Right, Andy's safe. Seven votes are needed to get rid of someone, and seven votes are still left, but as Andy's is one of them, he can't be voted out.
Karen could still be voted out if six more people agree.
It doesn't matter today, because Karen's already told us she's not a special, but as a general matter of strategy, if she were a special she should keep quiet about it to see if that consensus looks like it might develop, because it's now too late for us to get anyone apart from Karen, so she should (if she were an innocent special, although we now know she isn't) keep quiet until she is definitely in real danger.
If people had done what I'd suggested and said in advance what they might do, someone in Karen's position who was an innocent special would have been able to warn us off when there was still time to get someone else.
I know I've said this, but it really is important, if we're going to avoid voting out our most valuable assets, for people to say what they are thinking about doing. That's the only way for an accused person with a special role to make a sensible decision whether to announce it or not.
And Mario - yeah, well done, there has to be more bad guys than good for the game to work, and so yes, that means there's always a greater chance that throwing someone out at random hurts us more than it helps. You're absolutely right, there. But the other way of seeing it is that if we never vote anyone out, the bad guys automatically win. Like it's not very likely that any given single will be a top-ten hit, but if you never bloody release one, then not getting a hit is a dead bloody cert. We've got to take the chances when we get them.
I guess for the time being at least we have to act as if Lambie's telling the truth, and keep her in the game for as long as we can. If she's lying then there's a chance the real detective will contradict her, if there is one, but I can see a real detective not wanting to break cover just yet, even so, but it would be dumb to ignore an uncontradicted claim. Whether she's telling the truth or not, she will have to feed us information, and that helps us either way.
Lambie being 'out' makes Dai's plan far less good - on the off-chance that Lambie's lying and there's a real detective, it let's the real detective signal to us, once they are taken out, but if Lambie's lying, the bad guys know that and will be looking for a real detective, and we'd be giving them information they can use.
My plan's still workable - if someone is prepared to volunteer to be investigated who is (a) innocent; (b) not unreadable; and (c) not some other special, then if Lambie (or whoever) can clear them, we're a step closer to having a known innocent majority. Lambie declaring makes it safer for our volunteer (because the bad guys are hunting the doctor now) but reduces the pool in which they are hunting. Personally, I'd like us to take the chance. The slightly increased chance of losing the doctor I think is outweighed by knowing that we definitely won't waste the one night of investigation that (with a doctor) we are guaranteed to get on clearing someone we could potentially clear by other means.
We might have a vigilante. If so, the vigilante can act tonight but needs to be very careful not to eliminate specials, because he or she might get the doctor and that gives the bad guys a clear shot at the detective. There's basically only one safe vigilante assassination, and the vigilante should either take that one, or do nothing, if you take my advice.
So far, Dai and I are the only one's to give any really detailed thoughts. Penny and I are the only ones to nominate.
Penny, Andy, Mario, Lambie and Karen have all contributed a bit to discussion. Karen only after being accused.
Naomi, Fifi, Paddy and Nem have spoken a bit, but not with any significance. Steve is currently playing 'the silent one' and has said nothing at all. They may have reasons, good or bad, for keeping a low profile, but we need things to think about, so I'd like to hear more from all of them.
Let's see what happens tonight. Before then, I'm calling for an innocent, readable and non-special volunteer to be investigated.
Except a declared innocent readable non-special and a declared detective means the doctor is more divided on who to protect. A lot may depend on how many mafia there are as they calculate the odds of who is the most appropriate person to remove. I will note that the fires of hell await one who touches the Lord's anointed.
Except a declared innocent readable non-special and a declared detective means the doctor is more divided on who to protect.
Why? The doctor guards the detective. Obviously. The detective is our strongest asset and the doctor’s most important job is to keep her in the game.
It’s a numbers game. We are trying to move innocents from the category of ‘unknown’ to ‘known’. The other side are trying to move innocents from the category of ‘alive’ to ‘dead’. Whoever fills quota first, wins.
We can’t do much (without lots of luck) to stop the other side reducing the pool of innocents. What we can try to do is clear people as quickly as possibly and avoid killing known innocents ourselves.
If we started with more specials than bad guys, then as long as we clear one unknown (non-special) innocent every night, and never vote out a special or known innocent, we can afford to lose anyone else, except the detective. The ‘unknown’ category shrinks by at worst one a night. At worst, the ‘known’ category stays the same - one in, one out. We get a majority. We win.
I don’t think the game would play with four bad guys. I think, from the set up, that we probably have at least four provable specials. So I think we have the numbers to win by smart detective play. We need one non-special, readable, innocent volunteer a night, and we‘re home. Think about it.
What happens if the doctor (assuming there definitely is one, but tbh it's a common role) gets offed by the Mafia early on or thinks they might actually need to try and save their own skin one night? Or even gets lynched as no-one believes their claim? Then you may well end up detectiveless as well.
If you're looking for non-special innocent volunteers you also stick big flags on the people who don't volunteer going 'I'm either a special or Mafia.' Unless the detective investigates the special but leaves their role unmentioned in the report.
Let's see what happens tonight. Before then, I'm calling for an innocent, readable and non-special volunteer to be investigated.
I take it that, as you are not volunteering, that there is at least one of those categories you do not fulfill
if such a person does identify themselves, you're giving the Mafia another target for them to attack straight away, we're down one "good guy" (a quick hit for numbers' sake, instead of trying to off a special like the detective or doctor at the start) and there is little point in the detective checking them out if they've been offed, and we find out who they are/were anyway.
I'm glad that nobody followed through on your "guess" about me, but for all the talking of plans and processes - from many people - I'm not exactly sure I feel safe.
Perhaps instead of investigating your Volunteer - if they ever show - the detective should be investigating you or Dai, seeing as you seem to be the ones trying to take the lead of how we all get along. Don't want someone eloquent and persuasive leading us down a dead* end, do we ?
What happens if the doctor (assuming there definitely is one, but tbh it's a common role) gets offed by the Mafia early on
Then they just bought the detective that one night of investigation.
or thinks they might actually need to try and save their own skin one night?
The doctor’s job is to keep the detective alive. If the doctor successfully self-protects, they die the next night, and the detective is then unguarded, so buy one extra night maximum for the detective. Not a bad result, but I think guarding the detective diligently has better expected outcomes.
Or even gets lynched as no-one believes their claim?
We need to be careful not to do that, which is why I’m suggesting that everyone needs to say what they are thinking so that the doctor is alerted to the level of danger.
If you're looking for non-special innocent volunteers you also stick big flags on the people who don't volunteer going 'I'm either a special or Mafia.' Unless the detective investigates the special but leaves their role unmentioned in the report.
The point is not to investigate specials. Clearing a mason or vigilante is a wasted night - they have their own ways to establish innocence. Clearing the doctor isn’t much better.
My plan maximises the value of the detective. There is, you are right, a slightly increased risk to everyone except our volunteer, and that includes our doctor. But what we buy for that increased risk is confidence that the detective’s investigation will be effective in increasing our knowledge.
It is true what Naomi (Net Spinster) says. As the doctor and the rest of us know who the detective is it may be wise for the detective to keep her researches quiet for a couple of turns so that the mafia can't target the people she's researched. If she can get a pool of four people she and the rest of us know to be innocent then the good guys win.
If there are masons then the calculation is a little different: if a mason knows they have been investigated then they can vouch for the other masons publically which will give a big enough pool sooner. But the mafia would presumably try to kill off any Mason who volunteers.
I am unreadable for what it's worth. There is no point in investigating me. Sorry.
(I think lying about being the detective is too much of a gamble for the mafia: you'll eventually be exposed when the real detective is either lynched or murdered.)
Mario saw it happen in prison. A person is a nice person, and then someone sticks a shiv into their kidneys, and they bleed out, all over the floor. So he asks if volunteering gets you dead by Mafia? Begins to wonder about some of the suggestions from other islanders.
I will point out that anybody who volunteers is sharing their risk with me, the detective, as I've already painted a big red target on myself. If I'm shivved, you-all will at least know that I told the truth, and that whomever I reported on previous to my shivving is exactly as I told you they were. Which means that my death gives you an increase in knowledge beyond simply my own identity.
Shivving a volunteer seems a bit foolish, on the Mafia's side, as they already know who they are, and therefore by deduction who the innocents are. I grant you they don't know who the specials are, but shivving a volunteer on the night of their volunteering means they are operating in the dark (see what I did there?) just as we are. Shivving them later in the game, after they have been identified, well....
Which leads me to this question: When I report back to you-all on someone's identity--do you want me to give you a full report, or simply "Mafia" vs. "innocent"? Given the fact that the Mafia will gain this knowledge at the same time you do.
I'm rather leaning toward NOT identifying specials by role (or even with the word "special") because that will give the Mafia pause when it comes to shivving them. I mean, the veteran is a "special," so knowing that Whoever™ has been outed as a "special" does not give the Mafia any security on the subject of attacking them. But it does tell US who not to lynch.
I take it that, as you are not volunteering, that there is at least one of those categories you do not fulfill
You shouldn't assume that. You shouldn't assume the opposite, either.
If I do fit all of my categories for volunteering, I'd still prefer someone else to because:
a) I'd then find out about them. I already know about me.
b) The rest of you ought to be able to see that I'm trying to put us in a position where you don't need to trust me for us to have all the numbers on our side to win this. And if that happens, you'll realise I'd only have done that if I'm innocent as well. So, special or not, I think I'm someone whose innocence can be established by other means.
if such a person does identify themselves, you're giving the Mafia another target for them to attack straight away, we're down one "good guy"
We're going to lose a good guy anyway. That's almost a certainty. If the bad guys off a non-special volunteer, that's not the worst that could happen.
Perhaps instead of investigating your Volunteer - if they ever show - the detective should be investigating you or Dai, seeing as you seem to be the ones trying to take the lead of how we all get along.
From the point of view of anyone who doesn't know whether I'm innocent, that's not a bad idea, and I'm certainly not going to try to argue the detective out of investigating me if they think that's the best option. But if Lambie wants to check someone else, I'll be trying to prove my innocence by doing my best to win this one for the good guys.
Scarlett's intro says you get to learn guilt, innocence or unreadability.
If you do learn more, I don't think you should tell us. If we know someone is innocent, then we'll believe them if and when they claim a role, which they can do when they think best.
You should tell us about guilt straight away. No question about that.
If we knew for certain that there was a doctor, and that we could definitely trust them not to play silly buggers, I'd argue that you should think about keeping quiet about who you have cleared unless the doctor gets hit, or a known innocent is nominated (although if we get a volunteer to be investigated it might not need a lot of guesswork). But since we don't definitely know that, it's not obvious whether you'd be taking a risk by doing that.
I'd say, probably say who's known innocent. The advantage of the non-special volunteer strategy is that you could do that without painting a target on the doctor. If instead you clear a random person, and announce it, and you happened to pick the doctor, that would be unfortunate.
No need to decide now, anyway. See how it looks in the morning.
Mario gets worrrieder and worrieder. Is the claim of Lambie to be detective true? Ethan is organizing things a lot, does that make him a good guy, a special person or a bad guy? Is Nem the cat being a nice cat or will it scratch our eyes out?. Or does Nem have 9 lives, could be the doctor? Is Dai Onstage really unreadable? Or is this a ploy to hide evil Mafia intentions? Naomi's comments are cryptic except for the bit about being damned.
Off down the beach Mario goes, looking for coconuts, because he feels he's going coconuts. And wondering if it is worth finding a place to hide for the night. Very quiet yoga.
I’m suss about an “out” detective I suspect it’s just a ploy to play it safe.
As Dai says, it would be a dangerous ploy, because the bad guys need to kill the real detective, and a false one is exposed as soon as they do.
But the chance that Lambie's claim might need to be checked if another person claims to be the detective is a good reason for asking her to tell us who she investigated, so she can later re-write her story for convenience.
I'm now fairly convinced that someone is a detective. Because if there isn't one, not only is Lambie lying, but Dai must be lying as well, since with no detective, Scarlett would not have needed to put in unreadables. And I don't believe that two unsuspected bad guys made unforced, and potentially checkable, false claims this early on. Either one of the claims could be as lie, or both could be guilty and Dai actually be unreadable, but making two false claims like that doesn't seen plausible to me, and if either role claim is true, then we must have a detective somewhere.
Therefore until Lambie's claim is contradicted, we should cautiously assume that it is accurate.
Gregory emerges from quietly sharpening bamboo stakes in the brush. He takes a long, hard look at Ethan. "Is that Joey?" he mutters. "It can't be... The hair is different... but those eyes... And Joey always liked ordering things around..."
All that hard work must have fried your brain a bit there, Gregory.
Ethan isn't in line for anything at the moment. Lynching nominations were between myself, Karen, or "No Lynching"
Karen sighs loudly "Oh gosh. You can't nominate anyone right now. Pay attention, geesh! Either vote to send me off the island, which you can't successfully do, or vote Andy off the island, which you also can't actually do, or not lynch. Which is the best choice probably since we don't know much yet."
Mario asks himself: is the after-the-fact nomination of Ethan a message of some kind about Gregory or about Ethan?
It tells me that Steve or Gregory, or whatever his real name is, hasn't paid any attention to the rules, or anything that anyone else has said.
And then I want to know what he's been smoking, and whether there's any left.
It probably also means he's innocent. I can't imagine a bad guy being so inattentive. But once I've had some of Steve/Gregory's gear, I'll probably be able to imagine anything.
Naomi muses to herself, "Menu? I wonder how much food we have available on this island? At least this isn't Donner Pass"
Aloud
"Given that most of us are sinners, God has informed me he will not be providing us with manna. We also do not trust each other, but, I suggest we work together to get a meal. I noticed some clams down on the beach which I can dig up and perhaps some people can get some coconuts and start a cooking fire before it gets dark. Does anyone have a pot we can cook stuff in?"
You know what, I feel like we’ve got a bit bogged down so I think I’m going to make an exception to my rules to get things moving again.
Consequently I’m going to call the vote on the basis of the majority already reached. No lynching.
And with that night falls.
Can I also please put out a gentle reminder that not everyone’s played this game before. Very aggressive play from the usual suspects can feel a bit intimidating and threatening to a newbie. Please try to keep it fun for everyone .
As the sky darkens, Ethan relaxes. It's been a surprisingly intense day. All in all, the threat of sabotage and murder had been set out rather convincingly by the show's producers, and has been more interesting, and, he has to admit, more fun, than eating beetles and building shelters out of leaves. Wherever the station's guard-boat, or whatever, is hidden, he hasn't been able to spot it, and the effect has been deceivingly immersive. It would be quite easy to lose track of the fact that it's a show, and start to believe that the residents of the island were actually in danger.
But now, the buzz from the show, and from the hit he'd taken on the chopper out, were both wearing off, and Ethan begins to regret feeling too wired to eat for most of the day. He looks around nervously. The prospect of pulling insects from under a rock or chewing on coconut rind doesn't exactly appeal.
Satisfied that it is now dark enough, Ethan runs a nail down the seam of his lilac chinos, and pops out the tiny tablet within. He lets it dissolve on his tongue for a second or two, then washes the rest down with the cold cup of herbal tea Patrick had made him, hours ago now. The tea is a little sour, but the herbs combine with the tab to create a pleasantly mellow high. The beetles, Ethan decides, can wait until tomorrow.
Dai dreams. If he believed in past lives, he would think he was remembering them.
He seems to remember someone like Ethan (Eliab). But something is subtly off. This iteration of Ethan seems somehow less bloodthirsty. Not that I think he's wrong thus time, but it's not the strategy that he has in the past advocated. And also his plan doesn't quite make sense. Dai can't quite work out whether the plan calls for us to be lynching people while the innocents are volunteering to be investigated one at a time or not.
On consideration, if I were the detective I would be investigating Ethan. (That is, Eliab.)
Firstly, as noted his modus operandi is not quite as it is usually when he's innocent.
Secondly, one consequence of his plan if we follow it is that the detective wouldn't investigate him. As Ethan is talkative and opinionated there is a strong chance that the detective will investigate him, and if he's guilty and readable he'd want to find a way to point the detective elsewhere.
I'm not saying I think Eliab's more likely to be guilty than innocent, and if innocent then Eliab's worth listening to. But at this moment, I think he's more likely to be guilty than anyone else. In any case, definitely worth investigating as person most likely to lead our enquiries astray if guilty.
Naomi wishes she had her Mike, Rafe, and Gabe with her, but, the producers had insisted she had to do this show solo. She had managed to persuade them to allow her her bible; admittedly she hadn't told them it was the Anchor Bible ahead of time. She opened the trunk containing the volumes and pulled out Genesis; its special binding contained an energy bar which she surreptitiously nibbles while reading Genesis 27.
There wouldn't be much point in the trait if it couldn't. But I wouldn't have had much of a reason to confess to it if I weren't innocent.
I don't think we should lynch Ethan, or put him out to sea, or whatever we're doing, before the detective investigates.
I don't think we should start lynching until the detective can clear two people (or find a mafioso). That way we all have a pool of innocent people at least large as the mafia, which means that when it comes down to the endgame the innocents will know whom not to vote for.
This herbal stuff is good shit - it's like I can hear Dai's dreams...
Look, Dai, it's numbers, all numbers, man. Like music is all numbers. Volume and pitch and sales and charts - all numbers. You just need to see it. Just tune in.
First number - let's call it One. One's a great first number. One.
One. If we KNOW more than we DON'T KNOW, then we ARE number One. I mean we win. That's winning, right, being number One.
And what do I mean? I mean if we ever knew that there were more people definitely good and who might be good or bad, that's ALL we'd need. Like Love. All you need. 'Cept when you need brains. Or talent. Or looks. But, shit, man, focus. Sorry.
Point is, you DON'T need love, or brains, or talent, or any of that if you've got the numbers. Because if we knew, like Seven people were good, it wouldn't matter if we never guessed right about which of the other Five were bad - 'cos we can get One of the Five a day. Like oranges. Or grapes. Or pot.
Shit, lost it. Back to the One. We get One of the Five, and they get One of the Seven. Happy. Or Bashful. Or whatever. Doesn't matter. One of them. But they run out of people first. So we win. We're number One. Hurray!
OK - got that? That's One.
We need a second number now, which can be Two. Number Two. Like the stuff you flush away. We need to flush the Number Twos away until we're get to KNOW more than we DON'T KNOW.
And here's the clevery bit. If we started with more people we could know were good than there were bad guys in total, then They can ONLY flush away One of us a day, if we're careful, and so all we need to do to get to our Number One winning position is make sure we keep the same number of people we KNOW are good. We just need to add One a day. Make sure we clear someOne we can't otherwise KNOW is good. So if we had Four people we could prove good at the start, and Three bad guys, as long as we add One person to replace the One the bad guys will flush, then we end up with Four against Three and we win.
You see that? We can get from Number Two - deep in the poo - to Number One - we're top gun - by making sure that the bad guys never knock the total number of people we can prove good below the number you first thought of. If we started with more people we can prove innocent than they have.
So next. We need a third number. We'll use our old friend Number Three. Three strikes. Three strikes and you're out. What can go wrong?
We could waste investigations on people we could clear by, like, thinking. Or tripping out. That was the whole volunteer idea, that's clear, my dear, to use our seer, who we revere, to give a steer, so lend an ear, I've got all year - - - damn, that's good gear.
The bad guys could off our detectivatorist. That would be bad. But first they have to find our medical practictionicator. So the idea to have One and only One person declare as a citizen to be investigated keeps that risk low. Lower than getting all our specials to declare at once.
What else? I might have misread Scarlett, and there might NOT be more provable special roles than bad guys. But you, Dai, mate, HAVE to agree that there is a detective because your claimed role as unreadable only makes sense if there is. And if there are masons there's at least Two of them. And we might find out tonight whether there's a doctor. So if the detective clears an innocent person they can say "Any masons?" if there are, we've basically One. Won. We've won, and we're number One. We're One and weird numbers Won.
Oh, dear! cries Lambie. Poor Patrick. How dreadful. And all those poor chinchillas awaiting him at home in vain! She takes out a handkerchief leaf and wipes her eyes.
Who could have done this terrible thing? I vow and declare it wasn't Ethan (Eliab), as we were together ALL NIGHT and he is as innocent as the newfallen... er, sand.
A death? Who would have expected that. Well, Dai's agent (that would be his brother) warned him that it was likely to happen. Dai wishes he'd believed him, but his brother is a complete pessimist and downer and liable to say things like, Dai can't even sell out a toilet stall at Edinburgh Fringe, which is not true (mostly).
My suspicions about Ethan were misplaced then? That's a relief. Although that leaves eight suspects left (or nine depending on how you look at it).
Did the late lamented Royce have any role? I don't see any mentioned.
Do the mafia people know anything at all about those they kill? Are they knowledgeable or more like predators waiting for random people to shiv in the kidneys. Mario wonders how they select their victims. In jail that he had *good drugs* would be enough. But surely here there's other considerations. Note to the Bad People, Mario has no drugs, Jesus is his drug, yoga is his passion. Have mercy!
Penny returns from her morning abs excercises on a quiet part of the beach and thinks 'Poor Patrick', although she isn't entirely surprised.
The Mafia will know who isn't one of them but will only know specials if they have claimed to have a role, like Lambie. In some ways, as she felt she had to declare herself so early, given the arguments that were made yesterday, the Mafia now have a free hand to pick off other people at random. as the Doctor pretty much has to protect the detective, and they know that so almost certainly won't waste a kill on her. I think the lack of counterclaim confirms it wasn't a double cross.
Interesting though that the Mafia went for someone who'd been quiet, rather the likes of Ethan or Dai.
Coming down from a high is rarely an entirely pleasurable experience.
Doing so to learn that a companion had died in suspicious circumstances, and that he appears to be trapped on an island, with one or more murderers, that the cameras are still rolling, and that no one seems to be coming to help, does not assist the process.
Ethan shivers uncontrollably, hoping that he isn't back to reality just yet. But also unable to stop wondering whether Scarlett is going to announce Patrick's role.
I expect you're all as shocked as I am to find that what you expected to be I'm a celebrity... just turned into The Hunger Games, but if we stay calm, I reckon we can win this and get as many of us home as possible.
There's eleven of us left. Lambie's an uncontradicted detective, so presumably innocent. She's cleared me. There are nine others.
Can we all see that if we had four declared masons, we'd win? That would make six innocents. Five unknowns. The innocents vote out one unknown. The bad guys kill an innocent. That makes five against four. And so on. The bad guys can't win.
But what if we had three masons? That makes five innocents against six unknowns. That looks like we lose, right? Wrong. Because the detective can move one more person from the 'unknown' group to the 'known' group. So we vote off an unknown, clear another unknown, and lose one known innocent, and we are back to five against four. And that means we win.
And if there are two masons? Four known innocents against seven unknowns? Can we win that? Yes. Because to get rid of the detective, the bad guys have to hit the doctor first. And that means they almost certainly have to hunt outside the group of known innocents. So the first night works like this - we voted off an unknown (4:6) ; the detective clears another person (5:5) ; the bad guys take their shot - and then they can make the ratio 4:5 in their favour by taking out a 'known', but that comes at the cost of giving Lambie one more night of investigating, which is enough for us to get the 'majority known innocent' win (the next day goes 4:4, then 5:3, then 4:3). But if they hit outside the group of 'knowns', then the ratio the next day is 5:4 to us, and then even if they got the doctor, we've still got enough to win.
OK, I'm still on a slight buzz from last night, but I don't see the flaws there. Why don't the rest of you think about it? If someone thinks it doesn't work, they can tell me why not. But if we all agree that it does work, then if we've got any masons at all, we've got this one. We should call for declarations.
But let's not do that until everyone has thought about it, and had the chance to raise any problems.
I've got some ideas on how we might do better, by deducing who is actually guilty, as there's no reason not to run both approaches together - the structured approach to maximise chances, and the deduction to win as quickly as we can within that structure.
I'm thinking, what if we don't have any masons?
I'm thinking there are others who are being very quiet /inactive and I'm wondering the mafia are letting us tie ourselves in knots and saying very little themselves just now
Comments
Karen could still be voted out if six more people agree.
It doesn't matter today, because Karen's already told us she's not a special, but as a general matter of strategy, if she were a special she should keep quiet about it to see if that consensus looks like it might develop, because it's now too late for us to get anyone apart from Karen, so she should (if she were an innocent special, although we now know she isn't) keep quiet until she is definitely in real danger.
If people had done what I'd suggested and said in advance what they might do, someone in Karen's position who was an innocent special would have been able to warn us off when there was still time to get someone else.
I know I've said this, but it really is important, if we're going to avoid voting out our most valuable assets, for people to say what they are thinking about doing. That's the only way for an accused person with a special role to make a sensible decision whether to announce it or not.
And Mario - yeah, well done, there has to be more bad guys than good for the game to work, and so yes, that means there's always a greater chance that throwing someone out at random hurts us more than it helps. You're absolutely right, there. But the other way of seeing it is that if we never vote anyone out, the bad guys automatically win. Like it's not very likely that any given single will be a top-ten hit, but if you never bloody release one, then not getting a hit is a dead bloody cert. We've got to take the chances when we get them.
I guess for the time being at least we have to act as if Lambie's telling the truth, and keep her in the game for as long as we can. If she's lying then there's a chance the real detective will contradict her, if there is one, but I can see a real detective not wanting to break cover just yet, even so, but it would be dumb to ignore an uncontradicted claim. Whether she's telling the truth or not, she will have to feed us information, and that helps us either way.
Lambie being 'out' makes Dai's plan far less good - on the off-chance that Lambie's lying and there's a real detective, it let's the real detective signal to us, once they are taken out, but if Lambie's lying, the bad guys know that and will be looking for a real detective, and we'd be giving them information they can use.
My plan's still workable - if someone is prepared to volunteer to be investigated who is (a) innocent; (b) not unreadable; and (c) not some other special, then if Lambie (or whoever) can clear them, we're a step closer to having a known innocent majority. Lambie declaring makes it safer for our volunteer (because the bad guys are hunting the doctor now) but reduces the pool in which they are hunting. Personally, I'd like us to take the chance. The slightly increased chance of losing the doctor I think is outweighed by knowing that we definitely won't waste the one night of investigation that (with a doctor) we are guaranteed to get on clearing someone we could potentially clear by other means.
We might have a vigilante. If so, the vigilante can act tonight but needs to be very careful not to eliminate specials, because he or she might get the doctor and that gives the bad guys a clear shot at the detective. There's basically only one safe vigilante assassination, and the vigilante should either take that one, or do nothing, if you take my advice.
So far, Dai and I are the only one's to give any really detailed thoughts. Penny and I are the only ones to nominate.
Penny, Andy, Mario, Lambie and Karen have all contributed a bit to discussion. Karen only after being accused.
Naomi, Fifi, Paddy and Nem have spoken a bit, but not with any significance. Steve is currently playing 'the silent one' and has said nothing at all. They may have reasons, good or bad, for keeping a low profile, but we need things to think about, so I'd like to hear more from all of them.
Let's see what happens tonight. Before then, I'm calling for an innocent, readable and non-special volunteer to be investigated.
Why? The doctor guards the detective. Obviously. The detective is our strongest asset and the doctor’s most important job is to keep her in the game.
It’s a numbers game. We are trying to move innocents from the category of ‘unknown’ to ‘known’. The other side are trying to move innocents from the category of ‘alive’ to ‘dead’. Whoever fills quota first, wins.
We can’t do much (without lots of luck) to stop the other side reducing the pool of innocents. What we can try to do is clear people as quickly as possibly and avoid killing known innocents ourselves.
If we started with more specials than bad guys, then as long as we clear one unknown (non-special) innocent every night, and never vote out a special or known innocent, we can afford to lose anyone else, except the detective. The ‘unknown’ category shrinks by at worst one a night. At worst, the ‘known’ category stays the same - one in, one out. We get a majority. We win.
I don’t think the game would play with four bad guys. I think, from the set up, that we probably have at least four provable specials. So I think we have the numbers to win by smart detective play. We need one non-special, readable, innocent volunteer a night, and we‘re home. Think about it.
If you're looking for non-special innocent volunteers you also stick big flags on the people who don't volunteer going 'I'm either a special or Mafia.' Unless the detective investigates the special but leaves their role unmentioned in the report.
I take it that, as you are not volunteering, that there is at least one of those categories you do not fulfill
if such a person does identify themselves, you're giving the Mafia another target for them to attack straight away, we're down one "good guy" (a quick hit for numbers' sake, instead of trying to off a special like the detective or doctor at the start) and there is little point in the detective checking them out if they've been offed, and we find out who they are/were anyway.
I'm glad that nobody followed through on your "guess" about me, but for all the talking of plans and processes - from many people - I'm not exactly sure I feel safe.
Perhaps instead of investigating your Volunteer - if they ever show - the detective should be investigating you or Dai, seeing as you seem to be the ones trying to take the lead of how we all get along. Don't want someone eloquent and persuasive leading us down a dead* end, do we ?
*pun intended
Then they just bought the detective that one night of investigation.
The doctor’s job is to keep the detective alive. If the doctor successfully self-protects, they die the next night, and the detective is then unguarded, so buy one extra night maximum for the detective. Not a bad result, but I think guarding the detective diligently has better expected outcomes.
We need to be careful not to do that, which is why I’m suggesting that everyone needs to say what they are thinking so that the doctor is alerted to the level of danger.
The point is not to investigate specials. Clearing a mason or vigilante is a wasted night - they have their own ways to establish innocence. Clearing the doctor isn’t much better.
My plan maximises the value of the detective. There is, you are right, a slightly increased risk to everyone except our volunteer, and that includes our doctor. But what we buy for that increased risk is confidence that the detective’s investigation will be effective in increasing our knowledge.
If there are masons then the calculation is a little different: if a mason knows they have been investigated then they can vouch for the other masons publically which will give a big enough pool sooner. But the mafia would presumably try to kill off any Mason who volunteers.
I am unreadable for what it's worth. There is no point in investigating me. Sorry.
(I think lying about being the detective is too much of a gamble for the mafia: you'll eventually be exposed when the real detective is either lynched or murdered.)
Shivving a volunteer seems a bit foolish, on the Mafia's side, as they already know who they are, and therefore by deduction who the innocents are. I grant you they don't know who the specials are, but shivving a volunteer on the night of their volunteering means they are operating in the dark (see what I did there?) just as we are. Shivving them later in the game, after they have been identified, well....
Which leads me to this question: When I report back to you-all on someone's identity--do you want me to give you a full report, or simply "Mafia" vs. "innocent"? Given the fact that the Mafia will gain this knowledge at the same time you do.
I'm rather leaning toward NOT identifying specials by role (or even with the word "special") because that will give the Mafia pause when it comes to shivving them. I mean, the veteran is a "special," so knowing that Whoever™ has been outed as a "special" does not give the Mafia any security on the subject of attacking them. But it does tell US who not to lynch.
What do you folks think?
You shouldn't assume that. You shouldn't assume the opposite, either.
If I do fit all of my categories for volunteering, I'd still prefer someone else to because:
a) I'd then find out about them. I already know about me.
b) The rest of you ought to be able to see that I'm trying to put us in a position where you don't need to trust me for us to have all the numbers on our side to win this. And if that happens, you'll realise I'd only have done that if I'm innocent as well. So, special or not, I think I'm someone whose innocence can be established by other means.
We're going to lose a good guy anyway. That's almost a certainty. If the bad guys off a non-special volunteer, that's not the worst that could happen.
From the point of view of anyone who doesn't know whether I'm innocent, that's not a bad idea, and I'm certainly not going to try to argue the detective out of investigating me if they think that's the best option. But if Lambie wants to check someone else, I'll be trying to prove my innocence by doing my best to win this one for the good guys.
Scarlett's intro says you get to learn guilt, innocence or unreadability.
If you do learn more, I don't think you should tell us. If we know someone is innocent, then we'll believe them if and when they claim a role, which they can do when they think best.
You should tell us about guilt straight away. No question about that.
If we knew for certain that there was a doctor, and that we could definitely trust them not to play silly buggers, I'd argue that you should think about keeping quiet about who you have cleared unless the doctor gets hit, or a known innocent is nominated (although if we get a volunteer to be investigated it might not need a lot of guesswork). But since we don't definitely know that, it's not obvious whether you'd be taking a risk by doing that.
I'd say, probably say who's known innocent. The advantage of the non-special volunteer strategy is that you could do that without painting a target on the doctor. If instead you clear a random person, and announce it, and you happened to pick the doctor, that would be unfortunate.
No need to decide now, anyway. See how it looks in the morning.
Off down the beach Mario goes, looking for coconuts, because he feels he's going coconuts. And wondering if it is worth finding a place to hide for the night. Very quiet yoga.
Just a gentle reminder that voting is compulsory. We're still missing quite a few votes.
Thanks
Sorry, I forgot that part in the relief of being "safe" so I'll say No Lynching
As Dai says, it would be a dangerous ploy, because the bad guys need to kill the real detective, and a false one is exposed as soon as they do.
But the chance that Lambie's claim might need to be checked if another person claims to be the detective is a good reason for asking her to tell us who she investigated, so she can later re-write her story for convenience.
I'm now fairly convinced that someone is a detective. Because if there isn't one, not only is Lambie lying, but Dai must be lying as well, since with no detective, Scarlett would not have needed to put in unreadables. And I don't believe that two unsuspected bad guys made unforced, and potentially checkable, false claims this early on. Either one of the claims could be as lie, or both could be guilty and Dai actually be unreadable, but making two false claims like that doesn't seen plausible to me, and if either role claim is true, then we must have a detective somewhere.
Therefore until Lambie's claim is contradicted, we should cautiously assume that it is accurate.
Ethan
Ethan isn't in line for anything at the moment. Lynching nominations were between myself, Karen, or "No Lynching"
If you want to nominate Ethan, you can do so tomorrow, assuming you're both still alive.
It tells me that Steve or Gregory, or whatever his real name is, hasn't paid any attention to the rules, or anything that anyone else has said.
And then I want to know what he's been smoking, and whether there's any left.
It probably also means he's innocent. I can't imagine a bad guy being so inattentive. But once I've had some of Steve/Gregory's gear, I'll probably be able to imagine anything.
Aloud
"Given that most of us are sinners, God has informed me he will not be providing us with manna. We also do not trust each other, but, I suggest we work together to get a meal. I noticed some clams down on the beach which I can dig up and perhaps some people can get some coconuts and start a cooking fire before it gets dark. Does anyone have a pot we can cook stuff in?"
I’ve also seen some berries about if any of your bipeds are brave enough to try them.
Consequently I’m going to call the vote on the basis of the majority already reached. No lynching.
And with that night falls.
Can I also please put out a gentle reminder that not everyone’s played this game before. Very aggressive play from the usual suspects can feel a bit intimidating and threatening to a newbie. Please try to keep it fun for everyone
But now, the buzz from the show, and from the hit he'd taken on the chopper out, were both wearing off, and Ethan begins to regret feeling too wired to eat for most of the day. He looks around nervously. The prospect of pulling insects from under a rock or chewing on coconut rind doesn't exactly appeal.
Satisfied that it is now dark enough, Ethan runs a nail down the seam of his lilac chinos, and pops out the tiny tablet within. He lets it dissolve on his tongue for a second or two, then washes the rest down with the cold cup of herbal tea Patrick had made him, hours ago now. The tea is a little sour, but the herbs combine with the tab to create a pleasantly mellow high. The beetles, Ethan decides, can wait until tomorrow.
He seems to remember someone like Ethan (Eliab). But something is subtly off. This iteration of Ethan seems somehow less bloodthirsty. Not that I think he's wrong thus time, but it's not the strategy that he has in the past advocated. And also his plan doesn't quite make sense. Dai can't quite work out whether the plan calls for us to be lynching people while the innocents are volunteering to be investigated one at a time or not.
On consideration, if I were the detective I would be investigating Ethan. (That is, Eliab.)
Firstly, as noted his modus operandi is not quite as it is usually when he's innocent.
Secondly, one consequence of his plan if we follow it is that the detective wouldn't investigate him. As Ethan is talkative and opinionated there is a strong chance that the detective will investigate him, and if he's guilty and readable he'd want to find a way to point the detective elsewhere.
I'm not saying I think Eliab's more likely to be guilty than innocent, and if innocent then Eliab's worth listening to. But at this moment, I think he's more likely to be guilty than anyone else. In any case, definitely worth investigating as person most likely to lead our enquiries astray if guilty.
She notes the unreadable could be on either side.
I don't think we should lynch Ethan, or put him out to sea, or whatever we're doing, before the detective investigates.
I don't think we should start lynching until the detective can clear two people (or find a mafioso). That way we all have a pool of innocent people at least large as the mafia, which means that when it comes down to the endgame the innocents will know whom not to vote for.
Look, Dai, it's numbers, all numbers, man. Like music is all numbers. Volume and pitch and sales and charts - all numbers. You just need to see it. Just tune in.
First number - let's call it One. One's a great first number. One.
One. If we KNOW more than we DON'T KNOW, then we ARE number One. I mean we win. That's winning, right, being number One.
And what do I mean? I mean if we ever knew that there were more people definitely good and who might be good or bad, that's ALL we'd need. Like Love. All you need. 'Cept when you need brains. Or talent. Or looks. But, shit, man, focus. Sorry.
Point is, you DON'T need love, or brains, or talent, or any of that if you've got the numbers. Because if we knew, like Seven people were good, it wouldn't matter if we never guessed right about which of the other Five were bad - 'cos we can get One of the Five a day. Like oranges. Or grapes. Or pot.
Shit, lost it. Back to the One. We get One of the Five, and they get One of the Seven. Happy. Or Bashful. Or whatever. Doesn't matter. One of them. But they run out of people first. So we win. We're number One. Hurray!
OK - got that? That's One.
We need a second number now, which can be Two. Number Two. Like the stuff you flush away. We need to flush the Number Twos away until we're get to KNOW more than we DON'T KNOW.
And here's the clevery bit. If we started with more people we could know were good than there were bad guys in total, then They can ONLY flush away One of us a day, if we're careful, and so all we need to do to get to our Number One winning position is make sure we keep the same number of people we KNOW are good. We just need to add One a day. Make sure we clear someOne we can't otherwise KNOW is good. So if we had Four people we could prove good at the start, and Three bad guys, as long as we add One person to replace the One the bad guys will flush, then we end up with Four against Three and we win.
You see that? We can get from Number Two - deep in the poo - to Number One - we're top gun - by making sure that the bad guys never knock the total number of people we can prove good below the number you first thought of. If we started with more people we can prove innocent than they have.
So next. We need a third number. We'll use our old friend Number Three. Three strikes. Three strikes and you're out. What can go wrong?
We could waste investigations on people we could clear by, like, thinking. Or tripping out. That was the whole volunteer idea, that's clear, my dear, to use our seer, who we revere, to give a steer, so lend an ear, I've got all year - - - damn, that's good gear.
The bad guys could off our detectivatorist. That would be bad. But first they have to find our medical practictionicator. So the idea to have One and only One person declare as a citizen to be investigated keeps that risk low. Lower than getting all our specials to declare at once.
What else? I might have misread Scarlett, and there might NOT be more provable special roles than bad guys. But you, Dai, mate, HAVE to agree that there is a detective because your claimed role as unreadable only makes sense if there is. And if there are masons there's at least Two of them. And we might find out tonight whether there's a doctor. So if the detective clears an innocent person they can say "Any masons?" if there are, we've basically One. Won. We've won, and we're number One. We're One and weird numbers Won.
It's all numbers, man. All numbers.
Eliab, dear, I don't know what you've been smoking, but have you got any left?
[/hostly observation]
<Scarlett looks wide-eyed at the camera. Her foundation is a shade paler than usual and her mascara is running just the right amount >
Good evening viewers. Grave news from the island. We've never seen this before... a death on our show!
Poor Patrick Royce. His first outing on reality TV as well.
<Scarlett strangles a dramatic sob>
(Sigh. What did I tell you about being nice to newbies?)
Who could have done this terrible thing? I vow and declare it wasn't Ethan (Eliab), as we were together ALL NIGHT and he is as innocent as the newfallen... er, sand.
My suspicions about Ethan were misplaced then? That's a relief. Although that leaves eight suspects left (or nine depending on how you look at it).
Did the late lamented Royce have any role? I don't see any mentioned.
The Mafia will know who isn't one of them but will only know specials if they have claimed to have a role, like Lambie. In some ways, as she felt she had to declare herself so early, given the arguments that were made yesterday, the Mafia now have a free hand to pick off other people at random. as the Doctor pretty much has to protect the detective, and they know that so almost certainly won't waste a kill on her. I think the lack of counterclaim confirms it wasn't a double cross.
Interesting though that the Mafia went for someone who'd been quiet, rather the likes of Ethan or Dai.
Doing so to learn that a companion had died in suspicious circumstances, and that he appears to be trapped on an island, with one or more murderers, that the cameras are still rolling, and that no one seems to be coming to help, does not assist the process.
Ethan shivers uncontrollably, hoping that he isn't back to reality just yet. But also unable to stop wondering whether Scarlett is going to announce Patrick's role.
There's eleven of us left. Lambie's an uncontradicted detective, so presumably innocent. She's cleared me. There are nine others.
Can we all see that if we had four declared masons, we'd win? That would make six innocents. Five unknowns. The innocents vote out one unknown. The bad guys kill an innocent. That makes five against four. And so on. The bad guys can't win.
But what if we had three masons? That makes five innocents against six unknowns. That looks like we lose, right? Wrong. Because the detective can move one more person from the 'unknown' group to the 'known' group. So we vote off an unknown, clear another unknown, and lose one known innocent, and we are back to five against four. And that means we win.
And if there are two masons? Four known innocents against seven unknowns? Can we win that? Yes. Because to get rid of the detective, the bad guys have to hit the doctor first. And that means they almost certainly have to hunt outside the group of known innocents. So the first night works like this - we voted off an unknown (4:6) ; the detective clears another person (5:5) ; the bad guys take their shot - and then they can make the ratio 4:5 in their favour by taking out a 'known', but that comes at the cost of giving Lambie one more night of investigating, which is enough for us to get the 'majority known innocent' win (the next day goes 4:4, then 5:3, then 4:3). But if they hit outside the group of 'knowns', then the ratio the next day is 5:4 to us, and then even if they got the doctor, we've still got enough to win.
OK, I'm still on a slight buzz from last night, but I don't see the flaws there. Why don't the rest of you think about it? If someone thinks it doesn't work, they can tell me why not. But if we all agree that it does work, then if we've got any masons at all, we've got this one. We should call for declarations.
But let's not do that until everyone has thought about it, and had the chance to raise any problems.
I've got some ideas on how we might do better, by deducing who is actually guilty, as there's no reason not to run both approaches together - the structured approach to maximise chances, and the deduction to win as quickly as we can within that structure.
I'm thinking there are others who are being very quiet /inactive and I'm wondering the mafia are letting us tie ourselves in knots and saying very little themselves just now