But that line of thinking results from peanut size brain. I have galaxy size brain. So let's explore what is actually a plethora of possible outcomes and strategies (I won't relist the outcomes discussed above, but know that I acknowledge those 2 outcomes exist and are highly likely and I will count those as options 1 and 2).
3.) I'm actually mafia. Funnily enough, this is the ideal situation for everyone. I'm the primary role I want to be, I'm in the exact position I want to be, and everyone can finally be right about tunneling me as scum. In my opinion, that I can say is humble but none of you will believe that, I straight up just win the game if I'm mafia here. Am I arrogant? Sure. But I'm in a spot where several people actually believe I might be officer. I can probably buy a few phases because I can just claim that someone is confirmed town, which they actually would be since I know who all the town are. I could also claim that one of my teammates is town, but this would look scummy if I end up getting lynched. But reverse psychology. Everyone thinks I'm crazy and unpredictable. As a result, none of my claims would be trusted and so I wouldn't be hurting my teammates regardless of what I claim, I would only be buying myself time. Assuming I pick my claims carefully, I should be able to get away with it as only the actual Officer would be able to out me. But if they out me that's pretty much a win for mafia. Not only that, I may draw healing from doctor or strange pills, making our mafia team even more confident that our NK won't be stopped.
Now this is reason enough that you should straight up lynch me right now. But consider this. I'm analyzing my own situation way deeper than anyone else. I'm not just throwing out useless percentages of what I might be if I carry a weapon. What do I as mafia have to gain my increasing my suspicion 10 fold? I know you'll say that it's because I'm shock and that's what I would do, but I could've played my own play style without going through the risk I have. I didn't even have to reveal that I carried a weapon. You may say otherwise, but
I guarantee you regardless of alignment I could've avoided being a top lynch candidate and being forced to reveal as officer if I wanted to. I let that happen, and you might think that a town would never do that because a townie benefits nothing from that play. Peanut size brain I say.
4.) This is technically a scenario 2b but I'm town and I lied about officer. Now why would I do that other than to throw for town or cause chaos? Well the obvious seeming answer would be I did it to save myself from dying to lynch. Yes, but I just announced that I could've avoided this situation all together to begin with. I knew not talking would bring votes on me. I knew that talking more after that would bring even more votes on me. So what do I have to gain from this, or am I just throwing? Well,
I will cause a lot of chaos and wasted abilities for town IF town plays like they normally do with peanut size brain capacity. I might cause the real officer to be forced to counterclaim early and reveal. If this happens, its a disaster. Real officer is revealed and I get lynched. But we're both town, so effectively I just lose two town members, our most important role, and cause everyone to distrust each other. Additionally, I probably guarantee that everyone lynches me day 1 for every future mafia game. But is this situation salvageable, or even advantageous?
Possibly, maybe even yes. I can use this situation to act as a decoy for real officer. If the real officer thinks that this scenario is what's playing out now, they effectively have additional protection. If I die to mafia, that's one less night where they could've hit officer. What's more, if we have a friendly neighbor in play, I have just set up town for an amazing system that could straight up win the game. This is how it works:
Spoiler for friendly neighbor strategy:
Friendly neighbor contacts me. I reveal publicly the names of 2-3 people that the friendly neighbor is among. Officer uses observe on those players until they find the friendly neighbor. Then they check their primary role. If friendly neighbor is mafia, we just found a mafia. If friendly neighbor is town though, now we have a medium for the real officer to give me information without having to publicly reveal. Between potential heals and the fact that I may not be the real officer, mafia has to decide if trying to NK me is worth the risk. If they NK me, I might get healed as the claimed officer. If they NK me successfully, I may turn up a useless role that they wasted time on, especially since players already find me suspicious. They lose me as scapegoat target to hide behind during the day lynches. But if they don't NK me, I keep feeding primary roles to the public. These roles will be as close to confirmed as you can get. If I happen to be the real officer, having the potential for this strategy also gives me even more protection, since mafia might ignore trying to NK me.
Now I realize this strategy has some flaws, but they aren't terrible and having this strategy at least talked about gives us additional protection vs. the mafia because we have another mind gate option available. Mafia could kill all the people I list as possible friendly neighbor targets, but then they're wasting time not killing me or the real officer. Mafia could role block me or the neighbor, but then we know mafia has a role blocker. If officer finds role blocker or an agent catches them, we found another mafia yet again. Yes, there are other ways this can fail, and my entire mafia team could just fake this strategy, but real officer could always counterclaim to reveal several liars and we should at least discuss this option.
