Mafia: The Return of Ashtan

Aldric

This is the game thread for the current mafia game.

If you've never played on the forums and would like an example of how a game goes here, this is the latest successful example.

Da Rulez:

- Each round is divided into one day and one night.

- During the day, everyone can talk and discuss among themselves. Voting also occurs during this time, and when a majority has been reached I'll announce the death.

- A successful lynch ends the day phase of the round.

- During the night you may talk, but you may not vote.

- The night phase is over when all of the power folks PM me with what they want to do. If you don't respond in a timely manner, you'll forfeit the opportunity to do so for that round.

Note: I'm going to consider 'a timely manner' no longer than twelve hours for the sake of keeping the game going.

- I'll try my best to keep day rounds going as smoothly as possible. If I notice things start slugging off, I'm going to announce that there's 'x hours left in the round' upon which point the person with the highest number of votes will be lynched.

- You may send me PMs to have an anonymous message posted. I'll get to these as quickly as I can.

(Put this separate and bolded because it's something people tend to forget sometimes)

Background:

A group of former-Ashtani citizens rallied together to rebuild the once (in)famous city of Ashtan just off the coast of the old location. The former guilds that once called Ashtan home made quick work of finding their way back, eager to hopefully prevent the same reputation the previous city once held from forming. The city, shining and new - and significantly easier to navigate - has received the attention of numerous people seeking to rise to fame and lead a city to hopeful glory. 

It also; however, attracted the attention of the Dreikathi. Irritated to the extreme that the citizenry would dare name a city after the one they'd fought so hard to raze down, they decided the only suitable course of action would be to rip this one apart too. Fearful that Alexina would just appear and slay all their dragons again, they decided to eschew the whole raiding  by dragon jig. Utilizing the latest in Ylem technologies, the Dreikathi have elected to instead disguise themselves as lowly citizens and destroy the city from the inside.

The Roles:

The Ascendril - The Ascendril can weave a reflection around one person per night, strong enough to protect him or her from any would-be attackers for the night.

The Sentaari - The Sentaari can kill TWO people throughout the course of the game with mind radiance. After two attempts the Dreikathi probably wouldn't fall for it again and would take advantage of that heavy EQ knock.

Note: This can be done at any time, day or night. The kill will go through as soon as I get your PM.

The Bahkatu - The Bahkatu is capable of sniffing out one person per night to discern their loyalty.

The Citizens - The fine, upstanding citizens of Ashtan. 

The Marzpawns - The Polemarch's underlings, these guys want nothing more than to see Ashtan destroyed. Every night they'll come to a majority vote and murder one of the Ashtani.

The Polemarch - The head honcho of the Dreikathi leading this current invasion - he gets all the best ylem weapons. Using his superior ylem tech, he's able to make an investigation on a person reveal the opposite of their role. This is an active defense, and he/she can only keep it going  on one person at a time.

Note: You'll have to PM me the person you want to use this on whenever you'd like. If you use it on somebody, but send me no further instructions, I'll assume you're leaving that person the target.

Players:

Aryanne

Piper

Moirean

Toz

Draiman

Ilyon

Demarcus

Omei

Minarael

Teani

Vharen

Aren

Macavity

Meskhenet

Damonicus

Periluna

Xenia

Etrigan

Llok

A rule I forgot to mention earlier: You MAY NOT paste PM messages to other players to verify roles. This also includes screenshots, etc. etc. Don't ruin the fun

Aldric

The game has NOT yet begun. I'm sending role PMs out as we speak. Next post will announce the game beginning.

Aldric

Holy traders.

Glancing around the boatyards, you wouldn't have even begun to think Ashtan was capable of housing this many people. Merchants seemed to be hawking their wares before even stepping out of the boats they'd arrived in, and citizens eager for the cheapest items pooled like a second body of water just nearby. 

A piercing scream seemed to do quite the job of grabbing everybody's attention, sending the frenzied mass rushing towards one of the smaller trade ships that seemed to be the source of the scream. Upon the dock the ship had been tied to a Rajamalan trader woman stared in fear at a corpse that seemed to be bobbing up and down just under the improvised bridge she'd used to board the dock.

The corpse seemed to have been cut in numerous places with a needle-thin blade, the criss-cross series of cuts that line the body allowing one to allude to a death by bleeding out. 

"Hey, what's that?" one of the citizens asked, squinting towards the corpse. He waved a few nearby people over to help him hoist the corpse out of the water. The crowd gasped in horror as they realized a sentence had been incised into the poor man's forehead, likely with the same blade that caused the dozens of other cuts:

"ALL YOUR YLEM ARE BELONG TO US."

DAY 1 HAS BEGUN

4 Marzpawns remain

The Polemarch is alive

The Sentaari is alive

The Bahkatu is alive

The Ascendril is alive

11 Citizens remain

Aren

Omei, cause she totally disfavored a city over me.

Demarcus

Sorry Vharen, after randomizing a list of participants a number of times equal to the number of participants, you drew the last straw.

Vote: Vharen

Moirean

Vote: Toz

for storing our babeh in his pack

Meskhenet

Vote: Aren

Just ya know, for choking Mesk that one time.

Toz

It benefits scum to start a random vote early on the first day, interestingly enough. While random is best for townies, 'random' is best for scum- sure you randomized it 19 times. How many times did you randomize 19 times in order to get that set of results, with no scum at the bottom? Of course you want to kill me for 'putting the baby in a pack' (euphemism???) - or you're SCUM. Etc. etc. Let the paranoia begin, I suppose?

Minarael

Toz is stirring up too much dissent for flimsy reasons. Clearly, he's trying to deflect attention towards anyone but himself.

Vote: Toz

Omei

I would like to suggest that the Bahkatu roleclaim. The scum in this game have no roleblocker or investigator, and there's no solo killer on the scum side - only a way of setting people up to look guilty, and with the Bahkatu in the public eye, we can start organizing the town and having the Bahkatu sniff people out. That's not, thanks to the framer role (the Polemarch) a 100% guarantee, but it's better than a totally uninformed majority. My guess is that unless the Polemarch wants to dilute their effectiveness, they will be focusing on a single target until said target bites the bullet. Switching from round to round severely lowers their chances of fouling up the Bahkatu.

That said - withholding my vote for now.

Vharen

Vote: Demarcus

Cause I'm a spiteful wench. Best recognize.

Edit: Edited for teh red font.

Damonicus

The problem I see with Roleclaiming right now if giving an advantage to the scum. if multiple people roleclaim as the bear, no one can prove otherwise. The scum can easily by pass killing the bear every round as long as the citizens keep on lynching themselves, or the citizens lynch the bear. It also would lock up the mage for they would have to pick one or the other to reflect just to make sure that the bear was still alive.

Aryanne

Just to be clear, do we have four Marzpawns AND one Polemarch (five baddies), or do the Marzpawns INCLUDE the Polemarch (four baddies)? The description makes it sound like the former, but I wanted to be sure I'm understanding totally.

Draiman

This is my first time playing, so I don't know how I feel about anyone role claiming anything. Not saying it's a bad or good idea, I'm just not sold on it either way.


As far as the first day random lynching everyone seems to be going on, I don't see how this could -ever- be a good idea. If we get lucky and lynch scum, awesome, but what if we lynch the Ascendril, Bahkatu, or Sentaari? We're stuck at a disadvantage because of a shot in the dark just for the sake at progressing the game.

So I'm witholding my vote for now as well.

Aldric

@Aryanne: We have 4 Marzpawns and 1 Polemarch, making a total of five baddies.

Vote count: 

Omei: (1) Aren

Vharen: (1) Demarcus

Toz: (2) Moirean, Minarael

Aren: (1) Meskhenet

Demarcus: (1) Vharen

That said, reminder: Please remember to vote clearly, (red font being the standard) as such:

Vote: Aldric

It makes it much easier for me to separate votes from the rest of your text.

Toz

I'm not stirring up dissent per se, just suggesting that those who are jumping to form trains early on under the guise of 'lol first day random voting wheeeee' may not be so innocent as they appear. My experience with Mafia is admittedly limited, but that seems like a solid gambit to make. The first day is a crapshoot, little to go on, etc. so you can always use ignorance/poor luck as your shield. 

Damonicus

So after thinking about it for a bit, a plan may be for the Sentaari to Role claim. Now if more then one claims, the sentaari can take that person out right off the bat. Now the refelctor and bear would need to pm the sentaari and start on lynches through the Sentaari, if the sentaari gets more then one pm from each role, then he would have to wait until either the reflector or the bear gets lynched from the scum. Then the Sentaari can take out the ones that claimed to be a bear or mage through thier special.

Xenia

I don't think that the bahkatu should role claim because there's still the Sentaari can kill at any time. Assuming the Sentaari is not aligned with the city. If that is the case, then it would be a really bad for the town to lose their Bahkatu in the first few days. 

In regards to voting on day one, I think randomly voting a citizen really doesn't help the town and in my experience, it even forces role claims that potentially harm the city through losing a power early on. Last game I think I was a bit too over zealous and hasty to just end the rounds. My instincts are to Vote No one, however, Omei's request for the Bakhatu to claim this early really makes me suspicious. 

For this reason, I am voting Omei. 

Omei

The Sentaari is aligned with the city as well.

Also, you just said randomly voting doesn't help the town, and yet here you are using a grand precedent of one post to attempt a train against me. Hypocrisy, much?

You're going to need to do better than that.

Moirean

I think if we're careful, we can roleclaim early on as long as only ONE role is doing the claiming, as there isn't a rogue role like the Syssin making trouble. Simply roleclaim one role and keep that role protected anonymously and use that person as our point of contact. 

As far as who to claim, the Sentaari seems the better suggestion, as they are more expendable, imho.

Omei

Very well.

I am the Sentaari.

Xenia will be dying shortly to prove it.

Bye, Xenia.

Vharen

That sounds a whee bit defensive on top of not making much sense, Omei. She said random was bad, and then used a reason. And with the limited information available now, any reason can be better than no reason.

Xenia

Omei, I'm not trying to train against you, just didn't understand that the Sentaari was city aligned. Still, it's suspicious, I think, to ask for a role claim early in the game. It's not a random name out of a hat vote. 

Omei

She used shaky reasoning based on a basic misunderstanding of my role, attempted to shoddily justify why I was wrong, and then committed the exact same sin that she accused me of. The idea of roleclaiming is not a bad one, especially in a game where a single roleclaim can be defended until the Ascendril dies.

I was making tactical sense. Xenia jumped the gun.

Mind radiances fall, she dies.

Omei

Added note: The town gains nothing from being shy and retiring. If we want to win this game, we have to be bold, declarative, and use every advantage, meta- and otherwise, at our disposal. Of course I am defensive. Why wouldn't I be defensive when someone is voting for me? Do you expect me to simply lie back and tacitly accept every badly-constructed bit of criticism that is concocted by my enemies?

No. I am going to protest. I am going to defend myself and argue until I am dead. Why is defense viewed as more offensive than attack in this game? Do you all not realize how this works? We have an informed minority trying to whittle us down, and if we accept everything everyone says without question they will win.

Any questions?

No.

Didn't think so.

The goodbye's still pending, Xenia. I don't trust you.

Xenia

Awww, Omei you're so mean  

I didn't hit refresh before sending my response. Well played, anyway.

Damonicus

First off, the idea of role claiming was not a bad idea @Omei, it was what you wanted claimed. Hence why I believe Xenia went after you. Like I said in my previous post, the Sentaari can be the only one who role claims, cause they can defend themselves. What I disagree with is you wasting a shot on Xenia until we find out what role she may be.  I'd ask you take it back, and just wait it out a bit more and see what happens.  Wait until you get pm'd by the bear and mage, then instead of wasting it, we can sacrifice a citizen at this point to open up the bears chance of finding a scum.

Vharen

Defensive is one thing, but you seem outright petulant.

Omei

If I don't kill someone, my roleclaim is useless and easily disputed. I could be anyone - think about it.

This way, we confirm it, and it's Xenia's bad luck she got to be the target. I'm fairly certain she's scum, anyway, and if she's not you have my apology. She dies for the greater good, in either case.

Aldric

"Yeah, I'll take two of those ylemshard-covered panties," Xenia offhandedly said with a nod to one of the Ursal tradesmen set up just off the docks. Just as she went to hand over a fistful of change, she closed her eyes and staggered, eliciting a confused glance from the merchant.

"You alright?" he asked, eyeing the woman warily.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she answered, shaking her head as if to rid herself of whatever the nauseating feeling was. "Just saw some weird images all of a sudden, think I drank too much last night is all."

She certainly wasn't fine, though. In but a few short moments the woman's eyes widened in a display of pure terror just before she crumpled to the ground in a tattered heap. As her body hit the docks, a note slipped from her pocket and into plain sight that read, "You've been given your instructions. Blend in with them, do not do anything to draw suspicion. Our time will come shortly."

Xenia's mind has been burnt to a crisp by the Sentaari.

She was one of the Marzpawns

Omei

Okay, now can we start listening to me?