Open 139 (Lovers Mafia) - Over! before 781

[Plum]

/get thee to a nunnery .

[Plum]

I was in a recent Lovers setup and have something to propose: That, a few pages (of substance) into the game, require everyone in the game to post a list of all possible pairings and rank them from most to least likely; additionally, we have all players rank the other players from most to least likely scum. This serves multiple functions which are extremely useful specifically

in this setup

. Last time around, one scum refused to do so and said after the fact that it would have been too difficult to stay consistent with it and manage to not get his partner lynched. The lists generate information, especially about connections, and can force scum into corners and limit their already fairly limited options (I think, out of five runs, Town has won four, and in the one where scum won scum lurking contributed. I propose further that we take this game steadily and pace ourselves and force everyone to contribute and help genrate information and make their stances clear before any Day 1 lynch).

Granted, this won't really happen until we have real discussion, so for now I'll

Vote: Zazie

. I'm of the opinion that taking multiple early directions will further limit the options the scumteam has and eliminate, or at leat weaken, the possibility of pairings - but this has not been shown as clearly as the benefit of the suggestion I outline above. Anyway, she also used the term OMGUS where it traditionally would not apply .

[Plum]

I'm 10

3

% sure orangepenguin is either scum Lover or Town.

Where's Plum actually

Also, when the hope's lost, we'll follow the Sens-way:

Vote Crazy

Plum is here and humbly begs pardon. Busy times. In other news, I'm not unhappy about the recent turn of events. Crazy is correct about the effects of him being at L-1 and Sens' tactics do have their benefits (what I was talking about re multiple directions taken Day 1). I'm wondering at Zazie's emoticon - what do you mean to say with that knit forehead?

How typical of you, Chief...

Anyway, why bother saying that you're Joining in the stupidity, and it's nearly midnight? It should be pretty obvious you're just kidding, and trying to explain so just seems as though you're afraid of suspicion... *narrows eyes*

For posterity, how serious is this supicion of yours, kirroha? I see you follow up with an emoticon and a reference to paranoia . . .

[Plum]

Also, by posting this, it makes every player scared of hammering you in case you're town, because it would make that player suspicious as it's now assumed that scum will hammer.

At this point, hammering isn't a good idea, and if people are scared of hammering at this stage, well, good. As Crazy said, a hammer vote is scummy at this point in the game - at later stages, once we've had substantial discussion of suspicion, a well-reasoned hammer vote is not scummy.

Zazie, re random lynching (by dice): It gives the town a %60 chance of a win. Personally, especially judging by my last Lovers game, good strong discussion can better that percentage almost universally.

Anyway, the mafia could have easily hammered crazy, so I had to unvote.

As Zazie said, Mafia hammering isn't the concern; stupid town screwing up and hammering and getting lynched Day 2 is.

Where the heck is OP?

Unvote; Vote: orangepenguin

[Plum]

Hey all.

unvote, vote: Plum

-- OMGUS retaliation post!

That wasn't a very substantial response to my proddy vote, I must say. I wasn't just looking for you to show your face, I was looking for you to show your face and, you know, contribute. Comment on what had been going on. Instead your response was along the lines of an RVS vote, and, if I may say so, there were more compelling cases to be made for votes or at least real contribution besides a post consisting entirely of a jokingly-OMGUS vote on me. I'm keeping an eye on you here.

I disagree. Scum loses when one scum gets lynched. When a random lynch is started on scum, the other will disagree and try to get somebody else lynched. So a random lynch gives information as we can disclose some pairings. Use Plum's plan day 2, and we'll have lots of possible pairings eliminated.

My point is that without solid discussion today a random lynch is nowhere near optimal play. The more productive our discussions Day 1 are, the more we make people take stances and defend those stances and argue suspicions and vote their suspects today, the better a time we'll have pinpointing the scum Day 2, assuming we need a Day 2 (I might be wrong, but I seem to recall no Lovers setup got scum lynched Day 1. I game for trying it, though ). I want to use the plan I suggested Day 1.

By the way, there are two sorts of random you may speak of in this game:

1) Everyone agrees that a dice roll will be made and everyone else will vote that player to be lynched.

or

2) Someone is content to push any bandwagon that gets a few votes to L-1 or to a lynch.

The dice roll is not optimal. 'Random' 2 is less problematic, but I believe that demanding more concrete reasons for suspicions and votes is the way to go.

Plum (post 61)

At this point, hammering isn't a good idea, and if people are scared of hammering at this stage, well, good. As Crazy said, a hammer vote is scummy at this point in the game - at later stages, once we've had substantial discussion of suspicion, a well-reasoned hammer vote is not scummy.

In my game, the discussion of day 1, lead to the loss of the town. The rest of why I disagree with this, can be found in my post aimed at Crazy.

I'd again like to disagree with your belief that Day 1 discussion is not optimal. When

any

lynch is started on scum, the other will disagree - not just a random lynch; and continued scumhunting is the best way to sniff around for scum, increasing the chances that bandwagons will form on scum. Furthermore, a given random bandwagon-to-lynch Day 1 has a 2/6 chance of finding scum; it does not, however, do much to eliminate possible pairings if we get to Day 2, because all we would know, assuming minimal discussion, is that there were four players willing to lynch a Townie, and that does not eliminate any pairings.

[Plum]

Well, actually, the Sens-way has resulted in discussion. The only discussion it hasn't taken care of is your vote against OP and the posts responding to it. But tell me, is 'lurking' a concrete reason for suspicions and/or votes?
And if you want to use your plan day 1, then why haven't you said who you think OP's partner is?
As for the above methods of random lynching, 1 is bad, 2 is good.

My vote against OP was partially a prod/pressure vote, because he'd said stuff but not yet weighed in on the more serious part of the evolving discussion - your L-1 vote on Crazy and the reactions thereto, and in fact, had not really said too much outside an RVS argument with Crazy.

Why is lurking a scumtell? Basically, because (in my humble opinion) the optimal town strategy is to pull as much information as we can out of everyone. Consistent contribution is the best way to achieve that; we need to make everyone participate in discussion lest scum lurk so they don't have to risk drawing attention to themselves or their partners and don't leave a trail to read when we go looking for probably scumpairs etc. Lurkers provide only the information that they're not around and doing something extremely anti-town.

But first, a wagon have to get started against a scum, before the other scum can disagree. With the Sens-way, this is more likely to happen. And I'm not going to explain it any further as it would only ruin the information we can get from it.
Also, if you got the impression that I was saying that discussion day 1 is bad, I was not. I'm saying that the discussion in my previous game, that was based upon scumhunting day 1, lead to the loss of the town.

Well, I'm glad to know that you think discussion Day 1 isn't bad. From the way I'm reading it, your approach to the Sens-method (which doesn't, if I recall, advocate any discussion Day 1, just fast random bandwagoning and lynching) is to attempt to take multiple new directions Day 1 and be willing to see any wagon that got close enough to the lynch. I don't personally think that such is quite optimal; I sort of think it might be prone to the downsides of two more extreme plans (not as much discussion to lean on Day 2, assuming we need it, as we might have, but enough discussion that scum could manipulate the wagons to their benefit) but am not entirely sure that such would be the case. I agree with pressure being put in multiple directions Day 1, and I also agree that discussion isn't bad - it's by far our best tool in this game.

Crazy

Though I too think that having no discussion is ridiculous,

a random die roll cannot be influenced by scum

, but a random wagon can be.

Well, actually, it can.

Really? How?

I'm actually planning on doing a pairings probability analysis in this post and then popcorning to someone. We've obviously come to the point where everyone should have formed some more concrete thoughts and suspicions.

The new Crazy/Zazie arguments, which I'll address first; I'm tired and my brain feels a little fried, so I'll lay this out for myself as clearly as possible, and you can all watch the cogs in my head turning.

Crazy reacted to Zazie's L-1 vote by, to paraphrase him, daring the scum to hammer him. Zazie's argument was that Crazy's reaction, basically dissuading a rash hammer on himself, was scummy because

a) No townie would want to actively dissuade scum from giving themselves away like that in this setup

however

b) It would dissuade townies from hammering in the case that he was town, which scum would actively want

And here b), as I belive Crazy later argues, is null because neither a Townie nor a scumbag would want to have been quickhammered by a townie at that point. The motivation there is absolutely null. Crazy also explains that his point in making clear that he was at L-1 and the consequences of any quick vote on him were clear, especially to townies, and says he didn't believe scum would rashly hammer him at that point. I agree on both counts; the points made by Crazy here are fair and not scummy - null mostly.

And I don't particularly think I was cautious... unless you mean about making a note that I was at L-1... but there I was afraid that someone would accidentally hammer me, not conciously hammer me.

Here we got some confirmation of that line-o-thought.

Zazie is still bothered by the fact that Crazy emphasized the consequences of a quickhammer at that point (by inviting the scum to hammer him and so get lynched Day 2).

I still don't get how that makes me scum... it seems your issue is that I'm town and I'm alerting the scum not to hammer me. I'll admit that could be perceived as anti-town (though I don't think it's a big deal), but how it makes me scum I have no idea. If your issue is that I'm alerting the

scum

not to hammer me, then that implies that I'm town, doesn't it?

If your issue is that I'm alerting the

town

not to hammer me, well then, that's easy to see from a town point of view, right? Assuming I'm town, and stupid townie hammers me on Page 3, then they'd be lynched tomorrow and scum would win.

So what is really making me scummy, here?

Basically I'm inclined to agree with Crazy that I don't see more than null motivation to make that statement, and the basic flow of his explanations and such gives me a slight town gut. From Zazie's point-of-view, with the semi-Sens-method she's espousing, it's possible she's seeing it differently and I disagree.

However

she posted this after the post I noted above:

Uhm, you weren't thinking about a townie hammering when you wrote this:

Scum can go ahead and hammer me, btw. Especially in a setup where the town wins if they find just one scum.

LAL?

Unvote Vote Crazy

Crazy outlined and addressed two possible concerns of Zazie's with his statement: that he was dissuading townies from quickhammering and that he was dissuading/warning scum against quickhammering him. Both had reasonable town motivations as he explained. Then, after Zazie reiterates her concerns and Crazy quotes his point about dissuading Townies from quickhammering him, Zazie brings back the original post, says that he was obviously not talking about a townie hammering him, and votes him for 'lying'. There is no lying here; Crazy was unsure of your concerns and addressed two possibilities. He requotes one and you say that such

wasn't

the concern you were seeing and he must be lying because that wasn't what he had been talking about? He was not lying and frankly you stating that in such stark terms looks false.

Forgive me if I'm rambling only semi-coherently here, but this looks like junk and scummy. It's weird, too, that OP votes Crazy with nothing but that when it's not true.

Unvote; Vote: ZazieR

I unfortunately am being called to bed; this post took a while. Pairing probability suspicions coming tomorrow ASAP; for now, content yourselves with a list of individual players:

Suspects

Zazie OP
Chief
kirroha Crazy

[Plum]

Uh... isn't that just everyone other than you? XD

I assumed it was in order with the scummy at the top.

Yeah. Read what I said as "Scummiest on his/her own merit, not taking into account various likelyhoods of specific pairings is Zazie closely followed by OP, followed by Chief who's followed by kirroha, with Crazy just behind her, in order from scummiest to least scummy in my eyes at this time. Zazie looks like she's intentionally trying to misrepresent Crazy in the hopes of a mislynch.

Lurking isn't a scumtell - just extremely annoying.

I already explained why I think lurking would be a very viable scum tactic in this game; and the only scum win of this setup involved scum who, intentionally or not, posted very little in the game. In any case, apparently we have a deadline less than a week away, making it more anti-town to lurk.

This list is in order for scmmiest to least scummy in terms of probability of the team.

Zazie/kirroha: Active agreement + Zazie is my top suspect for strong reasons.
Zazie/OP: Only a bit of a gambit, especially after all the discussion about how premature hammering on a not fully explained and discussed wagon would be viewed by many to be extremely scummy. Bit gutsy but possible, in my opinion, especially with the ne junk atack on Crazy in tandem.
Zazie/Chief: Chief's FOS on Zazie might be an attempt at the limited bussing (by which I mean actually

arguing that the scumlover has done something legitimately scummy

) possible in this setup. Chief I have a read of neutral newbie on right now, but Zazie is extremely scummy.
OP/kirroha: Some interaction where kirroha seems to push OP to scumhunt, not give up and say 'go ahead and lynch me'. Coaching shouldn't be necessary as an explanation, because the scum have a QT.
OP/Chief: Bit of what seems to be a minor by Chief on OP.
Crazy/Chief: Don't think Crazy is scum. Interesting thing here is Chief's unvote at L-1, which is possible as a scum's really freaked-out reaction to her partner being at L-1 on page 2, but see my first sentence.
kirroha/Chief: Would be a funny coincidence. Anyway, I see kirroha not really attack Chief - mostly tease her and guide her and question her a bit. Niether of them are very scummy on their own merit.
kirroha/Crazy: No response to Crazy at L-1, not what I'd expect out of scumlover.
OP/Crazy: Bussing on junk attack like that? Think not.
Zazie/Crazy: Too many crazed gambits necessary for this one to make any sense at all.


We're coming up on a deadline. I'd like to see somehing like this out of everyone, ideally. If not, we need some posting going on. I was busy and regret not getting this up

spooner

(sorry, thought that was an amusing typo); sorry all.

[Plum]

Ah, everyone has showed up, leaving a bunch of stuff to discuss. I'm on it. Cool, Kmd replaced in; nice to see a familiar face, but I'm afraid I'll have a bunch of questions for you.

Kmd, you say

I'm back and forth on Crazy. He's pushing a terrible case and his reaction to L-1 wasn't exactly townie, but he seems to be trying to think logically.

I need to know whether or not you think Crazy lied.

If

Crazy really lied, he should be scum: if you think he lied, at the point of that post you should have been voting him.

If not

, you'd need to explain what you think about Zazie and OP voting him on charges of LAL.

So. I think Zaz is town. The case on her is basically that she attacked Crazy which is bull.

But the case on her (well, the way I see it, anyway) is that she accused Crazy of lying when he didn't, making her look like scum pushing a Crazy wagon on a reason which is, in your words, bull. So, what do you think of Zazie's LAL accusation against Crazy?

Also, you seem, in that post, to have whittled down

all

possible pairings to kirroha/somebody. That looks a bit funky. At that time, who was your top suspect in terms of personal scumminess? Quantify, please?

Zazie, I believe that you legitimately think that the Sens-tactics are optimal, whether or not you're town in this game.

You forget that Crazy has said that he didn't think that a townie would hammer. The hammerer would have been obv scum to him. So why not sacrifice yourself to catch scum if he's a townie? This is my main point.
The other is that he 'warns' scum not to hammer him. By using this, he actually 'scares' players into not hammering him.
He said that scum would be the one to hammer, yet he 'warns' everybody not to hammer.
Tell me after Crazy's response how this makes sense.

He said he didn't really believe

either scum or town

would knowingly hammer him, and thus that warning would dissuade either town or scum from accidentially doing that. He mainly wanted to avoid sacrificing himself only for it to turn out that a really stupid townie did the hammering and got lynched Day 2. He did not think it optimal to get hammered by a townie at that point, which is a nulltell.

I didn't think the scum would hammer me. I assumed you just put me at L-1 to jumpstart discussion, thinking nobody would actually hammer. But I did want everyone to know I was at L-1, so I wouldn't be accidentally hammered by a random vote.

Basically, I didn't think it was a big deal, because I didn't expect the scum to hammer me anyway.

He's lying to me as he said that he thought that a townie wouldn't hammer. Yet, he uses it as counter argument.

He also said he thought a scumbag wouldn't hammer - he was only addressing the possibility of an accidental, random vote on him - a slip, in other words. Once he made it clear that he was at L-1 and the consequences thereof (yes, thereby dissuading townies from hammering him, which was preferable as he was

not

attempting any Sens-tactics) obviously any quickhammer would come from scum.

Town. And your defense is BS as you never thought of a stupid townie hammering. Besides, I don't see why you'd post that if you're a townie as you said that the hammerer would be scum. Why 'warn' the scum if you're a townie?

And I don't particularly think I was cautious... unless you mean about making a note that I was at L-1... but there I was afraid that someone would accidentally hammer me, not conciously hammer me.

He did think of the possibility of anyone stupidly hammering him.

You've said that you think that the hammerer would've been scum. I'm taking over these exact words when I mention my point against you. Of course, it makes no sense for scum to say that.
However, if townies think that other players will look at them as scum if they hammer, they won't hammer as they are 'scared' that the lynched player is town. So it makes perfect sense for scum-Crazy to say, but not for town-Crazy.

It makes sense for both. Only stupid town would hammer someone on page three with no case in a game where we only have two lynches. 'Dissuading' - making sure everyone knew that he was at L-1 and the consequences thereof - was null. Besides that, especially after his 'warning', yes, a hammerer would be obvscum.

Zazie, as far as I can see (though admittedly at this time of night all the arguments feel like they're collapsing into a tangled mess) you implied certain things (that Crazy was worried about concious townie quick-hammers, for one thing) which were not true and took advantage of Crazy defending against hypothetical concerns of yours springing from such to make it look like he contradicted himself when he in fact did not. You attacked him for defending two hypothetical concerns of yours and when you clarified which was your concern and he reiterated his defense for it, you attacked him for having contradicted his apparent intent in the original post.

He addressed that concern as well

. His approach was, perhaps, too comprehensive, but I read that as town. I read your manipulation of his defenses as extremely scummy.

(2) Crazy - ZazieR, orangepenguin, KMD
(2) ZazieR - Plum, Crazy
(1) Chief - kirroha

So does that mean Crazy's lover is bussing, or is Plum/kirroha?

Crazy's lover wouldn't be bussing now. If Crazy is scum, it's with kirroha. I still don't think he's scum, however.

[Plum]

All right, let's see where we're left:

I think Plum is pro-town. OP really needs to clarify his case on her, because I don't see it at all.

Rereading her recent posts, and her past posts, Zazie is actually probably pro-town. Yeah, sudden switch here, but except for her original case on me, her logic is actually decent. I also don't think most scum would have the guts to put someone at L-1 in the random stage.

Kmd, I'm not sure about. His vote on Kirroha is rather questionable... but if he was scum w/ Zazie, he'd probably just have voted me. He could be scum with OP, though.

I have no idea how to read OP at all... sorry

If Kmd is town, then Kirroha is almost definitely scum. However, I don't believe they are scum together, or else Kmd is really playing this well.

Scumpairs, IMO, with 5/5 being most likely.

Kirroha/OP - 5/5
OP/Kmd - 5/5
OP/Zazie - 4/5
Kmd/Zazie - 4/5
Kirroha/Zazie - 3/5
OP/Plum - 2/5
Kirroha/Plum - 2/5
Kirroha/Kmd - 2/5
Kmd/Plum - 2/5
Plum/Zazie - 1/5

I actually want to check up on this. Last time (oh, the refrain!) when I as lynched I think the town really could have benefited from taking a look at my suspicions before I was lynched Day 1. Granted, last time I was quite sure of one scumbag - Crazy here doesn't have many concrete suspicions, and he dropped and reversed his attacks on Zazie, which previously was his major case. That's enough to convince me to swallow my pride and take another look at Zazie with this in mind alongside my previous read of her and see what comes of it.

Thoughts on Zazie:

- She seems to seriously believe that the Sens approach, or a variation thereon, is the/an optimal strategy in this setup.

- I still don't see any legit reason for her to see a lie and go for LAL in the case of Crazy's arguments - but apparently Crazy did? I have a bad feeling I got lost in the intense discussion over pages 6 and 7 between Crazy and Zazie.

- Still bad = apparent misrepresentation of Crazy (I say apparent because Crazy himself seemed to accept that the LAL-attack had some weight, though I can't see exactly where. It's possible that within the long discussion it became clear that Zazie didn't misrep Crazy/that her accusation wasn't junk, and I missed it).

- Very good = not so much at the end (she was mostly busy having things out with Crazy by then), but at the beginning she did a

lot

of direct questioning to specific players, which, in retrospect (darned 20/20 vision always comes a bit late) strikes me as both a very good, pro-town thing and something the scum would want to avoid doing. She questioned me, Crazy, and Chief (Kmd's predecessor) a fair amount. OP and kirroha not quite as much (though she did put OP at L-1 and encouraged a hammer. Hm). Kirroha, I note, never really answered her. Anyway, scum would either want to avoid doing that, because this setup leaves almost no room for bussing, or not question too strongly.

Additionally, I need to do some thinkng about possible pairings.

OP/kirroha
Kmd/OP
Zazie/kirroha
Zazie/Kmd
Kmd/kirroha
Zazie/OP

There we are, in order, scummiest to least scummy. I want to analyze someone else - OP - because I see scumminess without some of the mitgating/pro-town seeming factors I've found in Zazie.

His first slew of posts are RVS arguments with Crazy about previous games, then some jokey comments, again in the RVS. I wouldn't mind so much except that the sheer percentage of the jokey posts of his total posts in this game is . . . sheer. He has 16 posts in this game; a full 8, yes, that's %50, are RVS stuff which is just about irrelevant. Arguably he brought up a different LAL point on Crazy, but that still strikes me as

NOT RELATED TO THE GAME AT HAND

. I vote him in a proddy sort of way, hoping to get him to show up and post content. He did not, merely throwing out an OMGUS. I don't mind OMGUS in and of itself, but this was entirely info-less in a game where sharing info and discussion is even more crucial than usual.

At this point he's put at L-1 and gives some standard pleas not to lynch him for lack of much case - and, fair enough, at that point he hadn't done anything egregious enough to warrant a lynch for scumminess (Zazie's use of the Sens approach does not call for a case - in fact, I think it encourages the opposite, at least when starting/building wagons).

unvote, Vote: Crazy

Lynch all liars.

This is OP's response to Zazie's accusation of Crazy. It makes my gut twinge, a little, the lack of brief summary of Crazy's lie (it's just parroting, and for that matter parroting something which is hard to dissect with just a mantra and vote). I want to see what sort of follow-up OP has for this . . .

I still think Plum and Crazy are scum. Hopefully together. Would be happy with either of their lynches, but am happier w/ Crazy.

We've barely had a case on Crazy from him at all, and none on me (unless you count his vague gut suspicions on me earlier as a case). Why, OP? Could you explain in greater detail? Who are your top suspects now and

why?

Why have I seen relatively little expounded scumhunting from you - mostly votes and accusations with little in the way of an explanation or summary of how you reached your conclusions.

OP's my top suspect - followed, I guess, by kirroha, who wasn't around through much of the Crazy-wagon-discussion and wasn't too verbose afterwards. I guess my biggest problem with her is that little, if anything sticks out in my mind. Except one thing which I'd like to ask her about after she posts with whatever she's got to post. Not voting OP yet - I want to see the aforementioned stuff happen, plus it's LYLO, so I'm not inclined to vote hastily, especially as OP hasn't posted yet Day 2.

[Plum]

Vote: kirroha

[Plum]

High five.

[Plum]

Wow, that could have ended up messy if Kirroha had continued posting. I saw the original post as a joke, but if she continued to push on Kmd, then the game would have to have been restarted.

Still, very good job, scum. Plum being on my side and Kmd on Zazie's side worked brilliantly. Stuff like that makes me regret not posting much on my scum quicktopics in the past.

In my last Lovers game, the scum, I noticed, completely underutilized their quicktopic, which is one of the two biggest (or only) scum weapons in this game, the other being the quickhammer, which worked brilliantly here. When I got the scum PM I was a bit floored, because at that time I believed the setup was way overbalanced in favor of the town. Now . . . I believe it takes extremely good coordination on the part of the scumteam to pull it off.

You can see that Kmd and I had a plan to work with kirroha's statement. It didn't come to that, though.

OP, I'd say something, but it would just be a repeat of what you have quoted in your sig . I was really afraid of Zazie today - she was a huge looming threat, and I think with time she might have put the pieces together - so I'm glad we got the quickhammer opportunity and she didn't have the chance to do that. Crazy, you had me tearing my hair out when you declared her prob-town just after a post of mine attacking her. That wasn't good. Fooling you into thinking I was pro-town was fun, though.

Tenchi, excellent job modding: Not just good and competent, but for a first-time Mod (yes?) I think the way you handled the rather hairy kirroha situation, as shown in the quicktopic, was intelligent, and I believe you came to a correct decision there.

Man, I

really

enjoyed this game, especially being Kmd's scumbuddy. Lover. Um, Zazie, let's not tell Tajo about this, 'kay?

[Plum]

Voting quickly without presenting a case on kirroha Day 2 wasn't a good idea, in my humble opinion - even if a quickhammer opportunity didn't present itself, it would have given me a great more cannon fodder.

Also, I'm a girl .