Game Thread The Clone Saga: A Spider-Man Mafia 3

[Spider-Man]

We were about to say that, Green. maybe We'll say something you would say now

To the rest of the Rainbow Spider Squad, I'm wondering how y'all are communicating amongst yourselves. Are y'all using this account or some hidden Discord channel?

DYNO-MITE

 

[Ragnarokio]

i have access to a voteblock but i'm not sold on the funnier lynch

 

[Tevish Szat]

I really don't think we should lynch Traveller until the trial has concluded. That's one of the few things I believe could screw it up.

 

[Duskyblue]

Why? Maybe we are meant to have the chance to stop it by lynching him. What's the point of the main game thread if we can't influence that seemingly most important outcome?

 

[Ragnarokio]

Why? Maybe we are meant to have the chance to stop it by lynching him. What's the point of the main game thread if we can't influence that seemingly most important outcome?

influencing the trial is one of the reasons the main thread exists, though its probably the people who are threats to town that wouuld rather stop the trial at present than have it continue, based on my understanding of the situation.

there are lots of other things we can interact with via the main game thread as well, though. Its entirely feasible that we won't be in as clean a situation as it seems if/once the trial has concluded, and we can use our lynch both today, and in prior and subsequent days to attempt to deal with those unknown and known obstacles.

 

[Duskyblue]

influencing the trial is one of the reasons the main thread exists, though its probably the people who are threats to town that wouuld rather stop the trial at present than have it continue, based on my understanding of the situation.

The whole trial seems like a nefarious act.
Also, who else wanted to stop it? I thought the known threats wanted Spider-man to plead one thing or the other.

 

[Skystone]

influencing the trial is one of the reasons the main thread exists, though its probably the people who are threats to town that wouuld rather stop the trial at present than have it continue, based on my understanding of the situation.

That's not entirely true. KoD is, for instance, given his win condition, almost certainly not a threat to town, but he would be more than happy to have the trial disappear.

The larger concern, though, is that our information about the trial comes from parties who by definition do not have the interest of town at heart. Except, perhaps, for SMS -- who would presumably also prefer for the trial to cease.

there are lots of other things we can interact with via the main game thread as well, though. Its entirely feasible that we won't be in as clean a situation as it seems if/once the trial has concluded, and we can use our lynch both today, and in prior and subsequent days to attempt to deal with those unknown and known obstacles.

The thing is, if we choose to accept that Traveler is telling the truth to some meaningful extent, then lynching non-Traveler scum is basically pointless. Either Spider-Man pleads guilty and all non-Spider-Man threats are removed from the game, in which case our lynch is superfluous; or Spider-Man pleads innocent, and all previously removed threats are returned to the game, including - presumably - our most recent lynch. We lose either way.

If, however, we lynch Traveler, then we are presented with two possibilities. In the first case, killing Traveler has no meaningful repercussions on the course of the trial, so Spider-Man's plea still dictates the course of events. On this account, either Traveler has lied and is scum, whereby we uncover his lie based on whether he is exiled or resurrected in accordance with Spider-Man's decision; or else Traveler is self-aligned and not of any particular important to town. The first instance clues us into a possible deceit and identifies Traveler as scum, which significantly benefits town, while the latter entails no significant disadvantage but perhaps the very marginal benefit of benefiting the town/not-town ratio.

In the second scenario, killing Traveler does have repercussions on the trial. But it seems to me that the most likely outcome is cessation. Specifically, if Traveler dies, then there is no-one actually conducting the trial, no judge to oversee it, etc etc. The trial ending would preserve town's successes by keeping the incapacitated mafia players out of the game, which -- given the seeming lack of a mafia night kill -- puts town in a good position to wrap things up. The only adverse outcome in the entire scenario is if a) Traveler's death does not stop the trial, and b) the scum somehow manage to escape, but it's unclear why we'd expect to meet both preconditions. And even then, in the very worst case, the result is the same as it would be for the actual trial.

In other words, we can either lynch Traveler and accomplish something, or lynch someone other than Traveler to no effect.

 

[Tevish Szat]

If Lynching Traveler causes a cessation of the trial, though, we lose the opportunity to claim victory through the Guilty plea, which seems to be the likely outcome. I don't think the state of the game is as solved right now as you think it is, with regards to lynching scum. You say it would "preserve town's successes" but so does the mass exile. I'd much rather not throw away the opportunity this represents.

 

[Ragnarokio]

in my mind the main question is "what will happen if spiderman pleads guilty" because thats what it seems like will happen. If we assume that the stated effect of all scum being exiled and spiderman becoming scum occurs on him being guilty is at least possible, then the only way to justify not supporting spiderman being found guilty is to think there is only a very very slim probability of that happening, or to think that there is either a significant probability of something bad also happening or of a smaller probability of something catastrophically bad happening.

As is I feel like we're in an information rich environment, a lot of people have come forward with a lot of informaiton about whats going on, and although every perspective seems to be imperfect and that its probable that only zinger and perhaps funnier know for sure what is going to happen, it seems like everyone who has claimed information on the trial has more or less held the same impression of its nature and outcomes. In my mind, this is enough evidence to suggest that there is a strong possibility that things will go at least mostly how they'll seem to go, and so i find it hard to support the idea of trying to disrupt the trial.

You're right that lynching scum is close to a zero-value play if you assume people are telling the truth, but if you assume that there is a 50% chance that people are telling the truth then it rises in value, because if scum are exiled they'll be exiled and if scum aren't exiled they'll be lynched.

It then follows that if you believe that there is a good but not certain chance of the trial exiling every threat to town tonight, then the optimal play today should be to lynch scum and not disrupt the trial.

I can respect fear of the unknown, though. I've second guessed myself on this too, thinking things like "what if spiderman as scum is worse than everyone else as scum combined" or "what if funnier and/or minish have done an amazing job of manipulating a ton of people and this trial is very bad news for us" or all sorts of other things. These fears aren't grounded enough to motivate my acting, though.

 

[funnier6]

My thoughts on lynching/killing atm was to go after the threats that haven’t been coming back to life since to me it seems like they’d be the ones who are least likely to escape exile when that happens. So I was thinking of going after the other threats and hoping to bury the ones that can escape exile if possible, I have quite a few bullets at my disposal but I don’t have any information on who might be capable of escaping exile

 

[Tevish Szat]

In my sight, I think we've triggered what is essentially meant to be an endgame event very early. Every previous Spider-Man game has been a game that's meant to go long, and has gone long, and every time there's been a minigame about finding out something other than alignment. In Maximum Carnage, it was how to dispose of the seemingly invincible Carnage. In Hobgoblin, it was the identity of the mysterious Hobgoblin (Related to catching scum, but not perfectly). Here, it was discovering the True Spider-Man, which was a prerequisite for the Trial event firing. Because of what happened with me N1 (which was opening Pandora's box, seeing how many false spider-men could have turned evil) the identity of the True Spider-Man became known far before it probably 'should' have been. Because this information became, on d2, not just spider-knowledge but public knowledge, Minish and Traveler were able to reach out and get the party started essentially as early as was mechaically possible. Because of that the "threat" of an innocent claim from Spider-Man is not as great as it was probably intended to be (since there are few scum and fewer town dead, rather than an endgame scenario that might have created an instant scum win on Innocent), and the reward of Guilty, to the town, is much higher.

Looking at it from a design perspective, it seems like it was meant to makes Spider-Man largely choose between giving the Scum team a huge, possibly insurmountable bump but retaining his own ability to win with the town and, on the other side, giving the town an easy path to victory at the cost of (possibly -- I do think we don't know if Threat spidey himself gets a different WinCon) losing his own. Late enough in the game it becomes lose-lose for Spider-Man, the sadistic choice it was meant to be: lose with the town when all the villains come back, or probably lose as scum when he's the last that remains.

Walking this back a bit, let's think about the scenario that I, at least, would predict as a game designer: the one where instead of Spider-Man being willing to sacrifice himself for the good of the Town because he's a hero and that's what heroes do, the one where he plays to his win-con at all times. In that case, both pleas make sense. Early game, a self-interested Spider-Man would want to plead Innocent, dealing the game a small hit, but one that's recoverable because, hey, we already know who dead scum are, the whack-a-mole motions shouldn't take that long. Late game, he'd want to plead Guilty: If there are enough dead that bringing all the scum back would deal town an immediate loss, then it would be easier to win as self-scum, because winning as town would be 0%. In either case, it has a shake-up outcome on the game, but the integrity is preserved.

We stand to benefit greatly because Silver has expressed a deep willingness to do what might be the irrational thing, taking the guilty plea while a) the details of the trial are in the public eye and b) the alternative is not a game-losing proposition. I believe strongly that this should be let happen.

 

[Morbid Minish]

In my sight, I think we've triggered what is essentially meant to be an endgame event very early.

I agree and think this could be why it seems too good to be true. A lot of things had to align for this to happen. Zinger even made a comment (perhaps jokingly but it aligned with this thought) about funnier discovering his true identity fast. So you have to have funnier discover he's Traveller, you find the real Spiderman, funnier to contact me which led to me being able to contact you, you and Silver trusting me, funnier finding out Spidey's true identity to discuss the implications beforehand, and quite frankly Silver himself being the real Spiderman helped a ton because I knew Silver would at least consider pleading guilty or even just hearing us out. We were so relieved when we found out it was him from our narrowed down list. Lol.

So that's a lot of things that had to happen just right for us to get to this point. And the fact we did so by n2 is quite crazy.

 

[Zinger2099]

DAY 3: Second Vote Count

Storm (1): Spider-Man
Spiritual Mask Salesman (1): Tevish Szat
Freddeh (2): Ragnarokio

Not Voting (16): 15377, Morbid Minish, ExLight, Rubik, Asfinyti, funnier6, Storm, Aaarrrgh, Freddeh, Spiritual Mask Salesman, Hapi, Paranoid King, Skystone, Duskyblue, Killjoy, Mellow Ezlo

With 20 available votes, it takes 11 votes to reach a Majority.

The Day 3 Deadline is set for August 1st at 5:00 AM EST. Click here for an accurate countdown timer.

Spoiler: Vote Log

1. Tevish Szat votes 15377
2. Tevish Szat unvotes
3. Storm votes Ashanti [404: Player name not found; vote discounted] (You probably mean Asfinyti, but probably isn't good enough)
4. Spider-Man votes Storm
5. Storm unvotes; votes Llesi [404: Player name not found; vote discounted] (LLESI upside-down might spell out 15377, but this isn't bizarro world here)
6. First Vote Count Tallied
7. Tevish Szat votes Spiritual Mask Salesman
8. Ragnarokio votes Freddeh
9. Second Vote Count Tallied

 

[Zinger2099]

This Day has been relatively quiet on the Game Thread front, as everyone waits on bated breath the outcome of a private trial held elsewhere. With fewer players in the Active pool, the Deadline is shorter. Don't let it sneak up on you. You've got less than 24 hours left at time of this writing! Don't waste your Day now.

 

[Ragnarokio]

people weren't biting at freddeh so i guess i'll default to the PK lynch as he's seemingly the only openly outed scum we have alive right now, unlness we want to lynch a random spiderman (killjoy?)

Unvote, Vote: PK