Mini 624 - Game Over!

[imaginality]

/confirm

[imaginality]

Vote StrangerCoug

For making the same random vote I was going to make, and for the same reason.

[imaginality]

Unvote

Vote Inspector Godot

because two wagons are better than one.

[imaginality]

Unvote

Vote Inspector Godot

because two wagons are better than one.

vote: Tom

Do either of you care to give decent explanations for your votes?

FoS: imaginality
Unvote: maxwellhouse
Vote: Litral

unvote: strangercoug

vote: imaginality

bad! two wagons are not better than one!

I know two wagons are not better than one.

Unvote

It's early days, I was just seeing what reactions I would get.

[imaginality]

I agree with Kenfucius (obviously) but I like that StrangerCoug and maxwellhouse jumped on me hard for my wagon vote. There's really nothing suspicious going on from anyone else, though, either.

Only perhaps this:

Yes.

Because Tom suggested that we kill Godot, and yet he did not put on a vote himself, or give reasons. I want to know why he did that.

Or maybe I'm lacking a sense of humour?

My vote is already ON Godot, Litral. (is this Litral from epicmafia?)

Where Tom answered Litral about why he didn't vote Tom with his "kill that godot guy" comment, but still didn't give any reason for his comment.

[imaginality]

EBWOP:

I agree with Kenfucius (obviously) but I like the fact that StrangerCoug and maxwellhouse jumped on me hard for my wagon vote, a pro-town reaction from them in my book.

There's really nothing suspicious going on from anyone else, though, that I can see. Only perhaps this:

Yes.

Because Tom suggested that we kill Godot, and yet he did not put on a vote himself, or give reasons. I want to know why he did that.

Or maybe I'm lacking a sense of humour?

My vote is already ON Godot, Litral. (is this Litral from epicmafia?)

Tom answered Litral about why he didn't vote Tom with his "kill that godot guy" comment, but still didn't give any reason for his comment.

[imaginality]

If I was genuinely trying to start a wagon I wouldn't have announced it as obviously as I did. 'Test' is perhaps too strong a word for why I made that post, though, 'experiment' might be better, as I wasn't looking for a particular reaction or at a particular person, just wanted to drop a stone into the game to see how it rippled.

(IGMEOY = I've Got My Eye On You = I'm slightly suspicious of you but not going to point a Finger Of Suspicion at you just yet.)

[imaginality]

I'm here. Been reading, just nothing is of interest.

nom nom epicmafia

Maybe Wumbo will find a vote or two against him to be of interest.

Vote: Wumbo

who after all admits to lurking at the moment (post 69), which I find a little more suspect than chenhsi who feels to me like a newbie townie struggling to find things to talk about.

[imaginality]

OK, you're a vanilla townie. But if that's your claim, then you did it at L-5, which is way too early.

What the tiger said. Why did you claim vanilla townie that soon, when only geraintm and I had voted you at that point?

[imaginality]

Oops, sorry about that. The only cougars I've seen were considerably less orange than your pic, but I guess they were only distant relations...

[imaginality]

my aforementioned status is that way because even if I die, the town still has a chance to win. Information is also crucial for them to win.

Information doesn't particularly help the town if it means people claiming vanilla townie when there are only a couple of votes on them, to help the mafia narrow down who the power roles are.

Information in the way of posts discussing, challenging, arguing, making a case against someone, pointing out noteworthy reactions, etc. and so on, is useful, but for someone who (rightly) claims 'information is crucial for [town] to win', you weren't exactly contributing much along those lines earlier.

Also, I'm slightly intrigued by your phrasing: "...even if I die, the town still has a chance to win. Information is also crucial for

them

to win," (my highlight) rather than "...for

us

to win."

[imaginality]

Lynch minus one. That means that, unless somebody unvotes, the next vote on that person kills him or her.

Oh, always wondered what that meant. Well, I wasn't counting when I voted, my mistake.

This seems very very worrying. Not counting? So you didn't know if you might already be lynching him with your vote, but were happy to throw it on anyhow?

Unvote; vote Dark wingstalker

[imaginality]

Well, it was 7 to lynch, and i thought mine was the fifth vote. People were voting both Chenhsi and Wumbo, and I thought wumbo looked scummier. I didnt think he was scum, so I thought it would get him to talk more, without having to hang him.

Then i unvoted when i realised that a member of the mafia could hammer his bandwagon easily, Which they didnt do.

In the last sentence above, you make it sound like:

(a) you realised your mistake quickly
(b) you unvoted Wumbo when he was at L-1

The timeline suggests otherwise:

You voted Wumbo (to L-1): Mon Jul 07, 2008 9:32 am (post 97)

You questioned Wumbo again: Mon Jul 07, 2008 1:44 pm (post 110)

nhat unvoted Wumbo (L-2): Mon Jul 07, 2008 2:13 pm (post 111)
And voted you for putting Wumbo at L-1.

geraintm unvoted Wumbo (L-3): Mon Jul 07, 2008 7:56 pm (post 119)

Litral voted Wumbo (L-2): Mon Jul 07, 2008 10:46 pm (post 121)

You unvoted Wumbo (L-3): Tue Jul 08, 2008 12:43 am (post 124)

You didn't unvote Wumbo until 10 hours after nhat already unvoted Wumbo and challenged you over your vote, by which time 15 hours and 27 posts had gone by since you voted him.

[imaginality]

Sure you did.

[imaginality]

Information doesn't particularly help the town if it means people claiming vanilla townie when there are only a couple of votes on them, to help the mafia narrow down who the power roles are.

Information in the way of posts discussing, challenging, arguing, making a case against someone, pointing out noteworthy reactions, etc. and so on, is useful, but for someone who (rightly) claims 'information is crucial for [town] to win', you weren't exactly contributing much along those lines earlier.

IGMEOY. A sudden discussion of theory seems to be avoiding the issue of whether to lynch Wumbo or not, or whether to look at any of the people who voted him, and it seems to be rather out of the blue if we take it in context. Your vote was on Wumbo at that time. Slightly bad feeling about this.

It was hardly out of the blue. It followed this exchange:

and if you are a vanilla townie, why claim it so damn early?

And dark wingstalker, my aforementioned status is that way because even if I die, the town still has a chance to win. Information is also crucial for them to win.

I was pointing out that early claims don't help town, and that Wumbo hadn't contributed much other information at that point, to question Wumbo's comments quoted above. While my post was perhaps slightly indirect, it was supporting my vote on Wumbo.

[imaginality]

Your explanation still doesn't ring true to me. Two reasons in particular: firstly, because you're still making it sound like you unvoted because Wumbo was at L-1:

Then i unvoted when i realised that a member of the mafia could hammer his bandwagon easily, Which they didnt do.

when I was informed what L-1 was, it all clicked into place, and I unvoted.

when in fact, geraintm had already unvoted (post 119) so Wumbo was at L-2. So your reason for unvoting can't have been because you realised Wumbo was at L-1, since he

wasn't

any more by that time, unless you miscounted again...


Secondly, in posts 102 and 107 Wumbo had made ample reference to being at L-1, talking about how "moving it up to L-1" was silly, suggesting we should "seriously look into any of the 6 who put a vote on," telling people not to put the hammer vote on him without good reason, etc. but when you responded to those posts in post 110, you simply continued to put the pressure on him. You'd clearly had the chance to read those posts of his, whatever time zone you're in, since you

responded

to them, but you didn't unvote Wumbo then.

Now, I would have been more inclined to believe you if you'd said that you didn't realise the

significance

of L-1 (i.e. how easy it is for maf to hammer) and that in retrospect you see you cast that vote too lightly, but given the above point, I have a much harder time believing that you didn't

know

Wumbo was at L-1.

[imaginality]

Dark wingstalker,

both

nhat (post 111)

and

geraintm (post 119) had unvoted Wumbo by then. Taking Wumbo down to L-3. Then Litral voted Wumbo (post 121) taking him back to L-2.

Not

to L-1. See my timeline in post 133.

[imaginality]

While you're rereading, let's look at:

Frankly, I posted my Vote, Logged in, Posted my "Whats l-1 mean" and then i unvoted. The only thing i'm really guilty of here is a total and utter lack of common sense.

Frankly, I posted my Vote (post 97),
Logged in, Posted my "Whats l-1 mean (post 114)
and then i unvoted. (post 124)

Oh, but wait... you somehow forgot to mention your post 110...

So it should read:

Frankly, I posted my Vote (post 97),
Challenged Wumbo about his responses while not feeling worried enough by his multiple references to being at L-1, next vote being the hammer vote, etc. to unvote or even comment on that (post 110)
Logged in, Posted my "Whats l-1 mean (post 114)
and then i unvoted. (post 124)
The only thing i'm really guilty of here is a total and utter lack of common sense. (well, yep, this may be true ...but a lack of common sense is a null-tell... )

[imaginality]

Two stray thoughts:

I notice that Wumbo clammed up again as soon as the pressure was off him.

I think post 143 from Kenfucius contains several good points, and I'll be interested to hear whether or not his position vis a vis Dark wingstalker has changed following the recent posts or not.

[imaginality]

I do find it REALLY annoying that imaginality keeps harping me on posting.

Harping on? Hardly. I thought it worth mentioning because posting actively only when being put under pressure is a behaviour scum sometimes exhibit. It's only been a few days, as you rightly point out, which is why I just mentioned it as an aside rather than make a bigger issue out of it. There's no need to react so strongly to it.

Also, my stance on claiming early remains the same... take that for what you will. I did it cause I felt like it. Whether or not I outed a power role or am a power role myself, I found it necessary to do so. So take that for what you will once again.

How does "I did it cause I felt like it" fit with "I found it necessary to do so"? Those two statements seem to be in contradiction. Did you claim early simply because you wanted to, or because you felt it was necessary to?

[imaginality]

maxwellhouse makes a good point:

err what? you gave wumbo 12 hours to defend himself, then later said you didn't even have enough time yourself to always be on the board? so you gave him half a day, yet when someone questions you about your timing it's null? that doesn't make sense. and wumbo is scummy for not giving a proper defense in 12 hours yet you are immune to that.

My vote is on Dark wingstalker and right now, it's hard to see that changing.

[imaginality]

chenhsi, please answer these questions:

1. Do you believe you are currently helping the town to find the scum? If so, how?

2. Out of the players who've come under attack so far (most notably Wumbo and Dark wingstalker), who do you find most suspicious? And why?

3. Has anything else anyone has said struck you as odd, questionable, or worth commenting on?

4. What would the chances of a town win be if we all adopted your playing style?

Sorry, that last question was a bit mean (please answer the first three though) but honestly, your playing style is becoming increasingly irritating. I find it hard to believe that you can see nothing worth commenting on and feel you have nothing to contribute aside from a 1-line post here and there.

[imaginality]

imaginality - i really don'tlike people putting u lists of questions for others to answer. i think t makes a player look like they are participating in a game when all they are doing is trying to force others to talk and incrimate themselves.

Since chenhsi seems to say next to nothing except when he's asked direct questions, I don't think it was out of order to ask him a few. If that was all I've done, you'd have a point, but I've been participating aside from that as well.

you should at least answer the questions yourself

Sure, why not?

chenhsi, please answer these questions:

1. Do you believe you are currently helping the town to find the scum? If so, how?

2. Out of the players who've come under attack so far (most notably Wumbo and Dark wingstalker), who do you find most suspicious? And why?

3. Has anything else anyone has said struck you as odd, questionable, or worth commenting on?

4. What would the chances of a town win be if we all adopted your playing style?

1. Yes. A few examples of how I'm trying to help the town find scum (directly or indirectly):

(a) trying to stimulate discussion at times when the thread was quiet early on (the 'two bandwagons' post 34, also post 50)
(b) starting the Wumbo wagon with my vote on him (post 88) and staying involved in the ensuing discussion (also drawing attention to him again more recently); he is still under suspicion as far as I am concerned
(c) addiing to the pressure on Dark wingstalker for his questionable vote, and challenging his somewhat contradictory attempts to explain himself since (posts 128, 133, 149 etc)
(d) answering other players' questions promptly (posts 41, 142, this post)

2. I think Dark wingstalker is more suspicious. I won't repeat all the reasons raised in the earlier posts, but I think his responses have used more dubious arguments, and his attempts to defend himself also come across as more desperate than Wumbo's did.

3. One or two things, a couple of which might be worth mentioning, a couple of vaguer suspicions that I won't raise yet as they're just hunches at this stage.

Worth mentioning: Litral's post 121:

But for now, vote: Wumbo by this principle: anyone vanilla townie who has claimed is completely useless to the town, and should be lynched, unless there is a far better candidate.

This post got overlooked in the switch to Dark wingstalker, but I disagree with the idea that "anyone vanilla townie who has claimed should be lynched unless there's a far better candidate," and even with the idea that "anyone who has claimed vanilla townie should be lynched unless there's a far better candidate," (if that's what he was trying to say. Particularly I disagree with using that logic to vote Wumbo at that point, because quick-lynching Wumbo would not have given us time to find a 'far better candidate'.

Litral's most recent post also rings untrue for me:

The explanation why I'm not voting DWS and is happy with voting Mr. Chen is because I find it far more useful, in the long run, to lynch someone who will not participate, since they'll have to be lynched at some point anyway, and relatively, lynching DWS will deny us information.

While I agree that more participation is a good thing, it's not true that we'd have to lynch chenhsi anyhow if he continued to minimally participate (e.g. a cop may get an inno on him), and also we would arguably gain more information from a DWS lynch than a policy lynch of a lurker, even if the trade-off is losing a player who participates more.

4. Not sure, I haven't got a completed game here yet so not a lot of evidence to judge the effectiveness of my playing style, certainly there are better players than me in this game, but from what I've seen so far I think it's fair to say that there'd be more chance if we all played like me than if we all play like chenhsi.

[imaginality]

I asked:

chenhsi, please answer these questions:

1. Do you believe you are currently helping the town to find the scum? If so, how?

2. Out of the players who've come under attack so far (most notably Wumbo and Dark wingstalker), who do you find most suspicious? And why?

3. Has anything else anyone has said struck you as odd, questionable, or worth commenting on?

4. What would the chances of a town win be if we all adopted your playing style?

Chenhsi responded:

1. Probably not... although I will say something if I can find something to comment on...

4. I didn't consider this mean (although I see how you could). The chances? Lower than it could be.

Still trying to think of an answer for numbers 2 and 3, and I'm busy now, so I'll do those later.

and later:

2. No idea, they look the same to me.

3. Not really, I'll look again and see if I can find anything else though.

Not contributing is one thing, but continuing not to contribute when people are asking you to is another, and not taking up the opportunity to contribute that I just presented you with is even more questionable play. Your responses have taken you from lurky to scummy, and I think you deserve a vote. I'm not voting lightly - because I don't like taking my vote off DWS, who I still think is highly suspicious - but with those kind of answers you're really crying out for votes on you. So:

unvote; vote chenhsi

[imaginality]

Arrrgh... chenhsi...

Let's lynch chenhsi anyway. We don't need a cop to win this game.

(Just joking about lynching him, I hasten to add. Though the frustration is real. )

@ chenhsi... being a cop does not give you license to contribute absolutely nothing to the discussion safe in the knowledge that if you come under pressure you can claim and avoid being lynched. You could at least have taken advantage of the questions I threw your way instead of pretty much inviting us to wagon you and force you to claim.

unvote

(though it would be so sweet to see a cop counterclaim right now...)


So... okay, there is a deadline fast approaching and I'm not keen to see day 1 end without a lynch.I stand by my suspicions of Dark wingstalker, but after a re-read, I am also highly suspicious of Litral.

Reading Litral's posts, the following things stood out to me:

36. Voted Tom, no reason given
38. After Stranger Coug voted him (post 37), gave a reason for his vote:

Because Tom suggested that we kill Godot, and yet he did not put on a vote himself, or give reasons.

If Litral thinks not giving a reason for a vote is suspicious, why didn't he give a reason for his vote? Seems more likely he thought of this as a justification for his vote after the fact.

121. votes Wumbo (back up to L-2) because:

anyone vanilla townie who has claimed is completely useless to the town, and should be lynched, unless there is a far better candidate.

Aside from whether this is a good argument, I think it's pretty interesting that he made absolutely no comment on the Dark wingstalker L-1 vote shenanigans, which was breaking news at the time he posted. Instead he tried to keep the Wumbo wagon alive with his vote.

137. Here Litral unvotes Wumbo and votes chenhsi, saying:

I get town vibes out of Wumbo's final defenses after careful reading, which is why I don't feel like lynching him any more.

Yet Litral was happy to vote Wumbo in post 121, and Wumbo hadn't posted since then. It seems more likely to me that Litral realised the Wumbo wagon had run out of steam, so he claimed to have changed your views after a careful reread of his posts. (And if he

is

telling the truth, then shouldn't he have read Wumbo's posts carefully

before

voting him to L-2?)

183. Litral drops in to say:

Although I'm attentive, I'm not going to bother with this discussion.

I find this pretty interesting because it heightens my suspicion that

both

Dark wingstalker

and

Litral may be scum together. In post 121 Litral ignored the attacks on DWS's vote, in post 137 he only questioned him slightly ("Why the tunnel vision?"), and now he stays clear of the fray completely. I think this makes a lot of sense if DWS is Litral's scum buddy and Litral wants to avoid facing the dilemma of either obviously defending DWS (which could put him under suspicion if DWS is outed as scum later), or adding to the attack him (which at that point could have led to a DWS lynch).

203. Defends DWS's mistakes as unintentional:

while DWS did seem to misinterpret and misspeak at times, those misinterpretations are not meant to be malicious or anti-town, and to me, not intentional.

206, 209, 212, 216. Defends his argument that lynching lurkers is a good strategy. Worth noting though, in 216 Litral says:

You're saying my strategy is to lynch every lurker. First of all, it's pretty sad if there are enough lurkers to lynch all the way to endgame, and second of all, I'm saying that we should lynch (or at least vote) chenhsi, who while suspicious (suggesting that there is nothing at all to talk about and nothing questionable at all), has the added benefit for lynching of being a lurker.

But he used the same argument to push for a lynch on Wumbo, so it does seem that the lurkiness is the reason for Litral targeting them, not an 'added benefit'.

246. Not sure why but this post also seems slightly off, maybe because of its WIFOMish flavour:

On the other hand: if you're going to claim, claim doc. Then the scum can kill you if we don't.

Not any more they will.

Given the specific points I've mentioned, as well as the general 'feel' of his posts/play so far, I feel justified in voting Litral:

vote Litral

Aside from Litral, I'm also fine with a Dark wingstalker lynch if there's more chance of us agreeing on it by deadline, and I'm open to being persuaded if anyone else wants to make a case against someone else. (Cass, at the moment I'm not convinced that Wumbo is a good lynch, mainly because if I'm right about Litral and Dark wingstalker being scum, it follows that Wumbo is pretty likely to be town.)

[imaginality]

206, 209, 212, 216. Defends his argument that lynching lurkers is a good strategy. Worth noting though, in 216 Litral says:

You're saying my strategy is to lynch every lurker. First of all, it's pretty sad if there are enough lurkers to lynch all the way to endgame, and second of all, I'm saying that we should lynch (or at least vote) chenhsi, who while suspicious (suggesting that there is nothing at all to talk about and nothing questionable at all), has the added benefit for lynching of being a lurker.

But he used the same argument to push for a lynch on Wumbo, so it does seem that the lurkiness is the reason for Litral targeting them, not an 'added benefit'.

Where is this argument?

Oops, my bad; I think when I wrote that I was thinking of his post 137, but of course that's when he voted chenhsi. So I retract that argument and accept that his reason for voting chenhsi doesn't contradict his reason for voting Wumbo, though I think that his actual argument for voting Wumbo in post 121 ("lynch anyone claiming vanilla unless there's a far better candidate"), combined with the lack of comment on DWS in that post remains suspicious. Also, on a re-read, the timing of his vote on chenhsi in post 137 could very well be an attempt to shift pressure away from DWS and onto another lurker.

[imaginality]

Litral's responses to my case against him are inadequate. His explanation of why he voted Wumbo (121) and then switched to chenhsi (137) is basically that he "only barely read the posts" when he cast his vote on Wumbo, and switched votes after "careful reading" of the same posts. Litral says:

Again, my post showed that at that time I had not been attentive, and I did promise to read the whole thing later. That I did, and that's the unvote post. I think that the fact that I did not have time

at that particular moment

must be stressed; it explains the situation surrounding those two posts in a logical way.

The problems with this explanation:

(a) He's saying he voted Wumbo (to L-2) after 'barely reading' the recent posts: it seems unacceptable to cast a vote so lightly, why not hold off voting until he'd had a chance to read?
(b) it didn't take much attention to see that Dark wingstalker was in the hot seat; I still find his lack of comment suspicious, when combined with his attempt to stay clear of that debate later (183)
(c) saying "I get town vibes out of Wumbo's final defenses" (137) is a conveniently vague get-out clause for switching his vote; what were those townie vibes that stood out clearly after a reread but not when he cast his vote?
(d)In explaining his "not going to bother with this discussion" post (183), Litral says, "Since you did not explain why my arguments saying that DWS was not scum to me are bad, I cannot argue with this." - but at that point, he hadn't given any reasons for thinking DWS was not scum, so this doesn't answer my point at all.

while DWS did seem to misinterpret and misspeak at times, those misinterpretations are not meant to be malicious or anti-town, and to me, not intentional.

And? You mean to say he made those mistakes on purpose. I see no scum-benefit in that.

No benefit in 'accidentally' voting someone to L-1 without good reason? I think there's a clear benefit for scum to do that: the chance that someone else might then hammer that player. And there's also benefit in misinterpretations when you're scum, if you hope you can thereby confuse the case being made against you or hope to shift the focus away from your actions and on to semantics.

On the other hand: if you're going to claim, claim doc. Then the scum can kill you if we don't.

Not any more they will.

Umm... it makes sense. I'm not happy with Cass bringing up the point out loud, thus denying chenhsi that strategy if he had it.[/quote]

As mentioned above, Cass suggesting to chenhsi to claim doc doesn't deny chenhsi the strategy of claiming doc. Your 'not any more they will' seems to suggest that scum will now not night-kill chenhsi if he claims doc, which is (a) good if he

was

doc, and (b) something you couldn't know either way, if you're town.

As for whether Cass's "claim doc chenhsi" suggestion was a good or bad post, I don't think it was particularly bad, because, if chenhsi had claimed doc in the absence of that post, given his play so far there's little chance maf would think he might be tricking them. Whereas if chenhsi had claimed doc after Cass's remark, there would indeed be WIFOM involved for maf to try to decide whether chenhsi was doc or was just following Cass's suggestion.

I actually find geraintm's post 267 more suspicious - where he says:

telling people what to claim? it only likemakes sense if you are the doc and wanted to counter claim immediatly!

That smells like fishing to me - could easily be something scum would say in order to get a better sense of whether Cass is doc from his reaction to this comment. I think I will have a re-read geraintm's posts. My vote, though, stays on Litral.

[imaginality]

Nice pic nhat.

Okay, happy to switch my vote to Dark wingstalker. If he flips scum Litral still looks very good to me for a day 2 lynch.

Unvote

Vote Dark wingstalker

[imaginality]

My top three right now:

Dark wingstalker
Litral
geraintm

[imaginality]

Ummm... I am not sure who my 3 are...

And I don't really want to say ...

You're not sure who your suspects are, or you don't want to say who they are? It can't really be both...

[imaginality]

Okay. I wasn't sure whether to believe maxwellhouse's claim, but a re-read of his posts (particularly 275 and 286) definitely makes me pretty inclined to believe him.

I'm very willing to vote chenhsi now, but a question first: I agree that two sane cop seems highly unlikely, but it's easier to believe that there might be two (or more) cops if one or more of them is naive/insane/paranoid. However I don't know if mini normal games (a) are allowed to have (and (b) sometimes/often do have) multiple cops of varying sanities. Is that possible/plausible?

[imaginality]

Woohoo, we win! Well played town!

Especially Battousai and Wumbo for finding good reasons to vote geraintm.

Nice to see I was right about DWS being scum, though having our paranoid cop investigate the Godfather has to count as a stroke of luck, but that probably balances out with the fact that it was our sane cop we mislynched day 1 rather than the naive or paranoid one.

I enjoyed following the progress of this game, it was a good read and I thought both sides played pretty solidly. StrangerCoug did well to recover from that momentary slip-up when he as good as admitted "okay I'm a lying scum" to survive another day.

geraintm's strategy fooled me, at least. I was wondering who the fourth mafia member was rather than looking for an SK. I can see how that could have worked successfully for him if either Battousai or Wumbo had looked a bit less town...

Good stuff.

[imaginality]

Not all SKs are compulsive. A very relevant link is this thread discussing the tactic of deliberately not-killing as SK, which is exactly what (I'm assuming) geraintm decided to try?