DP12 JeepFest Mafia GAME OVER

[Fuldu]

Nox, it's not uncommon for scum groups to have the option not to kill, but it's rarely a good strategy.

LML, what's the difference between the speculation in Axelrod's post and the speculation in your second post? It seems like pretty much the same type of "first day killing speculations" in both of them.

vote: Mr Stoofer

[Fuldu]

If it later turned out that a "theory" advanced by a player was dead wrong, and, in fact harmful to town interests, that player would be on the hot-seat, as would players who supported him/her (and you might even be able to get a read or the people who were "opposed" to the idea, from the "manner" in which they were opposed.

The thing is, the above is precisely the argument I would use in claiming that those who speculate Day One are more likely to be scum. If proposing an inaccurate theory is more likely to garner suspicion in the later days, why would a townsperson, with little or no information about the setup, risk throwing out an idea that might be completely wrong? Scum, on the other hand, have a greater supply of info about the setup and are better able to judge what information to release as "speculation" and when it is more safe to provide inaccurate information. See Checkmate mafia for a good example of a single piece of misinformation that survived until it was in the interest of one of the mafia members to disavow it (namely the presumption of four 2-person mafias instead of the actual two 4-person mafias).

Also, information that's bad for the town doesn't have to be untrue. If I were scum who had attempted a kill last night that didn't go through, I would be speculating truthfully that a kill was blocked to try to read people's responses in an attempt to find who blocked it and how. Done subtly, that's not going to make me more suspicious down the line, because it will turn out that I was right. But it can cost the town a doc/roleblocker/other.

On the other hand, what does town gain from speculating about only a single kill? Well, we can go into tonight expecting a decent possibility that there will be two kills. I'm not sure how or why that would affect any of our actions either today or tonight. So what good is it? In games with an unusual mechanic, I can see the value of discussing what might be going on, but in a game like this where it's just a matter of whether there's one scum group or two, it doesn't serve any useful purpose.

As for the random votes, in those instances where the random votes turn into a random lynch, I'd have to agree that they're not very useful. But if your concern is that they mean we're spinning our wheels instead of talking about something game-related, I don't think you have a very broad definition of game-related. In most of the games I've played, the early game random votes turn into a discussion about something and the lynch falls out of that discussion. It may not be anything specific to the game being discussed, but there are usually reasons along with unabashed bandwagoning, and those are things that one can read motive into on later days.

[Fuldu]

I'm back and, while I don't find the logic behind the claim that the Vesuvan and SK bandwagons suggest that they're not scum to be especially strong, I agree that PBuG has seemed scummy in his manner of riding the bandwagons.

unvote: Mr Stoofer; vote: PBuG

As for the argument on Vesuvan and SK, keep in mind that there's a decent likelihood of multiple scum groups, so even if Vesuvan or SK is scum, there would still be other scum willing to push them to a fast lynch.

[Fuldu]

I'll respond to Mr. Stoofer's comments on multiple groups, although I doubt I'm one of the people he thinks has expressed certainty that there's more than one killing party. First, yes, part of it is just the size of the game, although that doesn't take into account the possibility of a non-killing scum group (generally a cult, but who knows with DP). Second, there's the differing styles of the two kills, suggesting the possibility of different players having conducted them. Different scum groups is the more likely explanation of that, although it might well be different players within the same scum group, as well.
Third is the fact of olio's death last night. olio was under attack and whether there is one scum group or two, they knew he wasn't their scum, so they might well have left him to be lynched today and targeted someone else. One scum group definitely made their Night One kill, so they didn't know for certain whether there was another killing group. But if a second killing group exists, they knew that somebody else had killed Night One, meaning that another scum group exists, and that therefore it might be to their benefit to kill them off by targeting someone viewed as a likely (not their) scum, i.e. olio. This is particularly true, strategically, if the scum prevented from killing Night One was a serial killer (since they're in a more precarious position than a larger scum group). Add to that that the two roles (not players, please remember) most speculated on as eye-scratchers, SaberKitty and MeMe, are the roles I would peg as most probable serial killers (commonly abbreviated SK and 2003's SK of the year) and that seems, if not compelling, at least a reasonable argument to me, when taken together with the first and second points. I'm by no means certain that there are multiple killing groups, but it seems to me more likely than not.

On an unrelated topic, but meriting comment:

I think it would be slightly odd for a player in the game to be a role as well. Therefore, I don't think a player would have SaberKitty as their role...but I don't know for sure.

Unless DP was really working on this right up to the last minute, he had the setup all put together before he requested sign-ups. Given the size of the game, I don't think he'd have wanted to turn players away simply because they existed as a role in the game and I don't recall him having to do so. Furthermore, I played in a DP game on GL that had a few (though not all) of the roles as GL players, at least one of whom was in the game.

[Fuldu]

Leonidas' general mafia policy has seemed to be playing in the background as much as he can get away with without being lynched or replaced for lurking. Partly I think this is because he has a variable schedule with the associated variable access and partly because it seems to work reasonably well for him. But yes, it makes it very difficult to get a handle on him.

CA: What did you see from the four named individuals that made you think them scummy but that you didn't think constituted evidence to merit a vote? That seems dodgy to me. tss's rationale for FOSing those individuals is "reflected suspicion," which means that since he thinks you're scum, he thinks you were posting names of fellow scum amongst a list of people you find scummy so that if one of them turns up dead, you look pro-town for having suspected them. It's not a great argument, but neither is it a horrible one. Of course, as one of the four people on the list, I have an incentive to say that.

I'm more inclined to go with Leonidas' gut than tss's argument, but that's perhaps largely because I come off poorly under tss's argument, which I know to be a false conclusion. Plus it makes yesterday's random vote seem prophetic.

vote: Mr. Stoofer

[Fuldu]

Reasonable, but when his gut feelings coincide with mine, and I have concerns about the methodology behind the Commodore Amazing bandwagon, it seems a reasonable approach, as well.

[Fuldu]

Commodore's bandwagon is largely a result of tss's long post describing three possible scenarios. Commodore comes off badly in two of them. Beyond that, it's pretty much just a bandwagon, and it isn't like there aren't other players who come off badly in two of the scenarios, as well. Commodore just happens to be the one of those players that tss picked and others are following without, as best as I can tell, considering the argument too carefully. But then, I'm voting Stoofer on Leonidas's say-so, so who am I to talk.

[Fuldu]

Would you consider the role name of "mith" to be scum?

Oh, that's totally the wrong way to approach whatever you're trying to say. It comes across as extremely scummy to frame whatever you're talking about as a question about whether a particular role name is scummy. Look at it from the standpoint of someone who doesn't know where you're going with this:

Option 1 - You could be claiming mith. The question is then largely rhetorical in a "Do you really think 'mith' is going to be scum?" way.

Option 2 - You could have a piece of information about some other player and are trying to decide what to do with it. Then the question serves a valuable purpose in deciding whether to out scum (good) or out an innocent (bad).

Option 3 - You could be scum taking heat and trying to cover your tracks somehow by making stuff up.

But here's the thing. When you don't say which of those options you're pursuing, but just ask your question, it greatly increases the appearance that it's Option 3 and you're trying to figure out whether Option 1 or Option 2 will play better. If people say they think 'mith' is a pro-town role, then you claim 'mith.' If people say they think 'mith' is scummy, you pin it on another person to get them lynched. This buys you another day, anyway.

In short, if you're going to ask a question about the prospective scumminess of a role name, tell us why first. You've already given away that you intend to reveal something, but it's in town's interest to put the why before the what.

[Fuldu]

I don't know what the suggestion of only two posts expressing your opinion is about, Axelrod. It seems like you've done a lot of it, so I'm not really sure where that claim came from. But, in going through your posts to discover that, I did find a couple of things that I find scummy.

First: several different ad hominem attacks on Leonidas. At first it comes across as genuine concern that he's not a very regular poster, but as the comments continue, they start to look much more like you're attacking him personally to try to get a rise out of him. Baiting other players isn't usually an especially pro-town tactic.

Second: your analysis of the end-of-day vote patterns misses an important point. Scum may not have needed to shift their votes in order to obtain a particular desired lynch (and your comments on Someone are good ones), but that doesn't mean that there was no value to scum of moving their votes around. There are lots of other reasons it might have been to their benefit. They may have been trying to spread the votes out so as not to draw attention to themselves either for not voting or for all voting on the same person. If there are two scum groups, one might have been trying to induce the other into believing olio to be scum and using the kill there. They may have attempted an unsuccessful Night One kill on PBuG and thus felt it would be better to lynch him. These aren't all likely scenarios, but the sheer number of them diminishes your argument substantially. And since you try to imply your own innocence through this chain of logic, the fact that it's really not that good an argument raises concerns.

unvote: Mr. Stoofer; vote: Axelrod

[Fuldu]

But now consider RolandofthWhite. He seems to be claiming an information type role, getting names of Roles. Now, if there is no correletion between a person's role and mafianess (because anyone could be mafia, regardless of Role, regardless of whether they were at Jeepfest) then exactly what is the point of that information? That suggests to me that the Role names do mean something even if it's not what I'm speculating.

Do you really not see any other point? A role-name getting role will have the same value in this game that it would in any other game. It reduces scum's ability to come up with fraudulent claims. If I'm 'mith' and scum, and I'm being bandwagoned and want to claim to divert attention from myself, I have two options. I can claim somebody else entirely, e.g. 'Axelrod' - townie, or I can claim 'mith' and try to come up with a particular pro-town role that goes with that name. But it's generally strategically preferable to decide the role I want to claim and then figure out what name I want to put with it rather than the other way around. If there's the threat that someone already knows my rolename, I might be more inclined to stick with 'mith' and now if I wanted to claim plain vanilla townie, chances are pretty good no one's going to believe me.

[Fuldu]

Oh wow. Everyone's talking about me.

Well, I guess I sort of made it obvious what my role does now, so I'm going to go ahead and claim. I'm Mackay, a role-name cop. I'm able to get information by making out with the mod (?). I've heard of Mackay, but I don't really know who he is. Anyways... Yeah. I didn't really see a point in not claiming, since I made it pretty clear that I had role-investigative ability.

Bwah! Yeah, that's a real role. Mackay is a 'she,' by the way, if that helps your interpretation of the role any.

[Fuldu]

Contrary to Mr. Stoofer's comment, four votes isn't enough to lynch anybody at deadline. We need at least five.

unvote: Axelrod; vote: Nox

.

[Fuldu]

Commodore's plan, as I read his posts, is to keep things even so as to force players to make a choice between the various bandwagons, thus providing us with information to use tomorrow. I don't agree with this strategy, but I don't think it's necessarily scummy. The problem with it is that unless one of the available bandwagons is known to be scum (e.g., after the fact), we can't really draw any certain conclusions from this at all. And even if one of them is discovered to be scum, by creating a lot of roil (which Commodore certainly is), it just muddies any conclusions we might draw.

[Fuldu]

You mean a piece of information available to anyone who cares to look, Vesuvan? DP doesn't like it when townies use their role PMs to confirm one another, so he often does something like this:

*) The role messages sent out to those not evil have the same structure - I have given the townie one as the example:

Quote:
Player name: Duh
Role name: DRAGON PHOENIX
Generic role: TOWNIE
Flavour: You have come here to have a good time. It is not going to happen though. Too bad that you do not have special abilities to help the town.
Night actions: none
Winning condition: you win when all the bad ones are out of the game and at least one good one is still around.
Confirm by PM and make your first night choice if applicable.
Deadline for first night: Wednesday 8PM GMT.

[Fuldu]

I see I've been called out by tss for leaving my vote on Nox. Frankly, I'm unconvinced by the claims and all of Vesuvan's babble. Nox, Someone and, in effect, Vesuvan have all claimed vanilla townie. Given that the "confirmation" Vesuvan had in mind is, as far as I can tell, the words "no special abilities to help the town" in Nox's claim, I see nothing to suggest anything more than that they got a possible role name from somewhere and attached "townie" to it. Nox could easily have hoped that people would forget about the opening post (as Vesuvan and, presumably, others did) and that the 'hint' she dropped would be taken at face value by some real townie. Someone could have seen the hint, thought it was in earnest and jumped on it as an opportunity to 'confirm' a townie, and himself in the process. I have a harder time believing Vesuvan went through the whole rigamarole to try to get himself confirmed as a townie, although his subsequent behavior of attacking MeMe over his own error is the scummiest of the three.

I guess at this point I'd be comfortable lynching either Nox or Someone, secure at least in the knowledge that we won't be killing anyone important. If the bandwagon passes to Mr. Stoofer, I'd be okay with that, too, but I don't think these claims are worth much of anything.

[Fuldu]

We know she isn't a vanilla townie, and her play doesn't fit with a townie power role.

That sentence is basically the crux of your argument against MeMe, Vesuvan. Your logic for the first half was flawed, and even you had to admit that you didn't recognize the 'hint' until you checked your PM for something else. But the second half I don't even understand the logic behind. If you'd like to point to specific instances of her behavior not fitting with a power role, I'd be happy to consider them, but in my experience different power roles (and roles with different degrees of power) can take very different approaches to the game. And that says nothing of the fact that different

players

take different approaches to the game.

[Fuldu]

Basically, IMO, MeMe's play would fit with a vanilla townie or scum.

Yes. Well. I mean. I got

that

part. I just don't see anything to support it, which means that the IMO is what requires some explaining.

[Fuldu]

Also, I don't think Vesuvan is scum, and I think Fuldu's walking on thin ice by asking Vesuvan to help him figure out if MeMe is a power role or not.

Okay, this is a valid concern that I hadn't really considered. But Vesuvan is saying he thinks MeMe is scum. I don't see any justification behind the argument that he's making, so if he wants me to follow him on that bandwagon, he's going to have to provide better evidence supporting his opinion.

[Fuldu]

I personally am disinclined to lynch

either

Nox or Someone now.

Why? You believe them both unlikely to have counted on the town not remembering that the townie role PM was public knowledge? As far as I see that's all they have going for them, and I'm unconvinced. We've lost three plain townies so far, and this is essentially three more who have claimed it. In a 20 person game, that's a lot of powerless roles. I don't believe that all three of Nox, Someone, and Vesuvan are pro-town, and I'm perfectly willing to sacrifice the plain townie(s) who are telling the truth to find the one(s) who aren't.

[Fuldu]

That's interesting, Vesuvan, because except for the bit about well-known (I've been around here and the GL awhile now and I don't know who Ataraxy is) I agree with pretty much everything in MeMe's last post. The last line, in particular, sums up my feelings on the subject very nicely.

As for your larger argument, that MeMe wouldn't be behaving this way if she had a power role, I still have to disagree. MeMe might not behave this way if she were a doctor or a cop, but a variety of lesser roles might. In particular, if speaking out is going to make her a target (which it could), then that would be perfectly reasonable behavior for a mason (who can hedge against lynch but for whom little is lost if she's night-killed) or a hider (trying to make herself a night target, knowing she's protected). By the same token, if she's scum, vocal behavior is just asking to be investigated.

[Fuldu]

unvote: Nox; vote: Mr Stoofer

.

The SaberKitty bandwagon still seems to me to be largely about lurking, but there's also the fact that Mr Stoofer's unenumerated "reasons for her bandwagon on Day 1" seem to be mostly about bandwagon hopping, for which he's a much worse offender.

[Fuldu]

Bandwagons don't generally form to protect Serial Killers, CA. Nobody else would want to protect them. Even if the other scum knew who Stoofer was, why would they have cared whether he lived or died? I don't disagree with the idea that it was a vig who took him out, but there's nothing especially incriminating in having voted for SaberKitty over Stoofer.

[Fuldu]

So much for the 'No SK" theory. That means Stoofer either chose not to kill Night 1, or got blocked in some way. Ditto Night 3. If someone did block him, nice work.

Given the arrangement of the nights' kills, Axelrod makes

part

of an important point. Stoofer's Night One and Night Three kills didn't occur, with Night Three being after our doctor was already dead. What he doesn't point out is that the shooting kill (mafia, presumably) didn't occur Night Two. But the fact that he left out that piece of information, the way he's phrased what he does say, and the superfluous "nice work" at the end makes this feel like scum fishing for an explanation of the missed kills. With Stoofer's Night Three kill not going through, scum know somebody is still out there protecting people and I think Axelrod is trying to find them.

vote: Axelrod

LoudmouthLee and MeMe were also at the forefront of the deadline lynch SaberKitty wagon.

Vote: LoudmouthLee for now.

This sort of argument bothers me, too. He makes a point of suspecting two people, but only votes one of them, and that tentatively. It's nothing definitive - obviously he can only vote for one of them - but if Axelrod

is

scum, I'll want to look at MeMe next.

[Fuldu]

I checked a couple of things, and Fuldu's last post told me all I needed to know. Unvote: Mr Stoofer, vote: SaberKitty and come what may there should be two more scum to bag tomorrow.

and Fuldu, whose vote prompted me to jump wagons.

The context of the first quote led me to believe that if SaberKitty had turned up scum, I would have been one of the "two more scum" that tss would have been pointing to, and the second quote, from today, helps to back that view. Although I'll join with MeMe in requesting that tss explain his comments a bit more thoroughly, what I'd really like to know is why, given that SaberKitty wasn't scum, his suspicion of me doesn't seem to have lessened.

As for Axelrod's responses to my comments:

I think not mentioning the missing mafia kill is totally consistent with scum fishing for information. If you're scum, you're going to want to fish for information without drawing attention to the reasons why scum might be interested in that information. Further, scum generally have to be careful about revealing information that only they would be privy to, thus outing themselves as scum. Avoiding talking about their own scum group entirely is one (fairly simplistic) way of doing this.

I think your suspicion of a role-block on Stoofer is, as you say, logical, but I don't see what you hope to gain by pointing it out. You did the same on Day One, suggesting that we'd had a lucky doc. Sure, maybe, but so what?

And you mention suspicions of eight players on the basis of, in most cases, very little. But then you explicitly mention two of them with an actual (if, not particularly strong) argument and vote one of those two. You can say that this was not meant to suggest that they're your top two subjects, but it certainly comes across that way. And I wasn't implying that you were trying to protect MeMe, exactly, just that "Accuse A & B, but vote A; where B is partner scum" is a fairly common distancing strategy. It doesn't increase the likelihood that you're scum - I've come to that conclusion on other grounds - and it only increases the likelihood that MeMe's scum if you turn out to be scum (and even that not by a whole lot). But I felt it was an argument that merited saying, because if we lynch you and you

do

turn out to be scum, there's the possibility that I wouldn't be around tomorrow to make it.

To your credit, I like the point you've made about LML accusing you of Crap Logic when you haven't actually expressed much more than gut feelings. Throwing the term around when it's not especially appropriate smacks of overreaction to an accusation. But that's certainly not enough for me to consider voting him.

[Fuldu]

Fuldu, I'm really getting tired of explaining myself, but since you continuously misunderstand or misstate: I made that list of the eight most "suspicious" by eliminating the least suspicious. Not by trying to put forward any kind of comprehensive case against any of them. I thought that was clear. Criticizing me for giving "very little" basis for my suspicion is therefore simply meaningless. Do you disagree with my list of the "most" clear. If you don't, then you implicitly agree with what I am saying (except you put me on the list too, which is your perogative.) If you think someone I am listing as more clear really isn't, then you should say that. Nothing helps the town like taking a stand.

Do you not see the difference that I'm trying to point to? You have a list of eight people for whom you feel greater suspicion but regarding whom you have little concrete evidence to present. You then immediately follow that up with a single concrete argument against two of them. To my mind, that clearly implies a greater degree of suspicion regarding those two, or at least it ought to. The comment I made about having very little basis for your suspicion was not a criticism so much as it was an attempt at a comparison between what you were saying about the eight and what you were saying about the two. I will admit to having criticized the quality of the second argument, since it basically relies on Mafia both knowing the identity of the SK and having some reason to protect him.

But more tellingly, the argument you've chosen to respond to is the one that I explicitly said didn't contribute to my opinion of you as scum. It's an argument about linkages, which only means something if we have additional information about one of the players being linked. I think you're scum because of the way you're fishing for information. All of what you've responded to in the quoted paragraph is about the highly secondary question of whether MeMe is scum with you.

[Fuldu]

Either way, if Commodore Amazing is scum, then it would imply that Axelrod is town.

Other than the suspicions list, I think I agree with most of what you say in that last post, Nox, but I wouldn't mind an explanation of the above sentence. If it's just "CA wouldn't vote for partner scum," then I disagree, but if there's more to it than that, I'd be interested to hear it.

[Fuldu]

At this point I lean toward CA. His attempt to implicate people for "protecting" the SK was nonsensical.

I like my Axelrod vote better, and note that he made much the same argument about protecting the SK that CA did. But I can comfortably move over to a CA bandwagon if that seems to be where we're headed. And I wouldn't worry too much about the "if he is scum" stuff yet, MeMe. I'm not particularly suspicious of you, but was just pointing out that I'd want to take a better look if we get to that point.

Nox, the problem with your argument is that it can equally be used to vilify pretty much anybody who has voted during the entire game. Almost all of the bandwagons we've had so far are on the players you've represented as looking like town to scum. So it's no surprise that someone like CA, who tends to be a vote-hopper, would come across as particularly scummy in that case. If you want to call him scum because he's been happy to move his vote around to pretty much any bandwagon that's cropped up, I can get behind that argument. But the fact is that a lot of people play that way, whether they're town or scum.

I also don't like the train of thought that's saying "a person (in this case tss) who posts a big long analysis of voting trends couldn't possibly be scum." For one thing, said individual is going to know what sorts of trends they're going to look for and can make sure not to do things that will put their name amongst the suspicious. For another, almost all the verbalized responses to the posts have been "Well, I don't understand it, but scum wouldn't do that." Nobody seems to be reading them very carefully, as evidenced by the fact that even people who seem to think highly of tss because of them aren't voting for the players he's recommending. To my mind, that's exactly the sort of posts scum should make, arguments that nobody really pays attention to or examines all that carefully, but that make you look like the pro-towniest thing going.

[Fuldu]

Ooh, lots of posts while I was typing...

On the other hand, when you make a post saying I posted a list of "suspicious" people with "very little basis" I feel justified responding to that because it misrepresents what I was doing.

From the same post in which I mentioned that there was little basis for your votes:

To your credit, I like the point you've made about LML accusing you of Crap Logic when you haven't actually expressed much more than gut feelings.

I'm acknowledging that these are your gut feelings, which, as I understand that and all subsequent posts, is what you were doing - offering up a list of the people that you think merit more attention. I still feel that providing an additional argument for two of them, over and above the presentation of a list, suggests you consider them more deserving of attention, especially when you follow that up with a vote on one of them, a vote which you later justify with:

LmL is a good candidate to pressure, in my opinion. He's not the only one, but he's escaped serious attention thus far.

And furthermore, given that they're your gut feelings, I don't see what difference it makes whether I agree with your list or not. I don't disagree with any of the things you've specifically said in the list, even about me. I actually found your characterization of me as "hard to read" to be flattering. But I clearly do disagree with even the suggestion that that means I'm scum. And given that I don't draw the same conclusions you do, and that even you've admitted that the list isn't based on very much, I haven't actually given my opinions on it that much thought.

I responded to that to. I wish you would be more precise where you think "I'm fishing" if it's more than just the post about Stoofer possibly being role-blocked. I tend to speculate. That's how I am.

I think that you're talking about whoever blocked the various kills in the hopes that they will say or do something to give themself away. In and of itself, speculating on what happened isn't necessarily suspicious. Commodore Amazing has presented a roleblocker theory as a means of explaining his behavior with regards to Leonidas. But when you talk about missed kills only in the context of the SK when there was a missed mafia kill, as well, that seems suspicious. And, as I mentioned somewhat more circumspectly in the initial post, that "nice work" bit bothered me.

The first player to congratulate the doctor is scum or doctor

This isn't totally applicable in this circumstance since there are a variety of other reasons Stoofer might have missed his kills, but enough so that it made me uncomfortable. That, all together, is why I felt that this was fishing rather than speculating.

[Fuldu]

blocking Mr Stoofer as Cmdr. A suggests would have been a pretty dumb move as Mr Stoofer was by then too deceased to do any harm.

I'm sorry, but that doesn't make any sense to me. Can you clarify what you're trying to say there?

[Fuldu]

One of the things to consider regarding an ability to confirm the images of the trip is that it may well be important for the player to know something about the individual that is their role. Otherwise, confirmation could be difficult.

[Fuldu]

One of the things to consider regarding an ability to confirm the images of the trip is that it may well be important for the player to know something about the individual that is their role.

If that's so, wouldn't

PeaceBringer

also need to know something about everybody in this game too, if he's to make sense of his visions? I dunno, I have a vague bad feeling about this claim, but in the absence of anything concrete I'll stick with my Shadow vote.

Quite possibly, yes, but that's in the nature of theme games. It's often somewhere between useful and necessary to be familiar with the theme in order to effectively interpret information. In this case, that theme is GL and MS players, so the more you know about them, the better your ability to parse whatever information you have.

[Fuldu]

I believe CA about killing Stoofer, unless someone wants to contradict him, and Stoofer is a more likely vig target than scum target. But does anyone have any comments on equating Cadmium with bad cheese? That doesn't ring any bells with me.

[Fuldu]

Oh, MeMe, that's lovely.

And now that I don't foresee Axelrod wriggling out, I'm going to go a little meta- on this discussion. Can anyone point me to a single instance, in any mafia game, ever, where early hinting at a role like this turned out to be a good thing? Because I can think of at least two instances where I've been scum and another player has obligingly let me know that they're the cop or the doc so that I could kill them (in one case they turned out to be the SK, but still, not good for them). And I can't think of a single time that I've been pro-town where I've found myself more inclined to believe a claim because it was clued early on than I would be if they'd simply come out with it at the time of the bandwagon. Even without MeMe's discovery, I wouldn't have believed it here. Every time I see it, this type of hinting seems increasingly like stupid play. So how is it

supposed

to work?

[Fuldu]

Crap, roland never told us who mith is, did he? If Axelrod turns out to be both Antrax and scum, to my mind there's an excellent chance that mith is scum with him, thus increasing the value to that team of killing off roland before he can give that identity away.

[Fuldu]

I'd like to at least hear from Leonidas before we go too much further today. It doesn't seem like a kill was blocked last night, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have any useful input to provide.

[Fuldu]

@ Leo (I think...if I'm right, he'll know what I mean)

Alright, I've tried to do this subtly and I'm not getting anywhere with it, so I'm just going to out with it and if it turns out to have been a mistake, well, I'm sorry.

MeMe knows better than to make comments like the one quoted above. With all the speculation that Leonidas is the roleblocker, she's basically just starting the morning by coyly announcing that she was blocked during the night, a statement that does no one any good. It isn't quite as bad as having "essentially claimed" as somebody put it, but it wasn't necessary and doesn't help anyone.

I can only think of one reason that MeMe might have made that comment, if her scum buddy is in a position to potentially have to fake a particular role claim (roleblocker) and she received dawn information (having been roleblocked) that she wanted to share with him. A barely disguised admission of having been blocked, dressed up as banter, passes along the information "if push comes to shove, I wanted to let you know that I was blocked last night so you don't have to make a guess."

Leonidas isn't the roleblocker, I am. His evasive, non-comittal comments when asked about his night activities aren't explicitly scummy, but neither are they totally above board. His not having been targeted last night bothers me a lot more. A nearly-universally believed power role was passed over as a target in favor of Vesuvan. That strikes me as an odd choice on the part of the scum. Unless the player in question was one of their own.

I can't decide which of the two I'm more confident is scum. On balance, I find MeMe more tied to Axelrod (as I mentioned yesterday), but I find Leonidas' not having been targeted last night to be more suspicious.

All in all, I'll

vote: Leonidas

, but I'd like to hear from both (with maybe a little bit more content this time, Leo) and dependent on what they have to say I'd be happy to lynch either.

[Fuldu]

Stylistically, mith as scum with Antrax makes sense to me. I'd like to say that scum in this game are the old guard of admins, but I don't actually know that Antrax was ever an admin. He does have old posts on this (admittedly post-crash) board about talking with Hy (our SK) about implementing certain modifications on the server, which is the sort of discussion that I basically associate with jeep (who might well make a good GF under this scenario, but who knows).

More concretely, there's this, as CA paraphrased the earlier mith discussion:

Axelrod: Could be scum. Could be power role. Keep quiet, rolandofthewhite.

If mith weren't mafia, Axelrod would have had every reason to tolerate speculation on what the role was and to hope that roland would blurt out the player's identity. Axelrod didn't do this, which seems noteworthy to me.

I don't feel strongly that mith is scum, but I'd definitely want to keep an eye on anyone who claimed it.

[Fuldu]

Honestly, I've never once played in a game where the roleblocker could block any member of the mafia and their kill would be blocked. Whereas every time I've been scum and there has been a roleblocker in the game, the scum were required to select

which

team member was going to perform the kill. I certainly would agree that this means that MeMe didn't kill Vesuvan last night, but that doesn't let her off the hook.

[Fuldu]

I'd hardly use the word 'adamant' to describe your attitude toward the lynches, Leonidas. In particular, I'd recommend people look at the post in which Leo votes for Axelrod and the ones in which I argue in favor of his lynch and decide which of the two of us was pushing harder for it.

As for whether it's "in [the town's] interest" to have been so non-committal about your role, this right here that I'm doing is (if I'm wrong) why. Didn't it occur to you that the actual roleblocker was going to find the whole thing suspicious? I gave you several opportunities to even just hint that everybody was in the wrong, and your having passed them over is a concern to me. Surely you must have realized that standing in for another role was going to be a double-edged sword.

[Fuldu]

It isn't a contest between us, Leo. You're trying to hide behind the suggestion that you were pushing for the lynches of Stoofer and Axelrod when, in fact, you were doing nothing of the sort. You voted them and were otherwise totally content to let people do as they saw fit. I was quite happy to use "following Leonidas" as an excuse to vote for the people I already had information about, but that doesn't mean that you were actually making compelling arguments or, for that matter, any arguments whatsoever. I used myself for comparison purposes, but I could just as easily have used tss (though his arguments have been about other people).

And I don't think my actions have anything to do with ego. I've said that I used following your lead as an excuse and I'll freely admit that yesterday I was quite happy to let you paint the bullseye on yourself. But today, when several players have listed you as their most trusted individual, I think my concerns merit examination. Yes, I think that not saying anything to deflect assumptions that everyone was making about you is dangerous, but if that had been the only thing, I'd have let it go - I did yesterday. But when you had made yourself a nice solid target as a result, and the scum chose to go after an all-but-claimed vanilla townie, instead, I found that suspicious. Even then, I might have waited to see what else occured today. But with MeMe's comment to you, I felt (and her explanation notwithstanding, still feel) that a scummy rationale made the best sense of an otherwise out-of-character statement.

You can make ad hominem attacks all you want, I'm more than willing to shrug them off. But don't think calling me names is going to make me change my mind. I've given what I believe to be justified reasons for attacking you, not personal grudges.

[Fuldu]

More suspicious than, say, the vig not having been targeted, or Mith still being alive if pro-town.

I would say comparably suspicious to the vig not having been targeted, but I don't have any other reason to go after him at this time, so I'm not. As for mith still being alive (and in answer to Someone's question), I don't know who mith is. roland never revealed it and, so far as I'm aware, they never came out. Suspicions have been raised as to who mith is, but no one has said with any certainty. If you know otherwise, I'd love to hear, but as it happens, this looks like a slip to me. It makes it look like you know who mith is and have forgotten that no one else does.

[Fuldu]

Unless they were afraid of losing a night kill, and decided to shoot in the dark in the hope of catching a powerful role unprotected. Which is basically what happened.

You mean the powerful townie role that Vesuvan had all-but-claimed? Genius.

But if mith

is

on scum's side (as I have suggested and continue to believe), then either it is MeMe and they don't have any reason to kill her or it isn't MeMe and they don't have any reason to kill her (for being mith, anyway).

I consider it more probable that mith is scum (and maybe MeMe, maybe not) than that mith is pro-town. Given that, the fact that MeMe wasn't targeted doesn't bother me as much as your not having been targeted does.

But frankly, I've already said that my working hypothesis is that both of you are scum together. I'm just slightly more comfortable with my likelihood of error with you than I am with her. That, coupled with the facts that MeMe's explanation of her behavior was better than I had expected and that I don't believe I've ever seen you belittle another player to quite the extent that you're doing now, makes me quite happy to continue on voting for you.

[Fuldu]

I was avoiding giving all my results for two reasons. First, in case Leonidas wanted to counterclaim me, the proposed set of blocks isn't totally accurate. And second, because it reveals a second piece of information that the scum don't need to know, that I didn't block

all

of the missed kills over the first three nights. Meaning that there's someone else out there protecting people. But since I don't need to worry about reason one any more and I don't think I'm going to get much further on reason two, I'll give a nearly complete list.

Night 1 - Mr. Stoofer
Night 2 - Axelrod
Night 3 - somebody other than Stoofer; I'm not going to say who because then scum know that

they

didn't prevent the Stoofer kill, either. No reason to make it easier for them to narrow down targets.
Night 4 - MeMe

Given that the town seems to want to go after my other target, I'll happily

unvote: Leonidas; vote: MeMe

. Leo, you've suggested suspicion of MeMe. Would you care to follow along? You could be fourth on the bandwagon as a means of further declaring your love.

[Fuldu]

I'll admit, CA's behavior continues to rankle. That lurker comment annoys, because it's just as true that lurking is a cheap way for scum to avoid getting themselves lynched, which might well be what The Shadow is doing. And he, too, wasn't targeted last night, which seems surprising. But his kill was outside the scope of the standard scum kill and no one else bothered to claim it, so I still trust him, even if at a distance.

[Fuldu]

unvote:MeMe

to get that out there while I type up a long post. No, MeMe, don't expose my role yet.

[Fuldu]

And this is the sort of thing that could happen that's why I didn't want to claim my third night's result. My roleblocking power is such that it's not inconceivable that if MeMe received an actual message saying she was blocked, that it would include who (role-wise, not player-wise) blocked her. It's easy enough to check.

tss, I blocked you Night Three. Did you get a message telling you that? Did you get my role-name in that message?

Okay, not as long a post as I had thought it was going to be.

[Fuldu]

Fine, I believe MeMe can indicate who I am and I see no reason for her to do so (on the off chance of a counter-claim), unless someone else thinks it's a really good idea. I also don't think it's likely that scum will have name-finder powers, or that tss and MeMe are scum together, lying to hide the fact that they actually did receive my name in their role-block message.

I'm still uncomfortable with Leonidas' behavior, but one of my arguments against him breaks down if MeMe isn't also scum. So, I'll follow his lead and

vote: mikehart

. If mike turns up scum, I'll gladly tender an apology to Leo; otherwise I'm going to continue to keep an eye on him.

[Fuldu]

Good Lord, I grew up in Portland and I've never seen that flag before. I'm pleased that in five nights I managed to block four scum. Apologies to tss for being the fifth.