Last Will Mafia II (Over)

[Locke Lamora]

Hi everyone, still catching up with this one but should get a proper post up today.

[Locke Lamora]

So, let's keep this simple:

Raider, CSL and Xite read scum to me. I particularly don't like Xite's effort to discourage a CSL lynch here:

Why don't we wait on CSL?
Richard seems scummier to me, yes CSL is on my nerves and quite scummy himself, but we can push his lynch tomorrow.
I mean seriously, guys, you seem to have selective memory or something, someone is terribly scummy with almost everything they say, one person says a few things that I

would

normally lynch them for (but have my sights set higher IMO) and everyone forgets everything else that happens...

'Let's not lynch CSL today because...well, we could do it tomorrow!' All seems very disingenuous to me.

Rhinox declaring he doesn't like the SV wagon right at the end bothers me. Charlie seems to be excusing his lack of associated content by claiming he's not 'over-thinking'. Or, he's scum.

KMD: what's wrong with a Charlie lynch?

EGL: why aren't you the best lynch today?

I'm going start off with a:

Vote: Xite91

Who's scum?

[Locke Lamora]

Rhinox: you'd posted not long before endorsing the SV wagon, for starters. You didn't even identify what it was you didn't like about it. Too many votes too quickly? Poor reasons for voting? Bad feeling about the players who did jump on? It's basically just a catch-all for absolving yourself of responsibility if SV flips town with no actual scumhunting worth, a mere few hours after having said you could get behind the wagon.

[Locke Lamora]

Xite: you decided what you think of CSL yet? Would you lynch him today, or should it wait for tomorrow again?

Holycon: you think going after repeatedly scummy players is beating a dead horse?

Rhinox: ok, that seems fair. Just wanted to see your reasoning on it.

[Locke Lamora]

Kind of agree with Ythan on the way people are talking about the Richard situation. To further the point, people are basically saying "hey scum, if you have a blocker, then you've got a ready-made lynch for tomorrow". Like Rhinox, I'm also finding it hard to believe that he really put that little thought into the role and decided to do nothing with it. He obviously doesn't really care all that much about the game either, or have any real belief in his ability to use the role, so I'm very dubious about the merits of letting him live.

To everyone saying we should give Richard the opportunity: are you definitely going to simply lynch him if no kill appears from him tomorrow?

[Locke Lamora]

I feel like Xite's posts are disingenuous. Maybe that's just playstyle, something bothers me there. Charlie is too flippant for my liking. Seems like an easy way to dismiss people making cases on him without actually addressing their points. I'll try an:

unvote; Vote: Charlie

Leaning more towards leaving Richard at the moment. Perhaps KMD will tell us why that part of his role PM that says he can't protect himself is interesting.

[Locke Lamora]

Charlie, tell me why Xite is town (no, I did not think the way she answers questions was a good reason, as you didn't explain that at all).

[Locke Lamora]

Mafia deciding to no-kill on N2? Are you saying that they would block Richard and no-kill just for the purposes of getting Richard lynched today? Why would scum kill millar if his claim is legit anyway?

[Locke Lamora]

Unvote; Vote: EGL

I'll go with this. That eagerness to claim pings my scumdar. Why announce you can claim quickly without even checking how many votes were on you?

[Locke Lamora]

I don't think Richard ever actually said he didn't think of using it like a vig, did he? I certainly can't see it anywhere. He just said he would probably be killing townies for the rest of the game if we let him live. So...

Richard: did you think of acting like a vigilante? Did you make the assumption that there was a town-aligned vig when you thought about killing millar? If not, why on earth would scum kill millar?

[Locke Lamora]

At this stage I'm not all that confident that Richard is going to bother to perform a night action, given his current attitude to the game. He doesn't appear to be thinking clearly about it and he's certainly not exhibiting any interest in participating properly.

SSBF: so does that make EGL your number 6? Is there anything you do like about him that keeps him out of your top 5?

[Locke Lamora]

At this stage I'm not all that confident that Richard is going to bother to perform a night action, given his current attitude to the game. He doesn't appear to be thinking clearly about it and he's certainly not exhibiting any interest in participating properly.

Sounds to me like you think he's telling the truth but you want to lynch him anyways. Is that accurate?

I am leaning towards him telling the truth but his most recent response didn't give me much confidence in that read. It doesn't quite feel like he's really thought about it in the way he would have if he actually had the role. In terms of theory, I don't think it's a good idea to lynch him based on his claim. In terms of how he's treating the game, I think he ought to be lynched.

[Locke Lamora]

I believe Ythan. Richard's responses already weren't adding up yesterday and Michel's right about there being little benefit for Ythan-scum to lie about it just to get Richard lynched and guarantee his own lynch tomorrow if Richard flips town.

Vote: RichardGHP

[Locke Lamora]

If Ythan was blocked, wouldn't he be told that he still has his kill? Ythan, can you clarify whether or not you get to keep your kill if your action is blocked?

[Locke Lamora]

Charlie, if we should lynch Jahudo based on one scummy post, shouldn't we lynch you first based on your many more scummy posts? Why is 1348 scummy, exactly?

I see where Rhinox is coming from with the kill-claiming problem. There's not really much point fake-claiming it just to out the already claimed one-shot Ythan kill. I would think that if Ythan was roleblocked, that means he didn't use his kill, not that he used it and lost it. The latter I would expect from some kind of protection. The roleblock would be preventing Ythan from using it in the first place. Thinking about it, if Richard was roleblocked, not told he was roleblocked and millar died, he wouldn't have any reason to believe that he didn't kill Ythan. The main motivation I can think of for Richard-scum other than simply claiming a kill to support his claim would be that he just plain forgot Ythan had a one-shot kill and was trying to out a killing role before he got lynched. It's either that or he and Ythan are both scum and they deliberately set up this 1 v 1 to attempt to clear whoever doesn't get lynched (likely Ythan, given Richard's situation in this game). Seems like it might be a bit too elaborate. I'm going to think on this one.

Unvote

[Locke Lamora]

Ani: Richard is claimed CPR Doc. Ythan was given a 1-shot kill by Twomz. Richard claimed the millar kill, then Ythan claimed the millar kill. One of them obviously didn't do it. Whether through roleblocking or just plain lies is the part that's uncertain. It's not very hard to understand.

Ythan: do you not think it's possible that you're both town?

[Locke Lamora]

Charlie: are you using meta from a

different player

to justify your town read?

[Locke Lamora]

There's just too much buddying going on in that Charlie post to ignore. I don't see the pro-town motive for sticking massive TOWNIE signs over Michel's head.

Vote: Charlie

Still thinking about Richard and Ythan.

Mod: V/LA from Saturday for a week.

[Locke Lamora]

I'm back, should be catching up and posting by tomorrow.

[Locke Lamora]

Unvote; Vote: SSBF

I've decided I don't think we should lynch Richard. Honestly, I don't have that strong a feeling about SSBF, but I think a Richard lynch is the wrong play. There's too much ambiguity about the him/Ythan situation and I think we should let another night play out without the one-shot kill factor.

[Locke Lamora]

Vote: holycon

I think she tiptoed round the voting/hammering Richard issue too much.

[Locke Lamora]

Having a very busy time at work right now, will all be cleared by tomorrow so I will be catching up then.

[Locke Lamora]

Xite, I looked at SSBF 57 and I don't know what you're getting at either. Do you think he's following 'the crowd' by voting Richard? Which part is fence-sitting? What, in particular, screams scum?

[Locke Lamora]

Someone with 4 votes refusing to contribute any more than what's required to not get replaced makes my head hurt.

I'm going to go back to:

Vote: Charlie

I still really don't see the pro-town motivation for shouting 'hi scum, kill Michel, he's really pro-town!' Any analysis he appears to have done recently seems to be almost entirely based on Michel's viewpoints, not his own.

[Locke Lamora]

Charlie, what's nonsense? That you declared Michel to be super pro-town, or that you've been using his analysis and scumreads in the absence of any of your own?

[Locke Lamora]

So what's your point, Charlie? That everyone thought Michel was town?

[Locke Lamora]

Unvote: Vote: SSBF

Last post is point-scoring off Amished.

[Locke Lamora]

Just ISOed Ani and I don't think he's a good lynch. It's mostly just VI comments and not paying attention to the game. There aren't even that many votes to analyse. Let's lynch SSBF.

[Locke Lamora]

I'm not really sure what to make of a whole page of people targeting Amished for that 'scumslip'. Holycon looks the worst, in my opinion, going from saying it was stupid for either alignment to voting Amished because the slip was so bad.

Chronopie's 'I think we've actually caught one this time' implies that he didn't think he was voting scum the rest of the time. Interesting.

Having said that, it's less than 48 hours to deadline, so people need to be making a decision now. Anyone on a very small wagon either needs to get some support fast or put their vote on one of the larger wagons.

[Locke Lamora]

Can you two explain again what's so good about the Ani lynch?

[Locke Lamora]

Vote: Holycon

That jump on Amished from yesterday for the 'scumslip', being overly careful round the Richard lynch, generally not following up on her statements, for example:

If Richard flips town then I will use that information to go back and look at those on his wagon

Really? How's that working out for you?

Plus the total lack of content for quite some time now, other than to snipe at someone every now and again.

[Locke Lamora]

Did you ever discover the mysterious thing Holy did that made you think she was town?

[Locke Lamora]

So you've drawn some useful conclusions about the people on Richard's wagon, but you're not going to tell us what they are? Why not?

[Locke Lamora]

What are you waiting for?

[Locke Lamora]

Would that be the 'wall of crap' Batt posted on the last page?

[Locke Lamora]

Holy: so you think there's lots of scum in Batt, Rhinox, Ythan and I, because we've (apparently) all been on every townie lynch? Why did you not want to share this information with us?

[Locke Lamora]

I don't really think I'm rushing you. Richard got lynched on D3. You've had quite a long time to think about it. Given all this effort you've put into analysing the wagons, how do you account for the fact that your main assumption, namely that the four of us were on all the townie lynches, is incorrect? For instance: Rhinox was not on the Shattered wagon; Ythan was not on the EGL wagon. I could go on, but you get the point.

[Locke Lamora]

That doesn't actually answer my question at all. I'll make it simpler: Rhinox was not on all 4 lynches. Batt was not on all 4 lynches. Ythan was not on all 4 lynches. I was not on all 4 lynches. In short, what you said is not true for any of us. Did you really think we were all on all the lynches? If so, how does that affect your suspicions?

[Locke Lamora]

That's what I was trying to clarify. In that case, what about Charlie? Jahudo? All the other people who were on at least 2 of the lynches? Why have you picked us four?

[Locke Lamora]

Yes. And Batt's, Rhinox's and Ythan's. Is there something wrong with that? My point is, there are quite a lot of people who have been on at least 2 townie lynches, so why have you selected those 4? I 'stuck out' - why? Have the others done something particularly scummy?

[Locke Lamora]

Any reason why you haven't put pressure on me before if you think that's how I'm playing?

That Rhinox, Batt and Ythan have been on three lynches each? I am aware of this.

[Locke Lamora]

You seem to have this thing about one-liners, yet your ISO is full of them. Is it your opinion that one-liners are scummy?

As for your implication that this was some kind of plan on your behalf to get reactions out of me, I'm going to break down the actual sequence of events for you:

-I voted for you.
-You appeared and stated you were under no obligation to actually provide us with the results of your analysis.
-I pressed you for some actual reads based off that analysis.
-You gave a list of '4 people at the top of every townie lynch' which seems 'weird'.
-I pressed you for more details and tried to work out if you actually thought we were all on every lynch.
-You complain that you don't work on my time, then eventually you give some reasons for actually suspecting me, then reproduce what both Batt and KMD have already done to explain your suspicion of the others.
-I ask why you haven't pressured me before.
-You admit I'm not as scummy as the others but imply that you put my name on the list to get some conversation out of me.

So I vote for you, you misrep my position on the wagons by associating me with every townie wagon, fail to provide any details of your analysis or reasoning for suspecting me for several posts, then finally come up with some reasons that have no links whatsoever to my voting pattern, before finally admitting I'm not as scummy as 'others'. That sound about right?

[Locke Lamora]

I wanted to know why you had done some analysis but apparently weren't going to share it with us. I didn't say reaction testing was a crime; I said you associated me with a group of players who you implied spent most of their time lynching townies, then it took multiple posts to press you into what your actual reasoning was for including me on your suspect list. It looked more like you quickly put together a list of suspects based on the lynch wagons, realised after I quizzed you that I didn't fit in with your 3-lynch group and then quickly ISOed me to find something scummy.

[Locke Lamora]

Which brings me back to my previous question: why didn't you ask me any questions or make a case on me if you were interested in my slot after the SSBF lynch? You started the day by taking pot-shots at Batt and defending yourself, while failing to provide any substance, which is now what you are accusing me of.

[Locke Lamora]

None of that is an answer to my question.

My reason for the first vote is that I thought Richard was the wrong lynch, based on his claim and the possible events of the previous night. I believe SSBF was the only other viable wagon at that time.

My reason for the second vote was that SSBF had basically just popped in, claimed he didn't have time but still took the opportunity to have a quick snipe at Amished. 'Point-scoring' is just something I use to refer to when players are more interested in seizing an easy opportunity to make players look bad than they are in actually scumhunting.

What's a 'lame reason' for a vote? Go through each one and explain why it's bad, and then show me a good vote.

[Locke Lamora]

I said I was leaning more towards leaving Richard. As in, I didn't want to lynch him. Hence the Charlie vote. How about instead of just trying to make all my actions look scummy, you go back and look at the context of that vote? Do you really think anyone other than Richard or SSBF was getting lynched at that stage?

EGL turning up and instantly going 'I'll claim now if I need to' looked like he was eager to appease the town, which I thought was more likely to be scum survival instinct.

Yes, I thought you tiptoed round the Richard lynch. I thought it looked like you were being cautious about hammering because you were worried you'd get pressure for doing so too early. That was my read of the situation.

And let's try this again: why didn't you question or make a case on me when the day started? You clearly have lots of things to ask now.

[Locke Lamora]

No, I have a problem when someone's claimed line of thought and suspects don't make sense. Thus far you've identified 5 of my votes you think are 'lame' and claimed I haven't provided any genuine substance. I'd like to know why I'm not your top suspect, as nothing you've said about any other player has been in this much detail.

You keep acting like you started this conversation and I'm somehow reacting to it. I voted for you because I think your play is scummy. I don't think you've contributed anything of note for a long time, hence me pressing you into giving some actual suspects and analysis, and it feels like defence is your first instinct rather than scumhunting. You're clearly picking through my ISO as we have this conversation and you obviously haven't thought about the context of my posts, nor have you spent much time looking at my reasons for votes before you criticise them. Your responses indicate that you have spent very little time thinking about any of the suspects you listed to me. You're also still doing exactly what I said when I voted you; taking the opportunity to snipe where it seems convenient when you've done many of the things you keep criticising me for. Your vote for ani instead of SSBF is for pretty much exactly the same reason as I voted SSBF instead of Richard, yet you try to paint that as a bad vote and suggest I'm mindlessly wagon-hopping. You're not scumhunting at all, you're just coasting along, taking the occasional shot at people like that 'wall of crap' comment and putting far more effort into defending than scumhunting. I'm extremely happy with my vote.

[Locke Lamora]

I said you didn't follow up. Given that Richard's lynch was on D3 and it's now D5, you've had plenty of time to do that analysis. I didn't say it was crap; I said it looked like you've thought very little about it at all. You didn't have to share it with me but you did anyway. Maybe you have spent loads of time working on that analysis but the fact is, from my perspective, you've come up with nothing until I extensively pressed you about it. I'll look forward to reading that finished analysis very soon. You claim to have ISOed me after the SSBF lynch, but this is the first time you've made reference to any of the posts or votes that weren't on you, and you've misrepresented me on more than one occasion, either by failing to mention the context or simply by not reading my post properly. If you're suspicious enough about a player to push them for reactions, you ought to be more familiar with what that player's said in the first place.

You admit that at least part of your reason for voting Ani was because you didn't want a SSBF lynch, right? I voted SSBF because I didn't want a Richard lynch. There's no sense in starting a new wagon at that stage.

[Locke Lamora]

In that case, I'm sorry for your loss.

[Locke Lamora]

Well, if Charlie wants a Fishy wagon...

Unvote; Vote: Plum

Still want to see some more complete analysis from Holy that's, you know, actually been thought about.

KMD: so Fishy is bottom of your NKA scumranks and you think he's a good lynch? Does this mean you're not putting much stock in that analysis?

[Locke Lamora]

I am reading, Charlie. Thanks for testing, though. Any good reason why you think Ythan should still be lynched? Are you going to do anything today apart from say 'Lynch Fishy!'?

Why are there so many people not voting? It just seems like a shedload of 're-reading', 'working on a case', 'not quite caught up yet' and so on. It's been a week since the day opened, does it really take that long to place a vote?

[Locke Lamora]

Chrono: give me a break. Don't ring true? What, precisely, doesn't ring true?

Jahudo: I believe the Raider suspicion was largely to do with the fact that most of his comments had been random vote-hopping nonsense, excuses about how real scumhunting doesn't start until 'about page 25'and continuous complaints that people weren't contributing with no real efforts to scumhunt. As for Plum, I didn't feel she'd really offered anything for a couple of weeks and I thought we needed an actual wagon. Something about her interactions with KMD is bothering me too; it feels like there's a connection there. That wasn't so much the case when I voted for her as it is now, though.

[Locke Lamora]

My condolences, Amished.

I think Fishy's catchup is pretty good, actually. His points about those SV wagon-hoppers hit the mark in particular. I think Chronopie's vote is weak and now that Fishy's actually defending himself and scumhunting, he's trying to get the Fishy lynch through as quick as possible.

Unvote; Vote: Chronopie

Still up for a Plum lynch. Also holycon, of course, starting to get more of a scumvibe from KMD's endless vote and NK analysis; there's a lot of data there, but I get the feeling it lacks genuine scumhunting impetus. Right now I also feel like Charlie is too annoying and frustrating to actually be playing to town's win condition. He knows it's not helping and he knows he's pissing people off, but he continues to do it.

[Locke Lamora]

Mod: I'm moving house this week so I'm not going to have much time. V/LA until Friday.

[Locke Lamora]

Responding to prod. Will get to this in more detail when I have time, but at this stage I'm pretty sure Fishy is town and still wondering why anyone would think Holy was town. Seriously, anyone? Any reasons other than KMD's forgotten point in Holy's favour?

[Locke Lamora]

Internet's back, I'm here and will be catching up right away.

[Locke Lamora]

Based on reactions to Chronopie's lynch and general game interactions with that slot, plus general scumminess levels, I would say there are scum in kunkstar, Plum, Charlie and holycon. I'm unsure on a few others that I need to reread in detail, but I'd say those are my top four picks right now.

Jahudo: yes, I think it's fair to say Holy's my top suspect. Having said that, I feel like I've been banging my head against a wall with her for half the game and it's hard to tell whether the flat-out contradictory responses she's been giving are scummy or simply an indicator that she has no handle on the game whatsoever and is terrible at expressing her suspicions.

[Locke Lamora]

Vote: Plum

There's a distinct absence of pro-town vibes coming from Plum. I think lately she's just been focusing on making Batt look bad and isn't really interested in a whole lot else. Vastly prefer this to the Batt lynch, as I really don't see the case there.

Holy's Batt 'case' makes my head hurt.

[Locke Lamora]

Yes. I've been arguing for that for days now and I haven't seen all that much support for it, though. Maybe that's just because her scumbuddies are doing their best to ignore her scumminess. If Ythan wants to lynch Holy, it'd be a different matter.

[Locke Lamora]

First of all:

Vote: Charlie

I think his about-turn on Fishy was brought about by the fact that he contributed too much to be an easy lurker-lynch like Ani was. I think he's been obstructive and unhelpful, particularly with his Fishy-tunnelling, and his continual red panda obsession is a prime example of how he's filling up a lot of his posts with useless content. His bickering with Ythan has provided much of that too.

In the light of Plum and Fishy's flips, I was looking back over Chrono's posts and this one stuck out in particular:

Just off the cuff, at least 3 of {

Fishy

|

Plum

| Locke |

Batt

| Rhinox | Holycon} are probably scum. Rhinox has been bugging me for days, but I can't explain it. Locke and Holy just don't ring true.

So, from my perspective, the first 3 are town and I don't think Rhinox is scum unless there are two teams, based on when he voted Chrono. Through POE, I'd say Batt and Holy are by far the most likely to be Chrono's buddies from that list.

[Locke Lamora]

Charlie: yes, it does warrant your lynch. There's a distinct absence of pro-town thinking underlying your posts. It's gone on to the point that I can't possibly see how a townie would think they're helping, but I could easily see how scum would think it was muddying the waters, making the game frustrating and difficult to read and blocking people from getting a read on you.

[Locke Lamora]

Oh, and I think we should only massclaim if we're sure there are no more protective roles out there.

[Locke Lamora]

I'm inclined to agree with Rhinox on Ythan. I've got the impression there's much less reason to call him town now than there was a few days ago. I feel like he's been coasting for a while.

[Locke Lamora]

Just thinking about impossible scumteams, if we have just the one. This is more for reference later than any major analysis right now. Assuming 4 scum left alive, the following are true:

Ythan and Jahudo can't be scum together.
Ythan, Rhinox and KMD can't be scum together.

Assuming 5 scum left alive, the following are also true:

Ythan and KMD can't be scum together.
Jahudo, Rhinox and KMD can't be scum together.

Hey KMD, for your NKA TM, did you ever consider that scum were choosing to kill the people who they thought had the best chance of giving them extra votes?

[Locke Lamora]

Do you have anything else to say on Ythan other than 'he should be replaced'?

[Locke Lamora]

That's what I figured. If scum started with 6 players, for example, and they need to get to 12 in order to control the town, then surely their primary line of thought is to push for the lynches and NKs of players who are going to give them votes, otherwise it would take them an absolute age to win the game.

[Locke Lamora]

Xite's will choice is pretty bizarre, if you ask me. The last comment she directs at Chrono is basically asking him to contribute something of worth. From a glance over her last page of ISO, the only town read I can see her specifically express is 'Nach is probtown'. Worth another look back.

[Locke Lamora]

Rhinox: Holy looks like the most obvious Chrono bus to me. As far as I can see, she doesn't mention Chrono in the slightest and then hops on the wagon with what amounts to 'yeah I also think Chrono's megascummy'. Nacho I was inclined to call town simply because of the timing of the vote, with the wagons at 8-7 to Plum, although the fact that it's a totally unexplained vote and Nacho had earlier called Chrono town does bother me a little. KMD's vote is at 8-8 and his double vote could have put Plum as far more likely to get lynched, so again I'm inclined to say it's not a bus, but then he did spend most of the day pushing for a Fishy lynch and I don't think Plum's lynch would have secured a scum victory anyway. If scum were a decent way (for example, at least 3 or 4 votes more required to pass to scum) from their required threshold to control the game, the bus is arguably worth it more than in a standard voting game if it persuades a townie to pass on their vote/votes. The more I think about it, the less I think it's a good reason to rule people out.

[Locke Lamora]

Is Batt/me/Charlie/Holy your proposed scumteam, Ythan?

[Locke Lamora]

Batt, I think what Charlie's pointing out is that post indicates scumteams that are impossible ie. if those players were scum together in a scumteam of that size, they would already control 12 votes and thus have won the game. I think he's therefore saying is that your reads contain scumteams that are potentially impossible (if you have a team including Ythan, Rhinox and KMD, for example).

I've been thinking a lot about Chrono's votes going to Ythan. It seems like a lot for scum to give up if Ythan is town; not only do they lose a team member to acquire votes, they also set themselves back significantly because they have no guarantee they can get the votes back. So either Ythan is scum, Chrono screwed up (which I doubt given he asked time to reorder his will) or scum were attempting some kind of gambit to get enough votes on one player that would hand them the win if he got his townreads wrong. Given that Fishy passed his votes to Jahudo and that no-killing is massively against scum's win condition because they can't acquire any new votes, I think it's pretty safe to assume that scum didn't try to kill Ythan N5. I also think that if scum were going to attempt a WIFOM-y strategy of giving their votes to a scummy player, they wouldn't have bothered giving them to Ythan, who had received relatively little attention up to that point. There was a whole bunch of better candidates to make scummy by Chrono-association. There also wasn't much of a push towards a Ythan lynch on D6, so I'm going to go out on a limb and say that getting those votes back off Ythan really wasn't a scum priority because he is scum.

Unvote; Vote: Ythan

[Locke Lamora]

Looked back at Charlie's reaction to Richard's claim and, not only is it several pages before he acknowledges it at all, his response is not exactly committal.

About the CPR Doctor claim by RichardGHP...not really convinced. Would be willing to place my vote on him.

From then on Charlie's position is that Richard should not be lynched but should be given the chance to use his ability that evening. Any reason why you waited until the next day to vote Richard, Charlie? Any other evidence that backs up your claim?

[Locke Lamora]

I'm good with massclaim.

[Locke Lamora]

It occurs to me that even if scum do all have 1 vote, if there aren't any protective roles left and there's at least 4 of them, we have to lynch correctly today, otherwise we'd run out of people to give votes to before we could possibly win the game. So yes, it probably is LyLo. I'm going to say KMD isn't scum (and if you are, KMD, please stop wasting our time and just vote) but pretty much anyone else could be. I still stand by my Chrono-Ythan theory because I don't think scum is going to give up 2 votes to a townie who's not under that much suspicion and then not really try to push his lynch either.

[Locke Lamora]

VT here. Very interested to hear more detail about Ythan's claim.

[Locke Lamora]

2-shot means you choose which nights to activate I'm assuming. Otherwise you would die the first night scum kills if its for all abilities. I think we need a fullclaim from Ythan now.

2 shot bulletproof doesn't mean you have to choose to activate it, so that is not valid.

I thought lightning rod was for all abilities, not night kills. I"ll go check around a bit more.

I wasn't referring to bulletproof, but more in general. Think like a 2-shot cop or 2 shot vig or such.

First thoughts wanted to lynch elsewhere and have Ythan try to activate tonight for the "confirmation." But really at this point any confirmation on his part is pointless, it should have been done a long time ago. His claim here and supposed play of the role doesn't give me confidence in his alignment.

What on earth are you talking about? If Ythan is legit, he activates his ability and scum NK, he dies. If he's not, someone else will die. Isn't the 'point' of the confirmation the fact that he'll die if he's town? This is a really weak line of thinking that seems motivated by the desire to push the easy lynch through and I think it warrants a vote, once I get something clarified.

Am I missing something here? If Ythan draws all night actions, surely the way to proceed here is to lynch someone else and see if he dies? If he does, he's obviously town. If he doesn't, he's obviously lying scum. If there's no kill, we don't get confirmation but we do get the advantage of scum not being able to claim more votes.

[Locke Lamora]

Vote: kunkstar

I think this is the way to go. I think he's done very little in the month and a half he's been in this game, I think he's picked relatively safe suspects that were prime lynch targets and the recent post pushing for Ythan to get lynched looks to me like scum wanting to capitalise on the pressure from the claim.

[Locke Lamora]

One thing I really don't like about Amished looking back is that he votes for Chrono at the start of D3 and then completely fails to back it up - he makes one comment that Chrono has done nothing and then switches his vote elsewhere . Chrono goes from being the 'best chance for scum' to not worthy of his consideration, right up until ISO 90, when he simply says 'Chrono is scum too'. That attitude makes me think his suspicions were never genuine because Chrono clearly wasn't at the forefront of his scumhunting, in contrast to what he said when he placed his vote. He also tries to link Chrono to Raider earlier in the game, which pings my scumdar.

Rhinox: yes, I do think Kunk's play has been scummy too. The not doing much is part of it, but it's more the way he's gone about not doing much. It's a little hard to describe exactly what's so scummy, but I think it's the fact that despite his votes and reasoning always seeming logical, he's always selecting the path of least resistance. I'm detecting a desire in his play to get lynches done rather than actually scumhunt.

[Locke Lamora]

Batt: I just don't feel like Holy's got a scum agenda. She's been infuriating me all game and a large amount of what she's said has basically been nonsensical. She's been far less logical and coherent than Kunk and it reads like she's putting far less thought into who she targets and why. I think it's anti-town and confused play, but I don't think she's scum.

[Locke Lamora]

Good call, KMD. I'll wait a bit before getting rid of Kunk just so you can all be sure I'm town and everyone can readjust their reads accordingly.

Batt: can you explain why Kunk appears on your scumlist and why you decided to vote someone who was almost certainly town?

[Locke Lamora]

Actually, I think you're both totally missing the point, and are scum, but the end result is the same. If you think Kunk made the kill, the far more obvious reason that Kunk is scum is

he claimed vanilla townie

. Last time I checked, they don't get daykills.

Batt: you had Kunk on your scumlist before KMD was shot, so I don't see how that's relevant to your read on him before the last 24 hours. Incidentally, if there are two scumteams, I think town is screwed and was most likely screwed even before KMD's death.

[Locke Lamora]

So neutral scum meant you didn't have anything against Kunk (or Amished, for that matter)? I thought they were players you had a semi-scum read on but not as scummy as KMD. I phrased those questions badly, though; my question about KMD should have been independent from the one about Kunk. I'll rephrase: I want to know why you included Kunk as leaning scum.

[Locke Lamora]

Alright, let's get this done. Looks like Ythan is ready to use his ability, you all know what to do if I'm dead and he's not tomorrow.

Vote: kunkstar7

It's pretty cool hammering from L-8.

[Locke Lamora]

Thanks, Ythan.

So even if there are 3 scum left and Rhinox is scum, we've still got enough votes to keep this alive. Think I'll be rereading everyone today.

Now that I've experienced how ridiculous having ten votes (and deciding who to give them to) is, I've realised that my point about Chrono handing off votes to Ythan was pretty stupid. With most of the votes concentrated on two players, scum are going to care even less about who they give them to as long as they can convince the right people that they're town, so I'm going to focus on reading back rather than trying to work out whether Kunk was trying to implicate Nacho or WIFOM us out of suspecting him.

Batt, care to explain why your first instinct on seeing the successful vig kill was 'Kunk didn't kill Holy, so he must be scum', not 'Kunk claimed VT, so he must be scum'?

[Locke Lamora]

Batt: why are you picking out that post of KMD's? Are you going to answer my other question?

Hey esurio, care to back that 'Locke and Holy are most likely scum' assertion with, you know,

some analysis

? Why do I look worse than the rest of the players? What are your reasons for having a super-town read on Batt and Rhinox? What has KMD's read on Holy got to do with her being scum? Why were you so quick to back up Batt's 'logic' about Kunk not vigging Holy, whilst completely missing the far more obvious reason to lynch Kunk?

[Locke Lamora]

It didn't seem to me like you weren't paying attention. You were paying attention enough during the claims to cast doubt on Ythan's and vote for him, you were paying attention when KMD voted for you, and you were paying attention when you switched your vote back to KMD. Given that everyone but Ythan had claimed VT, it wasn't really hard to keep track of the claims. Now, this bothers me because your response was that of a person who naturally assumed Kunk was a vig, which is more in line with that of a scumbuddy who knew he had a vig shot than it is with a townie who thought he claimed VT, or even couldn't remember his claim. Furthermore, it seemed like a conscious effort to make a reasonable-looking vote on Kunk; where Holy and Nacho just voted because it was bloody obvious Kunk was scum, you tried to justify it further when it wasn't necessary.

Also, you gave Esurio a scumpoint in your third category, so that essentially amounts to saying that everyone still in the game except you could be scum.

[Locke Lamora]

What would you think, if you were me? You reacted like Kunk was a vig, and like him being a vig was not new information. There's only one explanation for that. A lightning rod and a bunch of VTs is not hard information to keep track of. Kunk being lynched hasn't got anything to do with it. Kunk was always going to get lynched when KMD died. Nobody gets any credit for pointing out that Kunk was scum after that happened.

As for your second complaint, I think you'll find the bolded below to be useful:

Scummy- Rhinox, Nacho, Locke for theory that scum try to vote differently from each other D1,
Scummy- Rhinox for theory that scum, when they can, will vote for another scum in the beginning game, especially when there is no support via vote for the lynch
Scummy- Rhinox, Nacho, Locke,

esurio

for theory that at least 1 scum would be on a lynching wagon in early days
Scummy- Holycon for theory that scum, when they can, will vote for another scum to early distance in the beginning game, especially when there is no support via vote for the lynch

[Locke Lamora]

Oh, and I'd like to know what everyone thinks on the subject of how many scum there are left. If everyone could simply answer that question in their next post, that'd be great.

[Locke Lamora]

Just the number is fine. If anyone still thinks there are two teams, I'd like to know that too.

Some things I've been thinking about and I think are important to keep in mind when reading over the game:

1. Scum have done a pretty good job of getting town mislynched.
2. Scum haven't done a very good job of getting town to give them their votes, otherwise this would have been over a long time ago.

[Locke Lamora]

Esurio: are you aware that's an awful excuse that we're just going to have to ignore? 'Oh yeah, anything scummy I did in the last two months? Probably just because I'm not paying attention'. As far as I remember, you never upgraded me past null, so I'll ask again: why open today saying I'm one of the two scummiest? What gave you that read?

[Locke Lamora]

What do you think of Nacho as Holy's partner, esurio?

[Locke Lamora]

I was thinking that when reading over Magua this morning. He mentions Chrono a few times, calling him useless or scummy without ever really putting pressure on him.

Holy: if there are two scum, who do you think they are? Same goes for three.

[Locke Lamora]

Rhinox: if I was to tell you to vote Nacho now, would you do it?

Nacho, Holy, Batt: if you were all to vote for someone right now based purely on your reads and ignoring wagon sizes, who would it be?

[Locke Lamora]

So I've been doing a lot of rereading and here's something I've been thinking about a lot: the day after Chrono's votes went to Ythan. This was obviously motivated by two factors: firstly, it would offer the potential for Ythan to be incriminated by Chrono's votes; and secondly, it stacked 6 votes on one player, making it increasingly dangerous for Ythan, and whoever he subsequently gave his votes to, to pass the votes on. The fact that he didn't get killed straight away indicates to me that scum didn't want to waste the opportunity of incriminating Ythan with the votes, and the night after they obviously had 3 obvious kill targets in Fishy, followed by Jahudo, followed by KMD. The first bunch of posts on D6, after Chrono's votes had passed to Ythan on D5, don't mention the votes moving at all. The first time someone brings it up at all is here:

Anyways, anyone have any thoughts on the significance of chrono's vote going to ythan? My first instinct in this game was to policy lynch whoever the scum send their vote to to ensure scum never send their vote to other scum, but after thinking about it some more I'm not sure its the best strategy.

This seems like testing the water to me, a kind of 'is anyone interested in lynching Ythan based on that?' Batt responds mostly in the negative, although suggests that Ythan could be given more scrutiny. Jahudo dismisses it pretty quickly and states he's not interested in a Ythan lynch. The issue is dropped again for a number of posts, until:

Ohai. Guess who's still scum.

Vote: Plum

Can't really muster up a crap about this game right now; too busy working on writing mini theme flavour etc.

Real post tomorrow, maybe.

Agree with whoever said we shouldn't just policy lynch whoever a scum vote goes to, but ehhhhh. Didn't like Ythan much to begin with; like him even less now with like 6 votes on a meh player. Seems fishy. If he is town though maybe scum will feel forced to kill him to try to get the votes passed to scum. Should leave him alive for at least today to see what happens. Ythan should definitely make sure his will is updated, at any rate.

Now, Ythan wasn't in Esurio's top 3 the day before and this comment really pings my scumdar. There's definite undertones of setting Ythan up for a future lynch based on this reason, and given that Fishy has already given a big hint that he protected someone, which scum know to be Jahudo, it's not surprising that Ythan's not going to die for a couple of nights. Esurio's leaving herself wide open to come back to this Ythan suspicion in a day or two, when he's naturally not going to be targeted for a NK so she knows he's going to be a viable target. The 'he's got 6 votes but he's still not dead' reason is returned to more than once in Esurio's later reasoning, despite Fishy and Jahudo both being by far the most logical kills. I didn't really read this situation in enough detail earlier in the game, but I realised on this readthrough that it's really not very long until Fishy claims use of his ability, so it really makes sense for scum to keep the Ythan suspicion on the back-burner, go with the easy lynch candidate in Plum and kill the two obvious players while leaving Ythan with 6 votes to maintain the suspicion for as long as he remains alive. Note that Rhinox also returns to this, notably early on Day 7 (ISO 100), when he makes a big case on Ythan. One other thing that's been bothering me about Rhinox is that he's actually trying to look town, which is not an impression I'm getting from most of the other players here - Batt has just been a bit mad, especially with his KMD-tunnelling, Nacho has been fairly low-key for a lot of the game and Holy...well, I've made my thoughts clear there.

So in short, I think esurio and Rhinox are scum. Who's with me?

[Locke Lamora]

At the time you didn't seem to consider Ythan worthy of a vote and, even once your top pick for scum (Plum) is dead, you choose to vote Charlie rather than Ythan, which makes me doubt how genuine your suspicion was. Perhaps it's unfortunate timing on your part, but it really looks like you were trying to drum up support for a Ythan lynch based on those scum votes without ever backing the wagon with a vote yourself. Do you think it's odd that scum would have chosen to kill Fishy, who had claimed the use of the protection and moved to everyone's town list, over Ythan, who basically hadn't done anything for days?

[Locke Lamora]

Holy, I've been inclined to call you town for a while now and then you go and do that.

Batt: why are you not voting Holy for being anti-town?

[Locke Lamora]

There's one situation that makes me think Esurio is town, and that's the reaction to Amished's 'scumslip' about the two teams. Esurio is the first to point it out and it seems fairly genuine to me; it's certainly hard to believe that that was staged, as Esurio could potentially have received much more heat than she did for ignoring the context of the statement. Holy's reaction is just bizarre. I'm not sure a scumbuddy would turn around and go for the bus that quickly, but something about it reads panicked to me, and panic fits better with Holy-scum than it does with Holy-town.

On the flip side, there's not a chance in hell anyone in this game would give Holy votes, so if I was scum with Holy, I'd bus her relentlessly. Amished certainly didn't do that, neither did Chrono, while Kunk kept Holy in his scumlist but never really gunned for her until the day of his lynch. I'd say that points to Holy being town.

Coming back to Rhinox, I've got this relentless gut read that says he's scum. Maybe most of that is because he's actually been looking more pro-town than most players this game, which I would think at least a couple of scum would make a priority in order to attract votes. It's evident Chrono and Kunk weren't doing it very often.

[Locke Lamora]

By 'previous post', do you mean ISO 138? I can't really see anything after that.

[Locke Lamora]

So here are some of my final thoughts:

Nacho's position towards Kunk changes with relatively little comment, going from the prob-town read he had on Amished to joint second on his scumlist with Esurio. Interestingly, Nacho groups Kunk in with Esurio on the basis of playing very similar games since they replaced in. He then says that he would 'love' a Kunk lynch after KMD and myself express a desire to lynch Kunk.

Rhinox's position towards Nacho is odd, and seems fairly unsubstantiated. For most of the game, he maintains low to moderate suspicion on Nacho without ever really analysing his slot. At one point, he says Jahudo, Nacho and myself look town on the EGL wagon, but the rest of the time he's generally leaning Nacho-scum. Rather notably, he later uses Nacho's leading of the EGL wagon to make him look scummy, including when he votes for Nacho early on D5, in clear contrast to that earlier comment. Nacho actually challenges Rhinox's rather overstated claim that he's been constantly rallying for Nacho's lynch, when it's evident from Rhinox's ISO that he never really makes much of a Nacho case beyond 'Nacho pushed the EGL wagon REALLY hard'. This attitude towards Nacho seems somewhat forced and artificial, and the more I read Rhinox in general, the more it seems like his posts are tailored towards appearing well thought-out and pro-town than they are towards scumhunting.

So I'm going to go with a:

Vote: Rhinox

...with Nacho/Esurio as buddy for tomorrow if I'm right.

[Locke Lamora]

Curses.

So who else is scum, Nacho?

[Locke Lamora]

Well, I think this'll be my last game for a while. I'm not great as town.

I really should have lynched Holy after she voted for Batt. To be honest, I was giving her a bit of a pass for reasons that really shouldn't have factored into my thinking, and once I let it get to that point it was very hard to turn around and lynch her. Of course, we actually should have lynched Holy a long time before that.

Esurio: was that whole Amished 'slip' thing deliberately staged? Did you already know that you were taking his comment out of context? I was so close to voting you but I read that back and it convinced me not to. If I'd found out you were scum from that situation, I think I would have been more inclined to call Holy scum because of it, so it was definitely a good play on your part.

I think we had some terribly anti-town play early on in the game that made it too easy for scum to coast (SV's endless repeating of phrases, Richard and millar's fake claims to name a few). We might have done a bit better if it hadn't been for that.

Thanks to Llama for modding, it was a good setup and everything was smoothly run.

[Locke Lamora]

Yeah, I have to apologise profusely for that, Rhinox. I was expecting scum to make an attempt to look super-pro-town so that even if we did lynch correctly again, I would hand them the game by passing my votes to scum. I think that influenced my thinking too much and for most of the day, it felt a bit like everyone was scum because there really wasn't that much activity. I was close to voting both Esurio and Holy, but I remembered my last gut read that I went against (that Poro was town in /in-vitational 8), and that combined with the fact that you hadn't posted all weekend made me worry that you were just waiting for me to make a move. As it turned out, it was Nacho who was waiting to do that.