Newbie 871 - Game Over Town Win

[Incognito]

Hi.

First order of business to everyone: please get avatars. They help with being able to determine who said what.

Second order of business is this:

Incog's Pearls of Wisdom

1)

Games on this site tend to move somewhat slowly so be patient!

2)

If you haven't done so yet, you can use the Wiki Index as a good place to learn about Mafia theories and abbreviations that are often used in the game. I'd recommend at least taking a glance through it when you get a chance.

3)

As the IC, I'm here to help you learn the game of Mafia as well as play along. The SEs (Ether and Patrick) are basically ICs too, but they're being silly.

4)

Always remember that this is a game so have some fun.

On to game stuff:

As far as what I think, I think we should be wagoning Ether for lurking -

vote: Ether

FoS: Patrick

just because.

@boberz:

My Mafia gaming experience on this site is listed in my Wiki page. You can look that up by clicking the link underneath my posts. Prior to joining MS, I played on a different site for about a year. So all in all, I've been playing Mafia for quite some time now.

No, I pretty mucb meant "never." If town forgoes a lynch they pretty much give scum a free NK. If town doesn't lynch they will never win the game.

This isn't entirely true; I can certainly think of situations where not lynching is actually beneficial for the Town. Can you or anyone else think of those situations?

On Day 1 though, yes, we should definitely lynch someone only after a substantial amount of information has been drawn from all of the players.

I, too, would like clarification from DarthRandal on what boberz mentioned in post 6. Welcome to MS, all.

[Incognito]

EBWOP: That should say "routine" as opposed to routing...

[Incognito]

A good deal to respond to here...

@boberz:

reading through your case, I don't understand why the first portion of it would be more likely to be done by scum -- you yourself mention that my vote seemed almost like a trap to catch opportunistic scum. Wouldn't that imply that you would expect something like that to come from Town then?

With respect to the FoS on Patrick, I obviously disagree with you when you say it was completely pointless -- Patrick (along with Ether) is one of the two people I'd like to get a read on as early as possible. Hence, FoS. Maybe IGMEOY might have been more fitting.

Lurking is not a scum tell, active lurking might be but we are much too early to discuss this.

I agree it might be too early to discuss this, but I disagree with you on your stance on lurking. I think lurking, like most other tells, is a situational tell; for someone like Ether who much enjoys being town, lurking when done by her is absolutely a scum tell. In fact, I think most people on-site and elsewhere tend to lurk more as scum than town. Active lurking is only a form of lurking, though I probably agree that it's usually a stronger tell than flat-out lurking.

You try to test ksen and whoever else wants to answers logic/knowledge/ability to read the wiki, I cannot really work out why. To me town would want to help a person who has not understood by explaining said situation, not try and evaluate their effectiveness, possibly exposing them to scum manipulation later. Not that I believe ksen is a bad player, but that is another issue.

I didn't really want to test his ability to read the Wiki, actually. I was hoping that he or someone else might be able to do some critical thinking. Obviously I could have spoon fed the answer to everyone but part of my job here is to get you all thinking like Mafia players. Thinking critically for yourself is helpful in this game.

As for 3, I merely wanted clarification from DarthRandal on the thing you questioned him on because I found myself somewhat confused by it too. Why do you assume that it's me buddying up to you?

What scenario could possibly be in place to make us NOT want to exercise it?

At the risk of licking more rear-end

(heh)

what boberz said in 14 covers this.

I wasn't on AIM between...6 and 8:30ish pm last night, EST. So, um. Feel free to correct me, you two? I'm sure you're very ethical about this sort of thing.

I wasn't on AIM at all yesterday; I was busy cramming for a big exam which I just took this morning. I'm beat.

I somewhat agree with the early town tells on boberz.

---

Ether raises a mildly interesting point though about the pre-game stuff that I hadn't considered. I know if I were scum, I would have asked for 72 hours to confirm in order to have enough time to talk with my partner. I'm assuming Patrick and Ether, as experienced players, might have asked for similar? Won't be checking either one off as completely Town at the moment, but it's something in their favor.

How would town know it was in that situation? In the games I've played on other sites the Town doesn't normally know how many scum are in the game.

If you're claiming that you knew the number of scum in Newbie Games to be 2, why would you

not

be able to tell when we're in the type of situation mentioned by boberz even if games you've played elsewhere didn't allow you to determine this?

[Incognito]

I would. Most def. And yeah, I've never been scum in a Newbie straight from the get-go. I've only done Newb-scum in replacement gigs.

JDodge opened 530 after a weekend, so I don't think it really does any good when looking into you. I should check on the 'tricky half of Pathetric, though.

[Incognito]

Incog I got told once that newbies reading the howto's is a scum tell. How should I treat being told to read them?

Did the person explain why he or she felt scum would be more likely to look up how-to's in the Wiki than town would? Do you yourself feel that way?
I personally don't see it as something that's definitive in the scum tell department; I think newbie town

and

newbie scum would be about equally likely to look up random factoids during and prior to their games, so I'd consider it more a null tell if anything.

@Patrick:

I don't believe starkmoon was updating the "confirmed bolded" thing in regular fashion when she received confirmations. So while I can see where you're getting at with your disagreement, I don't think it would completely apply here.

-~-~

Annachie (your kid's adorable, btw), does "IGMEOY" mean something different to you than it would to me? I typically consider "IGMEOY" a way for someone to show who they're suspicious of, so I'm confused as to why you IGMEOY-ed Patrick, Ether, and me but then concluded in your #41 that you were having a gut town read on each of us. Clarify? Also, you mentioned that you played with DarthRandal before in your previous game. Do you have any meta tid-bits that might be informative with regard to your interpretation of his play?

DarthRandal, do you have any tid-bits about Annachie's play?

I feel like unvoting Ether, but I can't think of any place striking to move it at this time. So yeah.

[Incognito]

Eh, I'll give it a little more time. I'm slightly drunk lol.

And yeah, Annachie, you can hold off on the Randal stuff for a bit. It's prolly better that way.

[Incognito]

unvote
vote: herd456

I'm not really concerned about herd's random vote on Patrick; I just get the feeling that herd456's #44 and #46 seem like slight appeals to authority.

Being drunk makes you

less

confident now?

No, it just made me way too lazy last night to actually want to look into stuff relevant to this game. Being slightly drunk + being stressed over school + the time of day = tired and lazy Incog last night. It took me way too much energy even to put my 48 together.

Because as I've said quite a few times now I wasn't talking about this specific game when I tried answering boberz's question about no-lynching.

Fair enough, I guess. Any thoughts on stuff related to this game then?

Patrick's bothering me a little bit. I can't completely explain why at the moment but something about his play has felt off to me so far. 61 looks a little better but the earlier posts, not so much. I guess I just haven't felt that distinctive town feel that I'm used to receiving from him in past games where he's been town.

@boberz: I see.

[Incognito]

Well, in 44 he mentioned that the AIM thing is pushing me towards the town side of the scale, but I'm not sure why that same logic didn't apply to Patrick. The phrasing of 46 seemed like he was plotting you against Annachie while simultaneously seeming to slightly buddy up to you by making it a point to mention that he agrees with

your

side of the debate as opposed to Annachie's. Maybe 'appeal to authority' isn't the right phrase. Attempting to 'join forces' might be better.

[Incognito]

boberz: Pathetric was the name of a hydra account Ether and Patrick used to play in Mini 720 - SPQR (in case you or anyone else didn't know, a hydra account is an account two separate players share with one another in a particular game while having the same role PM). "'tricky" (with the apostrophe) is a shortened form of Patrick's name, which plays off the word "tricky".

tl;dr: I'm corny

sometimes

.

As for my read of Ether, I think she's town. The "hi, herd" thing back in 43 sealed the deal for me (that's her attempt to hunt possible lurkers) along with other things she's done so far like for example how often she's been peeking back at this game (I keep seeing her username in "The Road to Road" forum pretty much everytime I post). I doubt I'd see either of those two things coming from a scum Ether.

[Incognito]

I finally got a chance to sit down today. So, some updates on thoughts.

I don't mind Ether's vote on ksen; I'm not really reading him as scummy or townish either way (he's flat-out neutral for me), so I'd obviously like to hear more from him in order for me to be able to get a better read of him. I agree with Patrick and Ether on how posting about theory can be an easy way for a hypo-scum to give the impression of doing stuff without actually doing stuff, and ksen has largely focused on theory as has been pointed out.

Aside from that, I've been thinking a bit about ksen's comments about the number of scum. While I initially thought it might have been slightly scummy since it looked to me like he may have been lying about something, I'm beginning to think his comments probably aren't all that bad after all. I kinda sorta think that if ksen was scum he could have easily used that early opportunity to drop a fake town-tell by acting like he really

didn't

know the number of scum in this game. So, I think the initial stuff was more force of habit if anything and probably doesn't reflect much on his alignment.

Incognito In the words of Terry Tibbs: Talk to Me. What do you make of ksen/herd?

Why are you calling me out specifically? I'm currently voting herd, so I'd think that would give you some indication as to what I might be thinking about him, and I've been trying to engage in conversation with ksen also.

I think I've said that I think voting without reason, or random voting, is bad. It makes it easier for scum to hide and for scum to manipulate.

How so?
If anything, I'd think a scum would likely be more successful at manipulation if he or she actually

gave

reasoning for a vote. I don't think I've ever seen a situation where a scum voted without reason and then some townies just stockpiled on blindlessly because of some telepathic manipulation of the sort.

(Anything: town, scum,

power role

)

Seriously?

I would say my biggest scum read at the moment is on Annachie, but it's not a very convincing read.

You mentioned that you play Mafia elsewhere. How convincing does your read normally have to be in order for you to want to actually take action it particularly in the early game?


I'd like to hear more from Darth and anything at all from Yarmond. It'd also be awesome if people laid down more real votes. The last vote count even with Ether's addition is pretty damn sad.

[Incognito]

Cross-posted.

Heavier analysis to come, following a reread.

Cool.

It's also rather nice to have another fan.

[Incognito]

@DarthRandal1138

A few questions for you now that you've provided your post. What portion of Annachie's play do you find to be town-ish? I'm asking because you mentioned that you had issues with what seems to be role-fishing, but you still seemed to conclude that he was town when, to me, role-fishing seems like a very serious scum tell. Thoughts?
Also, what do you hope to accomplish with your vote on Yarmond when you prefaced it with an "until he/she gets here and starts talking"? Do you think he's lurking?

Herd I suspect of ducking questions and content. Perhaps being a touch confrontational. I really don't like his professed love of random voting.

What areas of the thread have you found to be examples of confrontational behavior coming from herd? Do you think herd's been more confrontational than, say, Ether?

-~-~

I'm not getting anything out of reading ksen's linked games since they're all ongoing and no roles have been revealed, and I certainly don't expect him to tell us his role in each one.

@ksen,

who would you vote for right now if you absolutely had to? Why haven't you voted yet?

[Incognito]

Also, Patrick, I don't see what you found to be "vaguely townish" about Darth's post. If it's a gut feeling, then okay, I can't question you about that, but I just find it strange since I normally feel like we think similarly, and my thoughts when reading his post were fairly neutral if anything.

[Incognito]

Oh, yeah, you did. Sorry about that.

@Patrick: Which two newbies were those?

[Incognito]

Simpor from Cops and Robbers, and JamesThePeach from our last newbie game. Simpor pretty much asked someone to speculate on whether or not someone else had a powerole, whereas James was more speculating about someone's role himself.

Ah, yeah, I had forgotten about Peachy's role-stuff. I was thinking more of Snailman.

-~-~

Even though I do feel Annachie misrepped herd456 in his #106, I'm not crazy about herd456's most recent post; it seems like he's asking for permission on whether or not OMGUS is actually a scum tell rather than explaining why he thinks it is, and the general tone of it gives me the feeling that he's merely attempting to appease others.

(Btw, Annachie, I asked you a few questions in my #113. Could ya answer?)

The small text conversation is pointless. Ironically, Ether wasn't even the first one to use small text in-thread -- that was me. No clue why Annachie only has a problem when Ether does it.

@boberz:

Linking posts is easy. See that little paper icon on the upper left side of each person's posts? Right click on that to copy the link location. Then place that location after the equal sign like the way I've done in the following stuff in my code below:

Code: Select all

[url=https://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?p=1979262#1979262]Post #126[/url]

This, for example, is a link to your Post #126. You can name links however you want.

[Incognito]

My small text examples:

At the risk of licking more rear-end

(heh)

what boberz said in 14 covers this.

tl;dr: I'm corny

sometimes

.

I guess it's not as extensive as Ether's whole sentences, but yeah, we can't all be like Ether.
Also, in addition to the question Ether brought forward, I wanted to know how scum could somehow gain manipulativi---ty

?

by not explaining votes as opposed to just explaining them.



(I was tempted to use small text again poking fun at the situation where Annachie still couldn't see my examples even after I brought them to his attention but then... I stopped myself. I dunno why. Maybe I have a heart after all.)

Even later in the day, much later

My wife's had an oopsie (Manic/depressive episode), I may be absent a couple of days.

VLA 3 days

hopefully less though.

This sounds interesting.
Your kid story reminded me that on Halloween, I met two people at a bar who dressed up as Jon and Kate Gosselin. That was

awesome.

[Incognito]

@ksen:

There's no way to figure that kind of information out, no. The site doesn't keep "last log-in" information in a public place. I think your strategy of offing an unhelpful or "bad" player shouldn't generally be applied to Newbie Games or really any games in general. What you're calling for is called a "policy lynch" on this site. In Newbie Games in particular, it's not uncommon for one of the newer players to just not show up at all for one reason or another (maybe they forgot about the site, maybe they can't find the thread, maybe they became busy, maybe they just didn't want to play after all?). We should be aiming to lynch scum Day by Day.

I think it's probably better to just wait for the mod to replace Yarmond instead of dealing with him at this time; keep in mind that all Days have fixed three week deadlines, so we're not in any desperate situation for a lynch just yet considering the fact that we're only about 3 or 4 real life days into Day 1. If Yarmond was replaced and we

still

hadn't gotten much information from that player slot, then I might be willing to entertain that lynch.

And with regard to Annachie, I don't think he's lying about his real life situation. If he is that would be pretty fucked up, but I'm hoping that we're all holding to some kind of moral standard while playing this game, ya know?

Can I ask Patrick ether

and

incog: is bad theory scummy? I do not really think it is but there might be logic i havent heard.

Crap logic can be considered scummy. With regard to bad theory though, I think you would have to think about whether or not you yourself can believe that a certain player actually

believes

what he's saying and isn't just pushing something as scum just for the purposes of a mislynch. If you can't find yourself believing that a certain player would actually believe a certain theory as town, then you might be dealing with a person who's scum.

---

Ftr, I don't really understand why ksen is the largest wagon. He's been a bit strange at times, but I'm getting the feeling that he seems to believe what he's saying. The theory that one of the experienced players needs to be scum because the GM set it up that way seems like a town-ish theory to me since it requires a decent amount of creativity to come up with that I don't see a newb-scum using. Also, his support of a policy lynch seems like something he's just familiar with doing from his other site and is probably something he's not just doing for malicious purposes.

[Incognito]

And I just cross-posted. Reading a bit.

[Incognito]

Yeah. I think what I said still holds.

[Incognito]

boberz, Ether talks funny sometimes. She was an IC in one of my first Newbie Games on here, and I had a difficult time figuring out what she was trying to say (that may or may not have anything to do with the fact that she lurked hardcore in that game, but yeah). I just smiled and nodded. And then voted her becuz she was scum. 'twas a fun game.

Ether, can you explain the sympathy thing you felt with respect to Randal and Patrick's feeling for him?

[Incognito]

herd, out of curiosity, what made me and Patrick sink from being townish to neutral?

[Incognito]

Oh and

mod:

happy birthday! Any news on Yarmond?

[Incognito]

I'm not sure, but is it usually a tell if someone puts a "pressure vote" on an inactive player?

I'm waiting for Randall to answer my question about this actually. I don't think it's too much of a tell, but I

do

think the other part he wrote about (and I'm paraphrasing) "this vote is here until you say something" is pretty problematic, imo.

Also, with regard to all this talk about being confrontational, I don't think being confrontational is really a scum-tell either -- if anything I always thought being confrontational and having an "in your face" type of attitude was often seen as townish depending on how it's done. I'm more bothered by the fact that Annachie's description of your actions doesn't seem to match what I've read from you so far, so I, like you, wanted him to back his statement up with some solid examples and an explanation as to why he thought this action made you more likely to be scum.

What is it about my play outside of that AIM thing that's made me neutral?

[Incognito]

Stream of consciousness rather than making mistakes is how I would describe ksen right now. I like it.

Also, I agree with Ether with regard to other methods to create pressure on players other than large wagons.

And since the majority of them have basically cleared you as being town then it makes sense not to waste a vote on you.

I don't think what I'm going to say applies here with boberz at the moment, but I felt the need to comment on this anyway. Just because a majority of players have someone 'cleared' as town doesn't always mean you should just completely back away from said player no matter what the experience level of the players might be. It's very well possible that you might be catching something that nobody else has caught and if that's the case, it would be your job if you're town to try and call everyone else's attention to it. If people still don't see what you're seeing after repeated efforts, then you might consider backing away for some time to refocus your efforts, but I don't think it should happen for the reasons you listed (the experience levelof the players) in your previous post.

-~-~

I wish I had more to add tonight. I'd like to read more from Darth and Annachie about the recent developments.

[Incognito]

boberz, what's the point of that question?

[Incognito]

boberz, I'm not fond of the question. From my perspective since you're asking me about Ether and Patrick, it seems like you're essentially asking me to attempt to manufacture a reason as to why one of Patrick or Ether is likely scum. If I'm not pushing for either of their lynches, then I don't have a dead-on scum read of either one of them. So I don't get why you're asking me to choose one.

[Incognito]

Oh and just to let everyone know, I don't think I'll have 'net access tomorrow due to Thanksgiving. I should return to normal by Friday.

[Incognito]

I had a similar reaction, but dismissed it since the question really just amounts to asking for opinions on two other players. It can be answered without any manufacturing of reasons, for example as I did.

Yeah, it could be, but he seemed to specifically ask us to manufacture reasons. I'm trying to figure out why.

unvote
vote: boberz

This doesn't mean herd's out of my sight, but boberz is making me cringe on these last two pages.

boberz, I want to know what

specifically

you found when you looked into Ether's past games. You're implying that you did an extensive read of her completed games; dish it out for me. How does she act as scum? How does she act as town?

I want to know what specifically you found with Patrick and me too.

I can see why Ether can be considered town having checked a meta or two, but Patrick and Incog I dont get the same vibe from.

Do you think either one of us are playing more in-line with our scum metas? If so, why?

I get the fact that you're supposedly paranoid about us but seriously, the more times you repeat that, the more I'm beginning to think this paranoia thing is all an act.

As an aside, where are you from? I'm detecting an accent.

What do we each think Yarmond's successor will make of this game so far, if he reads for the first time before he knows his role?

We'll see when the time comes, right?

[Incognito]

@boberz:

In reply to the stuff about Ether's meta

:
Is that your interpretation of her scum play or her town play? I got the impression you were talking about her scum play, but I just want to be sure for the sake of clarity.

In reply to the two events making me cringe

:
1) Your criticism of ksen wasn't one of the things I had a problem with even though it clashes with my developed town read of him. Though, having said that:

ksen is almost making too many mistakes to be scum, I think scum would think more before they speak particularly when they have been caught out a couple of times, does anyone else get this impression?

Since you've left your vote on him and have mentioned that he is where your vote will remain, what's your current feeling about the above?

2) Second, yeah, I can acknowledge that there is a small possibility that your original question in 173 may have come off more maliciously to me than you intended for it to read considering the fact that the way you've explained it more recently seems more reasonable. Either way, I really don't want to answer the question. I'll be sure to let it be known if I get a scum read off of

anyone

(not just the SEs) -- I don't think you'll realistically have to worry about not being able to read my opinion should I die off; I'm usually quite vocal.

With you incog. I noticed you have a 100% record as mafia, that scared me a little, not a valid read on you this game. I repeat i do not have a valid read on you this game.

I have more here

Windows update just kicked in will continue from here next time im on.

I'm guessing you meant you'll literally continue from the word "here" next time you're on haha. Take your time.

[Incognito]

I'm back. This game is going places.

Therefore does that mean you just object to the one or two sentences I used to question you in which case did you exagerate the two pages comment.

I just took issue with the following posts:

Post #169

- Reason: because I was curious as to why you made that statement in the first place if you decided to keep that vote there on the next page anyway. I think you satisfactorily responded to this, so I no longer have too much of an issue with it.

Post #173

- Reason: for "that question" that you asked us. It originally looked to me like you were asking us to manufacture a case on the SE/IC we had less of a town read on.

Post #176

- Reason: for the reiteration of not wanting to lose us from our sights. It began to look like overkill to me.

Admittedly, I also voted you to see how you would react to a vote AND to not allow you to slip under my radar as much; with the majority of us 'checking' you off as Town, it becomes very easy for us to become less critical of your actions and, if you're scum, you could take advantage of that and pretty much say practically anything you want without any major repercussions if no one acts as a check against you. The above posts stuck out to me in stark contrast to your other posts, so I wanted to make sure I wasn't incorrectly reading you and allowing you to skate by unscathed.

I am from a place called Hockley, which is just outside Southend-onSea, that is in essex (South East of England). Not far from London. Where did you think my accent was

I wasn't sure actually. I just thought you typed certain things differently from how I would type them, so I figured you might not be from America. Learning where you're from also helps me develop a better read on you too.

---

I, too, would like to know why Annachie didn't like the answers provided to boberz's question and why he liked the question in the first place.

I'm tunnelling slightly on Incog/Ether/Patrick. But I want to be sure of them. I expect that they will be leading the discussions to a great degree, and they seem to be. So pinning them down is important to me.

Question: How do you plan on pinning us down, exactly? I don't really seem to recall you asking us any questions about our posts/actions.

Hm.

unvote, vote: DarthRandal

's replacement

[Incognito]

Oh, and the meta-gaming stuff that boberz did looks legit to me, so I'm leaning back towards believing he's likely town. So there.

[Incognito]

Incog, why are you (aparently) twisting your way out of this?

I'm not. I just don't see any point in answering the question. This is about as solid an answer as I'm going to give on this matter at this time:

Either way, I really don't want to answer the question. I'll be sure to let it be known if I get a scum read off of

anyone

(not just the SEs) -- I don't think you'll realistically have to worry about not being able to read my opinion should I die off; I'm usually quite vocal.

That in and of itself should answer the question, actually, if you think about it.

Incog, why vote for Darth after he has asked to be replaced?

Because I had a neutral to mildly scummy read of him before he left, he left a bunch of questions outstanding, he mentioned that he would become

less

busy given a reasonable amount of time, and instead he's replaced. It's possible that his situation changed and maybe he became more busy, but I think that player spot (the replacement) deserves a fair bit of pressure upon arrival, anyway.

For what it's worth, if his replacement request has nothing to do with his level of busy-ness, I somewhat think that he would be more likely to replace out of a situation like this as scum as opposed to town.

Patrick, Ether, Incog: With 3 votes sitting on Darth what chance would you (normally) expect that at least one of them was placed by one of the scum?

That would depend on Darth's alignment. Since I'm liking Ether as town, liking ksen as town, and loving myself as town, this seems like a good wagon to me right now.

@Everyone else

: Is there anything that can or should be read into Darth seeking a replacement?

As I mentioned above, I don't think it can completely be looked into

too

much considering the fact that he might just have become more busy. But also as mentioned above, I think if his replacement request had nothing to do with being busy, I think he would be more likely to leave as scum as opposed to town.

[Incognito]

Also, Annachie, there was another L-2 wagon earlier on ksen. Why is the one on Darth the one that you're being the most inquisitive about?

[Incognito]

Mod, what about Yarmond?

[Incognito]

Oh how rude of me. I didn't say hi to RayFrost when he was announced as the replacement (hi, Ray. Are you scum?). I guess I was half-expecting him to join at some point anyway.

@Annachie:

Yeah, herd also had an L-2 wagon but so did ksen if I'm not mistaken (Ether, Patrick, and boberz were all voting him at the same time at one point).

As far as extending your question, again, I think it would depend on ksen's or herd's alignment. I wouldn't put too much stock in it because of that.

-~-~

With regard to the withholding information stuff, I don't find that scummy at all. I can think of very good reasons for town to want to withhold information until a later time -- I'm not sure if that's what boberz is planning on doing, but it could be.

With regard to the stuff boberz pointed out, I, too, seem to recall situations where people have seemed to hang on the coattails of an argument after the argument was dealt with and resolved. I thought herd had done something like that once before and Darth may have done that before also, but I'm just recalling from memory so I might be wrong about this.

[Incognito]

Isn't third on a bandwagon considered a scum tell?

The short answer: The Wiki is to be used as a guide but it's certainly not a reference book that can be applied to all situations.

The long, more descriptive answer: Being third on a bandwagon is an old-school, jeep-made scum-tell. jeep is one of the people who helps run this site and back in the day when he was very involved with playing, he put together this list of "tells" that he would use to find scum. The problem with listing tells is that as soon as you list something as a tell, the scum will simply avoid doing that thing that you've listed as a tell and it has a tendency to become invalid. Plus, there's always a chance that town will do a listed tell anyway, so the tell isn't something that's etched in stone -- tells just give you a certain probability that a given player who's done an action X is likely scum or town.

Ok, lets make this more general then, with 9 players in the game, and 3 voteing on one person, What chance do people think that there is at least one scum in on the vote.

I'm going to purposely avoid doing this exercise because...

Annachie, do you think factoring things in like:
1) whether or not the person being voted is town
2) the game's state
3) something else that I can't think of at the moment
might affect this probability?

-~-~

starkmoon needs to pay more attention to her game.

[Incognito]

Hi Tyrope. Thanks for replacing.

Oh, yes. I was especially curious about the Darth vote because it happened after he asked to be replaced. Post 211 answered that though, though voting like that seems to be a scummy thing to do.
If the situation was reversed, that it was me placing that thrid vote after Darth had asked to be replaced and not you, would you consider it a scummy move?

Well, you've mentioned a few times that DarthRandall's behavior reminds you very closely of the behavior you saw from him in your previous game together. So if you placed a vote on him after he just finished replacing, I'd probably ask you about it, but I don't know if I'd necessarily consider it scummy -- it would probably depend on your explanation and reason for doing so.

I'm developing the impression that you consider third votes placed on a wagon to be "scummy". Is this the case? If so, why do you consider it scummy?

[Incognito]

@Tyrope:

A few questions for you.

1)

Did your read of RayFrost include any of DarthRandall's posts? I realize Darth didn't post much either, but it seems like you're basing your read completely off of RayFrost's content when he's only checked in as the replacement so far.

2)

Also, in reply to your comment about me, I don't think I've mentioned anywhere that I've found Patrick to be town-ish -- of the two SEs, I think I only said that about Ether so far. Also, I don't find ksen neutral-ish either; instead, I'm leaning more town on him if anything.

3)

What's your experience playing Mafia so far? Citing online or face-to-face experience is fine for me.

Not conciously Incog.
That particular one yes, but I'm comming to the conclusion that a replacement should have a chance to stand or fall on their own, at least for a few pages, and your vote seems to be too much pressure to allow that.

I think you and me just have a difference in opinion then.
I've replaced into games 10 times; 3 of those times as scum and 7 of those times as town. Of the scum games I replaced into only 1 of them I found myself entering in under a high pressure situation left behind by the person I replaced. I felt extremely pressured and ended up being lynched because I simply couldn't recover.
Now, of the 7 town games I replaced into, 4 of them I found myself replacing into high pressure situations and in each one I found myself actually doing even

better

than I did in the other 3 where I didn't have as much pressure. I didn't get lynched in any of them, either.

Truth is, I don't think a replacement should get some slack or be allowed to arrive in with a clean slate -- I think the replacement's actions along with the actions that his or her predecessor did before leaving need to be factored into the overall picture of that player. That's what I plan on doing with Ray.

For the record, I'm really not a fan of his procrastinating here when he's at L-2 with the deadline about a week and a half away.

[Incognito]

Mod:

Sorry to bug you again, but we need a prod on herd456. He hasn't posted since Wednesday.

[Incognito]

Tyrope, you're right. I had forgotten that I counted the whole "game opening quickly instead of using the full 72 hours" thing as a point in Patrick's favor. Sorry about that.

Looking at that linked game, it looks like it just started, so I'm guessing you're a fairly green newbie. If so, I hope you enjoy this game and that one too. Also, I agree with Patrick about the risky assumption.

@Patrick: It's not that I felt he was being slow; it's just that he mentioned that he'll be procrastinating on this game.

[Incognito]

Hey, Ether. Glad to see you back. I was worried about you for awhile there...

@Annachie: I didn't look tooooo deeply into your past game but from what I saw, you seemed a bit looser with your vote than you have been here. Is there any reason why that may be the case?

To expand on my thoughts related to this:

@Patrick: It's not that I felt he was being slow; it's just that he mentioned that he'll be procrastinating on this game.

I guess my main issue is I know for a fact that RayFrost would be extremely excited about jumping straight into a game with all three of us (me, Patrick, and Ether) since we're three players he's been following along with since he joined the site. To actually procrastinate on an opportunity like this seems more like something a RayFrost-scum might do as opposed to a RayFrost-town, in my opinion.

I felt the same way about DarthRandal; he mentioned that he was excited about the opportunity to play with us but then he requested replacement. Unless he was just really busy, it points to the same line of thinking.

[Incognito]

starkmoon's using an

automatic vote count tabulator

, so I don't think it registers DarthRandal as a legitimate vote anymore, and I don't think it automatically transfers votes when a replacement occurs. In any case

vote: RayFrost

.

I don't understand what boberz is trying to say at all. boberz, please clarify.

@Ray:

I don't remember there being many text walls in this game. Some of the posts have been somewhat wordy, but I always thought it was easier to read stuff when there's less things quoted by people in posts and more original thought in the posts instead. The replacements of Boost Mafia would find this game to be a breeze of a read, that's for sure.

Though I do feel just a little lonely on herd. It sort of feels like he's slipped out of the limelight by virtue of not having been posting.

Trust me, I could easily see myself flipping my vote back to him.

-~-~

@ksen:

Got anything else to comment on?

[Incognito]

I... don't really know what to make of Annachie's Ether-vote. I was half-expecting him to vote

me

eventually actually since he seemed to be building up to it. Annachie, why do you think all of those posts you've quoted would be more likely to come from a scum Ether as opposed to a town one? Your explanation of them seems to only come from a scummy light, so I'm curious if you've analyzed them in a "good" light at all.

Also, what's your read of me anyway?

Also, this:

@Annachie: I didn't look tooooo deeply into your past game but from what I saw, you seemed a bit looser with your vote than you have been here. Is there any reason why that may be the case?

...though with your brand new vote, I'm not even sure if this is as applicable anymore now as it was before.

[Incognito]

I agree, so far Scum lite, which is more than my feeling on others but one thing I learned from my first two games. When people are certain, it's for one reason only. They know.

I disagree completely. There are other reasons people can be certain; one reason being a situation where a player has so much Mafia experience that he or she has something of a 'sixth sense' for developing reads. Even if we assume that Ether doesn't fall into the aforementioned category of players (I happen to think she does, but that's beside the point), she says this kind of stuff as town all the time:

A little bit of TownEther-meta (bolded blue is my emphasis in each)

In no particular order:

Incognito's town, Eldarad's town, Mizzy's town, Elmo's town, Scot's town. Ether's town.

So that's nice.

Anyway, Moose is town

, The Many/Incognito is probably town, I feel obligated to temporarily write off McRookie for that goon question even though I don't really understand it. Thoooooooooooose newbflakes.

Columbo is town. Fluffy is town. Ray is town.

The bottom two examples were Day 1's.

If you've got some other reason for voting Ether, then that's cool, and I think you should probably bring that to the forefront rather than what you have now. As it stands, you're voting Ether for something that I could see her doing as town

or

scum but that I think she'd be

more likely

to do as town (for the sake of completion, here's an example of Ether doing this as scum too):

Hmm. Camn, what was the deal with your vote and unvote, anyway?

I'll look up your meta tommorow, going to bed now.

He's town.

So yeah.

-~-~

Ray, page 1? Wow.
Either way, what makes you suspicious of boberz on page 1?

[Incognito]

How to twiddle your thumbs

[Incognito]

They look like toes. x_x

[Incognito]

Yeah. I didn't draw it the way I normally would.

[Incognito]

Mod:

Annachie's voting Ether too. Also, what Ether said: has herd456 picked up his prod? We could probably do with a Tyrope prod too by the time you see this message (assuming he doesn't post in between that time).

[Incognito]

omg thew scumz are totaly boberz and ray. this is so ez
i met this girl named noah tonight lol get it? like tha ark hahahaha

[Incognito]

Wow I was pretty wasted last night... I don't even know if I agree with what I said.

Annachie: Yeah, I think it could be scummy but that depends on the player who's using the definitive. In the case of Ether, I've seen her use definitives as town before, so I think it's either a null tell or a slight town tell for her (it's more likely to be a town tell for her if she's using the definitives to "clear" people as town -- a her-scum would want to keep her options open and would be less inclined to clear peoples as town).

I'll make a more coherent post later - I feel kinda funny.

[Incognito]

At all serious? if so how come?

I may have been wasted but yeah, I think I do agree with what I said there. I think if RayFrost/Darth flips scum, I could see you as a possible buddy to him.

-~-~

Not sure if we'll be getting some kind of a deadline extension or anything but here are my current reads now that Day 1 is drawing to a close:

Patrick

- I was going up and down with him initially, but at the moment I think he's very likely town.

Ether

- Town.

ksen

- His hypothesis about the mod making one of the ICs scum seems really town-ish to me. Also, I just can't see any probable buddy for him especially given his #293 - since I think Ether and Patrick are town, and ksen has pretty openly mentioned that he would be willing to lynch any of {Ray, Herd, Annachie}, and I know I'm town, then the only person who's missing is boberz, and boberz has been pretty adamant about a ksen-lynch making a partnership between them unlikely. Oh and I guess Tyrope's a possibility too but ksen seemed more than willing to lynch "him" earlier too for not being around. So yeah.

boberz

- Individually seems town. I think he needs a good look-through though if Ray flips scum.

Annachie

- Neutral leaning town. I'm getting the feeling that even though I disagree with a lot of what he says, he's probably coming into the thread with a genuine thought process.

RayFrost

- Almost certainly scum. The delay to produce reads is ridiculous.

herd

- Individually he reads scummy to me. I could see him as a possible Ray-buddy also.

Tyrope

- Neutral leaning town. He needs to post more content, but I thought his entrance was decent -- I think a him-scum would have been more likely to enter the game with a solid suspect rather than claiming to be "too trusting" of people. There's some mod WIFOM involved in this read too that I don't put too much stock in, but I guess I could share that with you all too: I kind of think that if the Yarmond player slot was scum, the mod wouldn't have been as likely to forget about replacing him. Maybe that's just the way a me-mod works though.

[Incognito]

I agree with Ether that boberz's reaction to that was solid. I didn't expect that kind of reaction at all, actually.

Since I doubt that Ether will be strung up ( ) what should I be thinking?

I personally think you should offer your opinion about the other viable wagons and then you should choose one to join.

-~-~-~

One thing that I'd like to point out is this:

2) At the three week deadline lynching will require the same number as votes as usual, if this number is not reached the day will end 'no lynch'.

It is very important that we secure a lynch today in order for us to gain more information about each other for future Days. A 'no lynch' is simply not an option since it would greatly reduce our chances at winning the game. Please keep this in mind.

[Incognito]

Oh and Frosty: I'd like a claim from you, please. Thanks.

[Incognito]

Why is it taking you so long to provide these reads?

[Incognito]

Let's see if I can create some discussion points for you.

1)

You know that point that you brought up about boberz? I happen to think that made him look very town. Why, you ask? Because I think it would be very unlikely for a pro-scum newbie to challenge a pro-town IC with a serious vote especially in the opening gates of the game. A pro-

town

newbie doing that same thing seems to fit better. What are your thoughts about that?

2)

I think this post makes ksen look town. What do you think about it?

3)

Filter herd's posts and filter Annachie's posts. What general impression do you get when you do that?

4)

Ether and Patrick are pretty obvtown right now. Agree/disagree?

gogogo.

[Incognito]

Why Annachie over herd?

[Incognito]

Keep reading. Those discussion points were only meant to be a starting point created out of generosity.

[Incognito]

Incog, is there a reason you seem to jump to Ether's defense so readily?

I had a feeling you'd say this eventually.

My pointing out Ether's meta wasn't really a defense; your case against Ether completely hinged on this idea that Ether committed what you considered to be a major scum tell by outright declaring that one or two players were town. The definition of a scum tell is as follows: a scum tell is some action X that scum has a higher probability of doing than some town member ever does. By pointing out Ether's meta, I was showing you that the action X that you considered to be a major scum tell against Ether (definitively calling someone town) is NOT actually a scum tell for her because she has a tendency to do that as town AND scum and that I even thought that it was something that was more likely to come from an Ether town -- that by definition is what would be called at worst a "null tell" (something that cannot be pinned down to someone of any particular alignment) or a town tell (something that a townsperson is more likely to do than a scumbag).

I even explicitly told you the following:

If you've got some other reason for voting Ether, then that's cool, and I think you should probably bring that to the forefront rather than what you have now.

Why did I say this? Because I already felt like I did a pretty good job of showing you that the scum-tell avenue that you were choosing to pursue (definitively calling someone town) was a waste of time in the case of Ether and that if you're town and STILL genuinely believed Ether to be scum, then you should focus your energy on something else that is genuinely a scum-tell for Ether. You still haven't done this.

[Incognito]

I have no opinion on RayFrost yet, but thought it was the best lynch option based on Incog's thoughts and yours and Ksen's votes.

lol. When it comes to game mechanics and strategy and stuff, I take them, and yours and Patricks, very seriously.

Except, by saying that you agree with my thoughts and then lending your vote to the wagon of the person who's the "beneficiary" of these thoughts, you've now completely left the realm of just taking my opinion seriously with respect to game mechanics and strategy -- you're now agreeing with a

case

I've made against another person (Ether already covered this, but she talks funny sometimes).

Lynching Incog(the IC) is worthwhile because a scum Incog is under posting restrictions and we might learn from it.

Can you explain what you mean here? I've been scum before in a Newbie Game, and I was never under any posting restriction, so I don't get what you're talking about.

And about your question about Ether dropping the F bomb, if that was a question to me, I DO happen to think that Ether has a tendency to become indignant when she's town. So yeah, even dropping F bombs is probably more likely to come from an Ether-town.

Incidentally, RayFrost signed up for another game.

lol. I saw that before too.

[Incognito]

Oh that makes sense.

But yeah, that "being a good IC" manual just stresses the idea that an IC shouldn't lie about theory and stuff like that even if the IC is scum. A hypothetical scum IC can still IC perfectly well without lying about that kind of stuff. I just don't get why Annachie thinks lynching a hypo-scum IC would be more likely to teach something because of some post restriction than just lynching a scum, period.

[Incognito]

Annachie: Fair enough then in reply to 384.
As for 383, no matter what your alignment is and null answers or not, I think you're at least enjoying this game much better than your last Newbie Game. It's possible I'm biased.

[Incognito]

Yankee, did the mod already shoot a role PM over to you?

[Incognito]

EBWOP: First part is in Tyrope's favour, in case that's worded confusingly.

You spelled 'favor' wrong both times. :P

---

@Yankee:

I can point out a few posts that might help explain why I ended up voting Darth/Ray.

*

Post #113

- I was trying to ask Darth a few questions because I was beginning to get the feeling that his produced reads felt contrived (his read of Annachie didn't seem to match his ideas about him), and I wasn't too crazy about his vote on The Artist Formerly Known as Yarmond.
*

Post #261

- More thoughts about the Darth/Ray situation.
* Ray's delaying to produce reads is extremely scummy in my book.
* Process of elimination goes a long way too. A lot of people just feel very town to me.

I don't really see the big deal about boberz's eventual unvote at the bottom of his Post #391; I thought he did it because he was trying to show that he

would

be voting RayFrost when the time came but that he didn't want to do so just yet because it would place him at L-1, and he didn't want to give Frosty the opportunity to self-hammer. That's why Ether unvoted too, and she provided her reasoning for doing so, which I strongly agree with.

For the record, I don't find boberz suspicious for trying to separate himself from a potential RayFrost-scum by voting him; if boberz is town, then he may have just began seeing the RayFrost case more and more and was beginning to worry about my suggestion that he could be a Frosty-buddy. I don't blame the guy for wanting to separate himself from that if he's worried about being a mislynch.

And anyway, Ether brings up the key question:

How would his unvote be suspicious at all if RayFrost wasn't scum?

...unless you're arguing that the unvote seemed scummy because by hitting the "enter" key three he was trying to hide this thing that says a big bolded "unvote" on it?

[Incognito]

I thought he did it because he was trying to show that he

would

be voting RayFrost when the time came but that he didn't want to do so just yet because it would place him at L-1, and he didn't want to give Frosty the opportunity to self-hammer. That's why Ether unvoted too, and she provided her reasoning for doing so, which I strongly agree with.

I didn't find the vote and unvote of RayFrost particularly scummy. I saw it as an attempt to get reactions and show his suspicion of RayFrost but without leaving him at lynch-1.

Check

that

out haha. Exact same time-stamp too.

[Incognito]

If Frosty is scum, he might self-hammer to prematurely end the Day. It's a valid scum tactic. We felt like we needed to get your opinions down before we proceeded onward, so keeping him out of hammer range prevents a possible self-hammer from happening.

[Incognito]

SO whilst a trick was intended it was given up on before the psot went up.

<3
I have a lot of respect for trick stuff. Ether doesn't like them so much.

[Incognito]

Yankee, I think Patrick was referring to RayFrost in that post... lol.

[Incognito]

Oh, it just occurred to me that I didn't really go along with ksen's request.

The only lynch I support today is RayFrost's lynch. Reasons can be found laced within the thread. If he somehow manages to flip town, I'll be disowning him.

[Incognito]

We're at this:

Players needed to lynch: 5

Annachie

- 1 - Yankee - (L-4)

Yankee

- 1 - Patrick - (L-4)

RayFrost

- 3 - ksen, Incognito, Annachie - (L-2)

Players not voting: RayFrost, Tyrope, Ether, boberz

It's unclear what the exact time is that the deadline will fall but the date is December the 10th, which is about 35 hours from my part of the world (I'm on the East Coast of the U.S.). I think starkmoon is Scottish.

Anyone who plans on voting RayFrost should probably do so now.

[Incognito]

Actually, I was slightly wrong about that vote count since Frosty ended up voting Annachie.

Either way, that works. Now we wait for the mod.

[Incognito]

He's already been hammered as of post 439 by Tyrope.

[Incognito]

And just for the sake of teaching since this is a Newbie Game: I usually prefer holding off on the hammer vote (the vote that causes the lynch of a person) until the person actually claims a role. This is important because if it turns out that the person who's in danger of being lynched claims to be a power role, we could evaluate the claim to try and determine if the claimant is telling the truth or not and then generate any information that we can from the claim too, particularly if the claim happens during later Days.

In the case of RayFrost, I asked him to claim awhile back, and he chose not to, so I don't mind the fact that he's been hammered before claiming.

[Incognito]

Ha. Now I can study for my finals in peace.

Bring it home for me, town!

[Incognito]

<3 Zorblag and Yankee!

Very nice job, you two. I kept up with this game pretty intently once I died and had a really bad feeling that the game would be won by the scums (Ether's inactivity, the Tyrope lynch... stuff like that). I was glad to see that it didn't quite pan out the way. After I died, I thought Patrick was likely one of the scums even though I had written him off by the end of Day 1. I really was way too confident in that RayFrost-lynch and when Patrick began to back it, I wrote off my early bad vibes about him and just assumed he was probably town. When Ray flipped town though, I thought the end of Day 1 votecount made Patrick look particularly bad since I had no reason to mark off my other town reads that were on the Frosty-wagon (Tyrope, ksen, and boberz). So I would've probably pushed Patrick if I was still alive under the assumption that at least 1 scum was on the wagon. I could only hope I would have caught on to ksen too eventually.

I was very impressed with boberz's play, and I was afraid that the modding and general inactivity might drive him away from MS. Oh and at the start of Day 2, I probably would have checked off Yankee as obvtown not because of anything

he

did but because of the modding mistake starkmoon made when she nearly had Concerned take his spot -- I figured that that player spot probably couldn't have taken a Night action since starkmoon seemed to replace the spot after the Day re-opened. So he was likely Vanilla.

@starkmoon:

thanks for modding and everything, but I really think you should consider running less games at the same time from now on. There were quite a few errors in vote counts, replacements, game thread titles (the thread says Day 4 right now when it should be Day 5 and this wasn't even the first time that happened), and potentially allowing players to read players' alignments through your modding (mod WIFOM).




All in all, good game everybody. If anyone has any specific questions for me, you can ask here or shoot a PM to me OR on the rare occasion, find me on AIM (Ether will probably laugh at this one but psh).

[Incognito]

ksen: I agree with a lot of what Patrick mentioned above. Also, you probably should have just run the idea by Patrick in the QT during Night 2 before deciding to just do the claim completely on your own. He's a very experienced player, and he probably could have helped you shape your claim better than you did and prepared you for what you might expect when you did claim.

That actually reminds me that nobody really pointed out the following when ksen decided to claim:

Incognito (IC):

High level of activity and has been actively involved in scumhunting. I think Incognito is most likely town.

I guess it's possible for a Cop to completely flip his opinion of a player during a single Night, but I would have thought someone might have at least pointed this out. Especially since the reads he claimed to have on the two other experienced players (especially Patrick) seemed somewhat shakier than the read he claimed to have on me during D1.

Incog, points taken, could you PM me or something for a chat about things I should have avoided.

Yeah, I'll shoot a PM to you now.

[Incognito]

One 't' in "discredited". :P

...which reminds me, I totally need to sig this:

I don't know enough about strict grammar rules to know whether it's correct or not.

And you call yourself an Englishman!

[Incognito]

Eh, it's a slippery slope. I think a Pat-town would have probably said "we" there. The scum in ya was being selfish.