Master Plan (SEE THIS TO CATCH UP RAYA)

To the ever dastardly fox, Raya, detailing the goings-on of mafia game 14, and the master plan.

Hello, Raya. What a pleasure to make your acquaintance. As this thread says in the title, it's all about coming up to speed and detailing our current master plan. Frankly, despite what you might think, we’re not falling apart, although I wish badly that Weldar wasn’t dead. Aside from two rather big quirks, things have gone exactly as I'd hoped. Many clocks have been smashed.

I came up with an experimental plan called the Sacrificial Double Reacharound when we first started. It wasn’t something we wanted to really try, but were going to give thought to nonetheless. The primary idea was that I’d take down one comrade day 2 based on a controlled scumslip as well as some weaknesses in posts. Following this I’d get another day 3. On day 4 I’d go for a high profile townie, and Day 5 our godfather would take me out. By this point most other high-profile townies would be dead, and whoever unraveled my scheme would look amazingly positive. At the same time we’d have our 5th and 6th members stay enough out of the spotlight that they could work as a trump card, so if all the big dogs died the town would be clueless and we’d still be very strongly in the game. The thing is, without a godfather one stray SK shot or cop scan could mess everything up, and beyond that it was incredibly risky.

The whole plan was ludicrous, and I knew that when I designed it. It certainly hurt our chances of winning, and wasn’t something we’d want to try without a godfather. The main idea is that it would be an incredibly fun way to play, and if pulled off would be brilliant.

HOWEVER, there was one thing to gain from this plan: The idea of controlling how and when our team members go down. This has driven not merely my strategy but the team’s so far, as I’ve been attempting to manipulate the situation to actually benefit us if I die, though living is still better.

Ultimately, our goal was to win, and we had no godfather to fulfill this role, so we decided to scrap this plan. Everyone went into day 1 as normal.

However, things started to unravel a little towards the end. By sheer luck, smashbro picked up on Weldar. I didn’t want to push for Weldar, as frankly he had the most valuable power of us all. I posited a few theories, reacting to Requiem’s suspicious behavior and giving him a reaction test just as if I was a townie. Requiem passed. Viero posted with a pretty blatant scumslip. So before doing anything, I talked to Viero on Facebook, and he agreed I should call him out. We decided to plan out the entire argument so that Viero would live through Day 1 but go down in lynch Day 2 or possibly even Day 3. In the end, smashbro PM’ed me this:

Spoiler:

I knew there was almost no time left in the dayphase, and threw my vote on Weldar, as I realized it was a good chance to get smashbro to trust me, and Weldar would be perfectly safe, ready to defend himself tomorrow if necessary, so we can support a lynch of Viero. We’d go into day 3 with one mafia dead but Weldar and I in great shape. That was the plan anyways.

Things here didn’t go as hoped. Requiem had a votesteal/doublevote power (this is confirmed, he slipped it to Fedaykin). This caused the tie between Weldar and Requiem to break in Weldar’s favor, resulting in his death. I’m happy that it turns out I wasn’t the direct cause, but I still wish that hadn’t happened, as if Weldar was alive now things would be far better.

HOWEVER, Weldar’s death made smashbro PM me stating this:

Spoiler:

This was a good thing. I understand that a lot of townies will follow my lead due to my reputation as a scumhunter, and it’s great to be linked to a partner who isn’t on my team, as if I die he could look scummy, and if he dies I could push my own innocence if necessary, though that would be hard.

This PM, Raya, was when I realized how invaluable of a recruit and ally you were. I found myself thinking of the Sacrificial Double Reacharound and realized that there was something valuable in it: Controlling the rate of mafia deaths and controlling how suspicion falls upon us to empower our positions. Like in a game of chess, position and ability can matter just as much as numbers here.

So I concocted a plan. I would pose as Peregrine Mendichant, or PM from the webcomic, whose sworn duty it is to protect the mail. In my alibi, I’m capable of using three regular PMs to one person, and beyond that can respond once to every message someone sends me. With smashbro I would build an alliance, as anyone in my position would do, and get him to trust you, Raya. I’d PM you once as a townie so you could send me a natural response, and I could forward that to smashbro and react appropriately. It would be all natural. Once we were properly established as being distanced from each other, I could recruit you. If the recruit succeeded, we could plan how to manipulate smash together, and possibly, if I ever believed he was suspicious of one of us, we could start to act against each other.

At the same time, we could keep Fedaykin and td260 out of the town’s attention for a while, either by focusing on what they post and when to make them look innocent, or just having them lay low. This way, when I died eventually, hopefully Raya and smashbro, and probably Perry too, would be either converted or dead, and the town would have little to nothing to go on, giving us a good shot at victory.

In the meantime, I had learned of Requiem’s vote-manip powers from Fedaykin, to whom he had slipped it in steam. This fit extraordinarily well with what happened to Weldar day 1, and explained a lot. Fed advocated killing Requiem night 1. I said we should kill Avalanche, as he was another good player, and we wanted you on our team given that smashbro already advocated linking with you. Moreover, I knew that if I played my cards right, we could effectively control him. I decided to withold info about Requiem’s role for now from smashbro, and build up to the conclusion rather than risk telling him right away. Make it natural.

So I responded with this:

Spoiler:

Here I planted the seeds of entering you into the alliance. I did it in a believable way, and one that, if you declined the recruit, would still be perfectly passable, even if you accused me. Had you declined the recruit, my aim (prior to thinking you would know my identity) was to get you into the alliance and try to gradually set you and smash against each other, but to me that was akin to playing with fire. You and smashbro are both really good players, and one slip could ruin it all.

Once I knew that the recruit would reveal my identity, I did everything I could to set things up so that if it failed, I could mount a successful defense against you day 3 and actually bring you down. Smash doesn’t suspect you, but he and I are in a state where if I made the right moves he’d back me up, and we’d fend off your attack, though there’s no guarantee I would live through day 4. Now that you joined us, the right moves can get you into our alliance, easily, as to put it bluntly Avalanche had an innocent scan on you prior to recruit. Smash visited Av’s dreambubble night 2. You’re golden. Point is I was prepared for either scenario.

Anyways, here two things didn’t work out as planned. The first was a vigilante (AvosMeLardo) targeting Viero. This caused us to be down two mafians by the end of night 1 rather than my preferred 0 (as I wanted Viero to go down day 2, but nobody before that). This also got rid of the lynch target smash and I had planned out, and left us with a dangerous void for a town that we couldn’t yet control. I felt I could work around that though. Keeping suspicion off of td260 and Fedaykin was simple enough. I was also on great standing with smashbro, though I felt he was still testing me a little, and I still do think he holds some doubts, as any good player in his spot would. I was in a bit of a panic day 2 primarily because of the second hitch in this part of the plan:

Avos comes out of nowhere and calls me out. THANKFULLY it was literally that far out of nowhere, and he was only partially right. First off, I didn’t want either Viero or Weldar to die in the first cycle, it really was luck, just very bad luck… Second, smashbro is innocent. His theory was, as I suspected it would be, but feared it wouldn’t be, dismissed, and he looked like a crackpot. In a way, this kind of helped things, as I was able to see who trusted me and smash, and beyond that could use some of the more obsequious ones as bait for a future lynch. The only better distraction than Avos’ theory would have been if someone died and turned up Zombie.

—Avos, when you read this postgame: Know how you should react to that sort of theory of your own. As a vigilante, either keep it silent and shoot one of us if you’re that convinced, or mention it to the town but don’t push for a lynch when there’s nothing to go on You condemned people for following the good players and then advocated killing the good players. Odd path to follow, my friend.—

It’s too bad too. I’d kind of considered recruiting smash before he came up with this theory. I think you were a much better choice though, as once smash and I were linked, the mafia benefits way more by having only one of us be scum.

Smash meanwhile sends me this.

Spoiler:

To which I responded:

Spoiler:

My response was mostly theorizing, and more importantly leading him away from the other mafians while still remaining quite logical in my context as a scumhunter. I put Avos down as a likely innocent because condemning him felt silly. He was after me and smash, sure, but I think the more rational opinion was that he was just paranoid. By mentioning the thing with the dreambubbles I showed some genuine caution, and that always helps.

Anyways, day 2 continued, and I told td260 and Fedaykin to either lay low or be careful in their posts so as to avoid attracting attention to themselves. In the meantime, knowing Fed was basically our trump card, I avoided mentioning him for the most part aside from a couple offhand comments to smash that probably can’t do any damage (they actually supported him being town), and td260 I just mentioned for not talking much, because I’d be doing him a disservice if he and Fed were the only ones I didn’t talk about, but didn’t pressure or put suspicion on at all.

Fed has been fine, as I thought he would be. There’s a reason he was able to win Game 10 as that ridiculously hard Upriser role. Td260 has been primarily playing well aside from falling into one of his more usual mafia patterns of lurking on the edge of discussion and only doing a nightphase review and general input (though I dunno who would notice). However he did scum-slip, giving me a moment of panic and almost rage, I will confess, but I think he’s perfectly salvageable, as long as we all participate in discussing how his defense should be shaped, and in finding a better target. I voted td260 saying he was a better target than either Avos or Sonix at this point, for two reasons. First, because from a townie’s perspective that was true. Second, because I knew he was safe due to Req’s votesteal/doublevote. If we’d been wrong about Requiem and td had died, I’d have been pretty distraught, I will confess. That would NOT have been according to plan.

At this point I knew what I wanted to do regarding you, Raya. In accordance with the plan smash and I had created, I sent you one PM as a townie, knowing it would do several things.

The first, as I said above, provoke a natural response so I could relay it to smashbro and it wouldn’t look fishy. We could build off this response to set each other slightly apart in the case that my recruit was successful. If it was unsuccessful, I could use this to try to set smash against you gradually, and possibly vice versa as well.

The second, I knew it would make you slightly suspicious of me, as it surely did, and would possibly even help you make the connection between me and your recruit. I was fully prepared to counter this day 3 if you refused and learned I was mafian, but I was still sincerely hoping you’d join us.

The third, your accusation of Sonix felt OOC to your logic. I felt that it was either based on some power of yours, or on being in either a mason group or cult, possibly even with smash himself, which would mean he was suspicious of me enough to avoid trying to recruit me night 1, though that’s a good cautionary move either way. Sure enough, you gave me a bit to go on here.

Snake told me that the recruit could reveal me if it failed, so I decided to PM the recruit with only a few minutes left in the dayphase so I’d hear back asap and we’d kill you at night if you declined. Imagine my rage when Snake says that doing so was too much of a loophole and we were forbidden from killing you at night. IT’S NOT A LOOPHOLE IF I DON’T EVEN KNOW THE RULES . Not to mention that I could no longer send you the long persuasive PM I’d typed up, one I was almost sure would succeed :3. I’ll show it to you at some point. I recognized that you’d be kind of hesitant to join a mafia that lost two people night 1: Anyone would. But the PM was to explain to you that the mafia isn’t actually in that bad of a shape, though the loss of Viero and Weldar hurt us a bit, and to entice you into, as you said, starting another Game 3 situation with me as your partner. We could work together to capture the wild Squirtle :3

Smash sent me THIS at the end of day 2:

Spoiler:

This was beautiful. I gained a little faith in the idea of smashbro trusting me, and I finally saw my chance here with Requiem. I did THIS in response:

Spoiler:

I avoided mentioning you to Perry at this point, I talked about Perry being innocent as a possible way to gain his trust, and mentioned Req’s votesteal and added a couple red herrings in the form of suspicion against DF, Sonix, and especially Relmitos. I also again downplayed td260’s role.

If Perry lives to see the day, there’s a good chance he’ll contact me or smashbro now. I’m hoping he goes for me, as I want as much control of this alliance as possible. I could have myself a third puppet. Relmitos, if he isn’t lynched, (and I doubt he will be unless we play this exceedingly well) could be a fourth, based on how much he defended me.


So there you have it. Right now I’m posed as one of the two heads of a town coalition, and have effectively gained control of Requiem, Smashbro, and hopefully Perry. I think that if necessary I could get Relmitos under my thumb as well, but right now he makes a pretty decent scapegoat for the lynch.

We need an order of lynches. Ideally we want to get attention off td260 in a good, subtle way. If we play our cards right we can win on day 5 or 6. I’d love to see a mafia win right now, given the situation we’ve clawed our way out of. I’m not counting on anything though. We have to play it safe. We can’t assume we’ve won even if we can arguably force a tie by controlling Req today.

Have I ever mention how much I love you Q?

This is a lot to digest, but it's rather brilliant. You've done your homework indeed.

I've learned that I should not post in mafia games unless I can think about what i'm saying. -.- the post I slipped in I had typed at work on my phone, and I only realized after I was accused that I had seriously screwed up the wording in the post.