Mini 539: Game over

[Shteven]

Sounds fine. I'll do my best. For now, just checking in. I'll post again soon.

[Shteven]

For now I'm just going to highlight some things on my read through that struck me as interesting. I've read only the first four pages actually; this thread is a lot denser (information wise) than I was expecting. still, only 3 pages to go, so I should be caught up soon.

I apologize there's no overall "flow" to this post; it's more or less responses in the order of the posts in the thread. I'll do pages 5, 6, 7 and then try to do some wrapping up with a list of likely scum at the end.

I’ll just ask: did anyone else understand how Mafia’s apparent lack of perception was relevant?

My point is that he tried to explain something that he had no reason to trying to explain. Ytill brought up a question about MafiaSSK's grammar which MafiaSSK should have been able to answer on his own. The was no reason for Xtoxm to jump in and say anything.

Some people just try to be helpful! I've answered questions on behalf of others if they were simple enough in the past. Although you can see the person's gender to the left, so MafiaSSK did miss that, but it's no big deal.

Didn't I make that clear in the rest of the post you quoted? Mafia missed two obvious details, but claims to have discerned your scumminess from a single benign post. It’s acceptable that he didn’t see the symbol and that he misread the vote count, but it doesn’t make sense for someone who commonly makes such mistakes to have supernatural scum-reading capabilities. I want to know why he really voted you.

I think this is a valid point.

I voted for Xtoxm truly because 2 people had already voted him. so I wanted jump on the bandwagon. xD

Translation: Hello I am scum.

Yes well I was lying.

Translation: Haha you didn't get it the first time I said it? I'm scum.

I do, however, agree that page 2 is considerably too early to end day 1. I wonder if that may be on purpose: he doesn't think he can get lynched on page 2, so he can set up himself as making mistakes? This is probably a stretch, but I'm wondering.

Ythill points out that there were three random votes in a row for the same person (Xtoxm).

Voting for someone "Because they seem suspicious." is not a random vote, regardless of if MafiaSSK was lying about it or not. It is absolutely possible to make a serious vote on page 1.

Unvote: xtoxm Vote:Justin Playfair

@Justin: If you looked closely enough,Justin you would have found that there is no depth to my answers.

Here he's voting for Justin because his (mafiaSSK's) posts have no depth. You can't vote for someone else over your own bad play, I'm sorry, that's just not allowed in my book. This is from post 50, and while I haven't quoted the entire thing, I really don't think there's much more to it; this is the context as I understand it.

General comment @ythill: If you're going to reference post numbers, be a pal and link them as I did above. Use the URL tag, and no quotes around the link. The no quotes part confused me for a long time.

I’ve seen this opinion all over these boards and disagree. A mislynch is always bad for town, but can be acceptable if it reveals information. Lynching for bad play, however, makes it way too easy for wagoneers to justify their votes later. IMO, at this stage, the best strategy for dealing with Mafia is to ignore him while we examine others. It’s not like we’ll be short on evidence if we want to string him up later.

I am never happy to mislynch anyone. I've mislynched townies after they claimed a power role, then re-claimed a non-power role and admitted to lying. It's still a dead townie. However, mislynches are designed into the game. There's a reason town outnumbers scum (roughly, depending on setup) 3:1. You just can't be right all the time. Some mislynches are worse than others. I would never be proud of it, but I think a MafiaSSK mislynch wouldn't be as bad as some others, mainly due to the shallowness of his answers.

Unvote: MafiaSSK. My eye is still very firmly upon him.

Already caught by several people, but that's what you get when you're late to the game. This is bad. He's already lost a few votes (Charter's entirely random vote for example) and so you removing the vote really isn't nessacary. If I were you and trying to abandon a stalled wagon, I'd have at least tried to vote for someone else in the same post.

Regarding Jordan's analysis on Ythill, I agree with Ythill that Justin's playstyle is a bit backhanded. You are accusing the players you ask questions to, due to the phrasing and tone of your posts. It may not be intentional and it's certainly not explicit, but it is an attack nevertheless.

You have some good points, I just think you need to state them a bit more plainly and directly.

There was no way MafiaSSK's initial vote could have been a serious one. Come on, who finds someone suspicious at the beginning of the random voting stage? That was obviously a joke vote.

I hope you've got two votes buddy, because that was not at all a joke vote!

[Shteven]

Continuing from page 5:

Now to my question, since you and charter apparently didnt get it. I'm not criticising your use of "definitive town" instead of some other adjective to use to name someone a likely pro-town, I am seriously questioning why in the world you would go out of your way to argue that anyone is innocent at all this early in the game. I believe on day 1 and day 2, if someone makes a list or arguement for who is likeliest to be innocent this early that is anti-town (but not necessarily scummy, could could just be a townie making a bad play).

I'm going to disagree with my predecessor here. I do agree that it's not necessary to make lists of townies, and it doesn't really contribute much, but there's really nothing wrong with it either. If I was to make a list of three or so people I thought were scum....What would you assume the other 9 are? Yeah, they'd be the townies. Mafia can always check vote counts or even re-read in depth to see who's got suspicion; they don't need an explicit list to figure out who to kill. It's true that leaving it out makes your list more vague, but a lot more goes into selecting a kill than just what some townie thinks. Usually kills are picked by who's voice they want to silence, or what misinformation they want to spread. (Ie, townie A and B get into a heated argument. Night kill townie A, then use that to push for townie B's lynch). There's just so much more to go on than someone's I-like-bob list.

I can only think of one case in a past game where I explicitly called someone a definite townie. Mostly to protect them from suspicion (they weren't under serious fire but had one or two people doubting them) and to make myself feel better when they eventually died (a later night kill) and were revealed as a townie. Like I said, it's not that important, but it's certainly not detrimental. Eventually at the end of these summary posts I'll be making a list of people I think are scum. I'll just leave the rest off; these are people who I think are probably town.

I don't especially like that several players are coaching xtoxm to play better.

my gut feeling is that mafiaSSK is still possible scum, especially considering there now seems to be spirited defense on his behalf from a few places.

I'm not going to unvote the player I find most scummy to this point to satisfy the wishes of someone else who could very well be sticking up for his scumbuddy.

These type of vague accusations don't help us at all, and I'm getting tired of them. If you want to accuse me of something just do it as opposed to dropping subtle hints from which I can't defend myself.[/quote]

I thought Chronx's statements here were pretty clear. The only thing he didn't include would be Ho1den's name, which he should have, but this information didn't seem to be lost on Ho1den. If Chronx meant to implicate anyone else, he should also state their names.

Sorry if there's been homework. GOD! Anyways I can't really tell if anybody is scum or not yet. I mean they're not clearly acting out of the characteristics of a normal townie. They don't really jump the bandwagon.
Anyways due to inactiveness which could mean too scared too post I am going to have to unvote and Vote:Natude. This could have been one of their first gamers as mafia so they didn't know what to post without revealing without their identity. So overall this is the best analysis I've got.

[Spelling errors correct for readability]

So MafiaSSK lists the criteria by which to look for scum, and admits that no one really matches it. So he votes for someone who's not playing. Well, I know someone who matches the criteria you listed: yourself, MafiaSSK.

Really, this post just amazes me.

Um yeah. I don't even know where to go after that one. I somewhat completed my read from where I left off. I'd love to comment on the Ythill/Justin Playfair arguments but they seem a bit over my head.

A good reason why I don't like that style of post; sometimes it's necessary, but overall, posts should try to be kept concise. If stating a detailed case against someone takes that much space, so be it, but on day 1, it shouldn't. Catch up posts like these also grow pretty large, but that's because I'm responding to several pages of posts at once. A good way to shorten the wall of text syndrome is to shorten the amount of text you quote; try linking to the post instead.

North had a really bad habit of posting to suit his needs of the moment rather than the truth, especially in this game. Before anyone gives weight to his arguments, I’d suggest at least skimming the other games he was in. If it had not been for the rule about discussing games in progress, he would have been arguing from an even less credible foundation.

I haven't checked such games and probably won't bother to; however...If they're still ongoing, I'm assuming his alignment was not yet revealed? Unless he died early, you won't know if he was town or scum in those games any more than you know what he was here. He could just be making bad plays as town; he could have been scum in one game and town in another, but you claim he's made the same mistakes in all his games. So I really don't see how reading those games would be helpful. It's very unlikely he was mafia in every game, when there's 3 times as many town roles. If someone does something all the time it's simply their playstyle.

I'm going to seperate page 7 responses into another post.

P.S. Not too thrilled about not seeing any new posts since my last. This game listed needing 3 replacements when I signed up, because I figured I wanted to plug the most desperate hole I could help out with. But let's not expand the number of replacements needed past 3 now, that's already very high and it's no fun finding them.

[Shteven]

Page 7 & general response to Ythill coming right up!

I know it's the holidays and all but this game should certainly be more active.

Agreed. Might be a bit slow the next week, but I'll certainly be here, so feel free to play grill-the-new-guy

Regarding JP's post about Ho1dem's in post 150 (top of this page): I would really assume they're two townies arguing over policy here. I have already stated in my earlier summary that some players just try to be helpful and answer simple questions even if they aren't directed at them; I see no problem with what Xtoxm did. So ho1dem's attack on him for it seems unjustified; but due to it being so early in the game it's something I'd let slide. It could point to possible distancing between Ho1dem and MafiaSSK; but that's a bit of a stretch. To test that theory I'd only be willing to lynch MafiaSSK due to his other mistakes, and only if he turned out scum would I still support a Ho1dem lynch on day 2.

And the rest of page 7? Generally lots and lots of proof that Xtoxm really is the helpful player I expected him to be. I love when I'm right!

Check posts this and that to see him in action.

Ho1dem, do you have a problem with either of these posts?

----------------

Onwards to Ythill's questions of my predecessor.

Welcome Shteven. You are replacing into my hot seat though I will withhold my vote, giving you a chance to read the game. Once you have, I'd love to know your opinion of the confrontation between myself and your predecessor (96-103, 113, 120-122, 132-136), with the understanding that you cannot truly answer for his statements.

I've given my thoughts on some of your exchanges as part of my scanning the thread for interesting posts already, and here's some more. Regarding this line from post 97:

Whether someone thinks that a question against someone else is a good one or not, I cant think of any value to the town at all (and a lot of potential harm) to answer for or feed them a good answer.

I think I've already gone on the record several times that being helpful isn't a scum tell. Other than that, the only other interesting part was he called you out for mentioning people who were cleared as town, this I answered above, there's no real harm in it.

One thing in your argument that I do have a serious problem with is this claim from post 98:

In fact, one of the things scummy about #39 was that it was “unbidden, off-topic.” Simply put, you interjected it into a conversation about something else entirely, as if to slip it in quietly.

1) It was still being discussed, and seems in place to me.
2) You can't help if other people bring up other points in between you checking the thread. All of my responses to old posts are now out of place; and even when not being a replacement, if a thread moves quickly and you haven't posted for a day or two, you're likely to be in the middle of something else. This is normal and means nothing.

In post 114:

There are also several town stratagems that are initiated by listing whom one suspects to be town, but I’m not going to explain them to you. Either figure them out yourself or wait to see if any are played out here.

Wow, you must have a lot of faith in your average mafia player. The only weapon that the town has is lynching; which requires a majority vote. If you plan on conducting a uber-secret powerful town strategy, the only way it will do anything is if you can explain it to everyone and get consensus on it. The town has few secrets; strategies for exposing scum are almost universally public. The exceptions are obvious; cops don't claim on day 1, etc. If you're going to reveal a guilty investigation, you have to first judge if it's worth your life. But your strategy doesn't seem to be "I'm claiming cop" it seems to be a guide for daytime scum hunting. Thus, it must involve the cooperation of everyone in this thread. It must be a public, clear policy. Otherwise, it's fictional; and that doesn't look good on you.

Posts 132-136:

He beings by misunderstanding your meta-attack as implying that he listed innocents in his other games, as opposed to him showing generally different play (town in other games, scum here). That said, he does have a valid point that simply saying "other good players list innocents" is not in fact a justification that the strategy is sound. Of course, I'm with you in that I don't think this behavior is harmful, so I don't really need a justification.

While he did misinterpret your meta-attack, I think he did so genuinely. You said he was more active in his supposedly town games, and so felt you were accusing him of being to busy/lurking in this game. He then said that he never claimed he was busy. Sounds like bickering over simple misunderstandings to me. This tends to escalate, and before long you've gone and lynched a town role. I always feel it's important to note agreements in responses so that hopefully discussions can be brought to a close. Not discussion as a whole, mind you, but specific threads of discussion.

And yes, he did overact. One more thing about the meta attack: for one, I hate meta attacks/defenses in general. Sometimes they're needed and I'm taking heat in another of my games for this exact reason - I mentioned I tend to defend myself throughly in all games while also saying I don't like meta defenses, and some people took issue with that. So I'm just going to raise another point here about the reliability of your attack. How many games of his did you read? I'm going to assume it's around 3-4; let's say it was 3. You're now basing your attack on the claim that you've interpreted his alignment correctly in three games. If you're wrong about one of them, the reason for him being scum here fails. It's harder to be right 3 times than it is to be right once. The more useful meta attacks come from reading -completed- games where alignments are certain. And for the record, I don't like those kinds of meta attacks either. I imagine I didn't word this carefully enough and it's now going to be used against me in a game other than this one. Metaness gives me a headache!

Important: In my above post, responding to pages 5-6, I misinterpreted Ythill's meta against Northjayhawk as him playing the same (poorly) in all games; on rereading the posts he asked me to, Ythill claims NJH is playing differently in this singular game. So, my response in this post is my current response and the previous response was in error. Sorry for any confusion. I also fubar'ed a quote block and used 'correct' instead of 'corrected'. Somebody slap me!

-------------

My list of top people we should lynch and why will be coming soon.

[Shteven]

(1) SSK is clearly the VI (no offense SSK, labeling your playstyle not your intelligence level) which means he is the easy lynch. The VI is more of a pawn than a player. Aggressively attacking the VI at this juncture has the potential of several serious ulterior motives no matter what SSK’s alignment is. This could be bad townie play but you strike me as a good player. You have not only attacked SSK vehemently, but have stated your willingness (eagerness?) to make him today’s play. Yet we have some roles (DS & Natude mainly) that we know almost nothing about. Ding ding ding on the scumdar.

You're leaping to conclusions. My previous posts have been pointing out notable things in the thread; NOT who I think we should lynch. I mentioned in my last post that I will get to this soon. I don't have the time to post all of that right now, but I will tell you this much: SSK isn't the play for today. Noting all the errors he's made is important, and a key part of what's happened today, but it doesn't make him scum. I'm with you on this one, actually.

I stand by the connection to holdem, but I since I don't feel SSK is scum, it's just two people who are interacting. Possible scum on holdem, but very low. He probably won't even make top 3 (and since there's 3 scum...you do the math).

With regards to the secret townie stuff, I thought I had mentioned powerroles before. Reading what I posted, I just said a few things along the lines of cops not revealing themselves too early, etc. To clarify: of course power roles are secrets. Yes, they should be protected. However, I thought that would go without saying. In fact, it probably shouldn't be said at all since you may have tipped off the mafia already.

My primary meta argument was entirely different. Simply: North made a claim about his play style in general (not per his alignment) but a read of all his external posts proved convincingly that his play style claim was false. It is possible though unlikely that he could have been mistaken. It is also quite possible that he was lying, a suggestion which he grossly overreacted to.

Was his claimed play style wrong in all games or only wrong in this one? If it's wrong in all, it could be just that he wanted to have that play style but couldn't pull it off.

In short: give me a day or two. My previous posts are basically notes on the thread; to myself, and for others to look over. I still have to analyze them and make my top 3. I don't even know them yet, although I have some thoughts which I'll sort out when I get down to it.

Welcome, Shteven. Glad to see you. And if there’s a game you need a replacement in, I would be happy to return the favor.

I'm not modding any games, and the only other game I'm alive in, you're already there But I'm sure there's plenty of games if you go to the replacement queue.

Without requoting most of your post, some short answers: I'll be coming up with suspects soon, and I'll certainly look over Chronx again. If I didn't comment on his attacks on Incognito, it's likely I missed them entirely, or just missed the importance of them. I'll give it a look.

Most of the response to your MafiaSSK is the same as above. The first few mistakes looked very scummy. As he continued to make more and more, they became less so. When I finally caught up, it wasn't as bad as it started out being. Regarding mislynches:

I am never happy to mislynch anyone. I've mislynched townies after they claimed a power role, then re-claimed a non-power role and admitted to lying. It's still a dead townie.

It's all up there in post 163. Yes, it's followed by a "however", but don't think I didn't mean the above quote. Mislynches are bad, it's never a good idea to plan one. I was just saying that no one's 100% successful, and I have a pretty bad record day 1.
------
Ok, ok, I swear, I'll post those top 3 soon. For now, I am going to go get breakfast!

[Shteven]

An interesting quadrangle for your consideration…

Xtoxm’s suspicion of me is not unexpected. Anyone who has been keeping track can see that he has exhibited tunnel vision, focusing his contrary posts on SSK and myself. I’m not saying this is scummy, my read on Xtoxm is still stuck @ MotR. However, his focus is obvious, especially to someone who has just read the thread in its entirety.

I have clearly been attacking North/Shteven. Shteven has clearly been attacking SSK and cheerleading Xtoxm while taking it pretty easy on me. This pattern is somewhat suspicious.

@ Xtoxm: If you are town, watch your back on this. Your intentions may be entirely innocent but I do not believe Shteven’s are. Either way, you could tarnish your reputation here if you’re not careful.

What's MotR? I also disagree (already eexplained just above) with attacking MafiaSSK (I was, but merely in a note-taking fashion, having to catch up). I entirely agree with cheerleading Xtoxm, though. As for taking it easy on you, I have been answering your questions and will get to attacking you soon

If only playing mafia would provide calories, I just can't seem to stop myself from making more posts!

[Shteven]

Some quotes from myself, over a few posts, magically chopped up together without a lot of words between:

Post 1:
hi I'm here.
Post 2:
For now I'm just going to highlight some things on my read through that struck me as interesting. I've read only the first four pages actually; this thread is a lot denser (information wise) than I was expecting. still, only 3 pages to go, so I should be caught up soon.

I apologize there's no overall "flow" to this post; it's more or less responses in the order of the posts in the thread. I'll do pages 5, 6, 7 and then try to do some wrapping up with a list of likely scum at the end.

<posts some game notes>

Post 3:
Continuing from page 5:

<stuff>

I'm going to seperate page 7 responses into another post.

Post 4:
Page 7 & general response to Ythill coming right up!

<more stuff>

My list of top people we should lynch and why will be coming soon.

The bold is new

I have ALWAYS been very clear about what I was doing. That you overlooked this to try to hang me with suggests tunnel vision. If a player like Discipline Slayer had missed it, I'd be fine with that. No offense to him; but he posts short things, answers direct questions (I hope) and doesn't go to great lengths in his posts. Players like you (Ythill) and Justin Playfair, however, tend to analyze -everything-. For you to go into such detailed arguments and not understand what I'm doing is wrong.

Aka: it's the perception argument about MafiaSSK all over again.

Now, I'll grant you that I did mention a willingness to lynch him in the notes. I should have chosen my language more carefully, as it was simply based on his earlier mistakes. As I mentioned briefly before, The first few mistakes he made kept increasing his scumniess until eventually it became a null tell instead. However, I greatly dislike players who play scummy and avoid questions. If you're so eager to meta, I'm sure you can find a game where I pressed hard to lynch someone* on day 5 no less, because of this. They ended up thinking I was scum instead, and I went down that day (townie). Unfortunately the game is still running despite having started in May...[/grumble]

*reference to ongoing-game-that-really-should-be-done-by-now-I-mean-come-on made more subtle

In short, I tend to overreact to scummy play styles because I'm not eager to give out passes to certain players who take shall we say an "agressive" play style to make scum tells for free.

How do you know this?

How do you know there's 2 scum in a newbie game? These are balanced setups. This is not a theme game. The kind of people who are afraid to say the obvious for fear of implication are not pro-town. I consider this jab opportunistic, although it's minor.

Regarding a question about ChronX from Justin: The overall suspicion of Incognito for trying to offer 'wise' advice on game theory seems fine. I have absolutely no idea about this line:

Fortunately, this will come back to bite him when the inevitable rash of replacements occur and more vets filter into the blend.

Prophetic? I don't know why you'd say that so early. I guess I get to call myself a vet now? Anyways, seems like a stretch, but there's something there. It would be much easier to get a read on Incognito if his last 'real' post hadn't been December 13th. In his last post he just asks the mods for prods. Here's a good one:

Prod Incongito.

With this post I consider my responses are done for the moment: scum picks coming up now.

(original bold this time!)

[Shteven]

It was actually harder to come up with this than I thought it would be, due to many players not having all that many posts to go on. A lot of activity seems to have dropped off around mid December.

It's too early to consider a single scum team; these players are being weighed on individual merits.

Apyadg

- Abandoning the MafiaSSK wagon. Didn't want to be caught when it came up town. Stops voting for only person he's suspicious of, and fails to any other scum hunting. Last post Dec 11...hmmm. December 10th posting:

I'll start by apologising for the lack of involvement for the last two or three days, it was a work-intensive period at uni, fortunately I've now finished until after Christmas, so I expect no further inactive periods during this game.

So then he promises to hunt scum:

It seemed like a good idea to me at the time, I think easing off Mafia (I'm just going to refer to him as SSK for the rest of the game, I think), and looking at more people (I anticipate the point being repeated that I failed to do this, and it's a point that I concede, see my last post, regarding me planning to re-read), whilst keeping an eye on SSK was the best approach.

And then he hasn't posted since the 11th. I think this is the member of team mafia who's taking the lurking approach, letting their buddies try to get a mislynch. It wouldn't be so damning if he himself hadn't said he would be active during break.

Ythill

- Honestly I feel you're pushing way too hard. Meta attacks in games like this (of people who are newer, and more importantly people who are inactive) are counter productive. It lends you an air of authority that I don't think many, if any, other players will check. Put yourself in MafiaSSK, Discipline Slayer, or Apyadg's shoes. Do you think they've looked up NJH's other games? Even I haven't.

Know your audience.

You have tunnel vision. You vote MafiaSSK, then all NJH/Me. Yet you jumped on me for posting, in my notes, that MafiaSSK slipped up early on and I was making note of it. I clearly posted that I was writing notes to catch up on the thread but you must have missed that, while picking apart every other word in my posts. Apparently it's ok for you to suspect MafiaSSK, and you'll even explicitly mention it was ok for ChronX to also, but your designated lynch target isn't allowed.

You also have a disturbing trend of trying to get one people's good sides by pointing out how fair and noble you are. Now, I've done this once in a current game of mine, but after I did, and was rightly called for it, I admitted the mistake and I'm being more careful about doing it again. Let me quote some of yours:

I’m willing to take my turn in the hot seat if need be.

Anyone else want to take a stab at me before we move on to other matters?

This is my second game but I spent two months reading the site before I signed up. Also, my IQ is 146. Not yanking my own chain here, just explaining that I am a quick learner.

Not trying to distract from attacks against me, keep ‘em coming if you like.

I do have a rather tame question for you.

And, as always, I invite attacks and suspicions. I'm as likely to be scum as anyone. You may fire when ready. Very Happy

It's starting to get old. I find it odd that ChronX called Incognito for it, but no one's pointed out Ythill doing it to a far greater extent. Also, here's a contradiction which is probably minor, but bothers me:

Fair Warnings: This is my second game, though I’ve read a bunch. I’m playing the n00b card now, so I won’t be tempted to later. Also, I am of the belief that keeping some information secret can be strong town play, so don’t think of it as a scumtell if I tell you, “none of your business,” or some such thing.

This is my second game but I spent two months reading the site before I signed up. Also, my IQ is 146. Not yanking my own chain here, just explaining that I am a quick learner.

I'm new so I'll screw up, but don't worry guys I'm awesome and I'll do everything right.

ChronX

- Early jump from Xtoxm to MafiaSSK seems opportunistic, but it's way too early in the game to think the wagon would succeed. It got quite a bit farther than I expected it to. Early attacks on Ho1den/Incognito show some reaching, but it's early. I'd like some more recent things to go on.

However, since he's gone, well, I'm going to wait to build more here. I will point out it was interesting he was still going after MafiaSSK as late as page 6; but I'm under flak for sounding hostile to him in game notes. He voted him until the end, only unvoting because of his departure. This is both a mark against him, and Ythill was willing to give him a free pass for it, again, on page 6:

Question to the rest of the field: Is my vote on SSK still so out of the realm of realistic?

I never thought the vote was unrealistic.

Also, I'm going to throw in an IGMEOY @ Incongito. But this will be more for day two and beyond.
---------

As mentioned above; they're not in order. Why? Because of the posting length differences between them. I have a lot more case against Ythill, but I'm wondering if that's just because he's played more.

Still, I'm not going to post my analysis and not include a vote, so I have to pick someone.

Vote: Ythill

. Now, is this OMGUS? "Oh My God You Suck", not "Oh My God You Scum", means voting for someone because they made a mistake of voting for you. And you know you're town because of your role PM. It's poor play because others can't go on the information of your PM, and so reflexive voting doesn't give them anything to go on. But arguing a counter-case based on the thread is not OMGUS. So no, I don't consider this to be a problem. In fact, I take issue with Ythill's post here:

IMO, Incog’s interjection was less excusable than Xtoxm’s but me pointing it out aggressively would have seemed OMGUS, reducing the validity of the accusation. I figured I’d leave it for someone who wasn’t on the wagon to bring up, but I guess it’s too late for that now.

You can't attack someone if you're involved? They get a free pass? Well great, I guess you'd better unvote me now, because you wouldn't want to appear to be making an invalid accusation. I think this is a serious red flag. He's overlooking Incognito's behavior selectively. This is the reason for the IGMEOY.

[Shteven]

DS: Your player list was not ordered. I happen to be at the top because I'm player #1, but presenting the full list makes it look like it's a scum list. Could you please either order it by scumminess, include comments on the rest of the players (then order isn't that important, if you mention it's just player by player commentary) or just not list all players?

[Shteven]

I do agree that my behavior could be seen as tunnel vision but insist that my reasons for it are clear. There are no ulterior motives here.

I understand what you mean; I'm not swayed, but I think we've reached agreement on this aspect, for a very liberal meaning of the word agreement, and there isn't much left to say.

Show me where I’ve made a meta-attack. I accused North of lurking, he made a meta defense, I shot it down. This has been explained. Unless you can disprove my explanation, drop it.

This strikes me as exactly like the "accusations" that Justin Playfair made. As long as you don't explictly say "This is an attack" then it's not an attack? You are calling NJH scum in this game partially because it didn't match his other games, where he was presumably town. That's a meta attack. It's very black and white. Perhaps he brought it up first; I could go back and check, but I believe you wouldn't lie about that. But regardless of how it started, it's still an attack at this point. And I'd appreciate not being told what I can and can't talk about, Mr. I'm Controlling The Thread.

[Shteven]

There's several things I need to touch on but I don't have much time right now. So I just thought I'd mention the easy one and put off the rest until tommorow.

The main reason I was suspicious of Incognito was just that Ythill ignored his behavior but went after ChronX for the same thing. Ythill explicitly stated that he was not going to question incog about it; which struck me as odd. The reason it's day 2 is that it's not something incog did himself; it's Ythill's behavior that was out of place. So I'm voting Ythill, and if he comes up scum, then we'll have a link between Incog and known scum. Until then, it's not much to go on. Incog himself hasn't given off any scumtells that I've caught.

[Shteven]

Full responses time! Yay!

Accusing Ythill of tunnel vision seems odd.

I've come to realize that it's not quite tunnel vision. It's a different kind of play style. What he'll do is he'll pick someone and focus on them for a day or two (or three or four). He'll carry out an argument with them fully, and not argue with other players. But after the argument concludes, he'll latch on to another person. He's not really tunneling on one player for the entire in-game day; but rather going one by one through the player list. It's unusual, so when it first settled on me I thought he was tunneling, now, it seems more of a misunderstanding.

I’m curious about this, because nothing Ythill did regarding MafiaSSK makes me believe he ever had even the least intention of pursuing MafiaSSK in any serious fashion.

I think this may be related to the above. MafiaSSK was the first suspicious player, and so he was the natural one to talk about for a while. Ironically, it's probably the same mistake Ythill made by assuming I wanted to lynch him when he came up frequently in notes. I think I need to take a step back and look for some of the less obvious things said in this game; I seem to only be picking up on the easier to spot items.

I’m always curious about morphing attacks, so could you explain in more detail why you think what Ythill did equals what Incognito did?

This one I'm standing by it could use some clarification. This is also the explanation for Incognito's quote.

ChronX accused Incognito of:

Incognito seems to be setting himself up as the town's voice of authority, by answering game setup questions and making lengthy statements about game theory and such. This is often a scum tactic adopted by experienced players in a game with apparent newbs; you establish yourself as the wise man and can direct votes and thought processes later. Fortunately, this will come back to bite him when the inevitable rash of replacements occur and more vets filter into the blend.

The last sentence there still seems a bit creepy to me no matter how often I read it...Anyways, the part of this I'm citing is setting yourself up as the town's voice of authority. Ythill seems to avoid game theory pretty strongly. For the record, I don't think -minor- game theory is a scumtell if it's balanced with game content; it's only if your main contributions to the thread are game theory that you're being evasive/scummy. In a related, yet separate tell, Ythill also posts various I'm-a-saint phrases, which is what was quoted by incognito. I should have separated the two a bit more, I need to work on the flow of my posts. They're a bit more like a bulleted list than a conversation. I don't like him being so grandiose; it feels like a gambit. Trying to build up the you-can-trust-me vibe. I've done it once or twice just from it being a natural tendency in conversations for me, and been called on it. This could also be the case for Ythill, but the sheer number of times he's doing it sets up a very clear pattern that one or two slips wouldn't produce.

Honestly with the updated view on his tunneling (Hopping player by player as a play style, instead of actual tunneling), the above is the main thrust of my case now, and as such, it's significantly weaker. The switch to Incognito is very interesting in particular, because of the previous avoidance. This could be seen as an over reaction, but I think it's again more of a play style thing. Ythill realized there was something wrong there, and as a bit of a perfectionist, he's zealously correcting the error.

In short...I'm really going to have to update my suspicions now. I'll do this soon, but for now: Welcome Kuribo!

[Shteven]

EBWOP: I screwed up the last quote block above. It was said by ChronX.

[Shteven]

First off, in response to recent developments: wow. Game's afoot now. That said I had been busy the past two days so I have some catch up comments to make.

Interesting read Kuribo, although it does get a bit more sparse towards the end. I may take a closer look at Charter, until now I haven't seen anything obvious and didn't really fine-comb him. I can certainly agree with you that DS has been getting a free pass.

With regards to Incognito's defense, I really liked some of his responses:

OMG another hilarious statement! Now you mention that charter has "taken my bait". Hmmm... Wasn't charter's vote on Apyadg the reason you labeled him as definitive town in your Post 98? It's really funny how you're becoming tangled in your own lies.

It's very true that it's hard for you to claim Incognito-scum tried charter into making a vote for nefarious purposes and then also give charter-town brownie points for it, saying that:

Your one serious vote was self-motivated and reasonable.

There's also the post 88 controversy: where does he say a little or a bit odd? It's perfectly fine to paraphrase people's posts, but not if you use quotation marks. And I can't find him saying anything similar, there's no mention of strange or weird either.

In short, I had been lowering suspicions on Ythill (I keep trying to type out Ythrill by the way, please change your name to suit me) since he's no longer tunneling as I thought, but now it seems like he's replacing it with twisting other people's posts oddly.

I hate when people TELL you a vote is just for pressure… And good contribution by Incognito… The dreaded "pressure" is back. How I loathe that… THANK YOU INCOGNITO… Incognito voices one of my own thoughts...

The most cheerleading yet in one post. Considering the play that I’m about to make, I think you had better explain this. That said, I didn’t get much of a scummy vibe from your post. You made some questionable arguments but, in your defense, they were justifications of first impressions based on a very quick read.

I feel that cheerleading is like being defensive. Over defensiveness is bad, but defending is a normal action in a game of mafia. So is telling other people you like/agree with their points. If all the player is doing is posting time again that he likes player A, B and C's posts, then yeah, tell him to provide some comments of his own. But people like to agree with/encourage others, and especially when it comes vote time, it's even required.

That's all for catch-up. Honestly, it seems so out of place now.

I agree that Ythill claimed a bit too soon. I believe he had 3 votes? L-4 is too early to claim anything, especially power roles. I suppose a one-shot isn't too bad of a power role to out since you can fully use your power on the assumption you aren't lynched today, but that is an assumption. You're already planning for the night and we still have a very major decision to make; the day 1 lynch. I understand why you're anxious, sitting on a plan you're proud of is a hard thing. You want to reveal and see it work masterfully sooner rather than later. No offense intended, but I think you're significantly overlooking the townie success rate problem. Any non-information town role (ie, you don't have a cop result) has a very hard time being always right. There's a very high chance you'll just end up killing a townie. Especially on day 1/night 1 - which makes your claim far too soon.

But the biggest problem is the flaw in outcome #4 which has already been mentioned: If the mafia doesn't kill to try to make your claim look false, the only way that it looks false is if you hit town. This is huge. You honestly didn't realize that killing mafia would confirm you on day 2?

It's not really central to the argument, but Justin is right that it would be horrible play for the mafia to give up an certain (barring a doctor existing and protecting correctly) night kill try to cast doubt. Doubt isn't as powerful as a corpse.

I also find it odd that you're listing your two targets every post. Really hammering it in? It's not the repeating that I have an issue with, it's that you are making it so definite. Night kills are never certain until they're submitted to the mod, and broadcasting your choice makes it easier for other forces to counteract you. Let's assume Ythill is town. What if a doctor believes Incognito over you and protects him from your vig? Unlikely, but you're increasing the chances. More likely, you're telling the mafia who they don't have to kill, so they can ensure that they get two night kills tonight. This can be extended to various degrees of WIFOM; you could simply be actively lying and hoping to outsmart the mafia during the night phase. Just remember that everything you say is being read by town and mafia alike; and if you want to spread information to the town, you spread information to the mafia. And if you want to lie to the mafia, you lie to the town. This is why I think you're revealing far too much. Kind of ironic, considering our earlier arguments over town roles revealing information. I never meant to include power roles in that though (those are fine to hide, including night actions of those power roles).

On a largely unrelated note, I'm going to throw out a quick

FOS: Disciple Slayer

because you've been laying low and not giving us much to go on.

And I think you're capable of doing more.

But despite some real shaking up going on, I'm alright with leaving my vote on Ythill.

[Shteven]

*mutter* I had been getting error pages about the site exceeding CPU. I suppose it's not that important, but for the record I FOS'ed DS before I saw the other two do it also. Call it a matter of pride

[Shteven]

I'm going to agree with Justin Playfair; his post strikes me as quite insightful. I don't really trust Ythill, but killing him today doesn't remove the mafia's night kill and it could remove the town's night kill. The potential gain of a dead scum + reasonably confirmed townie (for as long as he'd live afterwards) is a pretty strong gain. I do also agree that the claim seemed to be made for more personal than altruistic reasons, but you don't hang your teammates over something like that. We're all on the same boat here, except for those who aren't!

So,

Unvote: Ythill.

And I don't have any problem going ahead with a

Vote: Disciple Slayer

.

[Shteven]

If DS is the way votes are going I'll be happy to swap my vote.

I recommend it!

[Shteven]

Being as my last post was somewhat atypical and secretive, I figured I'd throw in a wall of text here to get back to the normal order of things.

Regarding Ythill/Incognito: I think Incognito is being earnest here; and I am less certain that Ythill is. Yet, it's true what Ythill said about his (too early) claim being provable; and as Justin mentioned, the town has

a lot

to gain in the case that his claim really is true. However, if we do collectively decide to let their argument be handled in the night time phase, as I think we should, then we still have the immediate concern of who to lynch day one, before the holy wrath of the mod deadlines us.

To that end, I really don't trust Disciple Slayer. He is lurking; but more than that, he is purposefully lurking. It seems to suit him well. He promises more content at a later date, only to let it pass and continue to slide by. It's quite frankly textbook in my opinion. His arguments seem disconnected from reality and don't jive with those of at least a significant minority of the town. For example:

There was no way MafiaSSK's initial vote could have been a serious one. Come on, who finds someone suspicious at the beginning of the random voting stage? That was obviously a joke vote.

Both Apyadg and Ho1den immediately disagreed with this in the following two posts. It should be pointed out that Apyadg was the one that DS was attacking, just for the record. I also sided against DS although only later, once I had replaced into the thread, since this post predates my joining the game.

I remain suspicious of Apyadg to a certain degree, but not nearly as much as DS. DS's only votes in the game have been for Apyadg (possible distancing, possibly not) and then he followed Ythill's case and voted for me. Since then he's committed two more errors. First, the player listing that wasn't informative in any way, as it only contained any information at all about one player, myself. And much more importantly, an out-of-the-blue attempt to get a mass roleclaim on day one. This has to be one of the worst tells I've ever seen. I have only played in a handful of games, and I am almost always wrong day 1 lynches. The only time I was actually right on a day 1 lynch was in the just-recently-abandoned open 50. Sammich did a player by player analysis, and said he thought I was a doctor. I called him on the role fishing and went after him for it. Though the game never completed, the post game discussion revealed he was actually scum. DS has attempted to get the same power role reveal here, and I intend to see him hang for it.

I'm already voting for him, so there's no new vote casting down here. I encourage others to do the same.

[Shteven]

Wow. Simulpost with Justin. Stop reading my thoughts, damnit. The posts are 6 minutes apart, but I promise you it took me more than 6 minutes to write my post. Remind me to start re-checking the thread the second before I make posts.

[Shteven]

Interestingly enough, having just read Justin's case, it's entirely non-redundant with mine. I should have paid more attention to that final post of his; in any case, my hat's off to Justin.

[Shteven]

@mafiaSSK: I use Firefox, and I'm sure a decent percentage of players here do. I suspect there may be something wrong with your setup/installation; but without information about it I can't be any more specific. Try to fix it, but in the end, if you can't, the replacement may be needed.

@Ythill: Orginally I was thinking that it may not be in our best interest to expose our night plan to the mafia members who would be most interested in it, but I think I may be able to come up with something that works. Sadly I just went out with a friend for a bit, and it's now 1:30am, so I'll get on this tommorow. Still, be aware there are evil eyes reading your night plans, so they either have to be completely foil-proof or else you're better of not using them.

[Shteven]

Scum power roles are very uncommon. I don't recall seeing any in a non-theme game I've been in. I'm sure they're out there. They are showing up in a new format for newbie games now, but still; they aren't that common. My assumption would be that we don't have any mafia role blockers. It's only worth mentioning because it is a possibility which would undermine the provability of Ythill's claim, which could be a problem day 2.

@Ythill: An attempt was made to keep this short:

Killing your announced target gives you the best chance of failing due to a doctor protection. Killing an unexpected target gives you the best chance of double-killing with the mafia. Both of these are unlikely cases, and aren't central to the choice.

Your power has a significant, likely chance (72% under the assumption of 3 scum and random night kill choice, and that Ythill won't target himself and that he is a pro-town vig) to actually HARM the town. It is not something that should be used lightly. I'm sure you can do better than 72% based on information, but this is only day 1, and you don't have all that much to go on. I've said it before, so I'll be brief, but this is why a day 1 claim is too early, especially unpressured. Not killing anyone at all is actually what I would have recommended; better to have some bodies to use as evidence before you select more to die. But now you're more or less forced to use it, which is why the claim was wrong.

Cutting out a whole paragraph here; suffice it to say, don't bother trying to guess who the mafia will kill and avoiding that person; it won't work. Go by who you think is the scummiest.

So what it boils down to is that you're asking us all to vote for two people today. Because we're already voting for who we think is scummiest; and then the night kill would go to the second scummiest person. But then you've even assigned DS as the scummiest person, so you're asking for second choices. My second choice is a bit harder to give, as there's several people who are close. Ythill, Apyadg, Xtoxm, MafiaSSK. Honestly I'm not that suspicious of Incognito. You're obviously not going to kill yourself, and I'm not looking to kill you before your claim can be proven. Claus needs more time to catch up, but ChronX would have been a good choice. So, in order of targets you'd actually choose (not yourself):

<no vig action> (best choice if unclaimed)
DS (if he's not lynched)
Apyadg/Xtoxm
ChronX
MafiaSSK

Making a vig kill tonight is tantamount to proclaiming you're already certain who two scum are. I don't think anyone can be that good, honestly. You may, however, be that lucky.

Anyways, there you have it. I feel that you are using this more to hunt for scum tells than for assistance in night actions, which is a bit backhanded, but excusable. I also am noting a fairly low participation in it, which may hinder its effectiveness, regardless of purpose. It's somewhat ironic; especially after having typed this, but I still think you're better off doing this alone.

[Shteven]

Also, my IQ is 146.

Ythill: IQ 147 boy

Wow! You gain 1 IQ point for each game of mafia? I'm going to be a genius!

Glad to see you've caught up, and your reads are pretty consistant with mine. Main players we disagree on would probably be Kuribo and Justin. Kuribo's struck me as pretty solid town so far - Fishing for direction probably isn't as solid a tell as fishing for power roles, but it there could be something there. If he's wrong and vig's a town role then he can lay out the case based on what people told him day 1. It may not help him avoid a lynch anyways. In general keeping the mafia in the dark about town power role choices is a good thing. I suppose my post could have been summed up with "Hit who you think is scummiest, but you're probably going to be wrong, so wait until night 2, except you can't now."

I've played another game with Justin and his posts and attacks took the same form. He was after me for so long I had to ask him to give reads on other players. If you want to see some really long posts, read a few posts from here down. Just skim; they're huge. He was town there; that doesn't prove anything here, but I'd put him in the unlisted section for now.

Sorry for the verbosity!

[Shteven]

@ Shteven: promise me you will join me for a conversation about vig tactics once this game is complete. Pretty please? I think it would be both fun and enlightening.

Certainly.

And no, you're not rushing day 1. You're just getting ahead of us and discussing night 1. This isn't the same thing; but it's easily confused, and I think the mistake was honest.

[Shteven]

I am comfortable with a D1 Ythill lynch.

[snip]

Obviously you are either too unintelligent to understand logic, or pretending the same to be true. Either way, arguing with you is pointless. I will henceforth be ignoring everything you say about me (and probably the rest of your spew), at least until day two.

If anyone wants me to address anything kuribo brings up, please restate it.

Ythill, I'm quite a bit disappointed here. Supporting your own lynch is always bad play; and the other quoting post pretty much qualifies as harassment imho. Your posting has degraded on this page, and I'm hoping you'll stop it. I've thought you overconfident for a while now, but you're starting to get far too self-righteous here.

You don't have to agree with or even like Kuribo, but saying "nah nah nah nah I'm right and you're wrong and I'M NOT LISTENING" has to be one of the most childish things I've seen here. I'd probably vote you if I believed in policy lynching.

[Shteven]

The below need to be prodded.

4. MafiaSSK
5. charter
6. Ho1den
10. Disciple Slayer
12. Apyadg

Only 6 players made posts on page 14. Probably because of a lot of back and forth, but when you're trying to get answers mainly on people who aren't here, it's hard to move forward. Getting less certain about charter/ho1den as well, if they're willing to lurk. If mafiaSSK doesn't post much soon I'd probably just replace him in spite of his last post, also. Mod's decision final, of course.

[Shteven]

What do you think of Xtoxm? I think I'd like a few opinions regarding the things I've pointed out, and his repeated defense of Ythill.

Personally I've been suspicious of him for a bit, as I think I gave him a bit too much of a pass early on after I saw him being helpful. Being helpful is nice, you catch more flies with honey, etc. But it's a null-tell, and I shouldn't give him townie points for it. That said, I haven't seen any smoking guns like DS has laid down on a fairly regular basis, so all I have is suspicion with no case, hence I'd much rather see DS lynched.

Also, mini-fos: Kuribo. What points against Xtoxm? the best I can find is when you vote him suggesting that there could be a mafia roleblocker, vaguely in defense of Ythill. You've been pretty solidly against Ythill since joining, which I understand, but voting by association on day 1 is very risky. Ythill may stall his case with his claim, but I'd wait until he's proven scum to go hunting for his partners. On his own, Xtoxm just hasn't done much.

[Shteven]

All of those but DS were prodded very recently. Only SSK posted since, so charter, holden, and apyadg need replacing.

Entirely likely. If they have, replace. Sorry to the mod for having to find so many replacements!

[Shteven]

I’ve already said I don’t consider my own certainty foolproof and I would be pretty surprised to find that all three of you were scum though I think it’s a safe bet that at least one of you are, which opens up a ton of scenarios.

Where "all three of you" means Myself, Incognito, and DS.

I'm not going to hold this against you, but you're making a rather empty claim here. Assuming you are a pro-town role, the probability of none of 3 randomly selected players being scum is 34%. It's much harder to be right the first time, which would usually go without saying, but as you're claiming a vig, I felt it would be appropriate to mention yet again.

[Shteven]

I'd certainly at the very least skim the entire thread. If someone tells you a case is closed, well, that's only as reliable as their word, which you can't trust. If you're looking for highlights, though, you should certainly look over Ythill's role claim closely, as well as current cases on Incognito, DS, Xtoxm. There's some suspicion on others, of course, but those are the three I hear the most on the last few pages. Personally, I think DS is our best shot.

[Shteven]

Apyadg asking what type of scumhunting people want I think is suspicious...

Isn't it just...scumhunting...Who you think is scum and why...

I actually prefer this response to mine.

[Shteven]

Perhaps I can clear up some confusion. Kuribo used "quotation marks" instead of a

block quote

to more loosely quote what he wanted to reference. He wasn't making an actual quote, which players here often use the block quotes for. However, Xtoxm thought he was, which is perfectly valid, because they are, after all,

quotation marks

. Kuribo then repeated the error, in a tongue in check fashion, by "requoting" (and by this I mean re-paraphrasing) him a second time. This was a subtle admission of guilt, but it really doesn't settle the matter in a clear fashion.

In fact, I think it's pretty much derailing the thread at this point, and while I haven't had much new to add over the past few days, hopefully we can put this behind us and get back to lynching DS. Thank you.

[Shteven]

Claus wrote:
And are you REALLY trying to argue that Xtomx is more verbose/less direct than you?

I can’t even argue that Shteven is more verbose than me. I’m only left with Ythill on that score. But that isn’t the statement I was replying to. It was this:

What? there's a verbose war, and you claim I'm winning? Or is that losing...heh. Anyways, I've been trying to keep the posts down.

Largely I'm waiting for the few replacements. I would be comfortable lynching at this point if we weren't going to have replacements; if others are coming in we'll want to wait for them to catch up and post a few thoughts before deciding on a lynch. I'm still happy with my current vote.

[Shteven]

New tactic: The last person to respond to this is scum. Everyone post something now to say hi. If you don't, you're guilty!

Post people, post!

[Shteven]

I'm not a huge fan of meta either. The similarities here are pretty obvious, but what isn't obvious is the secondary assertion: the his behavior was related to his role, and not simply him as a player. A lot of players who are new/abandon games under pressure aren't really doing it because of their role, but rather how well they play the game.

It's easy and pretty natural to take an attack in mafia personally, it can take some practice to distance yourself from your role, whether it's town or scum. Also, some people lose interest in a failing cause; and whether you're town or scum, if you're lynched, you lose - on a personal level. Your team may still win, but for the newer player, that means your involvement is over and feels like a loss.

The gambler's fallacy is just that - a fallacy. It's especially interesting here though because this is not a 50/50 chance. Mafia roles, just by the numbers, are about 25%. So to get the 25% chance twice is unlikely, but calling it unlikely is just as much of a fallacy as saying he's town. Really, if the roles are random as they should be, just ignore this concept entirely.

[Shteven]

Some obvious things I can agree with: yeah, no sk. Very unlikely to have two doctors, so it's a scum group with one dead now.

As for looking over the list, it's a good idea, but I'd go about it a slightly different way. Scum usually hinge their bets on such lists; so it's likely the the other scum are spread out on the list. Focusing on just the nice or just the naughty won't help much. Same probably goes for the middle of the road ones, but I suppose that's a personal opinion. What I would do is look at the comments he left on each, and see if his reasoning for that person seems to be faked. Whose summary doesn't match their reality?

A lot harder to see, but hey, I didn't say I had all the answers

Bit late to be rereading now, but I'll give some thoughts on who to go for this weekend.

@MOD:

Ythill's role said vigilante, without mention of one-shot. Is it true he only had one shot, or could he kill multiple nights?

[Shteven]

Incognito is on the naughty list, and Claus stated that they had once been scum together. Firstly, it seems unlikely for lightning to strike twice. Even without that meta argument, I think leading us down that road would be stupid, even if you're bussing him.

I realize even you don't put much stock in this probability argument, but it's inherently flawed. If you flip a coin and get heads, what's the chance of you getting heads on the next flip? Still 50%. One game/coin flip does not effect the other in any way.

[Shteven]

Something that struck me as odd was Ythill's target being Claus. He was first attacking me early day 1, then moved on to incognito for a solid length of time. If he made any other major strikes, please remind me. But when he was briefly listing his vig targets, it was Incognito first, then me. By nightfall, he didn't choose either of these. It could be that his targets were always a lie, meant to deceive mafia, or could be that he changed his mind going into the night. Night decisions are always best made at night, when you have the complete information of the day.

I wonder if he was trying to protect us? I.e. the mafia wouldn't kill incognito if they feared a double kill, and to a lesser extent, wouldn't kill his FOS if they thought he may go with his second choice. It does seem pretty odd to go after us for so long and then reverse so completely at the end, though, so this may just be a crackpot theory.

[Shteven]

Also, the fact that only two people died last night, we could probably state pretty confidently that there's not an SK in the game. The doctor died on Day 1 so nobody could have been protected and so I think the maximum amount of possible deaths happened last night.

Or SK could be any one of the 4 inactives. I actually think there is, as Vig is a strong town role to be having in a game like this. Or the SK could have targeted Claus/Ythill.

Vig is a strong role, but that doesn't mean you have to have an SK to balance it. We could have no cop, we could have mafia roleblockers, or it could even be 1 cop/1vig/1doc vs 3 scum. I wouldn't consider that unbalanced, really. Vigs can often kill town. I wish we hadn't lost Ythill so early from his gambit, but I'll admit he killed scum and thus the gambit was worth it. I'd rather he killed two scum, but in any case, he was successful. Claiming to only have one shot was a pretty clever idea.

Anyways, I don't think talking about a possible SK is really going to help things, only distract. It will be easily proven night 2, with the vig dead and the mafia making one kill.

[Shteven]

Very interesting mason claim. I do believe you, which means the possible scum is getting narrower. A shame he's gone inactive, having someone who you know is on your side makes finding mafia a lot more reliable.

I'm not really agreeing with Xtoxm lately; for example, I don't think mason increases our chances of an SK. I think it decreases the chances we have a cop. I also don't think I'm scum, obviously! Charter I'm going to wait for his replacement (Welcome, Gorgon) before deciding.

That said, I don't think these disagreements point to him as scum. I am much more wary of Apyadg. I will hold off voting until we can get a replacement, but if I'm feeling suitably un-lazy tomorrow, I may post a much fuller case on why Apyadg is my (current) choice for today.

[Shteven]

Just curious: Incognito: Why did you feel now was the time to come out with a mason claim?

[Shteven]

Sometimes masons are guaranteed pro-town, like cops are promised to be sane. It isn't necessary, but usually it's true and if it's not sometimes the PM will even go so far as to remind you: "alignment is not assured."

I had made the same assumption, actually. It's good to keep in mind that he may still be scum, but I'll put him down as "likely" town.

[Shteven]

I have stated that I think there is going to be one scum on the naughty list. Apyadg. And one on the nice. Stheven/Gorgon (Charter).

I can see Shteven paired with Claus.

[underline mine]

Why?

[Shteven]

It's not often I get defended before I can respond. Doesn't bother me much, but it reminds me of the earlier mafiaSSK/Xtoxm controversy.

And yes, it is a pretty weak case, but Xtoxm is right that he hasn't oversold it. Without checking exact drop-out times, I would imagine there are also several others who dropped out around the same time, as we had about 5 inactives on day 1 if I recall. So that could link to Apyadg, or MafiaSSK, or DS. Of course, DS was the doctor...

I didn't talk much to Claus, but he wasn't around for very long in the grand scheme of things. We didn't have much disagreements to work out; he placed me on his nice list. In hindsight this might not have been as nice a thing as I thought since he came up scum, but I didn't see anything to take issue with it at the time. Looking back at it, it does seem a bit -too- positive. I get the sense he was trying to buddy up with me, actually.

[Shteven]

How about, instead, you tell us what you think of day 2 events? Who are you suspicious of? Contribute, and ye shall be rewarded*!


*Maybe.

[Shteven]

I would support an Apyadg lynch, but I would much rather prefer not to lynch someone who isn't here to post for themselves. We already mislynched once doing that, and risking another is a high cost.

I'm going to wait this one out for a little while; either a replacement or a magical reappearance...It worked with mafiaSSK, although he's somewhat unhelpful.

[Shteven]

And I really can't see town having any more powers.

"More" power roles than what? A single vig?

DS was the doctor.

I could see a third power role, but yes it's likely that those are the only 2.

[Shteven]

To answer Kuribo, I had forgotten to list the masons because masons aren't a very powerful role. But they are certainly useful, and I do believe them.

This does make the possibility of a cop even more remote, yes. So it's probably true we have no more power roles to lose...but why are we focusing on it so much?

Maybe it's just the general slowdown because I'm not fond of an Xtoxm lynch but would support Apyadg, except for him not being active.

Mod: Can we get an update on prod/pending replacement status?

[Shteven]

The claim had the beneficial effect, though: we pretty much all agree that they aren't scum, so now the possible list of scum is that much shorter. Knocking two people off is a dramatic improvement from a simple random chance view. With only 9 people living, there's 7 possible scum, and 2 are really scum. About a 28% chance per person, instead of 22%.

So yes, the claim was oddly timed, but in the end I think it helped quite a bit. Can we move on, though? The 28% still won't find themselves.

[Shteven]

Odd, I thought we had settled that a long time ago. About the only person who thinks otherwise is Xtoxm, who's holding out for the possibility of there being an SK. And he said he'd wait for day 3 to see if there were two kills. Anyways, it's been brought up before:

I stand by the connection to holdem, but I since I don't feel SSK is scum, it's just two people who are interacting. Possible scum on holdem, but very low. He probably won't even make top 3 (and since there's 3 scum...you do the math).

How do you know this?

How do you know there's 2 scum in a newbie game? These are balanced setups. This is not a theme game. The kind of people who are afraid to say the obvious for fear of implication are not pro-town. I consider this jab opportunistic, although it's minor.

[Shteven]

Shteven, the difference between a newbie game and this game is that a newbie game is a semi-open setup, whereas this is a closed setup. In semi-open, we're told flat-out from the get-go that there are two scum.

That's true, this is a closed setup. But I wonder if you'd like to wager a guess as to how many scum we have? Something like "5% chance of 2 scum, 90% chance of 3 scum, and 5% chance of 4 scum" maybe. Of course, I don't see us having 4 scum at all, but 2 scum could be a (very remote) possibility. Perhaps going ahead and calculating exact probabilities off assuming a 3 scum team is a bit extreme, but I really don't see how you can assume we don't have one.

Shteven tried to gloss over Day 1 interactions by saying:

How about, instead, you tell us what you think of day 2 events?

This was addressed to MafiaSSK, who hasn't posted anything helpful all day. I am not trying to get anyone to not talk about day 1, I was trying to get him to say SOMETHING. Your attack here is a clear distortion. I generally consider talking about the ending of day 1 to be day 2 discussion as well, but that doesn't really come into play here when I was just trying to get our here-but-not-posting MafiaSSK to contribute something.

That right there seems like he's saying, "I should respond, but I don't want to draw a possible link between us."

It was more that I just didn't have anything much to talk to him about. We happened to have a fairly compatible view of who was innocent and who wasn't. If I wanted to get away with not talking about him, I think I would have simply not mentioned that, rather than explicitly stating it.

Then, there's the post following Claus' NK:

As for looking over the list, it's a good idea, but I'd go about it a slightly different way. Scum usually hinge their bets on such lists; so it's likely the the other scum are spread out on the list. Focusing on just the nice or just the naughty won't help much.

Gee, I wonder why we should disregard his Naughty/Nice designations? Could it be because he made a mistake in listing his scum partner as nice? Maybe, maybe not.

Funny, that was exactly my point. Maybe, maybe not. Maybe Claus is a cross dresser*, maybe he isn't. You have to -show- that he is or isn't. Just saying "Well he might be" is not helpful in the least. Guessing that he put scum partners in the nice list is fine, but then let's take it to it's logical conclusion. What do you think of Xtoxm/Charter because of their inclusion on the nice list? How do you feel about Apyadg being in naughty, when many people consider him scum (or any of the other naughty players)? What the hell should we do about the unlisted players? And why should we trust what you have to say about the unlisted players when you are one of them?

And finally, just because you seem so intent to give me hell about it, you said "his scum partner," singular. So, there's a two mafia team, and Kuribo is the second mafia? Don't you mean partners?

*I am not claiming Claus is a cross dresser.

[Shteven]

Look at what Kuribo said precisely:

Gee, I wonder why we should disregard his Naughty/Nice designations? Could it be because he made a mistake in listing his scum partner as nice? Maybe, maybe not.

He's not singling me out by name, Xtoxm. He never said "Shteven is his scum partner" which would be singular, but rather "Claus listed his scum partner" which means that Claus only has one scum partner in the game. It is exactly the "mistake" he's after me for. He should have said "Claus listed one of his scum partners". Normally I wouldn't care at all about such a mistake; it's utterly trivial. But he's being a hypocrite because he's trying to hang me over the same thing.

He's using the Nice list to look for scum, and then conveniently settling on only one person. What about the rest of the list? What about the third scum? Is the third scum on the nice list? Do you want to dispute their being three scum?

Ythill's already dead, and was pro-town. The nice list doesn't have many other choices. It only leaves Charter(Gorgon) and Xtoxm. How do you feel about Charter(Gorgon)/Xtoxm, Kuribo? Do you really feel that it would make any sense for scum to place his team entirely in one category rather than spread them out?

The point of all this is that chopping the list in half (or 1/3) is just blinding you to half of the players. It's no solid basis for a case. You can mention it sure, but the case shouldn't depend on it in the least. It's entirely WIFOM.

Why, when did he out another one? I said singular because if you're scum, then he hasn't outted partnerS, just a partner.

Please explain how my mere existence on the nice list "outs" me. And how then he has not also "outted" Ythill, Xtoxm, and Charter(Gorgon).

[Shteven]

You're right he had to put Ythill on the nice list; my point of mentioning him being there was just to point out that the nice list was getting rather short. But let's put that aspect behind us; sorry for focusing on it so much.

Other than the nice list, the "there's 3 scum" issue, is there anything else you'd like me to discuss?

I recall you mentioned me voting for DS - this is true. I was wrong; but so was the majority of the game, and nearly everyone who was active was voting for him. The people who didn't vote for him were the people who weren't playing. His case on me was extremely weak (I particularly didn't like his pointless listing of the 12 players when he only bothered to comment on me) and he was role fishing. I'm disappointed he was town, and even more so that he was the doctor, but based on the information at the time it was the right decision.

[Shteven]

P.S. I'm still favoring a Apyadg lynch once he's replaced. On Kuribo I agree with Gorgon - probably town.

[Shteven]

491. Shteven says it is odd that Ythill attacked CLaus. Do we know that as a fact? If there is a mafia-role blocker, he would have targetted Ythill, the SK could have targetted Claus meanwhile. What is the likelyhood of this?

Calling someone's vig target "odd" isn't really a fact that can be proven. However, he did list his vig targets initially after he claimed as Incognito first and me second. So one of two things happened:
1) Later events in the day either pushed myself/incognito down or Claus up.
2) He was lying so the mafia/doctor wouldn't know who he was targeting. Maybe he was afraid the doctor would try to protect his target if the doctor thought the target was town.

Roleblocker is interesting, and something I hadn't really considered. Which I should have, as I'm playing newbie 539, which is Pie E7. I'm not sure if the mafia would have wanted to roleblock AND kill Ythill, especially if they thought his target would be a town member. Then again, they didn't have too many other choices. Finally, I just don't really see a SK, unless we get two NK's again, I'm not worried about it for now.

492. Shteven gives also a more possibilities of line-up I think it is to early to use lineup considerations now Shteven implies that Ythill lied about his one-shot vig, but that is speculation, mods do not specify all details of a role at the deadscene. Vig could be one-time vig, odd nights vig, ...

You're correct, it's too early for line-up speculation. Which makes your response to 491 strange. As well as my just above response. Hmmm... Just pointing out the hypocrisy I was happy enough to join. As for one shot vs regular vig, I guess I'll just have to wait, as I didn't get a response and I assume that was deliberate. It doesn't really matter much going forward.

Most of the rest of your post I like. I'm a bit uncertain who this neutral faction would be if it's not an SK, but well, let's bring that up day 3.

[Shteven]

I REALLY don't like your discarding of Claus's list.

Also, there can't be a nurse otherwise Ythill would still be alive. Unless...If an SK AND mafia targetted Ythill, and a doc protected, would the overkill still kill him, or would the doc's protection save from both? I assume it's the latter, it makes more sense.

Doctor protection is almost universally only good for 1 kill. 2 kills + 1 doc protection is still a kill.

Also, I've got a proposal. It seems like half of us are ready to swear by Claus' list, and the other half think it's useless. I'd like to see people start making cases based on what he said, rather than what group their target was in.

[Shteven]

Also, I've got a proposal. It seems like half of us are ready to swear by Claus' list, and the other half think it's useless. I'd like to see people start making cases based on what he said, rather than what group their target was in.

You continue to gloss over my reasoning by saying that I'm "swearing by" the list. I don't think it should be disregarded, but it's definitely a useful tool when combined with other things that have been said and done.

You make it seem as if I looked at the list and worked backwards from there. That wasn't the case.

In post 576 I asked about that.

Other than the nice list, the "there's 3 scum" issue, is there anything else you'd like me to discuss?

What else do you want me to answer? Sorry, haven't felt like digging lately

Also, and you aren't the only one to mention it, I suppose swearing by might have been a bit strong, no need to take that so literally. I think I got a bit too emotionally involved in my defense lately, I'll try to be a bit more level.

[Shteven]

Before I go farther, though, I would like to see what some other folks think about the specifics of what Claus wrote. And I want to ask you a question, Shteven. My posts to Claus and Xtoxm about what I saw as the inaccurate contradictions in Claus’ opinions about me and Xtoxm were just sitting up there in thread. There’s been a lot of water under the bridge since then, so it seems quite possible that you weren’t thinking about that discussion when you made this request, but since you’re under a little bit of pressure right now it might be possible that this was your way of wanting to move it elsewhere. So could you give us your version of what you’ve requested from the rest of us? And could you explain more fully why you decided to make this specific request (not a request for us to move onto other topics, but a request to make cases based on what Claus posted) at this time?

I was hoping to elevate the level of discussion. Also, I personally don't feel there's much meat on just his list alone. Most players got two lines. That's not to say that Claus's text isn't helpful - I just think we need to look at the greater range of it. And I've been guilty on this charge also, I haven't committed to rereading it before now. Here goes.

He starts with a summary of the thread, pretty simplistic and factual. Then the famous list. Most of these are non-controversial reads. He really wasn't looking to stir the pot. I really feel that if you are looking to "hide" a scum partner, the best place to do it is in the unlisted section. I'm going to wait before I come to a conclusion on Hjallti (Ho1den), but for now I'm leaning towards Kuribo on this count. My other suspects are split: Xtoxm in nice, Jester (Apyadg) in naughty.

Next up he goes over some minor things with Ythill, throws some suspicion on Apyadg (perhaps I'm wrong?). Next up are his answers to Justin over the claim that Justin is playing soft. For the record, I don't feel that justin is playing soft - but I think his long posts get skimmed over by most players. A shame, and I may fall victim to the same thing, but he does go after people in detailed conversations. Just because he won't vote until he's talked to someone for a while doesn't mean he's not aggressive.

In his post #386 he's rounding up his replies to various people, and this is his last hefty post before his death. He's glad Incognito finally voted Apyadg (I'm really reconsidering this one now). The rest of the response doesn't seem to helpful to me - We already know Claus is scum and I'm believing Incoginto as town, so the two of them arguing doesn't add much to my read. The arguments with Justin seem very odd to me. He's upset that he's talking about other players while not voting for them. I've mentioned about half of the players in this game during this post, I'm clearly not voting for all of them. I think most of their problem was just a disagreement over how long you're supposed to talk to each other before you should follow it up with a vote. Good thing he's dead - look at all this text without a vote!

In summary, I don't find anything here really pointing to scum. I do, however, come away less suspicious of Incognito (who I already believed) and Apyadg (Jester). My suspects at the moment would then be just Xtoxm and Kuribo. More on them another day.

[Shteven]

My suspects at the moment would then be just Xtoxm and Kuribo. More on them another day.

So is it just coincidence that you thought I was town until I turned my attention to you? Or is voting for you a scumtell in your mind?

No, but if I'm going to take heat for saying that people were swearing by claus' list, you should take some for such a silly assertion as well.

I liked your initial entry to the game - and disagreed with Ythill who was much more antagonistic towards you. Now he's proven town, so I may take a closer look at that, but for now, let's continue with my reads.

Post 353: "Also, mini-fos: Kuribo." Opportunistic charge against Xtoxm based on association with Ythill. I dislike people going for connections to yet-unproven alignments of others. Ythill was town, so where does that leave Xtoxm now?

Then you made the "it's unlikely two players will be scum partners two games in a row" post. I realize it wasn't meant to be definitive, but it's a load of bull. See my post 490 for your post (quoted) and my response. As a sidenote: you were once again clearing incognito in part due to him being on the naughty list. You really do like that list, yes?

In post 540 (again my response, you're quoted) you missed the fact we lost the doctor in your count of power roles. Not really sure if this is a scumtell or not, but it's an inaccuracy. A little while later on, I left out the masons, so no one's perfect.

You then misrepresented my attempts to get MafiaSSK to join the conversation. I asked him what he thought of day 2 and you took it to mean I was trying to bar him from talking about day 1. In case you haven't noticed, any posting from him would be an improvement.

It is entirely true that when Gorgon said he thought you were town, I agreed. You are "probably town". I'm not voting for you yet. I'm merely saying that I don't trust you quite as much as I did before. Attacking someone isn't a scum tell, but if you are spreading misinformation or being overly opportunistic about it, then it is. I haven't taken the time to build a solid case against anyone yet on day 2, so I'm still collecting information.

Some of your attacks haven't felt that genuine to me. But I think my agreement with Gorgon might have been a bit hasty, having gone back and looked at our history. I just don't have anything solid yet.

[Shteven]

Hey, the right side of you is still intact, right?

Anyways, I really liked this paragraph from Jester:

Now assume that Incognito is town. When Ythill turns up innocent, what did he say? "Ooops."? Hee! I haven't gotten there in my reading, but I can't wait to read this. I certainly hope someone else pointed out this obvious problem, particularly given the pointing out of logic flaws that made posts 218 through 257 such a slog. For a townie, it's again an incredibly ballsy play because Incognito apparently gives no thought whatsoever to what happens to him if... and I know this is crazy... if Ythill is telling the truth. 'cept for the minor problem that Ythill was telling the truth! Only a truly innocent, pure, crusading for scum blood townie could fail to miss this minor problem.

I fall into this pitfall constantly. I wouldn't say I really drove DS by myself in this game day 1, but I was certainly a significant part of it. Another of my current games, I was entirely driving the day 1 mislynch. I've come to realize what I call the stupid townie problem, but I still haven't managed to kick the habit. It's very easy to get caught up in your beliefs and not realize you're going off nothing but a read. I'm trying to be more careful these days. I'm still collecting information for day 2 here. I probably won't find much conclusive without rereading, but having you sum up events is a good refresher. Between these comments and the digging into Claus's attacks on your replaced player, I'm starting to feel you're town pretty strongly. Now if only I could find someone being scummy.

[Shteven]

I don't really see Claus attacking Apy that hard. Do you?

It wasn't that hard, no. Just hard enough to try to get a wagon going, not hard enough to get him lynched when Apyadg came up town. This is generally smart scum play - he just got vigged in the mean time.

Some of your scummy marks against Apyadg are solid reasoning; but only one can be true. He's either scum or not. In the end you're leaning town as well, so no problem there. I think he's made mistakes, but they were just newbie mistakes. Hell, even non-newbies make mistakes sometimes. People were a bit too harsh on him.

I agree Claus/JP seemed genuinely antagonistic - I think JP's pretty clean. I think a lot of their arguments came down to playstyle differences and thus they aren't really that game relevant, sadly. It could be Claus trying to get into game theory discussions, but I didn't see much else of that from Claus so I don't think there's much to this.

Regarding Xtoxm I've already had my doubts, and that his entry on the nice list was pretty disconnected from his postings is true. Having only cast one vote, but talked about many people...it's just a bit odd. But what Claus said makes sense - he was commenting mostly on Xtoxm's playstyle, without saying anything about this particular game. He makes short posts, this is true, but it's also useless for scum hunting.

[Shteven]

Jester does make it seem possible, but I'm still leaning on this option:

The doc was included to protect the vig, we have no cop, and we started with three mafia scum. Two mafia left, no SK.

I don't think two masons are nearly as useful as something like 2 cops would be, so just calling it 4 power roles (5 if we have a cop) is misleading. Maybe count the pair as one power role? In any case, I wouldn't think that vig/doc/masons vs 3 scum is unbalanced. Add a cop, and maybe slightly townish, but nothing I'd be upset over if I was scum. Still pretty fair.

[Shteven]

Shteven. Of Shteven, Ythill says, "the majority of the tells I uncovered regarding he and his predecessor were dropped while defending and under pressure which, IMO, makes them less reliable". I disagree. In my experience, tells dropped under pressure are the most reliable... if you know how to read them.

I imagine this is coming up in post #3 anyways, but just in case:

1) What do you mean by if you know how to read them? I wouldn't mind some useful tips on how to find scum if you're willing to teach your secrets

2) What then, do you think of me? What tells in particular did you see and is there any confusion I can clear up/questions that need an answer?

[Shteven]

Jester says:

Then Shteven jumped in, and his own play, if anything, started out even weirder. Here's an excerpt from his 163:

I am never happy to mislynch anyone. I've mislynched townies after they claimed a power role, then re-claimed a non-power role and admitted to lying. It's still a dead townie. However, mislynches are designed into the game. There's a reason town outnumbers scum (roughly, depending on setup) 3:1. You just can't be right all the time. Some mislynches are worse than others. I would never be proud of it, but I think a MafiaSSK mislynch wouldn't be as bad as some others, mainly due to the shallowness of his answers.

I'm trying really hard not to read this as, "Yes, MafiaSSK would be a mislynch, but it would be a good mislynch!" Ummmm... huh?

I said:

If the town gets desperate and can find no better targets, it might be instructive to lynch MafiaSSK. He's completely useless as a scum-hunter, and lynching him would either definitely prove or definitely disprove Incognito's innocence. If Incognito is innocent, the mafia would have to respond by killing him the next night, but if we kept that day going for a while, we could potentially learn some really interesting things, plus all of Incognito's (long) posts would be confirmed as truth as he sees it. Right now, MafiaSSK might be worth more to the town dead than alive.

I don't see how he can believably have a problem with what I've said. Also, I specifically said it would bad to mislynch; calling it a "good lynch" is a big jump from "some mislynches are worse than others".

I'll get around to most of the other points soon, but this one was extremely weak and I couldn't wait. Just when I was starting to trust Jester, he manages to keep it interesting!

[Shteven]

EBWOP:

*mutter* the jester says and I said are reversed. His quote is on the bottom. The bulk of the top quote block is me (the inner part) the outer part is his. Sorry for the confusion.

[Shteven]

I found Shteven's defense from kuribo's 563 (567 and 570) to be over-defensive. In particular, he says:

Funny, that was exactly my point. Maybe, maybe not. Maybe Claus is a cross dresser*, maybe he isn't. You have to -show- that he is or isn't. Just saying "Well he might be" is not helpful in the least.

Tell me, Shteven, how do you go about proving a negative? Suspicion is what this game is all about. Only rarely do scum stand up and proclaim themselves as scum, so all you can do is lay out suspicions, say people might be scum, and proceed from there. For you to argue that kuribo can't or shouldn't play this way is specious at best, damning at the worst. You also gloss over the point that kuribo listed lots of suspicious activity in his 563, not just the fact that you appeared on Claus's nice list. kuribo correctly points this out in his 573.

And I asked in post 576:

Other than the nice list, the "there's 3 scum" issue, is there anything else you'd like me to discuss?

To which I haven't seen any response. I looked for the initial case posting but missed it, then got a bit lazy and figured I'd ask for a restatement than go digging. I have been a bit lazy this game, that's true. Now that you've posted the number, I will go back and look it up, and respond (in a later post, but it's coming).

As for the rest of the paragraph - yes, announcing your suspicions is all well and good. But you can't take them as proof. He was basically saying "Player X is scummy because I think he's scummy." He wasn't saying "I think player X may be scummy." I was going after him for asserting too much based on his opinions only. He was trying to imply that I was saying the list was off limits - what I was saying that you shouldn't focus on JUST the list. Notice that shortly afterwards I did a more in depth look at all of claus's posts - the main effect of which I was less suspicious of Jester for. Going just on the list I'd have been more likely to suspect Jester, because 3/5 in the naughty have been cleared - not much space left for him to put a scum in there. But now I just think that there probably isn't a scum in there, although JP could be possible.

Speaking of which:

Oh, and I’m not the SK, nor do I think it’s likely we have one. We should know for sure tonight, though.

I'd probably accuse you of being the SK for proactively defending yourself from it - but there isn't an SK, so I guess you'll get away with it. If there are two night kills - hang Justin.

[Shteven]

So I went and checked out post 563 - turns out there aren't as many assertions there as I thought there would be.

His attacks, summarized (let me know if I've missed anything):

1) 3 scum issue
2) Was on the nice list
3) Jayhawk was very defensive/quit
4) tried to ignore day 1
5) didn't say much to Claus
6) Doesn't like deep inspection of the nice/naughty list

Responses

1) already answered many times.
2) already answered many times. Initial attack even said this was trivial.
3) Explained way back on day 1, at least as well as I could. Jayhawk seemed to play somewhat emotionally - not that I never do, but he didn't take pressure well. That is a newbie tell and not a scum tell.
4) This claim is a misrepresentation - I was trying to coax content out of MafiaSSK by asking what he thought of today's events. Kuribo interpreted this as a demand that no one can talk about day 1.
5) I didn't have much of a bone to pick with him, frankly. He was only alive for half a day, and I hadn't found much to disagree with him about. Most of his reads were simple and accurate - scum only have to lie about one or two teammates (usually scum throw some attacks on one partner, give or take). I didn't detect it, and still don't think his list was noticably inaccurate. I already mentioned where we disagreed.
6) repeat of 2, mixed with 5. He didn't have to lie about 12 people - most of those reads are simply honest and probably right. With the fact that townies aren't 100% right, comparing two 80% right lists may not really be all that much different.

Frankly I feel that all of these were already covered. Perhaps 5 could have used some more discussion, but it's been mentioned. Nothing here is new. If there are more attacks from posts other than 563, please let me know.

[Shteven]

Sorry for spamming the thread, but I'm having trouble going to sleep leaving some things unanswered

The last few minor points that Jester raised:

1) Jayhawk was scummy - answered when kuribo mentioned it.

2)

Shteven was the champion of the DS lynch (275), and was ranked high on Claus's nice list. What kuribo misses: Shteven immediately agreed with most of Claus's lists (317)... until Claus was found to be scum, at which point, Shteven felt there was limited value to looking at the lists (476). None of these are scum tells in and of themselves,

Correct, they aren't scum tells! (sorry, too easy) Anyways, roughly 100% of the active players here were on the DS lynch as well - he was very scummy looking. Also, I take issue with the way you say "until" - it sounds like I've made some reversal. The next two claims are not a reversal - the list was agreeable because it was mostly true (scum don't have to lie about 12 players) and

very brief

. There's just not much meat there. Read ALL of Claus' posts, as I have.

3)

but his cases against Apyadg and ChronX were extremely weak, leading to a Ythill vote. When that didn't go anywhere and Ythill claimed, suddenly Shteven's suspicions became completely unanchored.

I had been somewhat lazy at the start of the thread (plus I replaced in and had less time) with regards to hunting scum. So Ythill put me to task and asked who my targets where. He was #1, but I don't consider fingering one person to be sufficient, so I went through the thread expressly looking to list two other players. I had to find some two - so I picked the best I could at the time. The cases were weak. When Ythill claimed one-shot vig - I believed him. That basically put me at square zero. I have since talked about nearly everyone in the game - I think that you should discuss everyone. For example: I just called JP a SK possibility (if we have one), so is he now someone I've targeted? I haven't seriously pressed cases on anyone but Ythill and DS. Granted, not the best accuracy, but that's only one mislynch. I believed Ythill by the end of the day.

I'll keep it shorter over the next day or two I promise

[Shteven]

Correct, they aren't scum tells! (sorry, too easy)

Scum tells are subjective, just because you don't see something as one, doesn't mean that someone else won't.

Interesting how you didn't completely quote the discussion. You know, the part where Jester himself said he didn't consider them scumtells. You are of course free to disagree with me, and to disagree with him, but don't try to make it sound like I he said "These are scumtells" and I went "oh no they aren't!" Also, I'd think that the (sorry, too easy) part would show that it was mostly a joke.

I've been trying to believe you for a while Kuribo, but things like this keep piling up. Suspicion of me isn't a scum tell in itself, but trying to turn everything I've ever said into a scum tell bothers me. I'd recommend being more willing to give players a second chance.

And while it may be somewhat ironic after my previous sentence, I think I've waited long enough, and that it's time I go 'on the record'.

Vote: Kuribo

[Shteven]

I'm not "trying to turn everything" you've ever said into a "scumtell." I don't believe in scumtells, more to the fact, you've said and done some scummy things and not explained them to my satisfaction.

Did you completely miss where I asked for you to list what you still want an explaination for? Did you happen to not read post 637, where after not getting an answer from you, I answered all of Jester's points? If you'd care to add something to the list, go ahead. I've answered a lot of points against me and I really don't know what you are talking about. It's all of this pushing without saying why that I suspect you're scum.

Justin: It's true that I've been wavering on kuribo somewhat; and I'm not certain he's scum. But day 2 has lasted exactly 1 month now, and I wanted to vote for someone. Perhaps kuribo suffers from just being on my mind the most lately, but so far he's my leading suspect. I just don't see a Jester/Claus scum team after how Claus treated Apyadg. If he's scum, Claus did a fine job distancing the two of them. Which frankly I don't think distancing yourself from someone like Apyadg would be worth the risk for clausScum, but maybe that's just me.

In any case, I'm not suggesting we all speed lynch Kuribo. I just felt it was time to drop a vote. I'll summarize the case again in another post shortly, perhaps that will clarify.

[Shteven]

Thanks for contributing mafiaSSK. Two short things:

1) Sure, we'd love to know why you think Jester's scummy.
2) Try to avoid listing town power roles - it will probably help the mafia more than the town.

For everyone else keeping score I think he's probably more new than scummy, but still, role fishing is a serious problem.

[Shteven]

One vote will not end the day. I feel it's a somewhat similar to lurking when one never votes.

Also for the record:

Kuribo: Kuribo just seems to be side-stepping the attacks that are given to him. However he does try to attack whomever he can. This makes me think that he might be the actual SK around here.

I feel this is accurate, which surprised me coming from mafia, no offense. I didn't think he was still paying attention. Except for the part about the SK - I don't think we have one. Evading attention on yourself while continuing to press attacks makes me feel you're just looking for a lynch to happen. But then you project that onto me...The last mod votecount had 3 people voting, one of them being yourself, and then you get all shocked that I'd vote, and am just trying to bring the day to an end? You're at 1 vote. Relax. There are 3 other players who share that distinction with you.

[Shteven]

I fall into this pitfall constantly. I wouldn't say I really drove DS by myself in this game day 1, but I was certainly a significant part of it.

You don't give yourself enough credit. You were the major champion behind DS's lynch, going back to your 271 and 275. The only person who jumped on the bandwagon earlier was kuribo, who was first to vote DS, but I don't think anyone pounded the drum harder. Even JP's case was based more on innuendo than real evidence. Tell me, if you knew you had a history of championing day 1 mislynches (as you state in your 275), why did you bang the drum on this one so confidently? The back half second-to-last para of 275 really sounds to me like something you inserted so you could point back to it after you got a townie killed.

I've been hesitating to do this because I really don't like meta attacks, and meta defenses are only slightly worse. I've stated this in past games. And I'd sure as hell give me flak for doing this now. But this game and newbie 539 are just too similar for me to not use it.

In newbie 539, I:
Aggressively pushed for a day 1 lynch which ended up being a townie.
Continued to push for lynches on day 2.
OMGUS voted noah in LyLo (after FOSing right out of the gates crapor)...They ended up being the actual scum team, but hey. It was still OMGUS on noah.

And I was the cop. I had claimed on day 2 and went uncountered for a long time. Eventually a scum player realized I had a shot of convincing people, and instead counterclaimed me and they proceeded to lynch me pretty fast. The whole game's only 11 pages (12 is postgame). If anyone here reads it all, let me know.

Newbie 539

The funny thing about it was my main attacker was the town player I had investigated as innocent. So despite constantly bickering back and forth, I knew he was on my side.

This probably doesn't excuse my behavior of championing lynches and being wrong constantly, but it does show it's not proof of my being a scum role. I'm trying to be more cautious here day 2, although I'm not sure how effective that's been so far.

Coming soon: Content!

Really looking forward to this. As someone I am willing to trust (as a cleared mason), I would appreciate your thoughts on my play, if I'm correcting the problems from newbie 539 or not

[Shteven]

I'm going to gradually ease my way back into this game.

I've been looking over the recent arguments against Shteven and do feel compelled to ask you, Shteven, about something. Back in Post 317 when you initially commented on the Claus Naughty/Nice list, I remember you specifically mentioning that you agree with all of his list except for the stances that he had taken on Justin Playfair (you thought Justin Playfair was reading town while Claus was reading him as scum) and kuribo (again you were reading kuribo as town while Claus was reading him more middle of the road). I've always wondered though why you didn't mention anything about his placement of me on that list. I don't remember you mentioning anything about you finding me suspicious prior to his list but when this list did appear, you only voice your concern about the placement of two players on this list.

Can you please explain this inconsistency?

I don't see much of an inconsistency - views change over time. Specifically, I am a lot less likely to trust a general player than I am to trust a player who's claimed mason and had his mason partner confirm it. So while I felt you had been suspicious before this, I now have new information that makes you very likely town.

As for kuribo, my reservations have been building over time. Back then they were pretty minor, and I did feel him to be overall town, but the issues have been piling up a bit over time. I feel he's trying to twist statements and inflate cases - on me and others. Granted, I do tend to notice it a bit more on me, and I should try to be more impartial about it. I wasn't expecting the wagon to build up so soon, but I can't really say I'm too disappointed either. Mafia's confirmed town imho, and Hjalti's post seems good to me. Of course, that doesn't mean nearly as much as a solid claim, and I could be getting buddied up to, but it looks solid from my pov. By this I mean the Kuribo section of it - others look pretty good as well although I'm sure you'd notice the differences on Jester. If Kuribo comes up as scum then I'd reconsider Jester, but I'd rather not lynch Jester today.

I do intend to summarize the case against kuribo again but I won't have the time tonight. If someone else wants to make a case against other targets (I believe Xtoxm and Jester have been mentioned by others - Xtoxm I'd be interested in, Jester I believe to be town) then I think we'll improve our chances of nailing scum. Expect my post by Wednesday or thursday at the latest.

[Shteven]

I've always wondered though why you didn't mention anything about his placement of me on that list. I don't remember you mentioning anything about you finding me suspicious prior to his list but when this list did appear, you only voice your concern about the placement of two players on this list.

Can you please explain this inconsistency?

Mostly an oversight. I wasn't positive so it didn't stand out as much as it does now in hindsight. I trusted you over Ythill, when I came around to trusting Ythill due to his claim, I was less certain. Either I was wrong, or you were both town. But you mostly slipped into a backseat "middle" role. I should have mentioned it but it didn't jump out at me.

Jester:
Regarding championing DS's Lynch: I didn't really feel like I was pushing it forward at the time. I certainly supported it, don't get me wrong. But for one, Kuribo voted for DS before I did. And again, due to inactives, it was damned near 100% supported. Also, as for why I do still push wagons - honestly, it's probably just ego. I like to think I'm smart, you see. I have been right in the past, it's not like I'm never successful. I called Sammich on role fishing in open 50. It feel on deaf ears, and the game was abandoned, but it turns out he was scum. I think one of the factors it was ignored so much was it was a bit OMGUS - he was fishing my role, he called me the doctor (the part that got me was he was right). Anyways, I'm not always wrong.

What struck me about the interaction, though, was that you mostly agreed with Claus until he unexpectedly turned up both scum and dead, then suddenly you didn't think there was much value to the lists. So I'll put it to you straight. Look at Claus's list again. Do you still mostly agree with who he thought was town, and who he thought was scum?

This is a slight misunderstanding - What I said was not that the list is worthless, but that deciding that someone is scum based on what category he listed them under is a very, very bad idea. Slightly better off is reading what he actually wrote about them; better still if you look at ALL of Claus' posts about someone and use those.

Regarding why I said Justin could be an SK: Isn't this already clear? Here's exactly what I said in post 638:

Speaking of which:

Oh, and I’m not the SK, nor do I think it’s likely we have one. We should know for sure tonight, though.

I'd probably accuse you of being the SK for proactively defending yourself from it - but there isn't an SK, so I guess you'll get away with it. If there are two night kills - hang Justin.

The reason is right there, combined with the claim that an SK is very unlikely. You then ignore that I don't think the SK is likely, and ask me to explain what the reason was?

It's attacks like THESE that made me doubt Kuribo. Maybe it is OMGUS, but when people just seem to miss the point while quoting the exact post in which you explained it the first time...it bugs me. Jester's slightly better off because I feel Claus was trying to hang him, but that's not proof positive either.

You then ask who else I suspect: Do you mean for an SK? No one else. Do you mean mafia? Please see all my other posts If you'd like me to make another list I can certainly work on one, organizing my thoughts would probably help. I said I'd go back and summarize the case on Kuribo by thursday - I am a wow raider, so I generally post at two times during a day. Either around 7-8pm EST, when I'm home from work, before a raid. Or after the raid, around midnight to whenever I go to sleep, which often extends to around 3am. I've taken a bit too long to write this up, so I'll get to it either later tonight, or tomorrow as stated.

[Shteven]

Summary of my read on Kuribo:

What do you think of Xtoxm? I think I'd like a few opinions regarding the things I've pointed out, and his repeated defense of Ythill.

Also, mini-fos: Kuribo. What points against Xtoxm? the best I can find is when you vote him suggesting that there could be a mafia roleblocker, vaguely in defense of Ythill. You've been pretty solidly against Ythill since joining, which I understand, but voting by association on day 1 is very risky. Ythill may stall his case with his claim, but I'd wait until he's proven scum to go hunting for his partners. On his own, Xtoxm just hasn't done much.

This point I find especially interesting because Justin mentioned that Kuribo's been going after other players aggressively and I didn't find find fault with him until he attacked me. Well, right here in my first response to Kuribo, I've already fos'ed him (ok, mini fos) for going after Xtoxm on trumped up charges.

Next up Kuribo does the "quotations" of people which aren't verbatim quotes. I tried to help clear up confusion on this, and didn't think much of it at the time. His quotes weren't that far off, and were defendable paraphrasing. I am a bit worried about it now since it seems to follow him trying to stretch cases to make the most of them he can, but this is minor.

Then he examines the groupings on Claus' list for scum. The list is a great place to start a search, but to use merely the group that a player is under as an attack on them is exceptionally weak and seems like scum reaching for a lynch. I think I've talked about this point far too much already, though. At this point I was still favoring Xtoxm as a lynch. Xtoxm does speculate about the town being out of power roles, which should be noted. Not that bad since he's not fishing for players. Kuribo forgets that we had a doctor. Not too sure how to read this one, seems WIFOM to me.

Begin long arguments over my assumption there are 3 scum in the game. I've been doing this since day 1, and would start with that assumption in any mini. It's not 100%, but it's the most likely, and there's little harm in being wrong if you ever are. Kuribo attacks me for this.

After a while, he makes one of my favorite claims, that because I want to 'ignore' Claus' list (a misrepresentation) that Claus "maybe, maybe not" made a mistake listing his scum partner as nice. Man, there's a strong statement. He's just throwing too much dirt on me based on speculation for my tastes. During this claim he refers to Claus' scum partner, singular, implying the scum team has 2 people. Somewhat petty on my part, but it's the same 'mistake' he is (partially) after me for. In fairness, I did state I considered him town at this point - I was probably a bit too hasty to agree with Gorgon here. But I did start out liking him, and it's only his apparent certainty against everyone he attacks that is really bothering me. This very same post also mentioned that I prefered Apyadg, now Jester; since then, I've more or less cleared Jester. That leaves me without a primary target, which is another reason why Kuribo rose in the ranks of possible scum. Xtoxm would be my second choice atm.

Most of the posts after this get pretty redundant. I'll just highlight the latest example in his latest post:

Votes Shteven for no good reason.

This is a misrepresentation in and of itself. I've given plenty of reason, many of which were valid in the minds of other players.

Why are you so defensive towards Shteven? Why are you trying your dangedest to get the spotlight onto me and off of him?

The second paragraph here is really unnecessary. We're discussing things. Hjallti gave thoughts on -every- player in the game. He's not trying to spotlight Kuribo, he just happens to believe me more than he believes Kuribo.

Summary: Yes, the case is heavily based on his overreaching attacks. I've taken a lot, but also others like Xtoxm and Hjallti. Possible distancing between Kuribo/Xtoxm, but I wouldn't be so confident to suggest I figured out both of the scum players today. If one does come up scum, then definitely look at the other, though. I'm by no means certain Kuribo is scum. He could be an avenging town player who just really really thinks he's right. I've done this myself a few times, so I'm trying to take today a bit slower. I'd only put Kuribo at about 50/50 scum. Assuming 2 scum left, that beats the 22% random lynch.

[Shteven]

Do you still mostly agree with who he thought was town, and who he thought was scum, as you did in your 317?

I apologize if my previous answers weren't the answer you were looking for. I'll give the full list.

Xtoxm - Nice: disagree. He's probably more MOTR to be honest, but he's about second on my scum list just because my list of people I'm dead certain are scum is currently empty.

Ythill - Nice - agreed. Also dead. Believed his claim when he was alive, though.

Shteven - Nice - Myself, town.

Charter, now Gorgon - Nice: weak agreement - Seems good so far. But too early to really say much about Gorgon. Honestly I just haven't really noticed much from him yet that struck me either way, and I should probably give him more attention.

Kuribo - Unlisted - disagree. I feel this one's been covered, see my last case summary post.

Holden, now Hjallti - Unlisted - agree. Still want to give him a bit more time. His initial thoughts are pretty consistent with mine, though, so he'll probably move up.

MafiaSSK - Naughty - disagree. Claimed mason partner, town.

Apyadg, now Jester - Naughty - Disagree. Claus was too determined to get apyadg, seems like the next town role he was trying to lynch.

Justin Playfair - Naughty - disagree. I'd put him more middle of the road, though - it's hard to get a read on him. But nothing he's done so far really makes me think he's scum.

Incognito - Naughty - Disagree. Town mason.

Disciple Slayer - Naughty - Agr -- err, wait, he was the doctor.

Hope that clears everything up. Major changes are the masons are cleared, DS is cleared in death, and I don't like Claus's attacks on apyadg much. That combined with my initial disagreement on JP, handles the entire naughty section. It might be time for me to suspect Apyadg(Jester)/Justin more.

[Shteven]

Re: Ythill, if you're scum, you wouldn't have been openly challenging the claim, it would have caused too much attention onto yourself.

Wifom. Add this example to the list of times Kuribo's trying to stretch the case against me. I wonder if you bring it up because you were so anti-Ythill day 1 and want a cookie for being wrong, in an apparently I'm-so-town way? Wait, then I'd be stretching things like you do. Nevermind.

Re: Hjallti, if Jester is my "scum partner" for agreeing with me, then clearly Hjallti is yours. I, personally don't think so, because I think that it'll turn out to be someone that you've had little to no interaction or agreement with. I believe that you are scum, and your scum partner is silently letting you dig your hole deeper and deeper to lessen the chance of you exposing him, as well.

Fair enough. However, it's risky to go after someone's scum partners when you do not yet know for certain the person is scum. If you really want to find scum partners, take a look at Claus. Preferably more than one post he made.

Re: Apyadg, Wait, so if you think that he was "the next town role that Claus was trying to lynch," why do you then say that you should suspect him more?

I suspect him less because of their interactions - the reason I said I was considering raising him again is because if you look over my list, it's mostly "this person is pretty innocent." I suppose it's true there's only two scum left, but I would be surprised if I'm 100% right and the two are kuribo and xtoxm. I'd say there's a pretty high chance one of you are scum, but I think that I need to find more suspects. Since having posted the Claus-clears-Apyadg theory

several times

absolutely no one has agreed with me on it. I think your questioning of me about it here may just be the very first time someone's even mentioned it. Everyone else seems to still consider him a leading scum candidate.

[Shteven]

I think I've exhausted just about everything I can say about kuribo - which is probably a good thing. We've already been a bit too verbose. Part of me knows I should probably be rereading other players, and another part of me wants other people do to it for me! /cough

In any case, been busy lately, so I'll post more shortly. I'd also like to hear more from incognito, as he's someone I trust. I know it may take some time, but let us know.

[Shteven]

I think I've exhausted just about everything I can say about kuribo - which is probably a good thing. We've already been a bit too verbose. Part of me knows I should probably be rereading other players, and another part of me wants other people do to it for me! /cough

Why? Too much attention drawn to you and now you can't be bothered to scumhunt?

If I was afraid of attention I wouldn't respond to everything that anyone has ever said to in the thread with a page full of text. I tend to be pretty complete when it comes to talking about myself.

I'd like to rate your comment as flamebait, if the forums supported that feature. But I'm really starting to wonder if scum would be so ballsy as to keep making such antagonistic, obviously questionable statements. Maybe it's just how you play, as Justin reminded us, you did claim to be aggressive from the start. I'm not certain who our scum are, but right now I'd be comfortable with a Kuribo or Xtoxm lynch, and since the deadline is a mere two days from now, I'll leave my vote on you unless Xtoxm's wagon takes off.

Everyone who isn't voting should at least fos someone asap so we can find out where the town stands. Detailed reads on every player, like the list I posted recently would also be helpful - remember two of us aren't going to be around day 3.

[Shteven]

I can certainly sympathize over the post lengths being hard to read, but it's still a horrible reason to lynch someone over.

I am not all that close to a lynch, but I think I may be lynched and since the deadline's only 2 days away, I'll claim anyways. I'm only a townie, so it doesn't really throw any extra information out there that the scum can use. Of course, I assume most players already figured as much, since our doctor/vig are dead and our masons have claimed, I'd imagine we're pretty much all townies at this point.

[Shteven]

While Hjatli hasn't been around long enough for me to be certain, I'm generally willing to trust someone who's reads on people matches my own. Scum may try to buddy up to townies but if so it's likely to backfire on them as the pool of townies shrinks. So he's on my good side for now - I reserve a bit of skepticism, but I wouldn't lynch him today.

[Shteven]

One last response to Kuribo's post 674 which I let slide initally:

Newbie games are worthless as meta.

You must not have looked very carefully. For one, it's not my first game here, and secondly, it happened concurrently with this game. Ie, I was playing it these past weeks while I was playing here. So yes, it's exactly the same.

Back to more recent events: By my votecount, I'm at L-1. Damn. If I've learned anything, it's that I post too much

Shteven - 4 (kuribo, Jester, Xtoxm, MafiaSSK)
Kuribo - 2 (Shteven, Hjallti)
Xtoxm - 1 (Gorgon)
Jester - 1 (Incognito

[Shteven]

This is where I'd usually post my advice for the town, broken down by each player, but well, I already did that last page. Please refer to that for serious content tommorow.

So...umm....pleasedon'tkillmepleasedon'tkillmepleasedon'tkillme.

[Shteven]

Well, as Kuribo doesn't seem to be getting lynched, I'll make a last ditch attempt to suggest Xtoxm.

Vote: Xtoxm

If this seems scummy, keep in mind I have 100% confidence that I'm the wrong lynch.

[Shteven]

I approve of not killing me immediately, of course, an extension probably wouldn't change that result. Get in your not-Shteven votes now!

/wave

[Shteven]

I'd like to think I was helpful to my team, but I think I fell into the trap of being naturally defensive and kuribo being naturally offensive. When someone says something about me, I respond. But it went on way too long.

Still, I remember an old game where I was a godfather and was lynched on day 1 (and scum won - Married to the mob). So now I'm just a goon, lynched on day 2...that's making progress, I say.

[Shteven]

And no offense to the town, but it was really surreal to keep hearing everyone say "Well justin is hard to read so let's assume he's town." I get exactly the same read on him honestly, so I'm not blaming anyone, but wow.

Justin, how are we supposed to spot you?

[Shteven]

Btw, was Ythill really one shot? when he was listed as simply Vigilante I somewhat panicked. Really I should have said nothing, but I let it get the better of me when I posted

@MOD: Ythill's role said vigilante, without mention of one-shot. Is it true he only had one shot, or could he kill multiple nights?

It's a legitimate question for either side to ask as they try to figure out an open setup, but I did mostly because I was curious if we had dodged multiple bullets coming on later nights.

Come to think of it, I also probably should have never mentioned there were 3 scum

[Shteven]

True that 3:9 is the most common setup and I claimed that in my defense, I just was really surprised to be called on it. I probably would have shrugged it off easier if I was really town, although I don't know how easy it would be to pick up on that tell from the outside. I really am naturally defensive. I might try just responding once to a claim and then not bringing up the defense again in the future.

True, I did feel pretty good going into night 1. I suppose I shouldn't give myself too much of a hard time dying day 2 after surviving day 1