Day Two

[Malacandra]

The sun rises over a brazen sea, mirror-like in the unnatural calm of a world outraged by bloody manslaughter. An exsanguinated corpse is discovered stuffed in the anchor locker, its throat cut raggedly from side to side.

fluiddruid (Crew) has been foully done to death. Day Two will end (on account of the holiday) at 9pm my time on Friday June 1st.

[Gadarene]

Ack. Fare thee well, fluid.

[Gadarene]

Okay, first impressions:

(1) What happened? Only one kill. If my understanding of the rules is correct, that means that either: (a) the pirates successfully killed, and Deadeye failed to kill of his own accord (probably the likeliest scenario), (b) the pirates successfully killed, and Deadeye was blocked by the Doctor or Steele, (c) Deadeye successfully killed, and the pirates were blocked by the Doctor or Steele, or (d) the pirates and Deadeye both targeted fluid. One big question is whether Steele chose to witness either fluid or the murderer; if so, he or she now has some actual information, and we should be on the lookout for potential breadcrumbs. (But Steele should be very careful not to make his/her breadcrumbs obvious---more so than in previous Mafia games, it's critical that the pirates not find out who he/she is.)

(2) Why fluid? Until I do a closer analysis of fluid's posting history (and of the posts that mention her in some respect), I'm going to assume that fluid was killed because she's (a) a strong player who (b) isn't storyteller0910. Having taken a quick run through her posts, it looks like she was suspicious of cowgirl and capybara, but otherwise didn't really have a whole lot of substantive interaction with other players. Without getting into the "wine in front of you" mentality, I'll say that that bodes well for both cowgirl and capy, because it would be either extremely amateurish or incredibly sophisticated for the pirates to direct suspicion on themselves that way. Not saying it can't have happened, but the one thing the last few games have taught me is that townspeople, acting en masse, are very prone to looking toward the easy suspects when someone gets killed. I don't think we should begin with cowgirl and capy in this case. In fact, I'd even be inclined to say that the most likely scenario is for fluid not to have said anything negative about any of the scum in her nineteen posts. It's possible that she mentioned scum in a positive light (that would indicate a deep-but-not-exceptionally-deep level of sophistication on the part of the pirates), and it's even possible that she didn't mention them it all. It might be helpful, in that regard, to go through fluid's posts and see who she mentioned and in what respect...and then to apply counterintuition to the results, and view with greater suspicion those she mentioned favorably or entirely omitted. Of course, it's also possible that the scum just chose fluid based on random.org, in which case we're gonna be essentially tilting at windmills in analyzing what she's said and what people have said about her.

(3) I forgot my third point. Wish I had that *smack* smiley. It'll come to me.

[Gadarene]

Everyone else is out, like, barbecuing or something, aren't they? Bastards.

[Gadarene]

Yes, I'm aware of the hilarity of my doing all the things right now that I said on Day One a townie tends to do. ;D I don't think I could stop if I tried!

[ArizonaTeach]

Crap. I'm honestly surprised she was a crew...so I'm 0 for 2 now. But...only one death? I'm guessing, from the description, it was a Deadeye Dick kill. Ok, so that means one of three things:
Steele blocked (which means he can identify a scum, right?)
The Doctor blocked
Ben was targetted (which gets the ArizonaTeach stamp of approval)

Now I'll say freely and without reservation that fluiddruid pointed a FOS at me, and I pointed it right back at her for calling defending myself unproductive (I still don't get that), and she ended up voting for cowgirl and then capybara. Her big thing was going after the low-content players. Anything else in her posts jump out at you? She also mentioned how scum would go over what they thought were power roles early in the game, but I don't think I saw anything in her posts that would lead anyone to think that...

I suppose, then, I'm looking at the two that he voted for as scum, since I think that's a bigger red flag than the low-post issue.

[ArizonaTeach]

And, apparantly, I am of entirely the opposite mind than Gadarene. Grumble.

[ArizonaTeach]

Hmm, putting my scenarios and Gadarene's scenarios together, we end up with much, much more than only the three that I saw. Too...many...possibilities...

[Gadarene]

ArizonaTeach:

Ben was targetted (which gets the ArizonaTeach stamp of approval)

D'oh. I completely forgot about that being a possibility. My bad.

[Gadarene]

And, apparantly, I am of entirely the opposite mind than Gadarene. Grumble.

Yeah, I might be giving the scum either too much or too little credit. I think some rudimentary charts are in order, so we can draw our own conclusions by seeing who fluid did and didn't mention.

[Idle Thoughts]

Well, R.I.P fluiddruid.

I'm of the same mind as ArizonaTeach it seems, as I immediatly thought that maybe Ben Gunn was targeted. Seems likely.

Does Deadeye have to fullfill his/her mission? I'm guessing so, but what I'm wondering is...what makes anyone think s/he'll start from the very beginning to do it? Maybe they'll wait and bide their time some first. I don't know what advantage that would have.....but I don't think we should rule it out.

So that makes me think that AZteach is a bit more spot on.


As for the people she threw suspicion at, I don't know if I should count that or not. Certainly, being the first day, she wasn't privvy to any knowledge or info (and especially not being just a crew member, but bear with me-nobody knew that yet), so I don't think she was taken out at getting too close to anyone.

Although some of the people she had named the last Day tripped my meter too, like cowgirl and Cap. Cap especially who seemed to be going around like a chicken with her head cut off, voting and revoting and unvoting and voting and all that.

But maybe that's just new to the game jitters. A new day's started. We'll see what it brings.

[Gadarene]

Okay, here's what we've got. With the caveat, again, that if the pirates used random.org, all this is pointless.

Positive mentions

Post #258: States her belief that auntbeast is town and compliments storyteller0910 and NAF1138 by saying that they're great players that she'd consider killing on Night One if she were a pirate.

Post #259: Agrees with storyteller0910.

Post #334: States her belief that cowgirl is town. Also agrees with Blaster Master.

Post #462: Agrees with storyteller0910.

Negative mentions
Post #83: Votes for cowgirl.

Post #259: States that ArizonaTeach is on her scumdar.

Post #334: Votes for capybara and says that capy is playing very much like fluid did in Mafia III, where she was scum. Also says she'd be inclined to lynch Autolycus before Blaster Master, given Auto's "famous flameout" in Mafia II, unless Auto had proven himself at that point to be strongly pro-town.

Post #338: Says again that capybara is exhibiting scum-like qualities.

Post #447: Says that capybara's style of posting is "far more scummy than KatiRoo."

Neutral mentions
Post #85: Mildly disagrees with Idle Thoughts.

Post #185: Explains things to KatiRoo and mildly disagrees with Idle Thoughts.

Post #202: Talks about things with capybara.

Post #258: Says she'd consider voting for capybara on Night One if she were a pirate because capy might be "someone who's going to keep the town-on-town killing rolling." Also states that capy "has been making some public 'suspected town' lists, though who knows if those posting that are town or no."

Post #273: Discusses possible crew strategy with cowgirl.

Post #343: Responds to a question from Mad The Swine.

Post #445: Categorizes all of capybara's posts.

Post #447: Mentions Blaster Master and Mad The Swine in off-hand fashion.


Not mentioned

CaerieD
ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies
DiggitCamara
Flying Cow of Doom
Gadarene
Hockey Monkey
Kyrie Eleison
Lakai
MHaye
Panamajack
Pleonast
Zuma

Anything interesting in that information? It was a bitch to do.

(In light of this review, I'm inclined to put cowgirl back on the suspect list, at least provisionally. Killing someone who voted for, and then backed off of, a pirate seems like it would be very sound pirate strategy...right about at the sophistication level I'd expect for Night One targeting. Not to say it's meaningful, of course, but I think I was wrong before to clear cowgirl so quickly.)

[Gadarene]

Idle Thoughts:

Does Deadeye have to fullfill his/her mission? I'm guessing so, but what I'm wondering is...what makes anyone think s/he'll start from the very beginning to do it?

Does Deadeye have to kill every night, or can he/she choose not to do so? Malacandra?

[Parzival]

I was reviewing the old thread and just noticed Day 2's underway! I only just finished my rum. (well, it was a lot of rum).

I'm about to take off for the evening, but my quick assessment is that Fluiddruid might have seemed like a moderately strong but little-suspected player. Some of the other 'strong' players have had at least a little bit of suspicion around them, so the pirates will wait a day or two to take them out.

As for the single kill - at this point in the game, it seems a lot more likely to have been a Dick miss/no-kill than a Steele block/Ben targetting/Dr. save. No-kill seems smart enough on Day 1, but there seems little point discussing a non-event (or good strategy for the pro-pirate players).

[capybara]

Wow, I expected to wake up with a pile of corpses. Is there any reason the pirates wouldn't try to kill someone?
For what it's worth, before everyone starts looking at me (too late?) of all the many, many people that suspected me, F.D. would have been at the bottom of the list (IF I WERE DICK. Which I'm not. I'm not a pirate, either, by the way).
To add a couple of factors in, in addition to suspicions of cowgirl, AZ Teach and myself, when describing what she would do if she were a pirate she explained,
"Also, in terms of what I would do if I was a pirate tonight: of course, it would depend on who's a pirate and who's not! I confess I would likely want to off storyteller if he was town, as his play was absolutely masterful in MII. Maybe, if I was feeling really evil, I'd use NAF1138 as an alternative as another strong player (I'd feel kinda bad though, as I was the person who nominated him for the axe in MIII on Day One. Sorry NAF). That's just in general terms - ideally, as I said before, you want someone who's going to keep the town-on-town killing rolling, which is highly likely to occur in Day One. " I don't know how that might work in.
On preview, I see Gad got to that post as well.
Another possibility is that Dick killed in order to put suspicion on someone particular to get a two-fer-- Dick kills one person, and gets another specific person lynched. Perhaps that's a bit byzantine, however.

[capybara]

Does Dick know crew from pirates, BTW? Could he just as well have chosen a pirate by chance? Does it matter whether he kills crew or pirates? If he can't know, perhaps F.D. was one of few players he felt secure in thinking was likely crew for whatever reason? Am I misreading the role description?

[Idle Thoughts]

capybara said:

(I'd feel kinda bad though, as I was the person who nominated him for the axe in MIII on Day One. Sorry NAF).

What what what?
Who were you in that game?

[Gadarene]

capybara:

Does Dick know crew from pirates, BTW? Could he just as well have chosen a pirate by chance? Does it matter whether he kills crew or pirates?

From my reading of the rules, I think the answers to your questions are No, Yes, and No, respectively.

[capybara]

I.T.-- no no, that's in the quote of FD. I need to figure out how to do the bordered quote thing. . .

[capybara]

Ok, so Dick needs three kills of ANYONE, but probably preferably crew since he'll share a pirate win, right?

[Gadarene]

Ok, so Dick needs three kills of ANYONE, but probably preferably crew since he'll share a pirate win, right?

I think that's right.

Also, make quotes by putting the words <quote> and </quote> around the text you want to quote, with the < and > signs replaced by [ and ].

[capybara]

Ah, Gad, in your initial scenario list, 1.d can't have been the case because in the case of multiple hits the pirates resolve first.

[Gadarene]

Wouldn't that just mean that Deadeye's murder would be "wasted," though, or would he get to pick another target?

[ArizonaTeach]

Oh....hmmm...for some reason I assumed that he had to kill crew, unless he killed Flint, at which point he becomes the Pirate King....wait, does that mean that he can kill AFTER he's been accepted into the fold, taking out Flint??

Hell, I'm all confused now. Mal!!!

Oh, and solid work there on the analysis, Gad!

[Gadarene]

Oh, and solid work there on the analysis, Gad!

Thanks! But I've just realized that I completely forgot to take a look at Day .5 posts from SS Google. Off to do that now.

[Gadarene]

Oh, good---fluid didn't post at all on the Google Group. Never mind, then.

[fluiddruid]

*shakes chains*

Fare thee well, crew members!

Oh, and pirates: ooooOOOOooooooo! *haunts*

[capybara]

gadarene said:

Wouldn't that just mean that Deadeye's murder would be "wasted," though, or would he get to pick another target?

But the mode of death suggests Dick-- if they'd both tried to hit FD it would look like pirates had done it since they get first whack according to the rules (whatever that would look like) but this, it has been suggested, looks like Dick's fancy oriental knives, right? QED the pirates did not try to whack FD last night.

Fluid Druid, we hardly knew thee! OTOH I hear it's an open bar on Skeleton island!

[capybara]

Aaaaand re-reading your post I think you knew that and were asking about something else.

[Gadarene]

But the mode of death suggests Dick-- if they'd both tried to hit FD it would look like pirates had done it since they get first whack according to the rules (whatever that would look like) but this, it has been suggested, looks like Dick's fancy oriental knives, right? QED the pirates did not try to whack FD last night.

That seems sound, although honestly I'm not sure how much significance to attach to the description of fluid's death. As the fellow in charge of Mafia III, I've endeavored not to give away any extraneous details of things in my little cutscenes. I don't know whether Malacandra is doing it differently.

If we do assume that fluid was killed by Deadeye, though, then that means that the pirates were blocked last night, either by the Doctor or Steele. I'm not sure what information that gives us, except that the pirates would know that there was a chance that their target was a self-protecting Doctor (and the odds of Steele witnessing the murder would be a little bit less).

Maybe the pirates targeted storyteller after all, figuring that he'd be too obvious for the Doctor and Steele to choose to protect, and got blocked.