There was a lot that happened this game to give the mafia a fighting chance. I don't really have the time to get into it now, but I will do a rundown tomorrow.
I've got a few moments, so let's talk about the first day:
Not much occurred here. After the fact, Mop it up pointed out to me that apparently, when I'm guilty and she's guilty, voting for Mop it up is one of our tells. Even though we lost MASB right away, in a standard game, one could say the votes put us in a pretty powerful position. The end vote was primarily between two mafia members and pokepal. Thank's to BeautifulShy's efforts, we also knew pokepal had a role, though we did not know what role that was. Moving past that, I had voted for a mafia member that got in hot water and hadn't changed my vote. Mop it up, I believe, voted for MASB and was effectively one of the killing votes. If anyone went back and analyzed the day's vote, we had some fairly decent cover.
This might surprise some people based on what I said before, but I had sent in the hit for pokepal early in the day, before any of this really happened or developed. He was just a random choice.
Typically, I make the plan for how I'll play each mafia game before the game starts, as best I can to avoid modifying my plans too heavily and making obvious mistakes in over-planning. In this case, I had decided I was going to approach the game to appear uninterested, and also rarely log in to actually do anything. This is evident in day 1's post, where I voted Mop it up, primarily to feign disdain for even signing up for the game. (I was lying about not signing up above. It was a joke! I did sign up for this one.)
Upon reading the results for day 1 in day 2's thread, at first I thought we were in pretty good shape. The killer actually took out a townie role. We knew the identity of the investigator, who was ripe for being hit. Seemed pretty basic, pretty positive. A balanced exchange. We lost MASB, we gained a lot of insight.
At this point, the mafia was Insanolord, Mop it up, and me. If you've ever played one of these games with Insanolord, you know he's pretty quiet. I kept him in the loop with our plans, but we didn't hear much back. Most strategizing was discussed with Mop it up. She pointed out how screwed we really were. I didn't even see ThePerm was added in at first. I didn't see he also came with a one-time use shield.
See, I've hypothesized the best way to deal with a townie alliance where one member is clearly confirmed for all townies to see is a townie is to make a false claim about being another townie role. An easy one in a game like this? The Doctor. Yes, the end result might be that the false doctor is discovered and voted out. However, with that, there's a strong chance that you sow paranoia and distrust, while also potentially discovering the identity of other townie roles, all things considered. It's a risky play, but one that makes sense if there's a townie alliance that is too solid thanks to verifiable information in the game. This was to be the move going forward.
Except now there were two verified townies in pokepal and ThePerm. There was literally no way to move in and pretend to be a townie role without there being one confirmed member left. Two things should have really broken the game following the first night: The certain reveal of pokepal's role and the presence of a second, fully-disclosed townie who also had automatic protection. Add in that a doctor was in the game and that pokepal had auto-protection from BeautifulShy that night, and we, the mafia, essentially had no hope.
Still focusing on the actions leading into and introducing day 2, it was assumed Pokepal investigated BeautifulShy before revealing his role to her, thus swinging the vote in day 1. It wasn't a big deal if this was a one-off event. Things could still be manipulated. It meant two more investigations instead of just the first day one, which wasn't great, but could be managed. Primarily, that management occurs via schemes that cause the lone, apparent townie to mistrust the people he or she has trusted, and it can be done. As soon as that lone townie has a reliable, confirmed second role to count on, the game becomes a lot easier, and it's easier to grow confident in connections and to also be able to steer the game with an alliance.
All these things went into consideration as we began making plans for Day 2.