After emptying a number of bank vaults together, you've finally been caught by the long arm of the law. Luckily the prosecutors only had enough evidence for your latest crime and the amount of time you have to spend in jail is relatively minor.

However, rumors in jail are that two of your gang of the magnificent seven are talking to lawyers and cops about making a deal. Having two, or even one, of your team tell all they know to the cops will means sitting in jail for the rest of your lives for the others. Clearly this is not acceptable and the rats have to be found out, and... taken care of, before all of you have been ratted out on.

You agree to meet up and decide who might be the rats and make them have an "accident". After such an accident you will of course all be locked up for questioning and unable to communicate for a while, which is when the rats can choose to rat out one of the others.

There are two rats, who will sell you out if you don't stop them. There is one cop, and doctor and three townies.

RULES:
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The Golden Mod Rule: I'm always right. If you think I've made a mistake, you're wrong (but let me know anyway, and I might go ahead and make some changes for completely unrelated reasons).

Have fun.

Start of Day 2
Start of Day 3

1. Digging tunnels:
2. Carmine
3. Dasquian
4. Dubya (was Sleffie)
5. Hi Colonic (was Armana)
6. Tick

   Pushing up the daisies:

7. Jelnor
8. Loxca (was La Paloma)

Awesome! I guess that means I was the last to reply, sorry guys ops:

Anyway, I have been out of the mafia game for a while and haven't been giving this game much thought ("Yeah right!", comes a voice from somewhere near the back, but it's true!) so I will have a longer post later, but this very small, known setup allows us a lot of chance to work out our best game theory. Things we probably want to discuss:

- Do we want to out the cop/doctor today?
- Do we want to set out a clear plan of action for the cop or doctor's night actions?
- Do we want to consider a no lynch today?

Just so I don't go off the deep end... Mono? Am I correct in remembering that this is the same as your last 7-player game, ie publicly known that there are 2 mafia, 1 cop, 1 doc, 3 townies?

I personally don't ever see the point of outing cops/doctors on the first day of any game, and it always makes me suspicious when people suggest it (especially very first post of the game--geesh Dasquian--anxious much?)...but if there's some overall reason why this is actually a good idea for this type of game setup, I'm all ears. I can't imagine you coming out with that your first post if there isn't some sort of feasible explanation behind it...

I don't really like no-lynches either, unless they're very well thought out and very, very necessary...and in fact, can't see why this would help us. Doesn't that just give us no chance to get a baddie and gives them an extra night to knock one of us off? Seeing as noone has even spoken, much less had the chance to slip up or 'seem suspicious' to us, I think the idea is a bit premature.

Posted By: Dasquian

- Do we want to out the cop/doctor today?
- Do we want to set out a clear plan of action for the cop or doctor's night actions?
- Do we want to consider a no lynch today?

I don't really like any of the options. It does still leave a lot of second guessing and everything if we "lay out the plans" but then there are all sorts of things that can go wrong if the person varies from the plan, or it just leaves it a bit too predictable.

The no lynch, I'm also a bit wary of, as since we've been given this first night because of how iffy things could and would get if we screwed up our first lynch in a regular game, it kinda seems like simply giving up that advantage, to me.

And the outting of the cop/doctor is something I'd, well, like to leave to the cop or the doctor. At the very least, I'd imagine it'd be best to leave the doctor not outted (unless we strayed too far from our mark) so as to leave at least some possibility of the mafia picking the wrong person, should they gun for him.

May as well start off with a nice vote Dasquian because of all of those so-called suggestions of his. Oh yes. Just like a rat to gather our responses to that sort of information. Hmph.

There is an advantage in the doc coming out today, potentially. Here's the strategy, as I understand it (I have never put it to use before or seen it discussed first-hand, so I don't claim that it's watertight in the slightest):

Posted By: Mafiascum wisdom

Day 1: Cop and doc come out. Assuming no counter-claims, you have two confirmed innocents. Lynch one of the other 5 and either get a mafia or a townie.

Night 2: Cop investigates, doc protects cop and probably dies themself.

Day 2a: If you got a mafia on Day 1, you now have the cop, three townies and a mafia. The cop also inspected someone so you either have two confirmed innocents and hence a shortlist of three potentials or the last mafia inspected.

Day 2b: More likely, a townie was lynched Day 1. You now have the cop, two townies and two mafia. The cop inspected someone so you have a shortlist of three people containing both mafia, or a shortlist of three people containing one mafia and the other mafia inspected.

The strategy is still risky, as the in either case you're presented with a shortlist on Day 2 containing innocents, and whether there are one or two mafia in that list, if all of the townies are lynched, we lose. But, if it wasn't risky, this setup would be unplayable for the mafia

I also don't know how counterclaims to the cop and doc on Day 1 affect the way things pan out. I can only imagine it's good for the town, though, as it makes it even easier to work out how the mafia must be distributed.

Posted By: La Paloma

I also don't think that "Follow-The-Cop" is the most fun way to play. But playing against opponents who aren't really trying to win is also not fun. And following the Cop is built into the game, and probably necessary in a game this small.

This is also my concern; I don't want to play-by-numbers and reduce the game to a statistical exercise, but if it's good game theory that can help us I am actually (a) playing badly by not being helpful and (b) playing badly by drawing suspicion onto myself by withholding usefult thoughts by not at least sharing it. In any case, I think since no game theory at this point can guarantee success, there's still a lot of game to play

We can of course not go for the plan at all; that's fine too and if nothing else we'll have got the ball rolling talking about it. I do suspect though that the things that can go wrong with the plan aren't nearly as bad as the things that can go wrong without it (outing the doc and not the cop, lynching the doc, lynching a townie today and the cop dying tonight, etc).

Bah. *shakes fist at Dasquian* :x

Of the top of my head, without thinking about any probabilities, possible outcomes I would tend towards the cop not outing himself on day 1. Obviously in thie scenario it would be madness for the doctor to out themselves so it is definitely a one-in all-in thing.

If the numbers show that it is in our best interest for them to come forward then perhaps they should, but if it is close to an even money thing I'd much rather play the game with them not outing themselves straight away as it would be much more fun then just number crunching and voting based on probabilities.

As for no-lynch, it may have benefits if the cop and/or doc get lucky but I think it will leave us behind the 8-ball quite severely, if we are to vote no lynch, doc does nothing, cop finds out someone is a townie, and we lose a townie in the night.
This will be even worse if the mafia kill the person the cop inevstigated. leaving us on day 2 with 6 people alive, 2 mafia, 4 unconfirmed townies.

Posted By: tick

Obviously in thie scenario it would be madness for the doctor to out themselves

I simply disagree with this statement. A doctor is usually a long-term investment, and this setup does not have a long-term. Outing the doctor gives us a confirmed townie, which is quite conceivably a lot more valuable to the town than a hidden doctor (hidden, may I add, amongst 5 townies - already significant odds for the mafia to pick him/her out). I'm not saying it is definitely right to out the doctor, but it's certainly not madness to consider it.

Another thing I'd say is that although I hate the idea reducing the game to statistics, we will still have to get two lynches right and no more than one lynch wrong to win! The best the outed cop+doc can do is catch a mafia night 1 and even if they do, we still have to find the other one the good old-fashioned way.

This is solid metagaming, here, but it's part and parcel of having such a small and well-understood setup. To not think through the best way to proceed is a town not giving itself the best chance of winning. Also, because the setup is small and known, normally idiotic plays (such as outing the doctor on day 1) can be quantified and found worthy of consideration.

hmm.. maybe it wasn't as clear as I thought when I wrote it. I mean in the scenario of the cop not outing themselves, it would be madness for the doc to out themselves...

Since I've been out of the loop in playing Mafia, I'll be moving along a list for my first post.

*Generic: Hello, I am here.*
Hallo!

* Comment among the lines of the theme.*
Damn rats! We must get them good!

* In case of death, comment on death. *
...

* Random vote or not? * (Did I get a random vote? Should I OMGUS?)
I think this orange prison-outfit sucks, therefor I'll randomly VOTE CARMINE because this made me giggle:

Day 1:
Cop: Hello, I'm the cop!
Doc: Hello, I'm the doctor!

* Comment on current things that've been said. *

Hmm... that'll take a while to re-read some.

Whilst pretty much everything has been said mostly there's still another possibility that's not covered, which should suit everybody who doesn't 'want to play by the numbers' and such very well.

When the cop does out himself, but the doc doesn't... who says the doctor is going to be protecting the cop? Yeah, it's the obvious thing to do, because if the mafia target the cop and he dies, it makes everyone very sad (except the mafia). But the mafia expect the cop to be protected, so they're not going to target the cop, they'll target someone else... they want to kill the pesky doctor. Shame that doctor didn't out himself!

It's very wine-in-front-of-me-esque, yes... but still shouldn't be disregarded as a possible thing that could happen.

Suppose ione side is feeling ballsy, and the other isn't... town is at an advantage.

Suppose they're both sticking to 'the usual' there's a chance they get the doc, but at least the cop will have a result the next day, and we might still have the doc the next day.

If both sides get ballsy, the doc won't protect the cop and the mafia kill it. This would be the suck.

I dunno, the odds both sides get ballsy don't seem that high... taking a risk and not sticking to the general 'best' gameplay for this setup as per the aformentioned Mafiascum lore might turn out good, it might not, at least it's interesting!

Aaaaand, if none of that made any sense. I blame it on it being 4:42am... and I'll try and explain what the hell I'm on about after sleeping, I figured I'd try and add new stuffs anyway.