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Post by Pleonast on Jul 16, 2010 10:07:18 GMT -5
Welcome, Cabalists! You may not use any powers ToNight, but you are always welcome to talk.
(Trying to reduce likelihood of posting in the wrong thread.)
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Post by Renata on Jul 16, 2010 11:12:59 GMT -5
Hey you two.
Pleo, I'm confused about gaining the abilities of, say, a wolf -- can we then kill independently? Or are those options only there for the sake of convenience?
This is all going to take some serious thought.
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Post by Renata on Jul 16, 2010 11:23:02 GMT -5
Since I had vigilante on the brain (was my first choice) --- wouldn't THAT be a cool disguise for one of us? Kill a witch, claim remorse in-thread, and pressure the remaining witches to keep us from killing ourselves the following night? Hee.
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Post by Pleonast on Jul 16, 2010 12:12:36 GMT -5
You really shouldn't ask rules questions in thread, since there's a possibility of recruitment. However, since it's Night Zero, that's not a concern. You can imitate any Conspiracy role. You will get the (non-secret) power of that role. Wolf will give you a kill. Witch will give you a protect or faction-investigation. Cabal will give you a block (separate from the Cabal's joint block). Etc, ... Enjoy! And use wisely.
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Post by Renata on Jul 16, 2010 13:20:46 GMT -5
I don't understand your comment about recruitment -- if one of my allies is later recruited, anything I say will be available to him anyway, right? But if we worry too much about that we can't strategize or cooperate at all.
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Post by Pleonast on Jul 16, 2010 13:46:53 GMT -5
I don't understand your comment about recruitment -- if one of my allies is later recruited, anything I say will be available to him anyway, right? But if we worry too much about that we can't strategize or cooperate at all. Yes. If one of you is recruited, you'll all be compromised. Since that would be a severe penalty to the Cabal, you can be assured that the game would be balanced with that in mind. It's unlikely that any Cabalist could be recruited. But there are ways other than straightforward recruitment that could compromise information here. Since only secret powers could possibly recruit or cause similar effects, it's probably easiest to not worry about it. The warning is mostly to keep you on your toes.
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Post by Idle Thoughts on Jul 17, 2010 10:44:25 GMT -5
So, each of us can use "Disguise" once? And can we only block if all of us are alive? Or can two or one Cabalists use the blocking power too? Sorry for the non-PMed questions but others might be wondering about these too and I'm too lazy to go to PM
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Post by Pleonast on Jul 17, 2010 14:20:19 GMT -5
You can block as long as at least one of you is alive. But all of you (alive and dead) have to agree on the target.
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Post by stanislaus on Jul 19, 2010 4:54:39 GMT -5
Hi folks.
I'm on a different time-zone, so I'm going to try to info-dump while I'm on. Sorry if this is long and rambling.
Interesting set-up. We seem to have quite a few advantages:
Standard: We know our fellow Cabalists. We can block a Night action. We can talk Day and Night. Specific to this game: We know the role distribution. We can imitate any role, whether in the game or not.
This makes me wonder what our disadvantages are. Or rather, how the other factions have been beefed up. However, that's empty speculation right now, so it's probably better to focus on how we can use our powers.
Knowing the distribution: This gives us quite a lot of info on how the game is likely to progress, and especially some of the strengths and weaknesses of the town. Specifically, they're very strong on investigative powers, but very weak on protection. Witches and Seers give them faction/role info. Detectives ID wolves or other non-vampire killers. But the town are missing Warlock, Scotsman, Magician and Witchdoctor, which means that Night kills have a very high chance of being successful. The witches protection, the Vicar's immunity to Vampires and our block are the only mechanics which can stop an NK. And at least at the beginning, they're pretty low-percentage shots. Also, the Town is missing the Vig which means they'll have to do their work via Lynch (or cross-kills.)
On kills, with Wolves and two Vampires we're looking at 3 kills per night. Initially at least, the odds are that these won't be blocked. This matches up to 3 Detectives - if town are lucky, or the detectives manage to claim and thus co-ordinate, they'll be able to ID Wolves pretty quickly. Unless there's a hidden power which grants immunity to Detective investigation. But I'm expecting at least one Wolf to be ID'd relatively early in the game. Undead are a different story. Detectives won't find them and they're not mutually aware, so they should be able to be found only by investigations.
Our goals are to eliminate all Wolves, eliminate all Undead, eliminate at least two Witches and keep at least one of us alive. We share two of those goals with Town, so it should be pretty easy to maintain a Town front in the main thread. My suggestion is that we don't initially worry about Witches. The magic of cross-kills may well solve our problem for us; failing that, we may well find they out themselves at some point in the game. Focus in the main thread should always be about lynching Wolves or Undead. Later in the game, we can use our Disguise power to go after the Witches. A combination of investigation, kill and block should give us the edge we need.
On that note, it might be worth thinking about roles worth copying. I'm assuming we're most likely to do this in company with a public claim, although we can just copy the power on the q.v. It's almost certainly wiser to copy Town roles in order to confound investigation. In no particular order.
Witches: An odd choice, but potentially hilarious. Power benefits: Protection if we're feeling vulnerable, or investigation. Claim benefits: Would probably draw a true witch counter-claim. Would be very funny if the Witches investigate first to find out who we really are, only to be told "Witch". However, difficult to fake investigation/protecting history. Scotsman/Magician: Power benefits: Temporary immunity from NKs plus either investigation or kill if we are targeted. Claim benefits: If believed, ongoing immunity from NKs as killers avoid claimant. Warlock: Power benefits: Added kill if we guess right, but we still die if NK targeted. Claim benefits: as above. Vig: Power benefits: added kill. Claim benefits: Limited. Town might want to protect us, but others will probably want us dead. Failiure to produce subsequent kills would be an issue. Detective: Power benefits: Limited. With three Dets, we shouldn't really need to add another temporary one. Claim benefits: Would probably generate at least one counter-claim, and we don't want that. One to avoid. Coroner: Power benefits: One shot early knowledge of dead players' roles. Claim benefits: Limited. Probably take us off the kill list, until we fail to produce more results. Again, no need to generate a counter-claim. Seer: Power benefits: An investigation. Claim benefits: If believed, town want to protect us and other factions want to kill us. A counter-claim is not in our interests. Freemason: Power benefits: None unless claimed. Claim benefits. Masons have to handshake each other. An open claim would lead to all three masons attempting handshakes and thus confirming us while revealing their identities. This would help us shrink our Witch pool. Potentially quite a useful claim, despite the apparent under-powered role. Vicar: Power benefits: a chance to slow down zombification. Claim benefits: Puts us in a safe place - Wolves have no reason to kill us, Undead (think they) can't. Small risk of a counter-claim from true Vicar (although it's not a one-off role). Probably worth using if zombies are mounting up and/or we're under a lot of suspicion. Wolf: Power benefits: A kill. Claim benefits: None whatsoever. Vampire: Power benefits: Kill plus NK immunity. Claim benefits: None whatsoever. Necromancer: I'm not going to insult your intelligence.
TLDR Summary: We play as pure town in the main thread. All going well, towards the end of game we use our copied powers plus our block to go after Witches.
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Post by Renata on Jul 19, 2010 9:52:04 GMT -5
Vig: Power benefits: added kill. Claim benefits: Limited. Town might want to protect us, but others will probably want us dead. Failiure to produce subsequent kills would be an issue.
And the remorse thing, if the first hit is town, though as I mentioned, if we were believed (if said townie was a huge suspect, for instance), it's entirely possible we'd get a protect from the witches the next night to keep us from killing ourselves, which would be beyond amusing as well as useful. Still most likely not useful.
Freemason: Power benefits: None unless claimed. Claim benefits. Masons have to handshake each other. An open claim would lead to all three masons attempting handshakes and thus confirming us while revealing their identities. This would help us shrink our Witch pool. Potentially quite a useful claim, despite the apparent under-powered role.
Hugely useful claim if the Omega Wolf (who scans as a freemason, IIRC) is dead and most of the freemasons still alive, slightly less so otherwise. Definitely something to keep in mind. Mere "confirmed townies" are often overlooked as potential night kills in favor of more obviously dangerous roles, until it is too late.
After Pleonast's latest comment, I have this paranoia that somebody's hidden power may be some form of spying on this thread, but you know -- so be it. I refuse to try to run a complicated mafia game -- as mafia -- via PMs. It's also possible we're not the only ones who know the power distribution.
As an aside, didn't realize you were amrussell, "stanislaus". Nice to "meet" you.
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Post by Renata on Jul 19, 2010 10:39:06 GMT -5
Each of you, what are your feelings on bussing? I am generally not in favor -- people are so tuned in to the possibility these days that an honest-seeming defense of a scum is if anything less likely to bring suspicion than a weak accusation. I think the better guideline when a teammate is in trouble is to be as direct as possible. Don't avoid the situation, don't waffle or over-qualify your statements, make sure your arguments are solid whichever way you go, and above all don't talk too much. (The last one applies mostly to me. I tend to babble.) Easier said than done, but that's my feeling.
Idle, I know you've played a metric ton of Mafia; how many times have you had mafia roles, amrussell?
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Post by stanislaus on Jul 20, 2010 4:58:59 GMT -5
Mafia gaming history: I've played about half a dozen games, I think, including one Conspiracy. I've only played Scum twice, once as a Suicide Bomber (Island of Quantom). Other than that I've been vanilla or freemason.
Bussing: I tend to think that people are way too quick to do this nowadays. It still can be successful, but town are on the lookout for it. It's especially weak if done when the bussee is already coming under suspicion. If one of us picks up a couple of votes, I'd far rather we a) didn't panic- votes can shift pretty fast and b) defended by means of making (good) cases against someone else. The best way to ensure is this is to always be making cases. It's a good pro-town thing to do, and it means that we don't suddenly stick out if we want to either bus or counter-lynch.
Other thoughts: What do we want to use our block for? Night actions are: 3 NKs, 1 Seer investigation, 1 Witch Investigation, 1 Witch Protection, 1 Zombification. Plus any secret powers. At least at first, do we want to block kills? Obviously we do if they're targeted at us, but it'd be a shame to block a witch kill, or a cross-kill. Equally, we don't want to be investigated, but we don't want to hinder the town in their Wolf and Undead killing. Thoughts?
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Post by Renata on Jul 20, 2010 7:19:25 GMT -5
Well, we know that there's a relatively low chance of a kill being protected against early on, so if we're down a kill on one of the first couple nights there's a decent chance we've found a killer. I don't know what would be the best course of action then -- probably depends on the game state.
Does the wolf kill fail if we block any wolf, or only the Alpha?[/color] I expect the latter, but would be nice to be sure.
Speaking of bussing, we should be on high alert for wolf bussing, because they have large numbers.
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Post by Pleonast on Jul 20, 2010 9:01:03 GMT -5
To block the Wolf kill, you must block the specific Wolf who is making the kill. They choose each Night which Wolf that is.
And remember, you cannot block Witches.
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Post by Renata on Jul 20, 2010 12:52:46 GMT -5
Ok, that makes sense, thanks.
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