Mini 568 - Nubigena (Game over!)

[ooba]

And I'm a Townsperson ...

So we have a set up with 3 Mafia , 1 Cop , 1 Doc , 1 Vig+Miller , 6 Town .. Which i can buy ..

Gorckat is a doc . We already have a miller and Night start so i think Godfather might have been a bit excessive but not sure on that .

{Ripley,Mizzy,Incognito,Jer2(Imat)} - Thoughts on this group after another re-read !!

[jerubbaal]

Agree that the likelihood of a godfather is about nil, considering the balance.

The scum team being Ripley, Mizzy, and Incog does confuse me, although when Mizzy claimed for the second time, she did claim vanilla townie, which isn't how the PM is phrased. I guess that means I was wrong about MP actually reading the first post.

We have four unconfirmeds and three mafia. It's easy for me, because I know I'm a townsperson, but it's basically riding on the confirmeds at this point.

I think Ripley's the clear scum, so we should lynch him first without a lot of question. Incog's play has been good, but I don't find anything that sways me any particular way. Mizzy being scum is a surprise, but I'm going to go back and read her stuff with a different mindset (I was thoroughly convinced she was town) and see if I find anything anomalous to make this decision easier.

[Mizzy]

How does me claiming vanilla townie make me scum? When I claim in a game, I always, and I mean ALWAYS claim "vanilla townie" if I

am

vanilla townie because that is much more information than "townsperson." Since my role had already been claimed in the beginning, I didn't feel the need to be perfect, or precise.

I'm a vanilla townie, meaning I am a townsperson with zero power. No day action besides voting, no night action, no items, no special one-shot anything. Take that as you will.

[Incognito]

Okay so now that we're all good and role claimed I'll be doing a targeted reread to see if anything stands out to me. A few things I wanted to respond to though.

First I've noticed that both ooba and jerubbaal have cast doubts on there being a Godfather in this game. I still strongly believe that there is likely some kind of scum role, whether it be a Godfather or something else, that MUST exist in this game to cause some kind of confusion with Near's results. Now that gorckat has claimed Doctor, I highly, highly, highly doubt that the mod would make this game as simple as a boring Cop/Doc follow-the-cop kind of game. He's obviously put a lot of work into the flavor text and probably into the set-up itself that it just wouldn't make sense to me for him to turn this into a non-thinking game. So yeah, while I'll be keeping ooba and Y somewhat in the back of my mind during the reread, I won't completely keep them both out of the picture.

Also about this:

The scum team being Ripley, Mizzy, and Incog does confuse me, although when Mizzy claimed for the second time, she did claim vanilla townie, which isn't how the PM is phrased. I guess that means I was wrong about MP actually reading the first post.

I really don't like how you're setting this up so simply as these three absolutely must be scum while discounting the Godfather possibility. I also noticed that you mentioned having a problem with Mizzy calling herself a Vanilla Townie. Does it bother you that Ripley said the same thing about himself? Why did you not mention anything about that?

I'll definitely have more later once I'm done reading through all of this.

[Ripley]

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

Wow. How controlling can one player get?

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

without a lot of question

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

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

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

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

[jerubbaal]

Regarding balance issues, as well as simply considering our odds of winning this game, the likelihood of a godfather is effectively none. Similarly, unless there's some sort of scum super-role out there, two scum makes this ludicrously unbalanced in the scum's favor. The claims fit just fine, doc+cop+vig leans toward the town, but destructor balanced it by adding a night 0 with a kill. It's actually nice and clean, gasp, like a mini-normal.

I do not consider GF to be a realistic possibility, and I'm going to play with that assumption.

There

is

already a little twist to Near's role by making the vig essentially a miller, which pushes things back toward the scum. It's all balanced quite nicely.

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


We're definitely not lynching anyone without looking everything over very thoroughly, but your claim was the weakest, Ripley, and I think your play has been very nice middle-of-the-road scum this whole time. You're too careful about everything that you say.

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

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

I fail to see how I have expressed any doubts about the three of you being scum. Your reactions to my accusations have only cemented my opinions.

[Ripley]

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

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

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

.. Your own words:

to make this decision easier

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

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

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

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

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

Why was my claim " the weakest"?

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

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

everyone

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

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

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

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

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

[Y]

We had a vig, so there was a role that can throw the cop off, so a godfather seems to be too much.

By me being town, I believe ooba is too, and gorckat wasn't counter-claimed. Unless we have no doc and gorckat made a bet that paid up (I don't think it's likely), the scum are hiding between the remaining players.

From the player I believe could be scum, the one I suspect the most is Ripley. I don't like the way he always seem to "know better" than everybody else.
He invalidates completely reasonable cases just by saying they can't be true, and dismisses people opinions by saying that other can't think what they claim to think.

Vote Ripley.

[ooba]

Vote Ripley.

Lets discuss and not be hasty Y ..

[jerubbaal]

I'm still surprised that my read on Mizzy was so blatantly wrong, but that's where it is. Barring the existence of a GF, all three of you are scum, regardless of my read on you.

Mizzy didn't complain about the setup, but she immediately said I couldn't say that she was scum just because she claimed vanilla townie. She completely missed the point that I was saying that she was scum because she

has

to be scum, knowing what I know. You all just kind of went "<splutter> No!" when I posted the obvious conclusion, which you all should have reached as well, with very little thought.

Blah, blah, using vanilla townie instead of townsperson is relevant in this scenario. It's actually very common to use phrasing cues from the PMs to decide whether people have the relevant knowledge or not.

If you want more specific examples of your fluffy posting, I'll be happy to provide them once I finish my read-through. For now, I'm happy with my read and your reaction to my accusations. You actually haven't even called me scum yet, which any decent townie would have done by this point.

[Mizzy]

Mizzy didn't complain about the setup, but she immediately said I couldn't say that she was scum just because she claimed vanilla townie. She completely missed the point that I was saying that she was scum because she

has

to be scum, knowing what I know. You all just kind of went "<splutter> No!" when I posted the obvious conclusion, which you all should have reached as well, with very little thought.

Except that you're wrong. If you are completely blown away by the idea of me being scum then it's probably because I'm not scum. If there's no evidence, then there's no evidence, probably because you were right in the beginning and there's no evidence to find.

Blah, blah, using vanilla townie instead of townsperson is relevant in this scenario. It's actually very common to use phrasing cues from the PMs to decide whether people have the relevant knowledge or not.

Pre-planning this type of thing doesn't work. Especially since my role was already claimed at the beginning of the game. Instead of just spitting out the same information that my idiotic predecessor did, I gave

more

information. Now you know that there is absolutely nothing special about me; I was not recruited or promoted, I was not given an item, I was not involved in any night action at all, and I have no powers or insight beyond the posts in the thread what-so-ever.

For the record, despite jerubbaal's idiotic behavior and lack of clear thinking and logic, I don't think he's scum. I question his intelligence, but not his alignment. He seems to actually be trying to scumhunt, he's just doing it wrong.

[ooba]

For the record, despite jerubbaal's idiotic behavior and lack of clear thinking and logic, I don't think he's scum. I question his intelligence, but not his alignment. He seems to actually be trying to scumhunt, he's just doing it wrong.

So by your reasoning , that leaves {Ripley,Incognito} and a possibility between:
a) A godfather
b) A scum who claimed doc
Which do you think is more probable?

[jerubbaal]

This is going to come out somewhat piecemeal as I'm reading, but I'll post some relevant thoughts.

There really isn't enough posting by thephantom to get a decent bead on Ripley's predecessor, but what's there is weak and wishy-washy.

MP's early play is looking more scummy to me, knowing what we know. Everyone he voted for is confirmed townie at this point (if I'm lining up my names correctly). I'm pretty positive scum MP wouldn't vote for a scumbuddy unless it was absolutely clear that that person was going to be lynched. My point is that scum MP would only vote for townies, which is exactly what he did.

I just thought I'd include this as an example of Ripley's wishy-wash. Honestly, just read any of his posts and they all sound like this.

My latest thoughts about Near coming up.

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

In this post Near says, of me:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Soooo, you say essentially nothing, posit a bunch of (false) scenarios, and then suggest that he might be a scum investigator. Uh-huh. "Fluff, fluff, waffle, waffle, maybe he's scum."

Also of note, none of the scum (Ripley/thephantom, Mizzy, Incog) joined in on the whole Niv/Near thing until the end when everything was quite clear. If there's one thing I noticed during the re-read, it's how much this game has just been townies really going at each other. The best scum play in that event is just to let it go on, and that's exactly what they did. Incog and Ripley were floaters until the pressure of a deadline showed up, and Mizzy protested until the end. None of them ever wanted to take responsibility for their vote.

Mizzy has an interesting little tiff when gorckat asks her to clarify her stance on Near. Also, her logic day 2 is quite confused with her push against Y, despite his being cleared.

@Mizzy - claiming vanilla townie instead of townsperson does not give us any more information, it gives less precise information. Your refusal to actually call me scum at this point is cute. Who do you think is scum then?

@Ripley - the order does not so much matter to me. I'd actually be happy lynching Incog if there is the will to do so, because he's probably going to be the hardest to lynch of the three of you.

[Mizzy]

Actually, I was pretty outspoken about Near's claim pretty soon after it happened and was adamantly against his lynch.

My instincts are telling me that a jerubbaal-scum wouldn't be so blatantly idiotic and pull so much of the spotlight onto himself, but that might be me wanting to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Oh, and while this isn't an excuse, please do keep in mind that I am running on 2-ish hours of sleep per 24 hours and I don't have time to do intricate re-reads and build cases like I am used to being able to do. My participation level is far, far below what it is normally.

If you guys want to lynch me, go for it, because I'm beginning to not care (I can't defend against the lack of a case against me) and the look on jerubbaal's face when I turn up town will be

priceless

.

[jerubbaal]

For the moment, I'm not going to deal with the case against you, because I still think you sound like town, I just absolutely can't justify there being a GF in this scenario as well as a miller. If that's the case we're playing a 12 person game with a night-0 kill and a heavily nerfed cop. The balance would favor scum pretty heavily.

Regardless, you're on the bottom of my list for the three scum. I need to do some meta on you, because if you're acting, it's really convincing. Ripley and Incog can be dealt with first.

[ooba]

For those who feel scum are a bit underpowered in the setup :

Goon x 3 , Gunsmith , Vig , Doc , 6 Townies ..

What do you think of

Godfather x 1 , Goon x 2 , Gunsmith , Vig , Doc , 6 Townies

Where Godfather is still guilty to gunsmith investigations but is Night kill immune - so you have a slightly nerfed Vig whose kill wont work on the GF.

[jerubbaal]

Why is that relevant at all? And I don't think scum are underpowered at all, I think the balance actually looks pretty good with three normal scum.

[Incognito]

Wow, this was an easier reread than I thought. Ripley and Imat/jerubbaal are totally scum with one another.

First, let's have a look at Imat (who may I remind you, jerubbaal subbed in for). I've just looked at his posts in isolation and talk about flying under the radar! Imat had a grand total of (drum roll please!!) 43 posts with most of his content containing mostly filler. Imat was doing what we call in the business good ol' active lurking. The most telling areas of the thread are as follows:

First have a look at his contribution, or actually lack of contribution around the time of the Niv lynch. Imat posted on the 3rd of April on page 21 and mysteriously vanished from the thread all the way up to the 10th of April on page 26 when the Niv lynch solidified. There's no telling how he would have reacted to Near's Gunsmith claim or the mounting Niv wagon because it seems like he made it a point to completely remain clear of the thread during the time period. I remember a number of times during Day 2 where Ripley actually gave Y a lot of heat for not abiding by the rules and following the mod's policy of unvoting and voting to hammer Niv but mentioned absolutely nothing about Imat who had gone conspicuously absent. And I mean why would he give Imat some heat? Nobody was coming down on Imat very hard all game... if Ripley and Imat/jerubbaal are scum together he probably felt no need to distance or bus him at that point since Imat remained completely under the radar. Newb scum have a tendency to lurk and vanish around deadlines while leaving their votes lingering in the hopes that

some

kind of lynch occurs on a townie. Imat completely fits that description.

Then there was Day 2. Oh wow, Imat's suddenly back! How coincidental. The most telling piece of information about Imat's alignment came around the time that I outlined my case against Lowell. I outlined my case here: Post 673 and here was Imat's response:

I've kept Lowell in the back of my mind all game, I think it had something to do with the way he vote hopped, though that may have been Near. But I'm pretty sure I had something on Lowell that I filed away for later use. I'll find that and come back with it later today.

At the time that I read this, I remember thinking of an Imat/Lowell scum team since the above post read to me as the type of post Lowell's scum partner might have made around the time he wasn't ready to bus him. Now that we know that Lowell was actually town, the above post reads even worse to me. He promises that he'll fill us all in with his Lowell information later that day (April 17th) but then doesn't do so until I

asked

him for it on the 23rd here: Post 717. He then followed up my 717 with the following:

Ok, some more thoughts on Near and an answer to Incognito's question: First, Incognito: Yes, I found it. If you search the 20 or so posts behind 461 by Lowell you'll find his "case" against me. In 461, Lowell changes votes to Niv with little to no support. If you look past 465, my third post asking him to explain his case against me, he says pretty much nothing. Lowell has formed bogus cases and completely lurked all game. When questioned about his cases he reverts back to his lurking self, hoping to wait out the questions. So far he has been able to do so.

Vote: Lowell

So after promising this grand content a week before this was the best he could come up with? And he had to wait until

after

I asked him to provide this content just to do so. Also I should note that by this time Y had already placed a vote on Lowell so from Imat-scum's point of view, he may have felt under very little pressure to place the vote at that point since he saw that two people were already voting for Lowell-town already. Then after that post I'm actually going page by page trying to find Imat's very next post and

that

doesn't come until Page 32 where again, he doesn't comment on anything that had happened as of that time and instead tries to make it seem like he had been pushing this grand case against Lowell here:

Mizzy: I've made my case several times, if thats what you'e asking. If you want quotes/examples, I've somewhat left it to you to find them.

Really? You made your case several times? I just displayed above how I had to basically beg something out of him and he attempts to hinge himself onto my case instead of doing any form of grunt work to show why he thought Lowell was scum. Then of course he eventually asks for replacement due to RL issues, and we end up with jerubbaal.

Jerubbaal's play so far has bothered me as well. He entered the thread upon replacing and mentioned the following about all of the players within the game:

I'd be happy lynching Lowell, if there's not a counterclaim for Near. I have a fairly scummy read on him at this point. I'm leaning very town on Mizzy and Incog, can't deal with Y until we deal with Near. Middling reads on gorckat, Ripley, and ooba.

Notice how he mentions that he's leaning very town on both me and Mizzy and claims to have middle-of-the-road reads on everyone else. But then at the start of Day 3, we have this from jerubbaal:

Agree that the likelihood of a godfather is about nil, considering the balance.

The scum team being Ripley, Mizzy, and Incog does confuse me, although when Mizzy claimed for the second time, she did claim vanilla townie, which isn't how the PM is phrased. I guess that means I was wrong about MP actually reading the first post.

We have four unconfirmeds and three mafia. It's easy for me, because I know I'm a townsperson, but it's basically riding on the confirmeds at this point.

I think Ripley's the clear scum, so we should lynch him first without a lot of question. Incog's play has been good, but I don't find anything that sways me any particular way. Mizzy being scum is a surprise, but I'm going to go back and read her stuff with a different mindset (I was thoroughly convinced she was town) and see if I find anything anomalous to make this decision easier.

So my play has been good but you don't see anything that sways you one way or another? Why are you backtracking now when during Day 2 you labeled me as "very town"? He basically did the same thing with Mizzy until recently where he mentions the following:

For the moment, I'm not going to deal with the case against you, because I still think you sound like town, I just absolutely can't justify there being a GF in this scenario as well as a miller. If that's the case we're playing a 12 person game with a night-0 kill and a heavily nerfed cop. The balance would favor scum pretty heavily.

Regardless, you're on the bottom of my list for the three scum. I need to do some meta on you, because if you're acting, it's really convincing. Ripley and Incog can be dealt with first.

So again you're completely changing your mind and attempting to label Mizzy as town again? jerubbaal's play looks desperate. He looks like he's trying very hard to solidify a scum win for himself but is realizing the dilemma he has. His case against Mizzy and me has been "while their play has been good and seemingly pro-town, they must be scum because I, jerubbaal, am a townsperson and all of the rest of the unconfirmeds must be scum!" which of course is no case at all. And since I

know

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

This post got kind of long but I'll cover Ripley in a later post and cover who I think is likely to be the third partner also.

[jerubbaal]

The points against Imat here are just blowing smoke. Nothing substantial at all. Your conviction is very manufactured.

The whole "I'm town, ergo you must be scum" is very definitely a relevant case, simply the premises I'm relying on (i.e., that I am town) are not common knowledge, so I have to convince the rest of the town on different terms. However, it's extremely scummy not to draw conclusions based on the knowledge which you possess, even if that knowledge is not available to the rest of the town.

My view of your play, Incog, is that you've generally said reasonable and sensible things, kept a coherent line of logic, and shown reasonably town interests. The only really anti-town move I noticed when I looked back was that you really started the push against Lowell, which really put us in the position we are now. But there's a definite difference between saying all the right things and acting like a townie. Mizzy has been acting like a townie, you've been evidencing good town play, they're noticeably different.

I'm confused on Mizzy because my speculation of the setup requires her to be the final scum, yet my read on her has been completely town. In this case, I'm trusting my read on the setup, because her not being scum necessitates a GF, which throws the balance notably out of whack, as well as going against what we know from the pre-game (GF dying). My reads this game have been pretty off, and I'm willing to consider solid setup speculation better than my intuition at this point.

[gorckat]

I'm not ignoring this game- I've been very short of time and have a newbie and another game at endgame (plus one at night, thankfully), none of which are getting enough attention.

I'll try to post tonight, but I may not be able to until Saturday afternoon/night (Prince Caspian tomorrow night )

[Incognito]

@jerubbaal:

Obviously it's anti-town to push a case against a pro-town player but as a normal townie, I can only do so much that I can with what I have within thread. I can probably cite countless examples of instances where a pro-town player led the charge against another pro-town player only to learn that the player in question was town. For you to use that as a tell against me seems like a huge reach. I presented a case against a player who I thought was likely to be scum and waited for a response from him. I felt like his response did nothing to convince me that he was actually town and so I continued to pursue the case. It's cute how you try to make it seem like I was single-handedly responsible for his lynch when it took four other people to lynch him with one of them being your predecessor. If we assume a three scum set-up, then at least one of those additional players responsible for his lynch had to be town.

---

Anyway, here's the promised post on Ripley. I've actually played with Ripley previously in Newbie 516, which was one of my first games on site. We were both Townies in that game so I feel like I have a decent feel for what to look for coming from Ripley-town. Y mentioned that he's voting for Ripley because "he always seems to know better" than everyone else. I don't really view that as much of a tell for Ripley since I got the same impression from him in 516 also. A lot of the comments he made within that game seemed too perfect, too precise, and when that game was deadlined, by the end of Day 1, I wasn't too sure of my town read on him even though he and I shared the same viewpoints with respect to our suspicions. He had a tendency to refrain from voting, and the overall feel I got from him was that his play was extremely cautious. Like I said, he ended up being town there. The one difference that I did notice about Ripley there and here though is I never really felt like I

knew

with absolute certainty who Ripley was most suspicious of in this game, especially during Day 2, while in that Newbie game, it was pretty clear to me where Ripley's suspicions were.

During Day 1, it was pretty clear that Ripley was most suspicious of Sammich/Niv; while most people were focusing on Near, Ripley managed to move away from that discussion and instead he focused on the Sammich/Niv case which was, at that time, the minority opinion. Day 2 seemed to reveal a different side of Ripley. He voiced some concern over Near in this post, he then proceeded to voice some more concern about both Y and Lowell within the same post here: his 24th post, he maintained the majority of his focus on Y for a good remainder of the day, and he kept promising to review Lowell's past games to see if he has a tendency to switch votes often but he never seemed to actually get around to it. And since gorckat hammered Lowell well before the deadline, it never really was very clear who Ripley was most suspicious of since he never actually got a chance to vote. One thing that really bothered me about Ripley was a response to a question Near posed to him about me and Imat in which he responded with the following:

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

To me it seems like he was making a very subtle attempt to link me with Imat here by classifying me as one of these so-called "Invisible I's" who don't receive enough attention. I find this strange since my case against Lowell was one of the primary focuses of Day 2 so to classify me as invisible seems like a bit of a misrepresentation. And since I strongly feel like Ripley and Imat are likely scum with one another, I can't help but get the feeling that Ripley may have used my "invisibleness" as an eventual weapon against me

if

Imat was ever lynched and turned up as scum.

So in short, my experience playing with Ripley allows for that "seeming to know all" and seemingly cautious type of approach even when he's town, so I view that argument as a null tell. His Day 2 play in which he seemed to make an attempt to link me with Imat and completely ignored the fact that Imat, and not just Y, had the opportunity to hammer Niv while he also never solidified just who he found to be scummiest sets off alarm bells for me.

As for the final scum, I still strongly feel like there might just be a Godfather or some kind of investigation immune role within this game. The only other time that I've played with a Gunsmith role was back in Portal Mafia, a game that was a Day start but had the following set-up: Goon, Goon, Godfather (investigation immune), Vigilante, Pro-town Roleblocker, 5 townies,

and

a weak doctor who died if he protected someone who was scum but could otherwise protect pro-town players from NKs just like a regular doctor. I highly doubt that our night start makes that much of a difference to offset the chance of an investigation immune scum role. And within that game, there were actually two whole town-aligned protective roles in addition to a vig. IMO, our having a vig and a claimed doctor along with a Gunsmith seems like just enough to make the investigation immune scum role possibility fairly likely. Therefore, I feel like if gorckat is the doctor, then the last scum would probably be either ooba or Y. If someone makes a case against Mizzy, I'd gladly entertain it, but I'd be really surprised if Mizzy was the last scum. I'm leaning ooba over Y mainly because of certain notable interactions that I noticed between the two other people who I think are scum but right now, I think this is pretty much water under the bridge. At this point in time, I would gladly lend my vote to either a Ripley or jerubbaal lynch.

Blaaaaaah, I'm exhausted. Time for dinner. Again, sorry for the long post.

[jerubbaal]

@jerubbaal:

Obviously it's anti-town to push a case against a pro-town player but as a normal townie, I can only do so much that I can with what I have within thread. I can probably cite countless examples of instances where a pro-town player led the charge against another pro-town player only to learn that the player in question was town. For you to use that as a tell against me seems like a huge reach. I presented a case against a player who I thought was likely to be scum and waited for a response from him. I felt like his response did nothing to convince me that he was actually town and so I continued to pursue the case. It's cute how you try to make it seem like I was single-handedly responsible for his lynch when it took four other people to lynch him with one of them being your predecessor. If we assume a three scum set-up, then at least one of those additional players responsible for his lynch had to be town.

That's honestly the only point of my post you address? I never said I was using it as a tell against you, I'm saying it was an anti-town action. Obviously, it happens that townies lynch townies all the time. Townies do anti-town things all the time. A preponderance of anti-town moves, regardless of reasonable explanations, does constitute a point against someone though. You still seem to feel a need to overexplain though.

Note the dramatic difference in posting volume now that the game is close. Now that Incog is feeling threatened, he's clearly feeling a need to justify himself at greater length. And the suggestion of a GF is still preposterous.

[Mizzy]

Note the dramatic difference in posting volume now that the game is close. Now that Incog is feeling threatened, he's clearly feeling a need to justify himself at greater length. And the suggestion of a GF is still preposterous.

Then what about some sort of traitor role? Someone who is a townie but wins with the mafia. That is possible, yes?

[gorckat]

I just read over following players since the mass claim:

jerubbaal: His 'vote Ripley quick with no questions' was horrible, and his backtrack on being surprised at Mizzy being scum then having no doubts is dicey, too.

Incognito: His sudden outpouring of analysis is suspect, but it all seems above board, especially his breakdown on Imat. He wouldn't be the first person who's posting habits change at critical stages of the game.

Ripley: I've actually found him pretty solid all game. He posts clear and reasoned posts, but it is a bit hard to pin him to any one position. He's the player I would have the hardest time voting for.

Mizzy: She appeals pretty strongly to emotion with her 'not caring/look on jerubbaal's face' bit. jerubbaal is back and forth her quite a bit, like he's testing the waters to figure out of he has to bus her or if he can get some action on either Ripley or Incognito (whichever one is town).

I think Mizzy and jerubbaal are scum together. Incognito seems marginally scummier than Ripley to me, so I'd bet he's the third.

FOS: Mizzy
vote: jerubbaal

[Ripley]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’ll be away till late Sunday.