Open 193 - Friends and Enemies: It's over!

[Zorblag]

OK, first off there seems to be a trend this game for people not wanting to answer my questions in a straightforward manner. It's vaguely irritating but more than that it's slightly anti-town and I'd appreciate it if people would stop. I realize that you're all clever people and having fun but setting a mood where we're giving sly answers rather than straightforward ones allows the scum to do the avoid giving answers to questions without raising flags.

@VP Baltar, your answer wasn't useful because I could already tell from your previous posts that you were willing to make a judgment call . All I was looking for was what you gave when you said:

... My playing experience with ABR is limited, but from my memory I don't recall him being so personally reactive in various games I have read him in.

Outlandish? Sure. Antagonistic? Definitely. Flustered into pushing his RVS vote as serious after a flippant call for his lynch... not so much.

Albert B. Rampage plays a game that makes people think that he's scum. He does it when he's scum or town. He lies about his views when he thinks there's a temporary gain to be had from it, he throws suspicions around for no good reasons other than to get reactions, he does whatever he thinks will get a rise out of other players in order to get reads on them, he's perfectly willing to jerk people around and avoid answering questions to see how they'll squirm under pressure and how they'll try to apply it. His interactions with you earlier were nothing that I wouldn't expect to see from him regardless of alignment and if you haven't played with him then your reaction isn't surprising at all.

You say that there's no reason for experienced town to have acted as Albert B. Rampage did. If that's true then there should really be no reason for scum to react that way either; clearly an experienced player would know better. It's not true though, a perfectly good reason for town (or scum) to act that way would be to draw reactions out of the other players and that's exactly what I would expect from Albert B. Rampage.

@charlatan, I don't know what your motives were which is why I asked. An answer of:

I was mostly curious to see if someone who wasn't really contributing otherwise would jump on the opportunity to attack erratic play that amounts to a nulltell, and whether they would do so in a thoughtful way or whether they would just be like "WTF lunch? Scum!!"

Would have been all I wanted there. It's reasonable and I assume that you'd already gotten the reaction from me when you gave your "let me turn your question around on you" answer that you gave. Clearly I could make guesses about what you were up to but saying that I had already answered for you when I hadn't and being coy doesn't help us evaluate your play nearly as much as a straightforward answer.

@PorkchopExpress, although I'm not worried about VP Baltar's posts up till you question doing anything to out masons I don't particularly think that Albert B. Rampage is hiding behind the existence of masons, no. I think that he is correct that connections aren't the main thing that we should be looking for to find scum in this game simply because he's right to be concerned about not outing masons even if that wasn't an instance of it being likely to happen.

@Albert B. Rampage, so far as I know WoW does their Trolls wrong. I'd pick Tauren. That's all based on the RTS games rather than the MMORPG which I have no direct experience with.

@Debonair Danny DiPietro, I do know that you're willing to hang back and let someone else drive the game; I saw that first hand in the game we IC'd together (I never got around to posting after that game ended by the way; nice work on finishing it up after I got night killed.) The trouble with that approach here is that it doesn't give the rest of us the chance to get a read on you along the way. In the newbie game I wasn't so worried about it as I had more pressing issues with simply making sure that the others knew how to play the game; they were going to look scummier than you by default whether you were talking or not just because they would make mistakes they didn't even know were mistakes. That's not going to come up here; we need your input not just for the sake of the input but also so that we've got a way to judge your play and the connections later on. Waiting till you've got something great to latch on isn't acceptable here.

@Scien, if you stop trying to put pressure on people for unimpressive reasons at the start of games then I'll probably stop expecting that you're going to do it after a while. Seriously though, the L-x on Vi's votes? That's worse than the issue you were having with jokes in the random voting stage in Mini 880.

I think I've just put some things together that won't be useful to talk about but if I'm right then I think it's possible that SerialClergyman noticed the same thing just a bit ago; remind me to check with him about it if we're both about in a couple days. Yes this is mysterious, I just need to remember it so I'm putting this in here because someone's sure to ask about it and remind me what I have in mind later on when it could be important.

It's tempting to change my vote now to someone other than Ojanen that I want to hear more from but (PorkchopExpress and Debonair Danny DiPietro both spring to mind) but I think that's probably less productive than joining a charlatan wagon. This either of Albert B. Rampage or VP Baltar are his top choices is overly convenient and I think that they're both red herrings right now.

Vote: charlatan

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Albert B. Rampage]

VPB you really need to change your playstyle because being a poor man's version of myself just doesn't cut it. But I exaggerated how scummy I thought you actually were to see how you would react under more pressure.

Unvote, vote charlatan

This wagon is promising.

[SerialClergyman]

Troll - almost certainly, yes. Mysterious indeed.

To stick up for ABR somewhat, I have specific meta of Albert town making the request to not hunt for connections in a friends and enemies game.

[Amished]

@ABR: It was due to the start of the VP wagon (like I mentioned). That particular instance looked scummy as hell from somewhere; and you and SC were the two that were involved. Since I'm getting a better read on SC now, that leaves you that really .. tripped my trigger? in that instance.

[Amished]

@SC: I must've missed this; when did VP get on ABR for talking about looking for connections?

[Albert B. Rampage]

@ABR: It was due to the start of the VP wagon (like I mentioned). That particular instance looked scummy as hell from somewhere; and you and SC were the two that were involved. Since I'm getting a better read on SC now, that leaves you that really .. tripped my trigger? in that instance.

from SOMEWHERE? What a lazy bum, I can't stand this guy!

[SerialClergyman]

VP didn't, Amished, PorkchopExpress did.

[Albert B. Rampage]

Listen up. I'm going to go hide under Ojanen's skirt or Zorblag's bridge until you people make up your MIND about why your vote is on me.

I'm going to be completely honest: my early Day 1 play is to basically carry a chip on my shoulder. So if you're a townie or a mason, or even scum, you should get the hell out of my crossfire until you have ice solid evidence to mislynch me. You vote for me, I vote you back. As simple as that. You want to guarantee an extra useful bandwagon vote if the tables turn on you, be my guest. This is my early Day 1 play. Get used to it.

[Amished]

Oh, different person talking to without my @ thing or something; I got confused.

@ABR: Yes, from somewhere in there (one of you two). Since I feel comfortable cutting half the somewhere out of my somewhere, I'm lead somewhere else that I'm comfortable being. Yeah, follow that >_>

[Albert B. Rampage]

Go back, find your somewhere, post it, and explain it. Hater.

[Amished]

I know exactly why my vote is on you, it's just hard to put it into words. Your "pufferfish" dealio isn't (and shouldn't) scare anybody off.

[Albert B. Rampage]

It's hard to put into words because it's hard to imagine why you would think that I'm scum besides the fact that you're hating on me.

[Amished]

Between 126 and 130; you unvote and revote for VPB. It's specifically 130 that your tone while being after SC's 128 and VP's 129 that I think it's bad. I didn't realize that you had your vote on VP before that point so that's not part of it either.

To try to put it another way, you don't seem like somebody that would resign yourself to anything, and your "Ah what the hell" is pretty much exactly that from my perspective.

[Amished]

Actually, I have a lot of respect for you as a player and you're pretty much the only one that I actively looked for finished games to read and try to pattern my game around you; but not exactly cause I didn't (and still don't) think I can pull off about half the stuff you can. Hate has nothing to do with it.

[Albert B. Rampage]

That's because I don't actually think VPB's role is as scummy as his strategy is stupid. You would know this if you read the thread.

[Albert B. Rampage]

Actually, I have a lot of respect for you as a player and you're pretty much the only one that I actively looked for finished games to read and try to pattern my game around you; but not exactly cause I didn't (and still don't) think I can pull off about half the stuff you can. Hate has nothing to do with it.

Your respect is severely misplaced. I used to burn ants when I was young.

[Amished]

Wow 263 is an abomination of the English language.

Points instead so I'm less confused about what I said.
1) First staring MS.net, I only looked for ABR games.
2) Tried to develop a style similar to ABR, looking more at gut reads and stuff
3) Realized that I'm not that good and didn't make it quite to where ABR is.

[Amished]

Does a stupid strategy really warrant a vote? If you can see where he's coming from (if he's town which you apparently do) you can pretty much say "knock it off" and you'd illicit a better response than a vote where you say he's scummy.

Meh, I did that too, I used my Grandma's big magnifying glass >_>

[Albert B. Rampage]

Does a stupid strategy really warrant a vote?

In a nutshell, no. But rather than look for little scummy intricacies to base a vote on, I just skip the pleasantries and go right into OMGUS. Think of it as my counter-strategy or insect repellent.

I'm kinda bummed about my attitude from the start of this game. It might have something to do with the timing of my post-writing colliding with real life colliding with problems trying to sneak their way into the aforementioned real life.

Don't get any ideas because I'm not excusing myself. I find my play absolutely defensible and relatively coherent (for me) so far.

If your vote isn't based on hate, I don't know what it is based on because VPB's bandwagon vote echo mine to a fault. Why are you choosing to vote me over VPB when we have done the same thing? Why is charlie opting for the same choice? Maybe you have double standard issues, maybe you're trying something new, maybe you have bias, I really can't tell. I don't know.

But so far, I have 3 votes. One for a preposterous, untraceable meta claim, and two for double standards. So the sooner people refine their standards for voting, the sooner we can get to lynching non-ABR targets.

[Amished]

Regardless of where your vote was before 126 (cause I didn't realize it at first, and since you unvoted signaling that you really didn't have much against him {VP} up until then), you're basically saying that you're OMGUS'ing due to 127 cause 129 by VPB isn't anything against you.

In 127 VP basically says that you're more reactive this game than he remembers you. So instead of proving him wrong; you go on a .. 4 page vote-park on him to the exclusion of talking about much else that I remember; while I know that VP has been the source of discussion while you've gone on the back burner for the rest of the town. As such, there's been much more information to analyze around VP and discern his alignment while the same hasn't been for you.

An added benefit that I didn't expect from having my vote on you is that you're talking more about yourself which is actually quite useful in discerning your alignment. So far I'm leaning scum based on what you've said about yourself; and this is also drawing attention to you which is good for the town no matter your alignment.

What I think is most telling, especially about your most recent post, is that for the longest time you had every intention of pushing for VP's lynch (indicating that you think he's scum). If you see so many parallels between the two of you; how do you justify the pressure if you're town? Your claim that you just wanted to pressure him *after* SC left the wagon seems especially revisionist and not something I'm really buying.

[Albert B. Rampage]

Yeah, fair enough.

[charlatan]

charlatan, however, did not. I also am NOT loving the 'arguments are contrived on both sides, I'm prepared to vote on either' from him either. Charlatan jumps striaght into the number two scummy position.

Well, that's convenient for you. So, two players I find particularly scummy early in the game are arguing, and I also think the points they are raising against each other are largely weak (which I believe to be a more or less reliable scumtell early in the game). What, specifically, about that is troublesome to you? Is it just that they're arguing that somehow makes it illegitimate? Do you feel that I have no basis to say that I find one or both of them scummy?

The same question goes for Ramp, of course, since he dropped another solid "QFT" in regards to that.

As for the "lynch all liars" stuff, that was indeed a miscommunication, and actually also a misreading on my part. I had LAL quote tagged at the end of his ISO 28 in my head, which was about Ramp.

Obviously, I agree with him in regards to the disconnect between Ramp's stated intentions for his votes and what they actually accomplish (and, as such, what his real intentions might be, as surmised surmised using -- get this -- my mind.) I do not agree that Ramp is playing apart from him meta style-wise, in terms of being OMGUS-y, the cockiness, etc. In fact, those are my fave parts about him. I also do not like that VP tried to call a scumpair so early, then later stuck by it as a legitimate supposition. (I fully expected him to just be baiting Scien, really.)

@charlatan - Why aren't you voting VP Baltar?

Because I'd rather be voting Rampage at the moment.

It's reasonable and I assume that you'd already gotten the reaction from me when you gave your "let me turn your question around on you" answer that you gave. Clearly I could make guesses about what you were up to but saying that I had already answered for you when I hadn't and being coy doesn't help us evaluate your play nearly as much as a straightforward answer.

Troll, I knew this would annoy you greatly, and for that I'm sorry. But your assumptions are incorrect. When I did not answer you succinctly, it was because I still had hope that it would serve a purpose with Amished, for reasons I already stated. I have no particular reason to muddy your read of me, but I also have no particular reason to cater to what makes things easiest for you. I will not abandon something that might help me catch scum to make the game easier for someone of unconfirmed alignment, and saying "ha, just kidding guys, back to serious" would be cutting my own legs out from under me. When I said you "answered your own question" I was, of course, referring to being purposely hard to read for approximately five pages, and had a faint glimmer of hope that I'd be given license to do that.

Additionally, I made you wait all of four pages for a real response. I maybe would've given it even sooner, but you weren't even here.

But so far, I have 3 votes. One for a preposterous, untraceable meta claim, and two for double standards. So the sooner people refine their standards for voting, the sooner we can get to lynching non-ABR targets.

What double standard are you referring to?

By the way, in regards to your comments about who has solid meta on you: I've played two games with you as scum and read one or two as town, and the defenses based on your claimed meta are both common and at least some of the time untrue, so I consider the whole line of argument to be a solid waste of town time. (I'm hoping you'll link me to a wiki article or something in response; that would be cute.)

[charlatan]

What double standard are you referring to?

To clarify -- I don't see how you are referring to my vote as a double standard when I've labeled both you and VP as scummy (and you are supposedly voting me for this very reason). I also don't think what you did and what he did are actually the same anyways, but clarification would still be very kind of you.

[VP Baltar]

Everyone, cut it out about the LAL stuff. I'm sure he as scum didn't think he was going to pull a fast one and deny it out of existence. As soon as he starts yelling in capitals that he didn't do something he obviously did it's a breakdown in communication, not a scumtell. Was going to rip into sando, but he had the good sense to reread and come to the same conclusion.

This paragraph surprised me a bit. Earlier I didn't feel like SC was playing to his town-meta as much, particularly when he seemed to be directly hunting scum rather than town-hunting (which is what I have come to expect from him). However, I don't think it is likely that a scum-SC would seek to ease those kinds of attacks. +big town points here

What was weird to me about the exchange with VP was that, at least form my perspective, he made a bad point on Sando, I pointed it out and he went straight to 'you're full butt hurt for your friend'. No looking at other games I've played with sando where were town-town fought and scum accused, no acknowledgement that in the game he's drawing his conclusions off I was right and the wagon I was pushing instead was scum that was never lynched. And I barely said anything in sando's favour, my main point was that VP was deflecting with a shallow attack.

I'm basing it off of my experience with you two from Quick and Dirty. Now, I do indeed recognize that you were correct about Sando's alignment in that game (let's not forget that I ended up agreeing with you there eventually), and you deserve plenty of credit there. However, my issue comes with what you are defending him over and how vehemently you both want to step in on attacks against the other. My general philosophy toward mafia is to try and let players defend themselves unless you are like 90% certain you know what their alignment is. In this particular instance, I would say that you are most likely not that certain about Sando's alignment and so I find it irritating when you respond to something I say to him as if you were his guardian angel. You did do something similar in Quick and Dirty when I was first attacking Sando and it annoyed me there too because it undercuts me trying to get my own reads on players. Like I said before, I don't expect to convince either of you that you're being slightly biased, but that's my perspective on it.

I just find the way he latches on to me pretty scummy. If he drops his ridiculous accusations I'll probably explore new avenues of discussion too.

So now you're bargaining to get me to back off? I'm open to plenty of other avenues of discussion, but I'm also quite happy that in the least my attacks on you have generated plenty of discussion and stance taking by a large number of players.

Albert B. Rampage plays a game that makes people think that he's scum. He does it when he's scum or town. He lies about his views when he thinks there's a temporary gain to be had from it, he throws suspicions around for no good reasons other than to get reactions, he does whatever he thinks will get a rise out of other players in order to get reads on them, he's perfectly willing to jerk people around and avoid answering questions to see how they'll squirm under pressure and how they'll try to apply it.

Ok. And I respect that you have a better meta of him than I do, so I'm certainly taking it under advisement. That being said, at what point do you personally try to determine his alignment and stop saying, 'Oh, that crazy ABR. He's so silly'?

Even if a player is known to play uselessly for most of the game, I'm still inclined to push what would otherwise be considered scummy actions and try to figure out that player's alignment. I mean, look at Quick and Dirty and how much ABR got a pass for doing very little.

Same thing could be said about DDD's lurking here too.

You say that there's no reason for experienced town to have acted as Albert B. Rampage did. If that's true then there should really be no reason for scum to react that way either; clearly an experienced player would know better. It's not true though, a perfectly good reason for town (or scum) to act that way would be to draw reactions out of the other players and that's exactly what I would expect from Albert B. Rampage.

Yeah, and I have considered that to some degree. I do think a scum is more likely to play a reactionary game than a town is, however, because ultimately they do know they have something to hide. It is possible that ABR was acting for reactions, but I think him going back and forth on whether or not he thinks I'm scum as players have questioned or supported him respectively is a bit shady and beyond what you are describing as the same old lovable ABR.

To stick up for ABR somewhat, I have specific meta of Albert town making the request to not hunt for connections in a friends and enemies game.

This is a fair enough point and not something I think would be likely to come from scum. Was it outwardly discussed in that game afterward or is this something you are just now mentioning for the first time?

That's because I don't actually think VPB's role is as scummy as his strategy is stupid. You would know this if you read the thread.

Actually, you've stated both positions at various times, seemingly as the tide has shifted. I do agree that our little back and forth has probably run its course at this point, but being revisionist doesn't fly in my book, young 'un.

But rather than look for little scummy intricacies to base a vote on, I just skip the pleasantries and go right into OMGUS. Think of it as my counter-strategy or insect repellent.

Can you link some recent games as town so I can see this in action?

Well, that's convenient for you. So, two players I find particularly scummy early in the game are arguing, and I also think the points they are raising against each other are largely weak (which I believe to be a more or less reliable scumtell early in the game).

In fairness, the points I've raised about ABR haven't really changed since you first agreed with me and voted him. There's merely been some elaboration. So, if you think the points are weak (which is apparently scummy), I don't understand why you voted in the first place

Because I'd rather be voting Rampage at the moment

This seems intentionally obtuse. Troll, eat this man's first child.


Porkchop, you actually playing this game or just visiting?

[Zorblag]

@Charlatan, by the time I asked about your irreverence you'd already had reactions from Amished. He wasn't just attacking you for asking about lunch but rather was trying to figure out what you were up to. I won't deny that you should be given a chance to scum hunt as you see fit but to continue not to give a straight answer at that point looks more like an attempt to bait Amished into doing something you can attack than trying to judge how he'll react.

I also have to admit that the pattern of evasive answers I've gotten from people this game has lowered my tolerance for it; it's a bad precedent to set in a game as I said earlier.

@VP Baltar, it's time to stop giving Albert B. Rampage a pass for being Albert B. Rampage when he stops being Albert B. Rampage. Here's what I said to you about him not playing the game I expected in Mini 880.

Regarding Albert B. Rampage, I've only played with him in newbie games before so I expect a bit of a different approach to this game then I've seen from him in the past. In those other games he played the role of an agitator or a catalyst. He's not afraid to play abrasively and directly against the expectations that people have to get reactions. I'm not seeing that in this game but I've seen him play as both town and scum in the newbie games so the lack of that behavior isn't much of an indicator on it's own. What might be is that I believe that he must have been interested in joining this game from the start. BigBear had him ready as a potential replacement from the first time it got raised in game as an issue. I know that with his first post he said that he was going to be V/LA for the next week or so but even taking that into account I don't see the engagement that I think I'd expect. A part of that is going to be the game itself which has an off pace but I tend to think that an interested town Albert B. Rampage would be raising more dust than he has.

Albert B. Rampage when he's playing a good town game is a catalyst. He gets things going and polarizes issues. That he uses unconventional tactics to do it doesn't make his play useless at all as people are more likely to react to it and reactions to unusual play are valuable for determining alignments. When he gets stuck in a rut, actually starts hurting the ability of others to scum hunt with distractions or stops participating in the game (like he did in Mini 880) is when it's time to start looking at him seriously.

In the end here you're welcome to do what you want regarding him but I've seen nothing in his play that makes me want to move him out of the neutral category so far. As I said earlier, with Albert B. Rampage you want to watch how his game flows rather than the individual things that he's doing in order to get a better read. The sort of switching of opinions on you for example is something that I've seen him do as town; he's not settling on something yet so as of yet he doesn't worry me overly.

I actually do recognize that I've got a double standard here regarding acceptable play from charlatan and Albert B. Rampage. It's clear to me as I type this post. I suspect that it's due to expectations based on what I've seen of their play individually and I'll think a bit to see if that seems fair.

Also, I don't disagree with VP Baltar about Debonair Danny DiPietro. But that should be clear from my previous post.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh