I just want to start putting things into perspective.

(1. Five Townies, two Mafia
(2. Four Townies, one Detective, two Mafia
(3. Four Townies, one Doctor, two Mafia
(4. Three Townies, one Doctor, one Detective, two Mafia

This are the possible scenarios. I don''t want to be riskful, but the longer we wait the more the mafia can manipulate us ... well maybe not ... but that''s a possibility.

What are you thinking guys. Can anyone of you dare to spread the players as "gut feeling" or would you say that''s too risky. At this point I''m not sure, that''s why I''m asking.

By that do you mean that we should all make a vote and try to elimanate somone do to our gut feeling?

If that is what you mean i would have to say no. It is possible we might get rid of a mafia but i think its too risky. Not enough has been said yet. from what i can tell neither mafia member has slipped.

I do however think we should start questionin people a little more though. Not right now but soon i will try to question someone who looks suspicious.

until then, good luck.

fufu ... I didn''t say that. Sorry if you misunderstood.

I just asked if it would be wise ... not to actually do it?.

Okay then i am sorry about that, I did in fact miss read what you said. I do however still plan to do some questioning.

Can you rephrase, Gueritol? I''m having a little bit of trouble understanding what you''re saying.

I will say that your statement "the longer we wait, the more the mafia can manipulate us" is wrong. The only way they will be able to manipulate us is if we let them. No manipulation can stand up to long, rigorous discussion, but it is MUCH easier for the mafia to manipulate us while things are moving fast.

Sage,

As you have played mafia quite a few times (From the sounds of it), I am interested in you expounding on the ways that the mafia can manipulate us (if we let them).

Could you describe some details about how mafia manipulates townies? That would be helpful in us warding off some of their tricks - and at the least would send them down a narrower cooridor since they would know that we would be watching for the actions that you describe. Either way - it would be very helpful.

Jmac

Sure thing. I''ll get to that tomorrow...god knows that I''m better at mafia than at town, so I''ll have a lot to say.

Well very ... very simple. Look at the past game. It was a train wreck all over.

To Sage:

I just wanted to know if it would be a good idea to propose one of the scenarios and fill in our best guess on who is playing what role.

Kind''a like you proposed for the player below but for the whole clan and they role.

I don''t know if it is too early, and it would muddy the waters more than it''s convenient ... or it will quickly rid us of one of the two baddies. I''m a bit in the middle, inclined a little bit to thinking that it will muddy the waters more than we want ... and allow mafia to hide in the murkiness. But nevertheless I wanted to know what you all tought ... it has also educational value for the game playing techniques.

Now on regards to the manipulation, I''m also undecided but more inclined to thinking that the more we allow false, confusing, diverting arguments from the mafia to pop-out, the more that we expose ourselves. Again I''m not fully commited to that train of tought, and are open to hear the pluses and the minus.

I feel a bit of inclination to what Sage wants to go and disect, probe and analyze ... which I don''t think is bad ... but it has is risk ... if you analyze something which is a lie for a truth ... a wrong decision will be taken ... sure I understand that we might loose the round and expose the mafia for next ... and THAT is precisely the risk that I haven''t assessed to comfort. Risking the death of a townie to expose a mafia, is it worth it?

I feel also (though to a lesser extent) what Jmac is exposing that the risk of manipulation, and therefore mistake is incremented the longer we let it be.

So ... confusion overall not, but undecided ... yes.

So I''m willing to listen to ideas and points of view ... to help me tilt the balance of tought to one side or the other.

Oh.

There''s no way to know what roles are in the game, and if there IS a detective or doctor, we don''t want to help the mafia find them!

And I steadfastly say that a longer day makes it HARDER to manipulate us, not easier...more time means the mafia has to keep track of their web of lies for longer, making them more likely to trip.

Ok…now for my post about how I believe mafia would play this game.

Even if you guys don’t believe I’m town, you should pay attention to this. I won’t call myself the best manipulator on WoL, but plenty of other people have. :-P And I DID win Mafia 5 as the lone serial killer, overcoming the town and TWO mafias…so I must know something!

The way it is LIKELY mafia will play: If they could get the game to run like last game, they will. The mafia will want the day to go as quickly as possible, so they WILL attempt to play up on our impatience. By wary of anyone who tries to make the day go faster than is wise.

If we don’t let them do that, the game gets tougher for them…and us. If we were lucky enough to be assigned stupid mafia, they won’t change their tactics, and we’ll get them. But if we’re unlucky, somebody like Coopels is in the mafia, and THEN we have to look at how a SMART mafia will play:

In this size game, the mafia don’t necessarily have to work together…even less so if one player is very experienced and one player isn’t. If the experienced player can convince us that they’re town, we lose. That means that the experienced player can simply PLAY AS TOWN, even if that means lynching his partner…in fact, if I was mafia, I would DEFINITELY want to be on the voting bloc that did my partner in…maybe even lead the bandwagon.

I realize that pointing this out only makes me more suspicious…after all, I am playing ridiculously pro-town in this game. But this is a true strategy that we need to look out for. And, that only stresses the huge importance of LONG days. My worst case scenario is a Coopels mafia…and if the days are short, he’ll have no problems pretending to be town for that long. The only way we have a chance of smoking him out is to keep the fire under him for a looooong time.

Even then, he’s such a good player that I’m not sure we’d be able to.

And, of course, for the rest of you…I suppose the worst case scenario is ME being mafia. *shrugs* There’s no way I can make you trust me, other than having the detective (if there is one) investigate me…but that’s an investigation I’d rather see go to Coopels.

Another thing I imagine the mafia doing is trying to “sneak in” votes…voting in the vote thread without posting about it in the main thread. ANY TIME you see somebody do that, point it out…that is mafia behavior.

The best way to smoke out the mafia at this point is, sadly, to get the voting started just a little. We need to be cautious to make sure nobody gets lynched yet, but voting patterns will give us a TON to work with.

WOW! I never knew i frightened Sage that much in mafia, but since he mentions me so many times in that last post i guess i must slightly. I find it hilarious accually, but then again i also find those weird letters to be hilarious too.

The weird thing here is that it feels like we''re not really even playing this game, but trying to discuss the best ways to mafia in general. Right now it feels like i''m trying to figure out the people in this game based off of almost nothing besides discussion of future games. Does anyone else feel like this or am i just temporarily insane?

That''s because we kind of needed to sit down and talk about what we consistently do wrong every game. I''ll change that, though.

I''m going to Vote: Coopels.

but if you do that then nothing will ever change with this game in so many ways.

Right now i expect Sage is just testing how people are thinking and that''s why i don''t mind that he''s starting with me. In fact that''s pretty much what he said he was going to do. I know that people will probably follow his lead, but hopefully it wont end in disaster for everyone.

As for myself, i''m going to withhold a first vote until i''m more certain or at least even more than mildly suspicious of anyone. I''m hesitant to say this since we ARE looking for information about people, but right now i''m not comfortable with calling anyone out or saying someone is mafia. What i''m going to look at is what comes from Sage''s move...

OK, my turn to voice my thoughts on whats going on.

Gueritol seems suspicious to me by asking others if they should go on a "gut feeling" He could be a mafia member trying to get somebody on the town''s side killed.

Sage you seem suspicious to me by boasting about how well you play on the mafia side of the game and by being the first person to cast a vote in which it went towards coopels.

Minner, that was to remind you guys that I know what I''m talking about. Takes a thief to catch a thief and all that. It wasn''t some part of a mafia master plan to remind you guys how dangerous I was...that would be something I would try to play down.

Secondly, may I ask why voting is suspicious?

Alright, its monday and I am at work. So, my ''assignment'' is Fufu. Do not consider this attack on him or mistake it for any real suspicion of him.

Basically he hasn''t posted enough to actually say anything suspicious. That would normally be suspicious in an of itself, but I believe his explanation. What I do find suspicious is that the very little he has posted has always been accussatory on very little informaton. Pointing to Sage and Jmac as suspects immediately with very little reason other than, essentially, they were talking alot and then doing the same to Geritol is suspicious to me.

As to what I know of him outside this game, well, I will say I am surprised at how little he has posted. He started off very quiet last game and then really came on at the end.

I do see one connection. Both Fufu and Minner have followed the same theme of casting suspicion on Geritol for trying to get us to vote on ''gut feelings''. I am not so sure Geritol is trying to do that, but that is really the only connection I see between Fufu and anyone else.

Well Sage voting could be seen as suspicious seeing as you are the FIRST person t cast a vote. But since you gave valid reason as to why you cast this vote that should take all of the suspicion away from it.

And yes i agree being Mafia and telling everyone how good you are could be a very bad idea. However, i personnally dont beleive you to be mafia. But im still not taking you off the list just yet

Guys ... a grain of salt.

Sage, last game I played with you ... you even spelled out your role ... D O C T O R, and you were mafia.

Let me play now a game ... You want to initiate voting ... but don''t want to kill anyone yet ... so the votes need to be spread out.

So you vote for Coppels. That leaves Coppels, Fufu, nwmoss, The minner and myself.

Since the miner seems to think we''re all mafia, he''ll vote for anyone, but I''ll vote for you sage ... just to see what happens and not to pile votes on Coppels.

I want to see how people react to me poking around.

To Mwmoss, I didnt try to say the same thing fufu did, I really didnt read all of the posts to be honest, I kinda skimmed through and didnt really catch fufu''s post, sorry.

To sage, I dont see anything wrong with voting for people, but you were the first person to vote, which theres nothing wrong with, but you seem to be tryin to get the game to move a little quicker, which theres nothing wrong with, but you said that that when the game moves it moves quickly its in the mafia''s favor...

To Gueritol, I wont vote for anybody but I am quite suspicous of sage as of right now, no offense sage, but I must vote for you as well. If you''re on the town''s side I must say I''m terribly sorry...

I''m not quite ready to lynch anybody ... so I''ll remove my vote from Sage ... that should be safe for now.