Its big advantage, I think, is that the DFs couldn't have anticipated this outcome, scummers who aren't otherwise suspected don't make up RC's on night 1 and share and criticize around because you've no idea who is what yet. What we'll do, if we go with the plan, is ask the less frequent posters to get there's up first - their code that is - just so if we end up waiting on someone, odds are most won't have posted theirs yet, minimizes risk, we don't really need to go in strict order, then, as soon as the last one is in, we start revealing our code keys, roughly in reverse order I think, the last poster doesn't even need to code, and anyone who thinks they'll have a very hard time using the coding tricks can request to go last. If 8 or 9 of us have posted our codes, little harm is done by having someone skip the code and just state their role. Everyone posts some clear code, relatively short, no more than 20 or 30 characters, no more than maybe half a dozen padding characters, if they've got some really large hybrid role they can always drop vowels and abbreviate, which I'll put in a table, they can then litter their message giving the code with all sorts clues about the key to the code, so long as the actual code is specific, so nobody tries to overlap multiple codes they can claim out of, encoding three or four roles into one message. I'll go into some sample methods below. We'll essentially achieve simultaneous claims, which is very good to do, sort of the equivalent of having everyone write down their name and role on a piece of paper and sticking it in a hat, then when they're all in have them read and tabled.

This happens to be a ideal situation to try it out, I've considered using it generally for normal mass claims but it hasn't been in my best interests to do it for, well, since game 5 or so, lot of scummering, wasn't necessary, or I was dead, etc. IT has given me a fair amount of time to refine the idea for use



Sure thing. The biggest concern is leaving a message that can't be simply cracked while simultaneously leaving no doubt that the key to decode it was as given, so someone couldn't later manufacture a fake key to fit their clue. I'll give some examples.

I am a cop. I wish to encrypt that, just doing "dpq" is kinda obvious, one letter onto each, plus only so many roles have 3 letter names, but let's say we wanted to encode that to make it hard to extract.

"The Flower, IAEUR"

Starting with cop, the letter-number switcheroo is 3-15-16
Now, for F-L- O -U-R (flower as hint to Flour) it's 6-12-15-21-18

Making Cop 3-15-16-0-0 and adding it to 6-12-15-21-18 gives you:
9-27-31-21-18, for all numbers above 26, we simply repeat back to A=27, B=28, etc, so it turns into 9-1-5-21-18 ---> I-A-E-U-R

Now, trying to guess one's way back to cop from that clue is damn nigh impossible, and this just being a game, no one is too likely to try, you can hack any simple code given enough time and effort, but short messages like this, where one is basically trying to drop the clues needed not to decode it but to prove that that the key to decoding it was the original, not too tricky.

I can't give anyone anything specific to use, since if I do some can crack it, just give ideas. Go through anything you make and double check it to make sure its right and both obvious on explanation and arcane otherwise, nothing too heavy. Up above was one example that can be modified. And I'm sure people can come up with other. Stay simple, people don't need to have a clue that cracks it, just makes it clear your key is singular. Up above was an example, and so is this message. "BWMLFHR"


For those having doubts about how effective this is, try to crack that before going further down for the answer









I can't give anyone anything specific to use, since if I do some can crack it, just give ideas. Go through anything you make and double check it to make sure its right and both obvious on explanation and arcane otherwise, nothing too heavy. Up above was one example that can be modified. And I'm sure people can come up with other. Stay simple, people don't need to have a clue that cracks it, just makes it clear your key is singular. Up above was an example, and so is this message.

First word of every sentence "I Go Up And Stay Up" with the sentence beginning with "And" serving as an indicator this isn't an accident. What goes up and stays up? Lots of stuff, so hard to guess even if someone catches that, but in this case: Helium... note also "Nothing too heavy" which serves as another confirmation. HELIUM is the key to our code BWMLFHR

Tracker + Helium = BWMLFHR
20-18-1-3-11-5-18 + 8-5-12-9-21-3-0 = 28-23-13-12-32-8-18
Change the 28 and 32 into 2 and 6 (28-26 and 32-26) and you get
2-23-13-12-6-8-18 or BWMLFHR... by the way, one should pad these things, say use CRBWMLFHRAP instead, as CR-BWMLFHR-AP... CR-AP, crap, or rather than just encode cop, encode I am a COP - IAMACOP, or encode POCAMAI instead and use as your key REVERSE, scatter clues in the message like "I think we need to push forward with our investigations, and we're really not" and "Seems like everytime we lynch someone they're the opposite of what we expect" and so on. You want as many points of contact confirming your key as you can.

That's not the only route of course, it's just fairly straightforward and reusable. Most others, I'll ruin if I give them but people can use them for ideas, for instance, my last message had a time stamp of 013329, I could add that to "tracker" and comment on how the key was in my last message, etc, etc, nobody would be likely to guess that. Gotta be a little careful my timestamp is set to my time for me, everyone in the default site time will see 063329, but that can be explained, and a single letter off can be forgiven as a mistake so long as its still clear. I know when I left the code telling everyone (in RP Mafia) that I'd copped FT and found him loyal and we were now in discreet cahoots, to be used if I died, I was using all capital letters as the code, and accidentally capitalized someone's name out of habit, odds are if you mess up that way and your decode reads DOCVTOR you'll be good, or if it reads DOCUOR, but doubly checking is a good idea.

Our big advantage is that even if someone cracks it, they can hardly say they did or tell their allies, ideally we have the less frequent posters go first too, so we're not giving people days to try their hand at cracking codes, personally I'll try it just for fun, but mine's already up their so it shouldn't matter. IF anyone wants to go the letter-number route this app will help you can turn the word into numbers or the numbers back into letters, time consuming and easier to make a mistake otherwise. IF anyone really devotes the time to crack codes and is successful, well good for them, a little extra game for that player, most likely it would be one scummer cracking one or two codes for their own use on what to avoid claiming, they won't get them all I'm sure (and if so, they probably deserve to win) let alone aid their allies with the knowledge, so this is pretty safe.




Ideally we do it before we lynch anyone today, since there's a good chance we'll shake out someone doing this, its big problem is we'll be exposing our doc, cop, etc... but the cop is often exposed by day 3 and the doc too. In a game of 12 people, usually by day 4, 6 of the 12 are dead anyway, and any given player has about a 1 in 5 chance of getting snuffed during our double lynch. It's a calculated sacrifice that we may not even have to pay, though that's for later.