Mini #704: Hunchback of Notre Dame, Game Over

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

There cannot be two MMs in the same game!

Vote: MiteyMouse

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

@Ramus: Why self-vote? And what's with the "##"?

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

@Ramus: Why self-vote? And what's with the "##"?

In another place where I played, we used the ## sign before voting or unvoting to make it easier to find for the mod.

...and your answer to the first question is?

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

With

12

alive, it takes

8

to lynch, and

4

to lynch at deadline. Deadline hits on December 1 at 9:59 pm CDT.

Mod: Why did the number to lynch go up to 8?

Mod Edit: That was a one-time-only chance to be safe at seven votes. At least until the next vote count. [That was simply a mistake].

Is subjective.

What benefits do you think self-voting provide? Do you think self-voting is a better option than random voting?

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

## Vote: ThAdmiral

because I voted him in another game also and I like to be consistent

There was just an extremely lengthy theory discussion in another game I am playing based on self-voting. It was agreed, as Ramus said, that it's subjective and there's nothing inherently scummy about self-voting. It would be nice if the people voting/FoSing him actually gave some reasons as to why self-voting in the *random* stage of the game suggests one is scum?

I never suggested self-voting to be scummy. I'm just inquiring about it since I rarely see this ploy. It also generates discussion.

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

@Ramus you ignored my questions again:

What benefits do you think self-voting provide? Do you think self-voting is a better option than random voting?

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

As I think there is adequate pressure on Ramus right now, I'm not going to vote him, but I would like a better explaination about why he self-voted rather than someone else explaining something about his last game.

This sounded more like you were afraid to draw attention to yourself by adding on to the Ramus wagon.

Unvote, Vote: ClockworkRuse

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

Would you rather I tunnel in on someone who already has two or three players firing questions away?

I'm more interested in why someone is defending him right now than his defense, what reason would ort have defending Ramus? Ramus is perfectly capable of responding to the questions and suspicions that are being thrown at him right now, so one would hope at least.

But you can still address your concerns with other players and possibly using FOSes, IGMEOYs, etc while voting for Ramus. You are depicting a possible Ramus-vote in the worst light by suggesting tunneling.

I also see a contradiction in your second statement. Earlier you said "As I think there is adequate pressure on Ramus right now, I'm not going to vote him", which suggests that Ramus is your primary interest. Then in the post above you flip flop and say that the Ramus-defenders are your primary interests and Ramus is secondary.

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

Would you rather I tunnel in on someone who already has two or three players firing questions away?

I'm more interested in why someone is defending him right now than his defense, what reason would ort have defending Ramus? Ramus is perfectly capable of responding to the questions and suspicions that are being thrown at him right now, so one would hope at least.

But you can still address your concerns with other players and possibly using FOSes, IGMEOYs, etc while voting for Ramus. You are depicting a possible Ramus-vote in the worst light by suggesting tunneling.

I also see a contradiction in your second statement. Earlier you said "As I think there is adequate pressure on Ramus right now, I'm not going to vote him", which suggests that Ramus is your primary interest. Then in the post above you flip flop and say that the Ramus-defenders are your primary interests and Ramus is secondary.

Ramus wasn't my primary interest, that's just how you are reading into it. I agree that his responses to fairly simple questions have been scummy, but at the time I felt that the amount of people concentrating on him was adequate, I didn't need to jump on that wagon. And you're telling me that I'm scummy because I didn't bother to FoS him or tell him I was going to keep my eye one him?

Do you think I did need to jump on that wagon? Why? What benefit would it be for scum to concentrate on someone else when someone is under heavy scrutiny?

The fact that you recognize the scumminess and the potential jump on the wagon means you had significant interest in Ramus. So it seemed to me like you were trying to have it both ways by addressing Ramus while not creating a clear link with him.

Your last question is a classic WIFOM scenario. It seems Scum X will do action A in circumstance C, so X knows the town will think this and do action not-A in circumstance C, so X knows the town will think this and do action not-not-A (A) in circumstance C, etc.

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

I don't like the CR-hate.
Machiavellian-Mafia:

I also see a contradiction in your second statement. Earlier you said "As I think there is adequate pressure on Ramus right now, I'm not going to vote him", which suggests that Ramus is your primary interest. Then in the post above you flip flop and say that the Ramus-defenders are your primary interests and Ramus is secondary.

I don't see these implication. How did this comment of the wagon tell you that CR was more interested in Ramus than he was of ortolan, the player he

voted

for? Where is the contradiction?

The fact that you recognize the scumminess and the potential jump on the wagon means you had significant interest in Ramus. So it seemed to me like you were trying to have it both ways by addressing Ramus while not creating a clear link with him.

I'm confused by this quote. Why is it important to your vote that CR had significant interest in Ramus and what sort of a link are you saying he was trying to avoid?

How I read CR's statement was that his primary interest was on Ramus because he mentioned Ramus first and considered voting Ramus, but because of the "adequate pressure", he wanted to instead pursue his secondary interest. I clearly spelled out the contradiction in that quote.

The main reason for my vote was that CR had significant interest in Ramus and considered Ramus to be scummy but did not want to pile on the wagon by voting, FOSing, etc. In other words, I saw him talk and talk but not walk the walk.

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

I don't see a contradiction, or at the least, anything worth the wagon that's grown on CR.

MM, again, what sort of link would CR have been trying to avoid making with Ramus?

The link of being, IIRC, the 4th person on the Ramus bandwagon.

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

I don't see a contradiction, or at the least, anything worth the wagon that's grown on CR.

MM, again, what sort of link would CR have been trying to avoid making with Ramus?

The link of being, IIRC, the 4th person on the Ramus bandwagon.

When I usually see talk about players making or avoiding links it's usually with other players, not positions on a wagon. What's significant about the 4th vote?

What I was saying there is in addition to the link of Ramus-the-player-as-a-whole, there is a more specifically link of the 4th position. I read CR to be afraid of voting CR's comfort.

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

I don't see a contradiction, or at the least, anything worth the wagon that's grown on CR.

MM, again, what sort of link would CR have been trying to avoid making with Ramus?

The link of being, IIRC, the 4th person on the Ramus bandwagon.

When I usually see talk about players making or avoiding links it's usually with other players, not positions on a wagon. What's significant about the 4th vote?

What I was saying there is in addition to the link of Ramus-the-player-as-a-whole, there is a more specifically link of the 4th position. I read CR to be afraid of voting CR's comfort.

Am I not communicating my question properly? (<- Honest question)
What would this link mean? CR-scum distancing from Ramus-scum? CR-scum distancing from Ramus-town-mislynch? Why is either of these more likely than the other or simply CR-town making a comment about a wagon he supports but doesn't join? And why bring the 4th vote up?

So that's what you were asking. I would interpret the link in order of likeliness from CR-scum-Ramus-town to CR-scum-Ramus-scum to CR-town-Ramus-either. I think the first 2 cases are more likely since scum would be more likely to be careful about not drawing too much attention (i.e.

not

jumping on steamrolling wagon) while town would be more likely to be aggressive (i.e. jumping on steamrolling wagon). The 4th vote = jumping on wagon to keep it steamrolling.

I'll admit I haven't had much time to post content recently except responding to destructor. I'll do a comprehensive rereading of the game in the next 3 days.

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

After my read-through, I have two main thoughts:

1. Besides my initial reasons, I don't see any additional significant damning evidence against CR. I also feel that CR has adequately defended himself to not be the lynch for today. Plus I sense something wrong about the current 5-person wagon on him. Most notably, the first vote from uriel is a random vote that has stayed on CR since the beginning and Batt's pressure vote doesn't have strong foundations either.

2. I see 4 players who have done absolute zero scumhunting for the first 7 pages: Caboose, MiteyMouse, ThAdmiral, and Urielzyx. MiMo gets a pass for now since he's been an outright non-posting lurker.

FoS: ThAdmiral and Urielzyx

, they are worse offenders since they've only been posting about Mafia theory or game minutiae, although I see a hint of ThAdmiral scumhunting in Post 178. Caboose is the worst offender since not only are his contributions just Mafia theory and minutiae, he has been much more active in other places than in this game. In his last 40 posts he has 1 post in this game, in his last 90 posts he has 2 posts in this game, etc. I consider lack of motivation to contribute to be very scummy.

Unvote ClockworkRuse, Vote: Caboose

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

Well at least now there won't be any confusion about which MM is which.

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

hmm...

unvote

your response was measured and explained things well ortolan.

I feel bad doing this but

vote: caboose

.
I think it's probably the most favorable lynch at the moment.

When you say "most favorable", do you mean the lynch is the one most likely to happen or the one you support the most? And in either case, do you have additional reasons for voting caboose?

@Axelrod: I assume you meant #195 when you said "basically, I agree with MM in #175"?

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

What a coincidence, as soon as I call out Caboose he starts posting at a rate much faster than before. But his posting still has a distinct pattern:

"There might be some people out there (ClockworkRuse for example) that might deserve my vote more than you. I'm still trying to determine that. "

"I'll attempt to wade through the postage a little later."

"I'll let him defend himself before placing a vote."

"Fair enough. I don't like not voting either."

He keeps delaying actually scumhunting and placing vote. I still like my vote.

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

The pattern of Caboose's posts continues. In both of his twos posts after I pointed out the pattern, he is still delaying actually scumhunting and placing vote.

The problem with that is that it makes deciding NKs for the scum a lot easier if they know who the town thinks is town and who the town is unsure of.

I think how scum choose nightkills is much more complex than you are making it out to be. Maybe they choose to kill the towniest players. Maybe they choose to kill more suspicious players to make townier players look bad. Maybe they choose to kill more suspicious players because they see a higher possibility of hitting power roles. Etc.

So I have no problem with players making lists that include protown players. I will do it occasionally as well.

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

The pattern of Caboose's posts continues. In both of his twos posts after I pointed out the pattern, he is still delaying actually scumhunting and placing vote.

Yes, it does continue, and will continue. I post in short spurts of writing, I don't read or make really really long posts.

That's no excuse. You can still scumhunt while making short posts. Most of my posts are under 5 lines, with the longest one being only 10 lines, yet I can still do scumhunting adequately.

@ThAdmiral:

with the time extension i should hopefully be able to choose a better target and not just a lurker.

Found one yet?

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

Sorry for double post, just noticed this:

Chances of scum being on my wagon... quite high.

So who is more likely to be scum to you? Is it CR, who is your current vote, or is it one or both of {Caboose, Destrutor}, who are on your current wagon? If it's the former, does it mean you consider CR's chance to be scum to be very high (i.e. higher than "quite high")? If it's the latter, why did you not switch your vote?

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

@Mizzy:

I am beginning to think my vote should be elsewhere now.

Unvote

for the moment while I wait to see responses.

That was ten days ago. Found that "elsewhere" spot for your vote yet?

@CarnCarn: I have pending questions for you on Post 273

@roflcopter: In light of your recent statements about Caboose:

"likelihood that caboose is scum with clockwork rising dramatically"
"meteoric rise in the probability of caboose being scum"
"++scum points"

Where is Caboose on your "scumlist" currently?

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

Hi, letting you all know I'm going to have limited access until Dec 14.

I will get another post in before the weekend is over. I feel like I'm kind of losing touch in this game, so if anyone has anything specific they'd like me to comment on or any questions, they're welcome too.

How do you feel your current vote on CarnCarn? None of the reasons you listed were particularly strong IMO: his FOS on rofl, his IGMEOY on Caboose, and his jump away from CR.

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

I still very much like my Caboose vote. He hasn't done anything close to change my mind about him.

However with the deadline approximately 3 days away, I'll examine other options if it means avoiding no-lynch.

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

@Mizzy: The deadline is about two days away and I still haven't seen you vote since your unvote over 2 weeks ago.

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

@Mizzy: The deadline is about two days away and I still haven't seen you vote since your unvote over 2 weeks ago.

I will vote when I am comfortable with doing so and not a moment before.

I'm currently waiting on something a little more substantial from our star replacement, Natirasha, before voting him for his blatant inconsistencies. You want me to vote sooner then get him to post.

This sounds like you are planning to vote him regardless of what he will post. So if this is the case and he has blatant inconsistencies, why not vote now? Plus voting him will probably prompt him to post. Not voting is the worst thing one can do near a deadline.

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

After re-examining recent events:

1. I like neither CarnCarn nor CR as a lynch. If a gun was pointed at me and I had to pick one out of these two, it would be CR for the information, but again, it would be a last resort.

2. Out of my three previous suspicions, ThAdmiral has improved the most, so I won't consider voting him. I wouldn't mind voting for Uriel/Nat since Nat has done pretty much nothing since replacing. But I still consider Caboose my top choice given his weak CarnCarn vote and the fact that he has conveniently disappeared again when my initial pressure on him wore off.

So my current voting plan is the following, ignoring game-changing things that might come up such as claims:

Keep vote on Caboose right now
If no one else votes Caboose at deadline -24 hours, I will vote Nat
If there is no significant wagon on Caboose or Nat by deadline -12 hours, I will vote CR.

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

Caboose, if you haven't truly disappeared from this game yet, it's claim or die time with the deadline in less than 24 hours.

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

Unvote: Urzassedatives

, while you are getting the pass today, it doesn't mean you have a clean slate with Caboose wiped off when I evaluate you in later days.

I'm now essentially at step 2 of my previously mentioned deadline plan, so

Vote: Natirasha

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

@CarnCarn: I think you misread the deadline by 24 hours. It should around this time tomorrow.

I unvoted Urza mainly because he just replaced in. My policy on replacements is that unless there is overwhelming evidence against the predecessor such as a cop guilty, replacements should be allowed to participate further and prove themselves.

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

Mod:

I voted for Natirasha in my Post #404.

The deadline is in less than 12 hours. CR should claim since he's the current leading vote-getter.

Mod Edit: Vote count fixed.

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

Where the heck is everyone? Deadline is in about 6 hours!

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

CR: You could have voted Nat yesterday so that you could avoid getting lynched. Why didn't you do that?

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

@CR: fair enough

@Destructor: Seems like you think there are scum on CR's wagon because you think CR is town. Do you also think there are scum on Nat's wagon since he's mod-confirmed town?

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

I finally have some time to reread this game. I'll be done within 24 hours.

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

Since we had a major wagon on a mod-confirmed town player, I will focus on what happened with the Nat lynch.

The basic information:

On the actual lynch wagon: {Axelrod, Mizzy, Machiavellian-Mafia, ThAdmiral, destructor}
Willing to vote Nat but preferred someone else: {Urza, roflcopter}
Not willing to vote Nat: {Batt, CarnCarn}
Unknown stance on Nat: {CR, ortolan}

For now I will ignore the last group because of their claims. I also won't include roflcopter since he's dead and myself since I know I am town. Here's about the rest:

Axelrod
Reasoning behind voting Nat: Both predecessor and Nat were useless.
Overall game evaluation: Slightly protown read. Has done nothing scummy and made some legitimate cases and contributions.
Conclusion: Not even close to being a scum suspect.

Mizzy
Reasoning behind voting Nat: Impending deadline, less-than-stellar replacing in, and subsequent disappearance
Overall evaluation: Neutral read. On the outside she looks pretty good, but on the inside I have a bad gut feeling about her.
Conclusion: Not a scum suspect.

ThAdmiral
Reasoning behind voting Nat: His rofl vote was not useful, prefers Nat over CR
Overall evaluation: Scum read. Not helpful for a big chunk of Day 1. Has 6 instances of voting someone and then immediately unvoting 1 or 2 posts later. Proactive in nightkill speculation.
Conclusion: Top scum suspect

destructor
Reasoning behind voting Nat: More like a policy vote, the least pro-town lynch candidate, wanted vote to be useful at deadline.
Overall evaluation: Pretty much the same as Axelrod.
Conclusion: Not even close to being a scum suspect.

Urza
Reasoning behind willingness to vote Nat: Uriel was on his shit list
Overall evaluation: Predecessor was my #1 suspect. Urza is a much better improvement, but he hasn’t done enough to cancel out Caboose.
Conclusion: Still a scum suspect

Batt
Reasoning behind not willing to vote Nat: Nat is up to par with general playstyle.
Overall evaluation: Neutral read. Initially not helpful but has significantly improved in latter part of D1.
Conclusion: Not a scum suspect

CarnCarn
Reasoning behind not willing to vote Nat: Nat is being Nat. Agreed with one of the posts.
Overall evaluation: Neutral read. Nothing he has done is pushing me towards a scum read or a protown read.
Conclusion: Not a scum suspect

So I currently like ThAdmiral the most, with Urza being second.

Vote: ThAdmiral
FoS: Urza

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

MM, you said you didn't find the reasons I gave for voting CC yesterday very strong. Do you still feel the same way? Do you the conclusions I came to regarding the end of Day 1 are reasonable?

Yes because I still see the context/circumstances of CC's actions to be reasonable.
Yes, I'm leaning towards town for both CR and ort, and I see Urza as the most likely scum on the CR wagon.

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

EDWOP:

The quote above was supposed to be destructor's.

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

Something strikes me as slightly inconsistent here. It seems from your last sentence that you are basically accepting cr as town but you are only looking at peoples reactions to the nati wagon.
I think you should take into account how people reacted to both wagons as it would make for more thorough analysis.

I think there's a good chance that CR town, but that cannot compare with the mod-confirmed town status of Nat.

@ mm: it also seems like you did a lot of analysis which didn't actually factor in to your final suspicions.
A way to provide more merit to what is essentially not a very solid vote?

Can you clarify what you mean and/or give examples?

Not guaranteed to be true actually. Did you forget there's a traitor in this game?

Yes I know there's a traitor, but since scum doesn't know who the traitor is and there's no confirmed scum to look for connections, in my eyes it's safe to mark Nat and rofl as town for the time being.

MM, I think it might be worthwhile to include yourself and Rofl in your analysis as a test of your system. You say you're town and ROFL is now confirmed town, which means if you expect scum to react in a certain way, you'd expect town NOT to act in that way. By comparing the town reactions to the expected scum reactions, you would be able to discern if your system holds any merit.

Valid point, I'll see how it turns out in my next post.

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

roflcopter
Reasoning behind willingness to vote Nat: Impending deadline
Overall game evaluation: Neutral read
Conclusion: Not a scum suspect. Now revealed Town by mod.

MM
Reasoning behind voting Nat: Impending deadline, preference of Nat over CR and Urza
Overall evaluation and conclusion: Obviously town

Rofl and my own behavior do not really change how I view others.

But no one, importantly including CC himself, has yet provided an explanation for why he would FOS a player for helping scum choose a nightkill. How is that reasonable, whatever the context or circumstances?

I saw that FOS as CC initially disagreeing with rofl on the merit of town lists, which was reasonable enough.

It seems that the reasons why people were on natirasha/willing to vote for him didn't factor in to your overall assessment, and instead you just based your suspicions on reasons from yesterday.

I did factor them in, but I obviously put more weight on the overall assessments since many people reacted in similar ways to Nat.

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

Due to the recent holidays, I'm a little bit lost in the recent posts. I'll get refreshed by this weekend.

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

The deadline is coming up fast again in about 5 days, and I still very much like my ThAdmiral vote. He's staying under the radar throughout today and has not done much scumhunting since his unvote of destructor very early D2.

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

Just checking in right now, I'll have a post later today.

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

Having a look at the vote counts from yesterday I noticed that two people, machiavellian-mafia and axelrod, were on the clockwork wagon at one point and ended up on the natirasha wagon.

What's the significance in moving from CR to Nat?

I am currently not really excited about any other wagon.

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

I still would most prefer a ThAdmiral lynch, but if I had to choose between destructor and CC at the deadline, it would be destructor since I do not see his continuous case on CC to be very strong.

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

M-M, if you don't think destructor's case is strong, what do you think of Batt's case? And why exactly do you think destructor is likely to be scum?

I'm not buying Batt's case either. I never said destructor is likely scum, just that he's relatively more likely to be scum than you. I still have significantly more suspicion on ThAdmiral and Urza/TSQ.

MM - What is the case on me?

But you see the case on me to be strong? What is the case on me?

I never said there is a strong case on you. Since I have a relatively town read on CC and mostly neutral read on you, I would prefer you to be the deadline lynch.

I'll check back again in a few hours. Here's my plan:

1. If a wagon builds up on ThAdmiral or Urza/TSQ, I will have my vote on one of those two wagons.
2. If #1 does not happen and CC and destructor do not claim, I will vote destructor
3. If CC and/or destructor claims, I will vote based on the new information.

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

I have no reason to doubt CC's claim, so now to follow along with my plan:

Unvote, vote: destructor

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

I don't like the mass claim idea, whether it's full claiming or role/vanilla claiming.. 75% of the original players are still alive. It should be done in a later day.

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

At this point, I think the Mizzy is the obvious play for today.

And my #1 town player is Batt.

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

I don't any reason to delay further, so I will

Vote: Mizzy

.

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

Unvote

to get Mizzy off Lynch -1. I need some time to evaluate the claim. I'm not fully buying it because vig is something scum could easily claim.

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

I find destructor's claim to be a lot more believable. His guilty on CC is strongly linked towards his aggressive play towards CC. Plus destructor was one of the people who immediately voted Mizzy at the start of today.

So I think Mizzy is lying, and her emotional appeals are not helping her cause.

Vote: Mizzy

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

Regular probability says destructor is lying scum. But my own thinking leads me to believe there is a good chance destructor is telling the truth and Mizzy was the Traitor.

Axelrod is cleared, I believe ort's claims, and CR/Kore is semi-cleared. So now from my point of view, the two remaining scum are probably Urza and ThAdmiral, who happens to be my top two suspects for the majority of this game.

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

I think the reward from nailing ThAdmiral-scum is much greater than the small risk of destructor-scum, so

Vote: ThAdmiral

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

You'd better come up with something better than that if you expect us lynch him and potentially throw away the game.

I've already explained why I believe destructor. This means I believe his investigation on ThAdmiral. Then add in the fact that I was highly suspicious of ThAdmiral the entire game, I feel confident about my vote.

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

My flavor is the same flavor as the first sample role PM in one of our mod's opening posts.

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

I have to say destructor has played a masterful game up to this point, but it ends here. I'm not buying destructor-scum's excuse one bit.

Vote: Destructor

And obviously Urza is the scumbuddy.

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

As I have said all along, I like TSQ as scum.

[Machiavellian-Mafia]

So I played like a traitor by accident? I was actually a vanilla townie.