Mini 891 - British Comedy Mafia (Game Over)

[imaginality]

Please by all means explain what you feel your cunning plan has achieved.

[imaginality]

unvote, vote Fuzzy

for such a weak attempt at pushing a bandwagon on yourself .

Do you think it's a scumtell if a player tries to get a bandwagon started on him/herself early on D1?

[imaginality]

Nice work Macavity. Already one scum is caught in a web of his own weaving.

Vote: Josh Lyman

[imaginality]

Josh isn't handling the minor pressure on him very well so far. I think more votes on Josh is a good idea.

Also,

I've become a very easy target of late. I know it's just scum trying to throw the spotlight off of themselves, but still.

All the theory in the world will get you nowhere if you don't find scum. Which I am most decidedly not. (Getting my doubts about you, though.)

Nice and OMGUSsy...

[imaginality]

I agree with Fuzzyman 46 that Josh's implosion 44 is a scum tell. I think it's relatively rarer for townies to get that frustrated that early. More votes on Josh please.

[imaginality]

Position on Lyman:
To me, his play can be read in one of two ways: Either as scum who is trying to use a fatalistic appeal to emotion in order to deter votes or as a frustrated townie who is annoyed at the suspicion that grew from practically nothing.

Or as a frustrated scum who is annoyed at the suspicion that grew from practically nothing. I don't think it's uncommon for scum to get annoyed when they feel they're being picked on for the 'wrong' reasons.

What do you think of Lyman's calling out lurkers already? Warranted or unwarranted? Genuine or attempt to divert attention?

[imaginality]

Budja's 83 misses BloodCovenant's point as I see it, which is not that all the votes on Josh are opportunistic, just that (BC thinks) Budja's one in particular is. It's not hypocritical for BC to think that Josh is scum and Budja might be bussing him, and to vote Josh.

[imaginality]

Most town players do not have much to lose, that's why in actions taken like fuzzy's, it only makes sense for town-fuzzy to have done it.

I wouldn't say it

only

makes sense for town to do it - scum don't have to fear page 1 attention too much either. Especially given your point (which I agree with) that it's not particularly anti-town anyhow.

I see that kind of early-game gambit as being something akin to the quizzes that other players use to get out of the 'random vote stage'. Instead of "Question 1: What do you think of no-lynch votes?" it's "Here's a no-lynch vote for ya. What do ya think about this?"

[imaginality]

Josh should claim.

If Josh flips scum today, I'm going to be looking hard at Snow_Bunny tomorrow.


In other news:

I still cant decide if Josh is out and out scummy or just a rabbit caught in the headlights and not knowing how to react.

I'd like to hear a bit more from Josh before I decide if I am going to vote him, I would like others like an explanation for his prod requests so quickly, and also for his grave appeal to emotion in the 'lynch me then' saga. I find 9/10 times it is usually scum who do that.

In the same post you say you can't decide if Josh is out and out scummy, you call him out for doing something that you think ~90% of the time comes from scum?

[imaginality]

Unvote

I am puzzled about how you can 'almost kill' someone, Josh. Are you able to go into more detail about that or do you think it is better to keep it vague to keep scum guessing?

[imaginality]

I'm with Netopalis on this. If we hit scum with it, it's effectively a vig shot. If we hit town, they can spend the rest of their game scumhunting to the best of their abilities without worrying about being nightkilled.

If we use it we should probably use it on someone who's (a) smart, (b) under suspicion, (c) doesn't claim a power role. If it's a day power that would be better, easier to direct.

'dead for all game purposes' suggests to me there more likely would be an alignment flip than not?

[imaginality]

Even if he has the ability, I wouldn't recommend it. The benefit of this will be having a confirmed innocent scumhunter, and I doubt that if Lyman were in that position the town would follow his lead.

I disagree slightly with this. In my view, the vig shot element is more useful than the confirmed-innocent-scumhunter element. That is, assuming it's 9 town vs 3 scum at the moment, I think we're in a better position with:

9 town vs 2 scum (and 1 treestumped scum who town can simply ignore from that point)

than

8 town (and 1 treestumped townie who can help the town scumhunt) vs 3 scum

First scenario gives us 3 mislynches to lylo, second gives us 2 mislynches to lylo.

I do agree that if we have a pool of suspects of roughly equal scumminess at the end of today, then we should target whichever of them is most likely to be able to help us scumhunt.

@Mod, two questions.

Supposing Josh does have the ability he claims:

1. If he targets someone tonight who is targeted for a kill, is that player killed or treestumped?

2. If he treestumps someone tonight who has an investigative role, does that player get the results of their action?

If the answer to 1 is that the player is treestumped instead of killed, it is probably best not to announce who Josh is targeting, in the hope of getting in the way of the scum nightkill.

[imaginality]

I'm not keen on this Budja wagon yet. I'll have more to say after my re-read tomorrow.

[imaginality]

Okay, after reading the last few pages:

Mod: Please prod ConfidAnon and Locke Lamore.

*

Netopalis, I think you underestimate the benefit that an extra lynch gives us. Two more flips (the extra lynch and extra NK) before lylo is a pretty significant amount of further information for us to base the lylo lynch(es) on, even aside from the statistical advantage. He should definitely be targeting scum with it.

Whether Josh uses his power tonight or a later night and whether it's directed or at his discretion, I don't have a strong opinion on, and it depends at least partly on how many scummy-looking players we have at the end of the day.

Josh's last sentence in post 202 implies that tree-stumping is the final action of the night. Which is a shame that it can't work to block scum making a kill or killing someone.

Josh, another question worth asking the mod: if your target is night-killed, do you retain the ability to tree-stump someone? If you lose it (and therefore can't prove your role), then the argument for your target not being directed in advance becomes stronger.

*

Even after his explanation in 125, Budja's theory that SnowBunny showed towniness by not going for the easy wagon doesn't make much sense to me. Scum love the chance to lead town into deciding between two townies for the lynch.

*

BloodCovenant seemed overly worried about the possibility of a scum plot with the treestump role. I don't see it. I will say this though, Josh proving his role by stumping someone doesn't equal Josh proving his alignment. BC's posts and thoughts sound genuine though, if not always on the money. I have a town read on him. Actually the thing I like about this game so far is I have quite a few town reads on people already which I trust more than my scum reads.

*

I notice a couple of people (Netopalis, Budja) expressed suspicions of Locke Lamora. Net's was gut, Budja's was meta. Budja, can you explain your meta suspicion?

*


And now for something completely different

Vote: jasonT1981

, a pressure vote to encourage him to do what he said he would.

[imaginality]

That's what I was trying to say. Essentially, if I read Lyman's role right, he creates an unnightkillable confirmed townie without a vote or else kills a mafia

The way I read it is that the targeted player is just as dead as if they'd been night-killed, except they can post. (Imagine a ruleset applying to that player alone which says, "After you die you can make unlimited 'bah' posts and these can contain content.")

[imaginality]

...and this "treestump" debate has gone on for far too long.

QFT. Clearing up the details (self-targeting, night/day action, order priorities etc., and my question above too) was/is important, but the actual effect of JL's power was clear from:

the player I would choose would be dead for all game purposes, it says, except still being able to talk in the thread.

Also, re. Locke Lamora, I just skim-isoed all Locke Lamora's other non-newbie games and I see what you mean. Early days still, but I'll be keeping a close eye on him.

[imaginality]

Sorry to hear that jason, best of luck with the rehab.

Unvote

[imaginality]

Does the departure of Jason make it any more or less likely that he is scum? I should think not.

Vote: jasonT1981, a pressure vote to encourage him to do what he said he would

He's replacing out. Since my vote was aimed at getting more activity from him, the fact we'll have a (hopefully) more-active replacement means there's no need for my vote to stay on him.

I'm going to go hassle Locke Lamora now.

Vote: Locke Lamora

Meta scum read plus lurkerlicious. Come on Locke, give us something.

[imaginality]

Re. Josh's role thing, I thought it was all pretty damn clear what treestumping involved. Until his latest post, that is. Like Josh, I can't see how (a) 'a treestumped player can still be killed' isn't in direct logical contradiction with (b) 'a treestumped player is dead for all game purposes'; I thought that assuming (a) was clearly ruled out by (b) was logical on my part but apparently not, it seems.

[imaginality]

Sorry for going AWOL, the three Cs struck. (Christmas, computer issues, and carnivorous plants seeking world domination.) Back online again from now to deadline. More thoughts in ~6 hours from now.

[imaginality]

Asking for a hammer before Budja has a chance to claim is definitely scummy. We still have a week til deadline.

[imaginality]

The second mason definitely shouldn't claim for now. If Chinaman dies and flips mason, his partner can wait as long as he claims at least one day before lylo. Then if someone counterclaims, there's time to lynch one and lynch the other the following day.

Also JL, if he has the treestump power, should not treestump Chinaman. Much better to keep the claimed masons alive and let the scum nightkill them - scum can't afford to let them live too long.

I don't see much scum advantage to fakeclaiming mason, seems a pretty risky gambit, but agree that Chinaman should say more about his motive for claiming so early. As well as confirming whether he and his partner are 100% town-confirmed masons as opposed to just 'masons'.

Re. vanilla townie stuff, agreed that Netopalis's reaction claim was unnecessary. I also think it would be borderline bastard-modding to have

no

vanilla townies without at least warning scum of that possibility so they don't get screwed by claiming vanilla. Certainly it's possible there's a high proportion of power roles but I don't see it as a great additional reason to lynch a vanilla claim.

Budja still feels more likely town to me than scum. I'm currently more suspicious of dana, BloodCovenant, and Locke in theory (depending if he's lurking or flaked). SnowBunny I also have a gut feel about but that might be more just playstyle at this point than a genuine read.

[imaginality]

Apologies for my AWOL, holiday craziness and travel, I have time to get properly stuck into this game again as of tomorrow.

For now:

First, if you think he's lying, why then ask for the partner?

That is a terrible question.


I think Budja is town, but with him claiming vanilla, I will vote him before deadline if it's that or no-lynch. However I would prefer a Snow_Bunny lynch.

Unvote; vote Snow_Bunny.

[imaginality]

Oh my. I just reread from page 10.

Wow, dana's play has been bad. As has BC's. Either of them would be good stump targets tonight. I don't think there's been enough discussion on dana to make it worth lynching her today, but BC maybe. Among other things, BC's two-scum slip is interesting. As is his enthusiastic echoing what he thought was Fuzzy's condemnation of Net's 438. All in all, there's been a reasonable amount of questionable play from BC.

Straw poll:

who here would be interested in a BC lynch today?

*puts hand up*


In other news, Net is fairly clearly town, and the arguments he's had with others (the ones where I think he's had the wrong side of it) seem to be mostly tactical ones. Asking for Chinaman's partner is fine, since he didn't believe Chinaman's claim. If the majority of us didn't believe the claim then Chinaman should reveal his partner.

Also, the way Chinaman offered himself up as a target for JL makes me believe the mason claim. Mason is one of the few town power roles that wouldn't lose much from being treestumped, since they can still speak to confirm their partner when required. So I can see why Chinaman might have thought it good to offer himself as a target (even though I think JL should just aim for scum).


I think it's best for JL to probably use his power tonight. With a few fairly obvtown players, the chances of targeting scum are reasonable. And I think the power is unlikely enough in scum hands that it at least semi-confirms him as town (or if not, possibly SK more likely than scum), which puts scum in a quandry about whether to use their kill on him in future nights now that he's vanilla or try to target other town PRs.


@SnowBunny: your question wasn't the sole reason for my voting you, though part of my intention for not spelling out my reasons was to see how you'd react. I like your response to my post. I still think you're more likely scum than Budja though, but less so than before.

At this stage I'm fairly happy with my town read on Net. Fuzzy I'm pretty neutral on. Maybe I'll iso him after this post.

My current position: I'd switch to a BC wagon if there's enough interest that we can get a lynch. Otherwise I will stick with Snow_Bunny but willing to hammer Budja at deadline if it's that or no-lynch.

[imaginality]

I like imag's p515 overall, but the part about Net is in my mind just off. I do not think requesting me to reveal my partner is at all a town play whether he believed me or not.

Like I said in a previous post, the whole push for my lynch would have never actually ended in my lynch, only the revealing of my partner.

That last sentence is only true if you are town, which Net didn't buy. So if he felt for example there was only maybe a, who knows, 20% chance of you being town and outing your partner, and an 80% chance of you being scum and forced to name a scumbuddy (or be refuted if you named a townie), then it was pro-town (from his perspective of you being probable scum) to want you to name your partner.

[imaginality]

I think there's enough support.

Unvote; vote BloodCovenant

[imaginality]

BloodCovenant, you're using a different sense of 'alive' to MacavityLock.

Alive = player is permitted to post in the game thread
Alive = player's presence is counted in determining lylo/win conditions

The second meaning is the more important one, and is not identical to the first. Josh's role creates a player who is still 'alive' in the first sense but not in the second.

[imaginality]

I've noticed my thoughts this game have been pretty much in line with MacavityLock's a lot of the time.

Itz cos he's smart like wot i is.

I think he and I think similarly. From my perspective I don't think he's buddying up to me deliberately so it makes me feel more confident in him also being town.

If Mac really wanted to vote for the person who could most "feasibly be lynched today", he would have voted Budja. Easy. Mac's p543 is a blatant lie.

That's flat-out wrong. Mac said:

You are my top choice for a lynch of the players that could feasibly be lynched today.

He didn't say he wanted to vote the players who could most feasibly be lynched, he said he wanted to choose his vote from among the players who could most feasibly be lynched.

On a side note, I was thinking about JL and his PR. It is very possible that if we have only 2 scum, JL's role could be a modification to a serial killer OR he could have flat out lied about being able to only do it once.

I agree about this bit. It's possible it's an SK 'kill' method.

[imaginality]

EBWOP: He didn't say he wanted to vote the

player

who could most feasibly be lynched, he said he wanted to choose his vote from among the players who could most feasibly be lynched. You could rephrase his sentence as "Of the players that could feasibly be lynched today, you are my top choice for a lynch."

[imaginality]

A few stray thoughts on BC's posts:

11 - fishing
33 - the way he rides Chinaman's post here is an easy lazy way to get on a wagon, echoed in another of his votes later on
39 - the start of this post completely evades the point of DeathSauce's post (which was "Why aren't you scumhunting?" not, "Why did you unvote Budja?")
44 - yey, omgus
48 - the 'both scum' possible-slip
58 - worried scum are angry scum
60 - this mistake again shows how he's eager to back up other people's suspicions whenever possible
69 - doesn't comment on the case on Locke despite asking to see it (if BC flips scum Locke might be a good bet for scumbuddy)

[imaginality]

Chinaman, I agree that when asked about

motives for a particular comment/vote/etc.

, answering on someone else's behalf is scummy. And to an extent, coming in to defend someone who's being attacked is something scum might do depending on the situation. However, I don't think there's anything scummy about pointing out when an attack is based on a misinterpretation (whether deliberate or accidental) of the attacked player's post. In this case, it was obvious your attack on Mac was flawed. What benefit is there in getting Mac to say so himself? Whether he is town or scum, your attack on him was flawed. It's very different to putting a motive into his mouth.

[imaginality]

(Admittedly, earlier in the day, there's a possible argument against doing what I just did, because you could argue it's better to wait and see if there's scum around who are willing to jump on a wagon based on your flawed attack before I (or whoever) points out the flaw in the attack. So, keeping quiet could expose opportunistic scum. However, at this point in the day that's not going to happen.)

[imaginality]

Imag, had you not been included in my suspicious list in the my post after which you defended Mac, I could buy the explanation you gave in p578, but seeing as I suspected you as well, I can't buy you just mentioning my thoughts on Mac and ignoring the thoughts on you as well.

I didn't ignore your thoughts on me:

I've noticed my thoughts this game have been pretty much in line with MacavityLock's a lot of the time. Itz cos he's smart like wot i is. I think he and I think similarly. From my perspective I don't think he's buddying up to me deliberately so it makes me feel more confident in him also being town.

That was my response to your point against me, given that your point against me was only that I seem to be too closely aligned with Mac (and Budja). So I commented on that connection.

[imaginality]

I will ask you (Mac and Imag) this though. In Budja's most recent posts, why do you think these would be coming from a townie over coming from scum?

Most of Budja's recent ones look better than some of the earlier ones did, at least as I recall. Looking back from the most recent:

iso 67: the scum list here is a bit minimal, I'll grant you that
iso 66: seems fine
iso 65: getting people to choose a wagon (and thereby get their opinions on the merits of the wagons on record for us to look back at tomorrow) with deadline approaching is pro-town (scum here might be more likely to strongly urge those people to vote BC, not to choose for themselves what's best)
iso 64: reminding people deadline's approaching is fine
iso 63: fits with iso 62
iso 62: null, could come from scum or town

[imaginality]

Imag, please refrain for making PbPa's again. Also I notice you only used posts in the last 48 hours, why didn't you use other posts?

I will ask you (Mac and Imag) this though. In Budja's

most recent posts

, why do you think these would be coming from a townie over coming from scum?

Now to my PbPa,
11 - it looks like i'm fishing? How do you see that? Where am I fishing?

By saying 'this smells fishy to me' it looked like you were hoping to prod Net into explaining his comment in more detail which would give you some more information about Net's role, perhaps a sense of whether he's a PR or not.

33 -I didn't ride china's post, I stated before that I didn't like the claim, if you want, you can read the earlier posts of mine in iso, and find it.

Yeah, you'd shown suspicion, but the timing of your vote just after Chinaman's case made it look like you wanted Chinaman to lead the wagon and take the flak if it came under pressure (or if it went through and JL flipped town) while you stand quietly behind him out of the spotlight.

39 - way to misinterpret Deathsauces post. He didn't ask, why aren't I scum hunting, he just suggested I do it. Nice try.

Actually, it's weirder than that now I look back at it:

Also, add me to the list that dislikes

dana's

entrance into this game. You don't understand the Budja wagon so you jump on the Josh wagon? There are alternatives, like, I don't know, scum hunting.

I guess

i'm

just not much of a fan of Budja's play style in general.

Why did you answer DeathSauce's point when it was addressed to dana?
Maybe you just misquoted the wrong post or something here. It's pretty odd.

44 - was not omigus, I voted with reasons, unlike Budja, I have a case on budja, he has nothing on me, but wants me lynched.

Yeah, you had a case on him, but again with the timing. To quote you, "why the sudden change?" My theory is, look three posts earlier, when Chinaman unvoted JL. You thought, "uh-oh, JL wagon is going nowhere now," and switched tack to Budja. Which would actually be okayish if you stated that as a reason for switching, but to leave it unstated strengthens my suspicion that you wanted Chinaman to do the work and take the heat for the JL wagon.

As for the omgus, it's just a weak case of that - basically, of the possible other targets to switch to, you chose the one who's expressed suspicion of you.

48 - I think I explained that well enough in iso 49

Okay.

58 - Pissed off townie

Okay.

60 - So everything I say has to have my own reasons for it that are written out? You don't think it at all scummy how Net reacted to China's claim? I sure as hell did. I was willing to lynch him today too, but that's not likely going to happen.

It's another case of you letting someone else express suspicion (or so you thought) and jumping on their case. Again it's the timing. If you'd said, "Net dies tomorrow" before that post, I wouldn't find it suspicious. But as mentioned above this is a pattern of behaviour you've displayed several times today, and one that I think at least gives some reason for suspicion.

69 - Why the fuck should I comment on a post that involves someone else? Why are you holding that against me?

Because

you

said in 68 "pull up a case, and maybe i'll switch over." Budja pulls up a case on Locke for you (whether it's weak or strong is irrelevant here), and you... don't say

anything

about it at all.

[imaginality]

Btw, I'm not proved town yet and you all think my attacks are full of holes yet none of you are saying I'm scum and just lying about being a Mason.

I gave my reasons earlier for currently believing your mason claim.

Yes imag, but you commented on it with a positive feel for Mac vs suspicion. How you can not be suspicious of every little detail in a game like Mafiascum when playing town is beyond me. Hell, if my role PM didn't specifically tell me that I knew my partner was of like mind, I would suspect that person as well! It's part of being town. You don't worry about your town reads as it's a scums job to look as town as possible (meaning agreeing with town when they are on the road to mislynching).

Town reads can be useful. I often have more success (particularly later days) targeting scum by deciding certain players are town and seeing if scum fit amongst the remainder. (I am not saying I have a town read on Mac purely because he tends to agree with me though. If that were my only reason for thinking him to be town then I agree that would be a riskier way to play.)

Your post reminds me of that thread in MD recently about whether people play by assuming everyone's scum until proven otherwise, or assuming everyone's town until proven otherwise. I tend towards the latter approach, it sounds like you take the former. Either works, I think it's a playstyle thing.

[imaginality]

^^ Good post.

[imaginality]

If Net shows up before deadline and votes BC as he indicated he would, and kikuchiyo goes with her last post and votes BC, we'll be 5 v 5:

Hypothetical vote count:

Budja (5): Josh Lyman, Fuzzyman, Snow_Bunny, DeathSauce, BloodCovenent
BloodCovenent (5): Budja, imaginality, MacavityLock, Netopalis, kikuchiyo
Netopalis (1): Chinaman
Josh Lyman (1): danakillsu

Chinaman is leaning towards a Budja lynch. dana said (a few posts ago admittedly) that she doesn't understand the Budja wagon. That puts it in theory at 6-6.

I'd like to see Net turn up and vote, kiku and dana switch their votes to BC, and then DeathSauce switch for the hammer vote (as he indicated he'd be willing to do).

Dunno if there's time for that to happen though. If not, I'll switch to Budja before deadline.

[imaginality]

]quote="BloodCovenant"]I find it interesting that Imaginality is very interested in my lynch, and won't even allow for the both of the lynch candidates to claim. odd hmm? [/quote]

Huh?

When did I say you can't claim?


Okay, once Chinaman confirms you're his mason partner, I'll switch to Budja. Too late to lynch anyone else today.

[imaginality]

Didn't want to force you to claim unless we knew we had enough votes to lynch you. If we couldn't get you lynched then it would've been better for you not to claim yet.

Budja already did claim earlier, did he not?

[imaginality]

If budja somehow does not flip scum, I'm betting Imag is for sure scum due to other things but now mostly this:

Imag wrote:
I'll switch to Budja. Too late to lynch anyone else today.

Eh? How is that in any way untrue? Or in any way contradictory to what I said earlier?

Unvote; vote: Budja

[imaginality]

And that's a lynch (I think). With Budja having claimed vanilla, and only 7 hours to deadline, I don't see any problem with me hammering it home.

For the record, I still think Budja will flip town, and I hammered because it's better to lynch and see a flip, for a player on which there are some clear opinions about, than to no-lynch, which was the only alternative now that BC has had his mason claim confirmed.

[imaginality]

Ninja'd.

[imaginality]

Prod received, and apologies. Back in this game as of my next post.

[imaginality]

I've caught up with the thread now, and I'm writing up my thoughts. I feel strongly about a number of players being clearly pro-town. No-one screams obvscum to me but I do have suspects, and will address that next post.


Sanhora, here are my three most recent completed games as town (not counting one I replaced into, since I assume it's D1 play you're most interested in at the moment):

Return to Smalltown Y

Mini 839[/quote]

Congratulations! You are...

As scum, I've only been scum twice:

Caught in the Crossfire

Killer in Smalltown Y

Hope that helps.

[imaginality]

Let's try that again:

Return to Smalltown Y
Mini 839
Congratulations! You are...Mafia

[imaginality]

Short and sweet:

Town or prob town: me, Faraday, Snow_Buddy, Chinaman, BloodCovenant

In between: Sanhora, Netopalis

Others: DeathSauce, Fuzzyman, kikuchiyo

Pretty sure at least one of DeathSauce and Fuzzyman is scum.

Vote: Fuzzyman

[imaginality]

I'm travelling at the moment. Will be non-VLA from Tuesday, but will try to make at least some short posts in the meanwhile too.

Netopalis, I see Fuzzyman and DeathSauce aren't in your potential-scum list, do you have pro-town reads on them? If so, what's the basis for that?

Of the others you list I'd join a kiku wagon.

[imaginality]

I'm going to come out and say this: I investigated Snow_Bunny overnight. She is town-aligned.

Why am I outing myself as cop? Aside from not wanting Snow_Bunny to be lynched, I think it's going to be really helpful if Sanhora hits scum with the treestumpish ability, so I think narrowing the target list of possible scum is pretty useful. And it looked like Snow_Bunny would likely be a target for that if she wasn't lynched today. Also, I regard the claimed masons as likely telling the truth, and if that is the case, then we already have enough clear townies around for us to start focusing on eliminating the remaining possibilities.

I would suggest that if there are protective roles in this game, they choose randomly between protecting me and protecting Snow_Bunny, to force the scum to take a 50% risk of a save if they target one of us.

[imaginality]

I investigated SnowBunny because although I had a gut feeling she might be scum I recognised that it was mainly a playstyle thing. I had more confidence in my pro and anti reads on most of the other players. Also, I thought it quite likely she would be a mislynch or misvig if she were town, so I targeted her so that we could prevent that. If she were scum, I felt confident we could get her lynched without me needing to reveal my role.

I wouldn't normally have claimed this early with my innocent result. I didn't breadcrumb as such but I did think my change in attitude re. SnowBunny would be noticed on a reread if I had died before revealing the result. When Sanhora picked up on it and asked me about the about turn I figured smart scum would probably guess the reason behind my change in views, so I didn't feel I was particularly undercover anymore, so I claimed.

My role name: I am Pamela Stephenson. My interests in psychotherapy etc. are what give me the ability to read people and determine their alignment.

[imaginality]

If it's not going to be Fuzzyman, I'd prefer a DeathSauce lynch to a Netopalis one. I'll review the case on Netopalis, and certainly I've felt more ambiguous about him than I did about say MacavityLock, but my sense (without a reread) is that town-Net is not so implausible, and I didn't like the way people were pushing his asking the claimed mason to reveal his partner as a major scum point against him.

Thank you to the replacements for getting some discussion going again. I will be joining in again more soon myself, but

I'm V/LA until Wednesday US time

. Will certainly be reading and hope to still post a bit too, but can't guarantee it.

[imaginality]

To confirm: I will have no problems re. submitting a night action.

It's a shame to see Netopalis implode, but at least he has done so entertainingly. I have to admit the underlying tone of his recent posts seems to fit 'scum annoyed at being strung up for what they consider to be weak reasons' a bit more than 'vanilla townie annoyed at etc.'.

Netopalis: who amongst those on your wagon do you think is most likely to be scum? Who on your wagon do you think is more likely misguided town?

[imaginality]

Hi all. No need to wait around for my results: I was just a one-shot cop.

I didn't mention that fact yesterday because I was hoping to draw the scum night-kill. (It's possible I did and was doc-protected.)

Revealing my one-shotted-ness now because:

* I didn't have to lie yesterday, but I'd have to lie about a result today, and that could come back to screw us (e.g. if we have a watcher/tracker), as well as the fact that claiming results on dead people for more than one night would soon start to look pretty suspicious

* If we do have a doc, knowing I'm one-shot frees up their choice of who to protect tonight, making it more likely they might prevent another nightkill

Since I'm one-shot, there are no sanity issues with my result, so Snow_Bunny is definitely innocent, unless she's a GF or (less likely) an investigation-immune SK.

[imaginality]

If you claimed Beloved Princess to try to fool the scum, why did you give up on the claim? Why not stand by it? I don't see why you would back away from your claim so readily, if that were indeed your plan.

Vote: Fuzzyman

[imaginality]

In that game, you were scum. Any gambits as town?

[imaginality]

Hmm.

Assuming two scum remaining, then from my perspective (having got an innocent result on Snow_Bunny), the scum are either Ellibereth and DrippingGoofBall, or Faraday and DeathSauce.

[imaginality]

Stray thoughts:

* No lynch looks the best option here - I think this is a situation where one more death would definitely limit the possibilities significantly. (Which probably explains somewhat why Sanhora was the nightkill)

* If the scum kill failed the other night due to a protective or blocking role, that person maybe has useful information to share depending who they targeted

* Would like to hear the masons' name claims. Ideally, claimed in separate posts within less than a minute of each other just to somewhat prove you can daytalk to coordinate posting at the same time

[imaginality]

^ That.

And, as an additional point, let's assume for a moment that we have a protective role amongst the remaining players, which seems possible due to the lack of a nightkill on the night before last.

If we NL, and the protective role does not target the claimed masons, then either the scum have to kill a mason (confirming the other as town) or there is a 1 in 2 chance (if the masons are town) or 1 in 4 chance (if the masons are scum) of that player preventing a nightkill, in which case they would be able to confirm someone as innocent.

(This assumes the scum have to submit a nightkill, mind you. If they can choose not to kill, then WIFOM comes into it. Still, at worst that would just leave things as they are now, with six players left, so we don't lose anything from that.)

[imaginality]

Personally I'd prefer no-lynch today followed by mass-claim tomorrow. But if we're going to mass-claim today, I like DeathSauce, Faraday, Snow_Bunny as the order.

[imaginality]

No lynch helps scum how?

[imaginality]

Going to reread tomorrow. Will then decide whether to vote and if so who. I have my own thoughts about the mason groupthink but don't want to put my words in their mouth.

[imaginality]

Why is DGB + me agreeing a lot a scumtell? Oh wait it's not.
We can daytalk. We can talk about stuff about we post them, discuss reads, stuff like that.

Yeah that is what I was thinking about it.

[imaginality]

After re-reads I'm thinking DeathSauce + Faraday seem more likely scum than Ellibereth + DGB. While I was no fan of the original masons' play pre-claims, Chinaman's explanation of why he claimed when he did seemed plausible. Also, it seems pretty clear they can daytalk, and that's quite powerful for scum; I'm not convinced it would be balanced.

As for why scum let the masons live: if the scum were going to kill the masons they needed to do it earlier (and maybe they tried N2?). But by last night, killing one mason and thereby clearing the other would have been foolish, reducing today's suspects to 5 instead of 6, so it's better for them to leave them both alive and try to push a mislynch on them.

I'm not ruling out Snow_Bunny entirely just yet, but (warning, WIFOM ahead) I think scum would have had significantly more motive to kill me rather than Sanhora last night if Snow_Bunny is a GF, and considering Sanhora's successful stumping still hadn't entirely proven he was town.

That said, I am also curious to hear Snow_Bunny expand on her "I assume I'm VT" comment.


Of DeathSauce and Faraday I find DeathSauce scummier in isolation. I don't see the harm in no-lynching one more cycle though. If the scum have to submit a nightkill, it'll help clarify things further, if they don't have to and choose not to, fair enough, we can lynch tomorrow.

Vote: no lynch

[imaginality]

There was the SK-trying-to-seem-town possibility still. And killing me would have confirmed my role and confirm that Snow_Bunny was either innocent or GF, and ruled out possibilities of me and her being scum together.

[imaginality]

It was worth trying the no-lynch in case scum were required to submit a night kill. Clearly, they weren't (unless we still have a doc hiding among us, in which case now is the time to claim).

Whether we should lynch now or no-lynch depends on (a) if you consider happily-ever-after a tie rather than a loss and (b) if you do, whether you think we have a >50% chance of lynching scum today.

[imaginality]

Whatchya checking Ellibereth?

[imaginality]

Okay. I've been thinking long and hard about which way to go here. In the end, I think that for scum to claim masons on day 1 with all manner of possible vigs, cops and SKs still around to cause havoc with their claim, that's just too unlikely.

I think a DeathSauce-Faraday partnership is most likely, with DeathSauce-SnowBunny(GF) a small outside shot.

Vote: DeathSauce

[imaginality]

Hi all. Let's get this game rolling again. I have lots of time free this weekend and in advance of that, I have some questions for everyone. They're not tricky questions, please answer them as it will help me significantly. Thanks muchly.


DeathSauce:

(a) Please summarise what you think the main points are in favour of the masons being scum.

(b) Relative to the masons, how likely do you think a Snow_Bunny and Faraday scum pairing is?


Faraday:

(a) Why do you rule out me being scum? What convinces you I'm town?

(b) Why do you think Snow+Death are more likely scum than the masons?


Snow_Bunny:

(a) Why did you say the masons were acting strange (in your post 58)?

(b) Do you think we'll achieve anything different by no-lynching today than we did yesterday (i.e. no kill, 6 players still alive)?


Ellibereth:

(a) What were you checking on, what was the result?

(b) Did your mason predecessors discuss Chinaman's 'stump me' invitation in advance or did he make that out of the blue?


DrippingGoofball:

(a) You said (iso post 15) "No, all early mason claims are accepted. Because once they claim, they won't make it to end game one way or another," and post 17 "no early mason claim needs to be challenged because masons don't make it to end game - they are NK'd or are lynched if the scum doesn't NK." Scum hasn't NKed you, so by your own logic should we not lynch you?

(b) Between Snow_Bunny and Faraday, who do you think is more likely DeathSauce's partner?

(c) If you check with the mod and receive the mod's permission to do so, will you copy and paste your mason quicktopic (or PM) discussions into this thread for us to read? If not why not? (See Mini 839 for an example of me doing this when I was a neighbour with Sotty7.

[imaginality]

Yep, happy birthday Faraday. I applaud your choice of when to be born, mid-late March is when all the best people are born.

They were looking for the player that blocked their kill earlier in the game, when it wasn't Fuzzy, they let him go.

The problem with this theory is it implies there's a doc/RB around, but no-one's claimed to be so. (Though admittedly, scum no-killing seems unlikely, and it also seems the kill can't have been blocked by JL/Sanhora targeting iamausername:

Also, in regard to order of action: If I target someone, and they have an action, they will still perform their action.

)

[imaginality]

Snow_Bunny, are you a normal doc or another one-shot role?

I reread the day 1 play, and with the way Chinaman put himself forward to be stumped, combined with some of their comments when deadline was approaching leading up to revealing BC as his partner, I believe the mason claim. The timing of Chinaman's claim makes no sense as scum, he was under no pressure at that time and claiming if anything increased the suspicions against him.

I also think Snow_Bunny's doc role is more or less proven (I've seen scum-aligned docs occasionally, but never a scum doc with investigation immunity, and if scum deliberately no-killed to set up a doc fake-claim, I don't think she would have left it quite this late today to come out with it).

So, I have to agree with DGB, the scumteam is DS and Faraday.

Just to be sure though, I'm going to

unvote

until the masons answer my questions above, and in particular put their discussions into this thread because there's no reason why they shouldn't, since it should only make us surer they're telling the truth.

[imaginality]

Snow_Bunny, are you a normal doc or another one-shot role?

EBWOP: I wouldn't normally ask that, for obvious reasons, but if we mislynch or no-lynch it's not going to matter now anyhow. I'm just curious.

[imaginality]

Yeah, the set-up balance is the main thing that is making me still a little wary. It's part of the reason I'm keen to see the masons' daytalk before confirmng my decision.

On the other hand, if you and DS are scum, and one of you is say RB and the other GF, is it so unbalanced?

[imaginality]

One other thought with the masons: if they are scum with daytalking abilities, it's reasonable to think they'd flip as 'scum mason' or something similar. E.g. in this game pops and elvis could daytalk and flipped as Mafia Mason.

I think if that's the case, BC would have been reluctant to get as close to being lynched as he did before claiming to be Chinaman's partner. A couple of votes (and this was within a day of deadline) and he could easily have been lynched before he had the chance to claim, and his scum mason flip would probably have spelled disaster for Chinaman too.

[imaginality]

No, scum thought I was a normal cop that night.

[imaginality]

DrippingGoofball:

(a) You said (iso post 15) "No, all early mason claims are accepted. Because once they claim, they won't make it to end game one way or another," and post 17 "no early mason claim needs to be challenged because masons don't make it to end game - they are NK'd or are lynched if the scum doesn't NK." Scum hasn't NKed you, so by your own logic should we not lynch you?

(b) Between Snow_Bunny and Faraday, who do you think is more likely DeathSauce's partner?

[imaginality]

Do either you or DGB want to comment on question (a) in 1092?

Snow_Bunny, if you're around, which pair are you leaning towards as being the scum?

[imaginality]

Keen to hear Snow_Bunny's thoughts.

Looking back, I see kiku (known scum) voted BC over Budja in the run-up to the D1 deadline. Probably just trying to stay off a townie lynch. But, if BC was scum, I think she'd more likely have gone for a Budja vote. Her vote on JL shows she's happy to hop onto a wagon (albeit belatedly in that case).

So, currently leaning to the masons being town.

DeathSauce, re. your 'masons were fishing for doc' theory, I said the lack of a claimed doc was 'a problem' with that theory, not 'the only' problem. Another question there is why they'd kill Sanhora the next night rather than try to hit the doc.

[imaginality]

At this point, killing one mason confirms the other. Strategically, as long as the PAIR of us is alive, we can be thought of as mason-claiming scums. The scum is trying to exploit that. They don't want to kill me and confirm Elli. Or vice-versa.

My question wasn't about what would/wouldn't happen at this point, though. Obviously now (and last night) it would make no sense for scum to kill one of you when it would confirm the other. My question was about you saying: "No early mason claim needs to be challenged because masons don't make it to end game - they are NK'd or are lynched if the scum doesn't NK." Do you still stand by that attitude to early mason claims? Or to put it another way, if you meant what you said, the conclusion I draw is that you would lynch masons if they claimed early and didn't get killed off by endgame. So, why should we not lynch you?

[imaginality]

Thinking about it, additional points towards mason-scum is it gives Chinaman motive for his "I think this is a vanillaless game" comment (he would have known there would be more non-vanilla claims than usual if they were planning to fakeclaim), and for the MacavityLock nightkill, since he was fairly focused on Chinaman even after his claim, and on BloodCovenant.

Hmm...

[imaginality]

Rereading day 1 and seeing how hard Chinaman in particular and also BC pushed to get JL lynched makes me think that yep, DS may be right that the masons are scum. I don't think they'd gambit if they're just generic scum, but I think if they are scum masons, they would certainly consider claiming town mason, and they would have strong reason to be worried about a stump-vig hitting either of them.

Also, I think if masons are town, scum would either have killed one of them N1, or if they're not killing them, then they would've expressed more suspicion of them D2 back when there was still more doubt around their claim. DS and Faraday didn't really do that.

Also, there's the VT thing. I think DS and Faraday would have agreed with each other there rather than one say they have it implicit, the other explicit. If DS had also said his was explicit it would have cast more doubt on SB who at that point looked like a possible GF still.

This has been a fairly tricky choice (was tempted to suggest NL again just hoping scum kill me to let Snow_Bunny handle all the pressure of the decision! ) but yeah, I'm happy to go with this.
Here's hoping...

Unvote
Vote: DrippingGoofball

[imaginality]

The balance thing is the other factor. 1-shot cop, doc, vig vs scum-masons and goon seems more balanced than masons being town.

[imaginality]

Ah dammit.

[imaginality]

Well played scum.

Dammit. I was *this* close to using my cop investigation on the masons to get two results for the price of one. I held back from doing so was because I thought there was a good chance of one of them getting nightkilled N1 anyhow.

Sorry town. I started the last day leaning heavily towards DS and Faraday, but the way the masons treated the decision as a given and kinda avoided answering my questions made me doubt myself.

Slightly disappointed that scum weren't required to submit a kill when it was mylo. It seems like it makes docs slightly less valuable if blocking one kill doesn't provide town with an extra lynch. I can see this is something there are probably arguments both ways though.



I'm off to nominate Netopalis for funniest role claim.

[imaginality]

Forgot to add that the Netopalis lynch was indeed truly horribly misguided and looking back on that also played a slight factor in my reconsideration of the masons vs DeathSauce.