Merlot Mafia: Chiang's Last Stand

The year is 1949.

You are minsters of the rapidly dwindling Republic of China, under the regime of Chiang Kai-Shek.

Your forces have been pushed back by the Communists ever since the surrender of the Japanese, and now you are trapped in Chengdu, the last KMT bastion on mainland China.

Chiang knows that there is only one thing which could have allowed the Communists such a total victory: Communist infiltrators!

As such, he looks to you, his cabinet ministers, to uncover the evil among you and deal with it accordingly. It is too late to save the mainland, but at least you may receive some revenge before having to flee.

If you should fail, then Communism may very well spread into Taipei and Taiwan at large (and Chiang may have to appoint less experienced and less corrupt officials to fill your positions).

For the sake of your country, your jobs and all the illegal perks that come with them, you must root out the Communist!

Players:
1) landlubber
2) slaze
3) Caledorn
4) whb
5) Tboy
6) Umarth
7) Zorag

Nice setting! Should be an interesting one.

Out of no personal malice, but simply to get the ball rolling:
vote:whb

Tboy said:

Nice setting! Should be an interesting one.

Out of no personal malice, but simply to get the ball rolling:
vote:...

Click to expand...

So soon we turn the knives upon our own. With such haste we could only ever shed the blood of the innocent! I recall from the history books that your ancestor, the princess Tboy of the Amazons, was never so quick to call for violence. Indeed she waited four pages before she found reason to lynch Tic0, and even then found she should have been more cautious. So is your haste some new rashness that has crept into your lineage? Or is it treachery -- a sign of bloodlust that drives you to betray your countrymen and a sure indication it is you we should lynch?

Well, Tboy - I shall give you an opportunity that you would not afford me. Before I cast my vote, why should we not conclude that it is your neck that should be stretched?

And Zorag, who cowardly dog-piles a mere fourteen minutes after the first vote was cast! Are you so fearful for your own neck that you do not wish to uncover the real culprit? So much so that you just "add one" to whatever first vote was made, just to make it less likely that you would be the winner of this deadly poll? Surely that would be a sign of a villainous heart. Why should you not be the one to be hanged for your deceit?

(Sorry about the delay, but now everyone should have role PM's. Without further ado..)

Day 1​

Afraid of the punishment they could face for allowing the Communist to live, tension clung like fog over the cabinet meeting.

It was decided. In the true manner of a republic, voting would be used to try to locate and destroy the insurgent.


You have 48 hours before the night cycle, please don't hesitate to vote.

whb said:

So soon we turn the knives upon our own. With such haste we could only ever shed the blood of the innocent! I recall from the history books that your ancestor, the princess Tboy of the Amazons, was never so quick to call for violence. Indeed she waited four pages before she found reason to lynch Tic0, and even then found she should have been more cautious. So is your haste some new rashness that has crept into your lineage? Or is it treachery -- a sign of bloodlust that drives you to betray your countrymen and a sure indication it is you we should lynch?

Well, Tboy - I shall give you an opportunity that you would not afford me. Before I cast my vote, why should we not conclude that it is your neck that should be stretched?

Click to expand...

I can assure you, Minister whb, that I by no means simply rush to lynch at random, but take a cold and calculated approach to rooting out the communist scum in our midst. You may think that I act too hastily in pointing the finger of guilt at your good self; but the only other option is inaction, allowing the marxists more time to cull good, honest republicans. I think it far better to sacrifice a few innocents in pursuit of these fiends than to vacillate and fall before treacherous back-stabbing.

As for your suspicions towards myself - at this point, what evidence can I proffer in my defence but my honest word as a fellow nationalist? And how I can I be sure that your accusations are not merely an attempt to deflect a lynching from your guilty person towards an innocent?

I gotta say, Winston, it's ALMOST as fun watching everthing unfurl with this near-omnipotence as it is to play.

Particularly knowing who's who.

My trail of thoughts follows that of tboy. At this point everyone is equally guilty for our unfortunate situation. Since we are already an odd number we must vote each day or slowly move towards our inevitable doom.

I vote in order to make certain that a decision is made and not wasted. A communist traitor would prefer silence at this moment in time rather then risk making himself an unwanted target.

To be perfectly honest I am prepared to change my vote to one of the individuals who will remain silent by the end of this night. In my opinion the most likely to be a communist is the one who does not speak in day and whispers at night.

Lastly, considering the situation we should all be prepared to die if through our deaths we might take with us these communist pigs among our midst.

mgsmuhammad said:

(Sorry about the delay, but now everyone should have role PM's. Without further ado..)

Day 1​

Afraid of the punishment they could face for allowing the Communist to live, tension clung like fog over the cabinet meeting.

It was decided. In the true manner of a republic, voting would be used to try to locate and destroy the insurgent.


You have 48 hours before the night cycle, please don't hesitate to vote.

Click to expand...

If anyone is interested, I believe we can now clearly conclude that there is only one insurgent by following this quote "the insurgent".

That certainly is some early voting going on here! Not sure how comfortable I am with the very first two posts being votes - and for the same person at that. While I understand that we are at an uneven number, and that for this reason we need to call a vote during the first day, I still find it suspicious that votes were cast that fast..

No matter. I am not ready to vote yet - but I must admit I would like a bit more clarification from especially Minister Tboy on why you have chosen to vote this early. For anyone who might be wondering - I intend to vote, but will wait until afternoon before doing so.

Zorag said:

Vote: whb

Click to expand...

A bit bandwagon-y, are we?
Vote: Zorag.

Hmm, 3/7 votes cast already.

This first round is tricky. I don't really want someone to be eliminated so soon just at random... but the last game taught us the price of indecision.

I'll be a coward then, and leave the casting vote to somebody else.

Vote: Zorag

landlubber said:

A bit bandwagon-y, are we?
Vote: Zorag.

Click to expand...

I guess it didn't look that well voting soon, but I usually only log on once a day to read everything there is and reply if necessary. This game however should see my activity bounce higher, provided of course I don't get shipped off in the first day.

Might I make a defence for my self? Have you voted for me because you consider voting early a sign of being the culprit or because I voted for someone that had already been voted for?

My early vote was, I can assure you, namely a device by which to stimulate discussion. At this present time, gut feeling suggests to me either whb or zorag - the latter marginally more so, due to the bandwagoning. Plus slaze remains silent...

I shall reserve further judgement for now. I'd like to hear more from whb before I withdraw my vote from him.

Tboy said:

My early vote was, I can assure you, namely a device by which to stimulate discussion. At this present time, gut feeling suggests to me either whb or zorag - the latter marginally more so, due to the bandwagoning. Plus slaze remains silent...

I shall reserve further judgement for now. I'd like to hear more from whb before I withdraw my vote from him.

Click to expand...

Personally, I prefer to give my gut a meal of information before I listen to its feelings; but yours voted before anyone else had even spoken! No matter for the moment, as today I wonder if Zorag's words condemn himself.

If he is speaking truthfully, and he is rarely present, then he is surely the lowest risk guess, as he could not provide or discover much information if he is so rarely present? And if he is not speaking truthfully, then I can only imagine he must be the spy trying to imply that "surely he can't be the spy, as he wouldn't be around enough to give his deadly orders"?

Of course I am open to be convinced otherwise, but for the moment my choice is to
Vote: Zorag

I don't quite understand why strengthening tboy's vote is considered incriminating. We needed to kill someone this day. I had a choice between not voting, voting for someone at random or voting for whb.

I considered voting for tboy a little, but there was no significant logical assessment which made him more likely to be a communist then any other. In fact by voting first he seemed less likely.

Between voting and not voting it was obvious that I should vote. A tie at this stage might create unexpected results like in the previous game, which at the time seemed like a bad thing. So I voted in order to make the decision more final.

I admit I didn't spend a lot of time considering the decision as it did not seem that relevant at the time. Still it seems rather typical that so early on players would cling to anything that is perceived even slightly negative from society's perspective.

What I don't fully understand is this statement from whb:
"If he is speaking truthfully, and he is rarely present, then he is surely the lowest risk guess, as he could not provide or discover much information if he is so rarely present? And if he is not speaking truthfully, then I can only imagine he must be the spy trying to imply that "surely he can't be the spy, as he wouldn't be around enough to give his deadly orders"?"

I'm present daily at least once and did specify that during this game I will be more active provided I don't get killed, I never said I am inactive. I don't see how this piece of information can be incriminating as it is most likely the case with the majority of team members. The rest of the statement is rendered null by this simple contradiction.

To turn the statement around, it seems like you are looking to say anything that would make me look bad. This isn't the attitude of a loyal minister of China, it is more the attitude of a coward looking for a way out, like the communists. I am ready to die for my country if that is what my colleagues decide is just. I just hope that through my death you might be able to draw some conclusion to lead you closer to the real culprit.

I believe my arguments are quite reasonable and I will continue to defend myself in this manner until the end of this day, which seems much more likely to become my end. I hope you can see the truth of my words.

I found myself highly suspicious of you Zorag, and I intended to vote for you too based on how you decided to so quickly vote for whb after the vote was cast by Tboy. However, I find myself inclined to believe your statement of defense.

My vote now may very well condemn me to be lynched tomorrow, since I will now place the vote in deadlock unless our last minister decides to vote. However, in the interest of discovering any special abilities like someone very charismatic or similar around here who could be able to sway a vote in their favour, I still choose to do so. Also, it's interesting to see if our last minister will choose to vote to kill the deadlock during the evening now.

Vote: whb

I'd like to add another statement in my defence. When I read the thread I didn't take a look at the time stamps so I wasn't aware that I was voting soon after someone else had. Coincidence was against me this time.

A deadlock might not be such a bad thing however, if there are indeed special abilities like charismatic we would be able to quickly narrow down the individual in question.

Trouble is, the charismatic individual could be a communist or a minister - it doesn't necessarily indicate allegiance. I fancy they are more likely to be the former, but it's by no means a given.