Newbie 906 - Game Over!

[PranaDevil]

I be here to

/confirm

[PranaDevil]

ell oh ell @ PE.

This time I won't be replacing a scummy as hell player, though, so expect to get caught, scum!

But I'm not scum this time! I promise!

But that's just a Paltry Excuse... sorry.

*backs out of thread after his bad joke*

[PranaDevil]

Then someone drag that mod in here kicking and screaming dagnabbit, we only have one player left to confirm XD.

As for the bad jokes, there may be more doing them, but nobody can tell a bad joke as badly as I can. ^_^

[PranaDevil]

That made me think of Kung Pow... please tell me it was meant to do so.

Oh, and better for the avatar? :p. I be Dick Devil, master villain extrodinaire, Muwahahaha... *ahem*

[PranaDevil]

Very Depp.

Y'get it, y'get it? Oh Sild!

[PranaDevil]

I'd rather deal with bad prunes if it's all the same :p

[PranaDevil]

It's Dick Dastardly, of Wacky Races and "Dastardly & Mutley in their flying machines" (AKA Stop The Pigeon).

The Dick Devil thing was a bad joke based on my name ^_^.

It was that or a moving gif of a Polar Bear, but I'm not sure if moving gifs are allowed, nor if it was too big (as Iit's 35.1kb, so slightly over the limit)

[PranaDevil]

Apology accepted :p

[PranaDevil]

Personally, I think the box of biscuits beside my computer looks shifty, so I'll happily lynch every last one of them for everyone's sake.

In the meantime I'm going to:

vote jmurph3

For turning up late, it's not fashionable, it's scummy bah gawd!

[PranaDevil]

RVS stage or not, that was some damned fast vote switching. 9 whole minutes? Hmmmm. I shall be keeping my eye on you.

[PranaDevil]

Personally with a name of Dick Devil he would be more suited to being scum as opposed his current role of town.

Although I do sorta wish I had signed up under the name of Dick Devil, it's got a ring to it. Drat and double drat!

[PranaDevil]

But it wouldn't go with the avatar then, and I damned sure ain't about to go trying to edit a rubber duck with Dastardly's hat on it... though that would be awesome.

and if jmurph is carmen sandiego... that poses problems, how the smeg do we lynch someone we can't find?

[PranaDevil]

Yeah, but kelyn I'm not about to jump lynch someone because they "might" pose a problem. However he does seem to be switching votes very fast does our Ray. Almost too fast for my liking.

FoS: RayFrost

[PranaDevil]

It's flip flopping, RVS or not, I don't like flip flopping, and OMGUS votes are also awful, makes me more wary of trusting in the future as you can't stick to something.

Scummy, very scummy.

unvote; vote: RayFrost

[PranaDevil]

If you're town... you're behaving really, really erratically, if you're mafia, you're bringing a hell of a lot of attention to yourself.

Confusing the abba out of me I'll say.

[PranaDevil]

To quote Zachrulez on my playstyle, a player I've played with multiple times, "you are eccentric and erratic" or something like that

I agree with Zach.

Vote stands though.

[PranaDevil]

Hold on kelyn... why have I suddenly been given your vote? Either you're chopping and changing for no reason, or you have a reason which you're not sharing with the town.

I do, however, agree with your point that someone not saying much at all D1 (this is on the condition we get further than just RVS, and actually begin the scumhunt) may well be scum, but by the same token, someone who talks a lot could be. Plus someone might just post occasionally due to not being online much and therefore not be able to post loads.

Of course if someone's entire contribution is to vote and nothing more, especially with no reason, it's possible they are scum (at least in a newb game as they might not be sure what to do).

I'm also loath to say this as part of me thinks you are extremely new (though I would strongly advise reading up on some games prior to play personally) and therefore want to just get information, but you could also have done lots of reading up and have taken the "I'm extremely new and know nothing about the game" to try and take us all for a ride to perhaps cover any tracks you may be leaving.

It leaves me with a 50/50 choice of going for a kelyn lynch (based off the weird change of votes, and the the possibility of acting very new thanks to the fact we're all new here).

I'm keeping my vote on Ray for now, but I'm considering a change to kelyn. Thus far.

[PranaDevil]

How was me thinking your voting style was "OMGUS"? Now had I suddenly voted for you, then fair play, but that seems to me like you're fishing for something that wasn't there.

[PranaDevil]

Yes, because it wasn't so much that you were voting for me, but that you were seemingly just randomly changing your votes needlessly.

Factor in that you've revealed you have indeed played the game before, and it makes me even more suspect to trust that you are actually town as you're playing very unsure about things, either deliberately or otherwise. If you've played the game as much as you say I doubt you would be having to ask so many questions.

[PranaDevil]

Oh I understand that (and in fact, after this game I shall be contacting kelyn as I would love some info on how to play it in real life as I have some friends who may well like this sort of game, and would love to work out how to sort that out to play easily), I just feel there would be more than enough crossover to not need to appear... well like a complete newbie.

As I've said, this is my second game anywhere at all, (and the other game is still ongoing elsewhere, so can't discuss that either), but I would like to hope I had a solid enough grasp myself to not need to ask certain things. Based on that, and the fact kelyn has stated he's played it a lot elsewhere makes me suspect him.

But I'll stress again I don't think just that would be enough to consider a lynch on him, all barring a couple of us are pretty new at the game in some form, be it online or outright, and so what might come across as scum initially may just be "noob mistakes" as they say, and I'd be shocked if nobody ever made any.

By the same token, I wouldn't let that concern hold me back from a potential lynch as I'd rather assume someone is scum but not be sure and lynch to find out their town, than be unsure, and find out their scum in the endgame.

I apologise for my somewhat rambling too, I'm terrible at keeping things short and precise.

[PranaDevil]

But that's just it, it's the way he's random voting, just jumping around mid post, had he had some reason or something, then fair play, but to say something, vote me, then say something else, when the things being said are towards others, it just seemed strange, that was my view on the matter.

As for the hard hook, it would all depend on the player, I admit I talk a lot, it's just second nature to me (and something I can't stop unfortunately, short of just not posting). Others might just post when they have something relevant to add regardless of being town or scum in both instances.

The only way you'll be able to work anything out based on that would be, really, to read all their past games to see how they play in each situation and try working down what they do.

Instead it's sometimes better to go with gut instinct, and (later in the game) see whatever your role (if you're lucky enough to have one) brings back, and if you don't have a role, see if others roles return anything useful.

[PranaDevil]

EBWOP

fuzzy, yes I would have voiced the same view (unless said vote was towards someone (I'm not checking specifics right now as it's not affecting anything) who he had been considering as scummy in that post).

It wouldn't be beneficial to the town if I had suspicions and kept them secret.

[PranaDevil]

Nah fuzzy, I answered it in the post I intended to post in, I just hadn't seen your post prior to my posting... I think I just confused the abba out of myself with that one. One eye's going to the shops and the other's now on it's way back.

My initial post was in response to redbox.

I agree that RVS ended sharply too. When I was reading some games previously I learnt one thing fast... RVS sucks if it doesn't get something moving quickly. I'd rather see something, call the poster on it (as I did with Ray) and see where things go from that.

[PranaDevil]

Interesting as rather than protesting I was more accusing.

But hey, one vote's as good as the rest, it's wrong, but 'tis a vote nonetheless.

[PranaDevil]

I'm actually somewhat liking the idea of jmurph3 based on earlier comments, as it's (thus far) one of the few things we can consider.

In fact...

unvote; vote: jmurph3

[PranaDevil]

Actually, I agreed more with what others had said, what's more to say than "yeah, good point well made"? If agreeing with others views was a scum tell then either everyone would be scum, or nobody would ever have more than a single vote on them.

[PranaDevil]

and how many "good" wagons turn up day one? most of the time it winds up being an accidental townie lynch anyway, at least if someone gets some pressure on them then they might reveal something. jmurph has been very quiet, perhaps some pressure might push her to talking more.

[PranaDevil]

I've been part of wagons that lynched scum day 1. In fact, I've

started

wagons that lynched scum day 1. (read one of the games I was talking about, scum got lynched D1 cuz of me awesome scumhunting skillz, and I got NKed night 1 cuz of me awesome scumhunting skillz)

But is that what "normally" happens in your games, or was that a one off?

Using "we are likely going to lynch a townie anyway" as reasoning to let any old lynch go through / avoid scumhunting is such terribad reasoning that it really reinforces my vote on you.

I never said it was good reasoning, in fact I said my reasoning was to instigate something, and if anything her choosing not to say something speaks volumes to me, perhaps it's being instantly wary of saying the wrong thing and causing "foot in mouth" syndrome?

In the words of Ronan Keating "you say it best when you say nothing at all" eh?

You are essentially saying that any lynch is good, regardless of who is lynched or the reasoning behind it. This is extremely bad and I can only really see scum motivation from it, since it shows apathy toward the quality of the case as long as the lynch goes through. This kind of logic is what scum would likely have considering that, as long as it isn't them or their buddy, scum don't care who dies.

See, this is where you are coming unstuck yourself, you're putting words in my mouth, I said it was more likely to land a townie lynch on D1, somehow that's me saying "any lynch is good" and no, it's not, I never said it was, but playing like it is does, indeed, perhaps draw out people desperate to get others off the hook, wouldn't you say?

Right now I have my suspicions on jmurph, but trying to put words in my mouth to turn people on me is blatantly scummy tactics there Ray.

unvote; vote: Ray Frost

[PranaDevil]

I didn't view the phrase "townie-lynch" to be roleclaiming, just saying that she's on the town side. I wouldn't view townie as roleclaiming a vanilla role, would be a bit... well, silly.

and no Ray, you were putting words in my mouth, I never once said any lynch is a good lynch, I said we are more likely to lynch a town on day one, and by that I mean "it's best to see what you can do, go for gut instincts, if someone gives something away that looks scummy, don't be afraid to go for it, and above all else, don't be afraid to jump on a bandwagon if you think the person looks scummy".

a jmurph bandwagon wasn't going to do much in the way of harm, as I was only on there to see what sort of response would come from it, the response being murph not being smurfed, and Ray jumping off the deep end with stuff I hadn't said.

I'm more than happy with my vote on Ray.

[PranaDevil]

and stop twiddling my thumbs, twiddle your own. :p

[PranaDevil]

@PD and PE: Don't be so quick to jump on a bandwagon. My vote against jmurph was an attempt to get him involved in the game, I want to see everyone posting content, and just agreeing with my case isn't a strong basis for either of your votes, because frankly, my case wasn't all that strong at the time that I made it.

@PD: I don't really see how RF was putting words in your mouth. It is not often good to lynch a townie, and resigning yourself to the belief that you are going to lynch a townie is not a pro-town choice.

Except I pointed out why I jumped on the bandwagon, and that was to try and see if it made jmurph say more, and... it didn't.

As for "resigning" myself to the belief of going to lynch a townie, that's blatantly wrong. There's a world of difference between "resigning" yourself to it, and not being scared of trying to put pressure on someone based on the fact they might be town.

Personally, if you're not willing to put some pressure on someone to see what they do, that would be less pro-town than trying to squeeze some information out of them that might be useful.

The information I've gleaned thus far from all this is jmurph keeps her mouth shut when pressured, and she's not really saying much to help the town either. While Ray seems very quick to defend her and force words in someones mouth to try making them seem scummy.

I'm even considering the possibility of the two of them working as our scum team right about now.

[PranaDevil]

@PranaDevil –

the fact kelyn has stated he's played it a lot elsewhere makes me suspect him

By this logic, why aren’t you attacking Ray or Paltry?

jmurph has been very quiet, perhaps some pressure might push her to talking more.

You don’t think the first 2 votes were pressure enough to make her talk? What if 1 or 2 other people agreed and started voting her? Would you let her die?

To the first bit, either you're twisting my words deliberately, or have just missed it.

I meant that he's playing very new, but yet stated he's experienced at playing the game. That makes me curious as to the amount of questions asked and uncertainty from him, as though deliberately playing "new".

I never said that playing lots of games is inherently scummy, otherwise I'd just throw a vote on whichever IC or SE came up first.

Incidentally, I am currently voting Ray.

As for the second bit, unless her response made her seem scummy, I damned sure wouldn't be keeping my vote on her if I saw another jump on there I'd be removing my vote swiftly if there was no actual reason to keep it on there beyond "let's put pressure on her".

But I am very impressed with your information on Ray and his continual switching of opinions and hypocrisy in the game. Amazing bit of researching that only serves to confirm my view that he's scum.

[PranaDevil]

For the sake of expanding skill, why don't you think Ray is scum? And do you believe anyone else might be, and your reasons why?

[PranaDevil]

What I've gained from this thus far is that Ray is attacking me and hoping others will follow his lead after getting extremely defensive about jmurph, and while that isn't inherently scummy, it depends, to me, on the player, and also how much information you have on the person.

Example:
Ray is the cop, night 1 he investigates jmurph and it brings back an innocent response. The last thing he then wishes to do is roleclaim cop day 2, he may as well be sticking a bright neon sign above his head saying "mafia aim here" with a huge arrow. So he would do whatever possible to claim her innocence and convince people otherwise in some form.

But we're on day one, we don't know who the cop is... hell, we don't know if we're in a game with just a doctor and no cop, or even if we're in a game with just vanilla townies and the mafia. All we know is that people are all claiming to be town side, so to defend someone to such an extent even after it was pointed out that the entire reason for the bandwagon was "it's a fake bandwagon to see what happens" just sounds like you're desperate to keep her in the game for whatever reason by convincing everyone else she's town, and the only reason I can conclude would be that you already know otherwise. As you wouldn't have been still so defensive on her behalf if you had no clue and knew it was an attempt to get some information out of someone. (Incidentally I feel we did... but it came out of Ray's mouth, not jmurph's).

So that would, in theory, give us a scum team of Ray & jmurph, which I would count as a possible.

The other option is that Ray has been taken the wrong way, and he's made a good point about fuzzy (Who, as an aside, I so want to call "The fuzz", which would be even funnier if he flipped cop based on that), in that the only reason he would leave out a question for apathy would be if he knew he didn't need any information from him.

Which now means we have two potential scum teams:
RayFrost + jmurph3
or
fuzzylightning + apathy.

For my money right now though (not that I'm a gambling man), I'm still thinking Ray's the guy we should be lynching, things haven't added up, and with all his flip flopping about even if he is town, it's not really letting us get a read on him, nor helping us any in finding much information out elsewhere by attacking plays being made to actively start drawing out information.

[PranaDevil]

I'm not speculating about whether you're the cop, I'm using an example, until a cop roleclaimed or at least made blatant hints towards the role, I wouldn't even consider guessing who they were. I was using said example to point out why your seemingly desperate bid to defend jmurph looked scummy to me (in that the only way you would know if she was pro-town would be information gleaned on night 1, which we're not even into yet. Or if you are scum. In which case you might be trying to save her to look better yourself, which would still deserve a lynching.)

As for the bandwagon being for reaction fishing, even after I stated rather point blank what it was for, you still were finger me out (ooer) over it. Which to me was saying more than jmurph was by keeping quiet about it.

As for the flip flopping, it's like apathy said, you seem to say one thing and do another, sort of "do as I say, not as I do". But jumping the votes around just seems weird unless you're fishing for information on those people, but there didn't seem to be a great deal of a reason for that throughout much of the game so far.

In saying that, I will admit you picking up on the fuzz's questions was well done (and I hadn't even noticed it, so it's something I do intend to keep an eye on in future), and in the morning I shall go back and look at it closer (namely fuzz's posts I mean), so if indeed it turns out fuzz is mafia, then it would be a safe bet to go for apathy after. (Same, of course, would go if Ray flips mafia, in which case a swarm on jmurph would be a good bet).

For now I'm going to head to bed, get some shut eye, and return in the morning to have a good look over some of fuzz's posts to see if, perhaps, he had already had some interaction with apathy earlier in the thread prior to his questions or not.

[PranaDevil]

Okay, I'm up, I'm awake, and on looking at fuzzy's posts, he's back off my radar. He hadn't ignored apathy at all, and had earlier asked whether targeting just Ray was a good idea early on and whether looking out others is a good idea (Post 110).

As for Redbox's comments, well you're comparing two totally seperate things now. I've only made one vote which can even be somehow percieved as "OMGUS" and that was on kelyn which I gave solid reasons for. So my responses to other things would depend on whether the content is actually worth responding to, but I've not just gone after someone purely because they went after me. That would achieve nothing D1.

[PranaDevil]

Hold on, where does redbox say you are jmurph's scum buddy? He merely states that jmurph could be scum with someone else telling her to keep quiet and let them take the heat, not "Ray's saying to let him take the heat".

redbox could be inferring me, or Apathy, or anyone else who's posting a bit, just because they aren't defending murph doesn't mean they aren't with her.

Which just sounds like, once again, you are doing a job of trying to twist someone elses comments around to attack them, just like you did with me earlier.

[PranaDevil]

We may not have, but redbox has been backing you up, which leads me to believe he didn't think it was you, and instead thought it was someone else who was distancing themselves from jmurph.

Your response to him has, as far as I'm concerned, made me even more convinced you are scum and got jumpy with his comments towards jmurph, put 2 and 2 together and came up with 10 somehow, and decided he was insinuating you, when I saw nothing of the sort.

[PranaDevil]

No, I agree that certain parts of his post seem rather worthless, and agree in that much, but that doesn't change that part of it was worthwhile, and your response to it is much bigger to note in my eyes.

and who the smeg is lamont craston? This is only the second game I've ever played of mafia, the the first one is only on day two itself.

I think the fact I had also suggested a Ray/murph team has also got you rattled, as I suggested that earlier, and redbox posted an idea that murph's partner was keeping her quiet. Not state who, it was you who jumped to the conclusion that it meant you, nobody stated it was though. Just because you are (currently) taking the most heat, doesn't necessarily follow that redbox thought it was you.

In fact, in his view I was seeming the most scummy as based on his vote, so I could have assumed he perhaps meant I was telling her to let me take the heat instead. Which is why I feel that you jumping at that part has me almost as sure as I think I'll ever be of D1 scum short of someone waving their hands around shouting "hey, I'm scum!"

[PranaDevil]

I have to ask why a lynch this early is "foolhardy". Just because there's a 3 week deadline doesn't mean we have to wait it out until day 20 before deciding who to lynch if we feel there's enough information (and personally I think there is)

I'm happy with my vote, and I'm sorry Paltry, but I don't see removing it would do us any good. Anyone removing a vote wasn't set on it in the first place, and if we're going to vote Ray at all, especially with us all having reasons like we do, then we want him lynched. Removing it would be detrimental to the whole idea of "we think he's scum, lynch him".

[PranaDevil]

unvote

Okay Paltry, fair point, but I'm unvoting for two reasons, your point is the minor one, the major is I'm going to go read all posts Ray's made (and read your last one Paltry) to respond to all things he thinks are being avoided.

[PranaDevil]

Initial note: The post numbers I'll be referencing will only match up if you change the "display post" thing at the bottom to just Ray, so it shows just his posts.

(Post 32)

First off, you began by pressuring people to read your previous games. Now that may be just to show that you post a lot anyway, but personally basing a game around meta isn't such a good thing. It's one thing if you play with the same handful of guys all the time, but on a site like this someone's gameplay can change slightly between games based on roles anyway. So wanting people to read other games you're in, seemingly as a defense no less, seems worrying.

(posts 33 and 34)

I'll also agree that you don't necessarily have something to hide by posting a lot (chances are I shall be doing the same, though not to Ray's extent overall because I don't play ten billion games at a time :p), I have a tendancy to ramble when I get going, and so it tends to be either a short burst, or a long multi paragraph ramble, I rarely land something in between, at least from what I've noticed of my posts in the past 10 years of being online.

(Post 36)

Apathy did make a bad call on the WIFOM thing, but it didn't come across as anything but a simple disagreement on views, and sure as hell wasn't such an issue as to make me throw votes in his direction.

However he made a point about that you've been posting a lot and not really saying much (at that point he's correct, and I'll decide as I continue reading if indeed you have said much beyond defensiveness, random votes, and OMGUS votes).

I also didn't see Apathy insult you, a light hearted joke perhaps, but not an insult, so it came across sort of, well, like an appeal for emotion to be honest.

(Posts 37 & 38)

You begin jumping on me for jumping on a bandwagon to get information, not that long after you had been stating that "wagons are good" thereby going right back on your own comments, and subsequently ignored my reasons for doing so and pushing people in my direction. (Something you are now saying is a bad thing when you're on the opposite end of it, hm?)

You then spend a few posts arguing something I never said, and putting words in my mouth, something scum would do, not something town would do.

For a few posts we then have the "jmurph claimed townie" thing which again wasn't beneficial to town either, just served to go nowhere and draw attention to that and off the issue that had been happening (namely fingering you as scum).

Also you try saying Skill chose not to read the thread through by voting for you, just because you made a defense doesn't mean everyone should instantly feel it needs to be taken at face value, same as there's not much need to give reasons if the reasons have already been made elsewhere.

(Post 52)

This is just long, and goes nowhere as the only points that are defended are the weak parts of Apathy's post, not the main ones from halfway through Apathy's post. The majority of it however is simply pointless issues like the town/townie one, and going back to the "bad wagon" stuff despite already confirming that myself and fuzzy had reasons to do it.

(Post 54)

This is where you AGAIN put words in my mouth, claiming I'm saying you're a cop, when I blatantly have no clue. For something that was a clear as day example you try and twist it round to me PR fishing, which is an obvious falseness and just makes you look scummier.

(Post 55)

redbox now gets the brunt of the flames for simply making his mind up publicly about people? Oh, and of course the fact you're putting words in his mouth too (that's three times you've done that Ray, twice on me, once on redbox).

Worthless jibber jabber meant to avoid giving stances on people is scummy.

Something I will note that reading through some of this, you've been doing yourself, as recently as post 52 in fact really.

aaaand... that's about it.

I don't see where your 80% defensiveness comes into it, a lot of the time it's been out and out putting words where there weren't any, and deliberately trying to turn people on others for something they haven't said, but you've seen you can get something out of to try getting the heat off you.

Your defenses have been next to nonexistant, and laughable, such as

post 63

, where you post:

In addition, the fact you guys have not entertained any other possibilities gives you (if any of you are scum) the ability to vote just about anybody else on the wagon, since none of your reads have really been a confident "I think this person is town" read.

Which you're basically saying unless we can confirm the 7 town we shouldn't lynch, and that nobody is making any other possibilities. Despite me saying I thought you and jmurph were working together, and I still think that's a possibility. And the fact I posted that it's possible Apathy and fuzz are a team.

Just because at this moment in time I (and others) think you are the strongest possibility at being scum doesn't change that other thoughts are milling around.

Oh, and finally, as for redbox thinking he might be voting with scum... he also wouldn't be voting for you if he didn't think you were scum (unless he is scum obviously), but if I had 3 people I thought could be scum, I wouldn't hang back and not vote just because I might be voting with scum, I'd vote for someone I think is scum whether other scum are voting or not.

So... that all being said, I don't think anyone else should remove their vote from Ray. I'll be returning with my vote end of Sunday/early Monday, although if another vote turns up on him, I shall add my vote back on and get the scum lynched.

[PranaDevil]

I was voting murph to get more information from her because she hadn't been giving any. I highly doubt anyone would say I've not been trying to scum hunt and draw information out of people, factor in that his entire theory of going after me seems to stem from me going after him on actual points, and they become two different issues that cannot be compared.

As for who I think redbox was talking about. I don't think he had anyone specifically in mind, and was just putting that idea out there rather than holding onto it. Isn't it better that if you have a view, that you mention it to the town so others may be able to add to it, than hide it from view where nobody can comment?

But being that he seemed to be thinking I was scummy as well, then it would make sense if he thought me, and figured my attacking jmurph was to distance myself from her (Hell, if I was in his shoes, I would figure that as a possibility anyway, just because on day one everything's a possibility and it's focusing on what you feel is most scummy that's important).

As for me leaving jmurph alone, I don't think she's as much of an issue as Ray is right now, that's not to say I am throwing away any possibility of her being scum, it's still likely, though the fact she has since wondered why Ray defended her so much means either she's town and feels he was defending her so much to appear pro-town, or she's scum and was wondering why he was defending her to such an extent it was drawing more heat towards it instead.

It could well be that Ray and jmurph are scum, and Ray's defending of her seemed strange, so she distanced herself quickly from him by voting for him and questioning his defence of her.

Either way, all it has done is make me more confirmed on Ray than anything else.

[PranaDevil]

I'm talking about Ray, sorry. I should have been more clear.

Basically, what you were asking was why my posts contradicted each other.

In post A (from your previous quotes from me) I was mentioning putting pressure on someone who didn't seem that actively involved in the game to see if anything came of it (It did, in the form of Ray, but it did).

In post B I was pointing out that Ray was going after me and hoping others would follow (exactly the opposite of what I was doing with jmurph), which really only amounted to him going after me as an OMGUS type of deal. Also there was no need to "put pressure on me" because I have been talking pretty constantly anyway, and backing up my reasoning.

Therefore both are different issues, and there's no contradiction as they are from different points in the game.

[PranaDevil]

Defensiveness is not a scum tell, over-defensiveness is.

Yup.

As for "proper" defense. I would say not saying people are trying to claim others are certain roles, not jumping on someone for an obvious light hearted joke outside of RVS, don't go contradicting yourself by in one breathe saying a wagon is good, then suddenly a wagon is bad, and then ignore the reason that said wagon appeared for ages until it's seen that nobody was going to back you up.

Sorry Ray, but all I can see is that I've come up with some very good points about you, and all along you've done the "yeah but you did this", which is just something you've somehow made up from nothing, such as claiming I was hunting roles, or claiming I was trying to get a lynching bandwagon rolling, or in redbox's case, claiming he was insinuating you, when there's no evidence to that, just your assumption, and subsequent attack on him for it.

[PranaDevil]

I can't really lay it out much more "case by case" than I did in the earlier long post. That was quite blatantly case by case all the way through.

Also, it's the way you've been attempting (but failing) to defend yourself, it's been very aggressive and searching for any holes someone gives you, even when you need to attempt to create the hole to latch onto. Hence how you've managed to be "over defensive" without actually having a defense, so to speak.

Yes you did admit you were wrong about the wagon, however this was a long time after it was pointed out to you, as it had to be done multiple times. So to me that was saying you eventually backed off when you realized it was going nowhere to put the heat on someone else. (As it wound up putting more heat on you).

As for redbox, your "majority" was that he... didn't have any readings on some people yet? Why not lynch everyone else while we're at it then? It's hard to give thoughts on someone if you, yourself, have no thoughts on that person. Would it have been better if he made them up?

But it was that you assumed it meant you that made me more curious about it, especially on re-reading it when he never once said it was an experienced player giving her hints. Just that she was an inexperienced scum. Therefore it could, in theory, be anyone who was perhaps more experienced, not necessarily the SE or IC people. That could mean anything from someone who has spent time looking over the game and the various roles and such (like myself) to someone who has spent time playing it in real life (like kelyn).

[PranaDevil]

and PE, why do we actively need to spend a long time on things if current activities and actions lead us to possibly scum.

But I am getting the feel that you are trying to buy time for Ray, and not for town based reasons. I'm starting to get the feeling you're his scum buddy, and are trying to appeal to others to keep him alive, and keep discussion going, so you can find some way to take the heat off him, and so he can try twisting what others say more.

and yes, if it gets to L-1 for Ray, I will drop the hammer. I said as much earlier.

[PranaDevil]

Oh, and finally, as for redbox thinking he might be voting with scum... he also wouldn't be voting for you if he didn't think you were scum (unless he is scum obviously), but if I had 3 people I thought could be scum, I wouldn't hang back and not vote just because I might be voting with scum, I'd vote for someone I think is scum whether other scum are voting or not.

Who's not fully reading who's posts?

[PranaDevil]

and Ray, wanting more discussion is good if there's not much to go on, when we have a good solid case as far as I'm concerned, more discussion just gives the scum's partner time to get him out of the hole he's dug for himself.

What's more, if I was scum, you think I'd be stupid enough to go after you so heavily knowing that I'd be prime target A "when" (I use when, as if I were scum, I'd know 100%, as opposed to the 99% I have now) you flipped town? I'd have to be a damned ballsy mafia to try that kind of tactic.

[PranaDevil]

So just because you previously gave somebody a town reading means that they cannot do something to become more scummy thanks to later things cropping up?

I'll keep that in mind in the future, I can be as town as I like early on, then start acting shifty and pointing out holes that aren't there, and expect to get a free ride based on the fact everyone has already said I have to be pro-town.

Please, you're reaching now, very, very, obviously.

[PranaDevil]

Except for the possible pairing of fuzz and apathy, or the possibility of jmurph, or the fact if you flip town I'm likely public enemy number 1 (and hey, I'll take the rap for that if you flip town, though it's unlikely), or that PE (Which I never liked at school, narf) could be your scum buddy too.

I'd hardly say there's been no discussion elsewhere, and I'd doubt strongly that absolutely nothing would come from lynching you.

Best cast scenario, we're lynching mafia (which is the scenario I think will happen.)

But if we do stretch and consider the worst case scenario you, wind up town, and mafia pick off another town in the night, we can then write out two townies and look into possible reasons for why the person was killed in the night.

Whereas right now, for my money, more discussion gives scum time to look for an out of the hole that he's dug for himself.

[PranaDevil]

you're taking this awful personal Ray. That or you're attempting to scare me (and others) into not voting for you because it's "bad play", sorry, but nobody is to tell anyone else what good play is, and if you think me singling you out because, y'know, you've made the most scummy moves (or extremely bad mistakes) thus far, is somehow meaning I have tunnel vision (thanks for being my doctor, how much do I owe you? I'm not Abyss (TNA reference) y'know).

No, it's the fact you have put the finger on yourself with your actions that have made me go after you in this game. Everything I've previously mentioned is what has me singling you out right now. If you hadn't been putting words in peoples mouths so often, or contradicting yourself at times, etc. there would be no heat on you.

I have no issue, if you turn up town, going after issues that you brought up, I just don't believe you will turn up town (otherwise I wouldn't want you lynched), therefore your points in that case would be meaningless. If you somehow DID turn up town, then yes, I (and I expect others) would look at what you said. I thought that stood to reason?

---------------------

This bit is not involving the game at all people. But Ray seriously, stop taking things into such a personal way man. This is a game, and prior to the actual game part I found you to be a good decent bloke, trust me, I have absolutely nothing against you personally.

[PranaDevil]

But scum would want me to think I was wrong :p

But at least there's nothing personal there. I just felt you were taking it personal, or throwing stuff at me personally.

However I stand by my view that you're scum, but I still don't believe that I'm not paying attention to other players comments and such (and have mentioned things that even you have said that I think could be worth following up on).

I'm definitely not dismissing other players scummy actions. But there is times when you need to decide on who is the most scummy out of them all, and I do honestly believe it is Ray (as others seem to as well).

But you're off for an hour or so, but it's almost 3:30am here, so I'll be heading to be shortly, so will catch up in the morrow most likely then.

[PranaDevil]

EBWOP

Welcome jammer (Apologies if I call you Jammah at any point, I have a friend called that, and I'm bound to botch and typo somewhere along the line).

[PranaDevil]

Unfortunately jammer, I can't seem to get much information out of that post really other than stuff we've already kind of discussed, in that the only one showing signs of true scumness is Ray, and others are either neutral, or just "not as scummy so far"

Although you do mention that stretching the day out doesn't favour town, and I was trying to think up the best way of putting it, so thankyou for doing so, I do feel that a long stall wont help matters in finding scum.

Which actually made me suspect PE, not because he wanted to hold off on a lynch of Ray, because obviously, if you suspect someone might not be scum, you wouldn't want to quick lynch, and I can respect that from his POV. However, the "lets use more of the 3 week deadline" made me wonder why, why stretch out time for scum to cover their tracks and confuse everyone?

I wouldn't be surprised to nail PE as a potential co-mafia with Ray based on that. But it would be a weak case to bring forward based solely on that as I can, in theory, understand wanting to at least let others at least comment on this situation.

Oh, and jammer, don't worry about being dutch, you're only an hour ahead of me, I'm just the type of dopey fool who stays up until gone 3am normally XD.

[PranaDevil]

Sorry skill, I hadn't seen your post when I posted. Had planned to hit preview and wound up misclicking and hitting submit, lol.

You say I have a different view on how to play/read into things, but I don't really see that, people have actively agreed with some of my views, and you, yourself, have said you don't like how Ray's discrediting my points.

Is there any examples you can show that I've actually had a different view of reading something compared to others? And if so, would you say it's been a bad thing overall?

If I do spot something others haven't, that to me, is good and worth bringing up.

As for Apathy, you make a very good point about him only doing 2 posts, that is something I'll admit I did miss because there was a lot of posts by him, but most of them were asking to fix the previous ones. But it does make me wonder if he could be scum lurking too now. However it could also be that he just doesn't get much chance to post and thus does so in a big post when able.

I can also understand skill feeling a connection (infatuated is the wrong word) with someone you know. If I were playing here and landed in a game with someone I already knew (markish or Leech are the only two on the site that I actively know that I've seen around, but more could be here) then I would likely establish an early connection with them prior to the end of RVS. So that wouldn't be scummy in any way.

As for someone else potentially seeming scummier than Ray, it's possible, but in all honesty, unlikely. I'm trying not to say too much about Ray now as my feelings on that lynch are well known above, and going over old ground for about the tenth time would be pointless at this stage, it's known I want Ray lynched, and feel everything he's said about my points have (like you say) just been attempted to be discredited rather than actively defended. Thus my decision there is unlikely to change.

As for Apathy and fuzzy having a say, Apathy already has pretty much, even before it got heated he was voting Ray, so really it's more fuzzy we're waiting for, and while there's some possibility on him, it's not strong.

[PranaDevil]

I can see where you're coming from, and I will admit I do get a bit single minded in the "look, I have this here, let's do this" and wind up being a bit eager. I do think that things like the marathon games will be more my cup of tea here really, or at least games with shorter days. While the ones with long deadlines are good for those who have lots of other stuff going on, someone who's sitting at home bored like me winds up thinking about it more than others may, thus once I'm at point Z, everyone else could well still only be reading point D, lol.

I do feel that lots of discussion doesn't help us though, for the reasons jammer posted, but then different people have different views on it, I've seen as much reading through various games where people have wanted to keep discussion going and stated that's a benefit, and others where people wanted to only say anything relevant once out of the RVS to keep from giving scum too much information as well. I guess it depends on playstyles in that sense.

[PranaDevil]

Oh yeah it's about discussion, be stupid for us to all rush in vote and run off again after lynching someone purely based on who "looks" scummiest based on player name or something. But there comes a point you have to ask "is expanding discussion going to better this lynch or not?"

However, I will accept that we haven't had a great deal of input from others, and while I do think we should lynch Ray, we've done a lot in a short space of time, much quicker than most games get anywhere near a strong lynch, and some people perhaps do need to throw their views in the hat more.

Plus I will apologize to Ray, not because I don't think he's scum, I think he's the scummiest scum we have right now (:p), but because looking back I have been a little hot headed and "he's scum, lynch him" with it, and not focusing on others so much. I think that's part in how he responded to me (as it kept my focus on him, which is why I find him scummy) but by creating it into a big thing between me and him it's prevented me looking elsewhere as much as perhaps I should be.

Not that I haven't been looking at other things, although I will admit that a few times it's been based off the Ray issue more than anything else, and if by chance he does flip town then it would be somewhat harder to get a reading on others.

If I'm honest, I think I needed the sleep last night so I could go back into things with a clearer head than I had prior to doing so too.

So based on that, I will agree, a little holding back to get a bit more information may be useful, we don't need to delay the full three weeks as that would just be ridiculous as I feel the game is active enough to not need anywhere near that length for a day, but a bit of time to see where other people lie and such, then yes, fair enough.

[PranaDevil]

Prana said he'll hammer if anyone else votes... so we do have someone who would hammer.
The 3 weeks thing was more about how the only 2 who have a multitude of posts are Prana and RayFrost. The game basically consists of cases and comments and then Ray vs. Prana. We have 3 weeks, it wouldn't kill us to use more than 5-6 days. That was my point. We don't have to use the full 3 week deadline.
Plus, I gave more concrete reasons earlier (I needed to catch up, we had a replacement coming in). Not everyone has weighed in on the situation.

Though admittedly after jammer's post, I have since receeded on my "guarenteed" hammer thing, I do feel Ray's the scum, but after the rest and looking at things, like I say, we have been moving this at a rather quick pace compared to most other games here, and there are some who haven't said much, therefore I am agreed that I was a bit hasty saying we didn't need any waiting. I'm up for giving it a few more days to see where things lie with others comments and views on the situation.

But that's not to say my view is Ray needs a-lynching, just needs a-lynching a little bit later in the day (game wise at least).

And Ray, about jammer's reads, I was going to ask that myself, but somewhere in the middle of (I think) his first post he said everyone elses reads were neutral, which I admit I only noticed on a re-check of the post.

[PranaDevil]

Oh I agree PE, in fact, looking back on it, my reasons for considering you scum were based purely on Ray, and the assumption you wanted to stretch it the full 3 weeks. So the fact that you didn't mean that long, just enough time to get some reads on all players and see where people's stances were, then in that case, I don't feel you're scum. Not saying you aren't scum, just that issue shouldn't be counted in my eyes unless you do something else scummy, but that bit's obvious in regards to everyone.

Onto Ray's post towards the box (Though first off, if I hadn't pointed out previous posts you'd made, how could I have actually made note of what I was referencing?)

I have to be honest, Ray brings up plenty of good points about box. The issue about not using obscure references I think is more there to teach him rather than label him scum admittedly, but the last two paragraphs are... well now they're pointed out, rather strange, it IS a lot of maybes, when in actuality stating what was meant would have helped town a lot more, as it is, it continues leaving it open for debate.

In fact... it leaves it open for debate enough to continue getting Ray lynched, as though seeing Ray was basically up against the wall, and I was refusing to back down (as was jmurph, and it would appear apathy) it meant something like that could well go flying below the radar. Whereas if you had been blunt and said exactly who you meant, it would at least make some sense, rather than sitting on the fence.

Plus the issue with PE was somewhat following my lead, as opposed to looking at things seperately, that in itself I wouldn't necessarily class as a scum tell on it's own, as he could just be seeing me making good points and agreeing, but it does read strange in hindsight.

[PranaDevil]

I'm not sure if jmurph has been opportunistic in the voting of you, although it is a possibility, but red's does indeed come across rather strange, I'm still not certain if he might be scum or not, but it is a possibility.

[PranaDevil]

It wasn't that he "protected jmurph", it was that he continued pushing something after I pointed out that it was a non-issue, (namely the wagon) deliberately trying to force things in that direction at that point. This was not long after stating that wagons are good to draw information out of people no less, hence using it to do so, was apparently bad suddenly?

Ray put words in my mouth regarding stating I was trying to out power roles, when it was quite obvious I hadn't done so.

He also wasn't overdefensive in just defending himself, he was defensive in attempting to fire blame where there was none, I called him on points, he failed to actually defend them, kept arguing them, and also with his frustration posts accused me of not reading his posts, while at the same time as much as admitting he hadn't read mine.

Personally I think the Ray case is rather strong (Trying to say someone else has said something they haven't and hope others don't notice is rather scummy, especially when you then don't back down after something clear as day has been pointed out).

There are other people to consider (for one thing, there's 2 mafia to consider regardless), but if I had a hat, I would eat it if Ray turns up to be anything other than scum.

[PranaDevil]

Erm, PE, I'm surprised you prefer the vote on Skill, in preference to one on Ray considering your reasons for not voting Ray.

Skill's vote on Ray was, I'm pretty sure, still essentially in RVS, so not wholely serious, the scumhunting bit was just in the jokey phase anyway and I saw no bearing on anything in game to be honest.

The one on fuzzy was still early game, and so she wasn't set on it, I see no issue there.

I will agree she's somewhat staying in the background, but that could be said for a few people over the weekend (fuzzy for one of them).

Why she thinks Ray's town though, I have no idea, she's not actually given a reason for actually believing him, just that she does, although she has said she didn't like his discrediting of my arguments. Although if she's scum that could just be trying to keep heat on him while trying to defend him and appear pro-town.

But I don't see how what is essentially nothing more important than "she's defending Ray and not giving a reason" is a good reason to lynch.

I would like Skill to answer what she actually feels of Ray, is he seeming scummy or town? As it is that's the one thing I'm unsure of from Skill, she appears to be protecting Ray by backing him up, only to then say his discrediting of my issues she doesn't like, but then doesn't go in any deeper. Why don't you like it? What specifically did you feel was wrong, and does it make him scummy in your eyes?

[PranaDevil]

Actually Skill, that debate over that issue was part of it, sure, but not all of it. I also would point out that the debate raged because Ray took it as meaning him, when there was no indication of that whatsoever.

What I would like to point out, that has gone unnoticed, is that redbox answered the question about that... but somehow thought that the question was "who do you think is Prana's scum buddy", which shows that he wasn't paying as much attention, and appears to perhaps just be winging it.

Now he could be town getting muddled up, but he could be scum making a bad job of covering for earlier points.

So if Ray does flip town tomorrow, I would look at apathy for barely posting, redbox for various issues as have been brought up, fuzzy for the same issues I agreed with Ray about last night, and perhaps jmurph.

I would also be surprised if I wasn't looked into tomorrow as well, considering I've been the one most strongly for the Ray lynch out of everyone.

Of course, the NK might tell us something, depending on the level of skill in the mafia players that is. But right now my prime suspects are:

Ray (duh!)
redbox
fuzzy

I would say jammer, but that would be based off kelyn's previous appearance of seemingly noob questions, but yet has been playing it (albiet in real life) previously, but now we have a new player it's worth seeing where things go for now.

[PranaDevil]

I figure this is the first time you have been found out so early and are having a hard time dealing with the thought that a bunch of noobs outted you.

Something concerns me about this, and I've been dwelling on it all day just to think it through properly, and I'd like to hear other people's thoughts on it as well.

Initially on reading it I smiled and thought "yeah, I agree", but that was because the discussion was rather heated between me and Ray, the next day I pretty much forgot about that one line, but I began to think about it more as time went on.

This comment was blatantly written to goad Ray in more, as though trying to make him slip up further due to him getting emotional about things.

In fact I'd go so far as to say it's possible that scum knew Ray had put his foot in his mouth by accident, and saw town attacking town, and just tried piling on the pressure by adding not just a vote, but by throwing a baiting line in there to get him riled up, knowing full well that I wouldn't notice it so much, and hoping others missed it too.

Alas since calming down and looking over it, things like that start standing out, and things like that seem exceptionally scummy. Especially as it gives no actual town benefit except to throw something rather personally attacking in Ray's direction needlessly.

Plus there's no difference, to me, in how a noob plays and how an experienced player plays. Someone could play this game for years and still be a useless prat who could find scum if all scum were armed with uzis pointed at them. By the same token, you could have a new player who despite never playing the game before, can read people well, and can spot flaws in argument logic easily to such an extent they've already worked out the scum players by the end of day one. Sure they're two extremes, but I highly doubt Ray would throw a fit purely on the basis of "I've been found out early by noob players".

In fact, if Ray was scum in a noob game, I think he would be silently applauding noobs (if not publicly showing it, for obvious reasons) that they were able to spot scum so quickly. Not throwing a fit because they had done.

So I do have to wonder why redbox posted that if it wasn't to deliberately try and bait Ray into dugging a bigger hole for himself.

Also, Skill, you say you skimmed over it and haven't properly looked into the issue, I have to ask why? The issue between me and Ray was rather a big one as far as D1 games are concerned, and something that all players should be looking at to get a read on both me and Ray, skimming over it, and not properly reading both players posts makes it seem like you feel you don't need to for whatever reason, and surely the only people who don't need a read off everyone would be scum?

[PranaDevil]

I think my first order of the day tomorrow is to go back and re-read everything in the thread, as with the case building on redbox, and such, I am beginning to wonder whether I was hasty on Ray or not, I think it may well be worth me evaluating everyone's posts to see if there's anything I missed here.

[PranaDevil]

EBWOP (I need to use that damned preview button more often)

I agree that saying "We lynch Ray, if he flips town, we hit redbox, if he flips..." comes across scummy, it's one thing late game when you have reads, or perhaps people have role revealed without being contested and you can be pretty sure in the views due to previous actions. But day 1... likely wont be the best time to pull that stuff, we can't be sure.

And yes, I do have a feeling I said something similar during my issue with Ray, but I also am going to admit I was getting hot headed there which was clouding my judgement, and I'm sure it's noticeable that I've stepped back and have taken a closer look over things and it's been for the better.

[PranaDevil]

I think the point Ray means (At least it's my view, and it's what I admit I was guilty of earlier in the game) is that you're leaving no room for consideration, it's black and white "lynch him, then lynch him" and it pretty much would leave zero room for considering discussion the next day if you can pre-arrange the lynch in advance.

It also means scum would know who "not" to lynch.

Imagine the following scenario:
Players 1 & 2 - scum
Players 3 - 9 - town

Now, say we accidentally had a potential lynch on player 3, that's going strong, and player 4 comes in with a really bad comment that gets him on everyone's radar so people start saying "lynch player 3, then player 4", if we pre-arrange that, then it leads to the following actions:

D1 - Lynch player 3
Night 1 - player 5 gets NK'd as there's absolutely zero reason to go after player 4
D2 - Lynch player 4 with next to no discussion as it's "pre-arranged".
Night 2 - player 6 gets NK'd
D3 - Left with 3 town, 2 mafia, and we're in lylo with absolutely nowhere to go but down.

The only people the possibility of that scenario would benefit, is scum. We want to avoid that happening as much as possible, sure we may wind up with that anyway, but pre-arranging things will get us there quicker than anything else will.

[PranaDevil]

fuzzy, I think I did the linking of you and apathy without even thinking then, and other than the issue Ray brought up (which I nullified) I haven't actually had a scummy read on either of you (another reason I intend on going fully through the thread in the morning when I have time lets me re-evaluate everyone and everything)

And as I say above, I too don't like how I was setting up lynches, it was bad play, and damned sure wasn't going to help town, which is why I'm backing off and looking at things afresh.

As it stands I'm doubting myself on the Ray lynch, and want to even re-evaluate everything there myself (including my own posts) before I stick to a decision now, and I'm actually glad PE managed to make me back off before I did lynch fast and possibly stuff up the game for town.

Though you're not off the hook just yet Ray *shakes finger menacingly* :p.

and before I post... good spot on that Ray... Fuzzy thinks we're both town, yet sticks a FoS on me for something he thinks was a town Vs town argument? Hmm.

[PranaDevil]

I have to say, my major suspicions at the moment are likely along the lines of:

fuzzy
jmurph3
redbox
Ray

Of course, this is still before I've had chance to go over things, but I'm beginning to feel jmurph is scummier than some because I'm starting to get the feel that she followed me onto the Ray wagon and has been essentially riding it along, however now I've backed down somewhat it's like she's hit a brick wall and had to try and give solid reasoning, and coming up with nothing of any true substance.

Plus the follow up with the redbox thing was again similarly following my lead but the "prime suspect" thing does seem like she's taken my slowing down to be "we're still lynching Ray, then redbox". Whereas right now, I'm not even 100% on the Ray wagon, despite me basically starting it. Until I've gone through everything I wont make any solid decisions on my view either way, but I am starting to get very strong suspicions from jmurph and redbox as well now.

[PranaDevil]

Warning: This is a long post, I have, however, bolded each persons name so specific reads I have on them can be spotted easier if people wish to look back on the post later.

Okay, I'm attempting to go through everything possible and come up with some views on each player. But if anyone notices I've missed anything (and the amount we've posted, that's likely, as it's hard to read through everything in one go and note things, so I've been looking at the specific posters), let me know what I've missed so I can look over it.

Apathy

Possible jumping on the Ray wagon, and using some smaller things to try boosting it, the last point in the huge post (http://www.mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopi ... 48#2095848) was a jokey thing about Carmen Sandiego, and even if we consider that as just joking, prior to that it was the fact Ray said he was town, that alone doesn't mean he's scum. I mean just because I say I'm from England a lot doesn't mean I'm lying about it.

However I'm not feeling scum from that, I am however worried about the possible lurking going.

fuzzylightning

Not really getting a scum read here either, but I am worried that he's confusing even himself with his stuff about me. In one breath he calls me scummy, the next he's saying he thinks me and Ray are both town. This is despite the fact I had not that long ago mentioned that I was backing off and looking at others, and realizing that was a good idea. But I'm willing to accept that he just hadn't seen that post at the time. But it's worth keeping in mind for future reference.

jammer/kelyn

kelyn I had my doubts about because of the whole newbie thing but having experience elsewhere. But realize I could be wrong about that, jammer on the other hand, seemed to open up with some fence sitting, and commenting on something that was a complete non-issue, and even stated it was a non-issue (the "bad wagon" stuff) which to me gave the impression of posting without actually giving anything to the debate.

The stuff towards Ray with AtE being "leaning scum" and calling himself town just a couple of times being "mildly scummy" seem as though there's possible pressure towards Ray for the wrong things. Then we got him saying Ray was joking well after we got serious, and I don't think he was, he joked a bit, sure, but didn't joke as much as jammer would like us to think.

I'm thinking jammer is a possible scum, but right now wouldn't commit unless I saw more, the combination of coming in after a ton of posts (and I was having trouble getting halfway through them today, so buggered if I can know how you pulled it off, lol), and seemingly scum hunting makes me think he might be town, but I'm not wholely convinced either.

jmurph3

Very quick to jump on any strong wagon and then seems forced to stick to what she's saying, especially as her reasons for voting Ray now seem rather flimsy, as her reason pretty much seemed to be "Apathy said this", and quoted a bunch of reasons that don't (looking back) really seem all that scummy.

The reasons are basically:
Ray said he's town a few times - bad reasoning

Defensiveness is not a scum tell but sometimes it is - Pardon? In fact... Apathy made no sense with that to me, but the fact jmurph3 uses it as actual reasons to vote Ray seem scummy.

Ray posted lots to create confusion - bad reasoning (early game it was to get discussion flowing, late game it was purely to defend himself from my attack, posting lots doesn't make a difference).

Ray said he's town a few times - wait... wasn't that already in there as a point?

Then she quotes what I said, and Ray talking to me about tunnel vision, which I understand his point about now too, and have even said I agree with it, as I took it as an actual negative attack on me, when it wasn't (though don't make me accidentally find a link in another of your games for it next time Ray, link the damned thing again :p). So it came across as reaching for something to grab onto when it was really just following along.

The fact that she pretty much said "We lynch Ray, then we lynch redbox" came across extremely scummy, and made me consider whether redbox is scum or not, as if jmurph is, then it would be pretty strange to be pre-arranging to lynch her scum partner as if we lynched Ray, then went after redbox, and she tried backpedalling then, it would be a huge red flag.

So far the scum hunting has been pretty much all on Ray, which is similar to what I was doing, but I did it for about 24 hours, slept, then realized it was a mistake I was making to not consider others, murph on the other hand appears to have stuck to the Ray vote blindly, and now others are backing off it's left her between a rock and a hard place, with nowhere to go.

PaltryExcuse

Not much to say here, personally I'm thinking very pro-town, everything comes off pro-town, and I can't really see anything negative in that direction, the holding off Ray's lynch was a benefit, and even I can see as much now, I needed to cool off and check things properly, and PE wouldn't have stalled the lynch if he was scum, regardless of whether Ray was or not, as he would have quick lynched him to get him out of the game.

PranaDevil/RayFrost

(Putting me and him together, as I've only really focused on him, and therefore my view on him here denotes how I'm feeling about what I've said).

First up, his early vote switching was to bring in discussion, that much is obvious now, so I wouldn't consider that in any voting of him.

Then the first clash between us came from me voting jmurph, which was since cleared up, and I'm beginning to think was more differences of opinion as opposed to him being scum.

Then the mistaken issue of town vs townie, which didn't really help anyone, town or otherwise, just a clash again that blew up into more than it should have been.

Bringing up the point of fuzzy not having questions for apathy, I think that was more Ray just not checking back far enough as opposed to deliberately feeling fuzzy was avoiding questioning apathy for whatever reason.

Again, miscommunication I feel with Ray thinking I was role fishing.

Actually... reading through all of this, yes there were times I think Ray took what I said the wrong way, and re-worded it badly, but... it's not done in a scummy way. He's viewing what I'm saying as different to how I'm writing it and meaning it, and that's okay, that happens. But it doesn't make him scummy.

Which means I was allowing myself to be pressured into pushing for him because of an earlier issue, and then focusing purely on him without looking elsewhere... i.e. I was doing what he said, and what others have said too. My reasons were flawed.

I don't think Ray is scum right now, he could still be sure, but a lynch on him now would be a mistake. He's doing a good job of pointing out issues and flaws in others thinking, and is being pro-town and pro-active in scum hunting.

redbox

Ahhh, the redbox situation, which seems to be the growing way of things now.

I backed him up on the whole "jmurph is with Ray" situation, only for him to respond to it all with a non-answer in "You decide; did I say Ray and jmurph3 are a scum team or has Ray misrepresented my words?"

and... no, just no, town wouldn't expect other town to second guess them, our motives need to be obvious to other town, the only time we should be hiding ANYTHING as town is our roles, and that's to keep that knowledge away from the scum. Everything else, our viewpoints, our motives, basically everything that will help scum be lynched, should be given out, not made into an offhand remark designed to confuse town.

What's more... looking at it with a clear head, and even I'm agreeing with others that you meant Ray, why you would do it in that way I don't know, but it does read strange. Especially after your lackluster response to the questioning of it. You even later in the post say:

"somewhere in there somebody asked me who I thought Prana's partner in crime was; at the time of that post, I thought it was probably jmurph."

And it wasn't "my" partner in crime at all, it was jmurph's, so you evidentally weren't even paying attention to your own arguments.

Despite what I said above about jmurph, I'm thinking redbox is perhaps scum to a rather strong extent.

Skill006

Not entirely sure where I stand on her just yet, she's posted a bit, but it all just seems to be fence sitting with no proper direction, it's all "I can see that, however I think this, but this could be true too" on pretty much every point. It makes me think she's just waiting for a half decent bandwagon to join in with.

Overall

So, that makes me think that the potential scum would be in the region of:
jmurph3
redbox

with possibles of:
fuzzylightning
skill006

Now, that leaves me with a choice of jmurph and redbox to vote for, and right now I get a stronger feel of scum of jmurph after her comments towards redbox and lynching him next.

vote: jmurph3

[PranaDevil]

Thing is, you shouldn't need me and Apathy to make your judgement for you, you should be convinced about your own views. If you're town and you're letting my views cloud your judgement on who you think is scum, then that's bad play. I wont take what someone else as read and blindly back them.

As an example, what if I "was" scum, and you were town and blindly followed me? You'd be lynching town based pretty much solely on my reasoning, which would have been false anyway.

This just makes me feel you're scum more so than before because you are admitting you weren't sure on your own views as the second I've said I don't think Ray's scum, you're saying it's mine and apathy's fault that you're backed into a corner.

[PranaDevil]

I personally think a lot of what was seeming scummy was coming from miscommunication though, which is why others were spotting this, which also makes me ask why you weren't, it's understandable from me as it "was" me, but you weren't in the heat of the situation, and so you should have had a clear head, which is why it confuses me that me backing out creates such an issue, if you had solid reasons for voting Ray, you wouldn't need to back out purely because I have, and that is why I am finding you more scummy than before.

[PranaDevil]

@Jammer: I am not supposed to help you in finding scum, that is your job.

Pardon?

Isn't it "town's" job to find scum, as a joint whole? It's not a single person's job to find scum, town are meant to do it together and put effort in all round, if one person isn't helping us find scum then they're not helping the town in the slightest, and not only are you doing that, you're doing so deliberately... why are you deliberately being anti-town?

FoS: fuzzylightning

[PranaDevil]

Either you missed it, or the mod's updated that post, it says redbox is being replaced.

[PranaDevil]

I agree with fuzzy, I'd rather see you take your time and give everything as thorough a going over as you like. It'd better for all concerned (well, perhaps not scum) to get the best out of everything we can.

Although I have to say that's a very daunting task to be going through it all like that (I tried it properly yesterday, and it's tough).

As for fuzzy's comment on jammer, we're all relying on your input to find scum, if nobody gave any input everyone would wind up like me, focused on a single person and attempting to lynch at all costs while never changing their view based on what others manage to bring to the table.

But if someone's basically not bringing anything to the table, they're hiding away information that they have which is useful to the town, which is definitely anti-town, and therefore scummier than trying to rat out scum.

[PranaDevil]

Have we entered some kind of time warp? This is one smegging long hour I'll tell you.

[PranaDevil]

Bad Ray, no flirting with people mid scum hunt, down boy!

And like jmurph I too am awaiting on Phaen's read, along with Skill's now. Hopefully it will bring more discussion forth.

[PranaDevil]

Vote: Apathy

Too often have I seen Player Apathy ruin games.

Obv, Apathy needs to be killed off!

I feel the need to bring this back to the front now it appears Apathy needs replacing. Just for the lols.

[PranaDevil]

I think we were waiting on you Phaen more because me and Ray don't really have much more to say, what we needed to say has been said, and some others appear to have vanished outright.

As for your question towards me, my reasoning was thus: It's better to lynch assumed scum, than it is to not lynch at all.

In fact, now my game at the other site has finished, I can point out the fact that by not persuing my lynch of an assumed scum day 1, and instead wrongly thinking a no lynch would help us (It was a me-cop game, I wanted results dag nabbit), we not only didn't lynch the guy I was initially after, but I made a bad choice to investigate someone else (Got roleblocked the whole game anyway though), however the first guy never appear on our radar again, turns out he was scum all along.

Had I gone with my assumptions, there was a chance we could have won the game, as it was by the time day 3 rolled around we had a zero percent chance of winning (well, we could have, but one guy had a double win condition, so why go with the people lynching everyone bar scum?)

So yeah, I'd rather lynch assumed scum, them not do so. If they do flip town, that's a bugger admittedly, but preferable to not doing so at all. We shouldn't be afraid to lynch if we think that the lynch helps us.

Regarding the stuff from me towards Ray, like you'll see when you get further through (I apologise, I'm going to try and only respond when actually necessary from now on, as opposed to reply to everything under the sun), I realized I had in fact done what he said I had, namely following him with tunnel vision, and ignoring everyone else completely, hence why I've since backed off and re-read everything (Hence why I don't envy you).

and I'll let Ray answer his question himself, but I'm assuming it's more "Ray realized I was being a tit with my focus on him, redbox was jumping on the wagon".

One thing I notice though is you mentioning the low quality of redbox's posts. That's something worth noting really (and a good reason for the newbie games beyond "we need us some training), ina newbie game some people wont be as interested in a full game as perhaps in other areas, hence the replace out (we have 2 already in this game, with a potential 3rd), and it makes things tough on everyone in the game because unless you had a solid viewpoint on a guy (or gal, we're equal opportunity round these parts), you are pretty much resorted to going back to square one on the scum hunting regarding that particular poster just in case it was posting style.

I think redbox was scum based on what he was saying, but if it turns out he just wasn't caring enough about the game to get proper reads on people or situations (and he replaced out, there's a high chance) then we can't judge based on that. Instead it's best to somewhat throw away our redbox counters and pull out fresh from the box phaen ones.

[PranaDevil]

I think the thing is jmurph, that the wagon on Ray was bad because of my reasoning behind it, which is what some others saw. It was bad because of how I was going about it, and the only good parts of it were perhaps him calling stuff that wasn't there (seemingly saying I was role fishing at one point). But I think looking at it from outside how I was at the time, it shows that it was because he was getting frustrated with my line of thinking, not because he's scum, but because it was noob play from me (I think Ray's trying to make a balance of playing to win his condition, while doing everything possible to teach people what to do, hence giving out meta, warning people about the difference between town/townie and the like).

As I say, Ray could be mafia, but my reasons previously were terrible, and were blown up by me. Hence the reason it seems scummy that you jumped on it murph is that it came across like you were surfing along the back of it without giving solid reasons beyond repeating what I had said, which outside of my bubble at the time should have been spotted as non-existant arguments in general.

However, in saying that, we are indeed both new, and it's possible murph was riding on what I was saying to see how things go and still working things out for herself. (I've changed my way of doing things a bit during the course of this one day purely because of how my previous game turned out and how things were going at the start of this one)

Add to that the fact that the case against PE is a rather interesting one (which I'm going to go investigating shortly), and I think I need to

unvote

for the time being.

[PranaDevil]

EBWOP just looked up PE's full list of posts, after the first "fuzzy's case make sense" vote for jmurph, there was a lot of discussion about jmurph and why she seems scummy. That has conveniently been left out of jmurph's post in favour of hoping nobody would notice that PE had actually made a case it would seem.

In which case, I'm returning my vote to it's rightful place

vote: jmurph3

[PranaDevil]

how come jmurph is special enough to be listed twice? She have split personalities or something Kison? :p

[PranaDevil]

I think the reason everyone else appears to have left Skill, is that we're waiting on people to start joining in now. Some of us (Ray, jmurph, myself for instance) have posted so much that we need more input before we can start properly going anywhere with anything. Short of going back to pressure voting to get people to actually participate further, we can't do much more.

Obviously jammer, apathy, Phaen all need to chip in as well due to being left behind. Which means not only can we not consider lynching someone properly, but we can't even get a proper read on any of them 3 until we get some posting.

Despite our strong start, I'm worried we're going to wind up with us just pottering along for the next 12 days and rush lynching someone last minute without any actual reason, or having a no lynch. Neither would be good.

[PranaDevil]

Perhaps you're right about jmurph not deliberately forgetting thing (I admit it would be stupid to attempt so while people are midway through re-reading the topic). But my vote would've stood for previous reasons anyway. I removed it more to see if there was perhaps a case against yourself PE, from looking at that point, when I realized there wasn't, I put it back anyway. (Although perhaps I shouldn't have unvoted to begin with and gone looking at the posts in question before replying, would've made more sense, I swear my brain doesn't wander, but there are times it just sods off to the pub.)

and Phaen, make sure you do well at your exam, as if you had to blow us off for an exam you do poorly on, I'd not be best pleased, :p. Good luck.

[PranaDevil]

Couple of points Apathy. First I notice you said I was either Mafia, or VT, which is rather interesting. Sure VT is the most common town role in this game, but that's not to say everyone who's town is a VT. So I wonder why you specified that as opposed to just "town"?

Phaen's defense of Ray was from specific pages too, it wasn't based on the entire game, thus far he's not truly gotten to the meat and veg of the situation, and in fact has only just begun to put the knife into the pasty to get at the pie filled goodness, let alone taste it. So I fail to see where he was quick to jump at Ray's defense.

I took Ray saying he liked Phaen for the fact he's going through things carefully, not rushing through, and taking not of what he should be taking note of, and not silly jokes that have no bearing on anything beyond RVS.

Therefore, Ray "at this point in the game" may or may not be worthy of said defense, until Phaen reads that far into it, how's he to know?

4 people putting pressure on at that point (admittedly not much, but still) - Me, jmurph, kelyn, and possibly redbox by saying posting lots might be a scum tell.

As for the rest of your posts page 4 Apathy... mind showing me where anything substantial was in them? It was all based on him being town, or his joking about before getting serious.

As it stands, that last post comes across severely like trying to shift the attention onto a few people and away from yourself, which is weird as I don't think much attention has been on you beyond "Get Apathy in here to post", so I wonder why? I'm most concerned about how you seem to go on Phaen for the points I mention, but seemingly ignore that he's not read the later game yet (or the middling game for that matter) and that your earlier post had next to no content in it.

And to be honest, so far I'm not seeing a great deal of scum hunting from you Apathy, like I say, the first post says nothing, the second post (I'm not counting the "please fix" type ones, only the ones where anything of substance is posted) it's all on Ray, and pretty much all of them are non-arguments about him saying he's town, and pulling murph up on saying she was a townie and correcting her (and others just in case) to proper useage.

It seems like the entire argument on Ray was blatant straw clutching on non-issues and non-arguments, which makes me think it was designed to draw attention away from yourself, but unfortunately that last post may well draw attention back to you seriously.

So far my case on Apathy now would be:
Lack of posting much/lurking (RL issues or not, it's not helping the town scum-hunt anyway)
Bad arguments based on early game jokes, and non-issues.
Trying to steer people towards looking at the new guy despite the fact it's been mentioned he has yet to finish reading the entire thread.
and then erm...

So far, besides my few attacks, its just been you and prana, which in the event you both are town, has served as a welcome distraction from any other suspicion for a majority of the last few pages.

A welcome distraction for who? The only people it would be welcome to would be scum...

unvote; vote: Apathy

But still with a strong

FoS: jmurph3

[PranaDevil]

I think my massive posts are rubbing off on you Ray XD.

and an

unofficial

vote count so far would be:

jmurph3 ( 2 ) : fuzzylightning, PaltryExcuse
RayFrost ( 1 ) : Apathy
fuzzylightning ( 1 ) : jammer
Apathy ( 2 ) : PranaDevil, Phaen

Not Voting ( 3 ) : Skill006, jmurph3, RayFrost

Purely because the only changes since the last one are Phaen and Ray's .

[PranaDevil]

Didn't you just tell me not to go speculating? :p.

But that quote, I guess it could be taken that way, but I don't think so, I think it was jmurph taking that Ray was reacting to it, and because he reacted that means he must be scum. Not "He reacted to it, and so it means me and him are scum".

[PranaDevil]

you getting the feeling it was only our argument that kept this game going Ray?

Where the smeg is everyone? I mean... I know it's the weekend and all but jeez, surely somebody has something to add.

[PranaDevil]

Being that I've made my point on Apathy, I'll only respond to jmurph's point on Ray at the very end.

Oh, and before I get told off again (I'm 27, and have run wrestling shows in the past, I don't need telling off dammit :p) for speaking for him, it was pretty much me he was talking to for a lot of it, but I do think it was an "in general" thing. In that Ray wasn't so much randomly pointing fingers to accuse others and get himself off the hook, he was trying desperately, as an SE, to get us to actually play the damned game well. He's trying to teach anyone new not to just dive in head first on the first lynch that looks plausible, and ignore the goings on around him.

Does that mean he isn't scum? Of course not, he very well could be, and by not lynching him he could have saved his skin. By the same token, even if he is scum and we lynched him, nobody (Or at least, me) would have learnt to slow the hell down and pay attention to everything.

For that, I appreciate Ray (And Paltry as well, for giving me the forum equivilant of a slap to stop me being a tit), as it's allowed me to re-evaluate the way I was playing.

So to that end, I don't think Ray was trying to get himself off the hook, as much as he was trying to plead with us to pay attention to everything else.

It just so happens that doing so opened my eyes to other things I've seen (Such as Apathy being really scummy from my view, redbox making some really weird comments, and jmurph following me, and normally I enjoy girls clinging onto me :p)

[PranaDevil]

It was about you saying Ray was freaking out and pointing fingers. I don't think he was freaking out, just getting frustrated that I (and perhaps yourself) were just staring at him and focusing all the attention in that direction, and ignoring everything else, and therefore ignoring where we would even consider after that lynch, leaving us all high and dry.

As for your saying about your problem... I was literally just thinking that myself, I feel the major part of the case on you is "you've agreed with others" and it's true it is, and maybe it's that I'm just posting too damned much and along with Ray, are just finding as many issues that could be possible scum as possible, and that in itself isn't an issue, yeah you should agree with things that get brought up.

But by the same token, not much new has been brought to the table by yourself beyond the agreeing, now I admit that could be partly because of certain things, but I feel that's why there's a fair few people thinking you may well be scum. A lack of actual scum hunting, and a large amount of "he said that, and I agree" posts, but no "I however spotted this" or "I think this instead".

But to be honest, I'm not sure if a lynch based on that would be good right about now, especially as in my view, Apathy has been much scummier at this point.

[PranaDevil]

I do agree that Ray either needs to vote, or state why he isn't, as he said he was waiting on a vote count before voting. But yet hasn't done so and hasn't said why.

By the same token, Phaen, are you going to continue looking over the rest of the thread? You appear to have just stopped and have basically left out everything of important once we got past RVS, and have just jumped on what's going on now. I'm wondering if there's a deeper reason as to why?

Seems rather scummy to ignore everything that was actually in depth, and skip to the end where (in all honesty) there's not much being said, and the general reason for such is that we're waiting on more discussion to be made by yourself and others, that keeps getting promised to be on its way, and seemingly never arriving.

[PranaDevil]

Actually, I don't think he has been tunnelling, looking back over his posts, he did also pull me up for setting up lynches. Though I notice he did it immediately after I pointed out why doing so is a bad idea.

His reasons for voting jmurph are, however, extremely bad, and essentially non-existant.

The fact he's also said he was pointing a FoS at me because he thought I was town and playing badly was... ridiculous, and obviously a backtrack.

In fact, the last time he posted anything of even slight relevance would be slightly over a week ago (1am last week on Tuesday based on my time settings, and it's 7:50 now).

Factor in the blatant statement that "I am not supposed to help you in finding scum, that is your job." from fuzzy, and it's just very very unhelpful in any way so far.

I've seen a great deal of non-action from fuzzy, and a lot of pointless finger pointing, and an obvious refusal to actually help town scum hunt (from his own mouth no less... well fingers), this when deliberately refusing to help scum hunt only helps scum, and not town.

With that said, my top suspects now are fuzzy and Apathy. jmurph is still up there, but not high, same with Phaen due to her not really looking over everything by now, and thereby ignoring what could be important information.

[PranaDevil]

So rather than actually responding (Noting I'm not the only one pointing things out against you Apathy) you just go "Prana posts lots, and wanted to lynch Ray" and... that's the entire defence?

Heat is on you, and as opposed to Ray who made some decent points about other issues to get people (i.e. myself) to actually look at those as well as him (not instead of), you resort to just freaking out about the fact I posted a lot earlier?

I do apologize if me taking an actual interest in scum hunting somehow hurts the game, perhaps next time I'll stick to posting once in a blue moon and never actually making a solid argument.

[PranaDevil]

EBWOP

I'd also like to see you point out an actually long post I've made where I haven't been making points in it. I'd also point out that I've only made 2 posts that could be considered "3 pages" both of which were in depth analysis of stuff (the first being Ray, the second being on all).

Sure I post a fair bit, but I tend to be making responses based on certain issues that have arisen. If nobody posted except for a couple of times, we would get nowhere.

I'm seeing noob scum freaking out based on them being put under fire.

[PranaDevil]

Question though:

What if Apathy does claim a power role? Where do we go then? We then have very few days to make a decision.

Secondly, what if Apathy is lying about said power role? There's two negative outcomes to that:

1 - Apathy lies and there is no role of that kind in this game, so nobody counterclaims, we then don't lynch suspected scum based on the role claim.

2 - Apathy lies, claims a role, someone else actually has it, they then either out themselves D1, meaning their role is next to useless as they're dead N1, or they don't, and we keep someone who is blatantly scum around, which is fine only if we can lynch the other scum before the real Power Role outs Apathy (and only then if we believe them).

So considering those two options... what good will a claim honestly do us at this stage?

There's a 50% chance that a lie could go by unnoticed, and the 50% it doesn't would mean the true town role either ignores it and risks losing the game for town, or announces they have the real PR and loses the role for town.

I don't like them odds personally.

[PranaDevil]

It's actually a 50/50 risk in actuality.

Like I asked, what happens if someone does actually have the role he claims, and is therefore forced to out themselves? It's what I'd do as mafia, claim a power role and even if I still got lynched, I'd have found the town's power role for my scum mates.

I mean... by stating they should claim, you're telling them to either admit they're scum or lie really.

I don't, honestly, get the point of making them claim, scum WILL lie about the claim, for obvious reasons, and so if we think Apathy is scum, and scum would lie, that leaves us the options of the claim not being in the game at all, or the claim forcing a reveal. Is that honestly the better option for us?

[PranaDevil]

Anyway, the more experienced players (as in people far, far better than me) have actually talked about lynching regardless of the claim.

I was reading the thread a few days back, hence why it came to me now. :p

[PranaDevil]

Actually, I don't think claiming a VT would necessarily make someone town either, my claim was that if it's a power role, they could still be scum role fishing, and if no role steps forward, get away with it and survive.

If Apathy (or whoever) claimed VT, then... why should that stop the lynch?

In fact, why should any claim stop a lynch? If we've got someone at L-1, and at the point we feel they need lynching, what possible benefit is there for town to have them role claim?

As a for instance, what are those voting for Apathy going to do if he returns and says "I'm cop".

Your options are:
Ask if there's a real cop (thus exposing them to the mafia, or if we don't have one, allowing Apathy to fly under the radar for the rest of the game potentially)

Accept it outright, and just pull the vote (And if a simple "Guys, I'm cop" would make you pull off the wanting to lynch, you shouldn't have been pushing for it to begin with, not when there's no evidence to support said claim).

Continue the lynch anyway to find out whether he lied/was honest.

To be honest, the negatives far outweight the positives to me, by allowing the claim we, as town, would be asking the mafia to feel free to role fish the very second they were in danger of a lynch. Thus helping their partner (and that's the win condition for mafia, to win at all costs, if you're going to go, why not help your partner while you're at it?)

Also, if they are the cop/doc, then if mafia have no roleblockers chances are that player is dead that night anyway, or if they have roleblockers, the player would get roleblocked (and if mafia is made up of two goons, well... I for one would be lying about being roleblocked if nobody had counterclaimed).

So if the only benefit is "we don't wish to lynch a possible power role", well... there's absolutely zero benefit to that, as we are running a bigger risk of either outing the real role, or letting scum fly by undetected because that role isn't actually here.

Factor in that the absolute only way to judge whether that roleclaim is honest or not, is whether you trust that player is town or scum to begin with... and haven't we already decided that by wanting said player lynched? Wanting a role claim seems absolutely ridiculous to me, and very, very, anti-town because it has no positives without trusting someone we've already decided we don't trust.

Also, as a note... I don't remember Ray ever claiming to be a VT. Someone claimed someone else (brain just farted, can't remember who called someone else it) was... but Ray didn't claim he was, though he did tell off jmurph because he thought she was claiming that as her role.

[PranaDevil]

Must've missed that line from Ray, but I suppose considering everything else that was going on at the time it's understandable (That and, I think at that stage of the game I was still going "what the hell does VT mean?" lol).

As for the PR thing, I'm glad it's got you thinking tough. Because it's obviously better for scum to get as much info out of being in that position as possible.

One thing I will say though, why would losing an honest PR on D1 spell doom for us? Are we saying that the game with 7 VT's in it is less fair than the one with both a cop and a doc?

I'm not saying we should happily lynch a PR, but if a simple claim from someone we think is scummy is enough to stop us lynching them... well then why is there even a consideration on lynching them to begin with?

[PranaDevil]

EBWOP

I stop using preview and some git comes in and posts before me, damn you Phaen, and damn you Bob! (I think it's Bob... but it could be Bub, lol)

Anyway Phaen, you're right in that we could look elsewhere, but considering the length of the day left, right now we don't have a huge length of time left. Now if we had limitless days, sure, that would be a great idea. But we don't, we have 3 weeks per day, which sounded like plenty before, but things are beginning to drag, by the time any claim is made, I doubt we could do much more looking into things without accepting a no lynch, or just rush lynching someone else (Which wouldn't be adviseable).

Factor in that if scum lied... if we do have that PR around, this is what will happen:

Real PR knows that person is scum, but doesn't say so at the time (so as to not be outed themselves), during this time we accept the scum claim as true, so we don't consider them so closely, while they go round picking people off with their partner. By the time the real PR claims... well we're then in the position of "well why didn't you claim earlier, prove yourself!" and... that's where it all goes south.

We have to plan ahead, if we also wish to win, we can't just say "that's better now" because it wont be. Scum claim a PR, we would need the real PR to step forward then and there to counter it so we're not lead on a wild goose chase.

Factor in the whole other issue I pointed out that there's no guarentee we even have that PR in the game... and what are you going to do with the information?

You're still basing it entirely off whether you trust someone you already have stated you think is scum.

[PranaDevil]

Oh if we're going for the "let him claim, and see who believes" then fair play... but I will still point out that anyone who backs off because of what is potentially a false claim, and unvotes because of it, perhaps shouldn't have made the vote in the first place.

I still don't honestly understand what good the claim does. What do you actually expect to get out of the claim outside of someone else saying "you cant be X as I'm X" or nobody claiming in return?

[PranaDevil]

So jammer, you are saying we should set up someone else to lynch purely on the basis of Apathy PR claiming?

That sounds... rather scummy to me, especially with the wait until just pre-lylo to lynch them... I don't get that reasoning, if they're thought of as scum, then a claim should never change that, ever. It doesn't make sense, why would anybody logically think it's pro-town to keep someone around who you think is scum based off something that scum would do as a last resort?

I can understand continuing to look at others, but to just say "nah, don't lynch them if they claim a PR" is, to me, a very stupid move for anyone on town's side, as we're then just allowing both scum to role claim and get a free pass while we go off lynching bog standard VT's because they're not a PR.

[PranaDevil]

But what if he claims PR role X, and we "do" have a town PR role X?

WHat do you suggest the real town player does? Keep quiet and not become a sitting duck for N1 killing, but subsequently allow the lying player to continue sliding by everyone else happily?

Or do you suggest the town player role claims and outs themselves right off the bat so we don't ever get to use that PR?

Or what if nobody ever counter claims because we don't even have said role.

It's not that hard for scum to claim "Bah, roleblocked" if they've claimed cop, or nearer lylo to announce their partner is scum, have that person lynched, and are then safe as far as everyone is concerned because they successfully decieved us and they bussed their own partner.

and yeah, it's possible opinions can change, but that could be the same of anyone who got lynched, unfortunately we still have to make decisions, and I still fail to see why a claim helps anybody except scum.

[PranaDevil]

Okay... so people are saying "If he returns and claims a PR we hold off on lynching him and look elsewhere".

We have a week in real time to decide elsewhere... but obviously that person should be given the chance to claim too, now, how far down the line do we go just accepting that someone's word is true?

All VT's will announce as VT's, all PR will claim PR's, the scum will lie.

What I am pointing out is that by deliberately holding off on a lynch because someone claims a PR is outright telling scum "claim a PR and I wont lynch you", isn't that somewhat... bad play?

Plus, what do we do if the second person says "I'm just a VT", we lynch them because they... were being honest and the scum slides through? I'm not liking it at all. Apparently pro-town players are telling scum to lie, we wont lynch them, and we don't even want actual town roles to out them (if they even could do).

And the reason is... we can always lynch later... ooookay. Nobody see the flaw in that plan? We "can" lynch later, but we will keep putting it off because we don't want to risk lynching a PR, so we'll go after everyone else first.

I will repeat what I have said before... if you believe that someone is scummy enough to be lynched now, why does a claim change that? We believe the person is scum, scum will lie, no scum will be honest and say "yeah, I'm scum". In fact...

In fact, let me make this simple:

What WOULD make you agree to lynch after a claim? That's to everyone, whether you're for lynching regardless, or considering holding back from a PR claim.

[PranaDevil]

So you say you "feel I am town" earlier, now you say I am one of the 3 who "is" scum? uhuh.

Going back on my logic?

No, I realized I had made a mistake in my logic (Which I might add, I have already stated is because I saw I wasn't looking at everyone equally, and had been shown to make some serious mistakes in a previous game, hence paying more attention, so it's not "going back on my own logic" but "rethinking the logic I had previously used". There's a severe difference.)

As for your decent case, I'd like to see one, thus far you've done no such thing, except what you accuse Ray of, and shift focus on everyone else, by erm... flipping out because you're about to be lynched, and actively insulting everyone playing the game. Yeah... way to go. (Especially considering Phaen, PE, Ray, fuzzy, and jammer aren't "noobs" and 3 of them are already voting you... so the noob card fails in a miserable manner).

[PranaDevil]

So... your entire argument is false and based on the fact that after Ray I started looking elsewhere?

Let's go over your "argument" a little bit at a time.

"YOU WERE CALLING FOR SOMEONE TO COME IN AND FINISH HIM OFF SEVERAL TIMES. Now all of the sudden Ray has no more guilt and Im the one to go?"

I'll be the one to say "seriously?" here, thanks very much, are you really trying to turn the tables to such an extent that you hope people ignore the fact that I realized I was being overzealous on Ray and pushing for a lynch wrongly, and admitted that fact and have since reigned myself in to looking everywhere.

"You're about to lynch a vanilla because you cant pull back on your blind reigns and actually THINK about things before you make 10 irrational posts."

Please pay attention and realize I have evaluated everyone, the "wont pull in the reigns" stuff is likely talking about me discussing the "claim" rubbish, but I wouldn't care if it was you being lynched or me being lynched on that one, I still feel a claim is absolutely a ridiculous move in every part, and serves to help scum 100% more than it could ever help town, as we'd still be at the "do we take their word on it?" stage... which is stupid as scum will lie obviously, basing a lynch on a claim is ridiculous in every form.

"...and the big problem is Prana, even if you are town you have put 3 people to within 1 or 2 votes of a lynch, vocally supporting ending the day phase as soon as possible while filling your posts with contradictions and fluff, effectively confusing the town while attempting to lead bogus charges against almost 5 people now. "

Where's my "contradictions", outside of accepting that I was wrong, and admitting it with things like the Ray lynch etc. I see none. As for putting people to within 1 or 2 votes of a lynch, lesse... jmurph was a pressure vote and I said as much (but you do bring up the RVS stage a lot in your arguments Apathy, as opposed to the actual meat of this thing), Ray I was pushing wrongly, and erm... you, who has been acting scummy.

As for this:

"Just like you did to jmurph
redbox
and rayfrost. "

Yeah, because looking over flaws in play isn't the basis of the game? Perhaps we should just say something once, never respond and just vote based on nothing at all? Isn't the entire point to look at things, search for inconsistancies, see who appears to be lurking, attacking utterly ridiculous points that are nonexistant (sort of like your points so far), and try and lynch scum?

It actually appears that you are saying the "good" play is to concentrate on a single person solely, and not look at various people, because looking at everyone is somehow scummy in your eyes?

What's more, you're also stating that the IC and SE's aren't able to think for themselves if I'm apparently leading the charge.

And as for pointing out "a few inconsistancies" that's because the "few" were the entirety of your posts, you've barely joined in the game, hanging back, throwing accusations at Ray, and when the lynch on him fell through and people looked at you, you began flipping out and getting upset and going for the whole AtE rubbish that you're doing now.

[PranaDevil]

Okay, I'll give you chance to post it just in case someone gets hammer happy.

unvote

[PranaDevil]

First of all, I wouldn't say this push is the same as the Ray one, I'm not as gung ho as I was earlier (like I've repeatedly pointed out, and you're repeatedly ignoring in favour of pointing out things I said "before" I realized I was making a mistake... surprising that you would conveniently ignore blatant points).

Second, no not a quick shift, I was pushing for Ray, made a mistake, backed off, looked at things, then realized it was likely town vs town, nor town vs scum, and then realized it's possible scum was trying to slide by without being noticed, at that time I hadn't paid that much attention to your posts Apathy, and so only began noticing it when I began searching through the posts more.

Also, I have been looking at everyone, just for the past few days there's been absolutely nothing going on, so there's not been a huge amount to look at. Just because I'm noticing you as acting most scummy (as are others I add) doesn't mean I'm not looking at others.

You pointed out I was putting pressure on various people, (Ray, fuzzy, jmurph, yourself) and stating that as though it's scummy, and also very falsely claiming I've not done anything of my own, when if you look through the thread, I've brought up some points of my own. Just because I don't use "only" my points and none of anyone elses isn't scummy, in fact, using others points "and" your own is much better than following people around, or not paying attention to others at all.

As for the aggressiveness, I wasn't being aggressive in your direction, I was arguing against the roleclaim rubbish, which doesn't benefit the town, that's a gameplay issue and like I say, would be no different no matter if I agreed with the lynch or not. Asking for a roleclaim is just leading right into problems for town. Thus the one and only time I was actively being "aggressive" in any type of charge... was against Ray, which was bad play, which I've admitted, and which I've since backed down from.

[PranaDevil]

To be honest, I'm unsure about Skill, but I have just noticed one thing looking over everything, and that is that since pretty much the RVS stage, she's not made a vote, she voted Ray early on, then switched to fuzzy, then backed down from that argument and hasn't voted at all since. Which increases my concern that she's just fence sitting and not really getting involved in any actual arguments or scum hunting.

This concerns me because in RVS she mentioned she's not great at scum hunting, sure she could be being honest, but there's part of me that feels it was a potential early statement to make us all believe her lack of scum hunting is normal, as opposed to sliding by as scum.

jammer, I currently think is town, obviously my view could change, as could anyones, but that's how it is for now.

However, where I am looking would still be fuzzy and jmurph. jmurph because of the seemingly follow the bandwagon stuff, but I am willing to hold back a while with her and see where things head and see if she has more ideas further down the line.

fuzzy, however, I still have trouble getting beyond the whole statement of it's not "his" job to help others find scum. For an IC that's a strange statement really. Extremely strange in fact. LIke I've said before, the game is based on scum hunting, the only people who don't want to do that are scum. Town want to help other town find scum, not hide their opinions and views, that doesn't help town, and is a negative for town.

Will also admit, however, that the contradiction in those Ray posts does stand out somewhat. So Ray, could you give reasons for suspecting jammer and skill? (I don't think we need you to repeat your reasons for jmurph though, but if someone asks, or you feel like it, then go for it, lol)

As for the length of my posting, I've likely said it earlier, but I do have trouble condensing my thoughts. I always have. I admit I often type about 5 or 6 lines of text when others could likely get those thoughts out in 1 or 2, also the whole back and forth between me and Ray I admit has made the game harder to read due to the length of it, and re-reading things is somewhat tougher now. For that I do apologize and hope people notice that I've (at least tried) to post less often rather than replying to absolutely every post ever. (Barring the little gameplay mechanic issue about the lynches obviously, but as I say, that's just a personal view, and has nothing at all to do with who the lynchee could be).

For now though, I am still of the feeling Apathy is scum, and I'm not voting purely to make sure there's no hammer until he's had chance to post his long post. After that, if I still feel he's scum, I'll put the vote back on.

[PranaDevil]

I've said my pieces on fuzzy already, (same as I have on Apathy, and jmurph, and redbox... hell, on pretty much everyone, multiple times over).

The fact he was the initial mention of two bandwaggoned players doesn't mean he could be town. He could be scum subtly pointing out something to get others to dive into the action so he doesn't appear to be pushing the lynch that strongly.

One thing I will say is that it's the 20th, we have until the 24th (and to be safe, I'd suggest that we make the decision on the 23rd just in case someone comes on half hour after the deadline's over and finds the thread locked), otherwise we end with a no lynch, and after everything that's gone on in D1 so far, it would have all amounted to nothing if we no lynch.

So I propose that we give until the end of Tuesday to make our final decisions. I'd be against a no lynch, and at this stage my two highest suspects are Apathy and fuzzy, and while I, personally, would rather see an Apathy lynch (though this is prior to the in depth post we've been routinely promised), if town as a whole prefers the fuzzy one, I would be okay with that at this stage (due to the whole time running out on things issue).

As for Apathy's in depth post, I would like to see that posted by end of day Monday so everyone waiting on it can make their final decisions prior to deciding the lynch on Tuesday (if it hasn't been decided by then of course).

[PranaDevil]

Twice now has fuzzy called for a lynch, knowing that either person could in fact be town, for the sheer fact of uselessness. The only people that I know who would actually call for a lynch of town is scum.

Day 1 lynches are rarely scum, so someone who isn't contributing to the discussion or someone who is playing anti-town-ishly would be ok lynches, especially if we have nothing else to go on. Its better than a no-lynch, especially with the possibility of actually hitting scum. Besides, scum

want

to keep useless town players around.

Without wanting to stray into WIFOM territory... wouldn't scum want to at least "appear" to be scum hunting? Thus pushing for a lynch on "useless" townies is a benefit to them.

However, more importantly (to me at least) is the first part of that paragraph... okay, Day 1 lynches are rarely scum, true. But why does that make "lynch so-and-so, they're being useless" somehow a worthwhile strategy?

We don't need to just lynch someone for being useless, or not contributing, or playing anti-town-ishly, because we do have quite a wide array of things to go on. At this stage anyone who hasn't got some good suspicions on a minimum of 2 people hasn't been reading the thread.

Actually, I just went over Skill's posts, and something struck me (no, I'm not bruised, but thanks for the concern). Skills lack of any real voting, or lack of any serious scum hunting (and pretty much universal defending of everyone) has been mentioned, as has her admission at the start that she's not a good scum hunter.

But this one seems to have bypassed us all:

I don't jump on bandwagons, period. Even when I know the victim is scum (yeah, I know, real smart). Well, I guess you wouldn't know this.

So people can look it up, it's this post

So, a quick rundown of some facts Skill has mentioned of herself in this game:

- Bad at scum hunting (Possible cover?)
- Has done no voting since RVS.
- Solely defending people, not hunting (Possibly trying to keep everyone on side?)
- Refuses to jump on a bandwagon, even when she "knows" the victim is scum.

How would she even "know" the victim is scum short of being their scum buddy? And even if it's just a turn of phrase (possible, but a strange wording, as "think" would be better for a town player surely, as none of us know who is scum and who isn't), that doesn't scream pro-town to me... in fact it's decidedly scummy, as the one and only way for town to win, is for us to have a majority vote for scum, the only way to do that, is to have a bandwagon form to lynch them.

With all that, Skill has jumped right to near the top of my list of potential scum. Which to me leaves 3 possibilities for lynching now (Apathy, fuzzy, or Skill).

[PranaDevil]

Sorry to hear about the gf Apathy.

In response to jmurph's comment though, personally I still favour the Apathy lynch, if people feel he's scummy anyway, allowing the slot to be replaced and someone to take time to catch up (and therefore not lynch them) because of that, would likely hurt town. I still feel Apathy has played scummy, (though I don't doubt the gf thing, sometimes real life stuff comes up, and while I put myself heavier into mafia when me and my ex broke up a couple of weeks back, I understand not wanting to).

Therefore I am still going to...

vote: Apathy

As for Skill, I'm still unsure. Wanting to defend people who are being targetted wrongly? That's fine by me, but defending everyone is... a strange tactic, if you don't make some form of attack, you're also not pressuring potential scum, just asking people to explain further why they think things (potentially drawing things out and making it harder to read... not that I've helped with that previously).

The jumping off of Ray despite knowing he was scum in a previous game... that's fine, you make mistakes, but what happened in that game regarding that should solely be used to learn not to make that mistake again, not used as a reason for not doing something in this one when it would lead right back to the same direction (not voting someone you believe is scum).

Also, in the same post we get from Skill:

Well, right now I'm not voting anyone because apathy is making us wait(s'already been two days) and I want to see jammer's defense for my case.

Which is followed up just a few paragraphs down with:

vote:jammer Not only am I suspicious because of my case, but he needs to start talking. He has the least amount of stuff in this thread, now, and I could almost call him out for active lurking if it weren't for the fact that I'm pretty convinced he is gone due to RL issues.

Erm... you want to wait to vote to hear his defense, but will still vote for him?

Right now, Apathy still feels like the right choice, I feel Apathy is scum regardless, but I'm starting to get more of a feeling Skill could well be scum, even more so when you consider the rather weak case on jammer (to me at least) followed up with a vote on him a mere 2 days before deadline, when it's highly unlikely to end in a jammer lynch, as though voting just for the sake of it so it can't be said she hasn't voted.

[PranaDevil]

unvote

While I'm currently still up for the Apathy/Troll (:P) lynch, I also know (from looking round the site) that he's not likely to hold back and keep us waiting, so I'll give him chance to say his piece.

Factor in that there's (in my mind) still the possibility of a fuzzy lynch (or something else if all can agree in swift order, though doubtful this late in the game day), and I at least want to give him a chance, after all, waiting for one post is unlikely to kill us as town even if we do lynch him.

[PranaDevil]

Being that I likely will have to head off shortly myself (and short of an extension, which I would also request being this late into the day with a replacement (everyone should get a chance to at least discuss, even if people do lynch the lanky troll regardless )), I have a few questions I want to ask Zorblag (which I would request are also answered only after reading through the full thread).

So to Zorblag:
What are your views on Apathy's play prior to you taking his slot?
Would you have considered a lynch on him based on his actions regardless of your knowledge of the actual role?
Who would you say are the top 3 scummy players thus far, and why?
Has anything specifically stood out as strange that nobody else has managed to pick up on so far?
Have you any specific advice for any players based on what you have seen in this game (as opposed to just overall general advice)?

[PranaDevil]

(So much for heading to bed earlier, lol)

I'm actually glad that we did wait on Zorblag's post to be honest, it appears that he's going to put some effort into the game above what Apathy was doing (rather an ironic name I thought).

It also confirmed a lot of what has been said in regards to fuzzy and jmurph throughout the day, (Although there is the possibility of replacement scum deciding to agree with two potential wagons and throwing a fresh third out). Regarding Phaen, it does make me think, but right now I don't have time to check his posts before the end of this day, but it's something to look into more in day 2.

Regarding redbox, I admit I too may have given the impression they could day talk, purely because someone in the other game I was playing elsewhere said (on day 1) that if he was my scum partner he would have told me to shut the hell up (because I was posting like I was here early on). So it made me think scum could... Incidentally in that game they could too. (Yet nobody spotted that... despite scum not normally being able to day talk).

As it is, my suspicions still lie with Zorblag (but similar to his with Phaen, it's a carry over from the previous player), fuzzy, and jmurph.

As for the fuzzy vote removal, I'm glad Ray did that before I did, if he's not on by late tomorrow, then vote him to oblivion, but considering it's looking like either Zorblag or fuzzy still, he should at least get chance to defend.

[PranaDevil]

Okay, to be honest, fuzzy's responded, but it's not really any kind of defence, just "I reply to questions", and... that's it, there's not really been much from him, I've seen no real searching, and of course everything I've said before.

I'm still highly suspicious of Zorblag through Apathy being in that spot, but as of the here and now... fuzzy would appear to be somewhat of a better lynch to me, and if we (as a town) are still unsure on Zorblag later, we still have the option of a lynch then, but as plenty still view fuzzy as scummy. (Myself included) and he's given his response, I see no reason not to vote him right now.

vote: fuzzylightning

[PranaDevil]

@PranaDevil, do you know if you did anything in the game thread to indicate that you were thinking that scum could day talk in this game? I don't recall seeing any such indications but I could easily have missed them.

It's possible I didn't say it, short of going through my posts with a fine tooth comb I doubt I'd notice if I had either as it would have been just a throw away line. Or just agreeing with the previous comment about it perhaps. Either way I'm not well enough (gained a damned cold... and I'm meant to be helping my Mum paint her new place later today... hooray)

I also have an additional thing to point out from this game regarding observations for this game in particular. I disagree with the assertion that town should always play a completely transparent game (I think you made it though it might have been someone else.) Sometimes it's a good idea for members of the town to be slightly deceptive about what their beliefs about the state of the game are to try to get the scum to make sub-optimal choices during the night. Games in which I've done this as town include (though aren't limited to): Newbie Game 845 where I tried to indicate that I had more things to say the next day than I atually did in the hopes that I would be night killed to keep me quiet and Newbie Game 871 where I intentionally overstated the strength of my case on Yankee to make it more likely that he would night kill me if he were scum.

Town shouldn't lie about their roles but that doesn't mean that they should make all of their thoughts perfectly clear. Scum make decisions for night kills and roleblocks based at least in part on what they think the towns opinions are. Being deceptive about that can be helpful so long as it's done in a way which doesn't have any serious danger of hurting the town in the process as well. Mafia is a game of deception and that's not just limited to the scum roles.

Now, this is something that I did want to point out. I can understand not wanting to give everything to the scum, however if someone was making out they had more information to give the next day... I would be wondering why they weren't sharing it that day (at least D1, I can accept that D2 or 3 it could be seen as "I'm the cop, and have some information, but I want to see if my suspicions are correct").

As for deliberately overstating a case... well if the person you're overstating it on is town, they'll think you're scum, there's the possibility that other town will see you blowing up a case beyond what it is (Ray's had some heat for this from what I can remember), which could get you lynched, and I don't really see a benefit in it.

Now, there will be times when making things obvious isn't a great strategy, we, as town, don't need to know where the cop is, and we don't need to know where the doc is, so the worst thing either could say (at least in a game like this) is any kind of hint to their play, but that doesn't mean we should deliberately withold information from the rest of town if we see something. If I've spotted something that would help others make a decision, I feel it's only right I should state it. Otherwise town could lynch others, only to then come to find that the scum was the person I was looking at heavier than them, and my opinion of it could have made people aware of it.

[PranaDevil]

Okay, so we've lynched fuzzy wrongly, and PE's been NK'd, the negative of course is we've just lost two town. The plus of course is we've not lost any PR's (If we have any), and our options are less.

We also appear to have had no posts all day so far. Where is everyone?

I'm going to have a look over stuff a bit later, but I apologize to all if I fail to get a post up before tomorrow, spent the day moving all my Mum's furniture and have a killer cold to boot, so chances are lots of rest will be the order of the day for today and tomorrow. But will try taking time out to have a little (well, big) review of everything.

[PranaDevil]

Love the pics
It looks more like paltry got run over by a car, as opposed to being shot XD

Ok, notice:

Day One's Final Vote Count

fuzzylightning ( 5 ) : jammer, jmurph3, PaltryExcuse,

PranaDevil

, Zorblag
Zorblag ( 3 ) : Phaen, RayFrost, fuzzylightning

Not Voting ( 1 ) : Skill006

With 9 alive, 5 votes were required to lynch.

And then here:

Day One: Vote Count

Apathy ( 4 ) : Phaen, RayFrost, fuzzylightning,

PranaDevil

fuzzylightning ( 2 ) : jammer, jmurph3
jmurph3 ( 1 ) : PaltryExcuse
RayFrost ( 1 ) : Apathy

Not Voting ( 1 ) : Skill006

With 9 alive, it will take 5 votes to lynch.

Opportunistic much?

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Questions, now that it is day 2:

@pranadevil: why did you feel you should unvote apathy to switch to fuzzy? (By the way, I know you unvoted zorblag because he just replaced in, my question asks why you thought fuzzy was more worth lynching).

@phaen: who else is suspicious besides zorblag? I saw this:

My top scum suspicions are

1) Apathy/Troll
2) jmurph
3) Skill

But I don’t know if it has changed, and you never really said much about me or jmurph.

@jammer:

Wishy washy ness with redbox, skill and fuzzy.

What's apathy's "wishy-washiness" on the three of us?

@zorblag: do you think anyone on

your

wagon was scum?

Opportunistic? I think you'll find the reason I was late on the fuzzy wagon is I was still pushing for the Apathy one until Zorblag came in, and gave a reason.

You'll also find I had suspicions about both players, and therefore, while I still would have "preferred" the Apathy lynch, when Zorblag entered in I felt the better option was to go with my second hunch, just in case it was based off of Apathy's playing as opposed to the role (as Zorblag came in and appeared to be actively scum hunting, and yes, it's possible it was a front, but we had sweet little time to make that judgement call, I personally feel a replacement that late in a day is a bad idea when town is pretty much all set for the lynch of said player anyway).

As it is, I still have my suspicions about Zorblag through earlier postings, I still have strong suspicions about you too Skill, which I have explained earlier. Through the lack of voting, in fact... the fact you avoided voting almost entirely in the first day, only to return with "so do you think people on the wagons were scummy?" Leads me to believe that perhaps you are trying to keep people suspicious in the wrong directions.

vote Skill006

[PranaDevil]

What I'm noticing so far is that Skill avoided anything that might seem to be a definite lynch, hanging right back as if to appear town, but also didn't really seem to do much, along with obviously trying to twist things up above.

I also note that Zorblag took over the Apathy spot, and swiftly converted people over to the fuzzy vote instead, which doesn't necessarily mean he's scum (as town shouldn't just shrug and accept being lynched anyway), but does seem strange that the person he pushed heavily for was the other one most likely to get lynched that day outside of his own slot.

So right now those are the directions I would be considering for myself right now. But I would definitely like to hear other people's views.

(oh, and a little off topic, but much as I don't want to get lynched or NK'd, I still kind of want to see what Kison does with Dastardly if I do. I like that little play on stuff, nice work)

[PranaDevil]

To make it easier I'll place each of my posts that I made about Skill in quotes here, so this is all old posting, not fresh. Also, clicking my name prior to each main quote block will take you to the post itself as well (So you can look at context surrounding it if so wishing):

Twice now has fuzzy called for a lynch, knowing that either person could in fact be town, for the sheer fact of uselessness. The only people that I know who would actually call for a lynch of town is scum.

Day 1 lynches are rarely scum, so someone who isn't contributing to the discussion or someone who is playing anti-town-ishly would be ok lynches, especially if we have nothing else to go on. Its better than a no-lynch, especially with the possibility of actually hitting scum. Besides, scum

want

to keep useless town players around.

Without wanting to stray into WIFOM territory... wouldn't scum want to at least "appear" to be scum hunting? Thus pushing for a lynch on "useless" townies is a benefit to them.

However, more importantly (to me at least) is the first part of that paragraph... okay, Day 1 lynches are rarely scum, true. But why does that make "lynch so-and-so, they're being useless" somehow a worthwhile strategy?

We don't need to just lynch someone for being useless, or not contributing, or playing anti-town-ishly, because we do have quite a wide array of things to go on. At this stage anyone who hasn't got some good suspicions on a minimum of 2 people hasn't been reading the thread.

Actually, I just went over Skill's posts, and something struck me (no, I'm not bruised, but thanks for the concern). Skills lack of any real voting, or lack of any serious scum hunting (and pretty much universal defending of everyone) has been mentioned, as has her admission at the start that she's not a good scum hunter.

But this one seems to have bypassed us all:

I don't jump on bandwagons, period. Even when I know the victim is scum (yeah, I know, real smart). Well, I guess you wouldn't know this.

So people can look it up, it's this post

So, a quick rundown of some facts Skill has mentioned of herself in this game:

- Bad at scum hunting (Possible cover?)
- Has done no voting since RVS.
- Solely defending people, not hunting (Possibly trying to keep everyone on side?)
- Refuses to jump on a bandwagon, even when she "knows" the victim is scum.

How would she even "know" the victim is scum short of being their scum buddy? And even if it's just a turn of phrase (possible, but a strange wording, as "think" would be better for a town player surely, as none of us know who is scum and who isn't), that doesn't scream pro-town to me... in fact it's decidedly scummy, as the one and only way for town to win, is for us to have a majority vote for scum, the only way to do that, is to have a bandwagon form to lynch them.

With all that, Skill has jumped right to near the top of my list of potential scum. Which to me leaves 3 possibilities for lynching now (Apathy, fuzzy, or Skill).

As for Skill, I'm still unsure. Wanting to defend people who are being targetted wrongly? That's fine by me, but defending everyone is... a strange tactic, if you don't make some form of attack, you're also not pressuring potential scum, just asking people to explain further why they think things (potentially drawing things out and making it harder to read... not that I've helped with that previously).

The jumping off of Ray despite knowing he was scum in a previous game... that's fine, you make mistakes, but what happened in that game regarding that should solely be used to learn not to make that mistake again, not used as a reason for not doing something in this one when it would lead right back to the same direction (not voting someone you believe is scum).

Also, in the same post we get from Skill:

Well, right now I'm not voting anyone because apathy is making us wait(s'already been two days) and I want to see jammer's defense for my case.

Which is followed up just a few paragraphs down with:

vote:jammer Not only am I suspicious because of my case, but he needs to start talking. He has the least amount of stuff in this thread, now, and I could almost call him out for active lurking if it weren't for the fact that I'm pretty convinced he is gone due to RL issues.

Erm... you want to wait to vote to hear his defense, but will still vote for him?

Right now, Apathy still feels like the right choice, I feel Apathy is scum regardless, but I'm starting to get more of a feeling Skill could well be scum, even more so when you consider the rather weak case on jammer (to me at least) followed up with a vote on him a mere 2 days before deadline, when it's highly unlikely to end in a jammer lynch, as though voting just for the sake of it so it can't be said she hasn't voted.

Then of course there's the couple from D2 so far. But them's the in depth things on Skill. I've also removed the non-Skill related stuff from the second quote as it was completely irrelevant for this.

[PranaDevil]

However, when I saw her posts, I had the same thought that Zorb had, and that was that she was really playing follow the leader. It's easy to follow the most aggresive person/people, those 2 in particular (prana and ray), as they pass a blind eye to people who follow them (or they appear to, anyway).

Erm, pardon? Either you've not been paying much attention at all to the goings on in this game, or you are deliberately leaving out rather important points there.

I know I, for a fact, have pulled up jmurph on her "follow the leader" stuff on D1, and I'm also pretty sure Ray has. If you're going to make a pointless comment, at least make sure it's somewhat buried in the realms of reality.

As for Zorblag's question about who I felt got turned towards voting fuzzy.... in all honesty, mainly me.

I was already making it obvious that I favoured the Apathy lynch, but would go with fuzzy if that was the direction that was felt better as a whole, because I felt both were scum anyway, and we were getting exceptionally close to deadline.

Now, perhaps I should have stuck with my original Apathy vote, but part of my reasoning was that Apathy wasn't contributing much at all, and when he was, it wasn't helping town that much. The fact Zorblag's come in and appears to be putting some effort in makes me feel better about the slot, especially with the in depth approach to reading the thread and scum hunting.

Now perhaps I'm wrong for thinking that, but also the way Zorblag is also saying "If I were in town's shoes, I'd have lynched me" is a risky move if Zorblag is scum, because it only takes a few people to take him up on that offer to lynch him. So I don't feel he's scum right now. But I'm not ruling it out.

[PranaDevil]

Erm, pardon? Either you've not been paying much attention at all to the goings on in this game, or you are deliberately leaving out rather important points there.

...hm? Was it 'points' I was leaving out? Or was it this:

I know I, for a fact, have pulled up jmurph on her "follow the leader" stuff on D1, and I'm also pretty sure Ray has. If you're going to make a pointless comment, at least make sure it's somewhat buried in the realms of reality.

I wasn't saying you didn't say that, I didn't say no one else said that.

You said, and I quote (Again):

However, when I saw her posts, I had the same thought that Zorb had, and that was that she was really playing follow the leader. It's easy to follow the most aggresive person/people, those 2 in particular (prana and ray), as they pass a blind eye to people who follow them (or they appear to, anyway).

What you have stated there is that both myself, and Ray, pass a blind eye to those who follow us. Which is known to be false as jmurph has been pulled up on it by both of us, and so was Apathy. So stating that they we passed a blind eye to her doing so is so blatantly a lie, that I'm surprised not more people have mentioned it by now.

It's also hardly the "same thought that Zorb had" when a fair sized chunk of people acknowledged that fact on Day 1. It's almost like you're starting to come out with some form of aggression as you realized the tide was turning on you due to the fact you hadn't been doing much D1.

But basically, yes, it was a pointless comment because it was going nowhere, it was pretty much solely there to say "yeah, I've seen what you're saying, oh and Prana and Ray never noticed it" despite it being spotted earlier in the game.

As for acknowledging defenses, I see no reason to do so if I also don't feel that they are adequate. There's also the fact I posted those because I was asked to by jmurph to save people tracking back to find them.

However to answer some of your other questions Skill.

Was there a person you didn't have suspicion on? One can spread all of their suspicions around the players and go back on whichever one they want at a convinient time.

Yes, PaltryExcuse I was pretty sure was town, and by the end of the last day I had eased off of Ray, however I kept suspicion on everyone because for one, not only should everyone be suspected in some form (some more than others, sure), and even more so D1 (and after that only investigative roles could really be positive that someone is or isn't town anyway).

However, someone in D1 (Can't remember who, so apologies to whoever did post it) mentioned it was best to not start mentioning loudly who we think is, and isn't, town, outside of specific suspicions, because if everyone has the same agreement of "Player X is town" it pretty much tells mafia who to take out that next night, because we keep someone around who everyone is sure is town? So I wont go announcing exactly who I have town reads on now.

I explained why I didn't vote much. you may consider me on the fuzzy wagon (I said this), even though I wasn't voting him. I said I would vote him. The only reason I didn't was because Zorb had something he seemed to be waiting for.

That's rather... convenient though isn't it? The one and only time you really jump on a bandwagon is one you not only didn't vote in, but one that was as good as a guarenteed lynch anyway. Prior to that point you wanted in on none anyway, and I still don't buy it.

As for the "twisting things above" comment... I link straight back to this post

[PranaDevil]

Except I have commented on your defenses in general, however if your defense isn't really all that good, and just is an obvious excuse for bad play (such as not jumping on bandwagons at all, and no, I wont consider you on fuzzy's, as you only jumped on it when it was as good as obvious he was going to be lynched, and not earlier, as when Zorblag was waiting on fuzzy's response, I was too, and thus my vote and his vote put him at lynch, and I highly doubt you would have voted had someone else pulled their vote out. Hence why it's convenient that the one, and only, time you actively stated you would be ready to lynch someone, is when they were basically lynched already).

But if I have failed to miss some actual worthwhile things said by yourself, please feel free to post them (and link to the post they came from, to give me context. But please actually link, giving me a number but no way of clicking to get there means everyone has to search to find it, rather than just the one person). I will then state either where I've responded already, why I didn't feel it necessary, or respond accordingly if, indeed, it is something important I missed.

[PranaDevil]

Just a note I'll be away until (at the latest) 7pm GMT on Tuesday, although at the speed we're going I doubt I'll miss much of anything.

[PranaDevil]

If you feel I'm actively defending Zorblag, then I can actually understand your points in that I've changed my vote from him to fuzzy. However being that I already highly suspected fuzzy D1, and have since stated that I am somewhat wary of Zorblag (though feel his effort to scum hunt may be more pro-town than anti-town, though it could well be just the attempt to shift focus fast in a short space of time. Which considering the views, is possible).

I just feel, at this moment, Skill is more inclined to be scum than Zorb right now. I'm just not dismissing the possibility of him. But by the same token, while I feel certain people are town I'm also not actually going to say for sure that they are, unless I 100% know I don't feel I should dismiss anyone from being under scrutiny, just some deserve it more than others.

[PranaDevil]

The thing with the defence is it's not so much defence as excuses for why you are doing things. One or two perhaps, but that amount just seems overboard.

you have confidence issues and so are "bad" at scum hunting.

No voting from the RVS (at that point) because of Apathy making us wait? (When... he wasn't, nobody makes us wait really, and that was a long time of not really scum hunting anyway).

You also state you wanted to see redbox's defence before you placed a vote on him (and in the same post vote jammer despite not letting him get a defence out first, severe contradiction there).

The other points are already commented on countless times as well. Safe to say that all together it just seems like a lot of excuses as to why you've not done anything up to that point, and re-reading it just confirms my suspicions more thanks to spotting the redbox/jammer stuff in that post.

[PranaDevil]

-Prana - Started case on Skill immediately after she called him out on what she saw as being opportunistic. Not sure how much of the stuff on Skill truly carried over from D1 (D1 stuff seemed to be mostly about not posting and the case on jammer). Had added to case with stuff Skill has said during D2. Possibly tunneling? Not sure if he's stated any others that he's looking at.

The problem I have is that, outside of Skill, the other major cases appear to be Phaen and jammer. Which to me is pretty much "hasn't posted much, posts pretty much nothing of importance when they do", which definitely doesn't help us in any way.

Zorb, I agree, the case on him is now into WIFOM position which makes it really hard to judge. Is he scum playing a risky game? Is he town trying to prove he is in a risky way? My actual take on it is more "Whatever your play is, as an IC I feel this would still be the best play". So I'm reading it more as good advice to take with us for future reference, than something specific to this game. Of course, if that's the issue, we tread right back into WIFOM territory in the "do we go and lynch him because it's good advice as he's scum, or do we hold back as he wouldn't give us that hint until after the game if he was scum?" In regards to that... I find it best to not consider that at all, and therefore (like I say) use it as good reference in the future on all games, but don't treat it with anything as far as this specific game is concerned.

jmurph, I had suspicions on previously, but has picked up the scum hunting, so is either scum realizing she has to appear more pro-town, or is town just getting to do more now.

Ray I'm still unsure on, I've changed my stance on him a couple of times, and the jammer/skill not caring about which may seem somewhat scummy at a glance, but I was in a similar position with Apathy/fuzzy, they both appeared equally scummy for different reasons. If I'm totally honest I feel an Apathy replacement that late in the day was a mistake. In my view Apathy was almost lynched, and had he stayed he would have been regardless. Bringing in Zorb meant we had to wait to let him catch up, and it possibly shook things up badly.

Now, if Apathy/Zorb is scum, it's negatively impacted the town... if Apathy/Zorb was town... it's still negatively impacted the town as we would have still lynched a town player, but wouldn't have this huge WIFOM dealio hanging in front of us. Personally if someone requests replacement just a few days from deadline, it should be held up until after day is dealt with (someone can always replace in during night phase (to use night actions and such)).

But again, that doesn't help us in the here and now, and I digressed from my point. My point is that not caring which of your top two suspects is lynched isn't necessarily scummy. Having poor reasoning for it would be scummy. In that vein, I've given a reasonably good case against Skill so far, but I'm only seeing a moderately sized one on jammer, and being that Ray stated he would prefer the jammer lynch, I want to ask Ray to state a full case on jammer to show why he feels jammer would be more worthy of the lynch than Skill.

As for Skill, well I wouldn't agree with Zorb that it's "convenient" (I bet I typoed that too...), taking everything from D1, does nobody else get the feeling of it being a lot of "I haven't done that because" all the way through, with little to no scum hunting? Then today she started off pointing a finger in my direction because I was "opportunistic"... on lynches I had been pushing for? It's the exact opposite of the definition of the word. If I had been opportunistic I would have voted to put them at L1 without a serious reason. Factor in my recent spot of the extremely blatant contradictions in play style regarding her votes on redbox and jammer, and I'm failing to see how there's been any consistancy in her play.

Now, obviously there's 2 scum out there, and I strongly feel Skill is one half of that team. As for who else I think is scum? Well I still suspect everyone to some extent, but my top would be the Phaen/jammer stuff due to a lack of really getting involved (scum would, indeed, love to keep out of the way while town argue amongst themselves, and just throwing the final vote in quickly at the end.)

I also believe Zorb could still be scum, in fact, thinking on it, the WIFOM was possibly deliberate. Consider that Zorb had come in and had, what? 48 hours (or was it less?) to make a case for himself to stay alive, and/or push the case on someone else. Now, town or scum, he was going to pick the next best lynch and push for it hard. That goes without saying, but perhaps the blatant WIFOM was a deliberate red herring to throw us well off his trail? I'd like to hear other people's opinions on this. But what do people think of Zorb posting what amounted to "you should still have pushed for my lynch" as being a deliberate attempt to put WIFOM out there to basically prevent us getting a read on him now? He isn't an idiot after all, as he mods games here too. So for an experienced player, that could well be a clever ruse to throw, in essence, a smoke screen over everything.

Apologies for the exceptionally long post.

[PranaDevil]

I wouldn't say I got worked up about it, just pointed out (strongly) that scum would be wanting to try and show up someone else negatively, despite the actuality of it being different. You claimed one thing, and were proven that what you were claiming, and what actually happened, were not one and the same.

As for phaen. Some people prefer shorter day phases (In all honesty, I'm one of them, I find with a 3 week day phase, yes a lot gets said, but by the end of week 3, you've forgotten a lot of what was said at the start of week 1). So I would hardly say speeding things up only works if you're scum (I just saw scum lynched with a day phase that lasted under 24 hours no less. That one damned sure didn't help scum).

Although, if you want a more solid reason that it's scummy, perhaps pointing out that wanting to speed the game up, despite posting next to nothing yourself (talking about phaen) does nothing to help the game pick up speed, only slow it down. So in that sense it's like saying "I want the game to move fast, but I don't want to help it do so". Which, in that instance, only helps if they are scum.

[PranaDevil]

Essentially, wouldn't you guys just go back to square one if you lynch me so quickly? (well, maybe it doesn't seem quick to you guys, but it seems quick to me ) Not only that, but you would have less town in the game, whether I'm scum or not. (Like jmurph said, not exactly odds I would want me or you guys to throw yourselves into).

I... really have absolutely no idea where you are coming from here.

The part that throws me so much is "you would have less town in the game, whether I'm scum or not." Which... makes no sense.

If you are scum, and we lynch you, we would have less town in the game? Well... if you're basing it off night phase killing a town player, then sure, but that happens whether we lynch someone right now, or whether we lynch someone in a week.

As for my read on Phaen, I need to go back and re-read everything she's posted to do so before I can decide that. But I shall do so a.s.a.p.

@Zorblag, I think with the Skill thing, you make a halfway decent point, but there's the fact that by the time things came to a head, we had enough people set to lynch fuzzy (He was at L-2, and it was known by all that myself and you were all ready to cast the final votes after he stated his case, unless someone suddenly unvoted Skill was unlikely to need to cast a deciding vote anyway).

Also, you'll note I've never said that Skill would have wanted a no lynch, just that she didn't want to be on a lynch so as to avoid drawing suspicion, as she kept herself well away from any votes that might be seen as being on someone when they were lynched (and in fact after it was pointed out she hadn't voted, cast a vote on a safe player, instead of anywhere that would be useful).

But still, right now there's a couple of things that need checking by me again, and I'm not going to be around until tomorrow night most likely, so to hopefully avoid a lynch before I get chance to do the checking I need, I'm going to...

unvote

Until I've done what I need to.

[PranaDevil]

Sorry I've not been able to do the checks I wanted to do (I'll hopefully get to them tonight, but no promises).

The problem we have, of course, is with just a week left to go... we're now stuck in the position of policy lynching Phaen and jammer (I don't feel Phaen is scum, and right now think lynching jammer may be a snap decision because of a lack of posting). This means we would run the risk of giving scum a free pass to lylo.

However, if we lynch someone who's active, and it turn's out they're town, we'll be in lylo with, potentially, 2 people who aren't that active, if at all. Or be in Lylo with people who we have no reads on because the playstyle would change (one reason I had replacements... but it's understandable as if we just dropped them we'd be stuffed).

Now, obviously we would hope to be lynching scum, but we have to consider the possibility that if it's town, we're in trouble in one way or the other.

Therefore I'd rather consider lynching someone who seems scum, as opposed to just policy lynching someone. At least that way we're likely to nail scum more than "these two are quiet, which do we get rid of?"

[PranaDevil]

Explanation: Was replying to Skill's post about jammer and Phaen being quiet. End of explanation.

[PranaDevil]

Christ on a bike and the twelve disciples on a twelve seater tandem, that was fast!

Welcome.

[PranaDevil]

vote: RayFrost

Reasons: He's not done anything D2, considering the amount of wind being blown from him D1, I would have felt there would be much more activity from him this day. Instead he's gone from one of the most active (between me and him) to just popping up to say a few lines (sometimes not even saying anything with them) before disappearing again.

Also, apparently opposed the fuzzy lynch based on really weak meta apparently, but gave his full reasons after the lynch (when it was too late) and said reasons weren't that good either from what I could gather.

So yeah, I still suspect some others, but Ray's style of play has gone from seemingly going after everyone D1, to doing sod all D2 suddenly... almost as if it's "heat off, hold back" for him. I don't like it.

[PranaDevil]

vote: RayFrost

Reasons: He's not done anything D2, considering the amount of wind being blown from him D1, I would have felt there would be much more activity from him this day. Instead he's gone from one of the most active (between me and him) to just popping up to say a few lines (sometimes not even saying anything with them) before disappearing again.

Also, apparently opposed the fuzzy lynch based on really weak meta apparently, but gave his full reasons after the lynch (when it was too late) and said reasons weren't that good either from what I could gather.

So yeah, I still suspect some others, but Ray's style of play has gone from seemingly going after everyone D1, to doing sod all D2 suddenly... almost as if it's "heat off, hold back" for him. I don't like it.

>.>

<.<

SILENCE!

I AM CONCENTRATING!

seriously, I am concentrating in a way that prevents me from posting, as it is the purest state of scumhunting I have been able to obtain. You'll see the full values of it in a bit.

@ Skill

why the no reply to my reply to your reply to my laziness?

But isn't your reason for going after jammer that he's not posting much actual content? Isn't that also the same thing have been doing pretty much all of this day phase (and the end of the last one)?

[PranaDevil]

If we're not careful I'm going to have to ask for prods on... well... everyone at this rate, lol.

*Walks round ringing a bell*

Wake up town, scum need lynching and we have a mere 6 days to do it in.

[PranaDevil]

I agree, I want to move the game forward, but it's increasingly seeming like everyone's happy to just let the game stall constantly, and so not only are we getting nowhere, things are easy to forget compared to a more fast paced game with stuff going on.

Right now, I like the idea of the Ray lynch because of what I said earlier (and he's not responded to my questions there either), I still wouldn't mind a Skill lynch either to be honest. I'd be against a Cathart or Phaen lynch for the time being, jmurph I'm not happy to lynch right now, and Zorblag I would lynch if it came down to the wire, (as I still think there's something not quite sitting well there).

But it all amounts to sod all if no bugger is around to actually discuss anything and move the game forwards.

[PranaDevil]

Well, Zorblag did say he had plenty to do yesterday, so I could understand him perhaps still being busy today.

Ray's quietness bothers me.

Phaen I don't believe is scum, and lynching just because she's been rather quiet is a bad move, D1, fair enough I could somewhat see that if there was nothing else to go on, but D2, in our position, we need someone who looks to be scum, not someone who's just being quiet.

But with it going so slow, it's hard to do much of anything... and it's almost like this specific game has just fallen apart, which I'm not liking at all, as it started well, and Kison has done well as a mod too, trying to keep things unique.

[PranaDevil]

Here's me thinking I've written a nice post about why I didn't think Phaen was scum... and I did, the flaw being I was at my sister's, meaning I'd set up the ISO on Phaen so I could read it at her place (she's not online), and type it up there to post when I returned... evidently I failed to post said read... so I'll just C+P it right over now:

------------------------

Okay, first note, I'm typing this up while offline (so can't use the typical set-up the forums have). So as an opening point, all quotes here are from Phaen's posts.

I find it interesting to note that fuzzylightning and Paltry are the only players who did not jump on Ray like the others did. I'm not sure if this should be attributed to style, experience, or something else.

This is the first thing that jumped out at me. It's early on in Phaen's posting too (so easy to find). Now I know on this forum (from what I've read) it's not that popular to look over who died so much. However this stands out to me as not one, but BOTH of these two died in the space of one day. Perhaps it's Ray with WIFOM, perhaps it's Phaen mentioning it, and making a strong note herself for future reference.

I'll likely return to this when I can look over fuzzy and Paltry's posts when I'm back online. (So check the end of this post for that).

fuzzylightning

My other game in April was with fuzzy too. He has a mere 20 posts this game and he was similarly quiet during D1 in the other game. While looking through all his posts, I see most of them have some sort of content, he is concise, and his votes match up with what he says he's thinking. I'm getting a pro-town read despite him not being as active as I would hope.

This I note more because it shows that Phaen strongly felt fuzzy was town due to previous meta, and stuck by this by not voting him. If she was scum I doubt she would have made note of this, as it would be detrimental to him trying to lynch known town.

However I will note that a lot of Phaen's posting has also not been that important (replying to gameplay mechanic things with me a lot for instance). However despite this, I don't feel Phaen is scum from this read through, still possible I'm wrong, but I do think that she's been scum hunting. Although I also feel she should be posting more often.

Soooo... yeah, that's my read on Phaen.

[PranaDevil]

EBWOP

@Skill, have I looked at your case? Seriously? Who began looking at you?

As for Zorblag, I've already said I'm not entirely sure on him.

As for Ray, no, it's not "he's not posting much" it's "he's been posting tons, and suddenly backed off a hell of a lot when the heat was off him, and with everyone suddenly being quiet, it's even more noticeable from him".

[PranaDevil]

I don't feel Phaen is scum from this read through

Also, you can't really be blatant about being quiet... I mean, if someone doesn't post much at all, that's not being blatant about anything, it's just a lack of posting... and how's that going to help town at all? How is someone who is meant to be pro-town suddenly shutting up and doing sod all, and allowing the game to basically go dead, helping ANYBODY but scum? Seriously.

Is jammer being replaced? I'd say Cathart's appearance would give you the answer you are seeking.

As for when the heat is off... okay yeah, D1 you kept posting... D2 you've been about as active as an pensioner's tackle... i.e. not very, and you've given absolutely zero reason for it, except that you've done so deliberately... despite the blatant lack of a good town reason for it. Holding back is understandable if there's issues going on elsewhere to see what's going on... when no bugger is saying anything, and you state you are deliberately not saying anything, and basically allowing the game to stall? Nah, something's amiss there.

[PranaDevil]

So you are deliberately holding the game up for... what Ray?

What is the reason you are refusing to actually do anything on this day phase?

Also, I'd stated that it was because you had stopped posting previously.

Factor in that you've complained about people posting lots (short of us all becoming mind readers, and being able to project our thoughts across the air... I'm afraid lots of text is how you'll have to accept it).

Then that you've been just skimming to such an extent that, on a day when absolutely sod all has happened so far, you've managed to miss someone getting replaced, and it just feels like you're just coasting today, as opposed to sitting back paying attention.

[PranaDevil]

@PranaDevil, taking a look at the reasons that you think Phaen is town I see that you seem to put some stock in her noticing that fuzzylightning and PaltryExcuse didn't attack RayFrost. I don't see why you think that should be a tell for Phaen's alignment.

I don't, I was just reading through Phaen's posts, and that stood out at me, wasn't so much a tell in either direction on her, just something that made me raise an eyebrow in how strange it was. It could be nothing, but it seemed weird.

If Apathy and fuzzylightning were both town and Phaen could stay on just one of the wagons (in fact, ideally the wagon that didn't end in a lynch on day one) is there any reason that she wouldn't want to do that as town?

I'm not entirely sure what you are asking here. Maybe my brain's just sodded off to the pub or something, but mind clarifying?

From the time that she entered the game was there any real danger of anyone other fuzzylightning and Apathy (and then myself) getting lynched? Experienced scum certainly shouldn't want to seem too eager to get on too many wagons on town. Should one that was going to lead to a lynch be one they could argue against without stopping it wouldn't they want to for town cred?

At a quick look, when Phaen appeared the strongest lynch was actually jmurph. So the Apathy/fuzzy wagons came up later on.

On the whole I see you saying that you don't think Phaen is scum but I don't understand the reasons why.

Well basically... that was written through going through every post by Phaen at that point (which was just a few days back I think). Now... if that's everything that's noteworthy that I could see from Phaen, I'm more saying "The case on Phaen is weak". (I may have said Phaen is town at some point, but generally speaking, I don't 100% trust anyone, anyone could be town, anyone could be scum, it's just a case of looking at things and deciding for ourselves).

So far, the one, and only reason I could see for lynching Phaen would be because she's going to be saying next to nothing from here on out.

Which as I've said before leaves us in a dilemma, do we lynch the person for not saying anything, but who has a weak as hell case on them. Or do we look to someone who has posted more often, and has a stronger case?

If we go for Phaen, we run the risk of essentially policy lynching town, leaving us at a town/scum ratio of 3/2.

If we go for someone people collectively think is scum, we have a higher chance of hitting scum at least (Phaen's not the only one after all). However if we're wrong we are left in a 3/2 position again, with one of the potential 3 townies being almost non-existant (in turn, leaving it as an almost guarenteed loss in that case).

The other thing that is worth mentioning in case anyone else hasn't thought about it, if we do lynch badly this day, the next one cannot be started with votes, one wrong vote will lead to a town loss as both scum members fly in and add the final votes. So whoever is left tomorrow I strongly advise nobody votes until a majority is positive of wanting to lynch someone.

As it stands, my favoured lynches in so much as finding scum would be:
RayFrost
Skill
Zorblag

But... much as it pains me to say it, I could understand the Phaen lynch in that we would at least make sure we didn't have a non-contributor if we wound up in LyLo.

Right now though I want to hear what Cathart has to say about things too. Hopefully we'll get some input from him soon.

[PranaDevil]

Re: Phaen, again.

Yes, I believe that most of the points aren't that strong, they are there, sure. But are they strong enough to be cause for a lynch beyond anyone else? I don't think so.

In fact, some of your issues could be said about myself, I had initially lowered on the Apathy/Zorblag case, I'm considering it again of course, but it had lessened somewhat, perhaps that's me giving too much benefit of the doubt (a flaw I have in real life too at times, even when someone's been a complete jackass towards me), but I did so regardless.

Phaen attacks from a safe distance? Well... so does jammer by that account, and so did jmurph (it seemed) on D1, in that she was following the votes of others, rather than being more independant.

Plus you say she wasn't willing to lynch fuzzy, and want to know why. Well Ray's reason was weak meta from fuzzy, and essentially so was Phaen's, does that mean Ray's just as scummy as Phaen in your eyes for that?

I'm sorry, but the majority of the case on Phaen IS that she's barely active, and that's the only reason I can see for lynching her.

As for lynching scum/lurkers, the reason we're more inclined to hit scum than if we just policy lynch a lurker (at this stage in the game) is because we'd be scum hunting, not policy lynching. If we just say "yeah, she's being quiet, lynch her" then we are actively choosing, as a town, to disregard any other feelings we have, in favour of removing someone quiet.

Now, D1 this is fine, hell, D2 this is fine at times. But D2 when it could potentially put us into LyLo? Scum would love that. Get rid of a town member to shove it to LyLo and be able to hide behind a policy lynch? Nuhuh, very scummy to me.

If we lynch Phaen, I want a good reason beyond "well she wanted to lynch Apathy, but didn't say much about others" and "she's pretty much gone anyway". If they're pretty much the reasons, then it's a bad lynch, and shouldn't be considered any longer. If you have actual reasons, then I want to hear them.

As for jmurph, the "literally nothing" line is meaningless. She's tired (as I am) of long pauses, especially when we have under a week to go before we have to make a decision. The amount of discussion done this day phase could easily have been done in half the time if there had been some discussion going on, instead it's almost been deliberately stalled, thereby meaning it's "stop/start/stop/start" all the way through, meaning constantly checking back on things a couple of days later so you understand what people are saying stuff in relation to.

So no, I'm not that troubled jmurph felt RayFrost was the only person she was interested in lynching, because we don't seem to be getting much done this day phase, he's (by his own admission) deliberately stopped talking, and the fact that I feel she didn't want to again get singled out for following others means it's possible she was avoiding giving someone the chance to call her out on that again.

[PranaDevil]

Yesterday Phaen was pushing the Apathy lynch (and helping get information from him), which was a strong one at the time. Had stated she wasn't up for lynching fuzzy, and yeah, that's about the size of it. This day phase she's not done much, and yeah, that doesn't amount to a large amount.

However... are we meant to lynch people who are, in our opinion, playing the scummiest, or are we to lynch the people who "are doing the least"? Just because someone "appears" to be trying to find scum, doesn't necessarily mean they are. And just because someone has essentially vanished, doesn't mean that they are scum, as opposed to town.

I'm actually finding this tunnelling on Phaen to be rather tiresome, and the fact you are so insistant on pushing what I feel is a very weak lynch, combined with the previous days thoughts on Apathy, and combined with my previous consideration that you might be trying to twist things your way... It's making me move right back to thinking that that player slot is, indeed, scum.

unvote; vote: Zorblag

[PranaDevil]

It hasn't escaped me, I just feel it's not as big of a scum tell as is seemingly being made out, and yes, I feel that is the biggest part of the Phaen case.

As for what you would get out of it? Like I say, this is what scum would get from pushing that lynch:

1 - The ability to claim it was, essentially, a policy lynch (which is bad at this point in the game).

2 - Removing a person who scum would know to be town, leading to a NK tonight, putting us in LyLo tomorrow with 2 scum members still alive (Leading to a very, very strong possibility for a scum win)

So not only could scum try and claim it wasn't their fault they pushed for the mislynch "hey, they were being too quiet, it was scummy", which would help them appear town, but they would be able to try and claim to appear town on a LyLo day quite easily.

I'd say the Phaen lynch is the strongest one for scum to push, looking at it. Because it leads right into LyLo with a full scum team, with scum who could claim to have only pushed it through policy, and it only takes one misplaced town vote to have a scum win.

[PranaDevil]

Phaen is the strongest lynch BECAUSE she hasn't done much, it's easy to say that she appears scummy because she's not done much, and that IS the majority of yours, and Skill's reasoning, I don't care what else you pull up, but the fact is Phaen has barely been around all game, so tunnelling on Apathy isn't a big issue as Phaen didn't post enough to go after that many people anyway.

You say if your goal was to get to 5 person LyLo you should have been able to do so without drawing that attention... true, but how come no scum has done so yet either?

Also, scum couldn't claim to be town more easily than by not being part of a mislynch at all... but it's damned sure easier for scum to claim town by being on a lynch of someone who has been quiet, and thus could be viewed as a policy lynch (whether scum mention it, or it's said by others), than on the lynch of someone who can't be considered a policy lynch.

As for drawing attention to yourself, I'm sorry, but I feel I've drawn the attention to it, rather than yourself. You and Skill have been pushing for the Phaen lynch, and had been trying to get others to move over to it as well. I feel that me calling it a policy lynch has meant you are now trying to justify pushing for it while realizing you can no longer rely on the policy lynch to fall back on if the lynch goes ahead.

As for likeliness of lynches. I feel everyone could, potentially be scum. Phaen "could" be scum, I'm not ruling it out 100%, but I need solid reasons to lynch her. But I'd say I'm confident enough in lynching yourself in that you are scum. Ray? I'm not sure on, I'd say that he's quite likely, as is Skill.

But a random inactive player? Well it's a straight 2 out of 7 chance right now, them odds are terrible... in fact the only time those odds would get to a point it would be worth considering, it would actually be too late to act on it, as we'd have lost in LyLo anyway.

[PranaDevil]

@PranaDevil, first of all, please, take another look at the case that I've made against Phaen in Post 722. Inactivity really isn't the part a major of what I'm working with there.

True, however I've also pointed out that the rest feels weak.

Since then I've added that I think that Phaen and jmurph3 are mutually defending each other.

Like I'm defending Phaen against, what I feel, is a bad consideration for a lynch? Defending someone against a bad lynch isn't any consideration of potential scum.

You're also then trying to say that my case on Phaen is lack of activity (I think because that's all you would like about a case against her) which just isn't true of what I've said.

I'm saying that the only part of the case I can see that's worth considering is the lack of activity part. The rest doesn't sit well for me.

Your feat that I'd use the argument that I had no responsibility for a mislynch I was on because I was just going after someone who wasn't posting just doesn't fit what I've been saying about Phaen.

Not now, no. However previously you could have easily said "well it was the lack of activity mainly that made me feel she was scum" quite easily without people batting an eyelid.

Why would Phaen be a stronger lynch than Col.Cathart if the strength comes from not having done anything?

Who said it's a stronger lynch? It could just be scum having no preference... you can't lynch them both after all.

I'm also still not seeing why you think that Phaen would be a better choice than simply going along with the flow and letting one of Skill006 or RayFrost get lynched. If they're targets already then that would be the easiest route for me to take were I scum.

Because at least this way you appear to be scum hunting, than just jumping on a bandwagon for the sake of it, and, as I said, you originally would have had the "policy" lynch to fall back on, but it's no longer a viable fall back.

Why is it that you think that scum haven't been letting the lynch go to one of the popular wagons without drawing attention to themselves? If that's what they've been doing in the environment that we've got in this game we'd really have no way of knowing.

Have no idea what you mean here, but if you just mean why haven't scum gone for the popular wagons... well how would I know? It also counters the last quote I replied to, pointing out that scum HAVE to have started a wagon (or be number 2 on it) right now, there's no two ways about it.

Especially when you take into account your stance that you don't want to lynch people who aren't active because you don't think that it's the safe move (an attitude which enables scum lurkers.)

Being rather blunt now, but are you honestly saying that rather than lynch someone who appears scum that's active, you would prefer, when we have 7 alive, and 2 scum around still, to lynch someone who's not that active, potentially throwing us into LyLo with 2 scum?

If you think that RayFrost, Skill006 and I are all pretty likely to be scum then you should probably think that a random inactive player should have less than a 2 in 7 chance of being scum. Actually, you should probably shouldn't have seven candidates there in any case (unless you think that everyone including yourself is inactive this game.)

If you're considering the set up as it is... you still have 2/7 chance of lynching scum by randomly lynching an inactive player. There's zero hard and fast facts about who is scum. There's no knowledge in whether scum ARE inactive, so randomly lynching an inactive means it's of 7 players, 2 are scum, and there's no guarentee one of them is inactive.

But I will applaud you on a great attempt at twisting my words from being numerical facts, into being a statement about who is, and isn't scum. It was well attempted.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh[/quote]

[PranaDevil]

Being that myself, and Zorb, are just going back and forth here, I'd like to hear some other players weighing in on this one. As it stands the only viewpoints coming forward are mine and Zorb's, which doesn't help town as a whole.

[PranaDevil]

@jmurph, I think you're also forgetting that Ray is at least around (he turned up last night). He may not be saying much, but at least he's here. Cathart I'm assuming is still catching up, but I do request he does so swiftly as it's not helping us as town right now.

As regards to Phaen... yeah, I would have rather she at least replaced out when she considered it, as if she's no longer interested it creates problems for us, and even if someone replaces in immediately, we're back in the same position we had with Apathy/Zorb on day 1. In that we have someone entering last minute, and have to consider if any views we have were more because of playstyle as opposed to scum slipping up.

As far as deciding on a joint person to lynch... I think with just the 4 (or 5 if we include Ray) of us, we have a problem. I believe Ray, Skill and Zorb are the scummiest... well, Zorb and Skill don't feel each other is scummy, and I'm unsure if either of them feel Ray is (I'm sure Zorb's said he believes Ray is town). So... just based on my views, unless Skill was willing to lynch Zorb or Ray it would be impossible to lynch my top suspects.

Myself, jmurph and Ray all oppose the Phaen lynch as well (by my recollection), even without Ray, me and jmurph opposing it would prevent it.

But I'm beginning to feel that scum may have noticed that none of us are willing to team up to get rid of someone... that they see us arguing amongst ourselves (and one of us is possible scum still), and are deliberately sitting back watching what is going on... perhaps even pleased that certain people are defending them.

Plus, on a re-read between mine and Zorb's communication, I am now more favouring the Phaen lynch. My viewpoints being that she didn't outright replace out, but "offered" to do so, then vanished again. I'm feeling like she is deliberately holding back, coming in when prodded and then making no effort to join in, not because she's bored of the game, but perhaps more because it is letting her slide by.

So because of this...

vote: Phaen

That also puts her at L-1 by my accounts. At the very least it will prevent a no lynch, and if worst comes to the worst and she flips town.. Well I would rather enter a potential LyLo with active players who may at least help find scum, than someone who's basically sitting on the side lines.

(Oh, and Skill, I don't have a horse... can I hold my cat instead?)

[PranaDevil]

EBWOP

I forgot to unvote...

unvote; vote: Phaen

Sorry mod.

[PranaDevil]

I may have forgotten your feelings on whether Ray was a worthy lynch, however that still had no bearing on my voting decision Zorb. But I do appreciate it being pointed out just in case. Better to be safe than sorry and all that.

[PranaDevil]

Because whether Zorb thinks of Ray to be a potentially viable lynch or not, doesn't factor into my thought process of who may be the best lynch right now...

And considering that my re-read on mine and Zorb's posts from yesterday (and yes Skill, that was a good point about it leaving room for suspicion on Phaen, something I noticed on my re-read in fact) lead to me feeling Phaen may be the best lynch (from some of the points, but also the major worry of heading into lylo with at least one player who's saying sod all, and possibly 2 (Cathart appears to be saying nothing too), it would be asking for trouble, trouble which we, as town, can't risk either.

[PranaDevil]

@jmurph3, I'd say it mostly depends on whether you think a replacement would be likely to say something that would change the lynch for today. If you think there's a good chance that they would then waiting makes sense. If you think that Phaen is the lynch that would happen anyhow then waiting probably doesn't do anything too useful.

In addition to thinking about that we should also try to get Phaen to claim before any lynch happens when we as a town are ready for it. I don't think that a claim should stop the lynch but we don't want to lose any potential information we'd get from a claim.

Mind you, no claim should happen until we're committed to a lynch (we've failed at that as a town three times already) so there's some importance in making intentions known at this time. One of the reasons that I wanted to go (relatively) slow with the lynch of fuzzylightning at the end of the day yesterday was to give him a chance to claim if he wanted to after he knew that the lynch was ready to go (he chose not to, a reasonable decision on day one.)

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

This just made me think... correct me if I'm wrong... but hasn't it been Ray who has been diving to get someone to claim the second they're at L-1, before anyone has made it known about wanting to drop the hammer?

In fact, something that has often troubled me with Ray is how he'll unvote to wait for the latest vote count, even if said vote count's only change is 1 vote added to someone, and that has only meant 2 votes are on the person. I'm sure at one point there was an unvote just a couple of posts after the mod had posted a vote count, with me being the only person to vote afterwards. I don't understand the relevance of that, except for trying to seem pro-town by being overly cautious.

Just a couple of things that have stood out to me. I actually understand about claiming on the condition it doesn't change the lynch at all (like Zorb said), but to shout for the claim immediately someone is at L-1 is a bit much.

[PranaDevil]

Hello there, smashbro_of_the_SSS
Has anyone ever told you how annoying it is to type that whole name?

I think we should lynch phaen before she gets replaced, IMO. I don't want the deadline to be pushed back even further, and there have been enough replacments in this game already.

Not only that, but I think most of us have run out of things to say.

unvote

Whoa there.

You want to lynch Phaen before... not only she has chance to reply to the prod, but before Smash gets a read on people, and before there's a chance to get someone else in to look over things?

I'd rather get a Phaen replacement and a fresh set of eyes on things, than lynch Phaen just for the sake of it right now. It was different when that consideration was over Apathy because people were strong for it... I'm still only half on it, but would prefer it to no lynch, and jmurph seems to feel the same.

The fact you would be willing to push it fast, rather than even consider an extension (and thus more talk this day, which... considering we've not had much, would be a bonus) looks extremely scummy.

[PranaDevil]

Re: feeling different about a replacement.

I think there's a lot of differences between then and now, not only have some people (myself for instance) matured in the game to realizing that more discussion is better than pushing a lynch regardless.

Plus there's a big difference between quite a few people having strong feelings on the Apathy lynch, and 2 people having strong feelings for the Phaen one, while the rest view it as "better than no lynch" in general.

Personally, I still feel I would prefer the Skill lynch over any other, because I even started this day feeling she was scummy.

However I wont vote just yet as, unless our new replacement unvotes, it would put her at L-1, and I'd rather hear from perez, and perhaps more from Smash too. As while Smash has said he suspects everyone (which I like, because while I've seen a few people label me as blatant town (such as Ray saying I was "obv town"), there's no proof that I am. Just looking at everyone in some way), I would like to hear who his main suspects are. He says Skill and Ray, but then says Ray plays like he normally does. So why would you want to lynch Ray for his normal playstyle? Wouldn't it be better to lynch someone who does appear to be more scummy that isn't playing how you know them to do thanks to previous meta?

[PranaDevil]

EBWOP

@Perez, sorry for no welcome, I figured with the amount of coming and going, and we're only in day 2 (I can understand why... and I think half of it is my fault XD), it was getting silly to say welcome to every new replacement, or I'd spend half the game welcoming newcomers.

[PranaDevil]

@Zorblag, re: Skill... yeah, I see where you're coming from actually, and considering that... I agree it isn't much different from myself last night in that sense, and coming from yourself (who does believe Phaen was a strong lynch) I can understand it. However I also feel you are the only person who views it as a strong lynch, while everyone else doesn't. Skill perhaps wanted it to appear stronger than it was though.

@Perez, very nice entrance to the game, and I appreciate the time taken to properly get up to speed, especially as I doubt I could cover that much ground (at least doing so even half correctly) in one day. I hope you stick around beyond this game on the site.

I do, in fact, agree with the suspicion on Ray, and I should hope so, I mentioned it earlier. I also still feel strongly about the Skill lynch. I'm not sure on Smash, but I do often give the benefit of the doubt in most things, and for all we know something came up last night, so I'll give him tonight to get that post up that we were promised as well before I make any decisions.

But as it stands, I would rather a Skill lynch, but would be willing to go with a Ray one. (Especially now he's changed his avatar, we've just got past christmas, get the snowman gone )

[PranaDevil]

To be honest, my thoughts on Skill are that she avoided making votes at all on any worthwhile wagons, only said she "would" vote on one of them after it was too late anyway, has suddenly changed her style (attacking me for being "opportunistic" which, to me, appeared to be a great way of trying to pin me with something, only to have to back off sharpish when I refuted that claim quite quickly due to the whole fact that I was only near the end of the lynches due to unvoting previously to allow responses by both parties, hence I was on near the end of the lynch).

Therefore, I feel she was trying to see what sort of lynch she could get through today, she backed off when she realized she would have trouble with mine, and when she spotted that Phaen wasn't around, and thus wasn't going to be defending herself, she, herself, was opportunistic in her pick of who to go after... after all, a non-poster isn't going to do much defending.

I'd also suggest that she changed her playstyle drastically this day phase because people had mentioned that scum would be trying to get town lynched given a chance, so she saw a chance to do it, and went for it.

[PranaDevil]

To be honest Perez at this point I wouldn't be happy with your lynch, I wasn't all that happy with the Phaen lynch, and while I had somewhat seen Zorblag's reasons, I still felt it was, perhaps, the weaker lynch in my eyes.

I do, however, feel that the Ray lynch is a worthy one, reasons would be what I said previously when I voted for him, and Smash's reasons confirming it further for me, therefore...

vote: RayFrost

Which, by my calculations, puts him at L-1

[PranaDevil]

@ Zorblag, Personally, in my eyes, Skill was the stronger lynch at the time, but thanks to Smash reminding me of my views on Ray (through his own post), and then adding more, it's made me move back to the Ray lynch as being stronger.

[PranaDevil]

If I'm scum trying to protect the same townie consistently I'd like to hear what you think the motive is.

Directed at me or not, I'll make a statement on this one.

I'd say it's simple. A lynch that would appear to be almost inevitable (which, Ray has been popping up rather high on the list this day phase all things considered), is a great way for scum to "appear" town, by refusing to lynch someone.

As you're saying (with a LOT of WIFOM if I may say so) scum would "want" to lynch town, so "why would you as scum want to save town", and the answer is simple, because scum wouldn't care which town was lynched, as long as it was one of them, so scum could strongly oppose a lynch that would be of a known town player, purely on the basis of if/when they are lynched, the scum appears more town than all of the townies on the lynch, and can then play them off against each other.

But as I say, a lot of what you said there was blatant, unadulterated, WIFOM, which to be honest, has been a fair sized part of your defence when questioned. Not so much "I did it because of this" but more of "Why would I do that if I was scum?" Which doesn't answer the question in the slightest, just leaves people guessing, and playing with enough wine to get the whole of Paris drunk.

So right now I'm more thinking...

unvote; vote: Zorblag

I'm not liking all this WIFOM stuff, I'm really not liking such a strong backing for Ray, despite the fact there's no proof to anyone else he may be town (and Ray's constantly changing playstyle doesn't help us in the slightest no less), Zorblag is insistant on backing him based on seemingly nothing more than some meta, which is countered by Smash (I think) stating that he's seen Ray play the same as town AND scum.

[PranaDevil]

@Zorblag, re: jmurph, I don't think he initially wanting to get a feel of the town is a bad thing. I've done it myself in another game, plus when you're new, you're not entirely sure how to go about things.

With her defending of Phaen, I actually agree with her about the fact you led her down that path. She had two choices, don't respond and look scummy for ignoring them, or respond and essentially defend Phaen strongly, and look like she's in a scum team with her.

Personally, nobody should need to "clarify" why they don't feel someone is a viable lynch, the only people who need to know why we believe someone isn't as scummy as someone else, really, are scum. So they can weigh up who are better lynches to push. (I note that the Phaen lynch has fallen through, you know jmurph has been considered in the past, and so now it appears that through forcing her to defend Phaen, she would be the easier lynch to get through of the two).

So yes, I read what you said abour jmurph, and feel a lot of it is a sudden switch considering how strongly the Phaen lynch was being pushed for by you.

In regards to your long post to help town... that too, at this stage, is WIFOM.

The WIFOM has nothing, nadda, to do with Apathy... well okay, a small fraction is, but my issue is with the questions you come out with "If I was scum, why would I do that?" or "If I was scum, that would be detrimental to my win condition"... nothing outside of waving your arms screaming "Hey! I'm scum!" Is detrimental. Scum need to appear to be town, so scum can, and will, at times do the exact opposite of what they need to do to win as scum, to appear more town. It's only logical.

Your stating that scum wouldn't link up as they would want to keep distance is great. However now that becomes WIFOM, as if you're scum, is Skill (someone you've buddied up with quite noticeably) scum or not? Is it you trying to deflect attention to her, or perhaps even draw it to her to help whoever actually "is" your scum buddy?

Again, speculation that you're scum, but all WIFOM.

And it's exactly that which worries me about your play, I'd say a good sized majority of it is either questioning people for not believing in a lynch (when you and Skill were really the only ones pushing for the Phaen lynch no less), and a mountain sized ton of WIFOM, which aims to say "I'm town, if I was scum I wouldn't do this". Except if you felt scum would act one way, acting the opposite is good tactics, because it would keep people guessing anyway. Unfortunately to me, they look exceptionally suspect.

@jmurph, as far as Ray goes... personally, if Zorblag is scum (and I believe he is) then he would know whether Ray's town or not... if Ray's scum, it would be really bad to be seen to be severely protesting the lynch, when he's already pretty scummy to some. Therefore, if Zorblag is scum, it's possible he would protest a known town lynch, that would appear to be going in that direction anyway, to then be able to say "told you". (Which thinking about it... Ray did kind of do with fuzzy, without giving any real reasons beyong really weak meta that was no proof of anything).

Right now, I'd rather the Zorblag vote still, Ray, while being rather quiet and strange, is scummy. But Zorblag seems to be mainly using WIFOM as a crutch for a lot of things, and it's unnerving to me.

[PranaDevil]

I think the problem though Zorblag, is that there is never going to be a hard and fast "this is what scum would do, and why", every single scum team will act differently.

Scum A & B might spot someone close to a lynch, and dive on it together.

Scum C & D might see someone close to a lynch, have one person push it, and the other defend them harshly for some reason (perhaps even weak reasons), so that if they're lynched and flip town, they can be off that wagon.

Scum E & F might see someone close to a lynch and both try keeping clear of actually voting, while mentioning that they appear scummy, and would be happy with the lynch, while feeling others are scummier.

Scum G & H might accuse each other all game, so that when one or the other flips scum, the one accusing them appears a lot more town than before.

and that's just part of what scum can (and will) do. Hell, consider myself, in future games if I'm scum, I know I can play exactly as I have been now and win with ease, because by midday of D1, I was considered as good as guarenteed town, and so all I'd need to do is push, and push, and search for anything that looks strange in a pro-town player to try and lead a lynch on.

So scum would never play the same from game one to the next (at least, not scum who know what they are looking at). Which is why the WIFOM stuff sticks out more to me, you're essentially telling everyone that scum "wouldn't play like this", but that just makes me more curious about why that's important, I don't need to know whether you would or wouldn't do that as scum, I'm saying that what you are doing looks scummy, and pointing out reasons. It's being responded with generally nothing more than WIFOM, as though trying to hope others will see it and go "well yeah, scum wouldn't do it that way, let's not go for Zorblag".

It's also possible I just have an open mind on things like that, and see tons of different tactics (years of playing stuff like Magic The Gathering open you up to spotting tons of different ways of getting the same end result out of a single card, but doing so in hundreds of different ways, ways that the opponent wouldn't even think of, means that I can see a lot of possibilities, and why doing something in a completely opposite fashion to normal is a huge benefit to scum).

After all, scum's objective may well be to eliminate town.. but in reality that's scum's second objective. Their first objective is to try and not appear to be scum. Regardless of what the end objective may be, the second scum appear to be scum, they're in trouble. All the time they can pretend to be town, they can continue NKing people.

This is also why I've been of the view that absolutely nobody should ever be completely cleared (unless it's a game where people have been cleared through roles etc. of course, then fair play, this game isn't like that though). Everyone should be under suspicion, the amount of suspicion should change, but there should always be some.

Oh, and before I forget... the reason jmurph couldn't respond without defending Phaen, is because your questions where basically why she didn't want to lynch Phaen... how do you reply to that without being forced to give reasons why Phaen isn't scummy enough to lynch? In fact... answer me this, how could she have responded WITHOUT appearing to defend Phaen?

[PranaDevil]

But do you not also see that, because I know you to be an active (and from what I can tell, and would in fact agree, well respected) mod for games here, that you would know a lot about what does, and doesn't work as scum, but more importantly, be more likely to be able to pull out some clever, and less used, tactic to try and show that you are town?

That's why the amount of WIFOM that I've seen stands out to me more coming from you than it would coming from, say, jmurph. This is her first game to my knowledge, while you have experience, and enough to try and cleverly hide scum tactics amongst what initially appears to be tips and questions.

But I wont rehash what I've said further, it's in black and white (well, and light blue at times) for anyone to see.

As for the jmurph thing, yes, she could have, but that wouldn't have really answered the entire questions, and would have been left with "well you didn't actually answer this, or this, or this" in response, and look like she was deliberately avoiding it.

However, right now I'm heading down that same path, I'm giving what appear to be defenses for jmurph, because I'm answering your questions about it, and again, I cannot do so without blatantly appearing to defend her. Which is what I was talking about in regards to what you were doing with her.

[PranaDevil]

First, yup, the forum does occasionally go a bit nuts and decide to have a screwy five minutes or so. My advice is whenever posting any lengthy post, copy it first, so if the forum screws up, you don't lose it outright.

Second, it is seeming to be getting close to the end of the day again, and we are all seeming to go in various directions. (In fact we have a mere 3 days to make a decision... which means I'd call it 2, because you never know if someone wont be around).

Based on that, someone (or someones) will have to compromise their main choice, in favour of someone below them.

Right now my favoured lynches outside of Zorblag, would be Ray or Skill.

I would suggest we get everyone to post their top 3 lynches for the day, but scum could hold off on stating theirs until the end to see where things lie.

As it is, I don't see a Skill lynch as being as happening as easily as Zorblag or Ray, so as it stands, it may be better to go the Ray route, if nobody else is willing to go after Zorblag either (and considering I don't think Skill wants to vote him, and Perez doesn't, and Zorblag definitely doesn't, it would require myself, jmurph, Ray and Smash to agree to that lynch, whereas I think Ray might be more viable as an overall feel for the day).

So, if town as a whole would honestly rather the Ray lynch, I will go with that, but I would much prefer the Zorblag one.

[PranaDevil]

If I'm honest Smash, I haven't liked my own play this day, but I think that has a lot to do with how much D2 has been stalled until, essentially, the last week. When it's picked up sharpish. I don't think my vote changing would have been such a big issue had the discussion happened over the full course of the day, as opposed to what has, in essence, felt like a sudden rush job in the last week. The delaying at the beginning of the day was rather a big problem for town I felt. Of course, short of actively dragging people into the thread there's no way of getting the game moving more than it was.

As far as my cases on Ray, Skill & Zorblag go...

I may miss a little out here or there, but I state it's because I don't have the time to go searching through the entire thread right now, and we're close enough to deadline that it wouldn't be in town's interests to attempt to wait until I do have time, as I can't even be sure that will be before deadline. So I'll say everything I do know, but an ISO on me will bring up my cases on them in full anyway.

Case on Ray:
Complete change of play since D1, previously was pushing strongly for lynches, making himself known, giving tons of advice, and someone else pointed out (Smash or Perez I think) pointed out he was strongly steering town in the direction he wanted (that could be trying to give advice, or trying to make people go his way).

His sudden quietness is strange, and meta or no, it's still not play I like, and it doesn't necessarily mean he's not scum either (though if there are issues outside of the game, I hope it gets sorted Ray as you seem like a decent guy).

Case on Skill:
D1, managed to avoid making any and all important votes, mentioned she didn't like to lynch people even if she knew they were scum (fair play, it was a nod from a previous game, but it's a nod that if she were scum, could be written off as a joke too), suddenly changed her play come D2 by being extremely vocal and pushing for a lynch of Phaen/Perez (possible the change of play came from night talk with scum mate who advised her to do more to appear to be scum hunting), and I feel was trying to push a policy lynch through (while appearing to be scum hunting and hiding the policy behind weak reasons).

Case on Zorblag:
I don't think I really need to go over it once again, as it feels like I'm just going over old ground (and making more for everyone to dig through). But a quick rundown would be that most of Zorblag's play (and I'm ignoring the replacing Apathy stuff here entirely) has come down to "why would scum want to do that, it would be against their win condition." When, as I pointed out, nothing is against their win condition as long as they stay alive. Scum's only way of winning is to survive until the end game, getting people lynched is just a faster way of getting there.

So with a ton of WIFOM, pushing what I feel was still some form of hidden policy lynch (I agree, I was considering the Phaen lynch, but I'm not so sure now anyway), and of course I would be stupid to dismiss everything from Apathy the day before outright, but I feel Zorblag's WIFOM has been there to try and hide everything he's done by trying to show he wouldn't do something as scum as it would be detrimental to his win condition, despite the fact it's meaningless.

So yeah, I feel Zorblag is the number 1 lynch for me today, followed by Skill, and lastly Ray if that has to go down that way.

[PranaDevil]

It's interesting how he's been at dealing with details in this game. Day one when I was reading through his play I thought he was doing a pretty good job of catching them. I need to go back and see if that's still true. Today that's not been nearly so much the case. With me alone he seemed to have missed that I had RayFrost listed as my third choice for a lynch a number of times when he was trying to figure out who potential lynches were (he seemed to think that I'd be opposed to it.) He seemed to think that my switch back to you after I decided you were a more likely lynch than Phaen today was surprising rather than fairly expected (and indeed that I'd explained that as my motivation when I did it.)

I just wanted to say... I'm actually in agreement with this, my ability at checking the details has faded since, there's been numerous reasons for that (issues with the girlfriend (ex now), illness, depression etc.) But regardless, I wont make any serious excuses, I have missed a few things out when looking at stuff as I've not been able to do any in depth re-readings this time around.

What I will say, is that I made mention at the start of that last post that I would miss things, and my previous posts would have everything in it. I was just pointing out what I felt were the strongest parts of the cases without going through to do everything in depth when I really didn't have the time (and neither does town).

[PranaDevil]

My biggest issue with Ray's play there is... we have just a couple of days to go before the end of the day, and rather than cast a vote in the direction of one of the more viable wagons (personally it would appear to be a choice of: Ray, Zorblag, Phaen, Skill, just from what I've seen today, even if I don't agree with the Phaen one). He casts a completely fresh vote in the direction of someone who's not really been under fire, with no real "oomph" to the post either that would make us want to switch our votes that strongly.

He even makes mention that he feels Skill is "most likely scumbuddy" of Smash, and then votes Smash, why not vote Skill when people might be more inclined to vote her? We don't have long to really do much more, and while looking in other directions is fine in general, 2 days before deadline is not the time to start causing more distractions for town as a whole.

I'm happy with the vote on Zorblag for now.

[PranaDevil]

Okay, we have 2 days before lynch, I'd suggest we make our decision in the next 24 hours roughly (we don't want to be making last minute decisions with an hour to go to deadline people).

I would rather the Zorblag or Ray lynch at this point, I would go with Skill if that's how things seem to go... I would be unhappy with any other lynch.

In fact... can I suggest everyone posts their top 3 suspects, in order as well (to give us an idea of where we should go).

Mine would be:
1 - Zorblag
2 - RayFrost
3 - Skill006

[PranaDevil]

Hold on Ray, so you think Skill is town... yet haven't long ago said you feel she's likely in a scum team with Smash, and then agreed to vote for Skill because lynching her or Smash would be equal in your books...

I could understand the change in view over a time period, but being that Skill hasn't even posted since you voted for Smash (and said she was likely linked with him), I see no reason why you would change your view from that, to your latest post.

As for Zorb mentioning about looking for things that are scummy, as opposed to WIFOM. I believe WIFOM to the extent you've done to be exceptionally scummy, it's covering your own back by giving us "advice" (Which, good or not, like jmurph says, the timing has been exceptionally strange), and also telling us that scum wouldn't do what you are doing because it wouldn't help them (when it would by preventing them appearing scummy).

Thus, to try and say that spotting WIFOM and pointing it out is something different to scum hunting, is false, and I feel you are misrepresenting what I have been saying (and deliberately so) by saying it's because of Apathy's play previously and you not getting lynched. It has nothing to do with that. Apathy hasn't made you play with WIFOM, you chose to go in that direction, and have done so deliberately with your questioning.

There's no "fear" that someone's trying to trick town. Scum ARE trying to trick town, and they'll use whatever methods they feel will work, and it's only by backing them into a corner and catching them out with it, that catches scum, whether it means pointing out WIFOM, or whether it's pointing out inconsistencies.

[PranaDevil]

Actually Perez, the reason I'm asking all to post their top 3, is so we can get an idea of who the general feel is would be a good lynch. For instance, if myself and jmurph both have Zorblag number 1, but others have him nowhere, or number 3, but everyone has Ray at number 2... I'd suggest going for a Ray vote, but we need to work as a group on this. Meaning there's absolutely sod all of a reason to ignore other people's views. Thus with just over 24 hours to go, we need to make a decision... well, now pretty much.

[PranaDevil]

Okay... as it stands we have:

Smash:
1 - Ray
2 - Skill

jmurph:
1.Zorblag/RayFrost
2. Smash
3. Skill

Zorblag:
jmurph3
Perez
RayFrost

Perez:
1 - RayFrost
2 - Smash
3 - Skill006

Myself:
1 - Zorblag
2 - RayFrost
3 - Skill

If I give each person points (3 for top, 1 for bottom), we have the following:
Zorblag - 5
RayFrost - 11
Skill006 - 4
Smash - 4
jmurph - 3
Perez - 2

(As a note, I gave Ray and Zorb 2 points each for jmurph's post, due to the joint 1st for them both, and gave Skill 0 points for that as she was actually 4th)

So it appears 5 out of 7 players feel Ray is scum (and we don't know about Skill yet)

However, it does seem that the best lynch for the day, as it stands, will have to be Ray, and so if we're going to make any kind of decision, it needs to be now.

unvote; vote: RayFrost

As a side note... I'm extremely concerned about Perez's post, essentially being unsure about everything we've only just spoken about stinks to me, it's one thing to have gaps between things, but when it's only just been said... Especially the line directed at myself and jmurph. Why wouldn't we have considered Ray when we have both already said we feel he's scum?

[PranaDevil]

I'm waiting to vote until we get an updated vote count.

Why? If we're lynching Ray it wont matter how many votes he has will it? Waiting doesn't help us now.

[PranaDevil]

you were online before Perez was. o.O

[PranaDevil]

*Returns to the thread*

At the start of day 3 I was almost positive jmurph and Smash were the scum! I admit, jmurph I mainly had pegged from the early vote (I saw her hoping for a fast Skill wagon, and instantly pegged Skill as innocent).

Smash... I'm not sure why I pegged him as scum, something early on in the 3rd day made me think he was (and lo... he was).

Was a great game, and I loved playing with everyone in here (and reading those I never had chance to really play alongside of).

Ray was a great intro into Mafia (and... I've somewhat stolen your idea of acting weird early on to get discussion flowing, even if it gets me lynched, it's better than tons of RVS early on, lol).

Zorblag came in well, though I obviously went way off in the wrong direction in regards to where he was coming from... stuff to learn in the future for me really.

jmurph and Skill, both great fun to play alongside, even if I did have you both pegged as scum . Hopefully we get to enjoy another game together at some point in the future.

fuzzy... sorry for the early game lynch if you read this .

Paltry, I'm playing a game with anyway right now lol.

Everyone else, either you sodded off, or I barely was able to chat with you.

As far as this game specifically goes though, I agree, the Ray lynch day 2 was somewhat rushed, and it shouldn't have been. I also think we spent so long trying to discuss things at times, that we were willing to ignore early on scummy behaviour in a day, in favour of anything more recent, and then when we did look back at something, we allowed ourselves to get hung up over specific things, rather than looking at the bigger picture.

I think the long waiting, and almost deliberate holding back to wait for nearer the lynch actually hindered us more. If we had lynched Zorb/Apathy day 1, we would have had no WIFOM stuff day 2, and been clearer on that, (Even if it was mainly me pushing it... sorry guys ).

Oh... and I mentioned it in PM buuuut... Kison, loved your modding, and the images for the deaths was brilliant and made the game even better, plus the fact you were very active meant the game was never able to stall. (I've played a few games, on other sites, where at times the mod pretty much just vanishes, which stalls the game horribly when you think you've hit lynch target, and are just waiting on the mod)

Good game all round, and congrats scum... and congrats to everyone who actually came into that game part way through and had to read the mess of posts I made XD.

[PranaDevil]

Ditto to wanting to play in future games (as I said anyways). Definitely learnt about not focusing on WIFOM too much, nor allowing people to slide by so much. I'm often too willing to give people the benefit of the doubt, I'm quickly learning that I can't do that in this game, as that just opens the door for scum to walk all over you.

[PranaDevil]

All that said, I don't think I'll be participating in another game soon. Didn't realize how stressful all you guys have it.

That's exactly how I felt about my first game and this game, too, and I'm glad the pressure didn't drive you to replace out. But, you really should try another game some time soon, chances are you'll end up with a townie role, which I can imagine being somewhat less pressured (I wouldn't know though, never been scum )

I think, to be honest, I made things harder than they needed to be in the early going by talking way too damned much. I replied to everything which, essentially, led us all round the houses just to a conclusion of "yep, him and Ray are both town and making a pigs ear of stuff" lol.

As for Skill never being scum... I've been scum once, and that was in a game elsewhere where I was "recruited" ight 0 by someone who successfully went and got himself lynched day one by stating "I don't even think town have a win condition"... as per the makeup of that game, I too was "kicked out" after his lynch, doh!

So as far as I'm concerned, I've not been scum yet, lol.

[PranaDevil]

Couple of other things I'll say...

After I was frozen (I still love those deaths) I PM'd Kison, as I'd linked Smash and jmurph at the start of Day 3, dunno exactly why now, but something triggered it and I was sure they were the team, lol.

Also, it taught me a strong lesson, don't allow someone to lurk in the background. If someone's lurking it's a high chance they're scum doing so, and if they're not, they'll be a liability later on anyway. This game proved as much as they only people truly lurking were the scum, and if anything I think it was me allowing them to get away with it.

[PranaDevil]

"Maybe kill PD, he seems VT but annoyingly obvious town and unpredictable in his actions."

Love you both too

Also a good reason why people shouldn't claim any kind of VT role early off. Also it means Paltry's ability to draw the kill was less to do with him being clever Vanilla, and more to do with "basically every other bugger claimed outside of Prana, who a potential doc would protect" lol.

Love the QT's though, I'm thinking of setting up a QT for all future games I run, as they're great to look back on after the game. Someone using PM or MSN doesn't give such a good feel after really.

[PranaDevil]

Quiet scum!

What do you mean he was proven innocent when we killed him? Bah!

[PranaDevil]

Why are my posts bigger in the endgame than in the actual game...

Because you're scum!

What do you mean SHE was ALSO cleared after? Dammit! One of these days I'll lynch correctly!

[PranaDevil]

In all honesty, I can see this going the same way as other games I play... I'll wind up being pretty hot when it comes to running things, but completely useless at actually playing it.

Case in point, I used to run an e-fed (wrestling roleplaying thing), and while plenty of people respected my opinion on how to roleplay, and what was good to do, and how to improve... could I do well? Nope, for me to have even a slightly entertaining roleplay it had to be some form of slapstick humour or just stupid humour.

I can see Mafia going the same way, I ran a game elsewhere and it went down well, people found it pretty balanced, and I've only been playing the game a short while. So I picked up how to run a game well, it's just that playing it is a whole different ball game XD.

Ah well, I'll continue playing anyway, because it's great fun, and keeps me occupied... although, as another friend (who I've managed to get into the game, whoo!) asked me... is it a bad sign when the first thing you think of when you wake up is this sodding game? lol

[PranaDevil]

Ah well, I'll continue playing anyway, because it's great fun, and keeps me occupied... although, as another friend (who I've managed to get into the game, whoo!) asked me... is it a bad sign when the first thing you think of when you wake up is this sodding game? lol

At least you haven't had Mafia dreams yet.

I've had mafia arguments going through my head at night. It actually gets quite intense XD

Hey, it's all well and good for you, my very first game (not here, this was my second ) I landed a cop role. I played so badly in that game I actually started thinking "I" was scum XD.

[PranaDevil]

I never even had to out myself, the scum worked out who I was, and led me along while roleblocking me each night XD.