Okay - bare with me. I've been planning to go through this entire game as promised and post my thoughts, ideas, and questions in more detail. This generally means a page by page breakdown. Note I'm sort of ignoring the first page of night zero and the final page as well due to things sort of being a bit fluffish. Questions and thoughts I have will regarding a post will be in bold after the snipits I take from it; if someone else had already asked that question later on I will note that here and will also note the response, if any, to that question. I will then respond with my thoughts to that answer and may follow up with more questions if I feel so inclined.
Get ready. This post is going to be *long*.
On that note, starting with Night Zero, Page Two:
Mahaloth (#31) - "Let's not do a mass claim and post our role PM's on Day One. We've been through this conversation in many games and I've come to the conclusion(awhile ago, actually) that is it not a good idea. Usually, in my opinion, it reveals a to to the scum who frequently have cover roles.", going on to state that he provides scum with cover roles when he mods. Nothing out of the ordinary here in this post; just meant to kick things off as he stated.
Peekercpa (#33) - "quick question: when you are laying with your honey on a lazy sunday afternoon do you see a bunny or a horsey?" I find this question incredibly fluffy, and probably would be more suspect of it as an attempt to derail conversation of any sort if Mahaloth hadn't responded in post 35 in an equally fluffy manor, so maybe I am living up to my name. WHO KNOWS.
Rysto, meanwhile, takes Post (#34) about exactly *why* not to do a massclaim; nothing really here besides an overly long agreement to Mahaloth original opinion, though with backup reasoning following it.
Texcat took post 37 to attack Rysto - "
And vote Rysto. What do you mean you have no idea what a vanilla PM looked/looks like? In both games sample PMs were posted. "
Rysto responded in post #38 asking if it was serious; Texcat replied in post 41 with something that implies this was half between joking and confused to me.
The rest of Page Two didn't have much to discuss, apart from talking about a mild debate regarding stuffing your Turkey or not.
Summary - There was a bit here that piqued my interest but in regards to it maybe it was that slight twinge of paranoia (har har) on the part of Peek and Texcat; on the whole though I'd rate that particular feeling regarding both of them about 1 Raving Paranoid Lunatic (out of 5) about how much that set me of; not a whole lot but still keeping my eye on them.
Night Zero Page 3 Peek talks about bread or cornbread in post 60.
And then we get Pleonast claiming "Vanilla by destiny". Which, I would assume tells us absolutely nothing, but that he is a vanilla of either the town, or the mafia. Interestingly enough, he also noted that role actions were in use Night Zero and that someone would die.
peek post 65 - "
serious no b.s. question. do we actually get it on or do we just let everyone who has a Night action, which i am assuming there are some, just fire wildly into the crowd? or do we just treat this as a normal cycle with no lynch type of deal? " Not only is this the first *real* question regarding strategy, it also seemed to be one of the things that kicked off a lot of the talking night Zero, pretty much abating my earlier paranoia (HARDEEHAR) regarding peek. It is in my estimation that scum probably would rather there be less talking, and therefore making lynches a crapshoot that is easily fixable, rather than facilitate it, even lead it, as in my own experience that can backfire horribly.
Maha Reponds in Post 66 I believe saying that people should talk and that someone would hopefully slip up to help make things easier on investigative and Vigilante Roles, as I read it.
Pleonast responds in post 68 - "That is a very interesting statement. " Needlessly Cryptic.
What did you mean by this?(Reading a bit further, Maha I believe asked this for me and a bit more in post 69, albeit in a more aggressive and accusatory tone. Eventually answering that question him(her?)self,
Pleo attacks
Maha further,
implying that Maha meant to out town power roles, instead of reading it in a more innocuous manner like I assume most people would. He
even advocated less talking as to not out power roles. Not only does this fly in the face of forcing scum to talk and to give us something to nail them with, He also did something that would have completely the opposite effect if he was vanilla town; he claimed vanilla by destiny!
Interestingly, it would seem
Mr. Ed in post 75 sprang to Pleo's defense not long afterward, not addressing the vanilla claim, but instead attacking Maha's statement as dubious.
"reminds me of an old SNL skit.
"You can't put too much water in the nuclear reactor."
does it mean, it's OK to put as much water in as you want, or be careful not to put in too much water?
Did Mahaloth mean he wanted to assist in outing the Town power roles or did he mean he wanted to assist the Town power roles in outing the Scum?
it's rather dubious."
On another note, Texcat is the first to ask Pleo about his claim, as she posted in post 78.
Sister Coyote basically states what I am thinking regarding his remarks on non-participation in post 79.
Sachertorte has an excellent post (81 in fact) if sort of inconsequential post regarding pondering of the setup and what the deal with the major arcana is.
Oh and there's a lot of setup discussion this page; kinda going to skim but forgive me if I pay more to the strategery discussion instead.
Speaking of Sachertorte posts in 84 - "
The point is this is Night Zero. We don't need 'information' until we actually need to lynch someone, which isn't going to happen for nearly two weeks. Deep analysis at this time will more likely help scum than town as scum are in a better position to optimize whatever night actions they have while at town actors will be acting essentially randomly.
If Town will be acting randomly anyway, why not shut down discussion and prevent scum from being able to act on any possible Town slips/impressions?
Pleonast's point of view has a solid reasoning behind it. I'd support it too if it weren't so boring. "
Regardless, I find this wrong on a strategy standpoint; I think investigators have as much to gain from impressions and suspicions, and doctors need to be able to see the same information the scum will use to decide their kill, making shutting down and not talking a hindrance to the doctor; it gives them nothing to work off of in picking who to protect. Point blank, even though there was to be no lynch Night Zero, Town PRs can still benefit from what is said. It is also a gross misconduct to suggest that the town should shut down when it's probable that the scum get a shot night zero; it means knowing next to nothing about why that person was shot, which piecing together a hypothesis is, imo, a very, very good thing to do.
Post 85 & 86 - Peek makes me laugh. I swear to myself it will not happen again.
"you are out of your gourd.
what fracking planet do you come from where you think that town gets their primary information from lynches? call freaking chronos and make this mathematical. yeh, that works real well.
aaaaiiiieeeeee.
jeebus creebus"
"sorry.
but seriously sach cite me a couple of games where the votes led to the majority of scum lynches as opposed to just discussion in thread. maybe it is confirmation bias but shoot it seems like town catches scum by making them talk and take positions not because you voted for xyz.
but i could be wrong and will welcome you rapier analysis to prove me so. "
Honestly have zero fault with these posts... except that I think he misread Sache regarding lynches; I believe Sache, from how I read it, meant it in a way that the town needs information leading up *to* a lynch, not from a lynch.
Post 87 - Renata FOSes Mr. Ed and Pleo based on their attack of Maha based on the grammatical ambiguity of his statement, choosing to note the more sinister interpretation above the more benign one, despite the scummy interpretation being far less likely. Point is, Renata basically said what I said above first and in less rambling terms.
Post 88 - Texcat calls out sachertore.
"What point of view is that? The point of view where he claimed vanilla early on Night 0? Or the point of view where he doesn't want to expose the town power roles? Seems to me the best way to expose the town power roles is to have all of the vanillas claim. Doesn't seem like solid reasoning to me.
"
Again, basically said earlier what I said above and in a less verbally obtuse way.
Post 89 - Peek (joke votes?) sach.
Page 3 Summary from MPOV[/u]
Pleo and Mr. Ed
Pleo and Mr. Ed Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!
Something is just wrong between those two.
Night One Page 4Post 90 - Sache points out what he actually said compared to how Peek read it. Nothing really new.
NAF, Post 91 -
"I like talking about a mass claim. Well, I like talking about it sometimes, it won't always have the desired effect. In that game what talking about the mass claim did was get things shaking, that's useful in any game, even if that particular conversation isn't necessarily always the best way to get things shaking. Any lightning rod discussion will do. You have to start to get people to share as quickly as possible or town will never get anywhere. "
Basically points out that we need a springboard for actual discussion. Sort of overshadowed by the point that Page 3 has plenty of Springboard.
Pleo, post 92 - Unhelpful, Cryptic, and continues advocating silence on the grounds that discussion would help the scum night zero and wouldn't benefit the town despite claiming vanilla. I can't tell if he's deliberately trying to culture an image of unhelpful townie or not. arrrgh.
Sache, Post 93 - "And what big position do you think we will be able to leverage scum into? There is NO LYNCH during Night Zero. We could all vote for one person right now (hell you can choose me), but you're not going to get anything out of that person whether that person is scum or town! No claim, no nothing -- because there isn't a lynch stick to wave around. Whether Town or Scum, I would hope that any player put under pressure during Night Zero would have the wherewithal to ignore the poking until Day One begins.
Sheesh. "
Poking is poking, regardless if it's night or day. It's going to get results sooner or later, so why not start sooner if you have the chance?
bit more squabbling about whether or not to talk night zero or wait until day one. This all seems to really go back and forth with zero shift in opinion.
Oh and a few interesting bits on night strategy, and a bit more of what has already been said. Bit of banter between Renata and Mr. Ed, and I've got to side with Renata; the statement as far as I can tell was pretty innocuous. It's kind of you, Mr. Ed, who is making it seem... well. Sinister.
Regarding Sach, and post 114 - "
Example 2: The Doc
A doc protect is a shot in the dark. Any and all discussion will not make a lick of difference in the doc's effectiveness. Truly, the best a doc could hope for would be for the Cop to tip off who he is so that the Doc can protect a high priority target. But I think we can all agree that this is a BAD IDEA."
Bull, and furthermore, shit. The doc is at prime effectiveness if they are thinking who, they personally, as scum would target. Say you have a night zero start, no discussion, and the scum have a hit. I say to you with almost next to no information from the thread, the doctor can still get in a save with about a 33 or 50% chance if they look at the player list and work out just from experience who is a likely scum target for such a night. Furthermore, discussion and how people act can *really* make a difference imo in how a doctor would handle things. The doctor is not a shot in the dark if they are doing their job properly.
Page Four SummaryPleo and Sache both got under my skin this page due to a bit of smugness. Just.
Argh. Same goes to Mr. Ed for that matter.
Night Zero Page FiveBrain shuts down. Eyes Glaze Over. Focusing Primarily on Ed, Renata, and Pleo.
Ed and Pleo refuse to believe the obvious, innocuous interpretation. Renata argues with them over the fact that they keep trying to hammer that that one simple statement was anything but. Ed and Pleo are joined at the hip and their posts become one and the same. I imagine a terrible monster of indeterminate size, shape, and gender of which the only thing I am sure of is that it has two heads, eight flailing, writhing arms.
"I've seen enough slips from Scum on Day 1 to know that almost anything is possible.
Read the post again imagining that it's Scum talking with one another in the Scum thread. You wouldn't have to change a word.
Now, am I saying that's what happened? not necessarily. Am I ruling out a slip like that or even a Freudian slip of some sort? No, I'm not. " - Mr. Ed, post 142, responding to Renata in post 131.
The thing here is this; Why? Most people *wouldn't* read it how you are, and how you continue to treat it. You yourself even stated that it could be read as benign or sinister in nature, but you continue to hammer away at it like it's a genuine scum slip. The fact that you admitted it could go either way means it by default isn't a scum slip. Really. Bring something else to the table besides one statement that can go anyway depending on how someone wants to read it before you start hurling accusations.
blurgh. I've been staring at this for several hours now and skimming pages 6 and 7 nothing seems that important to me; most of it seems to really more debating regarding the radio silence vs. talking, before finally slipping into a little bit of fluffy nonsense before daybreak.
Note - Yes I know Sache is dead. Regarding my reading, I'd ironically conclude that he died simply because he put his foot in his mouth and pretty much outed himself as major arcana, i.e.a PR. I also have a bit of hypothesising about other things regarding Sache's death but don't feel comfortable sharing those thoughts.
Based on reading Night Zero over I walk away with a feeling that
Mr. Ed and
Pleo are scum. That's.. not entirely definitive though. Especially considering my initial reading left me very distrustful of Sache. I also sort of admit the more I read the more I focused on Pleo, Ed, and Sache; so other things *probably* escaped my notice. I'm going to do a quick read of day one before posting again.
Oh and I just noticed Rysto's post on Suburban Plankton; which pretty much highlights what I might have missed in regards to anyone not of the above three. So really. Enjoy this disjointed nightmare while I go read Day One.