math to back up: 14 players, now 12. Jace is town and scum kills, that's 10 players and three scum. We mislunch and scum kills, that's 8 players and three scum. We mislunch and scum kills, that's game over cuz majority can't be reached by town anymore. A game this small can go fast. We cannot fuck around on info lynches unless we have nothing else.

This is 100% accurate but raises my mistrust because Paige used math and with them that's always a sign of evil afoot. (THIS IS A JOKE I'm just pulling it out to reiterate that, I agree, we do not have time to be screwing around)

And again, three people saying they expect me to flip town and still voting me when we already have two dead town which would result in 4 dead town (by their logic) seriously isn't setting off alarm bells? Even when Slam's pushed it so hard and refused to allow anyone to change the topic? tbh just the simple act of ignoring that feels scummy in itself @everyone that has done it.

See... it feels like bad town play, but bad town play =/= necessarily scum. Half the game is doing bad town play. If we're killing as scum everyone messing up, whoops, game over we're already outnumbered. I don't love it at all though in this case I'm perhaps more charitable about it because I happen to think their bad town play is pointed in a more or less constructive direction.

I would love to eliminate scum for good reasons! But in a pinch? I'll take nailing scum for bad reasons any day of the week. Decoy got smoked last game because someone pulled his name out of a hat, and that almost blasted us.

So here's where I'm at:

VOTE: Jace

This is my favorite scum pick. I think I've beaten why to death. I am adding my vote to the pile tactically, as there is no reason not to given the unvotes. I think Jace is our best pick. Everything going on screams bad news to me. The information on other people is at this point a bonus.

That said I am actually willing to pivot to Jack depending on a few things. Certainly if he flips scum it's got me reevaluating some stuff--if Jack is scum I put Paige at near 100% town regardless of anyone else's flips because if the interaction here is staged it's Oscars night. I'm very curious for some more from Zetsu re: Jace/Jack scumteam because that one's a little hard for me to see, especially given day one with no chat.

I... can see a world with Jace town I guess but boy oh boy is my crystal ball hazy on that one. I can see Jack scum more clearly but the Jace stuff is complicating it for me. But going to bed hungry is the wrong pick, and whatever the numbers are one thing we can be sure is not gonna happen is abruptly losing off today's lynch. We can't afford to fritter it away or blow town for kicks and giggles theoretical information, but there are times when information is the consolation prize and in theory we're gonna get scum (this is how I see Jace--have I repeated this enough yet?).

Some other thoughts:

I do not love the Boogie lurk. The random noise and stuff does not do it for me. "i can see it" as case to hard left does not do it for me. "j" does not do it for me. This is especially the case in a theoretical bizarro mix-up style hybrid wherein Boogie posts gobs to avoid the lurker label but says nothing to avoid giving anything to go off.

Irina is coasting off rep but the more I look the more I see these traces of scum thinking that just get my hackles up. I think I've dug into this but it's late and my focus is waning hard.

Blizzard I really, really like for town at this point. Nothing she does fits neatly with any of the narratives anyone I don't trust is pushing and she's had this very figure-things-out mindset since the game opened.

Uuuggghhhh I hate that this is one post but chopping it into three feels thoroughly arbitrary and useless so I'm clicking submit. Tomorrow I work until ~4 hours before now, and the next day too, so tomorrow evening is the last point I'll have to check in and settle a final vote. You know who I prefer and hopefully why, but I'd like to really call on Jack to not just ghost the phase because that is doing precisely zero favors and I'll be honest the actual reactions do not look great.

Stealing Zetsu's percentages, let's give Jace a 66% scum lean from me and Jack a 40% one (and I'm too tired for calculations so I dunno how that stacks up vs. the expected ratio of pulling from a hat or whatever but both are a step above pure chance scum spinner for me. But Jace more.)

[Latin For Dragula]

My hesitance on Jace is that I strongly think his day 1 is newb town flailing, and I can't shake the weirdness of his flavor claim with Yugi. It's so strange that I've come around to it almost having to be mod arranged strangeness, the only option that makes sense to me is that Yugi and Jace are both scum, Yugi coached a bad flyer on fake claims with his trooper suggestion, and they're stuck with it. Thing is...all VTs can't be officers, right? Right? Either they're both lying or they're both telling the truth.

I don't know. What I know is set up weirdness aside, Jace and Yugi read town to me. I also know that there are three different people who think Jace is town but want to lunch him anyway, and two of them are my strongest scum suspicions if Jace flips town, and they're both playing blindspots for my third suspect. That's too much coincidence.

[Latin For Dragula]

Ngl I feel weird on boogie to a degree but I have that "i already answered B the last four questions" anxiety cuz what are the odds he's scum twice in a row and he's not screaming tells to me

[dmboogie]

"j" does not do it for me.

my legacy crumbles to ash before my eyes................