Masks at Midnight - Night 3

[Red Skeezix]

Lightfoot was executed

Congratulations Town you are victorious.

Game Spoilers in the box. Thank you all for playing, I do recognize there is a couple of mechanical items that need tweaking for this game to work; but if you have any questions about the setup / roles - i'll answer them now.

There's no real secrets but once the game starts I prefer if folks try to puzzle out the fuzzy bits on their own.

Gossip Meeko * Seer Mahaloth * Therapist guiri * Harbinger Colby11 * Child Bashorian Clement* Mortician Bicycle Repair Man * Vigilante TexCat* The Publicist raventhief * Patsy Pleonast (Thinks they are a Private Eye)* Politician Mordenkainen * The Cult Leader Lightfoot * Night 0 raventhief targets Bicycle Repair Man Bicycle Repair Man is Decieved. therapist guiri learns on Night 0 - 0 Mahaloth investigates Meeko and Guiri - answer is no. Pleonast Patsy - Learns that one of these is the Publicist TexCat Bicycle Repair Man Mordenkainen Gossip Learns About Patsy guiri Mahaloth Pleonast Night 1 Bicycle Repair Man is Decieved. Lightfoot kills mahaloth mahaloth examines raventhief and lightfoot mahaloth is decieved mahaloth result is no result because dead Day 2 Child was nominated by scum Vigilante shot at not the cult leader. Night 2 Bicycle Repair man learns that raventhief was the publicist. Lightfoot kills guiri Day 3 Mahaloth uses last vote. Questions I didn't answer during the game: Why does the therapist get the same answer every night? The therapist's power is only a little better than the vanilla+ roles - but the therapist can also acts as a landmine for a publicist. How does the financier work - this power seems useless? So, from balancing perspective - the non cult leader roles are all about the same weight, so each of them can be chosen randomly - if the financier is chosen then two scum are added instead of one both of them are financiers.

[Pleonast]

We caught the scum because they were the last two to claim.

But actually, that sounds too much like dumb luck.

[guiri]

Originally Posted by Pleonast

We caught the scum because they were the last two to claim.

But actually, that sounds too much like dumb luck.

Agreed, it was the obvious strategy to follow, at least until any claim could be counterclaimed or proven wrong, sorry Raventhief and Lightfoot, I expected you’d have had a third buddy.

Well played town! It’s good to know herding cats, however difficult, is possible, eventually! Coordination was key to this- claiming, claiming results, and voting together.

Thanks Red Skeezix for a fun game!

Sorry for suspecting you Mordenkainen, you were my third scum suspect…

[Mordenkainen]

No problem. Everyone does it sooner or later. Although sometimes it gets under my skin a bit. I got a bit short with Pleo in the midgame. Sorry about that Pleo.

Oh, and I've had this: -



running through my head since I read my role PM. Just thought I'd spread the earworm.

[Meeko]

Woot.

[Meeko]

Was my entire Wine and Cork gambit worth it?

[Pleonast]

Originally Posted by Mordenkainen

No problem. Everyone does it sooner or later. Although sometimes it gets under my skin a bit. I got a bit short with Pleo in the midgame. Sorry about that Pleo.

No worries. I forget such things by the next game anyway.

Originally Posted by Meeko

Was my entire Wine and Cork gambit worth it?

In general, probably. It showed you were trying to solve the game with the tools you had.

[Meeko]

Originally Posted by Pleonast

No worries. I forget such things by the next game anyway.

In general, probably. It showed you were trying to solve the game with the tools you had.

I mean, I get this, and it is fair.

[Meeko]

Originally Posted by Meeko

Was my entire Wine and Cork gambit worth it?

Guiri your thoughts?

[guiri]

Someone pointed out that telling the truth is not a town tell for me, so I don’t think sharing your message verbatim says anything about my alignment but, as Pleo says, your attempt to solve the game gave me a townie read on you.

[guiri]

[askmod]If the cult leader was executed D1, would there be no scum kills until F5?]/askmod]

[Mahaloth]

Hey, I used my one vote for good.

[Bashorian Clement]

Originally Posted by Meeko

Was my entire Wine and Cork gambit worth it?

I guess some people thought it showed you displaying a process, so it worked for you and them. I couldn't get my head around it, but that's par for the course in these types of games.

[Red Skeezix]

Originally Posted by guiri

[askmod]If the cult leader was executed D1, would there be no scum kills until F5?]/askmod]

If the cult leader is dead, and there is no acolyte there would have been no more kills. This is one of the adjustments that needs to be made before I run it again. Its a little balancing since executing the cult leader will drastically reduce the amount of info town gets every day; the game might be fun for 1 or 2 days after that but 3+ days with no scum kills is a pretty boring game, so i'll be workshopping some solutions to that problem. Also based on how the voting is setup it's meant to be harder earlier in the game to an execution off.

[LightFoot]

Well hell
10 hour days at work and all
I wasn't playing different because I was Scum it was life in general

once it was decided that all should claim and no time to research how best to do so - it became an uphi battle

i think raven could have voted and given me one more Night but that point is moot

[OOG] my youngest started their his hormone therapy this week -He (I have to get used to that) is very excited!
I know this bunch here will b more supportive than udgemental unlike the FB crowd

[Pleonast]

Yep. These rules were weird and you didn't have the bandwidth to adjust. I think the Day length of the game was too short. Players need time to digest, and then need to time act. And the Night was too long--Nights only need to be longer than one day if Scum can only chat at Night.

Good luck with the next phase of your kid's life. No matter what happens, he'll always be your baby.

[raventhief]

Originally Posted by LightFoot

Well hell
10 hour days at work and all
I wasn't playing different because I was Scum it was life in general

once it was decided that all should claim and no time to research how best to do so - it became an uphi battle

i think raven could have voted and given me one more Night but that point is moot

[OOG] my youngest started their his hormone therapy this week -He (I have to get used to that) is very excited!
I know this bunch here will b more supportive than udgemental unlike the FB crowd

Sorry I am dealing with my own real life dumb stuff and didn't even realize

[raventhief]

Originally Posted by Red Skeezix

If the cult leader is dead, and there is no acolyte there would have been no more kills. This is one of the adjustments that needs to be made before I run it again. Its a little balancing since executing the cult leader will drastically reduce the amount of info town gets every day; the game might be fun for 1 or 2 days after that but 3+ days with no scum kills is a pretty boring game, so i'll be workshopping some solutions to that problem. Also based on how the voting is setup it's meant to be harder earlier in the game to an execution off.

With no way to communicate with other scum, it did seem like two was rather few for scum. If lightfoot was executed first we would have been stuck.

[Bashorian Clement]

It did seem like we were ganging up to a certain extent.

[Meeko]

Just received word that my Uncle passed at 530 pm est today.

Thank you for your support.

[raventhief]

Originally Posted by Meeko

Just received word that my Uncle passed at 530 pm est today.

Thank you for your support.

Oh, Meeko. I'm so sorry

[Mendie Taoma]

Originally Posted by LightFoot

Well hell
10 hour days at work and all
I wasn't playing different because I was Scum it was life in general

once it was decided that all should claim and no time to research how best to do so - it became an uphi battle

i think raven could have voted and given me one more Night but that point is moot

[OOG] my youngest started their his hormone therapy this week -He (I have to get used to that) is very excited!
I know this bunch here will b more supportive than udgemental unlike the FB crowd

Whatever support I can give here, I will.

[LightFoot]

Originally Posted by raventhief

Sorry I am dealing with my own real life dumb stuff and didn't even realize

I wasn't throwing rocks ust thinking out loud

[LightFoot]

Originally Posted by raventhief

With no way to communicate with other scum, it did seem like two was rather few for scum. If lightfoot was executed first we would have been stuck.

agreed no real co-ordination unless the mind reading skills were perfectly honed

[Meeko]

Originally Posted by LightFoot

agreed no real co-ordination unless the mind reading skills were perfectly honed

Or you know, someone should happen to send you 42 bottles of wine an 17 corks.



Was there a "real" use for the private messages, then? Co-ordination sure... But high barrier to entry.

[LightFoot]

Originally Posted by Meeko

Or you know, someone should happen to send you 42 bottles of wine an 17 corks.



Was there a "real" use for the private messages, then? Co-ordination sure... But high barrier to entry.

I did not get even a sip from that exchange
Is there a primer?

[raventhief]

I could have sent lightfoot a message, I suppose. That wouldn't look suspicious at all.

[Meeko]

Originally Posted by LightFoot

I did not get even a sip from that exchange
Is there a primer?

I went extra curricular with my two sent messages.

Originally Posted by Meeko

I had grand designs on the post I wanted write on this. In my head, the draft evolved, a lot. I even debated going into using Mendie's style of heading for the post. There is something there, and I like the regimen and discipline of heading my longer posts, but, at the moment, I'm not feeling it.

But, in honesty, I probably do need some better form of discipline in my games.

Can Fun Move Into Functional?

---

This is my first PM to send the "Wine" message to Pleonast.




Is it possible to handshake, with the bare minimum possible?


Can I go in for a handshake, with someone, and upon them seeing the shake, meet it with equal "energy" bearing and heading? The fact that they even act at all, to begin the hand shake, can that ever qualify as "enough" of a handshake?

Would scum respond with the full text of the PM, in the game? Would they bother to comment at all?

OR

Would scum simply ignore the post and think nothing of it? Would they want my ... mod forwarded message out in the public? Especially if it was crryptic? Does it behoove scum to share the messages?

-------

--------


Can I do it again?

Ok, don't be silly Meeko, you can't do this again, to say the least, you would totally be "Wasting" both of your message slots. True, but, I am vanilla now, I had my power come in, and my power go. I have nothing to lose. I hinted, .... breadcrumbed? ...... this in my Shoulda Coulda Woulda post, where I said, in so many words, that I am willing to take more risks now.

But, if I were to do it, again, I would need to be even more clever, right?

I would need to pick a better target. If we all town read a given player a certain way, already, it would be far better to as much, per se, confirm them, with this gambit, than to get someone we have less of a town read on, and have my last message be a complete waste, right?


I had to be clever, in both my composition, and my message receiver.

What goes with "Wine" ? What can I send, in the same manner, that would immediately both create and finish what was in honesty, a one off, into a hopefully valid gambit?

Wine was sent. Wine was in a manner of speaking, shared with everyone.

Cork stops wine.

Right?

That would make for an obvious continuation.

But, It has to be _different_

How much wine did we "drink" ? About half of the bottles? Yeah, but, that's too easy.

But it also can't be an even number, or a number guessed at.

Like, a prime number would help.

Thankfully, Guiri responded with the correct number of 17.

I think that to be fair, and to give this an honest shot, I had one chance to ask for the number of corks, and in that instance, the next answer had to be taken as "final answer" . This could only just work, and thankfully, it did only just work.

Scum, using the same logic above for 42 bottles of wine, would just as easily have said 15 or 20. IF they said anything at all.

No. 17 was a deliberate number. I mean, 42 was deliberate, too, but with no real game meaning. 17 had to be "17", or a number that looked like it. [

[Ok, I will grant you, that one is perhaps too Yogi Berra, even for Meeko. I'm simply trying to state that I needed a sufficient amount of " Odd " here. ]]


TL : DR

I don't think A scum Pleonast or a scum Guiri would have responded and or shared my PMs anywhere close to as verbatim as they had. Thus I must conclude that they are town.

I could be off on this completely, but again, I am vanilla now, and I felt I had at aleast a viable way to use my messages.

Please argue against this. It means we will have something to talk about.