Mini 568 - Nubigena (Game over!)

[Ripley]

Hi everyone. I've only skimmed the thread at this point. I'll read it properly as soon as I can.

[Ripley]

I've read the thread once through properly and have some thoughts, though at this stage they're wildly disconnected rather than joining up to form conclusions.

First of all Sammich. I can see from the recent posts that a few people have ongoing queries with him regarding his vouching for MP and his lightning dice roll, so I'll leave those issues alone until they've got their answers and followed up however they intend to.

Something that cropped up several times with Sammich was his fixation with the night start, which has run right through the game so far:

It's been a while since I had a night start, I'm having fun.

At first I just was overwhelmed by the action (last time I had a night start I was replaced, and it didn't go to well),

“In a night start? Voting myself in a night start? Does that make any sense?”

Why would a night start be so signficant to a vanilla townie, which is what Sammich has claimed to be? Why does it make such an apparent difference to him? Sammich, would you explain all of these remarks?

I was really doubtful about Near at first. He always seemed to be a few beats behind the pace, voting for somebody for an old reason. And I didin't like that whole "too townie" argument he made about jerubbaal. However as things have moved on I've thought better of him, and after his post 164, where he picks out some people he thinks most innocent and most likely scum, there were some criticisms that were unfair. XReyoX had

asked

him to do this:

Near: Could you please post more about your thought on various people instead of vote-hopping?

and Near takes this on board and provides exactly XReyoX asked for, only to be criticized by Imat:

the idea of a list doesn't sit well with me at all.

I also thought this, from Imat in the same post, was unfair:

Otherwise the list seems to be buddying up to certain players and distancing from others.

I hate this kind of argument where positive opinions are glibly labelled "buddying up" and negative ones "distancing". I also disagreed with Incognito's criticisms in post 176; as Near goes on to say himself, it is perfectly possible to find some attacks on you scummy and some plain misguided, and therefore to hold entirely different views about the people doing the attacking, without being inconsistent. I actually thought Post 164 was a pretty useful post.

Mafiaplayer: I'm not too impressed that he produced the right role name (eventually). He didn't answer at all until the question had been reposted in bold (despite posting answers to plenty of other questions in the meantime). By the time he did answer, the question had been clearly flagged as "BEWARE! TRAP ALERT" and he'd had a couple of days to ponder how to handle it. Plus people had told him to read the mod's posts at the start of the thread. Plus the townie role isn't exactly buried, it's right under the rules (which he said he

did

read), in the very same post, with "Townsperson Role PM" in nice helpful blue letters. I don't know how anyone reading the rules would have missed it in the first place.

I'm more convinced by the argument (can't remember who made it now) that he'd be unlikely to come straight out on Day 1 and vote for the deceased vig if he'd been responsible for the deceasing.

I was really surprised at the requests, apparently serious, to have him replaced. He hadn't broken any rules, had he? Did you think he had?

Were

the requests serious?

Have to stop now if I'm to see any cricket at all tonight. More soon.

[Ripley]

My own feeling is that the whole issue of Sammich and the dice ought to be cleared up now, as far as possible to everyone's satisfaction, or else there's a real danger it'll just rear its head again in ten pages or twenty pages, and it'll be a chore then to revisit the issue whereas now it's fresh in everyone's mind. What is Sammich's actual current position? That he was joking, that he really rolled the dice, that he invented the whole thing to lighten the thread up? - he seems to have said all these things at one time or another, and I really wonder why he won't make a clear and unambiguous statement so that we can move on. Does he like the attention too much to relinquish it?

I don't think there's any point telling people what they ought or ought not to find relevant. Near has made it clear he's in the middle of some unfinished business with Sammich and I'm quite interested to see how that turns out.

For what it's worth I agree with those who disbelieve the dice roll story simply because of the time constraints. I don't believe it's necessary to prove motive here (ie to present some kind of rationale as to what he had to gain by inventing it).

Many recent criticisms of Near sounded a bit contrived and made me think of vultures circling a weakened prey, and that was

before

the votes from Y and MP. I'm starting to wonder if MP has some private win condition relating to invalid votes (I think he's managed five so far, all for different people. Maybe he's going for the full set.)

I think, as XReyoX has said, it would be prudent here to to take special precautions. Don't put anyone who could be hammered by MP at L-1 unless you're prepared for that to happen. Sammich's possible voting behavior is also an unknown. He's only voted for himself so far.

[Ripley]

There were also my questions about your "night start" comments which I asked you to explain, Sammich. I'll quote what I said again here:

Something that cropped up several times with Sammich was his fixation with the night start, which has run right through the game so far:

It's been a while since I had a night start, I'm having fun.

At first I just was overwhelmed by the action (last time I had a night start I was replaced, and it didn't go to well),

“In a night start? Voting myself in a night start? Does that make any sense?”

Why would a night start be so signficant to a vanilla townie, which is what Sammich has claimed to be? Why does it make such an apparent difference to him? Sammich, would you explain all of these remarks?

[Ripley]

OK, first welcome to the game, Ripley. Good to play in a game with you again. =)

You too!

Many recent criticisms of Near sounded a bit contrived[...]

Which criticisms in particular did you feel sounded contrived?

I've mentioned quite a few of these already. There were the comments made by Imat in Post 177 and you yourself in Post 176 (I talked about this already in Post 244.) There is the criticism from a number of people of Near for pursuing a matter they personally wish to be dropped or consider irrelevant. He has repeatedly said he has a reason for his questioning and will explain it when Sammich eventually answers his question:

Completely wrong. Once Sammich answers my question and I present my view, I think you will believe me. That is, you might still say my test was not very useful depending on how Sammich answers, but I am confident that townies will find my explanation genuine.

Other things. This more recent attack from Y just isn't true:

I believe Near saw a growing wagon and decided to jump in, using the most recent accusation.

Near was already voting Sammich for the "vouching for MP" incident at the time Sammich produced the dice roll saga. He voted him in Post 73, then after a brief skirmish with Imat, revotes Sammich in Post 89, commenting "back to my original suspect". This vote was still in place when Sammich makes his post 175 (the dice roll exposition). You cannot jump in to a wagon you're already on.

Then, earlier, there was this from jerubbaal:

Near, I made it quite clear that the meta evidence I cited to vote Lowell the first time was extremely minor. Do learn to recognize sarcasm in type, it makes the game much more fun when people don't get anal about it.

This is a bit different from the other examples in that jerubbaal is responding to a theory of Near's regarding his (jerubbaal's) possible scumminess, and people are naturally a bit more animated in that situation, but all the same it seemed a surprisingly sharp rebuke, and I agreed with Near where in Post 168 he quotes jerubbaal's two posts on this subject (the Lowell/avinashv meta) and can find no trace of sarcasm in the second, longer quote.

And of course MP was happy to put him L-1 for a daft reason. You can't attach much weight to this since MP would probably vote for almost anything. But still, it was a vote.

Now, none of these things on their own would necessarily be a big deal, but if several different people are making what seem to me to be weak, dubious or invalid criticisms of a player who's already under suspicion, that's a danger sign to me. I could see exactly where Near was coming from when he said "At this point i almost feel like there are 5 scums in this game." I'm aware that this is not the popular view but to me he comes across as genuine, and believing he's on to something. He's refused to back down under considerable pressure.

I had some stuff to say about Sammich but it'll have to wait till later now. Maybe by then we'll have a response to Near, and about the "night start" remarks.

[Ripley]

For what it's worth, Post 176 wasn't contrived criticism - it was an inconsistency that I noticed and felt the need to question Near about, especially since there were other things that I didn't exactly like about Near's play prior to that post.

"Contrived" maybe wasn't the best choice of word, my dictionary defines it as "artifically intricate" which isn't what I meant. I just meant that I thought the criticisms were weak.

I can't and won't ignore that, and neither should you.

I haven't been telling people what they should or shouldn't ignore, though plenty of that has been going on. I actually stated I thought it was a useful post. I simply disagreed with your interpretation. I don't see the town list as obvious buddying, as it seems you do. As for the other charge of distancing, you already conceded that you had no actual problem with the scum list and just threw that in as an opposite to buddying.

Maybe because I have other things to do than sit at the computer and speculate about some user rolling a dice?

I will get back to you all friday. I have some family business to attend to.

I love it when a guy who's signed up for an online game starts sniping at the people who are actually trying to play, with the whole "you sad losers need to get a life" routine.

It feels like Sammich is trying to let this "dice" incident die down by avoiding to answer my question until the investigation moves on to other things. I am not sure whether to just say what I want to say about Sammich or wait. We don't have a deadline yet, do we?

Unless it's been over-ridden by a subsequent post I missed, we have an extendable deadline of April 2nd.

Mod

: is there any formal definition of "extendable"? Will this be determined by you according to the level of posting, or by requests from players, or else how?

I'd prefer if players who have things to say regarding Sammich, which they don't want to reveal yet, hold on until they think the revelation will be most useful, unless there are deadline constraints.

[Ripley]

Does anyone really still believe Sammich's dice roll account? I'd have thought Near's latest posts enough to demolish any lingering doubts people might have had.

Near summarizes well. Another point I'd like to add is that Sammich can remember all these plus the date he cleared his PM BUT Not his rolename. Hell, I don't even remember what I had for dinner a week ago. Compulsive liar?

I'd had very real doubts about his "I deleted my PMs 3 days ago." statement too. The unlikely precision of the dating - is this an early example of the tendency to fabricate detail we saw later? And it's all so very convenient, this deletion, when he got the rolename wrong and was challenged on that.

Then this:

The second, jeruubbal's post about Mafiaplayer's rolename was on the 3rd, mine was 2 days afterwards, I wasn't on the fourth, why are you indicating a day's lack of reply is so long?

Here he states he wasn't around on the 4th where in fact his post 43:

How come we're metagaming on page 2?
D:
Is mafiaplayer a jester.

was made on the 4th, at least in most time zones (I don't know where he's located and it's possible I have this wrong). All he really needed to say here was that his post vouching for MP was his, Sammich's, first post since MP posted that he didn't get a role name (which was the first point where Sammich could have realised he needed vouching for). This is the relevant point. But again we have an over-elaborate story.

Another thing pointed out by XReyoX earlier was the total lack of scumhunting by Sammich so far. Then there's the avoidance of questions - we've been waiting for responses from him since I joined the game - and the untruths, and the early unnecessary roleclaim... so many problems. And I'm still bothered by all those "night start" references, which he's chosen not to reply to questions about. Anyway, it's Friday tomorrow, let's see what he produces on his return.

[Ripley]

I've never played in a game that had a Jester in it, though looking at past Open setups you can see them in games smaller than this one. Though I suppose if you

know

there is a Jester, as you would in an Open setup, it changes things quite a bit. Normal games are supposed to have "General conformity to what are considered standard roles", though, and I don't think a Jester would qualify as that. I guess "General conformity" allows for the occasional exception but on the whole I'd say it's pretty unlikely.

[Ripley]

There's been a tone to this game ever since I joined, where Near seems to be the group's whipping boy, generally blamed for things and picked on, and it just seems to be getting worse. And the only person that seems to be willing to take any kind of a stand against this is XReyoX, all of whose recent posts I've agreed with.

Sammich refuses to answer questions, then disappears for a week leaving them unanswered, and it's Near's fault. Nobody comes up with anything else in the meantime and that's Near's fault too. Except, actually, Lowell did start a new lead with his post 323 and his vote on gorckat, and presumably it must be Near's fault that nobody was interested in that. Near has refused to back down from pursuing his investigation of Sammich - and has thereby kept himself the focus of high-profile criticism, which is not behavior I instinctively would think of as scummy - but there's no reason other people couldn't have pursued parallel investigations had they wished to, and I can see nothing in Near's posts where he tries to imply that anything should be put on hold for him.

I agree that the jester theory was weak but the whole thing came across to me as misguided rather than fabricated. If anything Near's failing has probably been in over-estimating. or misunderstanding Sammich and trying too hard to make his actions fit a rational scenario.

The idea that Near and Sammich could be scumbuddies seems wildly unlikely. I'd like to hear back from jerubbaal regarding the contradiction pointed out by XReyoX in post 369.

I'm still far more suspicious of Sammich. It's not so much the dice roll thing; I'm really bothered by the references to a night start from a supposed vanilla townie, who when claiming falls into the very trap set for Mafiaplayer, and then happens to have deleted his PM. And who then refuses to answer any questions on the subject. The stumbling block with this line of thought is always "but why would Sammich, if he was scum, have vouched for MP"? (assuming MP to be town) and this has been going round in my head for a while. It certainly worked out well for him in the sense that some people think he would only have done that if he was town. And if Sammich were scum, he would know MP was town, and therefore telling the truth and genuinely in possession of a townie PM. In which case, whatever it was that jerubbaal was after in MP's PM would actually be there, and MP would get it right when eventually he worked out what he was being asked. So to gain any credit for clearing MP he would need to jump in and do so before it got to that point. But here I suspect I could be falling into the same trap as Near and over-estimating Sammich's deviousness. In any case, we need him either to start playing or be replaced.

Mod

: did Sammich pick his prod up? It's now six days since his last post, in which he said he would be getting back to us on Friday.

[Ripley]

Limited access till Sunday evening, sorry. I'll try to keep up as much as possible.

[Ripley]

The most significant wagon was Near’s, since page 5, with at least 3 votes all the time and occasionally going up to 4 or 5. Sammich on the other hand had never gotten over 2 votes. Looking at the vote count, it fits perfectly with my suspicion that Sammich is scum whilst Near is innocent. By pushing Near to his lynch, and stopping people from looking at Sammich, the scums can be killing two birds with one stone. Not to mention that the two wagons are somewhat imbalanced, in my point of view. If Near is scum, I’d believe the attack against him would have been less vigorous (perhaps this is not the exact word to use, but I guess you know what I mean), every single point he has presented was accused by at least one person, at some point, to be scummy.

This very argument has been at the back of my mind much of the time though I can't remember if I stated it in so many words. There have been so many people attacking, sniping at and voting Near and wagons against him twice grew quickly to L-1. Whereas as XReyoX says it was very hard for wagons against Sammich to get off the ground no matter what he did. It's really difficult to keep track of the state of the voting because of the large number of invalid votes, and also self-votes and repeated votes that have happened, but if my records are right Sammich got to 3 votes briefly when Near revoted him in Post 89. Imat then unvoted him in Post 99 saying he was at L-1 (it was actually L-3). He appeared to reach 3 votes again with gorckat's Post 282 which came immediately after XReyoX's vote, but in fact XReyoX's vote was not counted and remained on Mp (later Mizzy). I don't think XReyoX ever realised this because when he unvotes in Post 398 he seems to believe it's Sammich he's unvoting. So while there seems to have been considerable confusion over the number of votes Sammich has had, I think the answer is that he was once briefly on 3 real votes (ie not counting his own, which only added to the confusion.)

Anyway, I agree with the sense of what XReyoX has said in this extract. The strength and frequency of the attacks on Near, and the general willingness to trundle his wagon right up to the lynching post, did a great deal to influence me in his favor. Sammich by contrast enjoyed considerable licence to mess about as he pleased. He could ignore Near's questions and Near would just get into deeper trouble for repeating them.

Like jerubbaal I'll be able to resume more thorough reads and posts after the weekend.

[Ripley]

Niv, can you describe the format of the massive post that you deleted by mistake?

For example, was it a player by player analysis, in the style of Near's post 428? Or did you go through the thread noting posts that caught your attention like XReyoX's 399 and 401?

Had you read the thread before you started on your massive post or were you making notes during the read?

Could you please type it out in MS word or do some spell checks before posting please? The amount of typos in your post is making it difficult to read.

Seconded.

[Ripley]

If dice rolls and whether or not they were really done one way or the other is the hot topic of your case for him, then I question whether or not the case is anything other than an opportunistic wagon. Maybe I'm not following properly, so please let me know if there's a bigger reason you guys suspect him.

I don't think you can have been following properly - have you not read XReyoX's post 440, which makes the case against Sammich up to that point in exhaustive detail under six different headings, and doesn't even cover the argument about his dropping out of the game? Mizzy, you've been in the game longer than Niv but we're really had nothing from you yet but advice not to rush to lynch Niv, and one sentence about Y. It's really hard to believe that anybody who was paying even minimal attention could have missed a post of the size and detail of XReyoX's 440, and I'm wondering if you're coasting by on the strength of comments by some players that they believe MP must have been innocent.

From my own point of view, and I've said this before, the dice roll has never been a major issue in my suspicion of Sammich; I've been far more concerned about the "night start" references, the complete lack of any scum-hunting (with the attendant lack of curiosity as to whom the scum might be), the evasiveness and the problems relating to his role PM. And I agree that flaking under pressure, while by no means definitive, is a behavior associated with scum. jerubbaal has said "Townies get pissed and do mean-spirited things like self-lynch to screw the town, they don't usually just drop." I have seen them just drop, but more often you see self-voting, righteous indignation, "you'll all be sorry", - there's a kind of determination to get some kind of mileage out of the injustice that's about to happen, whereas with scum there is no injustice and they have a far greater tendency to just give up.

Niv, I have a lot of sympathy for a player replacing in at 17 pages and for a player who was under heavy suspicion, and of course you can't be expected to explain Sammich's actions. But nor can I forget those actions. I would have voted Sammich had he not dropped out. I haven't voted for you because I'm giving you a chance. If you want me to change my mind you need to do one or both of the following (overlapping) things: 1. Make a convincing case that somebody else is a better lynch or 2. Make me reluctant to lose you by being a hard-working and analytical poster. Especially in a game with so many replacements, a player who's clearly read the game thoroughly and is willing to make thoughtful contributions is going to be a real asset. So far you haven't done either 1 or 2.

I looked at the game you linked to and I can see you do sometimes make massive posts including a lot of quoted material. I've lost posts myself by clicking on a tab's close button rather than the tab itself, so I know how maddening it is, but I've always done my best to reconstruct the post straightaway. It takes a lot less time than writing the original, btw. You just seem to have given up. You must surely have remembered some of the comments you made in your lost, massive post? But apart from a routine "glad MP is no longer in the game" comment, which doesn't help us at all, you just voted for Near, the likeliest alternative lynch, with a few generalised and already much-repeated brief arguments.

[Ripley]

I don't think you can have been following properly - have you not read XReyoX's post 440, which makes the case against Sammich up to that point in exhaustive detail under six different headings, and doesn't even cover the argument about his dropping out of the game? Mizzy, you've been in the game longer than Niv but we're really had nothing from you yet but advice not to rush to lynch Niv, and one sentence about Y. It's really hard to believe that anybody who was paying even minimal attention could have missed a post of the size and detail of XReyoX's 440, and I'm wondering if you're coasting by on the strength of comments by some players that they believe MP must have been innocent.

No, I definitely did read everything, but I was more asking Near and not you. Sorry.

Mizzy, your question that I replied to was addressed to

you guys

:

If dice rolls and whether or not they were really done one way or the other is the hot topic of your case for him, then I question whether or not the case is anything other than an opportunistic wagon. Maybe I'm not following properly, so please let me know if there's a bigger reason you guys suspect him.

Unless you're claiming you would have called Near "you guys", this question must be surely addressed to all those who suspect Sammich. And I stand by my doubt that anyone who would ask this can really have read the thread. Also, you refer to "an opportunistic wagon". Surely if you were talking to Near alone you would have said "an opportunistic vote"?

Anyway, you say you

have

read the thread, and will have time to catch up "a little more fully" in the next few days, whatever that means. It's a bit worrying that you're

already

warning us how mafia is not the center of your focus, almost as if preparing the ground for further non-contribution, before you've really started to play.

[Ripley]

I'm still very much opposed to a Near lynch. Though in other news, I'm about to grow verrry suspicious of those still not voting.

I've made it crystal clear that I will be voting Niv unless he pulls something pretty impressive out of the bag and that the only reason I haven't voted already was Sammich getting replaced. I thought the case against Sammich was one of the strongest Day 1 cases I've seen in a good while. I too am very much opposed to a Near lynch. Since nothing new has been added and it appears destined to be a straight two-horse race, my vote for Niv is actually at this stage almost certain whatever he does, but nonetheless I said I'd give him a chance to put a case and reconstruct at least some arguments from his lost massive post.

(Not that I agree with your conclusion about scum being the last to vote, which would leave them increasingly under the spotlight as deadline approaches, and in the position of having to place high-profile and quite likely decisive votes. In my experience scum go out of their way to

avoid

that kind of situation.)

[Ripley]

Things seem to have slowed down and there's been nothing more from Niv, so I'm going to go ahead and

Vote: Niv

It's based on Sammich's play, though Niv hasn't really made much of an effort with the role, and even though he was put into a very difficult stuation, had he been town I think he might have tried harder.

[Ripley]

No counterclaim here.

[Ripley]

Are you saying you think Near would

guess

what results a gunsmith usually gets - and guessed wrong? Or saw the role name somewhere and made a false assumption? I think if you're going to take the trouble to fabricate a roleclaim - and if that's what he's done he's had weeks to think about it - that you'd have a good look at that role before going for it. You'd research it properly. Whatever Near may have been accused of, I don't think anyone could say his efforts have lacked thoroughness.

[Ripley]

I think there's a real danger that splitting the Niv vote at this relatively late stage could lead to a no-lynch. Especially with the mod's strict rules about valid voting - there have been a huge number of invalid votes already in this game - which could easily be forgotten under deadline pressure. Anyway, Niv's latest contribution has done nothing to make me think him any more innocent or more likely to be a useful player. And that was his only post for a week apart from a Bruce Springsteen review. He seems not to even be reading the thread any more - there's no sign that he's aware of Near's claim, for example.

I would switch to Y to avoid a no-lynch, and I'll have a reread of his posts, but for now I'm sticking with Niv.

[Ripley]

I don't get the case against ooba. While XReyoX was here I thought he was the standout protown player. At one point it seemed like he was working harder to find scum than the rest of us put together. The only reservation I had was that in the newbie game I played with him XReyoX had me 100% convinced he was town on the basis of his play alone. (He wasn't.) So - I know what he can do, but all the same, many players put a massive effort into their first game but almost never do they keep that level up a year later, and I find it tough to believe that anyone would put quite so much work into

pretending

to scum hunt, especially at a time when (as we now know) he had been trying to deal with RL issues at the same time.

And that was before Near came up with an innocent result on him.

I am comfortable with a Niv lynch, but I still believe Near is scum. Ooba too, but on a lesser extent.

You believe that Near as scum would fake an innocent result on a scum buddy? I think that would be a wildly reckless move so early in the game.

You seem to say here you believe Near is scum but you're OK lynching Niv. Do you believe Niv and Near could be scum buddies? That theory - which I thought was ridiculous - was tossed around by a couple of people a while back, but I don't remember you being one of them.

[Ripley]

gorckat, you quoted post 83. That's before I thought he might be a cop (When I was still attacking him).

So what was the "theory about that claim" you refer to in Post 83, if you hadn't at that time thought of the cop theory?

[Ripley]

Just letting you know I'm having eye surgery tomorrow and will be out of action for a while. I'll leave it up to the mod whether to replace me.

[Ripley]

Sorry for my absence. I can do short sessions at the computer now but lengthy rereads or posts won't be possible for a while. I'll post my thoughts in modestly sized chunks.

I agree that the scum would have guessed Y was highly likely to be Near's investigation target. But I really can't see why, if they had a roleblocker, they would not want to block the investigation of an innocent. I can just about see that if the scum were certain they'd identified a doc they might block the doc and kill Near, but we know this didn't happen because jerubbaal is dead. They only possible reason for not blocking Near that makes any sense to me would be if they wanted Y investigated because he is actually a Godfather (see next paragraph). OF course this would give the scum a Godfather AND a roleblocker, which seems quite powerful, though I haven't played enough Minis to know if it's impossibly powerful.

I think a Godfather is possible, using the principle of "the king is dead, long live the king". The mod wrote a lengthy introductory scene culminating in the death of the old Godfather, and this mod seems to have put a lot of effort into the story, and it's possible this whole scenario was to lead to the promotion of the next-highest ranking scum to be the new Godfather.

[Ripley]

My latest thoughts about Near coming up.

There was something niggling me about his claim, and during the night phase I went back and found it. This comes from a post made by Near on March 26th (Post 428) where he gives his thoughts on all the players in response to a request from XReyoX. (This was the second time Near had been asked to do this by XReyoX, and on both occasions he obliged, so there are actually two such lists, Posts 164 and 428.)

In this post Near says, of me:

Ripley: He has been very very helpful in defending me. I think without him, I would have been lynched already. He makes good thoughtful posts, and often explains what I mean better than I can. He has been very useful to me so far, but I am still concerned about his being scum and is buddying up to me. I really doubt it though. I feel like he could have lynched me pretty easily if he wanted to. But the who knows, maybe he's trying to set up for late game.

My problem with this is: why would Near, a power-role, expect to be "pretty easily lynched"? This post was made 11 days before the gunsmith claim, and it did make me wonder if these were the words of a scum who hadn't yet thought of a convincing roleclaim. I'd like to get Near's comments on this.

Can't help but notice that had I not been unavoidably absent at the start of the day, I would probably have posted this and Near would immediately have been convinced I'd fallen into his trap. Near, you need to take into account that if you spring a trap at the start of a day, players often use the night phase to reread and so will often, genuinely, start the day with new observations and maybe a somewhat different opinion on some players. Especially a player like me who's only in this one game.

Pending Near's reply, I still think the balance of the external evidence points to Near being innocent. No counterclaims, no dead cop... and the longer this goes on, the more genuine he looks. One of these situations must, surely, be true:

1. Near is a scum, and there is a real investigator.
2. Near is innocent, and, though inaccurate, the only investigator.
3. Near is innocent, and there is a second, probably also weakened, investigator.

If either 1) or 3) is the case, the second investigator has not spoken up, and if they investigated Near last night - which seems logical - they can't have found him to be scum. Surely in that situation, with a doc probably still around, they would claim, name and shame. The fact that this hasn't happened adds to the evidence on the side of Near's innocence. (This is of course complicated by the fact that the second investigator may not be getting entirely accurate results either.)

One final thought, which may not make much sense but my eyes are starting to water so this post has to end here, is the possibility of a Mafia gunsmith.

[Ripley]

Also, another question to Near: Do you have something against analyzing me? Every list you've made since I denounced your first one has not included me, its starting to make me feel ignored or something...

He hasn't said anything about Incognito either, since he said he thought you were both unlikely scums in his first list.

My main problem with Lowell is something I mentioned at the time. Towards the end of Day 1 there were 2 almost equal bandwagons on Near and Niv, and after Near claimed it was clear he wasn't going to be lynched. Lowell promptly launched a new wagon on Y, saying that he thought it was good for the game to give those who believed Near an option other than Niv. With this being only 2 or 3 days before deadline I thought there was a real danger that the outcome of splitting the Niv vote at that stage would be a no-lynch, and with a less vigilant group that could easily have been what happened. As it was, there was a player online at deadline (Mizzy) who was in a position to lynch someone by changing her vote and she did so.

Actually, looking back at the deadline period I really don't like Y's Post 614:

I really don't think I'll be able to post again before deadline, so Mod: If it is possible, I'd like to vote for Niv if the deadline strikes and no lynch has been accomplished.

I just can't see any good reason why Y didn't just vote Niv directly without all this messing around. Here was the voting at that time (about 5 hours before deadline):

Near (3) - Y, Imat, Niv
Niv (5) - Near, jerrubaal, Ripley, ooba, Incognito
Y (3) - Lowell, Mizzy, gorckat

Not Voting (0) - No one

I don't believe there was the faintest chance of Y's current votee, Near, being lynched, given the number of people who were refusing to lynch an uncountered investigator. Let's check: jerubbaal, Mizzy, myself, Incognito, Lowell, ooba: not a chance any of us was going to make a last minute switch to Near. gorckat was the only possibility and even that would have left Near

two

votes short of a lynch.

And did anybody really think a mod this strict about voting procedure would honor a conditional vote at deadline by an absent player? Of course he wouldn't.

So why didn't Y just

vote

?

Back to Lowell. I agree with a comment that was made about his play to the effect that he's been pretty much distanced from the game, sort of "I think I'll just put my feet up here and watch you ants scurrying around, and maybe throw in a comment or two where it amuses me or if you ask nicely". And one other thing that bothers me a bit is the sheer number of votes he made on Day 1. By my records he voted ten times, though this probably includes some corrections of invalid votes. All the same, it's a heck of a lot of votes, and one way of making it impossible for anybody to discern any real meaning from your votes is simply to throw so many of them around that anyone trying to see a pattern is just going to give up. It's possible that he always does this, though, and I'm going to look at some of his completed games to see how much in character this is.

[Ripley]

My problem with this is: why would Near, a power-role, expect to be "pretty easily lynched"? This post was made 11 days before the gunsmith claim, and it did make me wonder if these were the words of a scum who hadn't yet thought of a convincing roleclaim. I'd like to get Near's comments on this.

As we have run into in this game, just because someone is or claims to be a power role does not mean they are safe from the lynching noose. Claims can be argued, dismissed, ignored, and any number of unfavorable things, and as I have seen in other games, even someone who really is what they claim to be can be lynched anyway.

I wish you could have left this for Near to respond to himself.

One of these situations must, surely, be true:

1. Near is a scum, and there is a real investigator.
2. Near is innocent, and, though inaccurate, the only investigator.
3. Near is innocent, and there is a second, probably also weakened, investigator.

There is also:
4. Near is innocent and he is accurate and the only investigator.

The fact that you left that one out kind of makes me raise an eyebrow because it makes me wonder if you know something the rest of us do not. It's just a feeling, mind you, but it does worry me.

It's clearly stated that the vigilante was carrying a gun and therefore there is known to be a case in which a gunsmith would receive a misleading result. This is what I meant by "inaccurate".

[Ripley]

It's clearly stated that the vigilante was carrying a gun and therefore there is known to be a case in which a gunsmith would receive a misleading result. This is what I meant by "inaccurate".

That's pretty hair-splitty (pun

not

intended )- a gunsmith would

accurately

identify a vig as having a gun.

Indeed he would, but I have explained that it was his accuracy in identifying scum, not in spotting guns, to which I was referring.

[Ripley]

Ripley: I didn't want the day to end in a no-lynch, but I was unable to be here when the deadline hit, due to it being very early in the morning and I have no time to spare before I go to work. Why didn't I do it right then? Not because I wanted to keep Near close to the noose (It was apparent that people will unvote after the claim), but because I wanted there to be enough time for anybody who might say something important or counter-claim before the day ends.
Why did I do it with such a strict mod? Because you can't know if you don't try.

Sorry - I just don't understand this. You accepted that Near wasn't going to be lynched, and even so chose to leave your vote there, 5 hours before deadline, rather than take action to avoid a no-lynch?

Please would you give a specific, clear example of a credible last-minute event in those remaining 5 hours that would justify risking a no-lynch that you were in a position to prevent? I would really struggle to accept it as credible that an investigator, having chosen not to counterclaim in the previous 5 days, would do so out of the blue just before deadline.

Also, you know this mod doesn't accept votes without an unvote. Can you seriously have thought he would have accepted a proxy, conditional deadline vote from you when you hadn't even unvoted?

It really sounds as if you were trying to give the impression of wanting to avoid the no-lynch, while failing to do the one thing that would have accomplished that.

[Ripley]

Since Near said he'll self-vote, and I knew other people will be here in time (He was overkilled without the self-vote), I decided to take the chance.

Can you point to the post he said that? It sounds familiar, but I couldn't find it with CTRL-F or skimming his posts the end of Day One.

It was Niv, not Near, who said that. I think that's what Y meant to say.

I never played a game modded by destructor before, so I had no idea how strict he is.

I haven't played a game modded by destructor before either, but it was simply not possible to play through Day 1 of this one and not be aware of his strict voting rules. A huge number of votes were ignored for not observing the rule that you must unvote first. You must have known this.

I really think another investigator could claim in that last minute.

Too late to force a lynch but just in time, if genuine, to helpfully let the scum know they were a power role? Really?

[Ripley]

Ripley, could I ask you to post your thoughts on gorckat, Lowell, and Incognito?

Well, I'll give you my latest thoughts in brief, but they won't amount to much without some revision, which I have been meaning to do, but it seemed recently like there were only a handful of us actually playing, which has made me a bit lazy.

gorckat: I got the impression the last few days he was picking pernickety little arguments with anybody who was around, and I did wonder if he might be doing this to deflect attention away from the Lowell bandwagon, which had climbed up to three votes in a pretty low-key sort of a way. Lowell has just voted for him but Lowell votes too often for any particular vote to mean much, certainly not a first vote on a player. I'd like to hear from him what he meant by "the nature of his posting seems to be strange".

I posted some stuff about Lowell recently (see post 723). I still intend to look at some of his completed games.

Incognito has become grouped with Imat in my mind as The Invisible I's, which probably isn't fair to either of them, but they do both seem to have the art of maintaining a low profile, while avoiding suspicion, down to perfection. You see yourself that in your last two player lists you could find nothing to say about either. And someone else, I think it was Lowell, did a list a while back that left off one or both of them.

As I said, I really need to review earlier posts and this was just dashed off without doing that.

[Ripley]

Lowell/Incognito scum pairing - discuss.

Will post my case in the evening..

Posts like this always make me wonder if the real intention is to try and stir up a few people to start looking back through the thread for evidence to support the original poster's case. The OP waits hopefully for this evidence to be posted, then chips in cheerfully with "Yeah, you guys have pretty much covered everything..."

When the promised case does not arrive on schedule it just reinforces the theory.

ooba, here's your chance to prove my cynicism wholly unfounded by posting a well-argued case, worthy of the two trailers we've sat through while waiting for the main feature to start.

[Ripley]

And a big attack on Lowell in Post 673 - which is a good post - i find nothing scummy with that . What i find scummy is that Incog in Post 680 , starts immediately shifting from Lowell ..

I think it's actually pretty unlikely that a scum would launch such a sustained, decently-argued case, illustrated with quotes, against a fellow scum as Post 673. When scum vote another scum it's more commonly either to get on a growing and potentially fatal wagon in time to look good, or else it's a vote more like Lowell's votes have been - with relatively little research or argument attached. Incognito's put quite a bit of thought into this attack which started off the wagon on Lowell.

Lowell's vote in 678 is a very weak vote IMO.

Yeah, but so have they all been. There's rarely more than a sentence of explanation. Lowell seems almost to vote mechanically as if a timer's gone off: PING, time for a new vote. There's rarely any sense of his having been reassured by his previous target or given any reason to drop that suspicion. Maybe this, combined with the somewhat distant, amused tone he's taken throughout (and that has been commented on previously), is what makes his votes always seem somehow to lack conviction.

Ok, why is there still no pressure on Lowell.

Well, he's been at L-2 for a while, with people not currently voting for him expressing suspicion, which is surely a fair degree of pressure, but he hasn't behaved like someone under pressure. Which is pretty much consistent with his play generally, really.

I've made my case several times, if thats what you'e asking. If you want quotes/examples, I've somewhat left it to you to find them. I point to them, give a post number, I have faith any player truly Hunting for Scum would be motivated to find what I'm referring to, again usually given by post numbers, in order to Hunt properly. If you feel we should encourage people who don't have the strength to look backwards, I'll give specific quotes. Bear in mind this will allow for easier lurkability as they wouldn't have to actually do anything to know how to defend themselves from attacks. I prefer my method of forcing others to actually look back, to actually put some effort into this game.

I've read this several times but it still just comes across to me like an extended justification for being too lazy to back up your own arguments. Do you seriously think people, seeing no quotes or examples in your posts, are "forced to look back"? That they think "Hmm! I wonder what Imat means by that. I'll just reread the (currently 32-page) thread to see if I can work it out."?

[Ripley]

I would like to put Lowell at -1L to get a claim from him and add some heat under his butt. Anyone have a problem with that before I do it?

Please do. That's freakin' twice now that he's supposedly had somewhere to go in the midst of a deadline.

Yeah, he said on Friday he was going to be away for three days which somehow took it up Wednesday before he would be posting again. Maybe his journey took him backwards twice through the International Date Line or something. Or do I mean forwards?

I'm even more bothered than before about Y and the possibility that he's a scum who knew, as soon as Near claimed if not before, that he would turn up innocent to an investigation by Near.

For most of Day 1 he was one of the worst, if not the worst, of the players attacking the soft target Near, and generally blaming him for everything.

His reaction to Near's gunsmith claim was to confirm his vote on Near and press relentlessly for his lynch. Suppose he is what I just described, a scum who knows he would or could come up innocent to Near. Maybe he's a godfather, maybe he doesn't have a gun, maybe the scum can organise amongst themselves who is to be armed any particular night - there are all sorts of possibilities. He's created a win-win situation - it's probably unlikely that Near will be lynched, but if he is, the town have managed to lynch a power role. And if he isn't lynched, he's pretty much guaranteed that Near will investigate him, Y, tonight, which serves the dual purpose of having Y apparently cleared, while at the same time protecting any scum who would come up guilty and whom Near might otherwise have chosen.

Then there was that very shifty behavior around deadline. Y didn't want to discuss that further, and nobody else seemed interested so I let it drop, but I wasn't happy with his responses. I do not believe that it was a reasonable expectation that Near would be counterclaimed in the last few hours of the day, when he hadn't been for the preceding four days; nor that destructor would place a conditional proxy vote at deadline for a player who hadn't even unvoted. As I have said before. it just looks to me like Y was trying his best to look like a player who wanted to avoid a no-lynch, whilst at the same time failing to do the one thing that would make sure that didn't happen. His vote would have ended the day 5 hours before deadline with a lynch. He chose not to do that. None of Y's words of explanation and justification count for much against the simple fact of his choice of

action

. Or of inaction, I should say.

Day 2 arrives, and after Near reveals the expected innocent result Y starts again to push for his lynch. This time he really does want Near to be lynched, because a second investigation from him could prove inconvenient. But there doesn't seem to be much interest in Near, so he joins the Lowell wagon instead, though continuing to snipe at Near. And then most recently, out of the blue comes a vote for ooba, of all people - the other player to have come up as "unloaded" to Near:

Unvote, Vote ooba.

I don't like way he's playing. XReyoX gave me some bad vibes too.
I think he's a good candidate for the noose, and might give us some information about Near's claim.

It is true that Y expressed some suspicion of XReyoX - I looked back and checked. I haven't been over-impressed by ooba's play myself, though XReyoX came across to me as very innocent-sounding, so I've given ooba the benefit of the doubt. But otherwise this vote seems a bit surprising. Y, could you explain

why

you think ooba is a good candidate for the noose? Apart from the information it would give us about Near's claim, that is. And with regard to that - what precisely do you think we would learn?

If ooba was scum then that's fine, we've lynched a scum. But looking at the worst case scenario, where ooba turns up innocent and we're quite likely in lylo, we've learned that - um, either (a) Near is innocent and got a result on XReyoX that was accurate, in that unloaded corresponded to innocent, which doesn't guarantee he'd get an accurate result on everyone else, and in fact we already know that in the case of the deceased vig it wouldn't have done - or (b) Near is scum and cleared an innocent. And I agree with Lowell where he said in no possible circumstances could he imagine Near, as scum, would give a false innocent result on a scum buddy. Do you disagree with that?

However, a dead, innocent ooba would be the best possible thing to happen to a Y who is scum. He, also cleared by Near, would be all but unlynchable.

Note: at several points while writing the above I found myself writing "assuming Near is innocent" or "still assuming Y is scum" - it got repetitive, so I'll just say it once, here.

Final thought: the Near we have now is almost unrecognizable from the player he was for most of the game.

[Ripley]

Um, Near already investigated Y and he already came up innocent.

I know. I don't really know how to answer this except to say I don't think you can have understood my post - which covers Near's result on Y -properly.

[Ripley]

Wait, so why is ooba a better noose-candidate than you for finding out about Near's claim?

I don't believe Near's claim, so I really have an interest testing him.

If you don't believe Near's claim then why on earth would you vote ooba rather than Near, who does at least have one other voter, whereas ooba has none?

[As you and I pointed out, mislynching will probably put us on LYLO. I'm doing my best to prevent that by lynching scum.

Voting for a player currently with no votes and unlikely to attract votes since he was cleared by an investigative role which has not been countered, seems like the best possible way to ensure your vote doesn't contribute to lynching anybody. Especially since you've made no case at all against ooba and nothing but "too townie" against XReyoX.

[Ripley]

I think what gorckat is saying is that if ooba were lynched and turned up innocent it would say nothing about Near's alignment since scum could, and almost certainly would, say this too. This is what I was referring to towards the end of post 811 when I mentioned Lowell's comment about how a scum shouldn't give a false innocent on a scum buddy.

[Ripley]

I think what gorckat is saying is that if ooba were lynched and turned up innocent it would say nothing about Near's alignment since scum could, and almost certainly would, say this too.

Ah, I see. But yes, that's common sense, which is why I slammed Y for the idea of lynching one of the "confirmed" pair, because it doesn't tell us squat.

Y's logic is all over the place. If he were really what he claims to be, ie an innocent cleared by Near, then he would already know that Near, if scum, gives "unloaded" results on innocents, or at least that he has done so once. Maybe he's forgotten he ought to know this - and it's much more likely that people would forget what they ought to know, when they aren't really what they say they are at all. Y has said nothing, by the way, to convince me that his logical action, if he disbelieves Near, is to lynch ooba, and again I wonder if his persistence in standing by this view arises from the lack of clarity of thought that you often see in scum who can't or don't have the ability to perceive how a situation should look to townie eyes.

[Ripley]

We are in lylo, so I think a full-claim is in order. We can go from there. I suggest that Y should propose a claim order and we'll follow that, because he's the closest thing to a confirmed townie we've got.

Y is no closer to a confirmed townie than ooba is, surely? And of the two of then I'm considerably more confident of ooba. Y is actually the player I suspect the

most

. Near's death before he could provide any more results was hardly going to do anything to lessen my suspicion of Y (which I went through in some detail yesterday).

[Ripley]

Vanilla townie.

[Ripley]

I think Ripley's the clear scum, so we should lynch him first without a lot of question.

Wow. How controlling can one player get?

This is a lylo situation and I the last thing I'm going to be doing is voting to lynch anybody without a great deal of thorough questioning. But jerubbaal, who has quite clearly attempted to take control of the game since the start of the day, is recommending to others that they follow his lead

without a lot of question

, despite his having not, at any stage, offered a shred of evidence against - or, for that matter, for - any surviving player, other than his own unsupported "reads" - and despite his not being sufficiently acquainted with fundamental events to even know that Near reported an Unloaded result on XReyoX/ooba Day 1.

jerubbaal's reverting to harp on a roleclaim issue that was killed stone dead once it was played out on Mafiaplayer in the very earliest pages of this game just reinforces my impression that he has hasn't really kept up with events since (and so has nothing better to say). We all know the townie role is provided at the start of the game and we all know it says Townsperson. The issue was done to death the first time around.

jerubbaal: a question. Are you willing to lynch Incognito? If not, why not?

I maybe take longer than the average player to absorb information, and there's been a lot to absorb in the past day or so, so I'm going to take a while more to think things over. At the moment I'll say that I share the reservations expressed by Incognito and also, to an extent, by jerubbaal, about blithely accepting "these other three players must be scum" - which will not be any great surprise to anybody who's followed my thoughts about Y.

[Ripley]

I fail to see how I have expressed any doubts about the three of you being scum.

You do? You remarked straight off that that scum team "confused" you, and that you "guessed" you were wrong about MP. Confusion and guessing imply doubt. And if that was not clear you go on to say:

Mizzy being scum is a surprise, but I'm going to go back and read her stuff with a different mindset (I was thoroughly convinced she was town) and see if I find anything anomalous to make this decision easier.

.. Your own words:

to make this decision easier

. How can you possibly now backtrack and say you had no doubt?

This makes it that there's a necessary three scum out of the four unconfirmeds. I'm one of the unconfirmeds, and I'm a townie, ergo you must all be scum. The logic is not a stretch. There is a huge amount of indignation here from reasonably smart players simply from my pointing out the obvious. I find it hilarious that all three of you jumped together with "no, you're wrong, you can't say that" when it's so clear.

Sorry to dampen your hilarity but Mizzy has not expressed a single word of opinion about the setup since the claims.

We're definitely not lynching anyone without looking everything over very thoroughly

Not so long ago you wanted me lynched without a lot of question. Why the change of heart?

Why was my claim " the weakest"?

The vanilla townie/townsperson distinction has been discussed quite a bit, but the fact remains that scum are going to think of roles more functionally (i.e. vanilla townie) while town are going to know what they got in their PMs (i.e. townsperson).

You could equally well argue that a townie knows the nature of who they are because they've inhabited the role since the start of the game, and wouldn't have the slightest reason to examine their role PM to remind themselves. whereas a scum fake claiming is going to get anxious about microdetails. But in this game

everyone

knows what's in the PM. It is printed in an opening post by the mod. It has been discussed to death repeatedly.

I think your play has been very nice middle-of-the-road scum this whole time. You're too careful about everything that you say.

More sweeping generalisations of the kind that somehow always conveniently defy illustration or example. After I joined the game I actually went right against the prevailing mood by defending Near. And I was one of Niv's strongest attackers. I'm really doubting, jerubbaal, that you have actually reread much of the game at all. You're depending on sweeping generalisations, an attempt to rework a not terribly clever trap that was busted early on Day 1, and a mockingly superior attitude.

I'd be happy lynching Incog. Because he's scum. I just think you're the easiest to persecture.

If what you've claimed to believe is true it should not make the slightest difference to you which of us you lynch. But it does, actually, seem to.

[Ripley]

Wow. I hadn’t realised the extent to which I apparently come across as this impossibly supercilious knowall. I totally hate myself now. Anyway, there’s nothing I can sensibly say in response to being voted for being obnoxious since the charge is obviously true, and nobody who believes that is suitable grounds for a lynching is likely much to care what the response is, especially since, in one of those relentless Catch 22 situations, any attempt I might make to argue against it would merely reinforce the original case: namely that I think I know better.

Also of note, none of the scum (Ripley/thephantom, Mizzy, Incog) joined in on the whole Niv/Near thing until the end when everything was quite clear…

Incog and Ripley were floaters until the pressure of a deadline showed up

This is demonstrably untrue. I was Near’s first and strongest defender at a time when half the players were kicking him around like a football, just because they could. I was consistently suspicious of Sammich, gave my reasoning for this, and voted for him (Niv) before Near’s claim, having given Niv, the replacement, a fair chance to post something (which he didn’t.)

To me it seems like he was making a very subtle attempt to link me with Imat here by classifying me as one of these so-called "Invisible I's" who don't receive enough attention. I find this strange since my case against Lowell was one of the primary focuses of Day 2 so to classify me as invisible seems like a bit of a misrepresentation.

This kind of thing is obviously subjective; to you your case against Lowell was a much bigger event than it was for me. When Near asked me some ten days later what I thought of you, you had posted barely a word for a week and, sorry if you don’t like it, but my overall impression from the whole of the game was not “this is the guy who made that pivotal case against Lowell”, but “this is a guy who’s been blending in smoothly without attracting negative attention, and I actually find it really hard to know what I think of him”. And I had much the same sort of problem with Imat, so I said so. And I thought that the way you had both been omitted from people’s lists over the course of the game showed that I had a fair point.

I remember a number of times during Day 2 where Ripley actually gave Y a lot of heat for not abiding by the rules and following the mod's policy of unvoting and voting to hammer Niv but mentioned absolutely nothing about Imat who had gone conspicuously absent…

Newb scum have a tendency to lurk and vanish around deadlines while leaving their votes lingering in the hopes that some kind of lynch occurs on a townie. Imat completely fits that description..

Then there was Day 2. Oh wow, Imat's suddenly back! How coincidental.

Why don’t you check the records? Imat, a normally prolific poster who was in several other games, didn’t post anywhere on the site for six days from Sat April 5th to Fri April 11th – which covers the whole of the period of Near’s claim and the deadline – apart from one post on Weds 9th in a game that had finished while he was away. He informed the mod that he had limted access until Friday and did indeed resume normal posting on the Friday. You seem to be suggesting I was favoring Imat by not accusing him of faking almost a week’s absence from all his games in order to avoid a deadline in one game, and I think that’s simply ridiculous.

he kept promising to review Lowell's past games to see if he has a tendency to switch votes often but he never seemed to actually get around to it.

OK, here you have a point. I had counted Lowell’s Day 1 votes from my summary notes and made it 10. Later, when I looked at the actual posts, I found one (Vote on Imat, post 438) was a repeat of a vote that hadn’t been counted, one was a mistake in my notes and one, Post 81, was an immediate change from Y to Near made at your request, which I discounted. So that brought it down to 7 votes rather than 10, and since nobody else had shown the slightest interest in the issue, I rather lost interest myself. I’d made a list of games of around this size to check, and that’s as far as I ever got.

During Day 1, it was pretty clear that Ripley was most suspicious of Sammich/Niv; while most people were focusing on Near, Ripley managed to move away from that discussion and instead he focused on the Sammich/Niv case which was, at that time, the minority opinion. Day 2 seemed to reveal a different side of Ripley.

Actually if anything it was the Day 1 Ripley that was the anomaly; I’ve rarely been as confident of a D1 lynch as I was about Sammich/Niv. Day 2 was much more like how I usually am. I rarely vote, I’m very cautious, I think aloud, I’m uncertain of my conclusions, all of which is intolerable to the kind of hyperconfident player who always knows they’re right, and that their playstyle is the only acceptable playstyle, and who will with an inevitable predictability demand that I be lynched for being wishy-washy and not naming scum or reaching firm conclusions at the point in the game that they, personally, insist that I should, and I’ve been through all of this so often I’m slouching with boredom just thinking about it.

Anyway, thinking aloud is clearly not an option in the current climate, which is why I'm keeping to responses at this stage. jerubbaal is patrolling the thread with exemplary vigilance to squash any traces of independent thought that do not precisely echo his own conclusions - especially any ideas about the setup that contradict his own verdict, which is quite interesting. ooba’s thoughts on the subject are dismissed as not relevant, Incognito’s preposterous… jerubbaal really, really does not want speculation about the setup to flow uncorrected. We’ll see if Mizzy’s latest thought is equally sharply received – jerubbaal has seemed so far not to hold her in quite the same contempt as he does the rest of us.

I’ll be away till late Sunday.

[Ripley]

It's not that ridiculous. I've faked an absence from all of my games before when I was scum in one of them, and I'm sure other players have too.

Really? For a week? From seven other games? He was in all of these games as well as this one:

Newbie 568
Newbie 559
Mini 559
Mini 551
Mini 553
Mafia 75
Enigma Mi

I think it’s bizarre in the extreme to suggest Imat might have faked a week off all these games to avoid a deadline in one which he could not even in advance have known might present him with any kind of a problem (his absence began two days before Near’s claim). It’s even more bizarre that you are attacking me for not attacking him on thse outlandish grounds. And this is all you offer in support of the assertion “Ripley and Imat/jerubbaal are totally scum with one another.” Except for :

I wouldn't be surprised if jerubbaal was trying desperately to win the game by setting up two possible mislynches on pro-town players. I feel like he's trying to push a lynch on Ripley, his probable scum partner, to gain some pro-town credentials for tomorrow before dropping the hammer on either me or Mizzy

Your “not being surprised” and “feeling like” are no kind of case at all. You have made absolutely no case. There is an anti-case: the actual evidence points much more towards jerubbaal's being scum with

you

. He tried to get me lynched as quickly as possible, and although by his own logic he should be equally willing to vote for you, when challenged on this he said, yes, he’d be happy lynching you, of

course

he would, but – here’s a surprise – he’s actually going to stick to going after me because I’m the “easiest to persecture”. Nobody in their right minds would follow some convoluted scheme to bus a fellow scum today to gain credentials, in preference to lynching a townie for an instant win. This is just not a situation in which WIFOM applies. Scum will, unless they’re really not taking the game seriously, always prefer a straightforward win today over a convoluted possible win tomorrow.

I'm just moderately pissed that I replaced in for the unconfirmed with the weakest play days 1 and 2 who actually ended up being townie

I agree Imat’s play was weak, but you can’t be expected to explain what another player did so I’m going to stick to the issues I have with your own posts.

I don't have any time to write out any sort of reasoned response at this point,

OK, when you find time for any sort of a reasoned response, there are some things I’d really like you to respond to.

In post 876 you said this:

I think Ripley's the clear scum, so we should lynch him first without a lot of question.

In Post 880, you said this:

We're definitely not lynching anyone without looking everything over very thoroughly

I already asked you once to explain this change of heart, and you did not reply. To me it looks like when you realised this group wasn’t going to be railroaded into a quick lynch you had a rapid rethink about the best way to get us to do what you want us to do. Your entire approach, whereby you spotted that the group lacked a single dominant player and appointed yourself to that role, followed by continued attempts to control events by force of personality and by spin, rather than actual reasoned argument, has been very much that of a player trying to push the outcome he wants by whatever means he thinks will most rapidly achieve that. And even allowing for the much higher levels of confidence in their own rightness that players such as you always have, it's hard for me to see that as town behavior.

You claim to have absolutely no doubts about the situation:

I fail to see how I have expressed any doubts about the three of you being scum.

and to insist that this is the only acceptable view, while at the same time constantly repeating your doubts about Mizzy, and apparently you fail to realize the inconsistency of your own position. You repeatedly fail to offer any quotes or examples to illustrate your opinion that her play is overwhelmingly town, and in fact every example you have quoted about her or MP’s play illustrates the opposite, or is intended to, though in fact it includes blatant lies such as the following...

Also of note, none of the scum (Ripley/thephantom, Mizzy, Incog) joined in on the whole Niv/Near thing until the end when everything was quite clear.

.. which both Mizzy and I have pointed out is not true of either of us.

A further point that bothers me about jerubbaal’s play is his continued inability to remember that ooba was cleared by Near on Day 1. Again, in post 901, we have this, to gorckat:

Neither you or Y seem to be taking this terribly seriously, and you're our confirmed townies.

Not “two of our confirmed townies”, but “our confirmed townies”. Why is it that jerubbaal can’t remember this basic fact? When you’re juggling players around in your head, trying to work out a puzzle, as you do when town, details like this are crucial and pretty much unforgettable. When you’re scum, the only puzzle you face is “how do I get these people to do what I want?”. You know who is innocent and who is not, so that is not a puzzle at all. The details of who has been cleared and how and why are easily forgettable if you know exactly who's innocent anyway. If jerubbaal knows, as he claims to know, without any doubt all, that the scum are Incognito, Mizzy and Ripley, he would also know that ooba had been cleared, since the one depends on the other. And yet he keeps slipping up on this in a way that only really makes sense if the things he is claiming to know are fabricated.

Y’s most recent post and unvote took me aback somewhat; it doesn’t seem obviously like the behavior of a scum. I need to inform myself a bit better about Mini game setups. I’ve played too few to judge what’s feasible and what isn’t, so I’m going through previous comparable setups and noting the roles that were included. It’s somewhat complicated by the fact that games mostly seem to start in Day, and it’s difficult to know how much to adjust for that factor, but all the same it’s useful to see what other mods have thought to be a balanced game.

[Ripley]

Anyone not interested in discussing the setup would probably prefer to skip this post.

I looked back as far as Mini 361. One thing I discovered along the way is that there’s considerable variation in what different mods view as a balanced setup.

Gunsmiths are very rare so I was looking for 12-player games with 1 doc, 1 cop, 1 vig and no complicating factors like Serial Killers. I found 3, all of which had a Mafia godfather and two Mafia goons, with a day start. Much like Portal Mafia, the one Incognito referred to, where the town are of a comparable strength to our game, and which also had a godfather and a day start.

How much is a night start worth to the scum? Hard to say. If they hit a power role then it’s clearly very good for them. The chances of an investigator targeting a scum are around the same as the scum hitting a power role. The most likely outcome is of course that the scum hit a townie, and especially in a game with a vig it’s hard to know the value of that.

Another complication is that without seeing the role PMs it’s impossible to know whether these godfathers in the games I looked at were both NK-immune and investigation immune.

Night starts seem unusual. To me, the strongest evidence in favor of there being some extra twist to the setup is that the mod, who doesn’t strike me as having thrown this game together lightly, chose a night start preceded by a long and detailed opening post describing the events leading up to it, which ended up with the death of the NPC Godfather. Possibly just background color, but I still wonder. I can see why mods would prefer to avoid night starts – they get to start Day 1 with their carefully designed setup intact for at least one day, and there’s never a situation where a role and a player doesn’t participate. This mod wanted his game to start at night. Purely for balancing? Maybe, but there are so many other ways of fixing that.

[Ripley]

Ripley is, without a question, the scummiest of the unconfirmeds, in my head.

You can't be expecting to sway people on the basis of what's in your head. You need to make a case and you've completely failed to do that. You harp on and on about the end of Day 1 with inaccuracies and lies.

jerubbaal kicked off by claiming I was a "floater until the pressure of a deadline showed". When I pointed out that my posting had been the very opposite of a floater's position, that I'd consistently defended Near and attacked Niv, he backtracked to a new position of "OK, well maybe you did that but you didn't

vote

":

He's right that he kind of stuck up for Near, but he never committed a vote until it came down to the deadline. Retaining that kind of flexibility early on is very valuable for scum, not so much for town.

Where to start with this?

1. I voted for Niv a full week before deadline.
2. I had no flexibility at all. It would have been impossible for me to vote for Near given all my previous posts.
3. Sammich was replaced and I gave the replacement a chance to post some content before voting. I would always try to do that for any replacement. I gave him a week then gave up and voted. I said at the time that this was what was happening.

jerubbaal has repeatedly tried to give the impression that my vote came right before deadline, which is a total untruth: (bolding mine):

he never committed a vote until it came down to the deadline.

none of the scum (Ripley/thephantom, Mizzy, Incog) joined in on the whole Niv/Near thing

until the end when everything was quite clear.

and this

You defended Near when he was getting beat on, and said that you were suspicious of Niv/Sammich,

but you didn't commit a vote until the very end

.

"Until the end when everything was quite clear" cannot possibly mean

before

Near's claim. "Until it came down to the deadline" clearly implies a last-minute vote. I'm going to put the actual timescale down here, in case anybody's assuming jerubbaal's account is true.

Thursday Mar 27th - Niv replaced Sammich
Thursday April 3rd - I voted for Niv
Sunday April 6th - Near claimed gunsmith
Friday April 11th - Mizzy lynched Niv 24 minutes before deadline.

I just want that down on record. Not that I myself think there's anything scummy in taking your time to vote, if that's how you're comfortable playing. It actually often puts you in an awkward position of placing high-profile votes close to deadline, which scum tend not to like. But anyhow, I want any future smears of this kind from jerubbaal against me to be seen in the context of the actual timescale, rather than subject to further distortion by him.

The rest of his case for lynching me tends to be along the lines of "I know Ripley's scum, so therefore he is", "Ripley is the standout scum amongst the unconfirmed", and "I'm going after Ripley because he's the easiest target". This is not a case.

---

jerubbaal, you have repeated many times that you view Mizzy's play as overwhelmingly town:

I have a strong townie read on her

Mizzy being scum is a surprise

I'm still surprised that my read on Mizzy was so blatantly wrong

For the moment, I'm not going to deal with the case against you, because I still think you sound like town,

you're on the bottom of my list for the three scum. I need to do some meta on you, because if you're acting, it's really convincing.

Mizzy has been acting like a townie,

my read on her has been completely town.

her play has been completely town

I think her play has been completely town,

She still reads as town to me,

but strangely you have still not provided any quotes or examples to illustrate this opinion of yours, which you hold so strongly you've stated it on every one of the occasions quoted above. Where you have made direct references to her play it has actually been negative. Please would you provide three distinct examples of Mizzy's play that illustrate why you believe her to have been completely town.

And are you willing to answer two simple questions, yes or no, without ifs or buts?

Are you willing to lynch Incognito?
Are you willing to lynch Mizzy?

[Ripley]

I don't have any clue why you're asking me to provide examples of why I find Mizzy's play townie. It has absolutely nothing to do with any of your arguments against me. All you're doing is trying to shift the burden of proof to make me look bad. I'm not combing the thread for irrelevant information.

It’s highly relevant, and I found this reaction of jerubbaal’s to be very revealing.

He has seen the need to state at least ten times in the past four pages (quoted, in my previous post) that he thought Mizzy’s play was completely town, without once ever saying

why

. He really, really wants us to know how much he thinks this, and I believe that after a certain point it’s entirely reasonable to start questioning whether he genuinely does think it. There are three possibilities that I can see:

1. jerubbaal is telling the exact truth. Mizzy’s posts are as overwhelmingly townie as he says. If this is true it would surely take very little time to scan her posts and pull up a few examples. Just one, even, if three would be too much trouble. But we get nothing at all.

2. jerubbaal knows Mizzy is scum, because he is scum himself.

3. jerubbaal knows Mizzy is innocent, because he is scum himself. He perceives her as a vital swing vote and is trying to keep on her good side.

In both cases 2 and 3, jerubbaal’s much repeated “Mizzy looked completely town” is tactical rather than factual, and if asked to back it up with examples he would find himself in considerable difficulty. And would have not much option other than to try and bluster his way out of that difficulty with a list of excuses. And look what in fact happened: “Irrelevant information… nothing to do with any of your arguments…. don’t know why you’re asking… trying to make me look bad…” Hmm. Okay.

Seriously, you all have to be blind if you can't see a change in posting patterns here with the threatened scum. Compare Ripley and Incog's posting with their earlier patterns. Somebody obviously feels threatened, and Ripley's sudden demand for textual support is textbook end of game scum.

This is absolutely typical of what I’m starting to recognise as jerubbaal’s standard methods. Select the target you think will be "easiest to persecute" (his own words), then, whatever they do or say, describe this as classic scum behavior. However they respond, say “Your response confirms my suspicions”. Most decent players will step up a gear when subjected to this kind of treatment, doubly so in a lylo situation. If this doesn’t happen at once, needle them until it does. Then jump on this as a change in posting patterns that confirms your suspicions. Continue with unshakable confidence to insist that you know you are right. Avoid being dragged into discussion of actual game specifics, which can be awkward. Stick to generalisations. Insist that anything the target does is obviously scummy. Repeat ad infinitum.

On the rare occasion where I’ve been given anything tangible to respond to I’ve done so. But: “I know Ripley is scum”, “Textbook scum”, “Ripley is scum because he has to be,” “Classic threatened scum”… blah blah blah … unanswerable except by “No I’m not…”, “No it isn’t…” responses that just feed into jerubbaal’s system whereby he just classifies them as “the indignant splutterings of cornered scum”, or suchlike.

Mizzy, if that's the case, who do you think is scum? You haven't really taken a stance on anyone this whole day.

I agree some more input from Mizzy would be useful – and she’s not the only one - but it’s more than a week since you posted any content yourself. At that time you were trying to paint me and jerubbaal as a scum team with Y or ooba as a third. How’s that theory coming along? I’m starting to wonder if you’ve been watching, and figuring you can probably save your own skin today by lying low and letting other people slug it out.

PS: All of the above was written over the course of today, before gorckat and jerubbaal’s last posts. Oddly, given our history, jerubbaal’s last paragraph somewhat echoes mine with regard to Incognito's recent posting. And it’s certainly clear that we absolutely must lynch someone.

If there's too much contention on the Ripley/me scenario, we could certainly just go and lynch Incog today.

So - erm - when you said you were willing to lynch Incognito or Mizzy, what you actually

meant

was, you were willing to lynch Incognito?

We are running very short on time and I don't think we're going to get any real resolution before the deadline.

You’re concerned that we’re running out of time, you’re certain who the scum are and willing to lynch any of them, and yet you’ve voted a player you know to be scum who was on no votes, in preference to a player you know to be scum who had a vote already?

[Ripley]

I'm re-reading - On page 27 !! I've just got a brain wave - somebody mentioned a traitor and i think the following setup is very much possible ..

2 Mafia , 1 Mafia Traitor , Gunsmith , Doc , Vig + Miller , 6 Townies

This exact setup was one that was going through my mind a week or so ago when I was looking through old games. It does at least provide an explanation for that opening scene that bothers me so; the old Godfather dying to reduce a (standard) Mafia group to two. And the concept of a traitor fits in well with the atmosphere of the game, which is somewhat dark and treacherous.

[Ripley]

jerubbaal suddenly voting Incognito after setting up a vote for me for so long is very, very strange. I was absolutely certain he was going to vote for me. That stuff about preferring to lynch Incog because he's smarter is clearly something he's thought up

after

the vote.

Mod:

your day start post says the deadline is extendable. What would it take for you to extend it?

[Ripley]

1 quick question while I'm taking in these most recent posts. ooba, you've used a style where you say "I" outside of quotes to paraphrase what a person has said, like this:

- I cannot defend when you do not post a case

but there's a line at the end that appears to refer to yourself:

Seeing as this about Mizzy talking about a traitor - this line piques my interest

... which is confusing. Is there anything else in the main body of 979 where "I" or "my" refers to yourself?

[Ripley]

Not the old “Ripley is scummy for not naming the scum” line again. ooba, if you have read my posts you must surely be aware that the person I suspected most was jerubbaal. It doesn’t need me to demand “jerubbaal is scum, lynch him” for you to know that. Declarations of “so-and-so is scum” have a habit of looking foolish when overtaken by events, which is why I don’t do it much. I would most of the day have preferred a jerubbaal lynch to any other, but that is not the same thing as being ready to lynch him. If it would have helped at any stage to get a detailed snapshot of how I was thinking, you only had to ask and I would have done my best to tell you. But you say nothing till a few days before deadline and then try to use it to justify a vote, together with the fact that I’m not high on enough people’s lists?

[Ripley]

Okay, I’ve made my mind up.

I'm leaning towards a Gorckat/Incognito pair at the very least, now, with Y bringing up the rear.

I can’t accept that anybody would seriously consider a setup as unbalanced as that implied by this scum trio, let alone vote for it.

And spreading votes around like this – putting a fourth player on a single vote – is precisely the behavior most likely to lead to a no-lynch at deadline. Mizzy knows that all four protown players have to vote together to lynch a scum.

Through almost all of Day 3 jerubbaal has claimed to believe Mizzy must be scum while at the same time busily creating a climate (by endless repetition of “Mizzy’s play has been completely town”) whereby he could justify not voting for her. Mizzy has reciprocated in much the same way, claiming to have a townie read on jerubbaal, without any reasoning to support it, despite the obvious dangers of such blithe assumptions in lylo.

The case for a Mizzy/jerubbaal scum pairing has become very strong. I cannot agree with Incognito that Y could be the third, and in fact I’m becoming increasingly suspicious of ooba, who has done more than anybody to delay things and is strangely unbothered by the approaching deadline - which falls in the middle of the weekend, when people often have difficulty posting, enabling avoidance tactics by the scum. It’s also worth noting how ooba all of a sudden started to focus on gorckat following Mizzy’s vote, and the incredibly flimsy reasoning he’s come up with to justify voting for me. The “obvious” trio of jerubbaal, Incognito, Mizzy, never really seemed to work for me – the problem was, nor did anything else. Maybe this was because I looked too much at Y and not enough at ooba. It’s possible that Incognito’s scum and jerubbaal’s innocent, but I still think it’s unlikely.

Until today I would have said jerubbaal was the better lynch but after today’s events I’m willing to go along with gorckat and Y.

Vote: Mizzy

[Ripley]

Thanks to everyone for the game and especial thanks to destructor for providing such an interesting and flavorful setup. The replacement situation must have been a real problem and I'm grateful for his outstanding recruitment skills. There's a danger of getting into a kind of loop where the day is extended to allow replacements to catch up and things start to drag for the original players who start to drop, causing the need for more replacements... Incog was the only original left by today. I think the discontinuity of replacements and long periods without much action really work in the scum's favor. Near and Lowell both seemed in differing degrees to lose interest during Day 2 which obviously helped a lot.

As Incog has said, the setup wasn't at all obvious to us either before the roleclaims. I was almost certain one of the people claiming after me would be a roleblocker. (Why did we have to specify which of us did the killing?)

A couple of other things that were lucky for us. I think we ended up with a good balance on the scum team. It was crucial that we had gorckat who was so bold and confident with his moves. And for me at least it was really useful that the third player was someone pretty much on my own wavelength. I usually dislike playing as scum and regard it as time I have to serve in order to be eligible to play as town in other games, but this was by and large a pleasant exception.

And I was grateful that ooba didn't set to work a week earlier than he did. I didn't like the way that was going at all.

[Ripley]

My one real reservation about this setup is the part I wasn't actively involved in, ie the Night 0 scum killing choice. To me, the difference in outcome, even between killing a plain townie and killing the mafia doctor was too large a factor to be determined by blind luck alone. And obviously the difference is magnified when the scum actually hit a town power role as actually happened here. They could, it's true, avoid this lottery by foregoing the kill altogether, but that seems a very high price.

[Ripley]

Perhaps, my trick after Day 2 when I said I investigated and received guilty on someone I would have never suspected otherwise did work? or perhaps it was mere coincidence that Ripley was going through an operation. :p

You're not serious, are you? You really believe I'd invent eye surgery?

I had eye surgery.