Mini 739 ~ Mafia Jailbreak, Game Over

[bionicchop2]

/confirm

vote spyrex

since he is one of the 2 people I recommended for this game.

FOS rhinox

for being the other.

[bionicchop2]

Randomly deciding not to vote yet.

FYI a decision cannot be random. It is a choice.

[bionicchop2]

Hey RC - just so you know, I am MrShow on EM.

[bionicchop2]

I guess we are just waiting for Rishi to finish reading his quicktopic and confirm.

[bionicchop2]

Hey RC - just so you know, I am MrShow on EM.

What's EM? If it's what i think it is, then i just joined it like, yesterday, and this is an insane coincidence.

Epic Mafia

[bionicchop2]

I seem to be popular in the early stages of the game.

[bionicchop2]

I seem to be popular in the early stages of the game.

Do you have a problem being popular?

I like attention from small groups of people. It makes me feel special. If the attention eventually results in my death, I tend to frown upon it.

Now a question for you since the setup presents an opportunity for a SK to exist. I know your first game on the site you were SK. I also noticed in your post game comments from mafia 87 that you suspected Tar of being SK when you replaced in. Since he did turn out to be SK, maybe you learned something from your SK experience on how to hunt for them.

What lead you to correctly believe Tar was SK in mafia 87?

[bionicchop2]

Wow. Now thats a question. First things first... my first game on the site was a newbie, my second game on the site was a mini theme in which I was town. My 3rd game on the site I was an SK...

Ahhh, ok. I don't know why I thought our first game together was your first game on the site.

Regarding Mafia 87, and thinking Tar was an SK initially when I replaced in, it was basically a conspiracy theory that just happened to be correct this time. It required too many assumptions to be true, plus a little bit of luck on Tar's part that he was able to fake claim how he did. It seemed more likely he was actually what he said he was.

Reading your post after Mafia 87 closer, this seems consistent with what you said there. I guess since you were replacing in late (D4) it had already been established there was a SK and the number of possible suspects was limited.

I try to keep my conspiracies repressed because 99% of the time they'll be wrong.

Random votes are often wrong too (and generally don't end in the lynch of the person who is initially wagoned), but you are a fan of those. I assume this is for the discussion they generate (correct me if wrong). Theories - even if wrong - will also generate discussion and the discussion IMO will have more merit than early game RV discussion. Why do you choose to keep your theories repressed?

As far as anything else regarding how I specifically try to recognize sk's, I'd rather not say so I don't tell any sk in this game exactly how not to act. Until I have any reason to believe otherwise, I will be hunting dirty cops.

I can support this - during the early game.

[bionicchop2]

If I understand your 'conspiracy theories' as long-shot possibilities with a lack of supporting evidence then I agree keeping them to yourself is reasonable.

And now I think I've talked enough about mafia 87... I'm excited I played well and helped the town win after replacing in, but its time to focus on this game don't you think?

Surely you don't think my discussion of that game was to analyze it in a vacuum. I found some aspects game relevant and player relevant. The small discussion may or may not help me determine your alignment later.

Just because an SK is possible, doesn't mean there is one... What do we stand to gain from talking about an SK now when we don't know one exists? What are you trying to acomplish by analyzing my sk catching ability? What are you trying to learn by talking about how I felt in mafia 87?

I don't enter every topic of conversation with a clear expectation on what might be gained from the information revealed. Much in the same manner as a RV, I saw it as a discussion starter. The direction and information unveiled in the process of the discussion is wholly dependent on the participants. I saw/see some potential benefits to understanding how players think about SKs. I also think SKs are understated as far as their threat to towns (a general feel of hunting for mafia since there are more of them). If I was told early in a game that player X was SK and player Y was mafia, I would lynch player X first. The simple reason being that lynching X immediately cuts the number of deaths at night in half.

Aside from that, I feel that town players and mafia players would view a SK in a different manner. As for asking you in particular, it is about trying to piece together anything I know about you from our 1.5 games together, your previous known roles and your approach to those roles.

Now that I am playing with a greatly reduced game load in an attempt to focus and fine-tune my scum hunting, I plan on working as many new angles as I can think of, even if it means I might discuss a potentially useless point. I have no plans of cluttering 10 pages of discussion with this (I don't really have any further questions / comments on it) and would hop on any alternate discussion which became more appealing.

[bionicchop2]

I agree with BC on the fact that this discussion is mostly counter-productive

It is hard to agree with me on something I never said or implied. Could you explain this for me?

BTW I'm thinking that BC is guilty of a very early stage of selective scumhunting.

1. Could you explain how my hunting is selective and how the first 2 pages have lead you to this conclusion? Yes I did ask a player for their approach on a specific type of scum, but I am not sure how that indicates no other types of scum are being looked for.

2. Do you think mafia and town players would have different views and concerns about a serial killer? (I don't think discussing the specifics of perceived differences is helpful at this time, just looking for an opinion on whether differences exist in your opinion).

[bionicchop2]

@ pops post #40

You are making a jump though if you simply state my discussion as hunting for a SK. We have no conclusive evidence there is a serial killer, so scum would have no additional incentive at this point to direct the town to hunt for a phantom. In addition, I don't think anybody in the game would be able to clearly indicate differences in how they would hunt for a sk as town versus how they would hunt for scum as town.

I also think there is more incentive for scum to eliminate a SK during the mid-game than during the first day. Extra deaths at night tend to help all scum until the potential risk of their own death overwhelms the immediate benefit of extra town deaths.

The discussion began for 2 reasons:

1. It gave me a chance for direct discussion with a player I have recent experience with. The more I know an individual, the better equipped I am to determine their alignment.

2. The conversation that could split off from the initial topic. This obviously includes questioning the topic itself and the motivation for its start.

[bionicchop2]

A lot of good new material today and I will try to read it all closely later. I do want to comment on this since it grabbed my attention.

A self-voter, then, is wanting to lynch themselves. Intentionally mislynching a known townie = scummy, which is why no town player should ever self vote, and is why every player who self votes will also earn my vote.

I think you are falling into a logical trap here.

1. In order for the action of a self-vote to be anti-town, the player needs to be town.
2. If you vote the player and state the action is anti-town, you are then voting someone you believe to be town and yourself acting in an anti-town manner.
3. If the player is mafia and voting for them self, they are acting pro-town and anti-mafia.

You can see the circular nature and where this is going. By your logic, you should be getting votes if you vote a self-voter for the reason of their action being anti-town.

You are also making a jump to say any vote is an intent to lynch. As you saw in our newbie game, I will use my vote in quite a few ways and not always have an end goal of lynching. Did your random vote have the intent of lynching? I know mine did not.

[bionicchop2]

Ohh goodness another game starts with a self-vote spurring madness.

Actually nobody self-voted and I probably should not have made my last post debating the theory of self-voting.

[bionicchop2]

Comments on RC # 51:

Just because an SK is possible, doesn't mean there is one...

I only bring this up because I think, despite this being true, it's very probable that there will be one.

I think so mainly because as I go through the roles it just seems like it would fit into the scenario pretty well.

The concept of a semi-open setup is that we know what roles are possible. In some setups (F11) we know the probability of each role. In this setup, we do not know the selection process the moderator used, so we have no idea of the probability. Did he put all 'scum' roles including SK into a hat and pick 3? Did he have a SK hat which included 1 sk and a few town roles? We know nothing that would indicate the probability for us.

It's very likely that we should be able to tell by tomorrow if there is an SK or not regardless though. There are no town killing roles on the list, so if two people leave us tomorrow night, then an SK would be the only answer to that problem.

This is a bit of stating the obvious. An extra kill confirms a SK. A single kill leaves us where we are today.

We have no conclusive evidence there is a serial killer, so scum would have no additional incentive at this point to direct the town to hunt for a phantom.

Although I both see the logic in this and agree with it, I have to ask if you are prepared to wager that there isn't an SK.

I generally don't wager on anything I don't know the odds of (unless you are talking about low-risk, friendly wagers). I don't see what you hope to get out of this question. I can see one way mafia members could come to a possible faulty conclusion regarding the presence of a SK, but other than that I don't see how you can conclude it is probable we have one.

I mean, I want to keep bringing this point up because I think the town should assume there is an SK until proven otherwise, not the other way around.

I always try to function under worst-case scenarios. In this game that would be 3 mafia and 1 SK based on the role PMs (mafia is 2-3 members from the wording).

[bionicchop2]

No. Town should hunt scum only, until it is proven there is an SK. In one of my games (I think it was Meerkat Manor Mafia, actually), a scum player (CKD) pushed for the lynch of a town player (StrangerCoug) on the grounds that he was playing like an sk (the day before LyLo), even though there was no unexplained kill in the game. We lynched SC only because at that point, either SC or CKD were the final scum in the game. CKD self hammered the next day after SC was lynched town, and the town still won.

It is slightly odd you don't see SK as 'scum' and you see hunting one type of player against the town's win condition as more valuable than the other. It also indicates you would be able to identify the difference during the game.

Both SK and mafia are working against the town win condition. If a SK was called 'solo mafia', would that change anything?

=============

Ohh goodness another game starts with a self-vote spurring madness.

Actually nobody self-voted and I probably should not have made my last post debating the theory of self-voting.

Well, you and Korts are the ones who wanted to talk about theory...

I am perfectly content to discuss any theory which is relevant to the game we are playing. Since nobody self-voted, the topic isn't going to uncover anything except how players feel about self-votes. Discussing RVs and SKs is fair game IMO. I admit I got caught up responding on the self-vote topic which is why I made the statement you just quoted.

[bionicchop2]

RE: SK discussion. On day one, there is nothing to gain for town from discussing the possibility of an SK. I have yet to see any way for town to successfully divine who an SK is on day one of a game, without even knowing if there is one, and the faction who has much more of a vested interest in offing an SK as early as possible is the scaredy-pants mafia who don't want to get crosskilled.

Particularly the fact that the theoretical SK is the

only

possible source of dead mafia during the night,

and

this SK gets one shot kill immunity, this particular line of discussion is what makes Tar's "selective scumhunting" tell not just a buzzword.

1. I question the validity os saying there is nothing to gain from discussing the possibility of a SK. It has now opened the door for several comments which may end up giving clues to alignment (or they may not, but at least the chance is there). Comments range from saying we shouldn't hunt for SKs, we shouldn't talk about them, we should hunt them the same as mafia. It has also generated the first signs of accusations about players wanting to discuss SK.

2. I will state again that I have trouble seeing how hunting for an SK would actually differ from hunting for a mafia player on D1. Since we have no alignment info, we cannot connect players to each other and we can only go based on 'scummy' play. Since both mafia and SK would be against the town, their motives on d1 IMO would be similar. There would be differences I imagine, but there would be more similarities.

3. I will also state again that discussing a SK is not the same as hunting the SK and I feel the discussion could open up information about mafia and SK.

RE: Tar's "selective scumhunting" :

How valid do you think something like this is in a game of experienced (even the new players are far from ignorant) players? Yes, if you could clearly identify somebody displaying the traits described, it should be considered. By simply having this 'tell' mentioned 3+ times in the first 3 pages we have basically made sure no scum would make the mistake of focusing on a SK. I don't like eliminating opportunities for scum to make slip up.

[bionicchop2]

However, to answer the first part of your question, I don't see hunting for an sk as beneficial to the town until it is known there is an sk. We KNOW there is mafia. It would make no difference if the SK was called solo mafia - I wouldn't hunt for a second mafia family in a game were 2 mafia families were possible, if there were no kills that pointed to their presence.

I guess the biggest issue I am having is that everybody is making hunting for these different types of scum as mutually exclusive. How would you know if a player you thought was scum was primary or secondary mafia?

I don't like eliminating opportunities for scum to make slip up.

Well, it is my belief that talking about an sk will do nothing but remind the sk (if in the game) that we're aware that an sk is possible and we're looking for sk tells/slips... This would cause an sk to play more cautiously, and possibly alter the way an sk would play in a way that would make an sk harder to find. Just as you say the selective scumhunting attack is no longer valid for the rest of the game, anything that would be discussed about sk tells, or how to find an sk, would make that tell invalid as well. That is why I was originally suspicious when you asked me how I would recognize an sk. It seems like it would be eliminating opportunities for an sk to slip up.

I can see your point here. I didn't expect you to make a point by point outline on SK play though. I do know from your play in the ongoing game that you aren't just going to outline your full thoughts and you are cautious of what information you reveal.

On the flip of all that, if we do determine there is a SK, I think these first 3 pages of players expressing opinions on if we should / should not hunt for a SK (even though that was not the original topic) will prove to have a good chunk of information. If we had waited until we knew one existed, it may have been too late for town.

[bionicchop2]

I am going to

unvote; vote Rishi

after post 81.

- downplays the beginning game conversation to be about nothing
- seems to defend MME who isn't even being attacked or commented about. Perhaps to remind others that MME is currently not posting, while he buddies him
- after saying there is a whole lot of nothing, decides to add to what he called nothing by continuing SK talk (I have no issue with SK talk obviously, but find it hypocritical that someone claiming it is nothing add fuel to the flames)
- Then agrees with OGML for saying the theory discussion is pointless, meanwhile the 'theory' discussion about SKs and hunting is exactly what he is asking RC about.

[bionicchop2]

2. People have commented on MME. If you say that no one is “currently” discussing MME, then you mean that no one mentioned him in half a page. Some of us don’t really have time to post five times a day. It was relevant conversation since the thread began – and since I haven’t had a real post in the game so far, I felt that I needed to say something.

Without reading back, tell me the last time MME was mentioned and what was mentioned about him. Then communicate the relevance of your comment to the previous discussion that occurred about him. IMO you defended a player who was not under (expressed) suspicion.

3. I explained what I meant by “a whole lot of nothing.” I didn’t say that everything that came up was completely irrelevant. Obviously, it wasn’t, or I would have had a really short post. As I said, it’s just that the content-to-text ratio in this game seems low so far.

Oddly I find this game chock full of early game content. We are on page 4 and already have at least 3 different players getting voted for reasons that aren't random.

4. Theory discussion is not pointless (stop putting words in my mouth – and here’s a “theory” term for you: “strawmanning”) – it’s just easy for scum to hide in it. I am just wary when theory discussion goes on too long. As for asking questions to RC, how about you let him answer the questions before you jump to his defense and attempt to derail the conversation? Did you even think that maybe I might be going somewhere with this? I’ll make my point after RC responds.

When something is paraphrased / interpreted, it is implicitly understood the person did not make that exact statement.

We can discuss theory until the cows (or h-cows) come home, but we won't be any closer to a lynch when we're done.

When the goal of the day is to come to a decision on a lynch and you say the topic of discussion does not work towards that goal, I feel comfortable paraphrasing it as 'pointless'. If that wasn't your intent, feel free to clarify.

How am I not letting RC answer? Where did I say we shouldn't discuss the topic you were discussing? My comment was you were being hypocritical. Maybe you failed to read any of my other posts, but I have not avoided the SK discussion and in fact I *gasp* started it in an attempt to engage Rhinox. Since you are fond of the term 'strawmanning', isn't that what you are doing when you misrepresent any part of my post as defending RC?

[bionicchop2]

Rhinox - The quote you have of pops talking about RC labels RC as slightly scummy. My interpretation is that he has no problem with RC saying we should assume the worst, but he feels he dwelled on the issue too long ("not as not as curt it should") which is what gave him the scum vibe.

Is that how you read the statement, or are you getting something else out of it?

[bionicchop2]

EBWOP:

("not as curt as it should be")

[bionicchop2]

Not a lot of time; will post tomorrow.

FOS Korts

I find this post unnecessary and possibly active lurking. You weren't in danger of being prodded and your activity was not in question. This gives me the impression you weren't participating as much as you felt you should be and needed to pro-actively address it. Not exactly a scum tell, but it has a self-preservation feel to it.

Combine this with the fact you are still on the site right now posting in general discussion and mafia discussion. That is time which could have been used to quickly skim and post something of relevance here.

[bionicchop2]

Rhinox - I missed the part where you directly asked pops about RC. How do you justify jumping on him for 'defending' RC when he was answering your question?

[bionicchop2]

I noticed everyone got the most pissed about riddles after that last one. It's okay if you guys don't want to simply admit you don't know the answer .

I thought it was pretty obvious it was a fish

===============

I'm not trying to force a distinction between different scumhunting for different types of scum (at least not on D1 when factions are 100% unknown), I just want to know how this sk conversation is going to help you decide who is most likely scum today.

Yes, it was directed towards RC, but since this all has basically been generated from my initial question to you, I would like to state my thoughts on in.

For me, mafia is becoming less about direct question / answer (unless you have scum pinned on a specific topic) and more about what happens in the peripheral of the discussion. So, I ask you about SK stuff and we talk a little. Now at this point, I don't really know what others are going to say, but they are going to say something. As you can see, it has evolved into we shouldn't be discussing it / it is a valid discussion. Hidden in there might be the type of scum who likes to attack people for bringing up something that may appear to not be scum hunting or they feel they can spin it into something else. There may also be the type of scum that just go with the flow and agree to whatever more people are agreeing with. The reality is it might gain nothing at this specific time (hell, it might gain nothing ever).

Now it ties in a little to some things you have hinted at (nothing specific I can remember), but if someone knows you are hunting for them, they will hide better. So, mafia thinks everybody is over here focusing on SK they may just let down their guard. I think mafia's natural inclination would be to show the discussion as being anti-town since mafia in the end wants everybody to look suspicious. This leans my initial scum hunting towards those who planted seeds of accusations without actually driving to get others to follow. I see this in Pop's post #40 and Rishi has done a little bit of it (though I am more concerned with what I saw as hypocritical statements by Rishi). It may pan out to be nothing, but it has given me a starting point which is all I need to get entrenched into a game.

==============

I pride myself in being as active as possible, but I also pride myself in being thorough and answering all points. Any reading up and posting would've taken more energy than I had; note that it was 9:17 PM at the time of that post and I was preparing to go to sleep. GD and MD don't really require much focus. Satisfied?

I can see your point and it is valid IMO since it does take more thought and focus to post in a game than elsewhere. It is a pet peeve of mine when people make a post to announce they are going to make a post at some future time. I know MME has done it, but someone already pre-emptively defended him

[bionicchop2]

I'm out with work meetings all day, I'll try and post something of substance later on / tomorrow.

Strike 1 of failing to live up to self-imposed posting deadlines.

======================

Doing so using nothing but wifom = questionable to me.

You should read Spyrex's signature (follow link). WIFOM is not the world's worst starting point for suspicion - especially if you believe what you quoted OGML as saying in your newbie game (I do) about early game votes requiring far less than later votes.

[bionicchop2]

me loves me some spyrex posting!

Ahem, I said "try" for a reason. Life has been a bit crazy for me, so unfortunately this game took a back seat.

I will always be here to catch you when trying just isn't enough for me!

I find it interesting that MME has been brought up so many times about the absence of posting (it wasn't until this point I was mentioned and I'd safely say that Jahudo AND iamusername (and almost OGML AND Rishi as well) are also falling into that bag of "not contributing". So, why this one name versus the others that haven't been posting enough. Hell, bio even called out Korts for a one-liner...but none of the above?

I am not sure what to make of it yet, but something is amiss in this. There is some connection of sorts there.

I agree to an extent. I feel MME is the red herring in all of this. I don't think 'activity' is a huge issue yet though. I have commented on those who brought attention to them self by speaking of when they will post. (hmmmm...then scum probably wouldn't post about not posting enough...)


=======


I support the pressure on pops, though not for the jokes/riddles. My suspicion on him would stem from what I mentioned in my post #115.

[bionicchop2]

If you are tracking unvotes, you missed a few random votes that started on me.

Just the ones since the last vote count.
Similarly, the voting record against RedCoyote will disappear from the next vote count if nobody votes him before then.
~Vi

[bionicchop2]

If the appeal to emotion is what making you vote me now, then I might as well just stop talking because there is nothing I could say to change your opinion of me.

IMO that is the truth behind all actions and cases in the game. It is now Pop's job to determine for himself if your action was scummy - right now he obviously thinks it is. If we learned something from our last game, (mod referenced Thesp's "defenses are overrated" policy) it is that we need to analyze each action, not really the explanation of the action.

do you really think that it would have been beneficial for me to be THAT honest as scum?

Yes, it can be.

Also, for what its worth, contradictions like the ones I did are scummy on paper, but I have never caught scum being so obviously contradictory between comments 1 or 2 pages apart.

Again I will reference our last game (Newbie 696 for the others). The contradictions made by Raider on D1 are pretty much what sealed the deal on his lynch. Can town make mistakes and contradict? Yes, of course. Now I might give the benefit of the doubt after you admit the mistakes and plead idiocy. The problem is we just played a game where the scum defended their contradictions and stuck with their accusations (this is what you present your alternative as). This got him lynched. With that example fresh in your head, your only option as scum would be to admit mistake and try to look vulnerable to gain sympathy. That may be your only option as a town player who just got mixed up too, but I think this is an avenue worth pursuing.

unvote rishi

- Last post appeases me for now

vote rhinox

. This is a good place for the first strong wagon of the day IMO.

[bionicchop2]

IMO that is the truth behind all actions and cases in the game. It is now Pop's job to determine for himself if your action was scummy - right now he obviously thinks it is. If we learned something from our last game, (mod referenced Thesp's "defenses are overrated" policy) it is that we need to analyze each action, not really the explanation of the action.

Is that a wiki article or MD discussion thread? I haven't heard of that policy, but I can understand what I think it means in theory. Would like to hear a full conversation or article about it.

There may be an article about it, but I don't know. I am just taking what incognito said at face value and analyzing the statement on its own. A good scum player will be able to post-rationalize any mistake they make, so the initial action is more important than the subsequent defense. Lack of justification or poor reasons for an action would IMO add to the suspicion of the original action. A good defense would hold the suspicion at its initial level.

The best defense for any suspicious action is a mountain of overwhelming town play to go alongside the action.

The problem is we just played a game where the scum defended their contradictions and stuck with their accusations (this is what you present your alternative as). This got him lynched. With that example fresh in your head, your only option as scum would be to admit mistake and try to look vulnerable to gain sympathy.

I wouldn't exactly say the example is fresh in my head, even though it was my most recent completed game. Realize, I wasn't exactly in the game during all of day 1. Yes I went back and read the whole thread, but what stuck with me the most about raider (i.e. what I thought got him lynched) was that he was not scumhunting, and admitted to it. I would honestly have to go back and read all of D1 of that game again to figure out what contradiction you're talking about.

Take this example. Now your explanation may very well be true, but the only way the defense could eliminate the initial suspicion would be if I believed you 100% about your explanation.

All I can do is link you to a game where a townie was even more contradictory than I was just now... Mini 716

[SNIP]

this still makes me *facepalm*. Yes, DO was town.

I would have seen that as suspicious. I am not reading the link just because I understand your example and the point you are making. If the offense was on Day 1, it might be a lynchable offense for me depending on the scumminess of others. Later in the game, I would definitely need more than just one suspicious infraction from a player in order to lynch them.

vote rhinox. This is a good place for the first strong wagon of the day IMO.

Aparently nothing I can say to stop it, since my defenses are overrated

That is a little extreme, but I think you know that.

[bionicchop2]

Well you've created a bit of a paradox in logic there... so, you're saying if I'm scum, that I'm a good scum player who will be able to explain away my mistake. Although even good scum players can make some mistakes, do you think a good scum player would make the obvious mistake that I made?

I thing VP was a good example of how someone who is a good debator (which makes for good scum) can make a 'scummy' mistake (D1 hammer). I would prefer not to discuss too much more about mistakes, defenses and reactions to accusations since it is hard to do without revealing how I plan to analyze your play moving forward. I think you understand the concept of what I said.

Also... what incog posted is all well and good... but ever since CKD convinced the town in, again, meerkat manor mafia that someone useing a phrase similar to "To be honest..." is a tell that proves they are being dishonest about something, I've been skeptical of every new tell or strategy that I've heard that someone says is valid.

This doesn't relate to what we were discussing. I was not talking about a tell and we certainly weren't talking about a tell that a scum player made up during a game. You are coming out of left field with this one. I try not to put to much weight into a single 'tell' because every tell has an exception.

What you're saying may be logical, but I don't believe that defenses can't alleviate suspicion beyond the original level. Especially, looking from a 3rd party perspective. A 3rd party doesn't know if the accuser's suspicions are genuine or fabricated, and doesn't know the same of the accused defenses. A back and forth between attack and defense may entirely eliminate any suspicion from one particular action (or, maybe it will arouse more suspicion).

Again, I am not sure I see your point here or what the further discussion of defenses will accomplish. I never said players shouldn't defend. All I am saying is that if a player does something that is scummy, that player should get a bump on your scummy meter. This should not be minimized by a great defense. If that is compounded by future scummy actions, then the player may very well be scum. A single mistake may end up being the lynch factor on a day 1 with nothing else to go on, but that is probably not going to be the case in this game which is fairly active and I already see a few players who are battling for my vote.

if you guys quicklynch me, that won't change. If you don't, then maybe I can turn around and be more pro-town.

Is being pro-town after the fact enough to defend against a previous suspicious action?

For me, initial suspicious action does not disappear. This may tie in to how you look for the 'scummiest' player. I think all town players will inevitably do somethign that could be percieved as scummy. If everybody has 1 action counting against them, then they all return to the same level.

So I guess the question I should be asking everyone right now is if the initial suspicion from my contradiction is strong enough for a lynch, are I can't say anything to alleviate that initial suspicion, are you all prepared to end the day now with a quick lynch on me, or do you feel conversation should continue?

Odd question since nobody is advocating a quick lynch of you. You aren't even really in the danger zone of lynching yet, but you seem slightly resigned to getting lynched and/or are focusing now on what you an do to minimize the suspicion on you. Hypothetically if I knew you were scum 100%, I would still want the day to continue a little longer.

the point I was making is that an obvious contradiction does not necessarily mean the player is scum.

You are making a point to me I already agree with. You can read where I said that town players do sometimes contradict themselves. I don't think there is a single action that is exclusive to scum. It is just one action that increases the chances of someone being scum. Scum need to make cases they know are false and when pushing something known as a lie, they can end up contradiciting themselves.

That is a little extreme, but I think you know that.

You're right... maybe I was being a little melodramatic... but does it make what I said any less true?

What you said is completely not true. You said nothing you say could stop it. That is false. There may not be a magic phrase or word, but it is still false.

[bionicchop2]

Question(s) for Huntress, MME, Rishi, Rhinox and OGML:

If you were forced to vote for one player right now, who would it be and why? Does not require an actual vote, so basically I am asking for your top 1 suspect. I would prefer to not see a list of scummy rankings. I know OGML is voting, but his suspicions haven't been clear since the vote was placed as he addressed Rhinox as scum a few times.

[bionicchop2]

Hypothetically if I knew you were scum 100%, I would still want the day to continue a little longer.

What impressions are you getting from Rhinox being at L-3?

I have known for the past few days that my vote wasn't going to stay on Rhinox. Typically I don't remove my vote until I have decided where it is going to be moved to (not voting is not too common for me).

With that said, your latest post and confirmation of a vote on Rhinox has inspired me to

unvote

despite not having determined a new home for my vote.

I am seeing a ton of repetition in your posts. You have posted many words, but your case against Rhinox is unclear. You challenge people to identify how your talk of a SK is scummy, but I would challenge you to identify how the dissension against such talk is scummy.

I also challenge you to make a few posts that are on a new topic or display you hunting for scum.

Now, for closure, I will write this statement:

I, bionicchop2, solemnly swear to acknowledge a distinct possibility we have multiple killing roles. At no point during this game will I forget this possibility. During my decision making process for hunting scum, I will constantly ask myself how a 2nd killing party would affect the decision I am about to make.

I do not need a response to this post, except for:

I would challenge you to identify how the dissension against such talk is scummy.

If you could respond to that part as succinct as possible, I would appreciate it.

[bionicchop2]

When did spyrex ask me a question, and what question was it? Maybe i thought it was rhetorical.

I am not sure who this is to, but you should easily be able to track down any questions to you once someone has identified who asked the question if you are really concerned about it. Asking somebody else to find it for you only serves to delay answers.

[bionicchop2]

OGML, please make this game a higher priority for yourself.

[bionicchop2]

RedCoyote analysis:

Post #15:

confirm / random vote / flavor. Null

Post #25:

Comments on Huntress not voting and does not see anything wrong with it. Null on its own. Also, first mention of Rhinox.

Post #51:

Isn't the point of random voting to cause discussion to occur? Yeah, well, Huntress makes a good point, she caused more discussion than any other vote we had up there. She feels confident enough in her abilities to make that play and I absolutely respect that.

Second mention of Huntress' lack of vote. 1st time passively stated the non-vote as not scummy ("I don't see anything wrong"). This time implicitly displays the decision as pro-town for the discussion it generates. This says nothing of Huntress' alignment IMO.

A question for you Rhinox, since we're getting into the theoretical discussion anyways, what do you think of people who vote themselves during the RV stage?

While SK discussion and not-RVing discussion are borderline theory discussions, they are game-specific and the information discussed could reveal information about the player. This question is obscured and can only spawn a distracted conversation. If somebody had self-voted, this would be a valid line of questioning. This question is pure fluff and could not be used in any manner of scum hunting.

Korts 38 wrote:
I agree with BC on the fact that this discussion is mostly counter-productive


bionic refuses this label of his opinion, and I don't blame him. I haven't read anything similar to this in his posts, and I don't agree with the statement at all either.

---

pops 40 wrote:
If he's SK, he's done something that is very bad for himself.


I do not think there are grounds to make this charge. I'm not necessarily saying you are making the charge pops, but both you and Korts have basically implied it.

2 instances of seemingly defending me. I am not sure what benefit this has. The post of Korts quoted certainly did not require a comment from RC since I already stated that Korts was incorrect in his read of my post. Also, the interpretation of Pop's post is wrong. Pops was not accusing me of being SK, but more stating that is would be a horrible move for me if I was SK. This is reflected in his WIFOM ratings of my possible alignment - which he ranks SK as least probable.

I mean, I want to keep bringing this point up because I think the town should assume there is an SK until proven otherwise, not the other way around.

I will state here that I take no issue at all with this initial SK comment or any SK item you state in particular. I have no issue with slightly obscure lines of discussion / questioning as long as they are related to the current game. I find validity in this initial statement.

Post #78:

Anyways, I think we've beat just about all the life out of the SK argument.

I skip to this point of your post. Up to here, I think you have made your stance clear. You acknowledge the discussion has lingered a little. I don't really take any issue with anything said specifically in this post - though there is a little bit of fanning the flames with pops vs. korts.

Post #108:

RC, no, I thought it was pretty clear pops was making a joke. I actually agree with him that people were talking-about-nothing-like-they're-getting-paid up to that point, and to an extent since then. There's a lot of fluff and theory discussion going on in this thread, and from my experience all theory discussion ever does in games is give scum a nice, cozy place to hide while the real action goes on around them.

Good. I'm glad you said this because I absolutely feel the same way. Despite the fact that I keep bringing up the SK (which, granted, I think is a more worthwhile discussion), I don't particularly think all this discussion about random voting and our own personal experiences and theories about it end up helping the town all that much. It gives people a chance to sound scholarly on the subject of forum mafia and absolutely bores the hell out of me.

Here you reply to the question you asked OGML. Asking somebody for their opinion on something without stating your own, then coming back and just agreeing with their view sticks out to me. If you felt his post was a joke and not a scummy comment, you chose to address it in a different manner than when you defended Huntress and myself. This instance has a feel of testing the waters for the best place to push suspicions. Then you finish your response by distinguishing between your 'theory' talk and the other 'theory' talk in the thread (for the record, I think both the SK and the RV talk were perfectly game relevant and are harder to hide behind than pure theory talk which has nothing to do with the current game). There is hypocrisy here, especially in light of your previous comment that there is no clear distinction between good and bad discussion (post 51).
===
Now, this is the first instance where I feel you take the SK discussion too far, because you get repetitive.Rhinox specifically says he is not arguing to discount the SK and asks to identify how our play would change if we assume there is a SK. Your responses are scattered and miss directly addressing the question, instead circling to points you have already made clear and Rhinox has agreed to.

If you are going to tell me with a straight face, based on those role possibilities, that we should assume there isn't an SK, then I absolutely have to snicker.

There's no reason why we should be naive about the situation. I think it's very safe to say that it's probable there is an SK, and every townie should play like there is another scum out there.

With that said, your vote on Rhinox is fine here (not that you need my approval). Rhinox made contradictory statements that may reflect him having a scum role. There is no denying the action is suspicion worthy. What I haven't seen since this post is a follow up or anything that showed me you were trying to determine if he was scum or not.

Post #126:

My vote is better served on Rhinox at this point than it is on Rishi (which was originally a RV) or on no one. Do you disagree with that?

This is in response to Korts questioning your vote. This may be just because I had my vote on Rishi and still have him viewed as highly suspicious, but the comment sticks out. I understand your vote on Rishi was random, so it holds no meaning, but Rishi is the other person you identified as driving your discussion about SK and asked the same questions as Rhinox (as you noted in post 108). Despite that, you specifically identify Rishi as less vote-worthy. Now, my case on Rishi wasn't anything rock-solid or groud-breaking, but you didn't bat an eye at it.

Essentially, it's my opinion that forcing the town to talk about the SK may help the mafia, but in general I think it's good practice to talk about all roles and their implications to the game regardless of what day it is.

I am not going to jump on the obvious part of this quote (conceding it might help mafia), because it is pretty clear that is not the intent of your statement (or I over thought it). What I will question is the fact you say it is good practice to discuss all roles. My reason is that you have not discussed other roles. Where is your discussion about the mafia roles? Where do you discuss how we should prepare for and acknowledge that mafia may have a watcher who could identify town power roles at night? Where do you discuss town roles (Please don't)?

Post #152:

(continuation from post 126)
Semi-long post. I don't have many specifics to point out about it. The one oddity is your FoS of pops, when your major point (from what I can tell) against Rhinox was him making a weak/contradictory case against Pops. You also agree with OGML in your post 108 referenced above that Pops was joking. Coming back to this, it comes across as a second attempt to plant a seed of suspicion for a future vote - depending which way the tide flows.

Post #168:

Rhinox and Rishi both insisted that I give them a reason as to why having multiple killing parties makes a determining factor in this game. This forced my hand into talking about things I would rather not have talked about. I'm wondering why you're pressuring me because of this, and not Rhinox or Rishi.

This is a twist on what they asked. Both were clear in their question. They were both questioning you to determine how the current discussion was going to evolve into scumhunting. You deflected that and returned to the original premise that we should assume a SK even though both players were willing to concede that point very early on. You also can't blame any line of discussion on somebody else. Nobody can force you to talk about something. I frequently shut down discussions in games when I feel the conversation has reached an impasse and I have clearly expressed my views. Your initial view has been clear to me since your second post. As stated, I agree for the most part with your initial view. The statement has been repeated, reworded and restated multiple times without any new points being brought up or any evolution into scum hunting. The rest of your post does nothing expand on your case for the initial vote on Rhinox, yet you make it a point to unvote/revote as if you have confirmed something beyond a shadow of a doubt.

• In summation, my largest sticking points are:
  
• Failure to evolve discussion of choice into scum hunting
  
• Repetition of points which are IMO safe to discuss since nobody is truly debating the initial logic.
  
• Spinning the statements of those who questioned your methods
  
• Planting seeds of suspicion on pops without making your own case (piggyback onto Spyrex accusations) and wavering on truly committing to an opinion of him.
  
• minor contradictions of statements throughout
  
• unprovoked defenses of players

Any item on their own isn't any kind of definitive scum tell, but these seem to be stacking up from my perspective.

vote RedCoyote

[bionicchop2]

Rhinox - post 181 is full of yuck.

[bionicchop2]

I have another meta-rooted tell for RC, which may or may not be valid. Do you want me to tell it to RC in front of you all so he can correct it again?

IMO, I wouldn't say it. It is catch-22 though. If I were pops, I would withhold it, but be ready to defend the hell out of my vote if RC flipped town at some point. Hopefully you can find something more readily available to show why you think RC is scum. Meta alone can be dangerous, even though I do put a decent deal of weight in meta when I scum-hunt.

I guess in the end, I wouldn't cry either way. I personally try not to expose meta-reads for as long as possible (or even tell a player I have a meta-read if I can avoid it).

[bionicchop2]

tbh, i'm additionally very impressed with your case on him, although i hate to me-too

With a case that awesome, me-tooing is allowed!

[bionicchop2]

A lot of lengthy posting today, so I will respond to the shortest and most recent post, then scurry away until later when I can provide appropriate responses to the longer ones

You know what I find really odd... the same people calling me scum are some of the same people voting RC right now for pretty much the same points I've been arguing about RC all game... not too sure what to make of it right now, but it makes me think the wagon on RC right now is highly scum motivated...

There is also the possibility (which exists in my case) that the back and forth between RC and yourself has shown your responses to him as more town than his responses to you. This is not to assume that it was a scum vs. town debate occurring.

So, I guess I would like to know what is generating the concerns. Is it the speed of vote changes? The lack or supportive arguments? Or simply as you stated that they were people voting for you?

I don't recall any of the points against you being directly related to your debates with RC. I thought they were related to your contradiction and emotional appeal. I have my own reasons for my vote, unvote and then vote on RC, but none of them were related to the interaction between you two except for the times I feel he has seemed to twist what you have said.

[bionicchop2]

bio, I guess it would be because a lot of the arguments being made against RC by the players that were voting for me were basically the same points I was arguing in my back and forth with RC... I find it odd that if I'm so obvscum (according to some of the players) that my points of concern with RC are being used to justify the wagon on him right now...

Its very clear that some players are calling both RC and I obvscum.

RC scum and Rhinox scum do not need to be mutually exclusive. If I thought you were scum and you made a valid argument against somebody, I could not discount that argument even if you turned out to be confirmed as scum. It would be a genetic fallacy (maybe ad hominem? - I am not great with fallacy terms) to discount your arguments based on your alignment - especially without any concrete knowledge of your alignment.

[bionicchop2]

vote rhinox. This is a good place for the first strong wagon of the day IMO.

The way you phrase that makes it seem like you don't expect to actually be lynching Rhinox today. Are multiple strong wagons in a day necessary? Were you willing to see Rhinox lynched when you placed this vote?

My vote was not locked in to the extent where I felt sure I would prefer to lynch Rhinox today. I still had to feel him out and weigh in the apparent scumminess of some of his actions against the rest of his game participation. At the time, I felt a more unified scumhunt focused on Rhinox would have been valuable - more so than a 1 on 1 between Rishi and myself.

bio 182 is a winner. Your prior unvote of rhinox based on RC's voting has me worried though. Don't discount that rc and rhinox could be a) bussing [least likely], b) on two seperate scumteams [more likely] or c) one is mafia and the other is sk [also more likely]

I don't discount anything really. My unvote at that time was to emphasize to RC how underwhelming I felt his case was. It was paired with a reduced suspicion level of Rhinox.

[bionicchop2]

@RC 199 - I am just going to address parts written specifically to me unless something jumps out at me. Will look at the rest closer and evaluate later (may not have additional comments). If I excluded anything directed at me, I simply didn't have anything further to discuss on the item. If any exclusions are something you feel need a direct response, let me know.

I am seeing a ton of repetition in your posts.

And yet you don't see a ton of repetition of the same questions being asked and answered?

From what I have read, it does not seem the initial question(s) was answered. This will lead to rephrasing / repeating if the player wants an answer. If the questions were less clear to me, I might have discounted your responses as not fully knowing what the question was really asking.

I do not need a response to this post, except for

My posts are very succinct, it's just they're all mashed together into one as opposed to being spewed across the thread.

I wasn't knocking the long posts or anything about the way you post. I was working to stop the cycle since the topic was exhausted from my perspective. The one item I did want a response to though.

This question is pure fluff and could not be used in any manner of scum hunting.

Then you take the position that self-voting is inconsequential to a game, correct?

I am not stating my view on self-voting. Nobody has self-voted, so there is no need for me to pre-emptively state my view on it. This question would be a topic for the MD forum, but has no place in a game unless somebody has done it. The answer to the question in the absence of the action has no potential for finding scum. As scum or town, any player could answer that 100% honestly without revealing any information. Now if somebody had self-voted, the question would have merit. The player would need to take a position on the action and more importantly the player self-voting. This is the equivalent of asking my opinion on D1 miller claims if nobody has claimed miller. No reasonable conclusion about anybody's alignment can be derived from the conversation.

Pops was not accusing me of being SK, but more stating that is would be a horrible move for me if I was SK.

What does this mean?

If someone uses the phrase, "If A is B" that means they are considering the possibility that A is, in fact, B, and not C, like A would have you believe.

Pops said, considering the possibility that you were an SK, that would be a bad move.

How could you read it any other way?

You are changing "If bionicchop2 is SK, this would be a bad move" (paraphrased since I don't have the thread open and I am writing this in a text document), to "bionicchop2, as a SK, has made a bad move by doing this". Hypothetical /= accusation. The end of his post lists SK as my least likely role based on my actions. Pop's WIFOM rundown can be simplified to:
-X is something a SK is not likely to do since it is a bad play for them.
-bionicchop2 committed X
-bionicchop2 is not likely to be SK
An if:then statement is not designed to assume the if statement is true or assert that it is. You have seen Rhinox say "If I was scum", but he is not accusing himself of being scum.

Asking somebody for their opinion on something without stating your own, then coming back and just agreeing with their view sticks out to me.

Are you making the statement that a player should have their opinion on an issue on the record in a game before they ask another player their own opinion on an issue?

I think opinions seem more genuine when they are stated on their own and not stated as an agreement of others. The basic concept that scum want to fit in to the masses leads to a tendency for scum to tag along with the ideas of others.

What I will question is the fact you say it is good practice to discuss all roles. My reason is that you have not discussed other roles. Where is your discussion about the mafia roles? Where do you discuss how we should prepare for and acknowledge that mafia may have a watcher who could identify town power roles at night? Where do you discuss town roles (Please don't)?

Don't ask me questions you don't want the answer to.

The question required an answer. The "please don't" was asking not to discuss the town roles. I was asking you to identify any place you had already discussed these other roles.

Perhaps it stems from playing elsewhere, but I do indeed think talking about role possibilites is good stuff.

Like, for instance (God, this is going to sound like such heresy to you people), a townie Watcher is such a gold mine of an opportunity. It may be worth risking having one player come out, on the basis that there could be a townie Doctor and/or a townie Watcher.

This may help certain roles get information about who is clean in this town (and verifying it over night).

This would be a radical departure from the way MS is normally played, no doubt.

Then again, the more I think about the rationale certain players had for questioning why I would consider the SK a probable enemy, the more slack I have to give them considering the way MS is.

There is a huge gap between open and semi-open games. A game like a newbie game, you at least have some knowledge of the odds for each role. On Epic, you always know the roles and can strategize how to use them. The open games here can be played the same (hypo-claims and other strategies can be used then too). The closest you get is in a janitor game on Epic, where one of your town roles may be gone and you don't know which. In our case though, you won't know all roles until the game is over, though you may be able to conclusively figure some out. You also can't use logic like "there is a mafia doctor, there must be a sk" if a mafia doctor dies. This is a site where mods put godfathers and millers in games with no cops. Nurses are used in games with no doctors.

I guess I will break down the last part of this post into my summation with your response to each item:

• Failure to evolve discussion of choice into scum hunting

  - I have indeed found multiple instances to justify my vote of Rhinox, none of which are related to the SK discussion.

  I would like an itemized list of Rhinox's actions you deem scummy. I think it would help me analyze your stance on him and it may reveal you have more points against him than I have recognized.
  
• Repetition of points which are IMO safe to discuss since nobody is truly debating the initial logic.

  - Repetition of questions that have been asked and answered.

  I addressed this in the post. I think the answers did not address the questions and instead came back to points you already made. IMO the repeated questions were needed.
  
• Spinning the statements of those who questioned your methods

  - What does my "methods" mean? Need a definition of this term.

  By methods I mean the manner in which you have approached the game and chosen to scumhunt (or perceived lack thereof).
  
• Planting seeds of suspicion on pops without making your own case (piggyback onto Spyrex accusations) and wavering on truly committing to an opinion of him.

  - I made it clear that I suspected pops because he didn't respond to Spy's direct line of questioning.

  It wasn't clear to me and it seemed as if you were persuaded by Spyrex since you said his case was more convincing than Korts' case.
  
• minor contradictions of statements throughout

  - General accusation that can be lumped into any case.

  Perhaps, but was it not a major point of contention which lead to votes on Rhinox? I thought you had some comments about him regarding this, but I would have to read back.
  
• unprovoked defenses of players

  - Giving my opinion on situations as they have arose.

  It is my job to guess the motive behind this. Alone, it could be town (I do defend players when I think their attackers are out of line - though I feel this can sometimes be poor play on my part). This is another one of those things that town players can do (all scum 'tells' are IMO) but there are clear reasons for scum to do it. When these instances add up, they begin to push my view towards the player being scum.

[bionicchop2]

Rhinox - post 181 is full of yuck.

What’s yuck about it?

I didn't update my notes after reading it, so I don't remember my exact thoughts. The post is way too self-aware, if that makes sense. I didn't really go into detail on it because I don't want to coach him how to play and I don't know if the post is necessarily scummy. If someone claims to play exactly the same as town and scum, then they are unwittingly saying you can never trust them. All the talk about "why would I do X as scum?" WIFOMY stuff becomes negated. On one hand he says there is no reason for him to act a certain way and be so openly honest about acting like a VI if he is scum. Then he goes on to later say he plays the same for both alignments. That then leads to the possibility he could intentionally be making the play he would make as town to keep his meta identical.

[bionicchop2]

I’m not ready for him to claim though, because that signals decision time to believe him or lynch him. I don’t want to possibly end the day with no read on MME.

I disagree. If a player reaches L-1, the majority feel they are suspicious enough. current deadline is 7 days away. If a claim is delayed, then any decision made based on a claim will be rushed. Then people use deadline reasoning for weaker lynches. Main point being, if a claim will be wanted later, then it should be given now. If you follow Rhinox's link to his game as SK, town almost let scum off the hook by not making him claim. Eventually he was brought back to L-1 and claimed doctor - which happened to be my role. Now I don't think CCs will be as relevant in this game since there is nothing to indicate any role is singular, but I think anybody who reaches L-1 should ever delay a claim.

@RC 221

I will let everybody respond to their individual points. I will look at the case you have laid out and if I feel it is valid, I will remove that point from my case against you. IMO limiting it to just you vs. Rhinox is not the best move.

[bionicchop2]

You do realize, bionic, that OGML has made it clear that he has no problem voting me should the lynch tide go my way?

The lynch tide has gone your way. I only have one other game right now until my newbie game starts and that game does not require any significant attention (odd for a 112 page game, huh?). I have been very focused on this game and would like to think I am aware of what is going on in the peripheral of my own discussions.

If you truly are concerned that the way this day is headed is not the best move for me (and, subsequently, the town) then I suggest you unvote.

I am not sure what you are saying here, but I don't have any plans on unvoting at this time. This does not mean I won't unvote you today, but you are currently my top suspect. The best move for you may not equal the best move for me. Since I think you are scum, I am assuming they are the exact opposite.

When I wrote that, I was unclear if you thought pops was more lynch-worthy than Rhinox and it seemed like you were resigning yourself to a me vs. him type thing. You have made it clear now that pops is a secondary suspect, so attacking Rhinox as your top suspect makes sense to me.

[bionicchop2]

sorry Korts

I know big posts can get cumbersome. I guess it is easy for me right now with limited active games. I like being fully immersed in this one.

[bionicchop2]

welcome CF. In 500 words or more, please outline who is scum. Thank you.

[bionicchop2]

whoa whoa whoa OGML, if RC has a claim it should be earlier rather than later? We're all mature consenting mafia players here, no one's going to quickhammer unless they're scum in this group. We've plenty of time. If you have a serious case about Rhinox possibly being a scum power role, then we want an L-1 claim from Rhinox, not from RC.

I agree with OGML and it has nothing to do with maturity or fear of impending quicklynch. Of course that agreement was while we were at L-1. Now that we are back at L-2, there is no reason for a claim. Claims close to deadlines lead to limited time for analysis, reconsideration and discussion on an alternate lynch should one be needed.

[bionicchop2]

@RC, I read your bulleted case on Rhinox. I would say 50%+ of it I can see as potentially legitimate. Some of it feels like filler (the first few points). It gains a couple of townie points. I don't know how many of those were specifically mentioned by you earlier, or just added when put under pressure. For now I will drop that point in my case against you.

[bionicchop2]

So spy... what do you think of this comment then?

after overanalyzing BC (i decided too since there's not going on right now), i'm going to count the SK discussion against him more than i would initially, because i think i'd do it if i was scum.

I don't seem to remember any melodramatic suprise out of you after pops made this comment...

That is Spyrex's top suspect, so I am not sure what you are getting at here.

[bionicchop2]

V/LA the next few days per my signature

[bionicchop2]

back from vaca. Will try to catch up tonight if I feel up to the task. Under the weather.

[bionicchop2]

Rishi scum more probable than Huntress scum more probable than Pops scum.

[bionicchop2]

Rishi scum more probable than Huntress scum more probable than Pops scum.

Rishi > pops > Huntress, I'd say.

I might agree with that.

I took off work today because my head feels like a ton of bricks. I will make time to catch up and post something better.

[bionicchop2]

Feeling much better today. A few quick comments to CF Riot:

Post 269:

1. You said the your notes were in player by player order. Why did you group players together to post about them?

2. You exclude any thoughts on IAU. An odd exclusion, especially paired with #3

3. Your group of 'lurkers' doesn't seem well thought out. Here are the post counts for the 6 players with the least number of posts prior to your post on Feb 12 (including confirmation). 6 included to show the 3 you called out.

IAU - 5
MME - 6
Rishi - 7
Spyrex - 9
Huntress - 12
Jahudo - 12

Now I know posts with content count more than posts without content. The complete exclusion of IAU as an offender here (if you are going to puppet the salt stories of Spyrex) is wrong. Then Spyrex gets group into your 'town' group for making 2 more posts than Rishi and 3 less than Huntress (this is not a scum accusation of Spyrex).

=============

So, for all this business RC and Rhinox have been getting, what purpose would it serve them as scum?

I want to address my overall feeling on the existing wagons and this quote is a good starting point for me.

I understand your point here Spyrex, but ask yourself the same question about Pops. Once I got a feel of how Pops was playing this game, I figured it was best for me to at least skim one of his other games. The playstyle in this game and his first game on this site (as town) are near identical. This does not definitively make him town for me, but it is the reason I am not sold on your case. At last count, he had 47 posts (this was before the weekend) and I think I was the only player with more posts. Now, even if you cut out 66% of them and call them fluff, he would still have 15 content posts which is more than half the players in the game have posted total.

Now, I currently don't have Rhinox in the top of my suspects, so I will address his wagon. Almost every case on him has AtE and WIFOM as the major component. OK. For me, I try not to count scummy actions multiple times (if something is done 6 times vs. 3 times, it is not scummier). If somebody posts enough times and AtE/WIFOM are part of their nature, they are going to have multiple offenses. I have many of the same 'tells' listed for Rhinox as others have expressed, but they are not conclusive enough for me. Part of my problem is that I have busted scum before for using appeals to emotion. Felt great. I then played the person again and lynched her again for similar reasons (Crywolf FYI). She was town that time. Turns out she just uses AtE excessively regardless of alignment. This has knocked it down a notch on my scum-tell list

For RC, I see a diverse number of scummy actions. To address the "what purpose would his play serve as scum", you have to look at the progression of his posts. A large portion of his posts were made in defense of his initial actions. Once called out that his posting was scummy, scum really would be forced to either commit to it 100% or backtrack out of it. Spyrex accuses Pops of 'hiding in plain sight'. Is the same not possible for RC? I admit the biggest doubt in my mind is why RC would play as he started after I was accused of being scum for discussing SK.

[bionicchop2]

For RC, I see a diverse number of scummy actions. To address the "what purpose would his play serve as scum", you have to look at the progression of his posts. A large portion of his posts were made in defense of his initial actions.

If you think his continued and repetitive defense of his initial actions is scummy, how is that different from a scummy action committed multiple times?

Those are 2 different concepts you are lumping together. The first sentence is why I see him as scummier and the scummy actions I have previously outlined in detail - was not trying to repeat them here. The 2nd is a response to a statement. You don't know how I have organized my rankings of scum, but I will tell you that I only counted RC's repetition of the SK talk as one offense.

I try not to count scummy actions multiple times (if something is done 6 times vs. 3 times, it is not scummier)

Thats silly.

In my experience, 5 occurrences of 1 scummy action by a player < 1 occurrence each of 5 different scummy actions.

And it is nothing like your example with crywolf - AtE is

not

part of Rhinox's meta.

Rhinox has never been lynched in a game nor been under significant pressure, therefore he does not have ANY meta on how he responds to pressure. AtE is one of those things I have trouble with. It always feels scummy, but I think it is less often telling of a persons alignment than it is just a reflection of the person.

[bionicchop2]

and assuming 4 scum in the game.

Will respond to other points later, but did I miss something? Why are we assuming four scum in the game? In a setup like this, three is normal. We get four scum if there's three scum plus a serial killer or two scumgroups of two. But how can someone know that if not a member of one of the groups?

Will wait for an explanation before switching my vote, but this looks like a genuine slip to me.

I guess you haven't been reading too closely then. There have been multiple discussions about assuming the worst case scenario for games. In this case, the range of scum is 2-4. Mafia role PMs are written for 2-3 mafia and there is a possibility of 1 SK.

How would this be a scum slip? How would a person in either group be able to determine there are 4 scum? A sk, could only guess if there are 2-3 mafia and mafia could only guess if there was a SK. Neither group has any way of determining the possibility and more than a town player would.

[bionicchop2]

Let's delve further into the mind of Spyrex. I think it can be productive. Comments and questions in whatever order they pop into my head:

1. I won't completely dismiss the idea of Pops-scum since I do feel you are a solid scum hunter and I currently feel you are town. I feel it may be driven by his play style. The tough part is that he has a play style that would be very easy for him to carry into games when he is scum, especially if people accept it as his norm.

2. Since you have put a 33% chance on your 3 top suspects all being scum, I would be curious to know your 4th suspect if you have a clear one.

3. I need to update my Rishi notes now that he has posted a little more, but he is neck to neck with RC in my mind. Having fewer posts leaves me with less identifiable reasoning behind my suspicions of him though. Maybe this is an avenue worth pursuing.

4. I see I am not the only one who notices Jahudo floating around. Asking nice little questions, but not expressing any strong opinions. I can't find many things 'scummy' per se, but worth noting.

[bionicchop2]

Rishi > pops > Huntress, I'd say.

I might agree with that.

Are you agreeing that pops could be more likely scummy than Huntress, or are you agreeing that imausername could find pops more scummy than Huntress? If the former, is that a change of opinion from your previous post or is your suspicion of pops about the same as your suspicion of Huntress?

1. This part just seems silly.

or are you agreeing that imausername could find pops more scummy than Huntress?

Would I really post to say, "Yes I think you might think that way"?

2. Both Huntress and Pops are muddled in the majority of semi-suspect people. Earlier in games, I tend to lean towards players who post less as more likely to be scum if two players are close in scumminess. My initial post probably should have been clearer in the seperation. Rishi>>>>>>>>Huntress>Pops.

[bionicchop2]

I wasn't sure if I should go this far, since I am entering into 'defending the actions of another' territory. Always a slippery slope. Anyway, I think this should be on the table since the biggest knock on Pops is his joking and fluff. I originally had Pops high on my rankings for the same reason, which pushed me into my next level of investigating.

Link to Pops-scum

Link to Pops-town

Can he change? Yes, sure. From what I saw though, it looked like Pops-scum knew his normal playing is going to draw too much attention. He took a very straight forward approach to the game. Since the game ended with him winning for his team, I don't see much incentive for him to change course and try the riskier approach of joking/fluff pops-scum

[bionicchop2]

For the SpyreX scum Triad, I'd like BC to explain why he finds Pops as the least likely of the three. I agree with

Unapologetically unhelpful (see the you aint got nothin on me coppa defense) + hiding in plain sight + bandwagon voting = delicious scum cookie. Come take a bite.

My reasoning can be found in the links of my previous post. An isolation of pops showed a clear contrast between the two alignments. For me, that will get him through day 1 without some scummy actions which are not displayed in his games as town.
----

@BC RE: post structure. As you said, whether or not someone is lurking doesn't depend on the actual number of posts, it depends on the content. I felt like IAUN, Spy and Jahudo had been contributing, and Huntress, MME and Rishi had not.

OK. I just wanted a clear statement so I wasn't misreading. I guess the standout for me was Huntress included in the list and IAU not included. The biggest reason is I have IAU on my radar for borderline non-contribution. His posts have had some content, but are the fewest of any player in the game (MME excluded). Also, I didn't see the lag in the posting from Huntress based on a purely content/number of posts basis. She seemed lumped in.

The one thing I had written about IAUN was a quote he made about Rhinox, but I felt like it fell under Rhino's category more than IAUN's.

This begs to question how much content was really included in his posts. It wasn't enough for him to say anything suspicious, but he also didn't land in your town grouping.

[bionicchop2]

As a side note, I really don't understand all this grouping going on where we are trying to determine how a player flipping as an alignment will affect our view on the rest of the game. Trying to pair people up and determine partners without knowing the alignment of anybody seems like a surefire way to spin our wheels. The alignment of a lynched player should be a small component of how others are analyzed IMO.

[bionicchop2]

1.) Keep in mind I have no "play style" analysis on Pops. I haven't looked at his other games nor will I. I am basing it off this game. Thus, and if you like to look at my old games you'll see this sentiment: Meta is retarded, and if he's playing scummy NOW I want to lynch him for it now. If that's his meta, then we'll do this dance in every game we play.

I have found a chink in your armor. I don't think meta needs to be a huge part of every read, but to completely disregard it is irresponsible of you IMO. You are getting into policy play here and anti-town hunting as opposed to scum hunting. For someone's play to be scummy, it would imply they are more likely to play that way as scum vs. town. If history shows them playing a certain way as town and NOT playing that way as scum, they are more likely to not be scum when displaying that style in future games (once the meta is proven to be broken, it becomes null, obv). My goal is to lynch scum, not lynch people who don't follow my personal standards for how town should play.

Now that I have defended Pops more than I really feel comfortable doing, I will move on. You know where I stand on it and why I won't be voting Pops in the near future.

[bionicchop2]

From above, you are saying scummy play is scummy if and only if the aforementioned player does so as scum and does not do so as town.

Not exactly. What I am saying is that if the 'scummy' action is not present when they are scum, then it isn't scummy in relation to that player. If they do it as both, it can still be scummy.

Meta, in very refined circumstances, can be used to find

differences

in play that could add credence to an argument for someone to be one alignment or another. However, and I will never, ever budge on this, meta can not, should not and is not a way to sweep play under the rug.

I am using it to show differences. Compare the links I posted and enter with an open mind. The scum link shows Pops acting completely different as scum and in a more conventional manner - missing all the things you are criticizing him for in this game.

However, would I lynch K7 EVERY game? Or chenshi? Or Team Asshat? Yes, because their play is scummy from every damn game I've played with them.

I don't know the other 2, but I agree on K7. You are missing my point. K7 plays like shit as both town AND scum. The only way to learn his alignment is to lynch him. Pops has show distinct differences in the game I read. He didn't make a single joke in his scum game.

It is so absolutely tempting to develop a bad, bad meta for myself and see how long it takes for the other shoe to drop. Srsly.

And I would lynch you unless I saw you only do it in your town games.

You are being stubborn with your policy. I do not support bad play and I do not excuse actions with meta. I look for differences (some more subtle than others) when I meta.

[bionicchop2]

If you had never ever seen a pops game, what would you think of his play thus far?

He would be in the top half of my suspects, but I don't think top 3. My meta-read on him countered his fluff which would have been my top reason to suspect him.

[bionicchop2]

The S is for scumhunter, apparently thats bad.

Bio: If it was JUST fluff, then sure I could be persuaded to dismiss it. Its not though.

Maybe you could bullet your case for me again, because your last post outlining why you thought he was scum was:

Ultimately, every single damn one of you that are voting RC because you say he is "unhelpful" versus "actually scum" drive me nuts because no matter how I weigh the actions of the two in the realm of unhelpful pops keeps comin up spades. 51 posts and I'd go ahead and say 50% of that is "fluff" (remember that thing he was so up in arms about).

His jump from Rhinox to RC was based heavily on a meta-tell. In rereading, I could see SOME credence for the Rhinox vote but the jump... no.

Every ounce of me screams "scum" at Pops this game. Every bit.

Unapologetically unhelpful (see the you aint got nothin on me coppa defense) + hiding in plain sight + bandwagon voting = delicious scum cookie.

Come take a bite.

So the bandwagon voting is the only thing I see which isn't related to the fluff. Maybe if I could understand your case a little better, I wouldn't be so sceptical.

[bionicchop2]

Why does pops and Rhinox's meta evoke a general town read and my meta not have a factor?

1. Meta is only a portion of my reading.
2. I have not said definitively anywhere that I have a town read on Rhinox based on meta. Please identify where I have.
3. What I saw from pops was very distinct from my perspective, so it holds more weight with me.
4. My skimming of your games did not show me any conclusive differences in your play that I could easily recognize without being in the game and completely aware of the game situations (versus a static read of a completed game)

Do you agree with pops when he says that I am acting like scumCoyote?

My case on you is independent of anything Pops has said.

Further, are you making the argument that when you don't consider there to be "ANY meta" that we should assume that emotional appeals are necessarily null?

I think AtE create too many false-scum reads for me to find it reliable. I have always found the use of emotion to be manipulative and that would naturally lead me to find it scummy. On the flip side, I am not sure I have encountered a player who has used them excessively as scum and not used them as town. This leads me to believe the action is more telling of personality than it is of alignment.

@bionicchop2: the issue is that meta is unreliable. What makes you think that a scum-pops couldn't, for instance, change his meta between the last game he was scum and this one?

1. The scum game I linked finished this month, a couple of days after this game started. If someone was going to consciously change their meta, I would expect the change to be universal.

2. Not all players are aware of their own meta differences until they are called out on it. In any future games with Pops, I would fully expect him to change his meta - though some people (Xtoxm) don't care enough to change after I identify differences.

3. He won the game linked as scum. There would be no incentive to modify the style that previously was successful.

[bionicchop2]

@Rhinox - My apologies for stepping on your toes by answering a question directed to you.

@Rhinox & Rishi - My reasoning stems from suspicions of Rishi and I felt he should be pressed on his question since you had already been explicit on your thoughts of number of scum in a game. I have also recently re-skimmed my first game on the site and saw scum doing a similar "only scum would know the number of scum" type thing to try and lynch somebody, so it is fresh on my mind. I don't have enough backup for this to determine if it is more often done by scum, but it certainly is an easy way for scum to jump on somebody.

[bionicchop2]

@ Rhinox - "flip" is fairly common terminology, so you are reading too much into that IMO. It refers (at least I think) to flipping over a card and revealing the information on the other side (in this case - alignment). Might have started from live mafia (do they use cards)?

Anyway, I have used flip before as town and I think your interpretation of it having a more complex meaning is wrong.

[bionicchop2]

confirm vote RC

for everything he just wrote regarding me and reading Rhinox's meta. You wrote absolutely nothing that indicates I have a town read on Rhinox

based off of meta

. You managed to write a rather decent amount of nothingness to spin your original statement to somehow make sense instead of admitting I only got a town read of pops based off of meta.

town meta read + MOTR game play = current town read for pops.
neutral meta read + semi scummy play = Rhinox not in the top of my suspect list
neutral meta read + excessive scummy play = RC top suspect.

You made an initial statement/question, for whatever purpose. (A leading question with an assumptive premise to boot).

Why does pops and Rhinox's meta evoke a general town read and my meta not have a factor?

When the initial statement in the question was pointed out as incorrect, you decided it was best to spin into a whole side thing about how I am reading Rhinox and because I use meta as a factor, I must have a town meta-read on him.

[bionicchop2]

EBWOP - I somehow got an extra quote tag in my post. "bionicchop2 wrote" should not be there since that text is all new.

Fixed. ~Vi

[bionicchop2]

This is just straight, gut fueled opinion talking here, but I really think it would be a mistake to lynch RC over Rhinox today.

Catching up on some stuff I didn't get to read too closely over vacation and I caught this. Extremely scummy comment IMO. You push that they are both scum and are pushing which of the 2 is more important scum to lynch.

How is this scummy? Who would benefit from a statement like this? I think scum would.

Scum A stating 2 players are scummy. Both could be town, 1 could be scum, most likely both are not. If a partner is in the 2, scum would cast suspicion on both (cover them self by screaming their partner is scum) and nudge everybody in the direction of the person who isn't scum. Of course, the WIFOMy reverse could be used by scum. Nudge towards your partner so if anybody picks up on it, they lynch the other one.

I don't think I can gather anything about Rhinox or RC based off your statement, but I think it bumps you up the scummy scale a bit.

[bionicchop2]

While I understand what you are saying pops, I think it is an improper way to approach a lynch.

Yes, if we had zero information besides a vanilla claim, we should lynch the vanilla claim. Let's look at your logic though.

-Player A claims vanilla.
-You say we need to lynch Player A because they make it easier for scum to find a power role if they are telling the truth.
-You originally did not see player A as the most likely scum
-This means the piece of evidence for you to lynch him is that IF HE IS TOWN his claim helps scum.

If we lynch him and he does turn up town, you have done nothing to change the odds of scum finding a power role. If we followed your logic, we would have to lynch the first person bandwagoned to L-1 in any day and claims. This brings back the fact that RC was at L-1 and two players specifically spoke against a claim (Jahudo and Pops). Now since RC was let out of standard claim territory, the first person to claim is penalized by becoming an auto-lynch for you just for claiming.

If you think Rhinox is scummy, then vote him. I would have no qualms. His claim only helps scum if he is town and to lynch him because his claim narrows down the scum search for power roles is along the lines of policy lynching which you just road Spyrex for. Don't place the value of protecting power roles about the value of finding scum. If there was no claim, who would you lynch and why?

[bionicchop2]

bionic uses meta to analyze players, bionic thinks Rhinox is town, therefore, bionic's meta-read of Rhinox is town

lol. This is some extremely horrible logic. I can never find the fallacy term that describes what I am looking for, but I think this one is Affirming the consequent or something similar (if A, then B; B, therefore A.)

If you don't see the major, major, MAJOR flaw in your statement, then it is going to be very difficult to discuss any subject with you.

Here is your statement broken down, followed by a comparable statement:

========================

Premise 1: If I get a town-meta read on someone, I think they are town
Premise 2: I think player A is town (also, FYI, just because I am not convinced Rhinox is scum yet, doesn't mean I think he is definitely town)
FALSE CONCLUSION: I have a town-meta read on player A

========================

Premise 1: If I put on a jacket, I am going outside
Premise 2: I am going outside
FALSE CONCLUSION: I have a jacket on.

The reason being that I can go outside without a jacket on.

[bionicchop2]

These are my final statements on the issue. Anybody reading can see how the subject has been twisted, with you going as far as blaming me for trapping you. You made a false assumption and I simply tried to tell you it was false, so I couldn't answer the question you asked me. It didn't have to turn into you trying to tell me what my meta-read is on somebody.

MY META READ ON RHINOX IS NEUTRAL AND INCONCLUSIVE

MY META READ ON REDCOYOTE IS NEUTRAL AND INCONCLUSIVE

IN GAME INFORMATION LEADS ME TO BELIEVE REDCOYOTE IS SCUM

IN GAME INFORMATION LEADS ME TO BELIEVE RHINOX IS LESS LIKELY TO BE SCUM THAN REDCOYOTE

[bionicchop2]

I'm not exactly sure why bionic thinks I'm misinterpreting him.

Mostly because what you are saying about my opinion of Rhinox and how I formed that opinion are incorrect. When I told you it was incorrect, you pretty much told me I was wrong and I do have a town-meta read on him. Regardless of anything you assumed or thought I meant to say, I am telling you flat out that I was unable to gather any information on Rhinox through meta and it has no influence on my current non-vote of him.

[bionicchop2]

So, yea, I'm takin it quiet for the next few days. Lynch whomever, I'll check in and throw my vote if it looks like we're going to hit a NL.

Why is everyone just ignoring this comment?

I can't speak for others, but he hasn't posted since you questioned him on it right after he made the statement. Moriarty mentioned it also. I have made note of it and will see how he answers your initial question.

[bionicchop2]

I will catch up today. I am making a formal request for RC to claim in his next post. Any claim made close to deadline won't leave any time for reasonable consideration if he claims anything other than vanilla.

[bionicchop2]

@CF Riot

I don't know why you are specifically asking me for an opinion on your page 11 post. All I will say is that it didn't convince me that RC is not the player most likely to be scum.

@RC

Why does pops and Rhinox's meta evoke a general town read and my meta not have a factor?

1. Meta is only a portion of my reading.
2. I have not said definitively anywhere that I have a town read on Rhinox based on meta. Please identify where I have.
3. What I saw from pops was very distinct from my perspective, so it holds more weight with me.
4. My skimming of your games did not show me any conclusive differences in your play that I could easily recognize without being in the game and completely aware of the game situations (versus a static read of a completed game)

It is convenient that your 'entrapment' case where you simplified what we talked about dropped responses #1,3 & 4 to the initial question. YOU chose to focus on response #2 because you felt you could strawman that into something that made me look bad for my response. You ignored where your question was answered because I specifically stated how meta did not have any effect on my vote for you. I contrasted it with why the meta on pops did effect my opinion of him.
===========
As for you waiting one more post to claim, that is your choice. Your claim will now not have any impact on my vote since you declined my request to give me adequate time to assess any claim you made.

[bionicchop2]

A very concise list of why I find Rhinox > RC > pops suspicious in that order:

@All: I still would like a Rhinox lynch. If we cannot get that I could join the pops wagon because of WIFOM, piggyback voting, and fluff posting.

Obviously we can change our opinions on who is scum. Could you explain the leapfrog of pops over RC for potential scum? It seems to directly correlate with the momentum of opinions against Pops and the buzz that maybe a Pops wagon is the more likely alternate to the RC wagon.

[bionicchop2]

If it isn't entrapment, why didn't bionic merely state that I was incorrect and that he didn't arrive to any conclusions on Rhinox in post 344 or even 371?

I did. You skipped it.

town meta read + MOTR game play = current town read for pops.
neutral meta read + semi scummy play = Rhinox not in the top of my suspect list
neutral meta read + excessive scummy play = RC top suspect.

[bionicchop2]

But it still seems like the content is not pressuring the people he’s found scummy, or giving original opinionated takes on the wagons he’s joined. The first RC vote was the best example. The switch to Rhinox was odd because he’s also calling it even money and wavering on making AtE a tell. But then he jumped back to RC based on a meta tell and I personally don’t think meta’s are as reliable in this game because I’ve said the posting length, frequency and style feel much more intense than a usual game.

I guess the best way for someone to not look scummy with their vote is to place a random vote to start the game and then never change it.

[bionicchop2]

That being said, my vote is staying on pops due to a bunch of reasons (strange vote-hopping and the case on RC which basically amounts to "I'm not sure what alignment he is so I'll assume he's scum and vote him,

on day one

", which is just idiotic this early in the game)

Could you go into detail about the part in parenthesis? The way you write it seems like it becomes less idiotic in later days to lynch somebody you have no good read on - since you italicized "on day one". This is the exact opposite of how I feel. I certainly wouldn't want to flip a coin in lylo. If the mod came in and said we need to pick one day which we would completely random lynch somebody by dice rolling, I would make it day 1 every time. Please explain your emphasis of the day one part.

[bionicchop2]

Could you go into detail about the part in parenthesis? The way you write it seems like it becomes less idiotic in later days to lynch somebody you have no good read on - since you italicized "on day one". This is the exact opposite of how I feel. I certainly wouldn't want to flip a coin in lylo. If the mod came in and said we need to pick one day which we would completely random lynch somebody by dice rolling, I would make it day 1 every time. Please explain your emphasis of the day one part.

The problem with quicklynching someone you have

no read

on, as opposed to

a scummy read

on, on day 1

, is this essentially eliminates the possibility of GETTING a read on them later in the game. Unreadable scum often become readable after their scumbuddies flip, for instance. LYLO certainly isn't the place to lynch someone at random either, but neither is day 1

if there are scummier people around on day 1

, which I believe there are.

I bolded a portion of your quote. You are adding non-existent parameters to our current situation. Can you identify where Pops is choosing RC over another player that he does have a scummy read on?

[bionicchop2]

it is deadline day guys. VOTE

More specifically, vote for RedCoyote.

Maybe if we get him to L

+

3 we can coax a claim out of him. That is if it is convenient for him and after he gets the opinions of everybody again and they super-confirm they want to vote for him.

[bionicchop2]

it is deadline day guys. VOTE

We have 30 hours and 16 minutes from this post. It is 7:44 PM EST on the 25th right now. Deadline is 11 PM EST on the 26th.

7:44 + 16 minutes = 8:00 PM
11:00 PM - 8:00 PM = 3 hours
Add 24 for an additional day -> 27 hours + 16 minutes.

~ Vi

[bionicchop2]

7:44 + 16 minutes = 8:00 PM
11:00 PM - 8:00 PM = 3 hours
Add 24 for an additional day -> 27 hours + 16 minutes.

~ Vi

I somehow re-added back in 3 hours for west coast time!

[bionicchop2]

I cc that claim.

[bionicchop2]

One catch is we may have multiple jailers since nothing indicates the role is exclusive. RC phrased it like it was, when he said:

the

Townie Jailer

The role is

a

townie jailer technically.

Either way, my vote isn't changing. If I had a few days before deadline, I would have taken more time to consider countering vs. not countering which is why more pressure should have been applied earlier to get that claim. None of my secondary suspects have any votes on them, so my vote will only move if I am the only person online at deadline and we need 1 more vote.

[bionicchop2]

...I somehow don't think bio thought that through before ccing. What about this setup exactly suggests that duplicate roles aren't possible?

It is possible as I say in my post right after yours, but RC is playing like scum and I don't believe the claim. Why did he mention breadcrumbing, but never actually identify any breadcrumbs?

[bionicchop2]

My instinct is telling me that RC is a mafia RB, since that would make Jailer a fairly safe claim. He can easily be confirmed as blocking somebody.

Also, I have been surprised he hasn't been pushed to L-1 yet except for a brief period before CF Riot replaced in. I thought if he was town, mafia would jump on the case harder (I don't think there are 3+ scum voting for him). Even as mafia, it seems like somebody would be thinking it was time to bus when he was at L-2. A mafia PR is not going to get bussed unless it is a last resort though, which would support him being a mafia RB.

As town, I would see the jailer making a claim at first request - especially as a town who seems to be asserting we have certain roles in the game. There is a decent probability of a watcher or doctor for the town which could protect a jailer claim and let them do their work (part of why I claimed). The claim would have given ample time for everybody else to find a decent lynch option. Hell, I think I would have claimed at the first L-1 way earlier in the day in this setup.

[bionicchop2]

Either way, my vote isn't changing. If I had a few days before deadline, I would have taken more time to consider countering vs. not countering

No one here made the decision to reveal your role except you, so any attempt to pass the buck that you may or may not have been insinuating strikes no chord with me, and shouldn't with anyone else, given the reasons why my claim was rightfully delayed.

I may have made the same decision to reveal regardless. The decision was mine, but I would have appreciated more time. My deciding factor was I did not anybody to overvalue your claimed role when contrasting it against your play during the day - which I find very scummy obviously. I have only seen the delayed claim (where a claim request was denied) once. That person was scum, so there is a precedent for scum to act how you did.

As for 'rightfully delayed', your 2nd reason listed for delaying the claim occurred after you had already delayed and prior to your actual claim.

There is a decent probability of a watcher or doctor for the town which could protect a jailer claim and let them do their work

Funny, when I talked about role probabilities, I was labelled as outguessing the mod. I'll have to see where these statements lead you, bionic.

Outguessing the mod is along the lines of "if we have X role, then we have Y role for sure". I am simply being optimistic that one of the 2 alternate protective roles (outside of jailer) listed as possible, we have 1. I also wanted to at least state the possibility to ward scum from killing me. Juicy WIFOM tidbits for them to consider at night which could also possibly prevent me from being roleblocked (beware the watcher!). If I have a visitor and the person I tried to jail ended up dead, then we have snared a roleblocker.

[bionicchop2]

RE: breadcrumb - That is an extremely blanket statement that could cover pretty much any role and does not signify intent to claim jailkeeper at a later date. In that same post, the words watcher and jailer are both bolded, which looks an awful lot like a double breadcrumb attempt to leave an option for claiming a variety of roles.

On top of this, when RC claimed to have breadcrumbed in post 484, he said:

My, ahem, "breadcrumbing" may have began to spiral out of control somewhere around, oh, the third or fourth page? XD

What he ended up quoting was on page 5. I don't know about anybody else, but the times I have chosen to breadcrumb in a game, I was very aware of where I left them and they were much clearer once revealed. I don't see posting for 4 pages and then leaving a hint that he might act differently if he had a role and assumed a SK as breadcrumbing.

Add to this the assumptive statement "as some of you have undoubtedly suspected" implying that his play was so obvious for a jailer. As a jailer, I don't see any of his play as standard jailer play. I also know that a SK possibility has zero effect on my upcoming night decision, so the whole concept of a jailer really needing to consider a SK is a smokescreen.

[bionicchop2]

Just got out of the car after a grueling 23 straight hours, and hey look a claim from RC that makes perfect sense. Can we get this Rhinox lynch going for reals now?

Weren't you voting Rhinox over RC purely because you thought he was a scum power role, but that both were scum? What happened to that?

Fits in with what I said a few days ago:

This is just straight, gut fueled opinion talking here, but I really think it would be a mistake to lynch RC over Rhinox today.

Catching up on some stuff I didn't get to read too closely over vacation and I caught this. Extremely scummy comment IMO. You push that they are both scum and are pushing which of the 2 is more important scum to lynch.

How is this scummy? Who would benefit from a statement like this? I think scum would.

Scum A stating 2 players are scummy. Both could be town, 1 could be scum, most likely both are not. If a partner is in the 2, scum would cast suspicion on both (cover them self by screaming their partner is scum) and nudge everybody in the direction of the person who isn't scum. Of course, the WIFOMy reverse could be used by scum. Nudge towards your partner so if anybody picks up on it, they lynch the other one.

I don't think I can gather anything about Rhinox or RC based off your statement, but I think it bumps you up the scummy scale a bit.

[bionicchop2]

If we are correct on RC and I happen to die tonight, please look very closely at Jahudo and OGML tomorrow. If RC is town, it changes things, but those 2 would still be close to the top of my list. They both listed RC as what appeared to be their 2nd suspects throughout the game, but never once voted him. Then when pops-lynch possibility increased, Jahudo moved Pops up to 2nd. OGML pushed both RC/Rhinox scum, but kept steering towards lynching Rhinox as more important scum. Keeping scum in the top of your rankings while trying not to get them lynched is very scummy.

I think the watcher/doc possibilities will keep me safe tonight - even if only through WIFOM, but I felt like I should put that out there.

[bionicchop2]

Vi has given us too much information. While moriarty and Rishi can be scum, they were not responsible for last night's death. Same goes for OGML who was jailed last night - unless I was blocked.

In theory this leaves 7 suspects for last night's kill (including myself). As I said, the others can all be scum, but did not kill last night.

[bionicchop2]

I agree with Jahudo. This is pretty much just speculation, but wouldn't it also be to Spyre-scum's benefit

not

to kill Rhinox, and leave the possibility of a Rhinox wagon that he didn't have to be a part of? I mean, don't scum generally like to stay off of mislynches if they can?

Why would it benefit Spyrex to not kill Rhinox if he was scum? I could certainly see a play made to gain the trust of the town by confirming both his reads were correct. With that in his pocket, he could easily lead a mislynch today and not look scummy for it.

I don't think Spyrex has acted in a particularly scummy manner, so I wouldn't jump to vote him on the sole reason that the night kill would help him as scum. I definitely wouldn't go the other direction though and say that Spyrex-scum would leave Rhinox alive for an easy mislynch.

=====

My suspects #2-4 after RC were - in order - Moriarty, Rishi, OGML. This puts me down in the bottom/middle of my list for suspects that are viable lynch options for me today. I still feel fairly strong in my read on Pops. I won't debate those voting him today, but I will probably not be voting him unless there are no other options.

As I said, I think Spyrex has played fairly town, so I don't see myself voting him ATM. That leaves Jahudo, CF and Huntress for me to look at closely.

[bionicchop2]

mod

please fix my quote tag in 522. I was quoting CF. Thanks

Your wish; my command. ~Vi

[bionicchop2]

lol. Your name had less notes under it than huntress or jahudo, so I missed it when I scrolled down my notes. You can add yourself to the 4some if you want.

[bionicchop2]

CFRiot, i was saying Vi was giving easy night targets for BC because BC-scum could easily read the list of who didn't send a night action and pick one. Of course that person can't say "BC is scum because i succesfully performed a night action", because they didn't send one in.

That doesn't make sense since I jailed OGML who was not included in the no PM list.

[bionicchop2]

I would like Huntress to present a full case on Spyrex.

[bionicchop2]

Here is an interesting tidbit. As Spyrex mentioned, no scum were in danger of being lynched yesterday since the 2 biggest wagons were both on town. This would lead me to think scum played a fairly relaxed game yesterday. Today, with no sure-thing wagons formed, scum would likely be more aggressive IMO. This is exactly how I view Jahudo as playing. Most of my note on him from yesterday are comments about how he seems to be playing it safe and laying low. Yes he was posting, but never seemed to really get aggressive with accusations. Today he has come out guns blazing.

As I said, I don't see any of the 2 vote holders as scum ATM, so I will start my own fun non-wagon which likely will go nowhere. yay!

vote jahudo

[bionicchop2]

BC, can you explain that in a way i'd understand?

If you don't understand it how it was written, then no. What part about him being more aggressive today is confusing?

[bionicchop2]

As I said, I don't see any of the 2 vote holders as scum ATM, so I will start my own fun non-wagon which likely will go nowhere. yay!

Why is this line attached to your post? What is the point of placing a vote then adding this disclaimer?

Because...I...felt...like it?

Was it scummy? If not, why nit pick at it?

[bionicchop2]

@BC, that's what I'm trying to decide. That vote looks just like when people say, "I'm going to vote so-and-so for pressure," which is totally meaningless because it's taking away all weight from the vote by saying it's just for pressure. So where does your vote/statement fall? If it's not a serious vote, why not FoS him? Do you feel you need to be voting someone? If it is serious, why are you calling it a "non-wagon"? If you really think Pops and Spy are town and really think what Jah did was scummy then why aren't you trying to convince those on the other wagons to change their mind?

I didn't say anywhere that it wasn't serious, so why would you think it might not be? Why do you care if I vote or FoS (worthless) somebody? I just don't feel like anybody is going to vote for him besides me. This is also my last mafia game for a while and my care factor is significantly decreased, so you can over-read into statements all you want. There is no way that statement I made could benefit scum, but you feel the need to question it, so meh.

[bionicchop2]

I gave my reasons for suspecting you and voted accordingly.

[bionicchop2]

I have said before that Rishi was high on my suspect list. My only issue here is the knowledge Rishi did not kill anybody last night - which can be said for my top 3 remaining suspects.

I would vote Rishi before Pops. I would also consider Huntress at this point. I had her low on my suspect list yesterday, but I was mostly blinded by the fact I thought RC was scum and she was saying he was scum.

[bionicchop2]

unvote jahudo;vote rishi

I think we need 2 options as we approach deadline. Rishi is the only viable alternate right now to pops who I still think is town. The case on him hasn't really changed or evolved. It still seems mostly based on Fluff and now had AtE added to it. I get the feeling some people have it in their head he is scum and this makes anything he says seem scummy. Obviously I know that feeling since I wasn't letting go of my opinion of RC. Moriarty's post 668 is either scum or town who is blinded by an opinion of pops-scum.

My top suspects are Moriarty, ToD and Rishi.

My only issue here is the knowledge Rishi did not kill anybody last night - which can be said for my top 3 remaining suspects.

That should only be an issue if we were specifically looking for Rhinox's killer.

Yes, I agree to an extent. It would mean scum didn't check in for an entire night phase though - or maybe just missed Vi's request for a PM from everybody.

[bionicchop2]

Also, question: you were extremely aggressive and all over the place on Day 1. Today you seem to be flying under the radar. Why the sudden change in playstyle?

Read the thread. This is the last game I am playing and simply fulfilling my commitment to the game.

[bionicchop2]

First I’m hearing about Moriarty and ToD from you. Why? And what happened to Jahudo?

Meant to respond to this also. ToD = OGML. I have definitely expressed suspicion there. I can't remember if I have explicitly stated any prior suspicion of Moriarty, but I think I may have.

If you read my early D1 reasoning for looking at 4 players specifically, it is because there is solid reason to believe one of them killed Rhinox. Jahudo is my top suspect among those. This does not mean others can't be scum, obv. and as one of my top suspects I will gladly join a wagon on you despite the non-action at night.

[bionicchop2]

I guess I'm just wondering why you had a vote on someone for so long that's not even in your Top 3. Do you believe there's more than 3 scum in this game?

Neither of those 3 killed anybody last night, so either the killing mafia member is not in those 3 or Rhinox was killed by a SK. This I did explain in one of my first posts of D2. Neither moriarty nor you had a night action per Vi, so I haven't really mentioned either of you today. OGML was jailed last night unless I was blocked.

This is a legit reason, but I can't find you saying it anywhere in this thread.

. I hinted at it, but didn't make a big deal of it. I mentioned it when I half-assed my explanation for voting Jahudo:

I didn't say anywhere that it wasn't serious, so why would you think it might not be? Why do you care if I vote or FoS (worthless) somebody? I just don't feel like anybody is going to vote for him besides me.

This is also my last mafia game for a while and my care factor is significantly decreased

, so you can over-read into statements all you want. There is no way that statement I made could benefit scum, but you feel the need to question it, so meh.

[bionicchop2]

1.

Ohh hay look at that.

2.

BC who did you target last night?

I think it was a mistake for me to reveal who was jailed the previous night as scum took advantage of the fact I cannot jail the same person twice and killed who I had jailed the previous night. At this time I don't think the information of who I targeted for jailing helps us find scum.

3. I am assuming a mislynch and lose situation. Best case scenario is 3 mafia (I guess 2 is truly best case) and no SK. If we are looking at 3+1 right now, then the town is no longer a true majority and winning will be quite difficult. IF we have a SK, they actually need to kill mafia now or they lose, so that benefits us slightly. If we are in a 5 vs 3 situation (and even a 4 vs 3 vs 1) I am mulling the idea of a no lynch.

[bionicchop2]

On Point 2, I disagree. We know there was a kill last night and that'd give us information on who didn't send the kill.

And if I jailed mafia, then they know to have that player send in the kill tonight.

I don't understand why an SK would have to kill Mafia to not lose.

It's just a function of math and it

technically

is not 100% true. More specifically a SK cannot kill town tonight or mafia would potentially have 50% of the game.

In any case, I think this is all academic.

Yup.

As Jahudo said, we can't still assume that there is only one killing group, but I'm finding it increasingly likely. Can't be 4 scum, or we've already lost. So I'm guessing it's 3 scum and lynch-or-lose.

By lynch or lose here, I assume you mean mislynch and lose. Lynch or lose means we must lynch and it must be scum. It

can

be 4 scum without town losing, but it becomes almost a prisoner's dilemma where we can't win without unintentional assistance from scum (cross kill).

If that's the case, No Lynch is the right play.

I think 5 town 3 scum (even 2 mafia , 1 SK variant) works for a NL to reduce suspects. If it is worst case of 4 town and 4 scum I still feel the same since lynching SK in that case loses the game for town (unless a kill is prevented).

[bionicchop2]

@Moriarty - I am convinced the kills are simply people not likely to be watched, protected or jailed. This is why I am suspicious of the call to massclaim from Huntress. One of the few advantages we have left is that scum don't know if we have watchers, doctors or roleblockers floating around. I can see the advantages of massclaim in some games, but I can't see how it would help in a game where all roles are listed on the front page and the number of each role is unknown.

[bionicchop2]

Why, even though your play has been decent, should you not dangle right now?

Because you don't want to lose? More so, the jailer is an overrated role which generally serves to create more confusion than help the town. Multiple roles do not equate to a multiplication of the benefit of that role. 1 cop is generally good for town. 3 cops often hinders a town.

[bionicchop2]

any of moriarty, rishi and huntress

[bionicchop2]

RE: why I jailed OGML on N1, I felt he was most likely to be scum, so I jailed him. I didn't want to jail somebody I thought was town in case they had a PR.

[bionicchop2]

BC: Why didn't you jail Rhinox N1? He was considered scummy by roughly half the town, and at one point during the day you voted him yourself. On top of this, he claimed vanilla, which made him prime meat for a jailer.

He wasn't even in my top 3 by the end of the day. That was fairly clear to anybody reading.

Secondly, why did you have 95 posts D1 and

15

on D2?

I guess you didn't read day 2. I could simply re-answer the question, but I am stubborn.

[bionicchop2]

If BC is a scum-RB then he has a way to fool a watcher who sees him targeting some given person, and also ensures that if the person was a PR, they can't break his claim because they will really have been blocked.

If I target somebody, and that same person is watched, the watcher gets no result. If I was RB, I would be seen visiting the person.

I also don't see how getting bored or lazy or w/e accounts for your posting dropping that significantly.

Really? You don't think the lack of desire to play mafia anymore would result in a significant drop-off in posts?

Re: jailing - OGML, that was my choice and I explained why. Debating if somebody may have been a better choice in your opinion is a rather fruitless exercise. I jailed you the next night and nobody last night if you want to chew on those also.

Re: suspects - Mostly the quieter ones right now (pot/kettle, right?). Something still nagging me about Jahudo. I would probably go with Huntress for many promises and no follow up or Moriarty if held at gunpoint.

[bionicchop2]

If I target somebody, and that same person is watched, the watcher gets no result. If I was RB, I would be seen visiting the person.

Hrm. Well, this is strange. Technically speaking most watchers will also see doc protects as well as RB attempts, so I'm not sure why they wouldn't see a jailer jailing someone.

Mostly because jailer =/= doctor.

You are Officer ________, one of the night watchmen at Lunais River Prison. You don't know anything really specific about the other officers, but you have the master key to the spare prison cells and a good idea. At Night, you may PM the mod with the name of a player you would like to imprison for the night.

This effectively "removes" them from the game for that Night - they will not be able to be targeted by anyone else (even by Night Kills), but they will also be roleblocked.

You may not imprison yourself, and you may not imprison the same person on consecutive nights.

--You are a

Townie Jailer

. Confirm in-thread.--

The player basically does not exist, so the watcher gets no result. On Epic, you basically get no report same as if you were role blocked.

[bionicchop2]

----
@BC, yes thank you, I will. Does that mean you thought I was the most likely scum N2? What about Jahudo? What about Moriarty or Rishi, both of whom we knew didn't make an action N1 and therefore were also good JK targets?

On N2 I started thinking a slightly different angle. I talked about Jahudo during the day. Moriarty and Rishi had not turned in kills the night before. I figured with a jailer around and the info I targeted my top remaining suspect on N1, scum would have someone who wasn't a top suspect turn in the kill. Part of why I don't like jailers is because I don't like town-sided RBs due to the potential to prevent town roles from functioning. The jailer adds to this because you can prevent a kill and not know which way is was prevented - saving target or blocking killer.

[bionicchop2]

The only way I can see Huntress-scum is if both Huntress and SpyreX are scum, and this honestly seems unlikely at the moment.

Could you explain this?

That leaves Spy, Jahudo, Rishi and Huntress, with a pick of 3 scum. Out of this, I'm not sure what to gather. Of these, Rishi is the only one that I actually think is scum (a lot of my suspicion went down on Jahudo with the last post)

Combined with this, the last statement doesn't make too much sense. You made a list which would pretty much mean you think one of Huntress and Spyrex are scum, but you just said it seems unlikely at the moment.

[bionicchop2]

received prod.

vote huntress

.

[bionicchop2]

BC: What do you think about the scum pairing of Huntress, Rishi and Moriarty? And specifically what do you think of Moriarty's suspicion against Rishi or Rishi's suspicion of Huntress?

By default, that seems reasonable. 4 players seem to not care too much about the game being in possible/probable lylo - myself and those 3. CF drifted off these past few days, but it was a holiday weekend. It would almost be too convenient if those 3 were the entirety of scum though.

[bionicchop2]

@BC: Who have you blocked each night?

Was discussed with CF, but to break my chain of being stubborn and not generate a side debate 3 days from deadline - OGML N1, CF Riot N2, nobody N3.

AND/OR Bio having giant cahones...

The size of my cahones is decidedly independent of everything in discussion.

[bionicchop2]

I jailed Spyrex, but seeing as there was a RB, it means nothing.

[bionicchop2]

While we wait for the other 2 to show up, I would strongly suggest a no lynch. Can't be 2 mafia on the same team. Reduce the suspect list IMO.

[bionicchop2]

I'm trying to figure out what happened. Can you post your list of Jails (including last night) again so I can look at it without hunting around.

It is largely irrelevant since there was a mafia RB, but here goes:

N1 - OGML
N2 - CF Riot (only night I probably wasn't blocked)
N3 - Nobody
N4 - Spyrex

Now, since CF riot was a RB, he probably did not turn in mafia's kill, meaning Spyrex is most likely not mafia.

[bionicchop2]

Wait a sec. IF we hang one of them today and it is the wrong one you JK the other and they get lynched tomorrow.

Brilliant.

One hiccup is I realize CF could have blocked me last night and you may not have been jailed. I think I am willing to take that risk.

Either way, I am not voting anything until everybody has posted.

[bionicchop2]

As for SpyreX, equally well we could No Lynch today, BC tells us ahead of time who he is going to jail, if there is No NK we lynch that person, otherwise they're clear and we lynch the other. Same idea, except this way it doesn't Game Over for Town if one of you or BC is, in fact, lying.

Yeah, huge holes in this plan. You can't base a lynch off of who is jailed when there is no kill at night. Mafia can just turn in no kill if an innocent is jailed.

[bionicchop2]

My paranoia was starting to work me over pretty hardcore. I started worrying that Spyrex was too confident in this plan and maybe I was role blocked last night with him managing to send in a kill. This lead me to investigate how Vi would handle someone roleblocking me. Based on rules, I think this comes into play:

11)

Contradictory Action Policy:

In the event of contradictory Night Actions (i.e. a mutual roleblock, or deciding kill flavor when someone is targeted by multiple kills), priority is given to whoever PMs the mod with the action first.

This would lead me to believe that if I turn in my jail of Spyrex prior to CF blocking me, my action will go through (

mod correct me if I am wrong since this is critical

). Based on this, I looked at what time the previous day ended. Conveniently it ended at 6:25 AM my time. I generally wake up at 6:30, so I checked my sent PM and it went out at 6:34. Further, CF and Jahudo couldn't kill each other based on the same contradictory night kill action policy. The first person to turn a PM in would still be alive.

Based on this, I would like Rishi to vote and leave the hammer to me as suggested by Spyrex. I will send my night action immediately after hammering and then again when the thread closes if Moriarty is not scum.

[bionicchop2]

I think thats the right course of action.

However, IF rule 11 applies to cross-kills then that means I am by no means confirmed as it could have played out:

CFR - RB's Bio
Jah - Kills CFR
SpyreX - Kills Jah

But, of course, I'm town so.

CFR had a 9 minute window to turn in a RB of me and have it prevent me from jailing (RBing) you.

[bionicchop2]

That's retarded, but whatever.

*insert half-baked comeback line here* ~Vi

vote moriarty

My patience runs thin.

[bionicchop2]

well if Spyrex turned in a no kill for giggles, I will be amused.

vote Rishi