A Tale of Flummery and Doom

[Randyxpxp]

The Serial Killer, the Mafioso, and the Witch: A Tale of Flummery and Doom

Alright look. I know this game is somewhat complicated. I’m not going to BS and act like this is the simplest game in the world. It’s not. It’s actually one of the more complicated games on the market, certainly more complex in many respects than the typical shooters and other such games out there. Town of Salem involves a convoluted confluence of chance, chaos, deception, manipulation, logic, and neutrality. It’s a beautiful game in my eyes, ultimately. However, what ruins this game for someone like me is the players. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. It’s not the game. It’s the players. I get that a lot of players in this game are teenagers or whatever, but damnit I know a teenage girl who is one of the best players out there. Your age shouldn’t matter if you take the time to learn the game, invest your thought and energy into playing to win, and therefore enjoy yourself more than you would if you remained willfully ignorant and sheepish. So, having said all that, I have a little story from Classic All Any again, this time about a fellow serial killer in a double SK game, and the kingmake scenario they found themself in, a scenario that, given how many times I’ve survived situations like it before, I more than likely would have engineered in my favor. I’ve played this game too much, so much that, especially in kingmakes like this, I can usually intuit an optimal strategy within seconds and employ it effectively. In contrast, there is a certain kind of player who not only doesn’t form a solid strategy on the fly, but goes so far as to simply not say anything at all and instead let themselves be taken advantage of by others. Well I know what this game is about. I know these towns are murderous, deceitful, selfish places where people plot against each other and lie and exploit. This isn’t Candyland. This is Salem. And in Salem, if you want to not just play the game but win, you’d better know what you’re doing, and you’d better not trust anyone without question. Trust can be valuable, but it commonly proves the downfall of many residents of these sick, depraved towns.

To give some brief context, here’s what happened the day before the final three. There’s at least one arsonist alive, at least one serial killer, and at least one mafia member. (Three mafia members were dead, and no amnesiac had remembered mafia, so there could only be one mafia member alive.) This is all known by deduction from the kill log. The fourth role is yet unknown. They lynch the arsonist. At this point, there is a serial killer left, a mafia killer, and an unknown. We’re going to examine this situation from the serial killer’s perspective. As the arsonist is being lynched, one of the other two people alive claims executioner, and claims that the other person alive is their target. The exe claim also asks the SK not to attack them. The arsonist’s role is revealed, and night falls. Now, with all this information in mind, let’s consider this.

• There is a confirmed mafia killer alive, either a mafioso or godfather. This is known by the fact there was a mafia kill the night before, and no mafioso or godfather died that night, nor was anyone cleaned. It is a 100% certainty here that one of the other two people alive is the last mafia.
• If the executioner claim is true, and the other person alive is their target, that would mean neither of them is mafia, since executioner can only have town or vampire as its target. Therefore, this definitively implies the executioner claim is lying, since there is a mafia member still alive, and hence this person cannot be exe with a town/vamp target. It’s not possible. It’s logically impossible, given what the serial killer knows. The serial killer knows for a fact that one of the other two is mafia. This means the executioner claim is lying, since the role schema they describe is literally impossible.
• Since the executioner claim is lying, this naturally raises the question of what their motive to lie is. Now, while some inexperienced players might take a late exe claim like this at face value, once you’ve played this game long enough, you not only immediately discern the falsity of this claim, you also see the likely reason this lie was told. In this case, the exe claim is almost certainly the last mafia, who wants the serial killer to not attack them, since an actual executioner will have basic defense, and serial killer also wins with executioner and can be used by an executioner to lynch the exe’s target. In reality, this person cannot possibly be an executioner according to their own logic. They’re lying, and it’s clear upon basic analysis that they’re probably lying about being an executioner because they don’t want to be attacked. Their hope is that the serial killer will attack the other person, and perhaps this person will survive the attack somehow, after which the last mafia can get the serial killer lynched. Furthermore, if the executioner claim is a godfather, they may intend to use their exe claim as an explanation of their defense, should the SK attack them. However, more than likely, they’re faking exe so they aren’t attacked, and they’re more than likely mafioso given this information.

In many versions of this scenario, the SK would either attack the fake exe’s “target” and kill the person, resulting in an auto-win for the SK, or the SK would attack the fake exe and either kill them or the fake exe would somehow survive. It’s even possible that the fake exe would be guarded by a bodyguard (the third person), and the BG could kill the SK. If I was this serial killer, I almost certainly would have attacked the exe claim, since they’re clearly lying and they clearly seem to not want to be attacked. I may also kill the other person instead, since if the fake exe claim is mafia I auto-win against them anyway, they could be godfather rather than mafioso, and the third person could even be a sleeper jailor who has the fake exe claim jailed and will execute them. These are all considerations to make here. In any case, I would be inclined to kill the exe claim, since it’s evident they’re lying and trying to pretend to have basic defense. Instead, this serial killer decided to attack the fake exe’s alleged target, and this is what happened.

In the morning, no one is dead. The fake exe continues with their line that the third person is their target, and they ask the serial killer to vote them up. They also ask whether the SK is SK. The SK votes up the “target” with the exe claim, and the target claims witch both before trial and on the stand. Their witch claim seems genuine and the exe claim then claims mafia and suggests they lynch the serial killer, whose identity the mafioso has deduced. The mafioso calls for the witch to be voted innocent, and, even after a 20 second defense and a 20 second judgment, and even after the exe claim has now claimed mafia and clearly voted innocent on the witch claim, the serial killer decides to vote guilty, and the witch is pardoned by a split vote. Although the witch has been friendly and made it clear they win with both mafia and SK, they naturally vote against the SK with the mafioso. At this point, the SK still has a chance to turn the tables. They can give any manner of defense or tell any number of lies to get the witch to vote innocent. Instead, they basically say nothing, mutter some meaningless bullshit, and let the witch lynch them without question. Now, if I haven’t made it clear already, let me just explain why this illustrates how supremely stupid this player this.

First and foremost, they apparently attacked the witch the night before, and not the fake exe claim. The fake exe claim was indeed mafioso. If the SK attacked the witch, they would receive no defense message, and in this case, the witch survived. If you’ve learned the basics of the game, you know that a witch’s mystical barrier doesn’t grant a defense message to an attacker. Instead, the attacker receives no message. This is one of the ways in which evils can identify witches. So from the outset here, once the SK attacks the witch like this, they should know this person is either witch or doctor before the person even claims. The only possibilities here are either A) they’re a witch, B) they’re a doctor who self-healed, or C) they’re mafia and the fake exe claim is a doctor who healed them. Whichever scenario is true, the fake exe is TRYING TO LYNCH THEM. It would be crystal clear to me here that this person is a witch, especially after they claim witch like that. I already know the exe claim is fake, and after I’ve attacked this other person and they haven’t died, I can safely deduce they’re a witch. The simplest strategy to get the last mafia lynched, then, is to merely whisper the apparent witch, observe the other person is trying to lynch them, and suggest we lynch the one trying to lynch them. That’s exactly what I would have done here. Not only would I have read the exe claim for a fake, and likely mafioso faking exe, but had I attacked the witch instead, I would have used the mafioso’s own efforts to get the witch lynched against them, and more than likely lynched the mafioso with the witch. Rather than intuit this very basic, very simple strategy, the SK neither attacked the clearly fake exe nor tried to get them lynched, but instead apparently fell for the exe’s lie and even guiltied the witch, even after the confessed mafioso called for them to be voted innocent. I’m sorry, folks, but you really can’t get any sheepier than this. This is sheep play at its finest. Again, I recognize this game is somewhat complicated, and certainly not the simplest game in existence, but I personally feel these are essentially simple considerations, which form essentially simple strategies.

The exe claim is fake? Why is it faking? It’s probably mafioso trying to stay safe.
I attacked the other person and they didn’t die, but I didn’t see a message? That’s probably witch. Whatever their role is, the fake exe is publicly trying to get them lynched, and I can use this aggression against the fake and get this person to lynch them with me. If, for whatever reason, I somehow decide it’s a good idea to vote up the apparent witch, I will make absolutely sure to vote innocent, given the circumstances, because if I vote guilty and the confessed mafioso votes innocent, that looks very bad on me, and I’ll probably be lynched. You would think this is all very basic and straightforward, but in reality it’s anything but for some players. For some players, this seems to be an exceptionally complicated situation, while for seasoned players who know what they’re doing and have been around a town or two, it’s obvious that the play here is to either kill the fake exe that night or, once you’ve identified the apparent witch, use the fake exe’s own aggression against them. Whatever you do, you don’t just stand there and say nothing and vote guilty on the tarnation witch. You don’t get sheeped. You use the wolf’s attempt to sheep you to your advantage, by turning their hostility on its head. Had I been in this scenario and had I not attacked the fake exe, I would have just whispered the witch, observed the fake is trying to lynch them, and gotten the fake lynched instead. This is a phenomenally simple, phenomenally straightforward approach that only requires a few whispers and a few votes, nothing more, nothing less. But for some reason, this profoundly basic flummery is too difficult for these people, and instead they’d rather let someone else tell them what to do. Well that’s not how smart players play. Smart players aren’t going to sit there and mindlessly vote up the goddamn witch. Call me narcissistic if you want, but damnit I don’t know how much more of this flummery I can take. It’s really started to wear on my sanity more than ever before, and I’ve seriously reached the point where I just do not understand how you could make a ToS account, log in, and queue for a match, yet not have the baseline intelligence to discern these very basic facts, particularly when you have the wherewithal to make it to this kingmake in the first place. This player claimed to be new, in all fairness to them. However, in all fairness to the reality of the simplicity of this, if you understand enough about the game to actively kill as SK, type in chat, vote against others, understand what an exe claim is, and vote someone up in a final three, you should damn well have the mental capacity to discern the obvious issues I described, and if that mental capacity isn’t exercised to do so, then as far as I’m concerned it’s because you didn’t invest the effort to think deeply enough about the game from the outset. I know I’m a tryhard. I also troll a lot, and I don’t always take this game seriously. But when I see something like this, a situation where a mafioso pretty much calls for a witch to be lynched, this is something any decent serial killer should be able to manipulate to their advantage. We’re not talking about a kingmake here where no one had said anything or made any claims. This is a kingmake where the mafioso is being unnecessarily hostile to a witch, and the serial killer can easily use this against the mafioso to get the witch to lynch them. It’s not hard, man… This kind of thing is really not hard. I would like to hope this kind of player will improve over time, and they probably will to some extent, but I’m also convinced that there is a significant segment of the ToS player base that is just fundamentally foolish, and will always be that way, because they’re foolish people to begin with, and that folly manifests itself in complex strategy games like this. So if I sound tilted, it’s not just because of the players in this game itself, but because of what the widespread folly and flummery in this game indicates about humanity, and how despicably daft these tarnation bumfuzzles are.

TL;DR An SK screwed up a final three kingmake between a mafioso and a witch big time when they could have just attacked the mafioso the night before or gotten the witch to lynch the mafioso for being hostile. Tarnation flummery.

[EgyptFalcon]

However, what ruins this game for someone like me is the players. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. It’s not the game. It’s the players.

What ruins this forum for someone like me is Randyxpxp. I've said this before and I'll say it again. It's not anyone else. It's Randyxpxp.

Also wtf are you doing complaining about a Chaos mode. Of course you're gonna get kids that have no idea what's going on and just wanna spam chat and make your mom jokes. If you want to play serious games play ranked and climb elo like the rest of us. Whatever you do, stop spamming your salt here.

[lalasex]

k babe

[GrumpyGoomba]

k