Mini 549 (Tarhalindur Mostly Mountainous) - Game Over

[Jester]

Sorry about that. I looked in on this game Wednesday morning, expected to see requests to confirm, didn't, and then forgot about it until I got the reminder this morning.

And

vote: Nyktorion

, both because OMGUS is fun and because both his handle and his avatar are annoying.

[Jester]

Blackberry, what's with the green, oversized text in your 36 and 56 (green in one, red in the other)? That said:

First -- ''Trying to look active'' makes no sense. One is either active or not active. There is no such thing as ''looking active.''

This is incredibly not true. Nothing will draw a serious vote from me faster than posting about nothing. Posts about nothing tend to be scum posts. It's also quite easy to look active by posting weird, random crap (as Rosso is doing in his 26, 28, and 33). People who post random crap tend to be rather poor townie players. Since Nyktorion also pointed out that this statement isn't true,

unvote

.

On another note, SlySly has only had 3 posts. The first a random vote - nothing unusual there. The next 2 were nothing of substance. Seems to be lurking to me.

Interesting that you didn't accuse myself or Dean Harper or johoohno of this. All three of us had fewer posts than SlySly up to your 49. For the record, I tend to play this game by making longish posts every two or three days. I also don't play MS on weekends unless the game is at a critical phase.

Also, a sort of newbie question. The title of the game is "Mostly Mountainous." From what I understand, a mountainous game is slang for one that has multiple mafia groups. Is that correct?

[Jester]

Mountainous Mafia -- if I am correct, only has townies and mafia as roles.

Huh, I finally thought to check the wiki, and you're right. I thought that the "only mafia and townies" variant was just called vanilla.

Also, I asked about your over-sized, colored text because I was in a mafia game on another forum where colored text was mafia coded instructions. The mafia got together before the game began and agreed in advance that a color X reply to a given player meant "harass this player" and a color Y reply to a given player meant "I think this player has a power-role."

You've used several different colors and styles, including at least one post with no color or style. So I was and am curious.

[Jester]

Sorry for the lack of posts. I work for IBM and it's been... aheh... busy. Check the news on IBM lately and you'll see what I mean.

I don't think that we should assume that scum would never attempt in-game communication.

I imagine it happens fairly frequently. I agree that colors and odd fonts aren't too subtle, but Blackberry hasn't explained yet why sometimes he does this, and sometimes, he doesn't. Care to explain this, Blackberry?

I looky at RC's past games. I can not find a distinguishable pattern. Am I allowed to reference other games? I found one where he posted absolutely nothing the first couple pages and he was town.

This sort of thing is regarded as unfair on this forum. That said, I do it fairly frequently. What you're definitely not allowed to do, though, are reference other games on this forum that are currently in progress. You've been here for three years. You should know this. Now, all of this being said, I can't find another game where you've gone color/text size crazy like you have in this one. It must mean something.

FOS: Blackberry

.

I notice that of a lot of people (Earwig, SlySly, SlySly again and Tamuz) are not reading rules or posts very thoroughly. (Scums feeling they can afford being sloppy readers?) I'm still satisfied with my vote on Tamuz.

This is a very good catch! I'd been feeling a little wary of SlySly but couldn't put my finger on why. I think you might be on to something here. That said, let's not speculate on game setup just yet. In particular, it's profitless to speculate about the existence of a SK until we've got proof of the existence of more than one night killer.

Since your keeping-a-low-profile seems to be intentional, this makes me belief that you might be one of the scums, or the SK.

This is stretching things quite a lot, don't you think?

I agree he could have kept that he was researching a theory to himself until he found evidence to support it. Having responded to me that he is still riding on it for awhile, I'm willing to accept why he wouldn't want to reveal it just yet, though I dont know about the style of response to the first people who asked him about it, could be his usual playstyle.

I think there's been far too much discussion of what is -- honestly -- a relatively minor plot point in this game. I agree with most of the rest of your post on it. I find the people who keep bringing this up annoying and somewhat suspect.

I was on to the scums pretty early on, but was lynched anyway - probably because I posted too much. Obviously that wasn't the way to work, now I'm trying a different style, seeing if it's possible to get my point of views in the games without posting too much.

Don't get too discouraged by this. I almost always get night-killed the first night because I spot stuff, talk about it, and make scum nervous. In one game, I was targeted by both the SK and the mafia group, effectively double-killed the first night, heh. That said, the town almost always wins the games where I get killed early, so I've come not to mind it too much.

--_-- Can we get off the subject of homosexuality?

QFT.

And I'm caught up.

[Jester]

I also enjoy using Size 17 text, am I allowed to do that in this game?

There doesn't seem to be a rule against it. Only thing that really applies is rule 2a among the rules. So, as long as you're not using it to get an advantage in the game, I suppose it's allowed.

Also - Jester, a recommendation for the future: the V/LA thread exists for a reason.

mod

, if you're going to expect me to post every 72 hours, go ahead and consider me V/LA for the remainder of the game. I only very rarely play MS on weekends, and I mostly post twice a week if everything's going well. Within those restrictions, I will remain active. If for some reason I expect not to be able to post in a given week, I'll post that here.

You think so? When I first read Johoohoo's post, I thought that his statements about the SK and the low-profile-players were related. Going from that point, I believe that my accusation is not that far away.

Yes, I do. You're speculating about the structure of the game without any evidence at all. I agree that Tar's emoticon on the subject (I believe it was ":twisted:") would seem to indicate that in whatever way this game is "mostly" mountainous is not to the town's benefit. But even assuming that there is a SK, I find it somewhat difficult to believe that Johoohno would advertise himself as such. However,

for day one

, it's pointless and wastes the town's time to speculate about whether there's an SK in this game until we have good evidence to point to one. So, bring this up again on day two.

It makes it look like you voted him simply to make a contribution, but had no plan beyond the vote.

Take out the word "contribution" and replace it with the word "post". After that, QFT. Then mutter something darkly about Rosso just trying to stay off the "72 hours between posts" radar.

truth is this game is nowhere because all ive seen is people going after

homo

because of his untold (and obvious metagame) theory.

Hey, how about keeping the hate crimes out of this game, what do you say?

vote: Rosso Carne

.

are you a dumbass or just on drugs?

While you're at it, drop the fake hostility, too.

Earwig - The amnesiac poster
Tamuz - The lurking non-poster
thenextepisode - The (theory) inquisitive poster

I'd be interested to see some stronger suspicions behind these three. I rarely use the word "strawman", but it would seem to apply here.

(and possibly a dark horse: slysly)

And this is an interesting little insert. Same question. Slysly, your 172 is right on the money.

MOD: if you have a problem with my anger its general courtesy to take it to the PMs instead of making it a game wide ordeal

Huh. Overreact much? Or is this more fake hostility? In this post, I can't tell.

[Jester]

If, as you say, it was simply an effort to stay off the posting radar, he could have chosen a better method, especially if he really had no other reason behind the vote. You will notice that he has yet to answer to his reasoning for the vote, and has not mentioned his "re-read" again.

Both true and fair points. Good call.

if youre going to vote me because me and berry make fun of one another, please calm down.

Ecto seems to be voting for you for not answering his questions. I'm currently voting for you for how you're playing this game.

To everything pointed at me... I present my suspicion of Earwig.

For some reason, I can't latch on to this whole Earwig/Tamuz/Ecto/Johoohno situation. To me, it looks like a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing, but it seems like at least Tamuz and Earwig feel really strongly about... whatever it is that they feel really strongly about. Could someone outside of one of these four summarize the situation for me and give me your perspective?

I was not really speculating about the structure of the game in my attack against Johoo. I took Johoo's speculation about the game and his comment about people below the radar, and I thought I could already put one and one together from there.

I get what you're saying. It still sounds like a stretch to me, for the moment. I've got it down in my notes, though.

The more I read over Tamuz's posts, the less I like them. Throughout the entire game, his sole contribution has been a single, illogical post.

Yep, that's more or less how I felt, too, but Earwig seems to feel really strongly about Tamuz despite this. And I have to admit that I don't much care for a number of Tamuz's posts. His 193, for instance, really rubs me the wrong way.

What with your callous disregard for who gets lynched, combined with your earlier comment about serial killers, you'd be my main suspect for being the serial killer.

While your reasoning is basically sound, again (like Nyktorion), I caution you on stretching this point so far. Lots and lots of players get impatient for night. It doesn't mean that they have night roles. Nights are important to everyone in a MS game because they tend to give all the players a lot of information. My last game, three different people were calling for a deadline to begin night, and all three were vanilla townies just bored and eager for the next phase of the game. Your other reasons for voting for Johoohno are fine, but I wouldn't put too much stock in this one until we have evidence of a SK or multiple scum groups.

And I'm caught up.

[Jester]

Agreed, ROTN. ryan's so off his normal track in this game I'm tempted to think he might be a bad guy.

FOS: ryan

[Jester]

My normal track?

You're always easily provoked -- look at the other game that you and I shared until recently. But normally, you're as persistent as a tick (and yes, quite aggressive) when you feel like you have a valid target. And you're usually very good about stating your reasoning behind that target. What you're not, usually, is blatantly insulting or given to

ad hominem

attacks. But in this game, not only are you being insulting, not only are you resorting to ad hominem attacks, but you're also not your persistent or logical self (see post 255). So yeah, you're off your normal track all right.

If anyone puts him at L-1 i WILL unvote until the case is stronger, because we dont want to quicklynch anyone.

I agree with Ecto here. This whole post is damned creepy, this line creepiest of all. Did you really mean to post something so frightfully stupid, or...? It was posted at 2:47am and you have no location associated with your profile. Where are you? Were you maybe not getting enough sleep? Your postings are quite literally around the clock. But I don't like the wagon that formed around you, either.

Hate it or not, some scum can't help from exposing themselves, even early, with persistent defenses of each other.

Someone always trots out this old chestnut. Maybe I'm just badly inexperienced at this game -- I don't think I am, but I suppose it's possible -- but I can't remember even a single game I've been in that scum went out of their way to defend each other. If anything, exactly the opposite: scum reserve their nastiest attacks for each other a lot of the time. Most of the time though, in my experience, scum just try to ignore each other. Can someone give me an example game to read where scum were exposed and lynched because they were defending each other? I'd love to read this highly theoretical situation in real life.

Care to Repost your voting reasons with relation to current events Nyktorion & Jester?

My vote is on Rosso for four reasons:
# His lashing out at people, including some decidedly non-PC language, feels forced to me, like he's trying to provoke people and get a wagon to form, and...
# linked to this, his voting patterns are all over the freakin' place. He's voted for four people in less than two weeks, with little or no justification attached to any of the votes.
# He freely admits that he's not adding content to the game, but doesn't bother to change that trend.
# And finally, I really don't like the fact that he's ignoring questions asked of him.

His most recent post (about his willingness to hammer someone) is just icing on the cake. I feel very comfortable about where my vote is right now.

I'm still speculating about a possible setup (perhaps that is unwise(?)

Yes, this is very unwise. This is the second time I've pointed this out to you in this game (I previously did so in my 148). Speculating about the structure of the game and encouraging others to do so on day one takes time directly away from scum-hunting.

FOS: Johoohno

.

Nevertheless, I'm not sure why this bandwagon on him has built up so quickly.

QFT.

Disregarding my personal distaste for the Lynch-All-Liars strategy...

This, however, not so much. I've found this strategy to be invaluable as a scum-hunting tool. It

can

be taken too far, and a liar is not automatically scum, but it's usually quite telling to confront a liar and see how he or she responds. But I like the rest of this post, so I'll let this minor statement slide.

[Jester]

Huh. I directly challenge ryan... and he ignores it. Ignores it!

That is so totally, completely outside of my past experience with ryan that I'm forced to conclude that something about his play is different this time, as compared to the previous times I've played with ryan. Every other time I've played with ryan, he's been town. I was suspicious before. Now, I'm nearly convinced.

unvote, vote: ryan

[Jester]

Basing his entire case on ryan on an inconclusive meta.

You're always easily provoked -- look at the other game that you and I shared until recently. But normally, you're as persistent as a tick (and yes, quite aggressive) when you feel like you have a valid target. And you're usually very good about stating your reasoning behind that target. What you're not, usually, is blatantly insulting or given to ad hominem attacks. But in this game, not only are you being insulting, not only are you resorting to ad hominem attacks, but you're also not your persistent or logical self (see post 255). So yeah, you're off your normal track all right.

Pieces of my attack that are decidedly not meta:
:arrow: ryan was being deliberately insulting;
:arrow: ryan was resorting to

ad hominem

attacks;
:arrow: ryan was flip-flopping from target to target, following the crowd; and,
:arrow: ryan's attacks weren't particularly reasoned or logical.

Pieces of my attack that are meta:
:arrow: The stuff that's above is not ryan's usual town play-style.

I don't think it's a fair assessment to call my entire attack meta. As pointed out above, the vast majority of it was behavoir that I would consider suspicious coming from anyone. It was just doubly so coming from ryan. So I'm not prepared to pull my vote off him just yet. He's one of the best leads I have so far this game, even if he was banned. Sorry about that, Battousai, but there it is. I'd welcome your comments about your predecessor's play style.

Perhaps it's time for each of us to present our top three scum list?

I'm not sure I have a top three. I've got people that I'm suspicious of, but no real suspects yet.
:arrow: ryan bugs me for the four reasons above.
:arrow: As I mentioned earlier, I don't like how Rosso lashes out at people, votes all over the freakin' place, doesn't add true content, and ignores questions directed at him. His whole play-style feels... fake to me. Forced. Like he's acting, not playing. I'd probably move my vote to Rosso, unless he gets back into this game and participates.
:arrow: I'm still not entirely sanguine about Blackberry because of his early font/color experiments. They've dried up since the early game, but I still feel like they might have been some kind of tell, if only I were only smart enough to read it.
:arrow: I'm wary of SlySly because he's always right there offering advice and counsel and commentary, but only rarely jumps in front of the pack to express suspicion about people or ask questions without sarcasm. He always seems to be right behind the crowd ready to vote for who the crowd seems to want lynched. It's not

necessarily

scummy... but it makes me wary.
:arrow: And on the very low end of the scum scale, I don't like how you keep bringing up the game setup.

On the pro-town end, I feel like ROTN, Nyktorion, and Ecto are more townish. I don't have a good read at all on the others, particularly Tamuz and Earwig, the latter of whom is a complete cipher to me.

For some reason, I feel a little... disconnected from this game. And that's definitely not something that happens often. As a matter of fact, I can't think of a single time it's happened to me before. And I'm not sure why it is I feel this way. I think I'm gonna scrap my notes and do a complete re-read of this game from start to finish this weekend, taking new notes along the way and see what comes out of it.

[Jester]

OK, I'm done with my re-read, and it was quite helpful! It really got me reconnected to this game, and helped me to clarify to myself why some players are really making me uneasy. I was also able to step back from a few things I found suspicous and decide that they weren't as scummy as they appeared to me on first glance.

I'm gonna do a person-by-person overview of the players based on my re-read, followed by changing my vote (

unvote

), but first, here's a few things I wanted to address that were brought up since my last post.

67: Jester raises the notion of multiple mafia groups.

Actually, I asked what "mountainous" meant and made a poor guess based on some reading of a couple of completed mountainous games in Little Italy. And welcome to the game! I wouldn't want to be replacing Blackberry in this game, heh.

I had forgotten that my predecessor was Blackberry.

ROFL I was thinking while reading your 352, "He

does

realize he's replacing BB, doesn't he?" Apparently, you didn't. Ironically, your posting this made me feel a lot better about you, and the slot that you're replacing. More on this in my next post.

FoS: Rosso Carne. I think you're scum. I think you were setting up Blackberry for D1 lynch, recognising that his playstyle was just horrible and made him look divided from town.

This, however, made me a little wary. "Divided from town"

really

jumped off the screen at me. I tried to remember where I'd read this before. Then I remembered. SlySly's 127, which I read during my re-read. You've just finished a read, so presumably you also read it, though you hopped over it in your 352. Can you explain this connection? I bring it up because I've been playing mafia a while, and I'd never heard that term until SlySly brought it up, and to have two different players bring it up in the same game jumped out at me.

I know no such thing. You have not made a post since post 169 where you have included anything about your suspicions on anyone. (Except for your FOS of me in the last post) Even in post 169, you simply relist the people from the vote count and restate (in brief terms) why they have been voted for. That isn't finding people suspicious, that's just summarizing the game.

::blinks:: You know... you're absolutely, totally right. I'd never noticed this until you pointed it out... and J suddenly moves to say he will correct this discrepancy

in his very next post

. Excellent call. Your further point about J speculating about game setup in a game that should have limited power-roles? Nearly as good. I had a

FOS: Johoohno

before for speculating on game setup before, but apparently it didn't get picked up by the mod. So there it is again.

As for your point that I shouldn't post who I think seems pro-town, I completely disagree. My post clearly outlined my thoughts on everyone. I am a fan of completely disclosing my thoughts. The scum are playing the same game we are. They are well aware of who seems the most pro-town so far. I think that having my thought down in the thread is just as helpful to the town as it is to the scum.

QFT. Everyone who says something like "trying to point out townies is a gift to the mafia" annoys me (more on this quote, and who said it, in my next post). It's like the person thinks the mafia doesn't know who the good guys are, which is ridiculous.

And that's all for the catch-up. Notes from my re-read within the hour. ::starts typing::

[Jester]

OK. Everyone, in alphabetical order.

Battousai

. Before my reread, I was suspicious of ryan because I felt like he was making a lot of adhom attacks and was vote-hopping. During my re-read, I found that wasn't happening as much as I thought it was, so I think I made a bad call here. Initially, ryan was suspicious of RC, BB, and Earwig, and almost immediately began jumping up and down on RC and BB. This is consistent. The adhoms started around 220, and the unvote came at 255. But by this time, ryan's play-style elsewhere had become erratic.

That said, I'm a little unhappy with Battousai's play; I don't feel like you're justifying your vote enough. You say that we're driving toward either a Johoohno or RC lynch, but RC isn't on your list of suspects. This doesn't bother you, that we're probably about to lynch someone you apparently don't find suspicious? Why didn't you bring this up when you asked people to justify their votes for one or the other? More to the point, why didn't you answer your own question? You also have no FOS's on anyone, which I find a little odd, given your suspect list is pretty long. Still, there's definitely scummier players in this game.

Un-FOS ryan/Battousai

. For now.

Earwig

. Mostly lurking. Only 19 posts, most of them full of nothing. Has been mostly focused on Tamuz, and accuses Tamuz of not justifying his vote (128), but then switches his vote off Tamuz to join the TNE band-wagon. After that band-wagon fell apart, drifted off into apathy. Says that RC has a jack-ass play-style (298), and Ecto has an early aggressive attacks play-style (43). Less focused attacks on BB and J, says using ryan's play-style against Battaousai is unfair (334). Is sitting out the game, which I don't like.

FOS: Earwig

.

Ectomancer

. You've been a really solid player. In particular, I like your 156, 166, 181, 184, and 276. Has the courage of his convictions, which in my experience is a strong townie trait; scum have a hard time pulling it off. But those convictions (and his posting rate) have been dropping off as we approach a lynch, which is a mild scum-tell. Still, I'm pretty sure you're a townie.

Fat_Tony

. Started out as Blackberry, who was all over the map. BB apparently had a theory about Earwig, but now we'll never know it. That theory soaked up a hundred or more posts in the early game. Attacked (deep breath) Nyktorion, Earwig, TNE, ryan, Slysly, and Joohoohno, but then said he was mostly suspicious of J, RC, and TNE. Never actually attacked RC, and defended him a couple of times (36, 106), so saying he's suspicious of RC didn't look credible. Suspicious as hell. Little or no logical flow-through on his posts, and lots of buddying up to RC despite listing him as suspicious. Post 273, for instance, is just flat weird. Fat_Tony is trying to keep his fingers in the dike, and is quickly running out of fingers. Still, you mount a credible defense against SlySly's attack in your 363. Still, suspicious. My FOS on you remains.

joohoohno

. Another one that's all over the map. Early attacks on (another deep breath) Earwig, SlySly, Tamuz, Ecto, Blackberry, RC, TNE. As ROTN correctly points out, though, he's

never

come out with a solid reason for voting for

anyone

, but just comes out with these unfounded (and in 169, strawman) attacks until he got blasted for his 169, then completely shut down. Put a vote on Tamuz in post 7, and didn't take it off until post 386! I'm stunned I didn't notice this until my re-read. Has been obsessed with the setup despite it being a mountainous game, then says "trying to point out townies is a gift to the mafia" (349), which is just ridiculous. Like the mafia don't know who the townies are. Asked for everyone to post a scum list, but didn't have one himself, then when pressured for one, said he'd have to do a re-read to come up with it. My FOS on you

definitely

remains.

Nyktorion

. My initial read on you was townie, and it still pretty much is. You've been consistent in your attacks on J and RC, though you were a little quick to join the TNE band-wagon. Said you didn't believe TNE was a VI (268), said that you didn't find BB's "scattergunning" all that scummy (367). You seem to be pretty focused on J, RC, and BB, and I mostly am too, so I guess that's OK. I still mostly read you as a townie.

RangeroftheNorth

. DeanHarper was a /dev/null, but you've come into the game and provided some really solid play and some really good insights. You're either a townie or a truly masterful scum. 'nuff said for now.

Rosso Carne

. Your game has been 29 posts of

ad hominem

attacks, pointless tangents, buddying up to Blackberry, and other related anti-townieness. I can't decide if you are just the most anti-town player I've ever seen, or the most obvious, lurking-in-plain-sight scum I've ever seen. Posts I particularly didn't like from you include 145, 155, 178, 244, and 271. And you refuse to defend yourself, which is stupid and (if you're a townie) is even more anti-town. If attacked townies don't defend themselves, the mafia wins.

FOS: Rosso Carne

, but I ain't voting for you. I think you

want

to be lynched, either 'cause you're a jester or because you're just enjoying being a dick in this game.

SlySly

. Your inital posts were full of absolutely nothing, which always pings my scumdar. You were a major perpetuator of the Blackberry theory water-muddying, and your attacks on people are usually laced with something insulting. You've also been spreading your attacks all over the place, notably Blackberry, RC, Tamuz, Earwig, joohoohno, and TNE. I really didn't care for your 245, in which you state that you believe TNE is the village idiot, but then go right ahead and vote him anyway. Still, within the overall scope of your posts, you've been fairly consistent. If you're scum, you're pretty good at it. I'm not going to FOS you just yet, but I definitely don't trust you.

Tamuz

.

And I have to admit that I don't much care for a number of Tamuz's posts. His 193, for instance, really rubs me the wrong way.

As I mentioned, I threw out my first set of notes. But when I got to this post, I checked, and sure enough, I'd made note of 193 this time, too. It again rubbed me the wrong way, along with your 190. My note for your 199 is "Says being a witless dweeb is his D1 play style" which I think sums up how I feel about you just now. Sorry for the adhom, but there it is. You also said something I found

really

interesting in my reread, in your 249. Specifically, you said you'd be unhappy with an RC lynch. Why is that, exactly? Do you still feel that way? Still, I think you're mostly townish.

thenextepisode

. Another one where a line from my notes sums it up: "Proves beyond a reasonable doubt that he's not too bright" (261). My thinking is that you're a complete newbie town that simply doesn't realize when he's saying the wrong things. You've been following the pack all over the place, which is usually a mild scum-tell, but it can also be a newbie-tell. You should probably get into a newbie game, or at least an Open game (where you get to know the setup in advance). Closed minis aren't for you.

So, who to vote for?

vote: joohoohno

, for the reasons above. I still don't like RC; my re-read changed nothing there, but I don't think I'm gonna vote for him. If we hit deadline, the person with the most votes gets lynched. If that's RC, I won't object too loudly, but I'm not gonna be part of it.

[Jester]

You were a major perpetuator of the Blackberry theory water-muddying, and your attacks on people are usually laced with something insulting.

Well, Pester, when scum are being scummy, should I give them a warm fuzzy instead?

People can play this game and be nasty about it, or can remember that it's a game, and even the scum are trying to have some fun. Attack the role, not the player. Attack what the player says, don't call him names. There are times when a little hostility is a good tactic -- when you're trying to rattle someone into making a mistake, for instance. But all the time? No, I don't think that's necessary, and it certainly isn't fun for anyone except the person doing it.

2) By asking them to justify their votes, Rosso and Johoohno have a chance to defend themselves and, Rosso being experienced knows how to defend himself.

True. But he's utterly refused to do so. As to your other responses, fair enough.

Long story short, the pain is driving me to distraction and I can't focus on things very well.

Ouch. :/ Get well soon! And don't be afraid to ask for replacment if needed. Real life should come first.

I didn't, and don't feel like there is a justifiable case on RC at that point/now.

Noted. That's a risky position to take just now.

I'm getting bored of agreeing with you. Suffice to say that your reads, by and large, are very well-explained versions of what I'm thinking, except for TNE. I just can't get over the idea that he is scum.

Fair enough. I haven't completely rejected the idea; he

has

said some odd things, and there's no denying it. I just think there are scummier players in the game right now.

I think my hand is forced somewhat by circumstance - I'm going to have to vote: Johoohno. My reasons are that you seem scummier and scummier as time passes, and I agree with ROTN and Jester's analysis on you. If there was a reasonable chance of getting a TNE-wagon going, I'd be on it in a flash. There isn't and so I'm taking what I believe to be the next-safest option. To be honest, though, I'm a bit twitchy about the whole darn thing.

You know, I'd honestly much rather have you voting TNE if that's who you want to vote for. These couple of paragraphs really come off as ass-covering and a preemptive "Well, I didn't really want to, but Jester and ROTN

said

..." That's a scum-tell. If you can't come up with your own reasons to vote for Johoohno, then don't.

"Let's let him catch up", give me a fucking break.

QFT.

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that obviously defending your scum partner from the most innocuous attacks would be a truly idiotic tactic for scum. Doing so over and over again, even after it had been pointed out in the past would require a vast, nearly amazing level of stupidity.

You're not wrong. It's also the second time this game that SlySly has trotted out the old chestnut that scum defend each other. Again, I will ask if

anyone

can point me at a completed game where scum defended each other. I would like to see this mythical beast in the flesh, once, before I die. In my experience, scum either attack each other harder than anyone else, or they ignore each other.

There is one point I don't understand in your post: what is a VI?

A village idiot. Yes, I just created that wiki page. I'm amazed a page for the term didn't already exist. It's pretty common. I like the rest of your 406.

Well, it’s the truth, I have had the same people on my scum list all along since my post 169.

Gotcha! That's a lie. You said in one of your follow-up posts that your 169 "scum list"

wasn't

your list of suspects, but just a list of people who had votes up to that point. Can't remember the post number, but I'm gonna find it. My vote on you is now locked and I summarily ignore and dismiss the remainder of your post unless your innocence is proved upon your death.

Courtesy section for the mod :

Un-FOS: ryan/Battousai

.

[Jester]

Johoohno's Post 189:

I see that my post 169 Has been misunderstood or (consciously interpreted in a chosen way?).

a) The five names on the list are the same five that has been on the latest mod vote counts.
b) My cases on Earwig, Tamuz and Slysly shouldn't be something new to you since I mentioned them in post 114.

I invite everyone to judge for themselves.

[Jester]

You need a little cheese to go with that whine? It has been a few games since I have had to call the WAAAHMBULANCE on someone!!!

Wow. That's really mature. Would you like a balloon animal, or maybe a 5-pack of crayons?

[Jester]

My vote on you is now locked and I summarily ignore and dismiss the remainder of your post unless your innocence is proved upon your death.

This doesn't seem very beneficial for the town.

That depends entirely on your alignment, wouldn't you say? I'm convinced you're scum, so I'm quite happy with where my vote is.

Unless something major happens (and I'm not sure the Tamuz whining qualifies), this will be my last post until after deadline.

[Jester]

I'm back! Catching up with all of my games, though nothing huge jumped out at me in this one (other than Tamuz dropping out, which made my eyebrows go up a bit). Full catch-up post in a couple of hours.

[Jester]

Hi all, sorry about my long absence. Got tapped to help with an event at work all last week, and I'm currently catching up with my games.

And lord knows that if I was a vig I would kill Battousai right now for the town's sake.

Personally, I think Ectomancer has blown this entire thing way out of proportion. ... This entire argument seems somewhat silly.

ROTN, QFT. Tamuz quitting the game initially raised my eyebrows, but it now seems pretty clear that he and Battousai have some kind of serious history. I have to admit that there are players on this site that I will not join games with. There are even a couple that I would consider dropping out of a game I was in if they replaced into it. Tamuz's bitterness about this past situation was bad for the town, but Ecto hounding him about it was worse for the town. I think I'm going to ignore this entire exchange until and unless there is a reason on a later game day to exhume it. In the meantime, Ecto, you handled that entire exchange, with both of these players very,

very

badly. You took one statement out of context and read

way

too much into it, IMO. I still think you're pro-town, and I'm gonna hope your emotions just got the better of you.

I really only have one option here. DEADLINE RETRACTED.

Am I allowed to say that I think this was kind of a bad move? Neither Tamuz nor Fat_Tony were major drivers in the game. I'd be inclined to either remove or retain both of their votes, get on with the deadline, see who gets NK'ed, and deal with replacing them day two. Second?

Update if anyone cared: I got my results back from my MRI, and though its not good news, at least I have a diagnosis. Ive got a degenerative spine condition called Cervical Spinal Stenosis.

Again, owie. I will hope the non-invasive therapy works wonders, Ecto.

And that's it. I'm again caught up. No major changes to my suspicions and I'm still happy with my vote right where it is. Johoohno, your defense against my attack was laughably weak, your failure to follow up Slysly and Tamuz shredding your own attacks even more so. You're not even trying to look townish any more.

Ecto, RC and Earwig are not voting and are not major factors in this game, so it looks like you've got the deciding vote. We're not gonna lynch Tamuz today, so who's your second choice?

[Jester]

Jester, I don't like the "finally get over with the day" mentality that stems from the qouted parts of your post #482. Yes, Tamuz and Fat_Tony were really not important players, but seeing the thoughts of their replacements before the first night would still help our Day 2.

I understand how this would be suspicious, so I'll explain it. We're now 5 days from deadline. I once replaced into a game about this size at the end of day 2 with a looming deadline, and it took me 8 days to read the game. By the time I'd finished my read, the deadline happened and I was night-killed.

Fortunately, I got enough comments (and a vote) in before the deadline to be helpful to the game and help lynch a scum, but it didn't stop the fact that I went through a tremendous amount of labor for only a little gain.

I've been in other games where a deadline was pushed back two weeks so that replacements could catch up, only to have someone else drop out, more replacements come in, and the deadline get pushed back even farther. It's a tough line for a game mod here to walk.

As a result, I'm now generally in favor of letting a scheduled deadline happen and then handling replacements on the following game day.

All that said, Mizzy, mozsuggs, welcome to the game! Read fast...

P.S. I took mozsugg's "claim" to be a joke, but it sure surprised me, heh. If you really are scum, mozsuggs, I'll nominate you for "funniest role claim" next year.

[Jester]

Oh, and just for the sheer pointlessness of it,

mod, please prod Earwig

.

I think I'm gonna request a prod on Earwig every time he goes four days without posting from here until the point where either he or I are dead. It's incredibly stupid that one of the most experienced players in this game is sitting it out.

[Jester]

Jester has flipflopped on my list from possible-town to possible-scum more times than I can count. Currently tipping towards the scummy side of my list.

Huh, really? I concede I haven't been totally consistent in this game (at one point in the game, I was feeling very disconnected from it, so I deleted my notes and started over from a fresh read), but I didn't realize I was being scummy about it.

What sorts of things, specifically, bothered you?

[Jester]

First, let's get this out of the way:

vote: Johoohno

.

It's a major tragedy for the town, in my view, that a townie was mod-killed and prevented us from lynching Johoohno or possibly Rosso Carne, both of whom were scummier than Blackberry/Fat_Tony. The whole mozsuggs situation was just stupid and I intend to put it out of my thoughts immediately. I, too, am quite irritated with this game. We should have had a clean lynch, probably on scum, with good information to start day 2 with. Instead, we've lost two townies and have very poor information for day 2, which puts the town at a serious disadvantage going into the mid-game.

Now, with that said... first, we haven't yet learned what "mostly" mountainous means. There was only one death, done "execution style", which indicates we've got mafia but no SK. That means there's almost certainly three scum out of the remaining 10 players.

Why was SlySly killed? It's hard to say. He was on my "possibly town" list and had done some townish things. His primary targets were RC, Blackberry, and TNE, in that order. Blackberry is now confirmed town despite some of the weird things he was doing. That leaves RC and TNE, who are on the scum lists of many players. But SlySly wasn't really the champion of anyone's lynch, but he

did

join me in the Johoohno vote. Maybe he was killed because he was kind of a townie pack-follower?

Anyway, more from me as we get further into day 2.

[Jester]

/prodded, but I've said all I intend to say until I hear more people's thoughts about how day 1 ended, about Johoohno, and about RC. As a matter of fact, consider me on V/LA until RC's next post, whenever that is.

[Jester]

Interesting. Mizzy's attack on Johoohno gets addressed in a point-by-point way, whereas mine (and my day two vote) continues to be subject only to the pathetically weak defense in 416. Johoohno, you've also not responded in any way to Slysly and Tamuz shredding your own attacks against them.

One of those two is now

proven

town, and you've not said a word about it. I'm curious. Where do you think your case against SlySly went so wrong?

[Jester]

Hmph. I hate mods and games where the deadline is set so near in the future.

That said, I'm content where my vote is right now. Johoohno should have been the lynch yesterday. He should be the lynch today. I'm increasingly convinced that Rosso is a jester (irony) and is either just trying to get himself lynched or is just getting his jollies in this game by being a fucking dick.

Sorry for the language, but this is the least fun MS game I've participated in on this forum so far. I'd vote for it to be abandoned if I could.

[Jester]

Hmph. My instincts couldn't be much more wrong in this game. Just about everyone I was suspicious of in this game is now dead and I'm now surrounded by a lot of people that strike me as townies. That's obviously not the case, so my thinking in this game obviously slid off the rails somewhere.

I'm gonna have to go back and do a re-read now that there are a lot of confirmed innocents. In the meantime, though, I'm gonna go back to my early game suspicions because my mid-game suspicions are clearly worthless. I let myself get manipulated day 2 and I want to see if I can find any trace of who did it. In the meantime...

vote: Battousai

Earlier in the game, I felt like ryan was playing strongly against type (which is meta) and that he was engaging in a lot of adhom attacks (which is not). Between ryan and Battousai, they've managed to state that they believed that just about every person that is now dead was mafia. I think some of this is misdirection (in my reread, I'm gonna focus on he and Nyktorion pretty closely), but I think some of it was possibly mafia members getting a lot of townies killed. What say you, Battousai?

Also, it seems pretty clear to me that Rosso was vigged. The guy was acting like an ass, and certainly deserved his fate. And heaven knows he certainly drew any vigs we have in the game on himself. I don't think I've ever seen such anti-town behavior. It'd be hard to find a person in this game that

didn't

want Rosso dead, so finding out who killed him is going to be tough unless someone now wants to claim vig. I'm not a vig.

Finally, all I can say about johoohno was that he was acting scummy and given the same data, I would have reacted the same way to it. Sorry about that, johoohno.

[Jester]

By the way, Jester, I would be careful with voting already... if there are three scum, we might be in LyLo already

You know... that's interesting, and likely true. I hadn't even thought of that possibility. And a few days have now passed, quite long enough for the scum to have hammered a Batt-townie and have already won the game, since I'm not scum.

I think I'll keep my vote where it is, for the time being.

[Jester]

I do not really understand why you want the vig (if we have one) to come out. Wouldn't this just expose him to the mafia, if he was really a vig? And even him really being a vig is not that sure, since it would a good claim for an SK, too.

There's good reason to believe the vig was one-shot. Otherwise, why not act earlier in the game? RC was just as much of a dick at the start of night 1 as he was at the start of night 2, maybe more so. There was no reason why a multi-shot vig shouldn't have shot RC on night 1. A one-shot vig, though, would have held his bullet hoping for more evidence.

There's no SK, and anyone who argues that there might be is either misguided or is actively trying to screw with the town. See below for the argument.

There are also a few holes in this theory, though.
1) You could be scum, trying to get a townie to vote with you and then bandwagon with the other scum
2) There could be 2 scum, with another killing role (protown or anti-town)

True. A standard 12-person mini would normally have 3 scum in it. But we're not playing a standard game. We're playing a mountainous game, and mountainous games have 2 scum in them. Mizzy, Ectomancer (662), and Nyktorion think we have three. TNE doesn't want to talk about numbers. ROTN wants to sit on the fence (638). Battousai wants to everyone to proceed from the assumption there are three. Jester thinks... no, is

sure

there are two.

I posted my 641 curious about who would speculate about number of mafia. As a matter of fact, I

don't

think we're at lylo. If there are three scum in this game with no or few pro-town power roles (vig doesn't really count), then this game was badly unbalanced in favor of the scum from the start. To my knowledge, the scum have won every standard mountainous game (2 scum, 10 vanilla town) on this site to date. They don't need three scum, and they better not have three scum. They've got two.

The fact that scum have won every standard mountainous to date would have likely given Tar good reason to introduce a weak pro-town role to try to balance the set-up a bit. Thus, "mostly" mountainous. That's why I think we have a one-shot vig.

3) The scum are waiting until your case get's a little stronger (probably nearer deadline) to vote to seem less eager.
4) One of the scum could be less active, thus making his partner(s) hold out for later.

Therefore, these two points are invalid. Both scum could vote with me, and you still wouldn't be lynched.

We had 2 kills last night. I see 1 of 2 explanations; an SK or a Vig.

And with that said, this renders the rest of Nyktorion's argument about a SK, as well as Ecto's argument on the same, as non-sensical. There's no SK in this game. If there were, there'd be two possibilities:
a) we have one mafia and one SK, or to put it another way, two SKs. There was only one Night 1 kill, so we don't have this set-up.
b) we have two mafia and one SK, and this game is hideously unbalanced against the town. There was only one Night 1 kill, so we don't have this set-up, either.

Once more for the cheap seats: there's no SK. There's either a vig, or there's some role that essentially functioned as a vig, like an army veteran. It's

not

a bomb or a paranoid gun owner, because those roles kill the person that targets them with a night action. RC didn't have a night action.

That is an interesting point, actually...I need to go re-find your case on Batt to see why you're voting him...you wouldn't happen to know what post it was, do you?

This isn't a single post. It's a feeling. ryan was doing a little bit of ad-homming, and didn't have the courage of his convictions. That's partly scum play, partly meta on my past experience with ryan, who even when he was totally wrong had the courage of his convictions. When Battousai took over, he stated suspicions about lots and lots of people (particularly in his 335), which I find a scum trait. His play since then has been... slippery. I admit I don't have much of a logically-constructed case, though. I had a more logical case against johoohno, and look where that got me.

Even though scum have not jumped at the opportunity yet (in case there is such an opportunity right now), I think that it would still be better for Jester to retract his vote and change it into a FOS for the time. "Holes" #3 and #4 pointed out by Battousai are still very possible.

Nope, they're not. See above.

[Jester]

This is my post 335, Jester. I wrote this as my summary of the first day when I replaced in. In this I gave my minor suspicions for 5 people that were mainly gut. At the time there were 11 people, not including myself.

I understand your point completely. It doesn't change the fact that I find such shotgunning to be scummy.

Well, Tarhalindur and myself had an... agreement.

Use of a singular pronoun. This is obviously suspicious.

We could have power role in the game (e.g. Mafia RB vs. standard vig?), the standard vig could have decided that RC was "just being an ass, but not scum", and for some reason have also chosen SlySly as target, we could have an SK, etc. While the case described by you is surely the most probable, it is not enough that I would like to bet the entire game on it.

Mountainous game.

FOS: Nyktorion

Well, an SK not only hurts the town, but also the mafia. As long as expected town and mafia win rates are still about equal, and each as least as great as the SK's, I don't see the impossibility of that setup.

Then you have some explanation, however improbable, for the single kill on Night 1?

MOD: I just went into labor, be back ASAP! It should only be 2-3 days. Wish me luck

Now THAT'S dedication to your mafiascum game! Good luck, Mizzy!

[Jester]

Actually, after a second read of Nyktorion's post...

FOS: Battousai, unvote, vote: Nyktorion

.

A SK does not hurt the town and the mafia equally. Just looking at basic probability, a SK has a 82% chance of hitting town on N1 and only an 18% chance of hitting mafia.

[Jester]

The only indication we have that this is a mountainous game is the title, which refers to the game as Mostly Mountainous. That means that, while there aren't a bunch of power roles floating around, there might be one or two.

There are only two power roles in a standard 12-person mini, a cop and a doctor. Therefore, if there are two power roles in this game, it is not a mountainous game. Not even "mostly."

There are several possibilities for why a serial killer would not kill on a given night. They could want to hide the existence of a serial killer. They might have missed the deadline. They might only be able to kill on even numbered nights. Only having one kill doesn't preclude the existence of a serial killer.

99% of the time, SKs are required to kill every single night. If they weren't, they wouldn't kill at all until the late game to hide their presence in the game. When SKs miss their deadline, mods are generally required to pick someone for them to kill at random for this reason. And I invite you to point me to a single game on this entire site where a SK could only kill on even-numbered nights.

This whole conversation is distracting the town

and

has an enormous Occam's Razor flavor to it. What's more likely:
a) that we have two power roles and/or two killing groups in a

mountainous

game, even one that's "mostly" mountainous?
b) or that all this SK shit is being stirred up by mafia trying to muddy the water?

I know what I think is going on, and this is therefore the last thing I'm going to say on the subject of a SK in this game.

FOS: Battousai, Nyktorion

^-- For Tar's benefit, who missed that FOS in my 695. I also didn't intend to remove my FOS on Nyktorion, despite my vote on him.

Who are your 2 best cases for being scum?

I think I've made this clear enough. I'm much more interested in the opinions of others, including yours, because I've already said several times I feel like I'm getting manipulated in this game.

I'm home, reading over what I missed ASAP!

Welcome back, and congrats.

[Jester]

unvote

Not really interested in us lynching someone based on exactly 1 vote. Rock-Paper-Scissors is actually sounding pretty good to me just now and seems just as likely, if not more likely, to hit a scum than what we're doing.

[Jester]

Now Jester, I thought you were so sure that I was scum, I mean I wasn't lynched like I would have been if I were town (according to you). So, just because no one seems to support your decision you take your vote off me, is that it?

It'd be helpful if you actually read my post before commenting on it.

As a matter of fact, I'm still pretty sure you're scum and your color commentator approach to this game isn't helping. But according to the rules of this game, on deadline, the person with the most votes gets lynched, regardless of the number of votes. Until I unvoted, that was one vote. I'm not interested in anyone being lynched based on one vote, regardless of who places it or why. Guess I'd be a bad vig.

If votes and FOSes are tied at deadline as they currently are, then according to the rules of this game, the lynch apparently becomes random (rock-paper-scissors, whatever that means). Given that there are four other townies in this game besides me, and given that none of them is apparently all that interested in scum-hunting, I'm approaching a belief that a random lynching would be just as effective -- and probably more effective -- than what the town is currently doing.

If you're interested in preventing that, how about an actual contribution from you other than sarcasm, Battousai?

[Jester]

That was a pretty obvious night-kill. ROTN, when he was here, was extremely townish. Tar has also confirmed my interpretation of the game: the remaining players are three vanilla townies and two mafia members. Anybody wanna argue with that interpretation

now

?

I consider what OMGML and Nyktorion did to be incredibly scummy, but it seems fairly unlikely that both of them are scum. I also consider it pretty unlikely that they're on the same team. IMO, either:
:arrow: OMG is town and put together what he felt was an honest case against SA/TNE, and Nyktorion band-wagoned to ensure the townie lynch. This seems more likely to me. There were enough FOSes on the table that one vote placed on someone else would have moved the lynch.
:arrow: Alternately, OMG is scum, targeted SA/TNE, and Nyktorion got frustrated and hung his vote where he thought it would do the most good. I consider this possibility less likely. Nyktorion's vote reeked of opportunism to me.

There's little or no question in my mind that scum were involved in that lynch somewhere, though. SA clearly wasn't around to defend himself. Lynching him was scummy as hell.

More a bit later today. I'm still leaning toward Battousai/Nyktorion as scum partners, but I want to do a bit of analysis on where the lynch would have fallen based on a single vote somewhere else during D3.

MOD:

Tar, man, I know you're incredibly busy, but Ecto isn't in this game any more. Can the vote count be changed to reflect the players we have? Thanks.

That's what I get for using the Start of Day 3 post as the template for the Start of Day 4 post. Fixed! -Tar

[Jester]

Something Awesome (2) - OhGodMyLife, Nyktorion
Battousai (1) - Mizzy

Not Voting (4) - Battousai, RangeroftheNorth, Something Awesome, Jester


FoS Count:

Jester (2) - Nyktorion, OhGodMyLife
Battousai (2) - Jester, Mizzy
Nyktorion (1) - Jester
RangeroftheNorth (1) - OhGodMyLife
Something Awesome (1) - Nyktorion

Actually, it doesn't require much analysis at all, does it? Had Nyktorion not placed a second vote on SA, Battousai would have been lynched instead and/or we would have gone to RPS. I find that interesting.

Check out the timing. Nyktorion put down his SA vote 40 minutes after Mizzy put down her Battousai vote. I find that even more interesting.

Also, everyone remember that we're at lylo. If a townie places a vote on another townie today, the scum can swoop in and finish us. Night 3 ended on Tar's short deadline, which means that both of our scum are active and watching the thread frequently.

[Jester]

...a lot of reactionary BS in his 756...

I can't do much more than echo Mizzy's 757 in response. She hit every note that I would have wanted to, and in a much better way than I could. Probably more succintly, too. If you want to call what I did hypocrisy, feel free, but it just ain't true. I wasn't comfortable lynching someone on one vote. You apparently were. That's a difference between us.

The deadline fell on a weekend, and I don't play MS on weekends. Go as far backwards in my posting history as you want. You'll find only a tiny handful of posts from me on Saturday or Sunday, and the bulk of those are probably posts in games that I mod, not ones that I play. RL prevents me from playing on the weekend, pretty much no matter the circumstances. To this, I will add the honest position that I'm just not all that enthusiastic about this game (MafiaScum) any more. I'll do my best to ensure a town win in this final day or two, but I'm not going to disrupt other parts of my life to do that.

Now then, yes, I said that I would have preferred "crazy shit because of deadline rules" (as you put it) because all of the townies in this game are either not playing or are poor players (and yes, I include myself in that). We were over-loaded with some of the worst townie players I've ever seen in this game, and wading through their BS has been exhausting. I'm not sure if the mafia deserves to win this game, but the town certainly deserves to lose. And my preference for "crazy shit" been proven right: you lynched the town's only power-role, so "crazy shit" would have indeed been preferable to what happened. It definitely couldn't have given us a worse result than you and Nyktorion gave us. So don't get bitchy. You might even show a little tiny bit of regret for your role in the D3 result.

That said, your post has the feel of an honestly outraged townie, or you're a far better actor than I am (and since you've been on the site twice as long as I have, that's probable). You have the right to be pissed at me, I suppose. But you should also be pissed at yourself, unless of course lynching the town's only power role was the result you wanted.

More in a few minutes.

[Jester]

For Jester, we have the fact that he first withdrew his vote before the deadline, and now is angry that we lynched the wrong person (see OGML's hypocrisy argument in #756).

Interesting.
:arrow: Where in the two posts I made before you wrote this do I say I was angry? I am, but where did I say this?
:arrow: Are you not angry about the D3 result? Are you, say, happy about it?

Core question: is being angry about the D3 result a bad thing?

The first such occasion was in post #694. There, he accused me of focussing too much into the SK/setup issue, when he was talking about that very same thing at least as much as I did.

Lie.

I wrote exactly two posts about the setup on D3, and I've been trying to get people to

shut up about the set-up

and hunt scum since very very early on day 2. I said "there's no SK" all the way back to my very first post on D2, and you only deigned to believe me on the dawn of Day 4. On D3, you started pushing setup discussions in your 623. I asked people in my 641 to state how many scum they thought there were (one post), then explicitly said what I was sure the setup was in my 671 (two posts). When you tried to push another setup discussion in your 688, my total entire response in 694 was "Mountainous game." You then came back with YET ANOTHER setup discussion in your 702. After that, I just ignored you.

So this accusation is a flat-out, blatant lie. As a matter of fact, between April 7 and May 1, you wrote SEVEN posts about the set-up, and your entire argument against me in your 725 was about me "arguing about the most probable setup" (eight?)... and you're accusing

me

of hypocrisy? Inconsistent much?

By the way, I'll also remind people of something you said earlier in the game:

We always get a lynch when the deadline hits, see rule #10.

Good understanding of the rules, there. Came in handy on D3, I'll bet.

HOS: Nyktorion

.

More in a few minutes.

[Jester]

After reading the mafia tell list again, Mizzy seemed to fall under the last category. She complains about how bad we screwed up. The wiki says that is often a scum tell.

It's not always a scum tell. Sometimes, it's a frustrated town tell. (So I guess I agree with Mizzy, there.)

I agree with this, because I think it is unlikely that BOTH scum would vote at deadline for a lynch, because that would out them both. Then again they could think we would think that resulting in WIFOM, so they could have done that and then try to pin someone who was inactive as possible scum.

I thought about this and ultimately rejected it, at least for now. I've seen two scum tag-team like this before several times and this one felt different. Ecto swung wildly between townish appearing and scummish appearing, but OMGL comes off to me as townish more often than not.

True, but did you ask him why he was inactive?

I read OMGL's argument against SA on Thursday afternoon (a week ago right now, as a matter of fact). And I couldn't decide if it was a good argument or an opportunistic one. To say that TNE is an easy target is to be completely unfair to easy targets everywhere. The guy was on virtually everyone's suspect list... except mine. To me, he came off as noob and I said as much, though I don't recall the post I said this (feel free to check me). So when suddenly OMGL wanted to list him as a suspect, I was very conflicted about it. I almost posted as much, then decided to see what other people said about it.

Those were some pretty interesting computer problems, BTW. If I go completely meta on you, I find that you have posts the 28th, 29th, 30th, 2nd, 3rd, and 5th before you "return" on the 6th.

Just because SA was a vig doesn't mean he had multiple rockets to launch, anyway, so if I were you, I wouldn't be so sure that a townie got saved. SA was pro-town, remember? That's why he fired at Rosso; because he was SURE he was scum. SA's job wasn't to kill townies, it was to kill scum.

You know... I just thought of this. At the risk of being accused of speculating about the setup again (:P at Nyktorion), it seems likely SA's role was a "one shot" as a cop, doctor, vig, and role-blocker (one each). If I had those four choices, once each, I might use my cop power the first night. I think I'm gonna go check out TNE's D2 posts and see if he left a bread-crumb about what he found out.

And I'm done for today, I think (unless I find something interesting in TNE's early D2 posts).

[Jester]

I need a thorough look through the whole thread for interactions between all three of you before I can make a more informed post, but suffice it to say that I consider Mizzy's evidence for her own towniness pretty much rock solid at this point.

Have you had any more thoughts along these lines, because other than your comfortableness with Mizzy, you seem to have a FOS on the rest of us.

If you just wanted the town to focus on scumhunting instead of setup discussions, why did you not just use FOSes instead of votes during the day (the "playing it safe" point I tried to make at that tine, which was also the root of the escalation of the setup discussion), instead of escalating the discussion as well?

Ummmm... I did. I used both. I used all three.

...you also have to count your 626 where you pushed for a vig-claim.

You might want to actually read 626. I've posted a link to it, just to make it easy. You're right about 704, though. I posted that because even ROTN (an obvious townie) was getting sucked into the stupid setup crap that you and Ecto were pushing all through page 27. I got frustrated and wrote 704 just to get ROTN to shut up about it. You'll notice that the conclusion in my 704 was

absolutely freakin' correct

, whereas the speculative crap you posted in your seven posts had no conclusions and was just stirring shit. So, you're right about 704. I wrote three posts about the setup on day 3.

You seem to be counting five posts from me, but I reject your arguments for 626 and 694. Even if I humor you and count them, though, your lie stands. But the fact that you won't admit you were wrong even when you yourself say that you were wrong makes it clear to me: you're scum.

At this point, if nobody else is going to take an action before then, I'm going to vote for Nyktorion on Thursday. I'm now 100% convinced he's scum. But I've been wrong in this game before, so if someone wants to thrown down a vote and a justification on another target, do it before Thursday. But at this point, I'm sure enough about Nyktorion to commit and risk a town loss if I'm wrong, if nobody else will commit first.

In the meantime, Nyktorion, you sound pretty sure about me. Why not go ahead and put a vote down on me?

More in a few minutes.

[Jester]

Since you guys have already said your scumpairs, I'll list the one I'm leaning on right now. That would be OMGML/Jester. Jester doesn't seem too critical of OMGML's actions yesterday compared to Nykt's.

The discussion was Nyktorion, Etcomancer, and ROTN. At the time, I thought that the discussion was two townies being overly influenced by scum. As I've reread the day 3 setup discussions while arguing them with Nyktorion, I've become much less sure of that position. However, OMGL comes off mostly townish to me, so I haven't put a FOS on him, that's true.

Add in Jester's actions yesterday of voting someone early in the game without confirmation of it being lylo.

Out of curiosity, where was I supposed to get such confirmation? The fact that Tar confirmed it today is the

first

time I've ever seen a mod tell the players they were at lylo. That said, I think I made it

quite

clear over many D3 posts that I did not believe we were at lylo then. Had Tar not confirmed, I would have made it very clear that I was sure we were at lylo today.

As Nykt said, the town did not know for sure it was not LyLo, but Jester seemed to know that it wasn't by voting.

Wrong. I knew we weren't at lylo because of the setup of mountainous games, as I said many times over the course of D3. I've thrown "three scum" into a number of my posts in this game trying to get people to jump at it, and a few people here and there have, including you. Feel free to check the list. Third paragraph.

Haven't checked it out yet

thenextepisode.

Another one where a line from my notes sums it up: "Proves beyond a reasonable doubt that he's not too bright" (261). My thinking is that you're a complete newbie town that simply doesn't realize when he's saying the wrong things. You've been following the pack all over the place, which is usually a mild scum-tell, but it can also be a newbie-tell. You should probably get into a newbie game, or at least an Open game (where you get to know the setup in advance). Closed minis aren't for you.

You're a hard one to read, Battousai. I can't decide if you're scum or an overly aggressive townie. I'm still leaning hard toward the former.

[Jester]

Gonna break my "no weekends" rule and post here tomorrow. Would do so today, but I had to pull an all-nighter Thursday afternoon, Thursday night, and into Friday morning to get something done, and I'm exhausted.

Short version: if OMGL feels like he needs more time, then I'll give him time to post something substantive. But it sure looks to me like Battousai and Nyktorion, despite their apparent annoyance with me wanting to take action, don't feel like countering it by taking action themselves.

Longer reply tomorrow.

[Jester]

What do you mean you used all three and both? Both implies there being only two (FOS, and voting), what do you mean by the third one?

I used both: FOS and voting. I used all three: FOS, voting, and escalating the discussion. See the original quote in my 782.

It'd be hard to find a person in this game that didn't want Rosso dead, so finding out who killed him is going to be tough

unless

someone now wants to claim vig. I'm not a vig.

To me this does sound like you did want someone to claim vig, you even claimed that you weren't. Now you deny you wanted a vig claim?

Emphasis mine. "Unless" is recognized by most English-language speakers as a conditional. I was hoping that someone would claim, but wasn't requesting it or demanding it. I could see a lot of conditions under which someone might not want to claim, including the possibility that they had more than one shot.

The point I was trying to make was that you were willing to place a vote so early that day without knowing whether or not it was LyLo.

Then your point is wrong. I knew we weren't at lylo. My vote wasn't a mistake. When Nyktorion brought up the possibility of three scum, I took it was scum stirring the pot and decided to follow along to see how many people also thought we had three scum. Unfortunately, that list turned out to be too long to be a diagnostic tool. I came clean on the fact that this is what I was doing in my very next post.

I think you still do not really get the argument I was tryig to make: your setup was the most probable, but not sure enough to risk everything on it. You still played a game of Russian Roulette with the fate of the town, and even though you won that game, it was still completely unnecessary. The other option is of course, that you already knew more about the number of scum than the rest of the town, and therefore went into this game that confidently.

Oh, look. A completely inconsistent argument. IF there had been three scum in this game, then the town was only in danger if and ONLY IF I was town. We had seven players, and one vote placed, by me. All three scum would have had to join me to get Battousai lynched, AND I would have to be a townie for it to have worked.

"Jester is probably scum" and "JesterTown put the town in danger with his D3 antics" are completely opposite positions. Sorry, but they can't both be true, and yet you seem to believe both of them. Pick one. Better still, pick neither of them, because neither of those positions are true, and you know it.

The rest of your 788 strikes me as pot-stirring.

Please don't place a vote until I've had a chance to make a meaningful post. The deadline is still distant enough, we have time to be cautious with our votes.

Then I look forward to seeing your post.

[Jester]

Well, I like either a Battousai or a Nyktorion lynch...

Care to sum up your positions on them?

[Jester]

So, OMGL, I've given you a full week. No movement.

mod

, please prod OMGL.

No further posts from me until OMGL posts, Battousai posts something substantive, or I come back here a few days before deadline to vote.

[Jester]

I'm also waiting on you to respond to Nyk's 800

Oh? Why?

There's nothing in his 800 that isn't a direct repeat of "points" from his 769 and 788. He repeats the same bad arguments, ignores my responses to them, and fails to acknowledge it when I clearly expose his bad logic. So, I have no intention of responding to his 800. If I were going to, I would have already in my 804.

The only new thing he says in that entire post is that he thinks placing a vote sooner rather than later is "hasty." Apparently, he's very comfortable with a repeat of what happened at the end of D3.

Can we lynch Battousai now, please?

I'm still comfortable with a lynch on either Nyktorion or Battousai. My preference is Nyktorion, but if the other townies want to go with Battousai, I'm also fine with that.

I'll again break my own "no weekends" rule and check in several times over the weekend.

[Jester]

Now let's see if a townie joins you two.

mod:

If there are two people with two votes each at deadline, what are the rules for breaking that tie? RPS?

The deadline rules still work as normal; player with the most FoS'es gets lynched, if that does not resolve the tie then RPS or an equivalent. - Tar

[Jester]

Congrats, mafia.