Mini 210: Secret Ballot Mafia- The Ballotbox is Closed!

[mathcam]

Pariah, also notice that there were multiple figures in the alleyway, implying further that it wasn't a serial killer. There are plenty of explanations for only having one kill, and "one killing group" is just one of them (albeit more likely than several of the others).

And ChocoCid's point about voting in the open is

especially

valid since the mafia get to break ties.

Cam

[mathcam]

I think I agree with Cid. The mafia can collaborate the previous night to all vote for the same person, so to make sure we don't let them have their way with the voting, we can't just "do our own thing." One other possibility is to narrow it down to two candidates and have everyone vote for their most suspicious...this makes it a little harder for mafia to effectively decide the vote, but it's still a little sketchy. Actually, yeah...the more I think about it, the more sketchy it is. I think we don't have to be unanimous to make a decision, but it should be pretty close.

Cam

[mathcam]

I think ChocoCid is mafia, and I think he's overacting how "hard" he thinks it's going to be for the town to get a good lynch. Post 40, for example, contains information that applies in just about every single mini...

worse

in some because of the presence of a serial killer. So why is he so worried about it this time?

Second, getting a lynch in this game is just about as hard as any other, the only difference being that we have to insist that all townies follow the majority, whether or not they're in agreement. Otherwise, the mafia can take control. A responsible townie should have no qualms with this, so I don't see much of a problem.

Finally, I think we should have some faith in our mod here...the game is probably well-balanced, so let's not go out of our way to circumvent that balancing by coming up with insane plans.

Cam

[mathcam]

halfpint and I are back, and should catch up within a day or so. Sorry for not being here.

Cam

[mathcam]

Okay, I'm caught up. Where did all this talk of choosing between two people come from? I thought we were pretty agreed that the town had to nearly-unanimously decide on

one

person for lynch before we moved to the voting phase.

FOS: raj

for being a key proponent of the "narrow it down to two" plan.

For the time being, I'm fairly confident that ChocoCid is not scum.

My top picks: Astronaut, raj, and KingEnigma. Astronaut got most of his scumminess from attacking Choco for proposing a no lynch (which he didn't really propose). It looked like a weak attempt to start a bandwagon for generic reasons. Raj has got most of his scumminess by seeming eager for the lynch, and seemingly ignoring Someone's plan of narrowing it down to one person (since the alternative heavily favors the mafia). KE is getting his scumminess from being...well, weird, this game. I've played with him a few times, and I don't remember him ever seeming this..."aloof" is I think the word I want. I'd be fine voting for either of them.

Maybe what we should do next is have everyone list their top three, and agree to lynch whoever gets the most votes. If nothing else, it helps us decide on a lynch today, and will be an interesting source of information later in the game. I've already listed my 3, so anyone else who thinks this is a good idea should go ahead.

Cam

[mathcam]

Well, we've still got several people to hear from yet, so let's not jump the gun here.

I'm finally comfortable enough playing this game to start acting more like myself and less like a restrained me, and now I'm being picked out as scum in all 3 games that I'm in because of the same reason. I'm acting weird, well I guess I'll go back to being the restrained KingEnigma, because this isnt working.

If this is true and not just a scum ploy...

This is to be expected, and just something you'll have to live with for a little while. Any time you shift your playing style, it's bound to draw attention to itself, and you're bound to be found more suspicious for it. Once you've done it long enough that it's recognized as your usual playstyle, it'll pass.

KE, did you want to pick a top 3, or are you abstaining on your second and third choices?

Cam

[mathcam]

By my count, which is usually incorrect, I think Raj has 7 appearances and KE has 6. Further, Raj appears higher than KE more frequently than the other way around. I think if I were to order my list right now (which I hadn't originally thought we were going to do), I'd also put Raj at the top. So I personally think we've come to a decision. Let's make sure we're okay with this, but we're far enough away from the threshold that there's room for me to call for a

Vote now

.

Cam

[mathcam]

Well, raj hasn't really said anything to convince me not to lynch him, so I'm confirming that I'll be voting for him, and still happy with my "vote now." KE, I don't think

anyone

has come anywhere

close

to saying that they are "absolutely sure Raj is guilty." After plenty of discussion, he's several people's leading candidates, and we'd established earlier in the day that if this were to happen (several people agreeing on one target), then we should try to as-nearly-unanimous-as-possible lynch that person. I'm fine with you not following along, but don't make it out like everyone else is deliberately ignoring your pleas...you've served up very little in terms of an argument as to why we should follow your hunch. You've even conceded several times that your actions appear scummy, so how can you possibly justify getting indignant when people call you on it?

Cam

[mathcam]

Interesting...one of the things propelling my gut feeling against raj was that he

wasn't

trying to bring much attention to himself (unlike ChocoCid and KingEnigma). While I think inHim makes some good points against Lubabah, I don't think that I've changed my mind about what to do today.

Cam

[mathcam]

Yup. Let's hear a claim from raj.

Cam

[mathcam]

It's especially easy to claim since we know there are simple townies in this game, and the role is printed verbatim in the first post. I think raj is the right move for the day.

Cam

[mathcam]

FOS: inHim

for so eagerly pursuing one target already. That said, I'd been thinking over night that Lubabah was my prime target for the day as well.

Cam

[mathcam]

Well, if you were thinking about trying to get someone lynched quickly today, your earlier "Where were we yesterday?" looks awfully like a leading question, since Lubabah was definitely a leading target at the end of yesterday.

Cam

[mathcam]

Looks like we might need some prods.

Cam

[mathcam]

Toodles? As in "I'm done discussing for the day?"

I've never seen Enigma quite so adamant about anything. I'm tempted to believe him. I don't know if he has information, or just a particularly awesome read on ChocoCid, but

he

sure seems pretty sure. A thought, though...he was pushing for Choco yesterday. Surely if Choco was scum he would have had KE killed last night?

Cam

[mathcam]

Cam, your logic is sound, but obviously WIFOM logic takes over there.

While I agree that WIFOM has a role to play, that doesn't necessarily mean it takes over. If you threw out every single argument to which WIFOM applies, there'd be very little left to go on, and we'd end up lynching randomly, i.e.

Some Guy: "Soandso is scummy because of X."
Soandso: "But if I were scum, I wouldn't have done X because it's scummy."
Some Guy: "Damn! Saved by WIFOM again!"

I think my vote's still leaning toward Lubabah, but I'll hold off until I can actually find reasons to articulate why.

Cam

[mathcam]

I'm aware of that, cam.

Okay...but you're the one that claimed the argument "fell to WIFOM." I was just explaining how it didn't.

Cam

[mathcam]

Cam, you might not be able to articulate why, but I might be able to.

For the record, it was just that I couldn't remember and hadn't gone got around to reading day 1 over. Nonetheless, your summary is much appreciated.

On the subject of WIFOM. Blatant WIFOM such as "If I was scum why would I do (enter whatever here)." is obviously scummy, but asking questions and theorizing things that could contain a bit of WIFOM isn't.

Also for the record, I don't think we were accusing Choco of being scummy for mentioning WIFOM, just that we didn't think the argument is valid.

In any case, since just about everyone but me finds ChocoCid amazingly scummy, I'm happy ot pursue him for the lynch today.

Vote: ChocoCid

.

Cam

[mathcam]

Hm. I'm unsure what to think of this revelation. It sure seems likely that such a role would exist...when I create games with special mechanics, I definitely put in roles that heavily use or rely upon those mechanics. On the other hand, Choco's claim is pretty easily faked.

One option is that we decide on someone else to kill, pick someone to vote at random instead of for our target, and see if Choco can tell us who they voted for. Unfortunately, there's a lot of ways this goes wrong (mafia kills Choco, mafia kills the person who was supposed to kill at random, the person who's supposed to kill at random is mafia

with

Choco, etc.).

At this point, I'm tempted to believe Choco unless KingEnigma can give me anything better than gut feeling.

Cam

[mathcam]

Okay, is there anything other than your previously-stated general suspicion of Cid that makes you think his claim is bogus? What about my point that the presence of that role in this game seems plausible?

Cam

[mathcam]

inHim, who is your last post talking to?

Astronaut: Nope, no plan here. I think there are just too many ways things can go wrong, and too many possibilities of the game setup to even begin to account for all of them. On the other hand, if we do use a plan and something

does

go wrong, figuring out what might have gone wrong might help us figure something else out. Idunno.

Cam

[mathcam]

mathcam seems weird to me. I don't know why though.

Admit it. It's because I like math.

Something we might be disregarding is the possibility that ChocoCid is scum

and

has the ability that he claimed. That's a small enough ability that the mod could give to a mafia player without making them too powerful.

Cam

[mathcam]

Point taken. At this point, I'm inclined to believe Choco...the only thing making it even remotely close is KE's steadfastness that Choco is scum. It just might not be enough to convince me to lynch. It might be time to pick a new candidate.

Cam

[mathcam]

Cam, are you implying that we lynch KE today, or find someone other than the two of us to choose?

The latter. Like, for example, inHim.

Cam

[mathcam]

Who says your name came up because of your last post?

Cam

[mathcam]

Alright, well I was just trying to bait inHim to see if he'd blow up or get overly defensive or something. He didn't, so that's a plus in my book for now.

I'm a little surprised at KingEnigma, whom after spending all day harping on ChocoCid, has now hastily decided that one of inHim or I should be the target. Or am I misreading his last post?

Cam

[mathcam]

I'm quite happy to listen to ideas that show my "impossibility theory" fallacious, but I just don't think it's going to happen. I'm not entirely unhappy with the Choco lynch anyway...losing that role is hardly much of a loss, especially since the scum know it's out there (they'll probably just fall in line and vote with the town), and if he's innocent, we can take a good long look at King Enigma in the morning. But in my defense, I'm the only one who seems to think Choco's behavior on day 1 wasn't all that scummy.

On the other hand, I still haven't gotten over KE's last post...maybe it'll just take some clarification from him, but his abrupt shift from "KILL KILL KILL CHOCO" to "Eh, let's just lynch one of these two" was pretty startling.

Cam

[mathcam]

No no no. Each voting our own suspicions is horrible. It means that more than likely, the mafia will get to pick who we get to lynch

on top

of getting to choose whoe to kill tonight. For suggesting that idea

again

, my vote in cincched up for Choco today. For the sake of lack of confusion, I encourage other to do so as well when deadline hits in a few hours.

Cam

[mathcam]

I think this is fairly decided. I think if you're town, you should now be considering it your

responsibility

to vote for Choco when the deadline hits. If you're town after all, Choco, well, sorry.

Cam

[mathcam]

Sorry, busy weekend. I'll concede that I was among the most blinded to Choco's scumminess...a posthumous Kudos to KingEnigma for his insight there. I'll immodestly claim, however, that the Choco lynch might not have come to fruition if I hadn't unflipflopped myself on Choco near the end of yesterday. I saw a lot of scumminess in that one post, enough so to make me confident in that lynch.

I'm not sure in what sense I'm controlling the town other than putting forward my own opinions on every lynch.

We should all do re-reads to get a feel for people who might be scum with Choco.

Cam

[mathcam]

Read through again, some comments:

I think ChocoCid is mafia, and I think he's overacting how "hard" he thinks it's going to be for the town to get a good lynch.

I know I reversed myself later, but if I were scum with Choco, I probably wouldn't have made such a strong statement here. I probably would have laid down an FOS, or if I made a vote, it would have noticably more wishy-washy.

Man, I don't know if I wasn't paying attention at the start of the game or what, but reading through this time, I got a totally different vibe out of just about everyone (except, actually, for Raj, who I still think acted scummily).

Other comments:
1) I got the same very-scummy vibe from Lubabah (now ibaesha), but I have to admit that ibaesha has done a good job of quelling those suspicions.
2) There are a couple of people I'm pretty sure are innocent, but I think I might as well keep those to myself until there's a reason not to.
3) I think my top suspicion right now is inHim. He replaced Ogre, who was a pretty notorious lurker day 1, on thus hard to get a read on. Since then, he aroused my suspicion at the start of yesterday, and post 239 strikes me as odd...calling for a lurker hunt when several people have indicated that they found Choco scummy.
4) Thok is coming in second.

Cam

[mathcam]

Well, Speedy does seem to be at or near the top of just about everyone's list. Though I'd like to do some kind of count of this before making any "official" statement, the number of people suspicious of Speedy is almost making me think he's pro-town. With 7 alive, and probably 2 mafia, it feels like the only way that Speedy could be scum is if his co-scum is currently pushing for his lynch. That seems like a bizarre thing to be doing at this stage of the game, especially when there's no evidence against SpeedyKQ except what happened in the thread. (i.e. it's not like his scum partner is turning on him because he was fingered by a cop).

Hmm.

Cam

[mathcam]

Well, Cam,

you're

not pushing for a Speedy lynch.

Well, he's not one of my top 2, but he's also not on my "probably innocent" list.

I'd be ready to vote inHim if that bandwagon had/has any support.

Cam

[mathcam]

And now, Cam's not wanting to push a lynch (specifically mine) unless that bandwagon is supported. IMO, that reeks of trying to stay the shadow, not giving anything really to connect him with a lynch.

That interpretation's a pretty big stretch. All I'm saying in that quote is that it's senseless for me to be on a bandwagon all by myself. If no one else finds inHim scummy, then I'll have to settle for lynching someone that I'm less suspicious of.

If I wanted to "stay the shadow," wouldn't I have

supported

the Speedy lynch, instead of being the only one who seems to be speaking against it? And the only one to support an inHim lynch? In fact, what part of

anything

I've done today has made me appear less prominent than if I had chosen a different action?

And here's KingEnigma exact quote:

lets let those two fight it out thunderdome style and we lynch the winner

What part of that

didn't

imply to you that KE wanted to lynch one of us?

For Thok: My original suspicion on inHim started the morning of day 2, where it would probably be as good as anything to reread that discussion. I'm not sure yet if his recent comments have changed my mind.

Cam

[mathcam]

Either way at this point I'd say that mathcam's previous statement that Speedy is first on the most people's list was barely true there were suspicions of himself as well.

a) Barely true is still true, and in any case, I did disclaim that I hadn't counted up everyone's suspicions when making that post.
b) Is it really all that suspicious to downplay suspicions on one's own self? Townie or scum, I'd like to stay alive.

At this point, there just aren't too many people that I think could likely be scum. Since Speedy isn't one I feel particularly confident about (in terms of innocent), I'll upgrade him to being my primary choice.

Cam

[mathcam]

mathcam knows he has to get me lynched to save himself, but doesn't want to be seen as pushing for my lynch. So he is oh-so-subtly, ever-so-reluctantly, upgrading me to his first choice. But he wants to make sure we realize he doesn't really think I'm scum.

Funny, everything you've said there is true, except any implied connotation that I'm doing any of it because I'm scum.

Cam

[mathcam]

Because that's my opinion, and it's a townie's responsibility to make his opinions on these matters known. I don't mean to be rude, but I would have thought that fairly obvious.

Cam

[mathcam]

The town has decided it's going to be either me or Speedy. I know I'm innocent, so I have no choice but to push the Speedy bandwagon, regardless of whether or not I think he's pro-town. I attempted to push a bandwagon on someone who I think actually

is

scum, but when that failed, I have to fall back to a plan that has a chance of succeeding. I'm confused about why this is so surprising to everyone...has no one else ever made a compromise on who to lynch?

Cam

[mathcam]

Anyone else notice how inHim supplied a "vote now" without addressing whether or not either of us should claim?

Astronaut, could you maybe articulate how I took the lead over from Speedy? All I've done today is express my suspicion of inHim and, when no one supported this suspicion, stated that I'd rather lynch Speedy than myself, even though he wasn't my top choice. To me, this seems perfectly reasonable, but maybe there's something I'm missing.

Cam

[mathcam]

Not that this bodes particularly well for me, but I'm a townie.

Cam

[mathcam]

Well, I don't suppose I'm talking to anyone in particular, but I think inHim's my top choice, and Speedy's bult up some actual suspicion now, but still only enough to leave him in second place.

I'll be gone until Friday, so hopefully you guys figure out what's really going on in my absence.

Cam

[mathcam]

It seems like nobody cares about his claim of townie, which worries me a little though.

Me too.

I'm not liking this silence. It bothers me a lot.

Me too.

Isn't this whole thing just a little weird to be a correct lynch of scum? In my opinion, a correct scum lynch is usually preceeded by much more vigorous arguing. If I were scum, wouldn't there be a co-scum of mine either a) Trying to divert the attention somewhere else, or b) Taking the opportunity to distance him/herself from be by jumping on my bandwagon. Neither of these are the case here. Instead, there are some hand-wavey arguments on me, which I feel like I've done a good job deflecting, to which most people are performing the mafia equivalent of throwing their arms up in the air. While I agree that my opinion shouldn't count for much when I'm talking about my own lynch, but to me, this simply doesn't

feel

like a good lynch. It feels much more like the mafia giggling about how easy of a day they've had it.

Cam