Open 60: The New C9 - Game over!

[Shteven]

Vote: Shteven

because my sister told me too.

Explains so much about you.

She had a good time, I swear.

I must say, for a random voting stage, that we have had a lot of people double up votes. Didn't see any triple votes that I noticed, but I haven't done a full vote count.

I also have no idea why, but I found Justin's first post hiliarous.

I will "randomFOS" (it's a new invention) JessieGunn for being one of two guns and the player I don't recognize; and random

Vote: MadCrawdad

because he reminds me of the magical crawdads in world of warcraft.

Shteven: Twice as random as you since 2008.

[Shteven]

Justin Playfair= Unrighteousout Quitdirty

Every word within his name I made into an opposite. Just for kicks.

I understood what he did when I first saw the vote. I didn't get the split of Justin to Just and in, but the playfair to quitdirty made sense to me. And btw, that should totally be Workdirty.

I've played in games with CKD. I also think implying that this will be a useful scum tell or in any way helpful is misguided and possibly confusing. Perhaps you don't have much else to go on, I understand that, but this isn't anything either.

[Shteven]

I agree Jesse's recent complaint about justin is wrong; not only is the analysis helpful, it's also very much his regular play style. I don't think he intends it to be an attack, but as his posts get longer and more technical, it generally feels like one. We went back and forth for some time in the previous, abandoned new C9. Personally, I'd just like to thank him for preventing the game from stalling.

unvote/vote: Six Aces

I'm interested to see where this development takes us

As am I but I didn't really think I had to jump on the bandwagon to get an answer from him. Worth a FOS.

[Shteven]

I am uncomfortable with the speed of this lynch. Page 5 is not going to give us very much to go on for day 2. That said, I'll admit that even though I'm not very fond of jessie's soft claiming method, having a claimed guilty result is going to be a better chance than most day 1 lynches. With apologies to six aces, and your sister:

Vote: Six Aces

[Shteven]

Trying to suggest the survival of a cop is scummy when the strong possibility exists of one or more docs- scummy.

Agreed. I'd say it's most likely that he was doctor protected, and that mafia chose other targets instead of taking the chance on there being a doctor protection.

There is a less likely mafia bussing chance. That he investigated a dead body could be seen as scummy, but it doesn't override that the first case is still more likely. However, he should certainly explain why he picked Peers.

Phate, why is picking Ryan such a good kill choice? Apparently he has a reputation, but it's not one I'm familiar with.

[Shteven]

I would like to point out the following:

Police are seeking witnesses in the killing of Peers, Vanilla Townie, who was found dead of

two

gunshot wounds in a dumpster this morning by Holiday Inn staff.

Does this mean that two killers targeted the same person? I ask as it may provide some insight into the "Doc protection" speculation.

The answer to this is a definite "maybe". Something to keep in mind, but it would be rather strange for a double kill to happen on someone who didn't do much to warrant the kills day 1.

Now he did do something to warrant the investigation; i.e., voting Jesse and accusing him of lying is a perfect reason to investigate him. I really don't feel that anyone should be voting for Jesse today. I hope he manages to find another guilty result, but he's a cop in my eyes even without further success.

[Shteven]

vote:Shteven

Take a look at his first line. Okay, it's the second line, but I don't count agreed as a line.

Agreed. I'd say it's most likely that he was doctor protected, and that mafia chose other targets instead of taking the chance on there being a doctor protection.

He says it's likely Jesse was doctor protected, he didn't say that the scum thought that Jesse was doctor protected. This means he was thinking about Jesse being protected. This makes me think he is scum who made what I believe is called a Freudian slip.

I have a hard time seeing how this makes a case at all. I realize what you're trying to get at, but I'm capable of thinking that Jesse got doctor protection as a pro-town. It's not only scum who may have thought that. If only scum could ever think about doctor protections, everyone should be lynching Jesse now because there would be no reason for him to be alive.

Also, I'd like to amend my previous maybe answer. It's still maybe, but if we do have a vig, it's possible that both he and the SK picked up jesse as a possible scum. So it's a slightly more likely maybe. Would be pretty interesting to see that all 3 night powers were on him over his vote on jesse.

[Shteven]

I don't find much to fault fab with on his attack on me. I think the feeling was genuine, and not scum hunting down town. That said, there isn't all that many other errors in the thread I've picked up, so for now, I'm going to side with a post that's been mentioned a few times:

My issue with this statement is there is more likely then not at least one cop. I haven't seen anyone attempt a counter claim of any sort. I will grant you he should have played his hand better. If that is your best defense against the claim I'm just not buying it.

She's not asking for counter-claims, but also not warning not to make any. Calling for counter-claims would probably be too obvious, and get you in the hot seat immediately, so if you were trying to coax them, this would be your method.

That said, I am NOT at all certain about this, but it's the best I can go on for now. I feel it would be good to put a vote out there, no one is close to a lynch, plenty of time to discuss farside22 and others

Vote: Farside22

[Shteven]

@LTG: It's my understanding linking to any finished game is fine. Abandoned counts as finished, so no problem there.

well looking over the past few days of posting which i largely missed due to finals, I'm still kinda behind but im a little suspicious of Jesse because the person he investigated just happened to be Peers. I could be looking to far into it, but that's just my personal opinion.

I initially thought the same thing; but I asked Jesse about why he chose peers, and he gave a pretty good reason. Read the post Peers made, calling him scummy and voting for the claimed doctor on day 1. He was the only one voting Jesse that day, while 10 votes piled on the accused who claimed doctor. I'd say it's downright obvious that the cop in this case would be likely to pick his accuser.

I wish he had thought that scum wouldn't be that gambitty (it's a word, I say) and done some WIFOM on it, but I can't fault him for picking the obvious choice.

[Shteven]

I would think it would be obvious to anyone who's played more than one game here that playing all roles as exactly the same as the other roles should be your main goal. Obviously, no one is perfect, and you are really trying to give the

appearance

of playing all roles the same more than you are really trying to play them the same way. But I've never really been a fan of meta; I feel most players should be wise enough to make it futile, among other reasons (mainly laziness to background check 3 games).

As for more relevant discussion, I don't really feel I have a good grip on this game. I blame the short day 1; I don't feel I've gotten to know many of you in this game yet. I'll probably reread the thread, but with my schedule that's more of a friday/weekend task. I'll keep you posted.

[Shteven]

If I may offer some unsolicited advice, if you are posting some factual analysis, such as me and SSF's vote being after the hammer, and then recheck it to find out that only SSF's vote was unnecessary, then just remove the first part and post the correct portion

A lot of people have thoughts about which positions on bandwagons are most likely to be scum. The 3rd and 4th positions being likely scum is even posted in the wiki, and I notice many people think that the hammer can be a scummy position. I don't put too much stock into positions, as you can generally hold off a day or two and change it, although the 3rd/4th ones are useful for pushing something that might not make it. In this case, though, once Jesse claimed the guilty result, the wagon was almost certain, and position isn't going to tell you much of anything other than who saw the claim first.

In that sense, I think SSF was just late to the party and wanted to contribute thoughts. I don't think it's a strong tell either way, and I'm not even sure you could get a weak tell out of it either. I'd be more inclined to ask MadCrawdad why he didn't place a vote yesterday. What did you think of the six aces wagon, MC?

[Shteven]

I think we should keep the idea that Jesse might be scum in the back of our minds, just as a last thought kind of thing. We can scum hunt without worrying about it too much. If we can't figure it out, we can always go back and examine him thoroughly later.

It seems like Jesse's dominating the thread; there isn't much other hunting going on at all. I'm not saying I'm blameless in this either, and a lot of it is due to the shortness of day 1, but there isn't exactly much going on that we need a reminder to not forget Jesse.

[Shteven]

Zero or one player received this PM:

You are a Vigilante. Each night, you may PM me the name of a player. You will kill that player. You win when all threats to the town are eliminated.

It is stated at the beginning of the thread that there is no vigilante. The only killing roles that are in this game are the Mafia, and the Serial Killer. Which makes this comment about the Vig uninformed at best, and deliberately confusing at worst. I would assume that the roles would be known by all players, although I could be wrong, so this is more scummy than accidental in my eyes.

So by this logic, you'd now be more scummy than accidental? There's zero or one vig, not zero. Also, all of this was a response to SSF's post, directly above mine, who first speculated on the wording of the kill meaning he was targeted twice. Why did you not pick up on SSF's post, but focused on mine?

P.S. Just saw tinvision's post at the bottom (I generally write up responses in line while reading the thread so I don't forget things by the end). So you probably have a valid defense here; but the roles were listed at the start, and I remembered without looking back. I wouldn't fault you much for forgetting that. But also overlooking SSF mentioning it first is a more significant issue, so I'm still going to post this response.

[Shteven]

Seems Kabenon007 now has 3 votes + 1 fos. So far, I'm just not really seeing the case, honestly. It's mostly just tone, I don't have anything solid, I am mostly just posting this for notes so I don't forget.

IGMEOY: Justin.

There is definitely something odd about his claims on vollkan and then vollkan voting for him, but I don't consider that vote worthy alone.

[Shteven]

The case on Kab is not "mostly just tone" by any means.

That's an error on my part: I had been rewording that sentence a few times. I meant I didn't like Justin's tone in stating it. Looking back that wasn't very clear. I didn't want to lean too heavily on Justin for it, but I ended up basically removing the entire thing.

[Shteven]

Mind telling us why, MelodyMan?

[Shteven]

Mind telling us why, MelodyMan?

No problem. After reading through the topic no one seemed to pop out at me as definate scum, however I knew I had to make a decision so I read through the cases that other people presented in giving out their vote. Justin Playfair's explanation of his vote persuaded me the most so I went with kabenon.

This is exactly why Justin is so dangerous. He always makes good logical arguments. However, he's not always town. And if he is town, he's not always right. Logical does not mean that it correctly finds scum. Now, I'm by no means positive that he's scum here - I really just don't know. But his case gave me more pause than inspiration. It is 100% true; but it feels like he's eager to lynch. More than I think a town Justin would be.

Again, mostly just a feeling, which is why I wasn't sure if I should state it all upfront. We haven't heard anything more from him since.

[Shteven]

For the record, I'm a bit uncomfortable with the speed of this game. A six page day 1 was inevitable after the claim, but there's no need to repeat it. We're past half of the votes for a Kabenon007 lynch on page 12.

[Shteven]

*Sighs*

This game annoys me. Because this Kab wagon is pretty crappy, and at the same time probably the best thing we have to go on, and therefore I don't find anyone scummy for being on it.

/seconded.

[Shteven]

Well, was kind of hoping a bit more would be here now, but in any case. I'm not a fan of the melodyman wagon. I've seen a lot of lynches based on single mistakes turn up town. Jumping on a wagon with poor/no reasons is something experienced scum really don't do much. You just end up lynching the unfortunate.

[Shteven]

Not really too thrilled that Jesse is voting just to end the day. It is tempting to do, but I won't. Kab, please do give us some thoughts in the event you are lynched, which seems likely at this point.

[Shteven]

Not really too thrilled that Jesse is voting just to end the day. It is tempting to do, but I won't. Kab, please do give us some thoughts in the event you are lynched, which seems likely at this point.

I find this to be even more suspicious. The day has stalled, and believe it or not

somebody

is going to get lynched. And that somebody is Kabenon. To me, it translated to "Everyone look at Gunn if kab comes across as town, even though we all know he's going to get lynched, look at the guy that happens to vote for him near the end."

You said yourself, you know he will be lynched. There's no other way about it, it's going to happen. You're just not voting for him because you don't want any heat on you next round.

I believe you are the cop. That's not going to change if Kab flips town or scum.

I am, however, concerned about lynching a town player. When I vote, I want it to be because I believe the person is scum, not because I believe the person has a lot of votes on them.

[Shteven]

@Rigel: to answer your question, see the part below about how I feel that Justin's placing the second vote was designed to strengthen the wagon enough that it would reach a lynch. Answers to Justin follow.

There is definitely something odd about his claims on vollkan and then vollkan voting for him, but I don't consider that vote worthy alone.

This was meant to mean that Kab's claims of understanding vollkan were strange, and that the reciprocation of vollkan voting for kab was also strange. It seems like more than a coincidence, and I can't help feeling like I should be able to see some connection, but I couldn't and can't tell what it means. It's likely just white noise, on further thought.

My vote was the second on Kabenon007, so the eager to lynch line doesn’t really play, nor does it make sense as part of a meta as I generally tend to cast a vote early based on my strongest suspicions. So could you explain how in this case it feels like I’m “eager to lynch”?

The second vote is the one that transforms it from one person's opinion to a (very small) wagon. It really picks up steam more around the 3rd/4th votes, but the second vote can be a good time for a scum player to nudge a case on a townie forward, while being early enough to avoid claims of wagoning the next day. Adding significant reasoning to it can also add staying power to the wagon - however, in your case, that's just normal meta. I'd be more concerned if you hadn't. So it seemed to me like your ultimate goal was to see the wagon through to the end. In other words, you seemed certain you weren't making a mistake.

Can you explain how my case being “100% true”can be made to comfortably coexist with your previous statement “I'm just not really seeing the case, honestly.”? This could just be a byproduct of what you said in your answer to Vollkan, that you mangled the earlier post, but on its face it certainly seems contradictory.

The tone part will be harder to explain, and I'd admit that it's flimsy. The 100% true part is simpler. You don't have to distort facts in order to make a bad case. If you're town you can honestly believe a case and still be wrong. If you're scum you can present true statements which simply don't prove the case (easy enough, as no 100% proof is ever really possible). Summarize some of the questionable things he's done, and then jump to the conclusion that he was scum based on it. Town players always make mistakes. Cases aren't built on perfect information, so at some point every case has to make a leap of faith. Going from "he said A, B, and C" to "he is scum" isn't always true. You got A, B, and C right, but I just didn't see the final "he is scum" as being very convincing.

Shteven, your posts above show that you’ve done no real scum hunting since suspicion first started turning against Kabenon007. You’ve given no reasons, outside of my dangerous self using a tone you didn’t like for not wanting to see Kabenon lynched. You’ve asked a total of one question to people on the Kabenon007 wagon. And if you are “concerned about lynching a town player” should you be willing, having done nothing to look for other suspects or poke holes in the case against Kabenon, to accept “the event you are lynched, which seems likely at this point.”?

Because the behavior above looks a lot more like someone who doesn’t want to be associated with a lynch than it does someone who doesn’t trust it and would like to see it stopped. To that end, Shteven, before deadline could you give us some idea of your suspicions, if you have any? And, if you have any, your specific problems with the case on Kabenon007?

Thank you for any responses.

This is entirely fair. I have been lazy. It could be an overreaction to my two other current games where I actively mislynched a town role on both day 1's. This game is somewhat on day 1, with the speedy day 1. In any case, you're right to call me on it, and I was wondering when someone would. Here's some suspects I have, although I'm not certain on them.

1) Justin. Obvious from the above and nothing solid, but as noted, I don't like the way you entered the kab wagon. It's hard for me to quantify this, because your posts are very well constructed. While some people hate the length, I'm somewhat on your side on that issue. It takes a lot of mental processing to get at your intentions behind them, which is what makes it effective. I feel I should mention you're also valuable as town, and so distrusting you is a risk - but I'm definitely afraid of you being scum.

2) I haven't liked Vollkan's style of postings. He seems to be moderating the discussion rather than participating it. I don't know if this is a consistent play style, but most of his posts are just explaining things that have gone on between other players, sometimes including himself, but not always. He hasn't really hunted scum much. (That's some grade A hypocrisy right there!) This may seem contradictory, but I actually feel a bit of an SK vibe from him. The contradiction being that the SK has nothing to lose and much to gain from hunting mafia. Hey, I never said I was certain.

3) And in what's the opposite of what you asked, I'm thinking my vote on farside is fairly pointless now. It never was much to go on in the first place. This actually was largely an attempt to give us more choices than Kabenon vs Kabenon - but that didn't take off. I hope she wasn't really scum looking for cop claims - but if I was a townie reading my posts, I'd probably have jumped on myself for being opportunistic. Being opportunistic is a pretty hard tell to get right frequently. I've been wrong a lot - and since this is basically the case I have on Justin, it only got an IGEMOY instead of a FOS.

Unvote

If I find more I'll be certain to post them, but if I had a lot more, I wouldn't have been in this position to start with.

[Shteven]

I can add another to the list. Having seen SSF's post above, he's entirely right. Phate's been a bit odd.

@those voting kab: If turns up scum, who are his scumbuddies? If turns up not scum, who?

Asking people to nail the entire scum team on day 1 isn't going to work. No one will be right. Wait to prove that kab is scum, then look for the connections. Pretend you are 80% sure kab is scum and 80% sure that player X is linked to kab. You could then say player X is 64% scum. You're making progressively weaker and weaker claims. Focus on something you have a good chance of being right about.

Vote: MelodyMan23

This'll work.

I've already mentioned I don't like the melodyMan23 wagon, and this is a pretty poor way to jump on it, so you get bonus scum points for it.

And then finally the point SSF already mentioned: the inconsistency of his view on kab's wagon.

I could be wrong, but I like lynching Phate better than I like lynching kab, and so I'll give it a shot on starting a trend:

Vote: Phate

[Shteven]

@Shteven: Of course we're not going to nail everyone on D1. But it's helpful to get people to think beyond today, don't you agree?

Based on the very limited information of day 1, you are much more likely to be wrong and add only confusion. You can only lynch one person a day - so it's best to focus on making that as accurate as possible. If you see strong evidence against another player besides the one you're voting on, feel free to mention it, but with primary choices being wrong half the time, your third best choice isn't going to be nearly as good. You'll be able to make it a lot more accurate once you know the lynch/night results on day 2, and clutter the thread a lot less.

[Shteven]

I also am pretty sure space case's vote was the hammer, but the added discussion could prove useful.

In any case, kab, one of the problems with using the wagon for information is sheer numbers. If 8, now 9 people have voted for you - well, they're mostly town. Sorting them out is hard. There's scum on there, sure...But the scum have an automatic useful defense. There was town on there also. You can't lynch without town, so the lynch was reasonable, and so was there participation.

That's not to say you can't look at how they did it, but what they did (the vote itself) isn't useful.

[Shteven]

Vote Shteven Your last post rubs me all the wrong ways. Like if Adel was a stripper.

(Spelling of name corrected.) I believe Adel is female? If so, her stripping services are always welcome over here. *rimshot* My apologies.

Other than that, the only thing I had a problem with day 3 was laptopgun's claim that a fake cop can't invent an innocent result - as oman already corrected that's easy to do. Even so, I still believe Jesse, and so also believe laptopgun is innocent. Hope a second cop isn't killed off with Jesse still being alive, but I'm not all that worried that having Justin dead makes Jesse a liar.

Without a specific complaint about what was wrong in my last post, I can only really elaborate on the post in general. Let's say that it's likely there was either 1 or 2 scum on the wagon, and probably not 0 or 3. If it's 1/9 (I'll count fonz) then you're looking at 11% scum - more likely to find scum not on the wagon. If it's 2, then 22% scum is basically equal to our orginal setup: 4 mafia in twenty is 20%.

Not really sure where to put the SK into this or not. I just think that day 3 analysis should not be so narrow as to only look at whether or not the player was on the wagon, but rather encompass everything. It's a pretty simple thought, doesn't really say much, etc. Just because I wasn't on the wagon doesn't mean I'm town. (Although I am <.<)

[Shteven]

While there is good reason for Justin to have not come forward even with a guilty result, I'd assume that he was probably getting innocents.

His day 1 discussion was on Wesaq, spacecase, and peers. Random vote on SSF.
His day 2 discussion was on Phate, Kab, and farside22.

I think there's a few too many choices to be certain - although day 2 we know kab was innocent. Still, I don't think he really attacked either of the other two strongly enough to indicate guilt. So I'm not finding too much use in that kind of search.

I do, however, find spacecase's last second reversal for the hammer to be a reliable scumtell. I'd be willing to lynch him on that.

Vote: Spacecase

[Shteven]

P.S. Didn't like the case on melody man day 2, still don't. Seems to basically be "he's lurking". Probably right on that, doesn't sell me as him being scum though.

[Shteven]

It's not only that he hammered, but also the way he did it. Right up until he changed his mind, he was against the lynch. Quick reversals at the 11th hour for the hammer is a reliable scum tell. Maybe not 100%, but reliable.

[Shteven]

Becoming a bit disappointed with overall activity levels in this game.

Spacecase is scum, get to it folks.

[Shteven]

Fonz beat me to it, but yes, talking about statistics doesn't really indicate your alignment - just that you like/think in mathematical terms. I do it myself sometimes.

As for Jesse, he's getting far too many comments today. He's a cop because he pointed at a scum for us to kill. The possibility of him bussing is relatively low. Whatever that chance is, it hasn't changed at all by Justin's death. Call me when we have two dead cops and one of them isn't Jesse, and then I'll be interested. Jesse is town. I'd be willing to bet a small amount that the lack of a second night kill is because one scum group thought Jesse might not get protection, but he actually did. Speculation, but hey.

As for spacecase, I'm still pretty certain he's scum. I just saw the same exact thing happen in newbie 539 with the day one lynch. However, it is true that the lynch there wasn't as certain. There were two wagons of three, with four needed. Scum hopped off wagon A and put the fourth on wagon B. After spending most of day one pushing for wagon A, he immediately dropped when given a chance to hammer. So the 180 part holds, although there is some merit to people saying there wasn't any serious chance of the lynch not being kab. That said, we do need to take a look at other people, and discuss everyone, but I expect I'll be voting spacecase all day unless something very significant comes up.

[Shteven]

If Oman is scum, wouldn't he want to confirm Jess is the cop so he is worth trying to night kill him?

If I was scum, I would NOT want Jesse confirmed because once he IS confirmed, thats it, doc protect forward!

Unless someone else claims a power role of extreme importance (the vig may quality, but personally I'd consider the cop more important) Jesse should already be getting doctor protection going forward. There isn't a good reason to take it off; you're leaving him exposed if so. Any and all (since we can't prove we have 2) doctor(s) should protect Jesse.

One could read Oman's statement as saying Jesse isn't worth doctor protection now, leaving him vulnerable. But this is a stretch, I'll admit.

[Shteven]

also it was pretty scummy for jesse to claim cop and not be one, but on the other hand justin never confronted him

Still... Fos: Jesse

Can you prove that he wasn't one? The setup includes the possibility of 0, 1 or 2 cops. Justin's death does not disprove Jesse's claim. SixAces being scum does not prove Jesse is a cop - however it's very strong evidence to suggest he is.

[Shteven]

oh right! i totally forgot about the 2 cops my bad

So you thought there was only 1 cop; he was dead, and we had a claimed cop. Therefore, the claimed cop was lying.

This wasn't enough for a vote? Only worth a fos?

just a heads up to the mod i'll be gone for the next 4 days, so for now Vote: Spacecase
please don't replace me!

This could certainly be legit, but it's looking a bit like "I'd like to push the lynch for day 2 with as little accountability as humanly possible."

[Shteven]

I'd certainly agree that melody man hasn't been helpful, but in my opinion, lynches based off a singular post like that are no better than random. I've seen it catch mistaken town too often (as random lynches are ~75% town). I'm still quite concerned about him though but because of Dahill's mistakes on Jesse: first assuming he couldn't be the cop because Justin died, and then not voting a lying cop. Concern, however, isn't the same as suspicious. I can't convince myself that it's a scum tell instead of a newbie mistake, so I'm WIFOMing between those two. Still prefer a Spacecase lynch atm - glad to see he's around and posting, even if it's been brief so far.

I am a bit concerned that no one seems to be discussing anyone other than these two, although I myself am guilty of this. In an attempt to get something else started, I'll

FOS: The Fonz

. This is based on nothing solid - so please don't overreact. But you seem to be echoing generic townie sentiments, for example specifically in post 448 where you basically just repeated my post. Who do you think are scum, Fonz? And if it's spacecase/dahill, then for the sake of argument please include a few people who aren't top picks for the day - I haven't seen much scum hunting from you so far. If I looked closely, I'm sure I could find others, but you're up first.

[Shteven]

I do think MCD is on to something with oman, his defense of spacecase followed by joining it based on lurking is very suspect. I would of course remind everyone to make sure that spacecase is scum before we go after oman though. I hate making connections based cases before their alleged connection is of a known alignment.

[Shteven]

I do think MCD is on to something with oman, his defense of spacecase followed by joining it based on lurking is very suspect. I would of course remind everyone to make sure that spacecase is scum before we go after oman though. I hate making connections based cases before their alleged connection is of a known alignment.

I don't think that Oman's status (scum v. town) is contingent upon that of Spacecase. His willingness to quickly lynch/vig seems reckless (at least). His quick reversal on Spacecase (innocent newbie -> lurking scum) makes him suspect.

The fact that Oman originally suggested that SC was just a newbie, but then quickly jumped on the wagon (with no new information having been revealed) says to me that there might be a connection between the two.

@MadCrawdad
Granted. Most of the case would still stand if spacecase is town - the part that would be indicative of them working together would only be the earlier defense of spacecase. Which really isn't out of place on it's own, and is only troublesome after we know spacecase is certainly scum.

@Oman
As far as newbies can be scum too - certainly true. But that means you're attacking someone for being new, and the chances of them being scum are simply random (1/4 in this case, from initial setup). I'd be just as valid to single out Phate for destruction because he has a chance of being scum. I'm looking for a better-than-random lynch today. The Lynch All Lurkers is a point in your favor though Oman. I'll consider it for day 3 if we're both still here - and I'm not interested in lynching you day 2.

[Shteven]

My post 473 was in reference to:

NEWBIES CAN BE SCUM TOO!! YOUR BIGGEST PROBLEM IS THIS THOUGHT THAT "NEWBIE" ALWAYS MEANS TOWN. NEW PEOPLE CAN BE SCUM ABOUT 1/3 OF THE TIME. RAWRRRRRR!

This makes it look like you're lynching someone for basically random odds. Also, the number of scum is fixed in this game, it's 4 mafia, 1 SK vs 15 town. So 1 in 4. This is what I talking about in post 473 (shortened):

"As far as newbies can be scum too - certainly true. But that means you're attacking someone for being new, and the chances of them being scum are simply random (1/4 in this case, from initial setup)." "I'm looking for a better-than-random lynch today."

Other posts of yours are more explanatory, though:

Okay look: I do not think that a newbie reversing their position is a scumtell. I do believe a newbie lurking under pressure is a scumtell. I'm not reversing my position on the first scumtell at all.

This is phrased much better. You are explicitly claiming newbie town do not lurk - I'm a bit skeptical of that but there may be something to it. In any case, it was the previous post, 468, that I took issue with.

[Shteven]

Yes Cipher, you'll be protected. And you certainly do want to investigate someone who's not night killed. Of course the best answer there is to actually investigate scum, as they certainly won't pick off their own.

I understand you're busy Fonz, but please do answer my previous question when you get around to catching up. Thanks.

[Shteven]

I'm reading Fonz's response to me and it's certainly very town sounding. However, he didn't quite answer the question, which leaves me scratching my head a bit.

Basically, I said he is echoing town sentiments - he defended this quite reasonably and all is fine. But after I made that claim I asked him who he felt was scummy - and if it was the popular choices of the day to then give at least one non-popular choice. He hasn't done that, although he did comment on the MC/Oman discussion. Fine comments on it too - just nothing ground breaking.

So, try #2: Fonz (and anyone else who'd like to answer):

Do you think there's anyone scummy who isn't being discussed much today?

I ask because while I still think Spacecase is our best chance at finding scum today, I'm not certain of it. And regardless of his alignment, the more discussion on the more players we have, the better.

[Shteven]

You might just be right about it being silly. I didn't want day 2 to focus too heavily on just spacecase though. Also, I did open the question to anyone in my last post - I originally chose you because I felt your posts were only talking about "safe" topics.

So far only cipher answered, saying Phate deserved more attention. Not much explanation there though. Why, Cipher?

It just seems like we're mostly discussing spacecase/oman/madcrawdad and not many others. Maybe I should go read day 2 over again - there was some discussion of phate early on for being surprised that Jesse had lived through night 1. And he did vote for oman pretty quickly.

[Shteven]

It's certainly odd, yet it's true that there are many mistakes that can be made in mafia that don't truly yield any role information.

[Shteven]

The other thing on Phate was his thing about being surprised Jesse was still alive. I looked up that congratulating the doctor thing that he mentioned in the same post and apparently it is a real scumtell - does this apply any less because he brought it up himself?

I would think that kind of tell is usually brought up by yourself. How would someone else bring it up for you? I can't think of any way that wouldn't reflect more poorly on the initial asker than the second person.

[Shteven]

General activity is slowing down - please post more people! This page, 23, has a few posts from sunday, but basically let's say it started on monday. If you haven't posted since then, it's about time to post now.

No posts on page 23: Phate & Rigel.

This is the main problem I have with Lynch All Lurkers - how do you pick just one? The lurker case was already made on spacecase, so this would now make 3. And the scum can pick one pretty easily for the town...

[Shteven]

Unvote

If I find more I'll be certain to post them, but if I had a lot more, I wouldn't have been in this position to start with.

As I was looking though for the votes and what not I came up on this Unvote. I checked it with the previous mod update for votes and you weren't listed. Do you know who you voted for or do you not remember.

I'm somewhat unclear what you are going for here. I had been voting for Farside22 - this was day 2. I'm still voting for Spacecase here on day 3. My vote on farside22 was counted in every vote count from the second one until the final one, by which time I had unvoted.

Let's assume for a moment that the mod had in fact not counted my unvote. Please explain how that would make me scum. I assure you the mod is not actively colluding with the scum team.

So, to everyone else: Do large, obvious wagons that stall a few votes short of lynch imply the mafia aren't lynching their partner or that they don't want to be caught killing another townie (or insert 3rd option)? Why hasn't this wagon reached 8, and what, if anything, can be inferred? Or am I trying to infer too much from players who are not voting simply because they're inactive?

[Shteven]

Agreed. The fact that spacecase hasn't been lynched yet wouldn't bother me if there were people voting for other people, or any other viable wagon forming. But no one* is voting for anyone but spacecase, and spacecase isn't lynched. Together, not a good thing.

*if I recall there's 1 non-spacecase vote.

[Shteven]

To Fonz: I'm really not sure if a stalled wagon means the person is more likely to be scum or town. I wish I could say either way - the uncertainty is starting to give me cold feet. I do agree with your other point, at 5 votes and not moving, those 3 votes are a long way from coming and there isn't a need for him to claim yet.

To MadCrawdad: That's not what I was trying to imply. I see nothing wrong with not voting for spacecase. My post made two points, you've ignored the other one. Let me bold the one you skipped:

The fact that spacecase hasn't been lynched yet

wouldn't bother me if there were people voting for other people

, or any other viable wagon forming.

But no one* is voting for anyone but spacecase,

and spacecase isn't lynched.

Together, not a good thing

.

I'd be glad to see people saying they think spacecase is town and player X is scum. But no one is. People just aren't accusing anyone. The town is collectively lurking. THAT I have a problem with. Really, I thought that was pretty clear.

[Shteven]

I was addressing post 595, not post 601

Then please see 601 for your answer? I can see how you might think 595 was throwing suspicion on those who hadn't voted for spacecase, but this was not intended. In the last line I gave the most likely reason as inactivity, not scumminess:

Or am I trying to infer too much from players who are not voting simply because they're inactive?

People are very, very welcome to vote for someone other than spacecase. However, this day has been going on now for exactly 1 month. It started on feb 26th. I really think people should have some idea of who they think is scum and should be actively voting for someone by now. And yet, as of the last vote count, there are 6 people voting for anyone and 8 people not voting at all. This is what my complaint in post 601 was over. My post 595 was wondering if we could infer something about Spacecase's alignment from his wagon having slowed down, but in the end I don't really think it's possible. It becomes WIFOM fairly easily.

[Shteven]

Wagon slowing.

Makes me wonder.

I might unvote.

I haven't gotten any real direct answers to my musings over "does a stalled wagon imply anything about the player's alignment" yet. Obviously it's pretty situational and a wagon could fail for many different reasons. You can't really answer it in general for all wagons in all games, but perhaps people here could answer in terms of this game, this spacecase wagon.

Your post seems to imply you think the wagon slowing DOES provide you useful information. What information, and why?

[Shteven]

Mod

: Minor error, but you still have SSF listed as not voting, when he's been replaced. And may be replaced again.

As for the 4 actives who aren't voting: Why the hell aren't you? *cough* Can you at least fos someone? Doesn't have to be anyone in particular, but I'd like to at least hear something. Especially Phate, who's now up to 3 votes and still doesn't seem interested in telling us who he thinks is scum.

[Shteven]

Regardless of LTG's claim being a good or a bad move, the fact remains I believe Cipher's claim and I believe his innocent result. There is the outside chance that LTG is investigation immune, yes. But for now, I'm assuming he's town, and he's claimed vanilla, so vanilla he is. The key point here is that just because you're town doesn't mean you play 'perfectly'. Perfect game play varies by who you ask, so really there's no universal perfect play. That said, I do agree that vanillas should not just drop their role causally, but he did, let's get over it.

I am much more concerned with the lack of votes today, not on any specific wagon, but overall. Even I'm a bit guilty of this - I may have started spacecase and can certainly take credit (or blame) for that, but since then I've been laying back on it. I think we all need to step up the scum hunting.

[Shteven]

In addition: Dropping scum tells doesn't mean you're scum. If you believe his claim, then the mistake that he made the claim is moot. So, Fonz: Do you think LTG is scum? If yes, why haven't you voted him for it or at least FOS'ed? If no, why are you attacking him when you believe his claim?

[Shteven]

@fonz: After I posted my question, I did realize that I should have left a bit more room for the middle ground, but you explained it rather well so I'm satisfied with that.

@Vollkan: I do think you're skewing the situation slightly. Lynches tend to happen (in theory) in two steps. First, people make accusations/cases on other players, and vote for who they think is scummy. Then, the town as a whole has to analyze the various targets and collectively pick one. One player cannot lynch anyone alone. Now I'm not a fan of dahill's recent play either, but after expressing your choice there does come a time when in order to lynch someone the town must start agreeing. I would have mentioned that this is what I was doing and repeated that player A is still my first choice but that I'd be willing to lynch player B before moving the vote, but every day in mafia there's someone who isn't getting their first choice lynched.

This is another angle on the explaination with why I'm upset with today's day 3. We haven't had enough people building cases on enough seperate targets to really get to the point where we can compare and pick the best one. Most of the day it was only spacecase, now we have phate. I'd like to have more than this, though.

[Shteven]

As Fonz said, he was at L-1. It doesn't exactly meet the scenario of an untenable lynch.

You're right about this. Its stalling could understandably be frustrating, but it certainly wasn't dismantled and was (is) still a likely lynch.

Wagon slowing.

Makes me wonder.

I might unvote.

It just doesn't sit right with me. What he is suggesting is clear: the slowing wagon makes him think that Spacecase is town and so he might unvote. But he never comes out and says this. Instead, he makes a series of three vague statements that imply this to make the town follow the train of thought. That seems much more scummy than the slowing of the wagon in general. FOS: Oman

Actually he explicitly said it was 'boredom' and not that he felt spacecase was any less scummy. I asked him about it earlier, and I agree, it's not something I agree with Oman on.

Oman: Fonz made a very valid point in post 700, and you responded only with "how ironic"...maybe You'd care to say something in your defense? Granted fonz does tend to be more reactive than proactive in this game, but that doesn't give you a free pass about it. He's certainly posting a lot more than you have been lately.

And finally...How can people read Rigel's last post and not be voting Spacecase? It's about that time...

[Shteven]

Granted day 3 has been pretty long, but I'm glad we're actually looking at some new information recently with the push on rigel.

But by 'doomed to repeat itself' he probably means the last 'new C9' game which was abandoned.

[Shteven]

Let me answer some of the contradictions.

Here, below, you seem to be complaining that the day has gone on as long as it has. It looks like your urging people to 'hurry up and vote' for SC already...

Pay attention to the bold parts:

People are very, very

welcome to vote for someone other than spacecase

. However, this day has been going on now for exactly 1 month. It started on feb 26th. I really think people should have some idea of who they think is scum and

should be actively voting for someone by now

. And yet, as of the last vote count, there are 6 people voting for anyone and

8 people not voting at all

. This is what my complaint in post 601 was over. My post 595 was wondering if we could infer something about Spacecase's alignment from his wagon having slowed down, but in the end I don't really think it's possible. It becomes WIFOM fairly easily.

I think it was pretty clear I was talking about overall lack of activity, meaning people not voting for anyone, rather than people not voting for spacecase. I don't mind long days as long as we're doing more than standing around asking why spacecase hasn't been lynched yet.

Now this next post REALLY contradicts what you recently said.... Above you mention that you're glad folks are looking at some new info on Rigel. Yet, here you apparently agree wholeheartedly with Rigel's argument for lynching SC... the argument that currently has Rigel on the hotseat.

Probably too eager on my part - I was glad to see some support. The arguments against Rigel have merit. My statement was based on the oman/spacecase parts, and I should have looked more carefully at the rest of the post. His statements about dahill, LG, etc I don't agree with. More below.

Again you appear to be urging folks to 'hurry up and vote' for SC.

And finally...How can people read Rigel's last post and not be voting Spacecase? It's about that time...

Correct, but this would be the first time that was quoted in your post. Of course I've been voting him all of day 3 so I'm sure I've suggested him as a lynch target several times. Although to be critical of myself, I really haven't done much heavy lifting and have been cheerleading his lynch more than anything. I think we may find better targets as of late.

You then attribute the argument for getting information out of lynching spacecase-town to Rigel. That's false, it was suggested by farside. Rigel mentioned it was her's, and it was in a quote block container her name. It was also only a small portion of rigel's rather largepost 704. It isn't a good point, and I agree with Fonz's responses (now we're coming full circle ) that information is not worth killing townies.

I'll give you a complete rundown on his post 704. See his post for his comments, I'm not going to quote it all. When I said the post was good I was just welcoming support on pushing spacecase, I did not mean to support the rest of the thoughts on other players. I'll respond to all of his sections because most of them I don't like, other than Oman's.

FOS's oman: Agreed. I don't like the noncommittal stance Oman seems to be taking here.

Spacecase informational lynch: Disagree. I'd rather keep as many of those townies alive as possible. I voted spacecase because of his quick flip on day 2 and the attempted hammer. I recently finished a newbie game in which the same thing happened on day 1 and was done by scum. That's only one case, but I think it's useful information.

Phate wagon: I don't mind the case on phate - it hasn't convinced me yet but I don't think it's baseless either. I've been tempted to switch from time to time because he seems to have a more consistent pattern, where as spacecase is mainly 1 tell and then his inability to explain it. And I've been burned lynching people over one tell a few times.

LG: I do trust him. There's a chance of godfather/SK but he's been cleared of 50% (75?%*) of the scum roles so I'm putting him on the back burner for now. We can look at him later nights. Think about it this way. Let's say he's the godfather. What happens tonight? Don't you think the SK would just LOVE to kill the godfather? I think that would be an excellent move. What if LG's the SK? Mafia might love to get rid of him? I don't think he's an issue for the town today. Will reconsider if he lives to end game.

*Also, it should be noted that the SK role PM did not say anything about being investigation immune. I think the SK would show up as guilty, unless SK's are by definition immune.

Switching to Dahill: Also a bad idea. Being unhelpful isn't enough to justify a lynch alone.
----------------

I may reconsider sticking to spacecase, it does not seem very productive anymore. I haven't yet made up my mind about where my vote belongs though - coming soon.

[Shteven]

Fonz, yep you're right I could turn up Godfather or Serial Killer. I am neither. I doubt I need to say this, but I am not mafia either. I am 100% vanillia townie. You've spent the last day impeaching my credibility. Did you speak up when I was questioning cipher's/Jess's credibility? I don't believe so. I understand you want a lynch of someone real bad, but you might want to chill out as we could just as easily lynch a townie. And you wouldn't want that, would you?

I just wanted to find this largely for myself because it was going through my head that LTG could be GF or SK while remaining a real innocent result, and I wanted to know where from. Since I checked the role PM's and they didn't mention it. This should explain why I gave both the 50% and 75% figures above.

Mod:

Is the SK investigation immune?

[Shteven]

I agreed with the idea of lynching spacecase; I was far too hasty in supporting any post that shared that goal regardless of the reason.

It was a poorly thought out post on my part when I just agreed wholesale with a very large post without taking the time to go through it. That was certainly a mistake.

[Shteven]

I agreed with the idea of lynching spacecase; I was far too hasty in supporting any post that shared that goal regardless of the reason.

You had to be referring to his argument, as Rigel really made no other points about lynching SC in that post.

I feel like we're saying the same thing, only you don't realize it. I was referring to his argument, when I said "I was far too hasty in supporting any post that shared that goal regardless of the reason."

It's what I get for posting a response while only causally reading his post. The far more complete response is in my post 747.

[Shteven]

So my first post implied I read it. I later explicitly stated I didn't give it the attention it deserved. That seems pretty clear that I'm claiming I didn't give it enough thought. You should be suspicious of me because I posted too quickly without considering it. But you can't say that because of the initial post that I clearly read the post carefully when I've flat out stated that I didn't.

As for six aces, you seem to be digging up much of nothing. The answer is right in the quoted post. I don't like speedy lynches, but "having a claimed guilty result is going to be a better chance than most day 1 lynches". You know, the whole cop saying he had a guilty result. That certainly counts for more than being uncomfortable with speedy lynches as rule. Was that not clear?

[Shteven]

@madcrawdad: I didn't think Ryan should vote for the sole reason "I'm curious where this is going". That said, even though the wagon was faster than I like, having a (soft)claimed guilty result on someone is going to make a speedy lynch. It worked, so one of two things is true:

1) Jesse, now Cipher, is a cop, and very likely sane.
2) Jesse/Cipher is scum and sold out a fellow player day 1.

I consider #1 to be far more likely, although some people (LML) seem to prefer 2. The reason I'm willing to vote on even a quick lynch day 1 in this case is that both 1 and 2 result in Six Aces being scum. There's really no way to lose here. I really thought all of this was clear, and I'll admit I think you're grasping for secondary evidence here. I made a mistake on rigel recently and now you're trying to dig up dirt to get me lynched, and I don't think it's a very honest attempt.

That said, we have a deadline coming up in one week. Time to look over the likely suspects.

Spacecase - Suspicion started with him over the day 2 kab wagon. It's been stated many times how he first said lynching kab would accomplish nothing and then hammered him, but I think it's also interesting to note that before he was against the kab lynch had fos'ed kab. So it went fos, "lynching Kab would solve nothing and hurt us in the long run", and then the hammer. He hasn't contributed much on day 3 and several players aren't happy with his explaination for day 2.

Phate - Wagon started by Cipher, and seconded by LTG. That means that if you trust Cipher (I do) you have two (mostly)confirmed town on this wagon, which is a plus, although town can be wrong often, and cipher's stated he doesn't have an investigation on Phate and is only doing regular scumhunting. Reasons for suspecting Phate are similiar to spacecase - Lots of contradictory statements on Kab's wagon.

Post 14 (phate posts only): "I don't like kab's recent behaviour, but I wouldn't call it scummy enough for a vote. "
Post 15: "This is where I would vote kab, except that it would put him at L-1 "
Post 16: "The case on kab isn't great, in my opinion. I don't think he's scum. I think that there are scum on the wagon. "

Two against, one for, alternating. It's possible I've missed it, but I don't see where Phate has gone against anyone on the kab wagon. Very little scumhunting at all on day 3.

Rigel - Pushed spacecase wagon with the claim that lynching him would be worth it even if he was town for the information gain. According to LML, is also linked to farside. Most recent wagon started, and could probably use some more discussion. A lot of the other claims made in his recent post 704 I disagree with, take a look yourself if they sound accurate to you.

Keep in mind that the lynch spacecase-town for information argument was first made by farside. Farside probably deserves more attention as well.

We're running low on time - we've been deadlined for roughly a week and have roughly one more week to go. I would still be glad to lynch spacecase, but as his wagon isn't going anywhere, I am also comfortable with a Phate lynch, and so I will put my support behind it.

Unvote Spacecase. Vote: Phate.

We could use more information about Rigel/Farside. I'd like to hear more from LML about how he thinks their lynch would compare to the previously popular spacecase/phate.

[Shteven]

Little point in lynching a claimed doctor. I'll go back to spacecase then.

Unvote: Phate, Vote: Spacecase

[Shteven]

Gah. That should be:

1) Jesse, now Cipher, is a cop, and very likely sane.
2) Jesse/Cipher is scum and sold out a fellow player day 1.

I'm

guaranteed

sane.

Ah, correct. I was just going off general theory, and didn't check the PM's. Cops are sane here.

----

Good catch by MCD that Oman is voting for Rigel and asking other people to explain why. Oman should be back soon, and I'd really like to hear some details about why you're voting for Rigel. As well as responses from Rigel to MCD's post 780.

----

Chances are my vote will be on Spacecase until deadline, though. Rigel may rate, and I don't like Oman's day 3 voting behavior much at all, but they aren't a priority.

[Shteven]

No new posts in just under 24 hours makes baby Jesus cry.

We have a deadline...

[Shteven]

In addition, could you specify which of my arguments from post 704 you disagree with? In your post, immediately after mine, you had no negative points. Subsequently, you were against my opinion on Spacecase because you were taking flak for agreeing with it. So what else don't you like about my post 704? If anything?

You must have missed this post.

Several other claims of yours don't seem to make sense, such as saying I clearly read your post (throughly) "because you were much too specific to have done otherwise." The post I am getting flak for was one line: "And finally...How can people read Rigel's last post and not be voting Spacecase? It's about that time... "

Which really doesn't show any detailed or complex thoughts. It was posted hastily in a mistake that I've already accepted the blame for.

I still don't like Spacecase. However, Rigel's post 704 wasn't much better. See the post I linked above for more about 704.

[Shteven]

Phate: Are you concerned with whether or not Spacecase is scum? From the above post, it doesn't seem so.

[Shteven]

I'd agree - Cipher should claim the innocent. Especially with the godfather lynched, innocents are worth a lot more now. The only anti-town role they could be would be the SK. So anyone with an innocent on them won't have links to anyone else, unless you investigated MC's mason partner.

I don't think the mason pair is of much benefit to us at this point, as they can't vouch for each other and anyone could claim to be the second half.

[Shteven]

Also, on the possibility of a second doctor - if we had a second doctor, they probably would have protected Phate. So I don't think we have one, although it's possible they protected someone else. Maybe they didn't believe Phate's claim and thought they had to protect Cipher personally.

I'm assuming we have 1 doctor, Phate, and so now none living.

[Shteven]

There's still a few people we need to hear from here on day 4. Specifically, I want to hear from Loudmouth Lee. He's generally an aggressive player, and pushes cases pretty hard. That said, he was pushing non-spacecase players yesterday, so I am wondering how he feels about rigel/farside now on day 4. Are they still scum?

Obviously I'm not expecting 100% accuracy from any townie, I just find it odd for him to be so strong on day 3, end up (possibly) wrong, and then not post anything here on day 4.

Dahill does look scummy, although I'm not sure I'd like to vote for him yet. On day 4, we still have ZERO posts from Oman, Rigel, and LML.

Mod: Prod Oman, Rigel, Loudmouth Lee.

I suspect that at least one of those 3 is scum. Granted, that's not a very strong claim to make since I have 3 possibilities

[Shteven]

It's largely impossible to call anything but 1:1:1 lylo when you have two killing factions. It's quite possible that a 4:2:1 situation could have a cross kill and become a 4:1 town vs lone scum game. Perhaps not likely, but quite possible. It recently happened in another game I was in, but am now dead in.

As far as the mason claiming, I can see the benefit to claiming. I wouldn't hold it against them, but I also don't really think it's a critical issue. There's a lot more scum hunting I'd rather we were doing instead, although I suppose I'm waiting for some posting by those I mentioned above for the moment.

Day 4 isn't likely to end any time soon, we've just started. Let the mason claim at their own pace. Saying that it's a bad idea to fake claim the mason role may just put some mafia up to trying it, you never know!

[Shteven]

I was originally planning on waiting a bit longer, but it's 6 to lynch and so I'm comfortable voting early.

Vote: Dahill1

As username mentioned, he and his predecessors have been wrong on each of the three lynches. Wesaq was voting for Spacecase at the end of day 1, which I consider possible distancing.

I don't think that him voting for Phate should be held against him - town can easily be wrong. I would hold it against him only in the aggregate, that he's been wrong on all 3 lynches and on phate, that together may add up to something.

[Shteven]

It's another person you've suspected that ended up probably town (or SK). But really, we need to be a bit more fair to dahill; there were plenty of other people voting for rigel. It's a very useful innocent result, because it will resolve a lot of the arguments we had on day 3, but here's rigel's wagon at deadline:

Rigel - 5 (LoudmouthLee, Oman, dahill1, vollkan, MadCrawdad)

They can't all be scum; even if 100% of the anti-town roles were on there, 2 townies were as well. Likely 3 or 4 were town.

FOS: LML, Oman

I have had my reservations about both LML and Oman, and while I don't have much solid to go on, I can dig up some of their posts that have struck me the wrong way when I have the time. I may do it later tonight, or another day. We need to discuss more than just dahill today.

For a temporary explanation, I don't like Oman's handling of the spacecase wagon. LML came out very forcefully on day 3, accusing two players. One of which, Rigel, is now a non-mafia role. LML and Oman have been lurking on day 4, neither have posted yet.

[Shteven]

Good explanation of the situation Cipher; I thought I could make it a bit clearer with a list:

Cipher - claimed cop
LaptopGun - investigated town/SK
Rigel - investigated town/SK
vollkan - Possibly investigated but unknown

Pool of unknowns:
The Fonz
LoudmouthLee
Oman
Shteven
dahill1
iamausername

Possible mason claim still outstanding. The list will get quite a bit shorter tommorow if the killing factions agree with your plan as well. In the event of death, some things on the pool:

Fonz has been helpful but not very extreme most of the game. Hasn't done much to draw attention to himself or made any gambits - possible SK behavior.

LML doesn't believe cipher, or at least had significant doubts about jesse gun's claiming on the six aces wagon. Could have been trying to discredit the cop, but may have been legit.

Oman's been somewhat lurkerish all game imho. Not too fond of how he wanted to drop off the spacecase wagon out of boredom.

Shteven is consistently awesome and you should all vote for him - for town mayor. Do not lynch.

Dahill1 has been on the wrong side of each lynch, but being incorrect doesn't prove that he's scum. Also, a lot of that was his replacements, he's not personally on the wrong side of each lynch. And especially in the case of Rigel, he had company.

iamausername hasn't done much remarkable that I can think of off the top of my head. He did start the dahill1 wagon today, but other than that, I'm honestly drawing a blank. I know I had some interactions with farside22 earlier...I'll have to go back sometime.

[Shteven]

A townie is perhaps the lowest value role in the game. Don't get me wrong, I love playing townies, but losing them just doesn't hurt that much. They're expendable.

The benefit that the SK provides the mafia and vice versa is they can remove players from the game more quickly when they are both alive. So early on, they benefit each other. At some point, as the number of town players diminishes, the risk of cross kills increase and the need to have a second faction to help kill town decreases. Combined, it can turn the two killing factions from allies to enemies rather quickly. And it's similar to a prisoner dilemma situation - whoever betrays first benefits. Kill too soon, and you'll have a hard time surviving the remaining lynches from the town. Kill too late, and they'll kill you first. Is night 4 the best night to cross kill? Maybe. I'm no expert on the topic, but 4 or 5 sounds pretty good to me. You won't have much longer. Of course, all of this depends on you actually being able to tell who the opposing faction actually is. The SK gets some help from the town in hunting down scummy players, the mafia have a bit of a harder time, but they only have to be right once.

Basically the point is that revealing who a townie is isn't likely to make them think killing that townie is a good idea. If they just wanted to hit a townie, they could pick randomly and shoot whoever they wanted to, because they can't hit anything of lower value than a townie. They're trying to aim higher. Even if they aren't going for the opposing faction, we have a claimed cop at the very least. I don't think the mason would be much more appealing than a townie. The claim may fend off lynches a bit better, but you have no extra power.

[Shteven]

Checked over roughly half of the fonz posts listed by volkan and found most of them suspect. The only one of the ones I saw that I didn't have a problem with was 614 - he was saying that spacecase hadn't answered long standing questions, and that was why he would vote. He didn't repeat those questions, which were largely still over the flipping on kab's wagon. He had answered them, just not to most people's satisfaction, and Fonz was looking for a more detailed explanation.

The others I read seem genuinely incriminating.

Some posts to reference for my suspicions on Oman:
The main part of Oman's questionable tactics on spacecase are in post 603, my response in 622, and his follow up in 623.

Would be nice to get answers from Oman but it seems we may end up getting answers from Oman's replacement, sadly.

[Shteven]

dahill (well, those he replaced) are sorta null to me. Wouldn't say he is town, but lynch username and Oman first by far. Things like FOSing then double posting to Vote Space are throwing me off.

I find this fairly suspect. You had talked about oman and made a brief case against him, and mentioned a few other players in a positive light before this line. Then you say lynch username and oman. This was the very first, and very last, time you mentioned iamausername.

It's also odd that you end up joining iamausername's wagon on Oman. That itself is probably fine, and voting with someone who you personally don't trust is also fine. Scum sometimes have to bus their partners, he could be the SK, he could be mafia hunting the SK, anything.

But making a suggestion to lynch someone without reason and then joining them on a wagon to vote for the leading wagon of the day? Sure it's only two votes but I've also expressed doubts about Oman and there's good reason to believe his wagon may be swift. There's a few too many pieces here to chalk this all up to coincidence.

You're finished on the reread, but haven't mentioned anything about yourself. LML did some suspicious things as well, and I know I've certainly mentioned them. I believe a few other people have commented as well. He may not be a leading candidate, but I'd certainly appreciate a reply.

In hindsight I don't think dahill1 is our best choice for today.

Unvote. Vote: armlx

[Shteven]

As a addendum, the amount of players willing to enthusiastically repeat each other's arguments to railroad the latest suspect in this game disturbs me.

[Shteven]

Sorry if my previous post had been confusing, armlx. I still wouldn't mind hearing a bit more on why you thought username was one of your top two suspects and what you think about him vs Oman (presumably oman is your choice after reading post 910).

But you won't have to work very hard as I do feel that Oman is going to be the better case. I just fos'ed him and fonz/armlx did all the work, too. Easier for me

I don't want to shift my vote yet as he's going to be replaced, and I'll wait for that.

[Shteven]

EBWOP: By username vs oman I mean which case you feel is stronger, not any connections between them. Your post 910 is a pretty big hint but I figure a direct answer would be nice.

[Shteven]

@Mod

: Minor issue but you have two extra people in the above vote count (post 900). Armlx is correctly voting but LML was replaced and can be taken off the not voting section, and I'm also listed as voting and not voting.

[Shteven]

Armlx: Ok, I understand that username is less scumy than Oman, but why is he more scummy than say, the Fonz (arbitrarily selected player)? You haven't listed any reasons as to why he's #2. Only that he's still for some reason ahead of dahill1.

I'm beginning to give the impression you wanted to throw some dirt without getting attention, but perhaps I'm jumping on it a bit too much.

[Shteven]

You've yet again managed to not give any reason why username is suspicious.

Are the rest of all idyllic angels of pro-townness and he's just strongly pro-town? I don't understand. If he's #2 there should be a reason.

[Shteven]

You do have a valid point about the pool of unknowns dwindling, username. Of course the purpose of having him compare you to the fonz would probably end up with the fonz coming out as more protown, unless he makes a reversal, so I'd think I could have picked myself.

Really I didn't put so much thought into it, and ironically just when I gave up on it armlx actually did post a reason for you being second.

Strange timing, but oh well. I'd like more discussion on non-oman people but I'll admit he's likely our choice today and I'm ok with lynching him in the long run.

[Shteven]

Welcome dcorbe, you've got a bit of a hot seat that you've replaced into sadly.

Aside from that though, amrlx does seem to be pushing too hard. Perhaps it's excitement from being sure he's caught scum, but really, ending the day so quickly isn't pro-town. I'm starting to think I'll leave my vote where it is instead of moving it. Although realistically it won't stop dcorbe from being lynched.

And that's probably good, because he's still scummy, I just think armlx likely is as well.

[Shteven]

I was merely trying to push him into claiming on the spot, rather then give him time to be able to think about a fake claim. If he is pro-town, it should have been easy and its the appropriate scenario to claim in. If he's not, he's going to stall for time to figure out what the best option for himself is.

That said, vanilla doesn't change anything I thought about him before.

Why don't you claim also? Simply put, there are times when you don't want to claim as pro town. Games begin with random voting, not mass role claims. Granted many of our power roles are already dead or claimed, but you still run the risk of endangering the town by pushing for an early claim. And since you don't know what his role is, only he is qualified to weigh these risks for himself.

Pushing him is risky, and stands to benefit the scum as much if not more than the town.

[Shteven]

When those people are waiting for you to read the thread that you just replaced into, you may certainly read the thread first. It's an extenuating circumstance.

[Shteven]

EBWOP: Your last post is a bit of a strawman, but I might not have been too clear in my previous post also.

I never meant he should never claim - just that he is perfectly justified in reading the thread before claiming, and that you shouldn't be pushing him to rush a claim before he knows what's going on. What if he's the townie who puts together a convincing case on scum? We need all the eyes we can get looking for clues.

[Shteven]

I'm a little confused why people asked dcorbe if he was the SK. Here's the claim:

If dropping hints isn't enough, I'll just come right out and say it. I'm NOT mafia. I'm a townie. Lynching me isn't going to end the game.

Yeah, he started with "I'm not mafia", but the next line is pretty blunt I'd say. He's claimed townie, he didn't claim "I'm a townie or the SK". Of course, no matter what role he has lynching him isn't going to end the game, so that line was a bit odd. We're not trying to end the game, just find a single scum. We've got 3 left, so night's coming whether you're town or not. A correct (mafia) lynch and two cross kills could technically end it before another day, but that's quite unlikely.

I'm a bit upset with the lack of discussion on other players, but no one seems that interested in talking about armlx or others, so I'll just wait for tommorow, pending my survival.

Unvote. Vote: dcorbe

[Shteven]

That's not quite what I meant, dahill. People acted as if they had only read the first part where he said was not mafia, and was asking him why he left out the possibility of him being the SK. He claimed a specific role, townie. That doesn't mean he isn't lying; he could still be the SK, but he has explicitly claimed he is not, so asking for a clarification of if he's the SK doesn't make much sense.

[Shteven]

So you're basically saying he'll lose if he claims townie, and if he claims SK he'll lose later? Such a tempting offer

[Shteven]

I would expect a claimed SK to be killed immediately tonight by the mafia.

I don't seem them risking a cross kill at this point.

[Shteven]

Sorry about double posting - I'm going to go ahead and

Unvote.

I still am suspicious of dcorbe but he's at L-1 and I don't think the day should end yet; I'd like the day to go a bit longer. It's a small factor, but no one hammering him yet also lends some credibility to his claim.

Unvote.

[Shteven]

Fourth Vote Count of the Day

dcorbe (5) -

iamausername, armlx, The Fonz, dahill1, Shteven

Not voting (5) -

Cipher, LaptopGun, dcorbe, Rigel, vollkan

With 10 alive, it is 6 to lynch.

And now triple posting!

Anyways, this vote count bothers me.

people voting for dcorbe: (in order) suspicious, suspicious, suspicious, suspicious, myself.

People not voting for dcorbe: Claimed cop, claimed investigated innocent, dcorbe himself, claimed investigated innocent, claimed mason.

I am thinking scum might be pushing for the easy lynch here.

[Shteven]

Some recent posts have really alarmed me.

It seems to me vollkan and armlx have done just fine at stringing you up by your own petard, scum.

And who benefits the most by killing the SK? The mafia. You have also completely ignored dcorbe's valid point of your own inactivity. You haven't posted for days, yet manage to post 30 minutes after being accused of it?

The Fonz's last post was 8 days ago prior to this one, and it was his large case against oman(dcorbe). He's already voted and now wants the lynch to happen without pushing it further? You're still ok with lynching the SK? I'd say that's a pretty dramatic change that

should warrant a comment from everyone voting for the wagon, and if they still want to be on the wagon. This information changes things.

It seems The Fonz just wants to brush it under the rug. I'll say this much though, at least it's less likely The Fonz is our SK, something his skilled lurking had suggested to me in the past.

Shteven brings up an interesting point about who is on dcorbe's wagon, but it is not exactly clear cut. This is the vote count for day 2. Compare Kab's wagon to the wagon on dcorbe. Notice anything:
kabenon007 - 8 (vollkan, Justin Playfair, Oman, MelodyMan23, MadCrawdad, somestrangeflea, Jesse Gunn, Spacecase)

I notice it has almost nothing in common with today's wagon. It was started by someone who's the claimed mason. Next on it is a confirmed cop. Then the suspicious people start to join it, and it alternates down the line. This was started by town, then aided by scum. That's the most common way to lynch a town, the scum throw their support behind a town-started lynch that they know is a bad lynch.

Today's wagon was started by suspicious people, and seems to be composed entirely of them. I think scum are trying to push for the easy lynch. It should also be noted that for the entire day 2 I was repeatedly against the kabenon wagon and did not think he was scum. I was briefly on today's wagon, but now I feel it's being rushed.

I also really liked how you started the post with:

Claim now, dcrobe.

He already had. Of course, he's claimed again now, and this time SK.

I don't think we should lynch him if he's the SK, which I think is probably true. He'll be killed off by the mafia, and has a decent chance of hitting mafia with his kill. Of course, if we do succeed in lynching a member of the mafia today, then that's going to hurt his chances of killing mafia, but look at the number of townies who are going to be killed tonight:

Lynch the SK:

mafia kills a town role.
7 alive, 2 scum.

Lynch Anyone else:

Lynch town.
Mafia will kill the SK
SK will kill either a town role, or the mafia.
6 alive, 2 mafia; or 6 alive 1 mafia.

Lynch Anyone else:

Lynch Mafia.
Mafia will kill the SK
SK will kill either a town role, or the mafia.
6 alive, 1 mafia; or town victory.

Lynching mafia has a much higher value than lynching the SK. Rushing this choice through isn't in the best interests of the town. I'd like to hear more opinions on this before we lynch.

With my might hammer, I smite thee:

Not quite as mighty as you might have been thinking I'd be interested in your responses, Vollkan.

@Dcorbe Your biggest threat is the mafia, although honestly, and as I've stated before, the SK has very little chance of winning at this point. But do me a favor and aim for any of the suspicious players. I'll re-list them here:

Pool of unknowns:
The Fonz
LoudmouthLee (now armlx)
Oman(now dcorbe, but I don't think you should shoot yourself)
Shteven
dahill1
iamausername

[Shteven]

Well, first scum wagon I wasn't on in this game so far. At least not on it in its final state. In any case, I'll try to give armlx more credit today for being second on dcorbe's wagon, and shelve concerns about LML for now.

I'll give a brief rundown on the remaining players - I don't intend to be entirely comprehensive so please add anything interesting I skipped and certainly any disagreements with what's stated.

LaptopGun - confirmed innocent, Cipher is a confirmed cop. Possible SK, not mafia.
vollkan - Claimed mason. Not counterclaimed, provided significant information about what MCD had talked about. Very believable claim.

Note:

I do a lot of checking on player's vote histories. Just because you voted correctly doesn't absolutely clear you, and voting incorrectly doesn't make you absolutely scum. It's merely supporting evidence and I thought it was important to include.

General point: There's likely no more roles in the game. We have the claimed mason out, and since Cipher was killed it's very likely we had one doctor. The remaining players are 4 townies, with a mafia and an SK who would also claim townie. So there's no harm or benefit to claiming townie at this point.

More interesting people:

The Fonz

- Unverified. He's laid low most of the game, posting enough but usually agreeing with established ideas. Look over some of his vote history:

8th on six aces, out of 10.
Zero official votes on day 2 - he voted for Kabenon after the 8th and final vote.
The day 3 spacecase wagon reached 5 votes as of tinvision's 3rd vote count. It remained unchanged on the fourth, fifth, and sixth vote count. On the seventh vote count, The Fonz joined. He does deserve some credit for staying there as other people began to move off the wagon, but it could also suggest he's really trying to keep his voting record to a minimum.
Day four finds The Fonz making the third vote against Oman(dcorbe). He does manage to post his detailed case before Armlx followed up with his, but armlx and username beat him to voting for him.

I feel the Fonz is an excellent candidate for the SK - I mostly let it slide yesterday as Dcorbe had claimed the role. He's been helpful yet unprovocative. Also, the kills we found this morning suggest to me that the SK is a skilled player. The mafia were most likely the ones who offed Cipher, as he's only capable of finding mafia players. The SK knew to eliminate one of the confirmed townies due to the town being the dominant faction today. Whoever the SK is, he clearly knows what's in his best interest. He could also be mafia who knows not to push for lynching his partners but also knows he needs to get on the wagons once they're headed for the gallows anyways.

armlx

- SSF and perfection didn't do anything I can recall and were largely inactive. LML I found suspicious, but he was acting in a very normal way for LML. He's an aggressive player and although we know for certain that Rigel was in fact town, Farside22 (now iamausername) is still an unknown. Although suspicions of farside22 based on protecting Rigel (or was this the other way around?) cannot be valid with Rigel being town. Armlx himself was second to vote for Oman/Dcorbe, and that's earned him at least some points towards not being mafia.

Shteven

- Myself, and I am a townie (see above note). However, for the rest of you, I feel my record is also fairly convincing. I've been on every scum wagon and not on Kabenon's wagon. I did unvote Dcorbe before his lynch, but as I stated it was mostly to try to get more discussion in. I did think he was the SK more than mafia, but I'm glad to have been wrong on that. Sadly no cross kills... Anyways, I was also the first to vote for Spacecase and drove his case day 3. Not likely scum behavior, although it doesn't clear me of SK.

dahill1

- Made some mistakes such as distrusting Cipher's claim as the second cop, due to believing there was only one cop; yet he still didn't vote for him. Later on day 3 he does vote spacecase but eventually switches to Phate, who then claimed doctor, so dahill swithced to Rigel. Tried Rigel again day 4 until Cipher's result cleared him.

He did see through dcorbe's claim and pinned him as mafia.

iamausername

- Farside random voted six aces; probably minor. Distrusted Jesse/Cipher's early claim, but reconsidered and voted for six aces again. First to vote for Oman, and while he hasn't been one of our most verbose posters he's said little I disagree with. Straightforward and a bit more original than The Fonz - I'm reading town.

I feel the fonz has a significant chance of being both mafia or the Serial Killer.

Vote: The Fonz.

[Shteven]

Also, a small response:

And I think it's entirely possible that dcorbe is lying mafia, and I really don't think we should be blindly assuming that the mafia will kill him tonight if he is telling the truth.

I actually had the full possibilities for mafia not killing the SK, but decided that it would be better to leave that out - I was trying to create the impression that it was essential for the mafia to kill the SK. Didn't work, and the SK wasn't who it was claimed to be, but that was my reasoning there.

[Shteven]

Perhaps you could be more specific about what links between farside and Oman you found? The farside link that was most prominent in my mind was LML's claims that Rigel and Farside were defending each other, linking them as scum. Since Rigel turned up town, that became invalid.

[Shteven]

I'm not sure exactly what Justin interaction you're referring to, LaptopGun.

I was a bit wary of his arguments because he is rather good at putting together convincing cases, but that means you run the risk of writing an incorrect yet convincing case. And while I'm certainly not perfect, in hindsight I was correct and kabenon was a bad lynch.

Having read over day 2 again just now I am slightly more suspicious of farside(username) and melodyman(dahill) but the Fonz remains my choice.

[Shteven]

I can't really think of much to add at this point, I've gone over each player. I still think Fonz is the best lynch choice, let me know if you guys agree or disagree.

[Shteven]

For the record, I'm not opposed to a dahill1 wagon, but as I'm more personally responsible for the Fonz's, I figured I'd reply to his comments.

Here we see the traditional bullshit 'hasn't posted in a while' line. Yes, Shteven, it's TOTALLY scummy of me to post in this game five minutes after I post in another game in New York, during a period of around two hours during which I caught up with about six different games, all of which I'd been neglecting for several days due to RL reasons.

Yes, the timing was a bit funny, but the larger problem was not posting for eight days. Lurking is a (sadly) valid scum strategy. Those who aren't here as much don't get quite as much attention. To counteract this players will intentionally hunt after lurkers, to try to balance it out. It needs countering, though. If no one mentions it then it will provide an advantage to anyone who needs to survive. Eight days is a fairly long time.

90% of SK claims are made by mafia in my experience. That you think an SK claim should make people reconsider... words honestly fail me.

I'll keep this in mind - I haven't seen many (any?) SK claims in the past. I didn't mean that they should reconsider as in unvote, but I was hoping for a slightly longer discussion before he was lynched. It should be noted that I unvoted before his claim - I wanted to ease off pressure because armlx was aggressively posting and trying to get claims from him before he read the thread. Maybe I was a bit too soft but I was afraid of a hasty error.

I'll also give you credit that the six aces wagon was fast. Perhaps I'm due to reread, as I was even later than you on the wagon. Although I had posted before you following the soft claim, I didn't want the day to end so quickly...but there's not much you can do about that. Perhaps I'm too cautious of a player.

The SK strategy I laid out isn't that complicated to figure out, so yes plenty of players could see that. And I am one of them also, of course. I didn't mean to imply that only the Fonz could come up with it, just that whoever the SK is does understand their role and their chances pretty well. You also have a valid point about the SK being an unconfirmed, which includes yourself and myself with several others who have been listed a few times.

----

In the end, I'm still suspicious of you. It is based mostly on feelings and your play style; I realize I have no smoking gun. I don't think I over hyped the case then or now. I'm fine with lynching dahill if that's going to be the majority opinion but several people have agreed with my case and I'll stick it out a day or two more to see which wagon is more popular. At this point with only 1 mafia and 1 sk, it's pretty difficult for scum to sway wagons, so the popular wagon is likely genuine. Or at least slightly more genuine than earlier wagons with 2-3 scum on them.

[Shteven]

Also, an important point that was made in MD fairly recently- it's kinda scummy to accuse people of lurking, then pull the 'oh, how convenient' crap when said player does actually post. We want people to post, yes? Think about the alternative to 'convenient' posting. It's more lurking, isn't it?

Fair enough - I'll still count the 8 days without posting against you but I'll forgive the timing on the return.

Let me ask you- does it not concern you that a case that you've now admitted basically comes down to gut is being embraced so utterly uncritically? No-one else has bothered to go over your arguments and see if they actually imply SK-ness or anything.

Simply put, yes. And they will be held accountable - several people noted agreement, although Dahill1's the only one to join in voting.

I'm uncomfortable with this. A wagon is likely to be genuine just 'cos it's a wagon?

This is a straw man, though. You said nothing about the decreasing number of scum. There are no anti-town "teams" anymore; both scum factions are down to 1 player. They may be able to join on a wagon in to mutual benefit but it's not possible for them to work out such a strategy ahead of time. While our overall ratio of pro-town to anti-town hasn't changed much, scum can't really blindly railroad a townie at this point. For all they know they might be getting the opposing scum faction, which would work out very well for the town.

In the end, however, I'm comfortable with dahill and he's going to be the lynch for today. I don't see a problem handling the Fonz later, if we survive the night.

Unvote. Vote: dahill1.

[Shteven]

I'm trying to argue that me being eighth out of ten on six aces actually doesn't mean anything.

Perhaps you missed my earlier response:

I'll also give you credit that the six aces wagon was fast. Perhaps I'm due to reread, as I was even later than you on the wagon. Although I had posted before you following the soft claim, I didn't want the day to end so quickly...but there's not much you can do about that. Perhaps I'm too cautious of a player.

I don't like lynching on page 5 in a 20 player game (I've had 7 player newbie games take twice as long) but in this case it was inevitable and I had forgotten how quickly he was lynched. My mistake.

[Shteven]

So we're now at 3:1:1, and I'm not feeling nearly as comfortable as I was yesterday. Town still can win but we'll need two correct lynches now; I wouldn't want to bank on two cross kills tonight.

I hopped on the Dahill1 wagon with far too little thought. I should have stuck to my own opinion.

I'm still suspicious of Fonz, but I am not going to start the day with an immediate vote.

I still consider Vollkan cleared, so that leaves only armlx/iamausername as the other remaining scum.

[Shteven]

3-1-1.

Mislynch, 2-1-1.

Hit the other, other misses you, 1-1, game over.

Yeah, you're right. If we mislynch,

we

need both to hit the other. But both have the incentive to. Vollkan doesn't matter in this scenario, since a mislynch guarantees the game ends tonight.

If we lynch correctly, of course, it goes to a 2-1 endgame.

WE? Let me repeat that. WE?

Lynch Fonz please.

[Shteven]

It sounded to me more like you were saying we the killing factions. It doesn't quite as much having read the sentence multiple times, I think I switched need and both in my head.

'we both need to hit the other' vs.
'we need both to hit the other'

Oh well. Still lynch Fonz please.

[Shteven]

I'm fine with everyone ranking 1-3, sounds useful.

1. The Fonz
2. Armlx
3. iamausername

I'll be making a more substantial post soon, I may flip armlx/user, but for now, there it is.

[Shteven]

Another strategy that may help people find our remaining scum would be to clear an unconfirmed player. If you're truly town, vollkan + another cleared will then leave you with the two scum. The main problem of this is that while one can clear people of being mafia, it's very difficult to clear someone of being an SK.

I've been rereading some of the thread, and while I haven't covered every post, much of Farside22's behavior on day 2 strikes me as scummy.

username starts dahill wagon day 4, then switches to start oman/dcorbe wagon. Seems like legit scum hunting to me - other than the fact that [url=time passed and no one had joined him on dahill, the dahill wagon was still perfectly viable. No one had voted for anyone else either; yet he put together a case on Oman and nailed scum. While he did also help us put down Dahill the next day this seems much more like a non-mafia player mistake than a mafia buddy giving us a free shot to down a townie later.

This doesn't clear him of being the SK, but I'm still leaning towards the Fonz being SK.

I had intended for this to be more indepth but I haven't really found much. I've voted for all 3 of the unconfirmed players at some point in the thread, they've all been suspicious to me all game long.

Voting farside22(username): here. I still think this is a valid case that carries through to today.
First FOS of the Fonz: Here.
Voting Armlx: Here. I wish I had stuck to my second to last statement in this post - dahill really wasn't that scummy. I rushed in on other people's opinions rather than follow my own. As for the case on armlx, it's decent but I don't consider this as strong as the fonz's. Close to farside's but I'd probably prefer a farside lynch.
And voting Fonz: Here. Really just an excellent case

So yeah, let's go with:
Fonz
Username
Armlx.

My initial thoughts would be Fonz as SK and armlx as mafia, but this is definitely going to need some thorough rereading.

Any particular reasoning/evidence that led you to name the fonz specifically as SK and armlx specifically as mafia as opposed to just scum?

[Shteven]

I'll address the points the Fonz made about me being the SK:

1. Backing off whenever an opinion looks like it might lead to a controversy which would bring attention to him. (I have several examples of this). When I re-read overnight, I got a strong feeling of playing to survive from him).

I'll respond to these when you post them.

2. The 'having read Rigel's post' thing, which indicates scumminess but not alignment with spacecase.

How does this indicate scumminess? Basically, I agreed with Rigel's anti-spacecase post quickly because it's end goal was the same as mine: lynching spacecase. I had only skimmed the post and rushed my endorsement of it, so later I had to retract agreement with some of the individual claims (most of them not about spacecase). If anything, it shows a overzealous desire to lynch spacecase - which is much, much more likely a town behavior than an SK concerned about his survival. There was no reason I had to push the spacecase wagon that forcefully except for my own belief that it would benefit the town.

3. The moving off of spacecase's wagon, which indicates to me an indifference to who gets lynched, and a desire to force claims from multiple people (plus the obvious benefit of leaving a player much scummier looking than himself alive to swing in future days).

I haven't tried to specifically force claims from anyone this game - although voting does this indirectly, but that cannot be avoided. I pushed spacecase from the very beginning of day 3, and I went out on a limb to try to get him hung. Yes, I did vote for others after it stalled, but I was more than glad to go right back when people finally came around. How anyone can read day 3 and think that my posts show

indifference

to who was lynched is incomprehensible.

4. Frequently preaching caution, ie trying to look like the wise and rational voice of town- a cheap way to buy trust.

I don't like speed lynches, especially when I'm unconvinced of a quickly constructed case. When major developments come along late in the wagon, I do want to collect a consensus on the developments. Perhaps in the case of dcorbe claiming SK it wasn't necessary, but at the time I thought it would help us. It was the first time I've seen an SK claim; in hindsight it was much more clear he was scum than I initially thought.

5. Repeatedly trying to seed the idea of someone else being the SK in the collective mind, based on pitiful evidence.

I don't think I've ever suggested anyone was the SK in this game but you. And I just call that scum hunting.

6. His uncritical acceptance of dcorbe's SK claim, which casts doubt on just how much he believed his own Fonz-SK case.

I just wanted everyone to take a second look and consider it before the day ended. New information should lead to new discussion, although I suppose in this case there wasn't as much to say as I thought there would be. I was hoping the mafia would off him for us, saving us having to use a lynch...for obvious reasons that didn't come to pass, as he was mafia himself.

7. His desire to keep the claimed SK alive yesterday (which would have had the advantage of stopping other people from thinking about the SK, with a claimant to the role alive, and also with Shteven as dcorbe's no1 protector, meant that dcorbe's mafia kill was unlikely to head Shteven's way).

Quite a misrepresentation. The SK being alive would have given us a good shot of cross kills, and we had plenty of townies alive to go after the bigger target - mafia. I was expecting the mafia to want to kill the SK, and thus lynching the SK once he was outed would be a complete waste of a lynch. Since Dcorbe lied and was actually Mafia, none of this came to pass. And both killing factions feared the town more than each other, as there was a double kill on laptopgun, our last confirmed innocent. Although Vollkan might as well be considered cop-investigated also.

[Shteven]

responses to Fonz:

Many arguments for why it [pushing spacecase hastily] was scummy were made at the time. In short: it indicates a carelessness, a lack of due diligence. It involves hiding behind someone else's argument. And it's a cheap way to push a wagon other than your own.

The spacecase wagon was started by me and I provided numerous posts with reasons for why. One hasty post shouldn't remove all that genuine effort.

No-one likes speed lynches, which is why it's a cheap way to try to look town.

Agreed - yet in this game we've already had two. One was cop-generated, which is fair enough, though. Most players seem ok with speed lynching when they're reasonably certain of guilt.

You also suggested that I was mafia for wanting the claimed SK dead. Now, presumably, you had reason before to think I was specifically SK and not mafia. If you'd thought I were scummy in general, I'd have expected a case to that effect. So it looks a lot like cheap pointscoring to me.

You must have missed this quote:

I feel the fonz has a significant chance of being both mafia or the Serial Killer.

Made when I voted for you. Originally on page 42, and linked from page 44 just to help make sure everyone's seen it. Now it's posted 3 times

As an update, though, I think username's made a more convincing case of Armlx being mafia; I'll get to that below.

As far as your initial point 7 and the claim of misrepresentation - From the outside perspective misrepresentation may be the wrong word. One-sided perspective, self-fulfilling prophecy (if you assume I'm the SK you'll find SK motivations when you look) or propaganda would be more accurate. I used misrepresentation because I know what my role is and my motivations were, and you misrepresented them. But from your POV, misrepresentation isn't the right word. You did however, assume I was SK and then made the case based on that assumption. Compare to a quote from username's recent post:

I think the reaction to dcorbe's SK claim is a very useful thing to look at in trying to finger the real SK. All that The Fonz has to say about it is this: "It seems to me vollkan and armlx have done just fine at stringing you up by your own petard, scum." Possible SK motivation: he knows we're lynching mafia, which is good for him at this stage, and he's gloating. Possible townie motivation: He knows we're lynching mafia or SK, which is good for him at this stage, and he's gloating. Yeah, pretty much a null tell.

Had you looked at both sides like username did, you'd probably have found it a null tell.

@Username:

D5 - "Well, first scum wagon I wasn't on in this game so far. At least not on it in its final state." HEY EVERYBODY LOOK HOW GOOD I'VE BEEN AT CATCHING SCUM! Votes dahill without any reasoning, and is now trying desperately to distance himself from that wagon.

I largely gave in to group opinion - and I'm not that fond of it because he came up town. I was proud of my record because I'm rarely as accurate as I have been in this game, although my mistake on Dahill does bring my accuracy back down a bit. I consider the vote on dahill and the post agreeing with Rigel to be the two clear mistakes I've made this game that I hope I learn from.

[Shteven]

Figured I'd break out a second post to respond to the Fonz's second post.

Breaking out all the times I've agreed with people (although you mostly selected times I agreed with you) is pretty funny. I especially liked this one:

I'd agree - Cipher should claim the innocent. Especially with the godfather lynched, innocents are worth a lot more now. The only anti-town role they could be would be the SK.

Let's see what other fun dirt I can throw on someone...say, Vollkan!

Gah. I'm dead tonight, so I might as well claim my innocent result. Any objections?

There is a small chance of a second doc, but I wouldn't risk the loss of information. Go ahead.

I'll wait a little longer to give my result, but I'll definitely call it before nightfall.

For the record, I believe that Justin's Night 1 investigation was an innocent on vollkan. This theory largely revolves around this post, in which Justin seems to be basing his case against kabenon on the presumption that vollkan is town.

Since you bring it up, I guessed precisely the same thing from that same post.

As username mentioned, he and his predecessors have been wrong on each of the three lynches. Wesaq was voting for Spacecase at the end of day 1, which I consider possible distancing.

I wasn't aware of this fact. I don't think it is voteworthy in and of itself, but you've just given me an impetus to conduct a pbp on him. I should get round to it soon.

And every one of those from day 4! I should go find lots more!

The overall point here being that agreeing with people isn't scummy. And the Fonz saying that my case on him is agreeing with other people is a misrepresentation. The point was that you aren't making many bold statements, that you haven't done much scum hunting. The echoing statements are just what you're using to fill the void and remain an active poster.

Username mentioned this in his summary of you:

One thing I think is worth mentioning, which was a big part of why I previously supported the suggestion of Fonz as SK, is that (besides a random vote at the start of the game), Fonz has NEVER voted for a player who wasn't eventually lynched that day. This kind of lends weight to the idea that he's been "echoing generic townie sentiments", as Shteven put it. However, I think he did make more cases of his own than I remembered on D3, at least, just none of them came with votes.

While he does have the same slightly off meaning behind 'echoing generic townie sentiments' the rest is talking about what I really meant, your aversion to going out on a limb. Town players can and should agree with each other, and over 45 pages you're certain to find multiple cases of this.

----

In an unfortunately WIFOM thought, Username making a strong case for armlx as mafia makes me wonder if he's the SK. It would be another case of a self-fulfilling prophecy and so I can't put much weight on it, but if he was then he'd have set up both a mafia lynch and an easy mislynch tommorow on either myself or the fonz. I mention this merely for completeness, and as I seem to be highest on points right now (thus risking being silenced by lynch). Again, username as town has every reason to hunt for mafia so it is much more of a null tell.

[Shteven]

Something going on here? Waiting for some responses. Obviously Vollkan's response is probably the most crucial, but I'd like to see some posts here

Been about 50 hours since the last non-me post

Mod:

Prod Vollkan please.

[Shteven]

Shteven, I don't understand the point of your last post in response to Fonz or how it proves him wrong. I don't see him attacking you for agreeing with people anywhere.

Try post 1104. It's about halfway down, starts with the line "Now, the Shteven stuff I promised. Firstly, I'd like to open with the following question: Who is echoing whom again? " And then he quotes me a few times. My previous post, 1107, was showing how pointless that was by quoting vollkan agreeing with people when we all know he's town.

No, only partially. The scum are just as interested in seeing the other scum lynched today as the town are, as 2-1 is generally more winnable then 1-1-1.

I had been considering mentioning that myself, and you managed to do it a lot more concisely than I would have, so thanks. Scum need to find the other scum, so they are only lying about themselves. That said, the tally is still unreliable simply because lynches always are - we mislynched yesterday and are always at risk of another.

[Shteven]

There's also the fact that even with the two townies, assigning it as 3 points, 2 points, 1 point doesn't give a completely accurate picture of their opinions, since it doesn't account for disparity in the gaps between each player - for instance, I'm a lot more sure that armlx is more likely scum than Shteven than I am that Shteven is more likely than Fonz. Seems to me like armlx is trying to work these numbers to 'prove' that Shteven is a better lynch than he is.

A good point - I'm becoming nearly as suspicious of armlx as the Fonz, but it's hard to represent that. Especially with the responses to the Fonz going back and forth in large posts, it reinforces the impression that he's far and away my only target. Speaking of which, let's play the clear up the latest distortions with fonz again!

Actually, you basically just provided the one reason: that the switch-to-hammer was scummy. And again, for the umpteenth time, your subsequent unvote when he was one of two leading wagons doesn't scream 'willing to fight for a spacecase lynch' to me.

One solid scumtell is enough for me. His reaction/defense to it was also scummy.

Are you seriously claiming I didn't push spacecase heavily day 3? Because I unvoted once? I voted for him on Feb 27th, and also on my 27th post. I held that vote until April 12th, or about 45 days, and 34 posts. Having been unable to get enough people behind him, when the deadline was initiated, I was willing to try other targets. While voting phate, I repeated "would still be glad to lynch spacecase, but as his wagon isn't going anywhere". And once Phate claimed doctor and I knew I was mistaken, I went right back to spacecase in my very next post. There's plenty of much more reasonable things you could go after, but going after me for not pushing spacecase hard enough is so far removed from reality that I seriously question your intentions.

And no, I didn't. I looked for behaviour which makes sense in an SK (SKs on the brain, lack of courage in convictions, general scumminess which didn't look like it suggested a link to the mafia group and so on) and found them in you.

It's possible to interpret most actions either from a scum or a town perspective. My point was you took mine and looked at them only from the possibility I was the SK, which is only half of the story. If the actions have just as much of explaination from a town perspective, you don't have much of a tell. See any of mine or username's recent posts talking about null tells.

My point is not that you are scummy for sometimes agreeing with people. My point is that your claim that I 'merely echo generic townie sentiment' is utter crap, and that in fact that claim could more convincingly be made against you than me.

I'll repost where I clarified exactly what I was trying to get at with that statement, because it seems like people are quoting the sound bite only and not really listening to what I actually said.

The point was that you aren't making many bold statements, that you haven't done much [original] scum hunting. The echoing statements are just what you're using to fill the void and remain an active poster.

Original added for clarification.

Day two: We both express that the Kab lynch isn't particularly good, but there is nothing better, really.

Your tape seems to be somewhat distorted. I specifically refused to support it and was hoping for scum to slip up so we could find a better lynch - you joined the kab wagon. I'd say that's fairly different. Maybe you weren't 100% confident, and you were already after the wagon had been hammered, but you still voted for him. I would have never voted for him that day, and this was even after he had been trying to vote for me for some pretty weak reasons. It's hard to show exactly why but I really felt his attacks were earnest town feelings. I couldn't see scum risking exposure on such a weak tell as his suspicion over my phrasing in that post. Maybe this was just more obvious to me because he was attacking me, so I took it personally. I was very disappointed in day 2.

Some references:
Shteven: Here's a post trying to warn Jesse and others not to lynch kab. He voted based on the wagon being inevitable and needing to end the day, which I urged against. No one else seemed to question such horrible motives.

Shteven: A last ditch effort to start a different wagon on Phate. Not any more accurate than Kab's wagon in hindsight, but I had a lot less faith in Phate on day 2 than I did in kab.

Fonz forcing a claim from kab.

Fonz voting for kab.

All posts taken from pages 14 or 15, so they are more or less at the same time. It is true the Fonz wasn't keen on the kab wagon early on but that changed, and claiming that we were on the same page day 2 is either very frustrating or laughable, depending on how seriously I take his posts. I specifically tried to generate something better several times, first by asking someone else to and finally by getting up and doing it myself. It just was too little too late. It does, however, serve as another example where I did something unique, and fonz followed the herd; the true meaning behind 'echoing town sentiments'. Not that you merely repeated what someone else said. One final example:

*Sighs*

This game annoys me. Because this Kab wagon is pretty crappy, and at the same time probably the best thing we have to go on, and therefore I don't find anyone scummy for being on it.

/seconded.

Read the post carefully - I said while I couldn't blame everyone for going with it, I did not endorse the wagon. My later posts (two linked above) proved this as I tried to discourge Jesse who had voted for Kab, and start a new wagon. The fonz may have known it was bad, but avoided confronting the town's consensus, eventually voting for Kab.

I won't go into as much detail, but your day 4 statements are exactly the same:

Day Four: My arguments against Oman were largely original, and had little to do with any 'generic town' sentiment against him. Indeed, as I noted above, those already voting him were the other leading suspects, due to their absence from the Spacewagon.

In short: Your specific arguments were original, the goal was not.

[Shteven]

I don't believe the fonz and I are ever going to resolve our reads of this game, so I'll try to keep this short.

I thought the oman wagon was solid. Being on it doesn't prove much in the way of being the SK. It might be a slight point towards not-mafia, but is null for anti-SK tells. I hadn't seen someone claim SK ever before in a game I've played, so I didn't immediately get that he was probably mafia, hence I was more cautious than necessary.

I should have not copied the 'kab is the best so far' part of the post before agreeing with it, but I didn't bother so the criticism is valid. I didn't know who scum was, but I knew kab wasn't it. My attempts to get other wagons started were earnest but I didn't manage to sway much of anyone. In hindsight I wish I had used stronger language on day 2.

Now you tell me: Which of those is the action of someone trying to 'keep his votecount down, ' trying to avoid attention?

It's futile to try to keep your vote count down, just like it's futile to keep your post count down. You'll be called for lurking and be policy lynched. If you want to lay low you have to vote, but vote carefully so as to not generate attention. It takes skill to survive as an SK.

[Shteven]

Aye, the game's slowed down some, so if this is all the arguments we'll make today, I'm ready to vote.

I'd say Fonz is SK, and Armlx mafia. And since I haven't been able to drum up much support for Fonz, I'll try to take the hint.

Vote: Armlx

[Shteven]

I'd be more upset, but actually lynching a townie (me) isn't that horrible of an outcome.

That will leave us with 1 unconfirmed townie, 1 mason, 1 mafia, one sk. the killing factions have to kill each other to win - so if they're both right town wins. They win if they are right and the other is wrong. Obviously you can't afford to kill Vollkan. SO DON'T, damnit. /cough

I hope you guys have good reads on each other

If you lynch me there won't be a tommorow.

[Shteven]

After having re-read my post, I imagined myself as the Fonz, and I figure what I posted is probably going to make him even more likely to lynch me. I imagine something about accepting one's own lynch as inevitable being along the lines of self-voting.

I just hope he flips scum for ego purposes I'd be alright with being wrong about sk vs mafia.

[Shteven]

I'd say Fonz is SK, and Armlx mafia. And since I haven't been able to drum up much support for Fonz, I'll try to take the hint.

What's the hint? That you are shamelessly band wagoning?

At first I thought you meant I was band wagoning Fonz, which confused me. But the only way this would make sense is if you meant that I was trying to go for a more popular option, i.e. you. Yes, that's what I did.

I'm not really sure band wagoning at this point is such a bad thing. Or maybe I should say that after we've had several pages and weeks of discussion with no votes, that it's really not band wagoning for me to vote for someone who I think has the best chances of being mafia and is also likely to get support. I suppose it comes from doubt that my read of Fonz is accurate that I'm willing to listen to others - my case on him is based on gut. I'm pretty convinced, but I've been wrong before. Let me ask you this - if a townie thinks someone else's case is better than theirs, what should they do?

This shouldn't be taken to say that I think the Fonz has been acting better lately or that he isn't the SK. I still don't trust him, but I don't have the proof to convince others.

-----------------------
In fact, for the interest of the fonz, I worked out if it would be beneficial to myself to lynch myself. On randomly selected lynches, it's not. The question is how good or bad an approximation random lynches are at this point, when things are really somewhat biased.

(Numbers given are random lynches)
Lynch scum today:
3 townies, 1 scum.
Night kill vollkan, 2 townies: 1 scum.
In other words, Shteven + scum + townie.

Technically this lynch is 1/2 chance but call me somewhat pessimistic about it's true odds. Vollkan hasn't posted much today but as he's almost certainly dead by this point his trust or non-trust of me won't be an issue. I believe the other town to be likely to lynch me.

lynch Shteven:
Previous scenario - killing factions attempt to cross kill. Not certain, but significant chances of victory.

So it's either (2/3) [chance of random lynching non-vollkan non-shteven player] x 1/2 (tomorrow's lynch) = 1/3.

or

vote self - attempt cross kills. Assuming the killing factions act in their own best interest and not out of spite: 1/2 * 1/2 = 1/4.

So randomly I shouldn't do it, but I'm tempted to because I believe my odds are worse off than random, and with increasing information the killing factions should be able to make a slightly better choice.

Using non-random lynches:
In words - I think our chances of getting a cross kill are higher than our chances of lynching correctly both times; especially since we're already about to lynch incorrectly now. If I did manage to turn around today's lynch, tommorow's lynch would likely be myself. Lightning may strike twice, but I'm more confident in getting cross kills.

What the hell. I'll take it. Sorry vollkan, who didn't get a chance to post much today. At the very least, it's an interesting gambit to have a chance to take, right?

I think our odds on day 5 might have been over 50% but with the mislynch day 6 opened with us <50%. The chances of getting a cross kill, with the information we have, is probably slightly higher than 25%, maybe 30-35%. Good luck all

Scum - please act in your own best interests - you still have a good shot of winning if you're right and they're wrong! You cannot reasonably win by shooting a townie. [technically I suppose if you double kill the same townie it will open day 7 and then you can try again, but really, no.]

Vote: Shteven.

Fonz: be sure to tell me what you think about this particular self voting post-game, although it's sadly too late for you to policy lynch me.

[Shteven]

I did leave out one condition in my case: the assumed 2/3 chances of lynching today was relying on my own knowledge I'm townie - so really that's not giving an accurate picture. This doesn't change my decision, it instead strengthens my case, but it was enough of a flaw I wanted to correct it.

Another way of looking at it is to think of the three possibilities for today's lynch:

Lynch Shteven - go for cross kills, about 35% victory.
Lynch a scum player - Vollkan dies, outcome depends on the lynch tomorrow. Likely to lynch Shteven. Exactly what percent is hard to say, but I put it at less than 35% town victory.

[Shteven]

Pulling this one after spending the entire game advocating the virtues of 'more discussion' just makes me more confident in your anti-townness.

More discussion is a good thing. Forgive me for estimating our chances were low, and yes I realize this is denying other players the chances of future actions, and I'm sorry about that, but from a game theory POV, I think it was a good move.

I hope you don't think I'm an anti-town role, as that's 3 votes and it's impossible for me to scum now. I suppose you could mean I'm an anti-town player, instead of role, though.

[Shteven]

I was more implying the fact that I just killed myself, which means that either I'm willing to accept a 0% chance of victory when I previously had some, or that I'm town. Continuing to insist innocence after someone else kills you is rather different

[Shteven]

I warned you guys about the fonz, so now I have to say I told you so. True I did peg him more as SK but I did mention him as mafia at least twice

Now I just need to figure out why I'm always lynched as town and rarely NK'ed. That, and figuring out why people won't just believe everything I say because it's obviously awesome. If anyone has any hints let me know

Wanted to post this link: my post in the old 'new C9' because I got some flak for that in this game. I couldn't link it before my self-vote because I found out that the game ended after I had made that post. I'd like some thoughts on the behavior in general, and in this game. I don't see working towards a consensus and going for popular opinion to be a bad thing, honestly. In this case it would have meant getting the SK instead of the mafia, although certainly it won't always be so fortunate.

Thanks to tinvision for sticking up for the self vote. I think 2:1(confirmed townie):1:1 is an extension of 2:1:1. The scum's not going to go for the confirmed townie, and the confirmed townie will just get endgamed. You do have the possibility of going for two correct lynches if you have solid evidence, but I wasn't getting that feeling in this game. If today's lynch wasn't me I saw myself being an easy final lynch the next day.

[Shteven]

although I must add it was a bit sad having to kill myself when I was actually right about both scum, even if I had their factions reversed

Really need those tips on how to mass hypnotize people over the internet. I'll figure it out one day.