926 A Game of Thrones Mafia - Over.

[Mina]

Vote: Locke Lamora

. I'm sick and tired of your lies!

Kinetic, don't mass nameclaims on D1 only work if the moderator is incompetent? Why do you think this game would be any different?

[Mina]

Break the game completely? Not likely. But you don't have to be incompetent to make a mistake, and sometimes mods forget things.

Except now that you've mentioned it in the thread, I doubt Faraday would have forgotten any longer.

I'm interested in seeing where this leads, but I don't want to nameclaim just yet.

That said...

I dont wanna massclaim or especially break the game.
I've been waiting for this one
Let's just play some Game of Thrones Mafia...

Why, do you have a particular reason for believing that a D1 nameclaim would break this game? Do you think the scum have less information?

Not interested in a mass name claim at this juncture.

Call this the random question stage. State the advantages and disadvantages of mass nameclaiming. Not that I like Kinetic's idea, but as the third person to disagree with it, you're voicing a very safe opinion.

[Mina]

Why, do you have a particular reason for believing that a D1 nameclaim would break this game? Do you think the scum have less information?

Not really, just seems less fun.

I guess if scum didn't know the books.

I meant that you seemed to be against massclaim because it

would

break the game--since I just took it for granted that all mods prepare for it, you might have had extra information about...um, the scum's

lack

of information. But fair enough.

I'm interested in seeing where this leads, but I don't want to nameclaim just yet.

Not that I like Kinetic's idea

You seem to be fencesitting. Why's that?

Let me clarify. I'm definitely against the idea of a mass nameclaim now. Like I said before, on the off-chance Faraday forgot to choose faction-independent names or send out fakeclaims...well, this entire discussion just jogged his memory, so now we can guarantee that a nameclaim would be useless. But I'm "interested" in where Kinetic is going with this, because he's hinting at some grand theory about the set-up.

[Mina]

(EBWOPreview: I was writing this and the next post before Raivann's most recent post. Talk about ironic.)

Whee, we have more company !

Who I'm going to welcome to the thread with a

Vote:TheButtonmen

. Thank you for playing.

FOS: Kinetic, as people have already said Mass name claiming i entirely worthless with this setting and he keeps pushing for it. He's also voting for someone who didn't even confirm not one of the people who has confirmed but never posted.

Vote:Locke Lamora

for being first on the list of people not posting yet.

This is a terrible post.

1) You're going after very easy targets--Kinetic and the low posters. Seacore and xvart sound genuine in their Kinetic suspicions. But I think your FOS is more opportunistic than Bogre's vote even though it came first. At least Bogre had a reason for singling out Kinetic (even if that reason was a bit OMGUS). And you FOS him for the reasons "people have already said" rather than vote him and raise his hackles.

2) What do you mean, "keeps pushing it"? Most of the criticism against Kinetic is is that he brought up a bad idea, but is just sort of twiddling his thumbs and not doing much to push it forward.

3) You realize that since the Bogre vote was the first post of the game...um,

everyone

was a non-poster at that point?

4) Voting for a non-poster--and coincidentally, the only one with a vote on him at the time (mine)--is just about the safest thing you can do with your vote. And considering you were one of them until that one post, your anti-latecomer crusade rings false.

[Mina]

Well,I guess it's just the five of us...

Of the people posting (which aren't a lot) for some reason Mina is peaking my radar. Not sure why yet though, but I'm going to keep an eye on it.

That's because Mina is caught scum.

Unvote, Vote:Mina

For fencesitting, then when questioned about it she tried too hard to appease and took a hard stance.

Raivann, you're frustrating.

You: Here are quotes that prove you're fencesitting.
Me: No, actually here's what I meant by those quotes.
You: So you were fencesitting, but now you've STOPPED fencesitting under pressure. DIESCUMDIE

Read between the lines of my first posts. I think it's pretty obvious that I'm against the idea from the very beginning. Firstly, nameclaiming almost never helps the town in a well-designed set-up, and secondly...well, at this point, everyone and their mother has explained why it might help the scum. But I made a very conscious decision not to lecture people on Mafia Theory 101, but to sit back and watch what Mr. Two Scummy Awards was up to, whether people agreed with or opposed such a controversial plan or just went along with the flow of the town, and whether anyone betrayed knowledge of scum role PMs.

[Mina]

On the nameclaim:

I've already thought about a lot of the positives and negatives that have been presented. This isn't my first rodeo.

I have a couple of ideas and I'm unsure if they will work or not, but to be sure a name claim is needed. I don't think the name claim in and of itself is going to out scum, nor do I think its going to out power roles simply because this setting it could be very easy to hide them.

I was trying to give you the benefit of the doubt. But you know, if you're going to suggest something as controversial as a massclaim on D1, it'd be nice if you told us what those ideas are, rather than wave your hands mysteriously and say, "I have PLANS brewing."

Could you give us concrete examples of those ideas? I haven't meta'd you (the Search function is down), but I think xvart has a good point. Please explain just what useful information you can get from a mass nameclaim.

[Mina]

WARNING: INCOMING WALL OF TEXT ALERT

Raivann: I'm...slightly weirded out by your sudden flip on me. But hey, the more the merrier. All aboard the TheButtonMen train! *blows whistle*

Unvote:

So, hey, you're big on pressuring all the players who've come late. You thought it was important to FoS Kinetic for "not voting for a non-poster," and to vote for one.

But apparently, Locke Lamora popping up and saying, "Hi guys, I'm still alive!" was enough for you to unvote.

Not exactly the most unrelenting pressure, but fine.

So why didn't you move your vote for Kinetic, the person you FOS'd? Or Heliograph, who

still

hasn't posted? Isn't it everyone's civic duty to vote for a non-poster? I mean, if all the non-posters are so interchangeable that you voted for the first one on the list, why not vote for the only non-poster remaining?

I found your FOS-ing a group suspect and voting for someone who wasn't around to answer back very safe. But unvoting the moment he posts a one-liner, and then being afraid to revote? I get the feeling that you're afraid to antagonize people.

-----

So, I was wondering why everyone was acting so scummy, and then I looked at all of the dates everyone's accounts were made on. Save MacLock they're all 2009...

...

That explains a lot.

Okay, now you've pissed me off.

First of all, you shouldn't judge the player by the account date. Some of the players might be alts, and others might be new to mafiascum but not to Mafia. (For example, I usually play on another site.) And I don't think that the difference between one year and two-and-a-half years of experience is astronomical. Some of the "veteran" players who are known for their personalities and for their omnipresence on this site haven't improved after dozens of games.

Second of all...I'm trying to find a nice way of putting how you're acting. That doesn't involve the words "arrogant," "condescending," or...you know, it took a lot of willpower for me to leave the last word out. This is me, making an effort to be nice. Look, I get why you're annoyed with all the opportunistic bandwagoners. But please take the time to explain just what's "ignorant" about everyone's objections instead of treating us like slow children who don't know how to play Mafia.

When I have a chance, I'll read the Freaktown game to see how you play as town--right now it's after three in the morning and I have to leave early for work tomorrow. But it would be really helpful and time-saving if you gave us concrete examples of how a nameclaim might help you break the game. I don't care if your interpretation biases it. If it does, that will tell us more about your alignment.

Mina continues to creep up my radar. Her and Bog definitely are the ones who I'm least likely to put any faith in at this time.

Could you explain just what you mean by "creeping up my radar"? Because you keep making backhanded comments about how you've got your eye on me and how no one should trust a word I say, but not once do you explain just

why

you suspect me. You seem to be more interested in planting a seed of doubt against me than gauging my reactions, too.

By the way, what do you think of TheButtonmen? He who FOSsed you, parroted everyone else's complaints about your plan, and chided you for not voting a non-poster, but voted for someone else?

(I'm

very

interested in the answer to this question.)

-----

I will never go along on blind trust, especially on page two.

It is scummy to suggest something that for all practical purposes would more than likely out power roles (or more powerful roles, as you suggest) on blind trust. If you want me to agree to a name claim you better offer something a little better than "I have some theories rolling around in my head, but I won't tell you about them."

Oh my God,

yes

. THISx100

Kinetic, I'm sure you're a good scumhunter and all, but at this point, you've suggested a plan--mass nameclaiming--that fails in 90% of set-ups. I think even without giving away character names, it's pretty easy to guess who the good guys are from the setting. You can't blame people for being a little sceptical. Show us we can trust you with your scumhunting

in this game

instead of appealing to your reputation.

But that said, xvart? Could you share your thoughts on players other than Kinetic? I agree with Raivann that a long wall-of-text war about the pros and cons of massclaiming accomplishes nothing.

[Mina]

Oh, and I meant to vote for Kinetic For proposing the name claim. If it was just a mass claim suggestion, It'd merely warrant an FOS, but the name claim is sneaky.

I really think the lannisters, plus somebody like littlefinger or grand maester pycelle will come up as the scums.

Actually

I'm pro name claim I've decided, which is a complete flip I know.

I think we should post our names in order of the list on the OP

I will honestly be very suspicious of people I consider to be the "bad guys" in the books.
Sure, "bad guy" is a moving feast, since book 1, Jaime is painted as a bad guy, but later on he's not so bad. But anyway.

So I'm for a name claim. In the specific order. Because that way, scum have to choose, do I admit I'm Tywin Lannister? Or do I hope that "The onion knight" is not in the game and choose him. And then somebody else goes "But I'm the onion knight!" and bam! scum!

Who agrees?

Seacore, I don't follow your thought process between these two posts.

Why did you find a mass nameclaim "sneaky" in the first place? I assumed you meant because it might be rolefishing. What's changed? And you said in your first post that you thought the scum had obviously evil names like the Lannisters. Why didn't you support the idea then? It seems like you're going backwards.

We've gone over this already. Most mods either choose names that don't reveal faction or give the scum fakeclaims. I think a mass nameclaim is too easy a solution to work.

[Mina]

Hey, I'm sorry for disappearing. This weekend has been really crazy. Then the past couple of days...um, I might have been a little distracted by a Mafia game I'm playing on another site.

Interesting how many people were so anti-nameclaim that they actually voted/FOSed Kinetic for even suggesting the idea...then suddenly flip-flopped on it once the idea began getting support.

Right now, I have to run to a group meeting for my MECH project. But I'll vote

Nay

on the nameclaim. The only semi-convincing argument I've heard in favour of it is that if scum claim, say, Jaqen H'gar on D1, then no one will buy a doctor claim. I think the danger of revealing a role. I'd like to read Freaktown Mafia to get a better idea of where Kinetic is going with this, though.

I'll respond to Kinetic's and Locke Lamora's posts to me and talk more about my actual suspicions this evening, when I have more time...because it doesn't seem like people are doing much of that now. Some of the reactions I'm seeing are very,

very

interesting.

[Mina]

EBWOP: I mean, I think the danger of a town power role giving itself away outweighs the small benefit of locking scum into claims that fit their name. I still highly doubt that the game can be broken with a mass nameclaim. Mafia Modding 101 prepares for a massclaim.

By the way...Seacore, nice job revealing VT on D1 for no reason whatsoever. *headdesk* You would have been better off just saying your character name.

[Mina]

Sorry, my other game is kind of intense now. It's four in the morning here, but just to respond to Seacore's case:

Let me clarify. I'm definitely against the idea of a mass nameclaim now. Like I said before, on the off-chance Faraday forgot to choose faction-independent names or send out fakeclaims...well, this entire discussion just jogged his memory, so now we can guarantee that a nameclaim would be useless. But I'm "interested" in where Kinetic is going with this, because he's hinting at some grand theory about the set-up.

Vote: Mina

I don't like her whole train of thought with this anti name claim argument.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not voting for her because she's a Nay vote, I'm voting for her because of how she's been arguing against it.

I'm fine with the argument that outting PRs is bad. I don't think it'll do that, name a character and I can come up with a potential mafia power (or three) for that character (don't actually do this btw, I'm just saying I could) and if you think about it, you could too. But anyway, I'm fine with this being an argument.

What I'm not fine with, is her suggestion that Faraday will change the game to stop us from doing this.
To me this sounds like somebody who knows it will hurt the scum and is hoping the Mod will step in and stop it.
Kinetic and I (the two biggest pushers of the name claim) have both said that we don't think this will break the game. So why are you worried that it'll be so game breaking that the mod will have to step in? Did you not discuss fake claims during N0 with your scum buddies?

The reason I'm against it (other than the rolefishing) is because I don't think it

will

be gamebreaking. Most set-ups can't be broken with a nameclaim. And my point was that any mod who made a careless mistake like not giving out fakeclaims would have noticed his mistake the moment people discussed the subject of nameclaims. Also, that post was long before Kinetic and you said you weren't expecting it to break the game. IIRC, Kinetic started the game by saying, "Who thinks a massclaim would break this?"

I see how someone could interpret that comment as, "Hey, dumbass, you forgot to give me a fakeclaim!" But if I were scum, I could have just PM'd Faraday to ask for one, instead of openly whining about it in the thread.

To be honest, I think this whole thing is a waste of time, but I'll go along with it.

I'll save the other stuff for tomorrow.

[Mina]

Ser Rodrik Cassel (well, actually, it was "Ser Roderick Cassel," but I think Faraday meant "Rodrik").

I'd like Kinetic to go next.

[Mina]

Seacore, he's the mysterious black-handed ghost from beyond the Wall who guides Bran.

[Mina]

Wow, that...was not at all what I was expecting. :wideyes:

That's some hardcore analysis, Kinetic.

I won't say just what my assumptions had been about the names (for very obvious reasons), but it seems like a rather eclectic collection. There are all the Starks--but no Bran--and then there are the more random ones like Cassel, Tarly, and Renly. I'm also surprised that a few of the players have evil names like Theon Greyjoy and Sandor Clegane. Meh. I don't feel comfortable scumhunting based on outguessing the mod. To be honest, the long debate over the nameclaim has kind of taken the wind out of my sails. I wanted to pressure a few of the players who've flip-flopped on the claims. But now that there's no time to lynch an original suspect, anyway, I think it's far more constructive to keep my cards close to my chest until tomorrow.

Just to answer a couple of questions from ages ago:

quote="Kinetic"]Judge a player? Back off. I'm merely pointing out that the last time I was really actively in a game was before most of you were on the site. It could be expected that you do not know my meta, but I didn't realize that and thus thought you were just all acting scummy.[/quote]
Okay, sorry about that. Part of why I blew up at you was because I thought you were implying that all the new players were acting scummy because of thei

Mina: are you not more bothered by Raivann's sudden flip? You seemed to accept it as quickly as he made the flip.

I did find it weird. But I thought about the timing of Raivann's flip-flop. After he'd called me "caught scum" for my position on nameclaims, MacavityLock followed with his own vote, and Miserable at Best and Kinetic listed me as top suspects. Scum!Raivann could have easily kept pushing a bandwagon on me. Instead he...decided to drop his case on me and support

my own

. So I take it that he's just the kind of player who likes saying extreme things to provoke reactions.

I could compromise on Heliograph, but I would much prefer a Buttonmen lynch, because at the very least, we'd get information from his flip. Also, note that he FOSed Kinetic for so much as suggesting the idea of nameclaiming...but then changed his mind and started supporting the idea. But Heliograph is an incredibly easy lynch. If we lynch Helio and he flips town, then today has been a complete waste of time. I'd rather we had alternate lynch mobs rather than a quick deadline policy lynch. My stance on chronic lurkers is that we badger the mod into replacing them.

Actually, people, take a stand: Buttonmen or Heliograph?

[Mina]

*headdesk*

Faraday...could you

please

replace Heliograph?

Please

? For the sake of my sanity?

Now that my game on another site is over (I was involved in an epic counterclaim battle in a no-flip game, and it absorbed all my Mafia focus), I can concentrate more on this one.

By the way, in my last post, I left off part of my reply to Kinetic. I meant that I thought he was implying everyone looked scummy because we were all n00bs who sucked at Mafia. (Although to be honest...most of the players in this game do look kind of scummy.) Apparently, he meant we looked scummy for not immediately supporting his nameclaim plan, but that's not how it came across.

I agree with Raivann on why ButtonMen will provide us with more information. And the bandwagon on him formed earlier in the game, when there were multiple competing options. Everyone blindly voting for Helio because he's a lurker, on the other hand, tells us nothing.

And of course, ButtonMen STILL hasn't answered the case I made on him two weeks ago. I kind of want to beat my head against a wall at this point.

Besides, I think just having this debate will provide us with information if either Heliograph or Buttonmen ever flip scum. People's true colours show most when under time pressure.

Seacore, why did you suddenly change your mind on Heliograph? You thought Heliograph was no more likely to be scum than anyone else was, and admitted that this was just a policy lynch. So why do you suddenly think that he's just a VI? He's been acting like a VI all game.

Make this a good answer. Because you have two votes on you. You're still a lynch option. You don't want me changing my mind, do you?

[Mina]

Oh, and this kind of takes the bite out of my last paragraph, but...um, happy birthday, Seacore.

[Mina]

Holy shit. Five pages in two days?

4.5 - Her points are in my first post I voted for a lurker and FoS'ed a guy asking for mass name claim at the start of D1, That isn't a case, that isn't even analysis. So yes her points are useless/nonexistant.

Wow. Apparently you ignored the part WHERE I EXPLAINED IN DETAIL JUST WHY THOSE ACTIONS WERE SCUMMY! You can dismiss any case like that. "All he said was that I was consistently wishy-washy, flip-flopped on my top suspect, and was counterclaimed as doctor. That's not a case, that isn't even analysis."

I think my case against you was pretty strong for a case from page two. (Unfortunately, the nameclaim debacle wasted so much time that we didn't move past page two cases.) Voting for a random player while FOSing someone you claim to suspect...and then unvoting afterward without moving it to your suspect is a pretty huge scumtell. Because it's an inconsistency, and it implies you're not interested in working out people's alignments.

It's also something that hints at a possible partnership with either Heliograph (the latecomer you didn't vote for) or Kinetic--particularly since Kinetic refused to state what he thought of you and pushed Heliograph instead of you.

But I won't deny that it was more to get things moving and test your reactions. And your reaction was...to disappear under pressure and wait until the nameclaim plan distracted attention from you.

Hey, TheButtonMen. How did you go from this:

FOS: Kinetic, as people have already said Mass name claiming i entirely worthless with this setting and he keeps pushing for it.

to this:

Before I support it, some conditions:
A)We only claim name.
B)We do it by dice tag order.

Thoughts?

The moment, popular opinion shifts from "Nameclaim bad, and Kinetic scummy for suggesting it," to "Nameclaim good"...so does your opinion. (Unfortunately, you're not the only one guilty of this. *glares at Bogre and TheInquisition, who have apparently disappeared along with Miserable at Best*)

Also, somehow I doubt the real cop would go along so eagerly with a mass nameclaim. Particularly if your character name hinted at your role.

And of course, you're going to weasel out of the lynch today, anyway.

Unvote

If you are the real cop and just made yourself useless, I will be so pissed off with you after the game.

Oh, yeah, and for the record, if you ever flip scum, I am looking VERY hard at Kinetic and Seacore (I smell a last-minute bus at the end).

----

Consider him at L-1. With a floating vote I don't want him to be lynched before we see a claim.

I think this is his claim :

who Am I. Well I don't want all you to jump on my wagon and kill me off now.

I can hammer later today.

[Mina]

EBWOP: On second thought, hold that "last-minute bus" comment for now. On rereading the last few pages more closely, I realized that Seacore went after TheButtonmen pretty hard at the end, and their interaction came across as relatively genuine. Sorry, Seacore. I think I mixed you up with someone else.

[Mina]

I meant

Seacore

might have been the last-minute bus. You would fit as his partner for other reasons (him FOS-ing you when you got a bit of heat but not voting for you, you not answering my question and pushing Heliograph as a policy lynch when Buttonmen was the vote leader).

But whatever. It's too early to push a case based on a link to a player who hasn't flipped yet. I'm reserving judgment on you until I see what you do with your set-up deconstruction.

[Mina]

on the greenlight.

All right, there's an hour and a half left, and I'll be at a meeting for a group project at 6 PM GMT. Miserable at Best, Bogre, and The Inquisition might as well not be playing anymore. The phantom vote is still on TheButtonmen. Clearly, Heliograph isn't going to help us out, because he's either a selfish VT or scum trying to stall the inevitable. Might as well do this now.

Vote: Heliograph

I hope Macavity Lock or xvart will be around to hammer afterward.

[Mina]

(xvart lied about his character name? I see why he did it--and I wish Seacore had one-tenth of xvart's common sense--but that could have majorly backfired.)

Since neither xvart nor Inquisition was under any suspicion (and would have made poor vig targets), I think it's likely that there's an SK or two Mafia families out there. I'd guess one two-person Mafia family and one SK. (If someone vigged xvart or Inq last night, please claim.)

That said, I can see very, very good reasons for why a player who has reasons to believe there are two killing factions would lie and claim bulletproof. And something about the flavour sounds fishy.

A question to mafiascum players: is it common for mods to inform bulletproof players if they've been targeted?

Inquisition, please answer the following questions:

1-What changed between this:

The thing about nameclaiming is that while I don't think it'll help us decide alignment, it may well out power roles. I find it far more likely that Faraday has given major characters power roles and more minor ones vanilla than I do that we can guess anything about alignment from a name claim. Obviously outing power roles is negative at this point.

This said, I don't get the impression Kinetic is anything less than sincere, and simply being wrong about the correct strategy is not necessarily scummy.

And this:

My bad. I had actually made a post yesterday but the internet went down and it was lost in the tubes.

I'll vote yes to the name claim if for no other reason than I think it'll make the quasi-role play thing more fun.

So you thought the nameclaim was a bad idea strategically...but when people started agreeing with the idea, you changed your mind because it would be fun? Even though we were already out of the roleplay stage? Are you kidding me?

2-Why did you reveal that you have another bulletproof shot? There is no protown motivation for doing so.

Aak, I wanted to question Buttonmen, but now I have to leave for work now.

[Mina]

I have a problem. I'd like to split my vote five or six ways, but I can't.

Seriously. I'm leaning town on Raivann--although MacavityLock made a decent point about the kill flavour ''slip''--and MAYBE MacavityLock and Inquisition (the latter's weird claim aside). And I oscillate back and forth between ''pretty townie'' and ''pretty scummy'' on Kinetic. Everyone else looks shifty. There are too many lurkers, VIs, and sheep. To be honest, I almost forgot Miserable was in the game before Faraday announced his replacement. And has Bogre posted once since the nameclaim?

You know what, I'm going to

Vote: TheButtonMen

because nothing's changed since yesterday. (I'll be honest and admit that although he's still my top suspect, I'm not 100% sure I want to lynch him today, purely because of his claim.) I'm tempted to move my vote to Seacore, because I like the points that Inq and Raivann made on him--holy shit, I didn't notice that slip xvart caught yesterday, because it is N-A-S-T-Y. I'd just like to reread Seacore first and come to my own conclusions on him. Right now it's three in the morning.

Raivann, why did you FOS Seacore, but put him in a neutral clump with five other players below Buttonmen (I understand why he was below Miserable, since you voted for him)? Because apparently, you don't suspect him more than most of the players in the game.

Mina; all the questions your asking me have already been answered. Read the thread.

Please link to the post in which you explained why you flip-flopped on nameclaiming. I've reread the past few pages and haven't been able to find it.

Also, who did you investigate last night?

I think that if there's a real cop out there, he should counterclaim today. If there are three baddies and we mislynch today, then tomorrow is MYLO (assuming no crosskills). So I'd personally be skeptical of any claims coming tomorrow. I think it's worth the 1 v. 1 trade-off.

Here is something I'm pondering right now:

Is Inq the Serial Killer. Anyone care to weigh in on what they think about that possibility?

I can see two evil Inquisition scenarios:

1-Inquisition is scum with no bulletproof immunity. He targeted a player who isn't xvart. (His kill was either blocked or healed.) He reads the morning scene...and sees 'xvart is dead.' He realizes there's another killing team out there, and decides to reveal as BP so as to discourage them from nightkilling him.

2-Inquisition is scum with nightkill immunity (probably the SK--meaning he knows there's another kill team out there). He targeted xvart last night. Yet now, he sees that there's only one kill, so he's afraid that his cover has been blown--particularly since he was an unlikely heal. So just to be on the safe side, he's revealing as BP so that the scum don't think anything's amiss.

(Actually, #3: there's only one killing faction, but he feels like pulling a wild gambit just for the hell of it.)

His lack of scumhunting during Day One (particularly for someone whose job should be to attract a NK) is suspicious, and I'm always paranoid about claimed BP players. That said, I'll admit that his most recent answers were pretty good, and I like his Seacore case.

I call xvart town.

No credit for this one.

Bulletproof townies don't usually have additional abilities.

...

I'm debating how hard I should pressure you on this.

Okay, MacavityLock, figure it out for yourself. What ability might a bulletproof townie have in this game, other than a bulletproof shot? Because you know, I'm making what I think is a very reasonable assumption...and something about this quote doesn't add up.

[Mina]

Sorry, guys. I've been following the thread the past couple of days, but I keep on starting ginormous wallposts that address four or five players at the same time, working on them for hours...then having to leave or falling asleep before I can post them. So I'll just post my observations in trickle form when I have snatches of time:

My gut and my mind are at war on the Inquisition. I think he's really stepped up his game today, and keeps making posts (for example, the one where he didn't want to continue a point-by-point battle with Seacore) that ping my gut as townie, but I know that logically, his claim makes little sense for a townie but lots of sense for scum. I understand why he's getting votes, and I feel like his claim will always be a distraction, but...I dunno. I'm torn.

I started writing a huge bulletpoint list of stuff Seacore has done all game that I find scummy (although I'll post it when I have more time). In a nutshell, I agree with Inq's charge of "fake helpfulness"--here's a guy who took the lead on the nameclaim after he'd accused it of being "sneaky"...but outright stated that he wouldn't scumhunt until we finished it. I feel like he might have been latching onto the nameclaim as an easy opportunity to look like an active contributor without making cases prove his own helpfulness. And I find he jumps all over the place in his logic and suspects. No offence, Seacore, but I find it very hard to follow your thought process sometimes.

For example, "I claimed VT because I thought I should harm my faction own knew that a nameclaim would...um, potentially not reveal ALL the power roles"--because just saying "my character name doesn't reveal my role" wasn't enough. (I can see scum motivation for doing so. If you had reason to believe there was another scumteam, you might claim VT so as to look like a less tantalizing nightkill target.) "Your PM says" I think Inq's abilities attack is actually stronger than that scumslip xvart caught. Um...you're attacking someone for getting the details wrong of his PM...but couldn't take the effort to check your own vanilla townie PM to see if his slip was actually a slip? That looks as though you're stretching to make him look bad, and unconcerned with whether your attack was accurate.

But speaking of which:

FOS: MacavityLock

for never answering this:

Bulletproof townies don't usually have additional abilities.

...

I'm debating how hard I should pressure you on this.

Okay, MacavityLock, figure it out for yourself. What ability might a bulletproof townie have in this game, other than a bulletproof shot? Because you know, I'm making what I think is a very reasonable assumption...and something about this quote doesn't add up.[/quote]

-------

That said, the polarization between Inquisition and Seacore is starting to worry me. I don't see anyone other than Raivann (and maybe Seacore to an extent) seriously considering other options. Because when a lynch is starting to look easy, and everyone shuts up, or all the lurkers pop up and start sheeping the popular suspects, that's a huge warning sign for me. So I'd like to look elsewhere for a bit.

Bogre has been lurking all game. His most recent post just parroted other people's arguments against The Inquisition and Seacore, without offering new suspects.

Locke and Seacore already mentioned problems with his most recent contribution (although I do think there are reasons for Scum!Seacore to claim VT), but...Bogre, all this stuff on Seacore is based on his Day One play. I realize that you couldn't comment on this before...by virtue of, um, completely disappearing and not contributing at all. But I don't remember you having any problems with his VT claim at the time. In fact, IIRC, you never so much as

mentioned

Seacore. But now that Seacore is suddenly a lynch option...you find him scummy.

Who do you suspect other than Seacore and Inquisition?

Then I noticed a few more things:

1-Look at this post. He acts very apologetic and wishy-washy to Kinetic--basically lots of waffling over how Kinetic could be either town or scum, but Bogre is totally innocent, so back off. He makes decent points against Miserable at Best, although he doesn't substantiate them with quotes. He then kisses up to me by complimenting my analysis...without saying anything if he agreed with my conclusions on TheButtonmen. But he failed to notice that

The Inquisition

was the first person to bring up opportunistic voting--except he was accusing

Bogre

of being opportunistic. Bogre

He then unvotes Kinetic meekly, here. This was after Seacore had removed his vote, and people who had jumped on Kinetic's wagon were getting more heat than Kinetic himself was. But doesn't revote for that "Miserable at Best person" whom he's more interested in (and who had no votes on him at the time). I get the feeling he was following the crowd on Kinetic...then backed away when the bandwagon lost steam.

2-I just realized that his flipflop on nameclaiming was probably the scummiest of everyone's. His reasons for attacking Kinetic were 50% based on the nameclaim suggestion. He spends a lot of time trying to justify why he thought voting someone for confirming last was scummy (even when he backs off from Kinetic). But he never says anything about the nameclaim itself. Then he gives no explanation whatsoever for his flip. Seriously. Reread Day One. Bogre just votes "Yay" out of the blue.

3-I thought Raivann's point that you were curious about xvart's claim was pretty weak. But I call bullshit on this:

Raivann: Why I asked xvart about his character's book, it had been mentioned earlier that the events were only supposed to be in AGOT- I didn't know where Coldhands was and, as kinetic mentions, if its outside of the timeline its more suspicious.

Several players claimed after Coldhands. You asked who Coldhands was immediately afterward. And this was before Kinetic explained that his grand master plan was to locate the game storywise.

How the hell would you have known that his role was the only one "out of the timeline"?

I might have believed you if you said, "Oh, just out of curiosity/because I wanted to know more about the character and his alignment." But Kinetic's time-and-place theory wasn't exactly the kind of thing that would occur to anyone. I know I assumed from my name that, yeah, the Starks and their retinue would be the good guys, and the Lannisters or maybe Daenerys allies would be the baddies...but didn't really put much thought to the period in which the game was set. I'm always suspicious when players get overdefensive and offer very contrived and elaborate explanations for trivial actions.

Vote: Bogre

. I think you deserve a little more time in the spotlight.

...

...

...damn you, TheButtonmen.

I actually felt physical pain moving that vote.

For the record, don't think you're off the hook. Imagine that you have a phantom vote on you. Because I'm on to you. You're going down. Eventually.

I've started a brutal reply to your last post, but I'm already going to be really late for class today. I also wanted to address Seacore, Flutter, and MacavityLock.

Links fixed~ Mod

[Mina]

EBWOP: apparently, I fail at links.

[Mina]

Thanks for fixing the links, Faraday.

I'm just popping in before a project meeting, but TheButtonmen:

1) I'm going out of my way not to mention you? Have you been reading the same thread? Did you see the part where I

had my vote on you all day

? How is that not mentioning you?

2) You see this quote?

I've started a brutal reply to your last post, but I'm already going to be really late for class today. I also wanted to address Seacore, Flutter, and MacavityLock.

I'd started rereading Day One and refuting your arguments, but since I was late for class, I decided to just stick to my Bogre case, save what I had, and do the rest later.

I'll toss you a bone and say that I haven't been spamming wallposts at you today, because there's so much other suspicious behaviour out there--and really, at this point, showing just how you've been scummy is kind of reaching for the low-hanging fruit. And unfortunately, I won't have time to finish that brutal reply until later this evening. Because I'm really busy right now with my classes and my job, and it takes me a shitload of time to reread the thread and write a decent case.

But I'm making a conscious effort not to tunnel on you. Right now, I think it's far, far more productive to put a little pressure on Bogre than to repeat and over again that you look scummy. And I'll admit there are strategic reasons to leave you alive right now, even if I don't want you to feel too comfortable.

But um...I think I've mentioned you more times than you've mentioned...gee, anyone today.

So who are your suspects? What do you think of Seacore? The Inquisition? Bogre? (He who flattered me for my reasoning in my case on you, but never said he suspected you.) Kinetic?

Anyone

?

Interesting comment in your last post, by the way:

Aak, I wanted to question Buttonmen, but now I have to leave for work now.

You ever get around to that?[/quote]
Um...in the very post you just responded to? (Although fine, I'll admit that was the only question I'd thought you hadn't answered, so my interrogation wasn't that thorough.) But speaking of which:

More content after I do a bit of reread on D1.

You ever get around to that?

[Mina]

Wow, it's ten o'clock PM, I haven't started my ECSE assignment due tomorrow, I have to get clothes ready for my Iron Ring ceremony, and I

still

haven't got around to responding to Buttonmen or Flutter. (My Seacore one was just a longwinded version of my points against him.) Buttonmen is going to have a freakout.

Hmm. Debating the best course of action today. Inquisition is clearly never going to be nightkilled now, I feel as though his claim will be a distraction tomorrow, and I think BP is a role more likely to be given to scum than town...but I suspect Bogre more than I suspect TheInquisition and Seacore. Lynching Buttonmen is a gamble, with both a greater chance of success and a greater risk (if I'm wrong about him). I'm wondering if I should consider other alternatives.

Okay, after checking Kinetic's giant location post, I just realized that from his POV (if he's town), the Jon-Tarly-Coldhands group would have no scum if Inquisition was town. I personally don't believe the scum would plan their nightkills around his location theory...but hey, it's possible, if they're afraid of his reputation. Other theories:

1-I could see an attempt on Inquisition's life as rolehunting--since he was lying rather low.

2-Bogre would have a motive to kill him, since Inq's first post was attacking him for the opportunistic vote.

3-MacavityLock said that Inq wouldn't make sense as a Mafia kill. But I think that only applies to a two-faction game. If there's an SK, he should be trying to kill the Mafia so that they can't outnumber him in endgame and win by strength of numbers. And if there are two Mafia families, they should be attacking each other so as to stop crosskills. On D1, Inq was a low-lying player (could have been scum trying to dodge a nightkill), not under any suspicion, playing rather safe, showing flashes of potential...If someone was trying to take out the other scumteam, I'd say Inq wouldn't be a bad choice. (Of course, that doesn't preclude Inquisition actually

being

a BP member of the other scumteam.)

MacavityLock, do you think any of these theories are plausible?

But speaking of which:

FOS: MacavityLock

for never answering this:

Bulletproof townies don't usually have additional abilities.

...

I'm debating how hard I should pressure you on this.

Okay, MacavityLock, figure it out for yourself. What ability might a bulletproof townie have in this game, other than a bulletproof shot? Because you know, I'm making what I think is a very reasonable assumption...and something about this quote doesn't add up.

I'm not really sure what question you'd like me to answer here. Does he have abilities? Yes, I'm sure he does. But I didn't like the phrasing he used at all. It didn't seem right, given a bulletproof townie claim.

Okay, maybe you didn't catch my drift.

The Inquisition described his claim in longwinded detail, with flavour. Personally, I think Samwell Tarly having two-shot BP armour and being in King's Landing is kind of bizarre--so yeah, a little incredulity at the BP who decided to reveal he was still BP is warranted.

But then he mentioned that his PM had a list for abilities. Which you replied to by saying that bulletproof players didn't have other abilities.

Firstly, could you explain just what you disliked about Inquisition's phrasing, and just what "didn't seem right"--with actual quotes? Because in that post, what you state in your own words is that "bulletproof townies don't usually have additional abilities." In other words, you find it suspicious that Inq claimed to have abilities other than being bulletproof. But now you're saying you

do

think it's likely that Inq has extra abilities--only you just didn't like Inquisition's phrasing. It "didn't seem right." This is a pretty strange contradiction.

Secondly, check your role PM again. Maybe you'll get it now.

MacavityLock, this isn't role-fishing, but please answer this question.

Name one of your abilities. Just one.

This should be ridiculously easy to answer, particularly since the cat is out of the bag by now.

[Mina]

Today I'm going to spam the thread a bit to catch up.

think BP is a role more likely to be given to scum than town

Why?

On the site I usually play at, BP townies are actually fairly common, but SKs are always--I mean ALWAYS--fully BP. For some reason, I was under the impression that town-aligned bulletproof players were much rarer on mafiascum. I know that I've never seen one, whereas I've skimmed through a couple of multifaction games (can't remember which ones--did Vi mod it?) in which each faction had a member with one or two shots of NK protection. I suppose it's a role that makes a lot of sense to give to scum in a multifaction setting, because a scum death harms his faction more than a townie death does. Also, I tend to associate doctors and jailkeepers with town and BP with scum. (Not saying it's impossible that Inq is a BP townie, just that I'm paranoid about claimed BP players.)

I may be mistaken, though, since I don't know the site's meta that well.

Bogre: so you think all of those things Seacore has done are scummy, or just bad town play? As far as I can tell, most of those objections are against things that you think are unhelpful for the town. For example, you don't indicate that you think claiming VT is scummy, just that it reduces the scum's NK pool for PRs. I'm not sure whether you're driving at Seacore being a bad townie or scum deliberately trying to damage the town.

Bad play, mostly. This is relevant to town members, who should realize that and take it into account, instead of letting bad play lead to mislynches. I am not convinced it is malicious scum play.

Interesting.

Let me quote your post on Seacore:

I dislike the early claim of VT from Seacore, especially as he was willing to ascribe Heilo's D1 actions as scummy and not VI play. Claiming VT out of the blue essentially loses a big chance on helping the town- soaking up a NK instead of a power role. Adding to that is the possible scumslip, the 'I'll be the top suspect if Heil comes up scum' comments, and speculation that the Starks are probably all good and other role-name related judgements. In a game like this, as its been stated, mods can guard against nameclaim breaking by making 'good' characters part of the mafia. (or by giving safeclaims).

Wow, I can certainly see where you're selflessly helping us stave off a mislynch. Sure, you explain why Seacore's claim is bad play, but not once do you say we shouldn't lynch him as a result. You say you "dislike" it--then follow it with a list of scummy things Seacore has done all game. Clearly, the implication is that you suspect Seacore. Particularly with this point:

especially as he was willing to ascribe Heilo's D1 actions as scummy and not VI play

So you're implying that his bad play is hypocritical, because he called Heliograph scummy. You never say that you don't find it malicious.

In a game like this, as its been stated, mods can guard against nameclaim breaking by making 'good' characters part of the mafia. (or by giving safeclaims).

I didn't notice this before, but if that's your opinion on nameclaims, then why did you vote Yay?

So Bogre, who do you actually

suspect

?

And would you mind answering my case on you? Or does someone need to put you to L-1 first?

[Mina]

Catching up with posts I meant to write days ago.

All this reading means I could wall-of-text horrendously, but I don't really have the energy, nor do I know what people want to hear from me. Consequently, ask me about anything you like, and I'll answer... Kindly don't ask me to explain too much about my predecessor's behavior, though.

First of all, I didn't get a chance to say this before, but welcome to the game, Flutter.

But please don't hold back the walls of text on our account. It doesn't matter what people "want to hear from you." On the contrary, I'd like more information so I can get a better read on you.

Particularly the point about the real cop claim. I think whoever is the real cop (if not Buttonmen) should claim. We'll get a Night 1 result on top of a 1:1 trade (assuming there's no Doc and also assuming we lynch the right one of the two claimers - likely Buttonmen) I think scum wouldn't recommend such a claim. Conversley, I think there must be a kind of cop role in this game, so if nobody does step forward, I think that makes Buttonmen safe.

I loathe this kind of reasoning. It's fishing, for one. And for two, we don't know enough to say that there wouldn't be multiple investigative roles.

I know this was addressed to Seacore, but since he was agreeing with a point

I

made, I may as well answer this.

Are you seriously saying a cop shouldn't counterclaim a claimed cop?

I'd expect only one investigative role, but fine. If the cop is limited, giving the town a tracker or watcher would make sense--particularly if there really are two killing factions. So I agree that a roleclaim from just any investigative role might be reckless. (Claiming in order to share investigative results rather than risk being NK'd and losing our chance to lynch scum? Maybe, particularly if it would nail a guilty, but it really depends on the situation. Definitely not just to throw doubt on Button's claim.)

But do you believe the town would have two players with the role "cop"?

The reason I think a non-Buttonmen cop should reveal today is because (aside from his risk of a NK) the later he waits, the more likely people are to doubt his claim and think it's a gambit.

MacavityLock is very...

safe

. Vote on Mina at beginning of D1, vote for buttonmen, pushing on Inq a bit now. This is potentially scummy, and I barely noticed him on first read (despite his post count!), except for his opposition to the nameclaim.

I'll take Mina's question about suspicions other than Seacore and Inq as a general question, since it's an interesting one. For me, MacLock and Bogre, for more-or-less similar reasons. A fair amount of follow-the-leader from both. Granted, I'm replaced in for a lurker and not exactly wall-of-texting myself, but we'll get there, no doubt.

Thank you for that. Now if only everyone else answered it. <_<

That's actually a pretty good point on MacavityLock. I remember disliking his first vote on me (the one in which he went out of his way to explain that this wasn't anything serious, but there wasn't anything better worth voting on so early in the game) but dismissing it as a nulltell because it was Page One. But it's true that he seems to go with the flow quite a bit. I should ISO MacavityLock to see if I agree with your and Buttonmen's assessments of him. (Imagine if Button and I actually agreed on something!) Because I have a weakness for writing off reasonable players as town and tunneling on the VI types.

MacavityLock, who do you suspect other than The Inquisition? I don't think you've really done much today other than try to disprove Inq's claim. Also, do you still suspect TheButtonmen?

Locke Lamora's last post makes me feel better about him, despite his extremely low D1 profile--basically, iso 14 was his only majorly content-ful post previous to this.

Could you explain what in particular made you feel better about him?

(Locke is...weird. He just pops up every couple of days with an insightful question or two. It's not that he's done anything suspicious I can outright pin down as scummy--I just find him really passive and under-the-radar. He's another player I need to ISO.)

[Mina]

Posting this in three parts for readability.

I've changed my mind on a Buttonmen counterclaim. I just realized that if someone faked a counterclaim to get Button lynched tomorrow, an SK could just kill the counterclaimant if we were in endgame. So I think investigative roles should wait until Day Three to reveal (although since there hasn't been a reveal, I guess either there's no cop or Button's it).

I'm starting to get very, very frustrated.

You know, I'm suspicious of Bogre and all, but my plan for today wasn't for me to make a case on Bogre, people to follow along, and then for us all to shut up and twiddle our thumbs for the next week-and-a-half waiting for Bogre to show up until we're three hours away from the deadline and we don't have time to lynch anyone else.

I'm starting to think Bogre is stalling on purpose. I say give him until tomorrow morning to come up with a brilliant defence, then someone put him to L-1. Because this is going nowhere fast.

Ugh. I wanted to get shit done on D2. I really wish I had more time to scumhunt before the deadline. I didn't sleep last night, and I have a metric ton of homework due this week.

[Mina]

Well, since the game is in limbo until tomorrow morning, might as well do something productive in the meantime.

Anyway, since Buttonmen has been pestering me to pay him attention, I just iso-read him. (Can you believe I'd never discovered you could set the thread to display only one player's posts until this weekend?)

I meant to bring this up a week ago, but never got around to it. Earlier, I thought Button had never explained his flip-flop on nameclaims. He correctly pointed out that he answered it here.

1 -I was worried about the noise / content ratio. It got to the point where I would have advocated pretty much anything to get people posting.

In the confusion of the end of Day One, I'd skimmed over that post. So sorry, Button.

But aside from the hypocrisy of complaining about the noise/content ratio when he wasn't contributing content himself, I also noticed a contradiction when I took a closer look at his posts.

When Kinetic first proposes the idea of a nameclaim, this is what Buttonmen says:

@Kinectic: It's the very "dynamic" nature of the names/roles that you say will make sure power roles aren't revealed that makes me wonder about the value of a mass claim. I'm not sure we can get enough valuable data out of it to make it worthwhile as it will also create lots of useless noise. I'm not asking you to divulge your information or plans but could you explain the benifits of the mass claim vs the white noise it will create a bit farther?

So he

does

bring up white noise...as a reason

not

to do a nameclaim. Because he thought the name claim would distract us from actual scumhunting.

But after the fact, he decided the nameclaim was a good idea

because

it would reduce noise? As we saw, the nameclaim didn't provide much information. Advocating a nameclaim wouldn't encourage more people to post. People were already posting--and posting actual content, to boot. What caused the turnaround?

He also gives possibly the lamest defence of all time when Seacore calls him on his crappy excuse for his flip-flop.

1- The vote was close, particularly at that point, you could have voted Nay and ended the noise just as easily. Yet you completely reversed your opinion without stating why at the time.

1. Not really anything I can add to that.

So in other words...Seacore called him on his bullshit, and he couldn't muster a decent defence.

Let's try this again, Buttonmen. Why did you go from thinking the nameclaim was a distraction to thinking it would get the game moving?

One last point. In my isoread, something stuck out to me as odd. TBH, I'm not sure if it's scummy, townie, or null, but I thought it was worth mentioning. YMMV.

Buttonmen comes across as rather resigned to his lynch throughout the end of D1:

4- Gonna be honesy, A)What Locke case are you even talking about, B)Her points are poop,

C) No point making a case I'm todays lynch there isn't time to lynch anyone else

, (Barring Helio if 2 people switch to him.)

4.75- Yes, one of the few players actually posting is the useless one, amazing logic, I'm not trying to start another wagon as we don't have time and no lynch is unacceptable.

Normally, I would consider these quotes mild towntells for a selfless but lazy VT who doesn't feel like scumhunting but knows that his flip will reveal information. I think scum usually has more of a sense of self-preservation.

But then out of the blue, he claims cop to save his skin. Which is kind of weird. Because a cop would know that he wasn't going to be the lynch that day. Buttonmen wasn't even trying to So I dunno. This is circumstantial evidence, and my gut sucks at this kind of thing, but I feel as though something doesn't fit. It comes across as though he made up his claim on the spot.

I mentioned before that it's strange how Arya-the-cop would have gone along with the nameclaim (and Buttonmen, I'm pretty sure you never answered

this

point of mine), since he'd be afraid of giving away that he had a juicy power role. So this adds to my malaise about Buttonmen.

Of course, that last point is just circumstantial evidence. If there's a reason to suspect Buttonmen, it's his reluctance to vote or scumhunt (although he's improved somewhat in the latter category today).

[Mina]

Mac: so you 'see' the Bogre dislike - does that mean you back his wagon, or do you simply understand the position of those on it without actually agreeing with them?

Sorry for being unclear. Yes, I back his wagon, and would join it in a deadline situation. Ideally, I still want to hear more from Inq before I do vote.

MacavityLock, why are you so afraid to vote?

Aside from the fact that I think taking issue with Buttonmen's "only" was nothing but semantics...if you're reluctant to put Bogre at L-1, then what's wrong with voting for another player? Why don't you vote for The Inquisition or TheButtonmen, if you also suspect them? It's not like they're anywhere close to a lynch.

I want Inq to answer my question before I decide whether or not to vote for him, but if deadline was right now, I'd be voting him.

This is the question you asked Inquisition:

Inq, have you answered why you claimed the exact number of BP shots yet?

I'd already asked him this question (go me for being first! ), and he answered it here:

2. I thought it even money that a vigil was actually shooting at me, and I want to discourage wasting the bullet on me. Furthermore, I generally think full-claiming is preferable to trickle-claiming. I've been in too many games where a player not claiming his full role because he believed there was something about it that was best left undiscovered actually came to bite the town in the posterior.

Decide yourself if you believe this explanation. But I think you have enough information to at least place your vote temporarily on either Inquisition or Buttonmen--and change your mind if you hear new information.

I mean, if you suspect them both, why not vote for one? Apply a miniscule amount of pressure on someone who isn't Bogre, since the votes of all the active people are tied up by the Bogre wagon. I already mentioned that I didn't want Button (or anyone else, for that matter) to feel too comfortable. Give us an alternative if we decide

not

to lynch Bogre. Make sure today isn't a waste of time. There's no good reason for a townie with several suspects to wait all day to vote.

Rai keeps doing little things that I find strange. For example,

I am thinking a Bogre, Kinetic scumteam.

Why Kinetic?

Why do you find it weird that Raivann suspects Kinetic? Do you think that Raivann's overall gameplay fits that of an evil player? Because I thought Raivann's implication from that quote was pretty clear. Do you disagree that the quote he mentioned (coupled with Kinetic placing a random vote on Bogre but being reluctant to vote Bogre today, as well as the Bogre-Buttonmen and Kinetic-Buttonmen links I've seen) could be proof of a partnership? Then say so, or make a case showing that Raivann's behaviour is scummy. But this was just a really random point to bring up. Particularly when you don't explain just why you find it weird.

-------

Seacore, I couldn't agree more with this:

But okay, so you found Mac scummy yesterday. Do you still find him scummy? If so, why is your vote not on him? If not, why not. And my question of who you find scummy was still not answered.

You can't say "nobody's posting, so I don't know"
Scum aren't going to go "oh gee, Buttonmen is having a tough time finding us, maybe we should post more/differently" So start applying pressure where you think it's deserved.

Buttonmen, please cast your damn vote for someone. (The same goes for Flutter and Bogre whenever they decide to grace us with their presence again.) Who do you suspect most? Seacore? MacavityLock? Locke Lamora? Well,

vote

for that person.

But Seacore, why did you have a problem with TheButtonmen for not having cast a vote, but go out of your way to defend MacavityLock for doing the same thing?

Why not let MacavityLock defend himself? I'm sure he's a big boy who can come up with his own arguments against Buttonmen (who, let's be frank, isn't a master of rhetoric). There was no reason for you to dilute what little pressure there was on ML like that.

(I have more thoughts, but I'm screwed for my assignment tomorrow. I'll save them for when Bogre either sways me with his golden words or Bogre gets run up to L-1--whichever comes first. This better not last until Saturday.)

[Mina]

EBWOP: My post didn't make it clear that Seacore was the one who brought up the "only" argument, although MacavityLock agreed with it.

[Mina]

Why am I still online? If I fail all my courses this semester, I'm blaming this game.

Buttonmen: I iso-skimmed him while writing that massive post above.

Thanks for finally casting your vote (even though Seacore and I had to pressure you to do so). But could you respond to any of my points against you? Particularly your contradiction on nameclaiming?

General impressions: MacavityLock fits the same general profile as Locke Lamora (narrow focus, reasonable points about the set-up, logical, avoiding a leadership role, narrow in focus). I find Locke will occasionally surprise me with an insightful question or original thought, though. And my only real problem with him is that he doesn't provide enough content. MacavityLock, on the other hand, comes across as oilier, more conventional, and much safer. His double flip on Inquisition was what really set off alarm bells. Sure...it's plausible he completely misread Inquisition's post

twice

, even after I'd pressured him on it a few times. But something about that entire exchange felt very off. I'm having trouble verbalizing why, but maybe I'll take a closer look at it afterwards.

When I was rereading him, I see a trend. Raivann votes me-->ML votes me (with lots of qualifying language), a bunch of people vote Buttonmen-->MacavityLock votes Buttonmen, lots of people are skeptical of Inquisition's claim and vote him-->MacavityLock is also skeptical of Inquisition's claim (although he doesn't vote him). I think his only original thought (I don't give him credit for the FOS point, since I and several players had already taken issue with Button's FOS) was asking Raivann why he thought each faction had multiple kill flavours. Let's face it, that's not exactly hard contribution for scum to fake.

And I think it's very,

very

easy for a relatively experienced, intelligent player to play scum the way he has all game--sheep other people's cases, comment on the set-up and on roles rather than on behaviour, make reasonable-sounding comments that don't often stray beyond the obvious. Particularly if the killers know it's a multifaction game and have an incentive not to attract a nightkill.

So yeah. I hate to say it, but I actually think your points on MacLock are fairly accurate...

OH MY GOD I'M AGREEING WITH THEBUTTONMEN!!!!!!!

HELP ME THE WORLD IS ENDING!

[Mina]

Faraday: when are Flutter and Inquisition going to come back from their V/LAs? They're holding up the game.

Agian I'm not a full cop, I wasn't expecting A) people to believe me or B) Helio self destructing.

Huh? But what's the difference between claiming "full cop" and "limited cop"? Either way, you'd save yourself from a lynch. I doubt people who'd say "HOLY SHIT COP UNVOTE UNVOTE" would switch to "HOLY SHIT COP UNVO--wait, he has some kind of vague limitation that he refuses to describe? Never mind. He's useless to us."

And you and Heilograph (I just realized that's how he spelled his name) were pretty much in dead heat all of Day 1. How were you not in danger? You're doing the same thing I accused Bogre of doing--offering convoluted explanations when called on trivial details. Would you have admitted to expecting your lynch if I hadn't called you on it?

That said...

Buttonmen, in case you're really the cop, can I ask you something?

Would there be a way to facilitate your investigation choice--e.g. for the town to pressure a suspect behave in a certain way, under threat of lynch? Or is it completely outside your control--e.g. dependent on night actions or scumteam coordination? (If it's the latter, then obviously don't go into details.) Because I have an idea.

MacavityLock, why are you so afraid to vote?

Aside from the fact that I think taking issue with Buttonmen's "only" was nothing but semantics...if you're reluctant to put Bogre at L-1, then what's wrong with voting for another player? Why don't you vote for The Inquisition or TheButtonmen, if you also suspect them? It's not like they're anywhere close to a lynch.

I'm not afraid to vote. I wanted to hear Inq's answer before voting him. I'm still on the fence about Buttonmen's claim, and I still don't think he's a great lynch for today, as much as I really dislike his play.

I'll admit his claim makes me think we shouldn't lynch until at least tomorrow. That doesn't mean no one should vote for him all day. Again, votes are effective both for pressure and for letting people know where you stand.

As for the "only" stuff, Buttonmen was misrep-ing, plain and simple. I never said that I would withhold a vote on Bogre until deadline, but that right now without hearing more from either Inq or Bogre, I don't want to vote him. Adding "only" to what I said is a definite modification of my actual meaning there. The fact that Seacore pointed this out before I did is immaterial.

I hate to defend Buttonmen...but to me, "I'd vote Bogre if it was deadline" strongly implied "I'm delaying my vote on Bogre for a while--possibly until deadline." Meh. This one isn't really important.

I had not seen the full-claim vs trickle-claim stuff until you pointed it out here. I guess this does answer that question, but it leads me to a follow up request. Inq, cites for where trickle-claiming turned out bad for town, please. (Ooh, Buttonmen's going to hate me for that.)

I suppose I'd also be interested in seeing those links--even though I suspect you more than I suspect The Inquisition.

I mean, if you suspect them both, why not vote for one? Apply a miniscule amount of pressure on someone who isn't Bogre, since the votes of all the active people are tied up by the Bogre wagon. I already mentioned that I didn't want Button (or anyone else, for that matter) to feel too comfortable. Give us an alternative if we decide

not

to lynch Bogre. Make sure today isn't a waste of time. There's no good reason for a townie with several suspects to wait all day to vote.

There are ways to play this game without having a vote down.[/quote]
Obviously, it's not set in stone, but do you agree that it's helpful to vote? Didn't you have a problem with Buttonmen not voting for the player he FOS'd? MacavityLock saying "I suspect X" is essentially an

FOS: X

.

And do you agree that being hesitant to place one's vote is one of the oldest scumtells in the book? Enough so that vote-delayers, as a general rule, should come under intense scrutiny? Particularly if other parts of their behaviour fit the pattern of scum in a multi-faction game very well?

Why are scum more hesitant to vote? I think it's psychological. -Because you can keep your options open to move to whatever bandwagon gains support, rather than risk pushing a bad wagon and having it blow up in your face.
-Because you can distance from your buddies without risking their lynch. -Because you don't antagonize people.
-Because in this particular game, the Bogre lynch was starting to look inevitable, and it would benefit scum who weren't partnered with Bogre not to create an alternative lynch mob.
-Because you can stay off a townie mislynch and look squeaky-clean.
-Because it might be unconscious. I know that when I'm scum, I tend to temper my criticism/attacks a little when I know my target is town.)

That tell, while not 100% foolproof, has worked time and time again.

Rai keeps doing little things that I find strange. For example,

I am thinking a Bogre, Kinetic scumteam.

Why Kinetic?

Why do you find it weird that Raivann suspects Kinetic? Do you think that Raivann's overall gameplay fits that of an evil player? Because I thought Raivann's implication from that quote was pretty clear. Do you disagree that the quote he mentioned (coupled with Kinetic placing a random vote on Bogre but being reluctant to vote Bogre today, as well as the Bogre-Buttonmen and Kinetic-Buttonmen links I've seen) could be proof of a partnership? Then say so, or make a case showing that Raivann's behaviour is scummy. But this was just a really random point to bring up. Particularly when you don't explain just why you find it weird.

I find Rai's post strange because it seemed like there was an entire missing section of the actual case on Kinetic. So, yes, I think that when an entire case for a Kin-Bogre scumteam is based on a random vote then that's strange.[/quote]
Fair enough. If you'd said all that, I wouldn't have had a problem. But all you said was "I find Raivann strange because he suspects Kinetic and Bogre." That throwaway post seemed to be the only thing that made you suspect him.

When I look for scum, I might take note of one or two details that seem fishy, but I'm primarily concerned with overall behaviour--if they're wishy-washy, if they're opportunistic, if they lurk..If you make a giant case on Raivann, taking into account his play throughout the entire game, then I will be very interested in reading it. My problem with you is that you

haven't

been making behaviour-based cases on players who aren't easy targets.

Why not let MacavityLock defend himself? I'm sure he's a big boy who can come up with his own arguments against Buttonmen (who, let's be frank, isn't a master of rhetoric). There was no reason for you to dilute what little pressure there was on ML like that.

A fair question for Seacore. A question for you: Given your quote directly above this one, are you defending Rai/not letting him answer questions for himself?[/quote]
To be honest, I didn't notice that he'd never answered your question. I lost track of for how long he'd disappeared. But note that my focus was very much on the

format

of your attack on Raivann. I never once said that I didn't think his post was suspicious (although to be honest, that opinion was probably implied if you read between the lines). All my questions were concerned with if you agreed with Raivann's assessment of Kinetic and Bogre, and if you could explain what in particular you disliked about his case.

Mina, I'm not sure if there are any questions I can answer in your 499, but do let me know if there are.

Questions? Not really. That post wasn't aimed at you. But if you think you have a convincing defence to any of my accusations against you, or an explanation for why you keep on going with the flow, or have very safe opinions, then that would be nice.

[Mina]

EBWOP: Buttonmen, by "how were you not in danger?", I meant "how were you a lock for the lynch?"

If my opinion is unclear, ask me to clarify. Lamora did, and I subsequently clarified, to his satisfaction as far as I can tell.

I'm not sure why a vote, especially some single pressure vote, which is what you're asking for, is all that useful at this point in the day. I currently have reasons why for each player I'm not voting them.

In addition to clarifications, if you find inconsistencies in my play, call me out on them. But don't just blanket say "Not voting is scummy." If you'd like to make a case, give me a reason why my not placing a vote right now is scummy.

Hey, isn't there a theory that town are more likely to be inconsistent than scum? (Not that I'm a supporter of that theory.)

Macavity, not being ready to put Bogre at L-1 isn't "inconsistent." And by itself, that wouldn't be scummy.

But you didn't vote The Inquisition when he was your top suspect and you were hammering away at him all day, either. And it also fits into an overall pattern this game of very safe, guarded, and reactive play from you. (See above for my explanation of why not voting is a scumtell.)

I know you claim to have wanted more information before voting, but that's not at all the impression I'm getting. You acted very confident of Inquisition's guilt before (when he was looking like a very easy lynch). You aren't sharing your thought process; you don't seem like you're genuinely agonizing over who is scum. I don't think that Inquisition linking to a game in which trickle-claiming was bad for the town is such crucial information that it will radically change your view of the game.

I think you're either stalling or nervous about committing to a wagon.

And I'm not crazy about the tone of your most recent post. It's what I call the "Make a case I can defend against!" defence. I find scum get a little irritable when they come under heavy pressure for a scumtell they can't fight with their arguments. I've seen this reaction both in scum caught by logical analysis ("How do you expect me to defend against this, when it's not my fault the facts are against me?"), and by behaviour ("So do you have a case against me that I can disprove, and that isn't just your gut?") You come across as though you'd know how to defend yourself against a charge of inconsistency, but can't deny that you've been reluctant to vote.

[Mina]

The above was a crosspost.

Shit, it's after four, and I really need sleep now. And tomorrow will be a crazy day. I'll respond to MacavityLock's latest post when I'm fully conscious.

[Mina]

Actually, I'm probably not the best person to ask about this...

...because the last time I was scum, someone called me out for posting a case during the night phase (the thread stayed unlocked, and I couldn't post at any other time), and then going to bed rather than vote immediately when the morning scene was posted. He accused me of distancing from a partner with that case and not seriously pressuring anyone.

Ironically, the subject of my case wasn't even my partner. But I thought I'd look more innocent if I didn't cave in to my accuser's pressure. And several people had voted for my suspect since then, and I didn't want to look opportunistic. So I deliberately stalled my vote and said I wanted to see a vote count, thinking it would make me look more innocent. (I ended up voting a while later.)

Then the guy who'd attacked me vigged me that night. Bastard.

What was the point of this again? Zzzzzzzzz....

MacavityLock, I don't think your reasons for not voting are particularly convincing, but again, I don't

only

suspect you because you haven't voted. My mini-case is in 499--and maybe I'll reread you and see if I have anything more to add when I have time.

Now I'm really off.

[Mina]

Thanks, Faraday. I don't think he'd due for a prod, but could you prod Kinetic too? His utter lack of helpfulness this game is starting to annoy me.

And you know, I'll be very interested in seeing how willing he'll be to follow his master location theory to its logical conclusion.

I'd be thrilled with a deadline extension (as well as replacements for our inactive players). Because again, there was shit I wanted to do today, and I couldn't get any of it done because Bogre, Flutter, and The Inquisition are holding everything up and no one wants to do anything other than sit around and wait until deadline and put him at L-1 because he's the only lynch option.

Seriously. Regardless of his alignment, it looks like Bogre is so useless that he apparently WANTS to be lynched. Do I think Bogre's contradiction on Seacore's scumminess makes absolutely no sense? And do I think he's made several comments that read as scummy? Absolutely. But I'm still getting pissed off. Apparently, he doesn't want to do so much as respond to the case against him, or read it, or find a single player suspicious, or you know, make the teensiest argument that would so much as make us consider the possibility of lynching him tomorrow instead of today.

I have to go now, but I just want to say this:

MacavityLock keeps repeating that refusal to vote is not a scumtell, and we shouldn't take it as one. Now obviously, he cast his vote on Day One, so even if he is scum, then obviously he isn't always afraid to cast his vote. And I'm not convinced by "Here's a game where I didn't commit X scumtell as scum, so all these scumtells I'm making must be a coincidence." You still haven't shown that your refusal to vote even when you have suspects is in character for you as town. But fine. Not voting isn't concrete proof of scumminess.

Except for one thing.

I've said this several times, but maybe I'll say it again, in larger font:

I don't only suspect MacavityLock because of his refusal to vote.

Since fairly early on today, I've become increasingly uneasy about MacavityLock, for a variety of reasons. Because much as I think the weak lurky VI types are often scum (and it's sometimes useful to lynch them on policy), I think it's very easy to fall into the trap of only attacking them while letting the reasonable players slide.

I thought his lack of a vote deserved a poke, because it's behaviour more likely to be associated with scum than town. It was a useful place to apply pressure--and I'm glad I did, because I feel as though I've stumbled on something

very

interesting. But it's not like I'd have thought MacavityLock was a beacon of protown helpfulness if he'd voted Inquisition.

While he's trying to turn this into a theory question of whether we should take reluctance to vote as a scumtell, this is his only defence to the meat of my case on him:

Well, I think I have asked some behavior-based questions, and that I don't think that behavior-based are the only scum tells we should be looking for, especially when we haven't flipped scum so as to make connections.

He doesn't so much as mention my point that he's been safe in his suspects. He doesn't give examples of his behaviour-based questions. (And don't bring up that you pointed out that Buttonmen's FOS was scummy...because Seacore and I had already beat you to the punch.) And what are you talking about, we need connections for behaviour-based scumtells to work? On the contrary, when we don't have links upon which to base our analysis, aren't behaviour-based tells the best we have to go on? Someone can be wishy-washy or reluctant to contribute regardless of who his scumbuddies are.

Lots of posts devoted to proclaiming that not voting is a "surface scumtell," and only an evasive two lines (after I pushed him to respond) to the bulk of my case on him.

And right now, he's withholding his vote for no good reason beyond stubbornness. This is something that could go either way--some scum would cave to pressure and try to appease their attackers, while others (such as myself) might deliberately resist to look more townie. It depends on the skill level of the player. (Although clearly, the fact that he used his refusal to vote in his defence implies that he thought voting might look like caving.) But at this point, his reasons for not voting are crap. Just face it. Your refusal to vote is a distraction. I don't care if "sometimes, in theory, people who don't want to vote aren't always scum, so stop bugging me about it." Why are you being so reluctant to vote when clearly it's causing a problem for us?

I've been around long enough that I know how to modify my meta game to game. I certainly wouldn't say I'm the greatest in this regard, but please don't throw surface tells at me.

Then why are you using your meta to defend yourself?

I agree with this:

If you were town I would think you'd be more interested in concentrating on today's lynch.
Your recent posts you seem more interested in self preservation and you only have 1 vote.

Well, when the 2 people I have open questions to and want to lynch aren't responding, it's kind of a problem for scumhunting: You, until just now, and Inq, who's on V/LA. The other two people I most suspect are Bogre, who's in desperate need of a prodding, and Buttonmen, who I still don't think we can lynch due to his cop claim.

So you think that Raivann's answer to why he chose Kinetic...and your new question about Inquisition's meta (which you didn't bring up until I pointed out that Inq had already answered your question) were so important that you didn't have any more worthwhile contributions to add to the thread? Because regardless of your vote, I haven't seen much serious scumhunting from you.

Some players are easily shaken off when a suspect, rather than improve his play, makes a reasonable defence post that only perfunctorily responds to one or two of the points against him. I'm not one of them.

[Mina]

Buttonmen, can you respond to this:

Agian I'm not a full cop, I wasn't expecting A) people to believe me or B) Helio self destructing.

Huh? But what's the difference between claiming "full cop" and "limited cop"? Either way, you'd save yourself from a lynch. I doubt people who'd say "HOLY SHIT COP UNVOTE UNVOTE" would switch to "HOLY SHIT COP UNVO--wait, he has some kind of vague limitation that he refuses to describe? Never mind. He's useless to us."

And you and Heilograph (I just realized that's how he spelled his name) were pretty much in dead heat all of Day 1. How were you not in danger? You're doing the same thing I accused Bogre of doing--offering convoluted explanations when called on trivial details. Would you have admitted to expecting your lynch if I hadn't called you on it?

That said...

Buttonmen, in case you're really the cop, can I ask you something?

Would there be a way to facilitate your investigation choice--e.g. for the town to pressure a suspect behave in a certain way, under threat of lynch? Or is it completely outside your control--e.g. dependent on night actions or scumteam coordination? (If it's the latter, then obviously don't go into details.) Because I have an idea.

Fix'd ~ Mod

[Mina]

EBWOP: Everything below that first sentence was supposed to be in a [quote="Mina"][/quote] quote pyramid. I fail at BB-code.

[Mina]

Happy birthday, Faraday! And welcome to the game, Percy.

Look at Bogre in iso, my thoughts: Too little information there. Its good that he was replaced, but right now I don't know, other than his lurking and seeming refusal to respond to said pressure (and then being replaced) where his case lies. Likely I'll find it when I look at others.

There are reasons to vote Bogre beyond his lurking. I mentioned them here and here. (Admittedly, it's more of a Day One case, since Bogre gave us so little to go on. I'm starting to become more suspicious of MacavityLock.) It's true that him being replaced makes his lurking a bit of a nulltell, though.

I'm going to wait until Percy responds to what is going on, and since we are relatively close to deadline and he is the biggest suspect, I think perhaps we should think about making him claim, unless one of the four on his wagon thinks they want to pull off at this point.

I for one am not ready to move my vote from Percy until he gives us a defence. I don't want to let his slot get away with lurking until the pressure dissipates. If his defence doesn't pass muster, then yeah, I'd be okay with forcing a claim soon. Because at this point, I'm fed up of waiting around all day for Bogre's slot to so much as react to the fact that he's at L-2.

But let me put it this way: I'm considering other alternatives for today.

Other notes: Raiv is tweaking my senses, not sure why yet though.
MacLock isn't, I think this may be significant as well.

What conclusion can you draw from the fact that Raivann tweaks your senses and Mac doesn't? Be more specific than "this may be significant."

I keep seeing big posts by Mina, but for some reason my eyes glaze over them with out reading much. That probably isn't a good sign.-----

Gee, thanks.

If anyone finds my posts hard to read, I would appreciate it if they said so, and I can try to be more succinct. This isn't the first time someone's accused me of being longwinded. After all, I'd like to be sure that I'm not wasting my time writing wallposts that no one reads.

But could you at least try to read them and evaluate my scumminess based on their actual content? Because I'm putting a shitload of effort into them.

And finally, in your location analysis, you've been focusing on the Inquisition-MaB/Flutter group. Makes sense, since there should be only two members in it from your POV. But what are your opinions on the other groups? Say, the Mina-Seacore-MacLock group?

[Mina]

The Inquisition, can you answer MacLock's question about trickle claims?

Well. It seems like I struck a nerve.

MacavityLock, why are you losing your temper? I suspect you, sure. And I keep pressing you, because your answers are, frankly, not comforting. But it's not like I've been hounding you all game. I've been questioning/attacking other players today, and my vote is on Percy. There's no need to give me attitude or insult my ability to play the game. I'm neither the first nor the only player to find you scummy now.

I wish you'd show the same passion for scumhunting that you do for defending yourself. Maybe people wouldn't be so "focused" on you if you showed us someone else who looked guiltier than you.

And what are you talking about, we need connections for behaviour-based scumtells to work? On the contrary, when we don't have links upon which to base our analysis, aren't behaviour-based tells the best we have to go on?

I'm not saying they don't work, I'm saying they work far better when we have scumbuddies to work off of. I'd like to be more comprehensive, when I can be.

I have a sinking feeling that you'll turn into a distracting argument about Mafia theory...but fine, I'll bite. How the hell do behaviour-based tells work far better when we have scumbuddies to work off? What kind of tells are we supposed to use before a scum flip?

By the way, did you happen to notice that Bogre's likely to be replaced?

Yep (I even mentioned it in my big post above yours). Your point?

Because you should be able to see now that I'm a more sophisicated player than you'd need me to be for your simple tell to work.

If it's causing you a problem because you can't read me without a vote, then you need to get better at this game. Sometimes, people don't vote.

*sigh*

For the last time...

I don't only suspect MacavityLock because of his refusal to vote.

[Mina]

I know this debate is starting to frustrate people. And I feel as though I'm repeating myself over and over again. So I'm forcing myself to keep this short:

Also, you didn't answer what would change in your read of me if I did decide to vote.

Don't make me repeat that quote in size 18 again.

It might change my read of the player you voted/didn't vote for. But why don't you just concern yourself with which player you think is most deserving of a vote, rather than with my read of you?

I've explained several times just why your lack of vote deserved a little poke. (Since you attacked Buttonmen for not voting his suspect, you clearly felt the same way.) But now I'm much more intrigued by your reactions, which seem wildly disproportionate to your motives for holding your vote.

I think there's something else going on here. Is it because one of Bogre/TheButtonmen/The Inquisition is your scumbuddy, and you don't want people to realize that your distancing was hot air? Is it because you've afraid to antagonize the other scum faction with a vote? Is it because you've taken such a hard stance that you're flustered and afraid voting now would look like you're backtracking? Do you just like annoying me? I don't know.

Now I'd like to ask a favour of you. If you respond to me again, could it please be about something--ANYTHING--other than whether cautious voting is a scumtell?

By the way, I like the way you try to disparage my answer before I even give it. I don't want to distract with mafia theory, and haven't done that this entire game, so why your intro?

To be honest, I do think you've been guilty of wasting time on theory. Case in point: the voting-vs.-not-voting debacle. And even you've admitted that much of your scumhunting has been based on the roles and set-up. But I won't deny that my comment was a bit barbed. I've discovered that snarkiness is a valuable

excuse to entertain myself

scumhunting tool. It gets reactions.

But this leads into something else that's been bugging me about you. Why does the bite in your post turn on and off? I'd feel much better about you if you were consistently a jerk. But while you get very snarky when fighting a case on you, you're quite dispassionate when attacking the players you believe are scum. I find that to be a HUGE red flag.

[Mina]

I'll restate that I can see the case on Mac and agree that it goes further than his not voting, although I still find that to be a scum tell. I don't tend to vote people for a single scum tell, so that shouldn't be too big a problem.

Just noticed this.

Not sure if I understand you. Are you saying you

would

or

wouldn't

vote for MacavityLock based on the evidence (i.e., more than one scumtell)? What do you mean by "shouldn't be too big a problem"? I'd like you to go on the record with an opinion.

Inq hasn't bothered to address anything he missed that was directed towards him, as far as I can tell. Hopefully he's working on that right now.

I'm not moving my vote from Percy unless we get some serious content, some solid stances and a general sense that we're better off not lynching his player slot, none of which I got from Bogre.

I agree with both these points. I've been getting so frustrated with Bogre because there are players I'd like to pressure and attack and vote...and yet I can't, because his slot has given us nothing. I'd be rewarding lurking.

As for Mina vs Mac, I get the feeling that it's not going anywhere fast. I agree that Mac's refusal to vote is now a distraction and I also agree that his stubbornness not a tell either way. I personally think his reluctance to vote is causing a problem for Mina more than for the rest of us. If he continues throughout the game to refuse to put his vote down then I'm sure it'll become a problem and I'm sure it'll get him lynched. For now, I think it's just turning into a nasty argument that isn't helping us find scum.

I think some of this can be laid on my head. I can be a bit...relentless sometimes. I apologize if this is turning into a distraction.

I disagree that this exchange hasn't helped us find scum. To let you in on a little secret...no, I'm usually not a crazy vote Nazi (which is why I haven't got around to pressuring all the late or non-voters). I'm not offended by the mere thought of ML not having placed a vote yet. I'd become increasingly uneasy about MacavityLock, found his lack of a vote mildly suspicious, and decided it was a good place to apply pressure. I know that I've gotten a much better read on MacLock as a result of our interaction...and not because he still refuses to place his vote, but because of the

way

he's refusing to place it.

I think his reluctance to vote is so silly that I feel like there has to be

something

there. And I really feel as though he's moving the goalposts in our interaction and turning the argument into a question of voting theory. I notice that he doesn't respond to all my points--yeah, it's understandable given the length of my posts, but the one or two sentences he tends to quote are usually the ones less relevant to the meat of my argument. But I'm making a conscious effort not to bury him in text (for me, this is actually restraint!).

Would anyone be interested in me writing an organized case on MacavityLock, based on his behaviour all game (outside the voting debacle)? I don't want to oversaturate the thread.

Question for Locke and those who don't see the case on ML: do you notice a marked difference in MacavityLock's posting style between when he's scumhunting and when he's defending himself? Raivann agreed with me, but I'd like hear the opposing viewpoint.

Another question, for people who've played with MacavityLock before: does he tend to get very stubborn and prickly as town (or as scum) the moment he's attacked? Some players are overdefensive and emotional regardless of alignment. But he was coming across as very reasonable and cool-headed before. I'd like to know if this is in character for him.

[Mina]

Whoa. I missed a lot this weekend.

Welcome to the game, Confucius. And

unvote

, because Percy's catch-up post was very solid, even though I disagree with some of his conclusions (*cough cough, townread on MacLock, cough*).

Hmm. I know I'm giving fodder to Seacore's Mina/Raivann theory, but I've had a town read on Raivann for most of the game. Maybe it's just because I don't find the kill name slip all that damning; on the contrary, I'd think scum would be extra careful not to give away extra information (waiting until night to share his find with his scumbuddies), while a townie might be open with whatever theory popped into his head. I tend to put more stock in actions (cases, attacks, controversial opinions--which Raivann provides more of than MacavityLock does) than on details and roleclaims. And I really thought scum would have pushed my wagon on Day One rather than switch to Buttonmen. I'll admit that since Percy joined the game, Raivann's play has become increasingly erratic, though.

Raivann, can you answer MacLock's question on why you unvoted and then revoted again?

--------

I'd like to respond to a few of the posts I've missed. But MacavityLock, before I cast my vote, I'd like to ask you a few questions.

-Please explain just what in particular made you think that Inquisition was so scummy that he was worth vigging on N1. Like I said before, I can see him as a rolehunting kill, or as an SK/second Mafia family taking a shot in the dark at a pool of under-the-radar players. But a vig kill on N1? Based on the little information we had in the thread? Terrible, horrifically bad play that could have devastated the town.

-Why didn't you reveal your role when everyone was attacking Inquisition for lying about his BP claim?

I'm still sceptical. Vig is an EXTREMELY convenient claim for scum--so even if your so-called breadcrumb (mentioning the word "vigging") was intentional and not a coincidence, you could have planned to reveal vig under pressure. I agree with Confucius: your play has been much more consistent with scum than with a vig. And I question the judgment of people who have town reads on you. I think you're coming off as so oily and insincere right now that I almost need to shower from reading your posts. Case in point:

And what do you want me to say? I've been asking questions, relevant to the game, and relevant to my additional knowledge as vig. I've been doing my best to try to scumhunt with the additional knowledge I had without outing myself as a power role, but was sadly not able to keep it up

Poor MacavityLock. If you're so experienced that you know how to change your meta as scum, then why would you be so distracted by the extra information you had as a vig that you'd be completely unable to make cases on people?

I see one detail that fits your claim: picking up on Raivann's "slip" because you have your own kill method.

Except that doesn't prove you're a town-aligned vig. That just proves you have the ability to kill.

I can believe that you genuinely thought Raivann "slipped." But then why weren't you pushing Raivann's lynch today, if you thought he was scum? You asked him a couple of sideways questions, but didn't even consider voting for him until your reveal. You seemed to suspect Bogre, Inquisition, and Buttonmen more.

[Mina]

Sorry, the forum keeps on timing out every time I try to respond to a post. I'm rereading now, but just to respond to MacavityLock's most recent post:

How about the fact that I was very insistent that Kin provide the reasons he brought up name-claim? I was trying to figure out whether he had knowledge of kill methods too, and if that was why he was pushing for a nameclaim.

Well, we obviously know you can kill at night whether or not you're lying about your role. (Of course, it does imply that you aren't using a fakeclaim, if you're being honest about your kill flavour. I'll admit it's a point in your favour--like Confucius' Sandor Clegane, your name is so evil that I almost can't believe you'd be evil!)

I've been asking Raiv very pointed questions all day, and got very few satisfactory answers out of him. I did suspect Inq more, up until just recently.

Why do you suspect Raivann more than Inquisition now? Is it because of his Percy vote?

Over Night 1, I re-read the game, and for their lurkiness, picked out the following 3 players as potential targets: Inq, MaB, and Bogre. Inq's switch on the nameclaim (isos 1 and 2 vs iso 5), as well as his disappearance after the nameclaim sealed it for me.

Wait a minute.

Bogre also flipflopped on the nameclaim and disappeared after it was over. IIRC, MaB was wishy-washy on the idea of a nameclaim (although I don't think he outright went against it) before changing his position...and

also

disappeared after the nameclaim.

All three players fit in the same general category: low activity, contradictory thoughts on the nameclaim. And yet you chose to target Inquisition.

See, what stands out to me is that of those three players, Inquisition would probably be the worst choice from the POV of a vig...but the

best

from the POV of a SK or second Mafia group. Bogre and MaB both came across as VIs to me--and would have probably been lynched had they not been replaced, so you'd be saving us a lynch with your kill. Inquisition, on the other hand, made a few reasonable posts early on against the nameclaim that showed he had a brain. He could have been scum...but chances were high that he was just a town player with no time on his hands, or a power role lying low.

Were I a vig who was going for the most antitown player rather than the player I suspected most, I'd have gone for Bogre or MaB--or maybe even Seacore. (I'd have avoided Buttonmen because of the cop claim.) But on D1, Inquisition wasn't the most antitown player in the game.

Inquisition was the

least lynchable

, and

most competent

of those three. In other words, the biggest threat to scum.

[Mina]

Rereading a bit. MacavityLock, what did you mean by this:

I have been trying to prevent this all day, but Conficius did too good a job of ferreting out my breadcrumb.

Um...

Confucius didn't ferret out your Heilograph breadcrumb. This was the quote he was talking about:

There's something that seems off about this though. Inq doesn't make much sense as a maf NK target.

MacavityLock, are you saying this quote was an intentional breadcrumb?

Also, taking a step back from MacavityLock (I swear I'm not tunnel-visioned!) for a minute.

Kinetic, why haven't you ever answered this:

Other notes: Raiv is tweaking my senses, not sure why yet though.
MacLock isn't, I think this may be significant as well.

What conclusion can you draw from the fact that Raivann tweaks your senses and Mac doesn't? Be more specific than "this may be significant."

And finally, in your location analysis, you've been focusing on the Inquisition-MaB/Flutter group. Makes sense, since there should be only two members in it from your POV. But what are your opinions on the other groups? Say, the Mina-Seacore-MacLock group?

Also, why do you think MacavityLock is town? I want reasons. Concrete REASONS.

Seriously. All game, you've been tossing out statements like "X has been tweaking my radar, must take note of this," or "Hmm, Y is interesting,

very

interesting," or "Z is really bugging me...this might be notable, or it might not be."

Fucking justify your reads!

Thanks, but you never answered the first part of my quote:

I've played with MacavityLock before, his town to my scum. His prickliness and stance towards voting in that game were identical to this one. I have a mild townread.

Could you link me to the game where MacavityLock got very prickly when pressed on his vote? I'd like to see the similarities for myself. I really liked most of the points you made in that (particularly on Locke Lamora and Kinetic...and you did shake my confidence in Raivann's rock-solid townieness). But you haven't had much to say about MacavityLock, particularly his play. And in case you haven't noticed, I'm *cough* interested in MacavityLock's connections at the moment.

[Mina]

EBWOP: Um, "thanks, but you never answered the first part of my quote" was supposed to be addressed to Buttonmen. I wanted him to respond to this:

Buttonmen, can you respond to this:

Agian I'm not a full cop, I wasn't expecting A) people to believe me or B) Helio self destructing.

Huh? But what's the difference between claiming "full cop" and "limited cop"? Either way, you'd save yourself from a lynch. I doubt people who'd say "HOLY SHIT COP UNVOTE UNVOTE" would switch to "HOLY SHIT COP UNVO--wait, he has some kind of vague limitation that he refuses to describe? Never mind. He's useless to us."

And you and Heilograph (I just realized that's how he spelled his name) were pretty much in dead heat all of Day 1. How were you not in danger? You're doing the same thing I accused Bogre of doing--offering convoluted explanations when called on trivial details. Would you have admitted to expecting your lynch if I hadn't called you on it?

[Mina]

Wow. I fail Quoting School forever.

I'm going to disagree with you there. Bogre did not read VI to me. Inq did enough scummy things to pique my interest, while Bogre did not do much of anything. I also must admit that I gave him benefit of the doubt because of his early Join Date. I liked MaB's first post just enough, in addition to the Sandor name-claim. As you said, it's just too evil.

State which scummy things Inquisition did that Bogre didn't do as well.

(By the way, I never answered your comment about my Bogre remark. Since that was just your gut read, I didn't think there was much to say to it other than "YMMV," "My frustration with Bogre for wasting the day was 100% genuine," and "No one knows my meta but...yeah, those kind of comments are very much in character for me, because I get a bit...um, passionate sometimes"...but hey, you wanted a response.

Also, for the record, if you're really the vig and chose your target based on the join date rather than actual play, then I'm going to strangle you after the game. Unless it turns out after the game that Inquisition was scum, in which case I'll send you flowers.)

Now I'm going out for lunch. Yay, no more spamming from me for a while. When I get back, I'll reread you in ISO to see if your play fits that of a vig breadcrumbing his vig kill.

[Mina]

I feel as though the tides have just turned.

Is it possible Faraday gave us two investigative roles? I'm honestly not sure. Your claim makes Button look a lot shadier.

(I remember I had a WTF reaction to Flutter claiming that a cop shouldn't counterclaim Button because "there might be two investigation roles." But in hindsight, it must have been a breadcrumb. I suppose it bolsters Confucius's claim.)

I've been in a quandary, because my top two suspects today have been a claimed cop and a claimed vig. Now I can stop being wimpy.

MacavityLock, Buttonmen, and Confucius are almost certainly not on the same team, based on ML and Button trying to lynch each other and Confucius trying to lynch both. So no matter who we lynch, we can be sure that a RB will be tied up if there is one.

MacLock, I suppose a vig might have made a suboptimal kill on N1. And I have a bad track record of getting horribly tunnelvisioned on townies, so I could be wrong. (Believe it or not, I'm not actually 100% sure of your guilt; I just act like it sometimes.) The one thing I find hard to swallow is why you didn't say anything in Inquisition's defence when people were trying to lynch him. I can see you believing Inquisition was BP scum. But why did you let people think he was lying about his claim? You're saying the Mafia NK line was a breadcrumb...but when I read it at the time, my impression was that you doubted Inq's story (because the Mafia would have never targeted him). I don't think you

outright

said you didn't believe Inq was really bulletproof, but you sure as hell implied it.

That said...I've just realized something. Even if MacavityLock

is

scum, he'll now be held accountable for his kill. We know that at the very least, he isn't part of the team that killed xvart. It's in his own best interests to take out the other scum team. And if he targeted Inquisition (which Confucius has just confirmed), he was clearly aiming for shady characters even before his reveal.

Buttonmen's results are unconfirmable, but at least MacavityLock will behave like a real vig regardless of his alignment.

In other words, you're our bitch now. *cracks whip*

Ack, indecision! I'm leaning toward a vote on Buttonmen, but we have three days left. Since I've been so focused on MacavityLock, I'd like to reread a few players before putting Button at L-2...

...Heh. Talk about ironic. Now I'm the one with no vote up.

Also, look at that Raiv post. Just look at it.

Oh my God. First I agree with Buttonmen...NOW I AGREE WITH MACAVITYLOCK! EEK, THE APOCALYPSE IS HERE! *has heart attack*

Raivann...please explain just why you "felt" like revoting Percy? Why do and/or did you suspect him?

And I'm flattered you think I'm town and all, but didn't you hear what Confucius said about painting targets on people's backs? You keep on agreeing with all my suspects and following my cases. It makes me wonder if you're kissing up to me.

Seriously, I've been defending you all day, and even I'm starting to wonder if I should vote you instead of Buttonmen. You're in danger of a lynch or vig. Step it up a little. Who are your suspects? Stop following the town.

By the way, why is Locke Lamora's vote still on Percy? He doesn't even seem to suspect Percy--in fact, he agreed with Percy's Raivann case. I find him extremely passive and sheepy.

[Mina]

Okay, if the Inquisition doesn't show up within the next day, I'd seriously consider voting him. This is ridiculous.

I'm no longer sure leaving Mac alive would be the most pragmatic solution. Because a roleblocker (if there is one) would block Mac if he suspects a goon and let him shoot if he suspects a townie. And I realized that

if

we decide to lynch him, it has to be today...because if we mislynch and he shoots a townie tonight, tomorrow might be LYLO. (Personally, though, I'd guess the distribution two teams of two, or one team of two vs. 1 SK.) After that, he'll be untouchable.

So basically, whether we should lynch Mac depends on one question: are there any players you think are from the faction that killed xvart AND more likely to be evil than MacLock? Because we should go for our greatest odds at catching a baddie.

I have thoughts on this, but I'll save them for when I get back from work. I've noticed something VERY interesting.

MacavityLock, Buttonmen, and Confucius are almost certainly not on the same team, based on ML and Button trying to lynch each other and Confucius trying to lynch both.

Scum-team? Town-team? Either?

Why do you think Mac, Button and Con can't all be town?

Sorry, I meant scumteam. They could theoretically be town (although that might be wonky balance), but I doubt they're all scum based on how hard they've been trying to lynch each other.

By the way, MacavityLock, did it occur to you that Confucius might be a power role, or did you just assume he picked up on your breadcrumb? Just trying to evaluate Con's claim.

Kinetic used to think we were all power roles of some sort. Wouldn't that mean that we would have to count him as a PR too? He could have been saying this as VT to draw NK, but i think not. I think he was setting himself up for a PR claim later.

Um...Raivann, you realize that if Kinetic actually

does

have a power role, that was worse than Seacore's VT claim?

Also, why do you suspect Percy? Is it just a combination of OMGUS/him suspecting Inquisition? I haven't seen you make a case on him.

I'm basing alot of reads right now on The Inq. telling the truth. I just dont see the scum motivation in him claiming he was targeted at the beginning of D2.

Well, he might have been trying to discourage the other faction from attacking him again at night. Now that we know he was telling the truth about his BP claim, that makes him look somewhat better (although Percy mentioned reasons for why he could still be scum).

The more claims we get the more Maclocks claim of being a straight up Vig stands out. Everyone else has some limitation except for him.

If MacLock is a vig, he's implied he might have limited shots. Of course, that makes me wonder why a vig with limited shots would waste one of them on N1 on a random inactive player who wasn't his top suspect or likely to lynched...But we've already established that if MacavityLock is not scum, then he's the worst vig ever.

[Mina]

Ugh.

I'm torn right now. I'm honestly torn.

I keep on starting a post, and then deleting it. Because I've been weighing the pros and cons of saying what I want to say, but I'm starting to think it would just be winning the battle and losing the war. It's so frustrating for me to read posts and want to scream at how. But maybe I'll just keep my mouth shut.

Dammit, I hate WIFOM. I'm much more comfortable just being open with my opinions, and to hell with whether it'll screw over the town in a day or two.

It's 3:15 AM, and I have to wake up early tomorrow morning. And unfortunately, I won't have much time to contribute before the deadline. Too bad, because I really wanted to reread everyone in iso and organize my nebulous suspicions into some kind of hierarchy. Right now, I see lots of scummy or antitown behaviour, but no clear leader among the pack.

Right now I'll

Vote: TheButtonmen

. He's my preference for a lynch if I decide to bite the bullet and go for xvart's killers, although I may move this vote depending on his answer to Percy's questions (nice job catching that slip, Percy). But Inquisition's disappearance is starting to frustrate me.

I've been less than thrilled with Locke's most recent contributions, as well. I find Locke very forgettable. Somehow, I can never quite pin anything down on him--I ask him a question, and he responds with a perfectly reasonable, two-sentence response that sounds consistent and insightful. But he's too cautious. Most of his suspicions are either going with the flow or attempting to slow down scumhunting momentum (for example, defending MacavityLock before). I don't think he's seriously pressured anyone all game. He fits the scum profile very well. Maybe I'll give examples of what I mean when I have time. Has anyone played with Locke before? Is it in character for him to be this low-key? Maybe I'm just biased against players whose posts are two paragraphs or less.

Raivann is...um, not doing a very good job of making people take him seriously. At all. Hint for next time: "he is scum, so I'm not worried about outing a PR" and "he is scum because he can't see what an awesome townie I am" is not reasoning that will convince anyone. But I'm still reluctant to lynch him.

[Mina]

EBWOP: "It's so frustrating for me to read posts that make me want to scream at their holes in logic or obliviousness...and force myself not to respond."

Where does he imply limited shots?

Never mind, this was the quote I meant:

Respectfully, I would prefer not to answer this question, as I'd prefer for scum to know as little about my role as possible. I will say that if I have a limited number of kills, I have not yet run out of them, and thus my role is still potentially confirmable via my claimed kill method.

I remembered him having said the "if I have a limited number of kills" line unprompted, but this was only after Confucius pressured him to reveal his limitation. So he never implied limited shots.

But why haven't you responded to my question from, like, a week ago!

[Mina]

V/LA until Wednesday

Inquisition, that is what I call a gambit done wrong.

I'm still not 100% sure if I should come forward with what I was hinting at yesterday. Before I proceed, I'd just like to ask everyone a question. What's the standard distribution for a game with multiple killing factions here? 3:1:8? 2:1:9? 2:2:8?

There's one thing we can be certain of. MacavityLock did not kill xvart on N1. And MacavityLock did try to kill Inquisition on both N1 and N2, because the flip confirms that Inquisition was BP.

Assuming this is LYLO, and we're dealing with a three-man scumteam, the following players can be Mafia:

Locke Lamora, Kinetic, TheButtonmen, Seacore, Confucius

Leaving the following teams:

Locke/Kinetic/Button
Locke/Kinetic/Seacore
Locke/Kinetic/Confucius
Locke/Button/Seacore

Locke/Button/Confucius

Locke/Seacore/Confucius
Kinetic/Button/Seacore

Kinetic/Button/Confucius

Kinetic/Seacore/Confucius

Button/Seacore/Confucius

I struck through all the teams including Button and Confucius, because like I said before, I don't think they can be partnered. (If someone thinks otherwise, I'd like to hear their reasoning.)

On Wednesday, I'll reread the thread and see if I can eliminate any more partnerships. This will be tough. Pretty much every single person in the game can be partnered with Locke, because he took so few stands and no one ever formed any bandwagons on him. Con's slot left no ripples early on and then was widely trusted afterward. None of the surviving players seriously pushed wagons on Kinetic and Seacore. But maybe there are clues from the Buttonmen wagons on Day One and Two.

[Mina]

Why have you ruled out both yourself and MacLock?

MacLock claimed Vig after being caught, and frankly, while you may think yourself "cleared" you're not. Neither of you absolutely cannot be mafia unless you know something that we don't. MacLock could very well have just been the mafia player to have performed the kills and there is another killing party (perhaps a Serial Killer) or yet another mafia group (2/2).

Good catch on the kill flavour change. But anyway, Mac was clearly the person who targeted Inq both times. And I think xvart and Percy fit much better as Mafia kills than SK kills. If you think that means I trust Mac...well, note my question about multiple kill factions. As well as, you know, pretty much everything about my Day Two play. But I'm forcing myself to leave him alone today, since if we're in LYLO, our priority is to stop the largest Mafia group. (Maybe I'll take a brief look at his connections, in case there are two scumteams of two. Kind of like an Ice and Fire set-up...sorry, couldn't resist.)

As for why I didn't include myself...well,

duh

.

If people don't trust me, they can do their own partnership analysis with me in the teams. But I'm not going to waste my time trawling through the thread proving to myself that Buttonmen and I can't be on the same team. Obviously, I know I'm town. I'm laying out my thought process in the thread. Once I narrow it down to the groups of three that make logical sense, I'll know where to cast my vote.

[Mina]

Seacore, you really think that vote was OMGUS for your trying to lynch him? Are you kidding me? Because you were the only one trying to lynch him on Day One?

Are you nervous that Buttonmen's vote was his result? You were his claimed N1 investigation, after all.

I was feeling slightly better about Button on Day Two for his case on MacavityLock and Locke, but that's kind of nullified now that we know MacavityLock is at worst an SK. It would be nice to finally get rid of him, considering, you know, I've only wanted to lynch him THE WHOLE GAME. And I agree that a real cop would claim his results with his first post. It occurred to me that his Seacore vote was either a gambit to test reactions or his investigation result, but he's clearly not interested in following up on it.

Mac, I hope you're the kind of serial killer whose kills can't be roleblocked.

-------

So anyway, I looked at potential scumteams. Considering that Seacore has left Button on L-2 all day and there's been no speedlynch, I think it's pretty obvious that one of Buttonmen and Seacore is scum--leaning toward Button. I'm debating if we should assume that one of Con and Button is lying about their role. If this is an SK game, there may be two investigation roles. Since Con proved his N1 result, the liar is most likely Button.

But I'll assume the lack of speedlynch means BOTH Con and Seacore are scum if Button is town...since if that's not the case, we've lost the game anyway by this point.

I was tempted to rule out a Buttonmen/Seacore partnership, but then I realized that Button was likely to be lynched, and Seacore was implicated by the Raivann counterwagon. They might have planned overnight for Seacore to throw Button under a bus. That would explain why Seacore wasn't afraid to jump on the wagon, and is pushing us to make this fast so we get as little information as possible. Button's Seacore vote today is also the kind of clumsy move partners do to create last-minute distance. It already occurred to me on D1 that Seacore's last-minute flip on Button might have been him cutting ties.

Going back to my big list and eliminating all the partnerships that don't feature either Button or Seacore-Confucius:

Locke/Kinetic/Button

Locke/Kinetic/Seacore

Locke/Kinetic/Confucius

Locke/Button/Seacore
Locke/Seacore/Confucius
Kinetic/Button/Seacore
Kinetic/Seacore/Confucius

Five potential scumteams, from my POV.

Let me know if I've made any mistakes. Anyway, these are my tentative conclusions:

If we lynch Button and he flips scum, vig Locke, Kinetic, or Seacore.
If we lynch Button and he flips town, vig Seacore or Confucius.

Disclaimer: don't take this as 100% rock-solid evidence, since it's possible that there are only two scum or that the scum haven't been able to coordinate a speedlynch.

[Mina]

Seacore, you really think that vote was OMGUS for your trying to lynch him? Are you kidding me? Because you were the only one trying to lynch him on Day One?

Are you nervous that Buttonmen's vote was his result? You were his claimed N1 investigation, after all.

I was feeling slightly better about Button on Day Two for his case on MacavityLock and Locke, but that's kind of nullified now that we know MacavityLock is at worst an SK. It would be nice to finally get rid of him, considering, you know, I've only wanted to lynch him THE WHOLE GAME. And I agree that a real cop would claim his results with his first post. It occurred to me that his Seacore vote was either a gambit to test reactions or his investigation result, but he's clearly not interested in following up on it.

Mac, I hope you're the kind of serial killer whose kills can't be roleblocked.

-------

So anyway, I looked at potential scumteams. Considering that Seacore has left Button on L-2 all day and there's been no speedlynch, I think it's pretty obvious that one of Buttonmen and Seacore is scum--leaning toward Button. I'm debating if we should assume that one of Con and Button is lying about their role. If this is an SK game, there may be two investigation roles. Since Con proved his N1 result, the liar is most likely Button.

But I'll assume the lack of speedlynch means BOTH Con and Seacore are scum if Button is town...since if that's not the case, we've lost the game anyway by this point.

I was tempted to rule out a Buttonmen/Seacore partnership, but then I realized that Button was likely to be lynched, and Seacore was implicated by the Raivann counterwagon. They might have planned overnight for Seacore to throw Button under a bus. That would explain why Seacore wasn't afraid to jump on the wagon, and is pushing us to make this fast so we get as little information as possible. Button's Seacore vote today is also the kind of clumsy move partners do to create last-minute distance. It already occurred to me on D1 that Seacore's last-minute flip on Button might have been him cutting ties.

Going back to my big list and eliminating all the partnerships that don't feature either Button or Seacore-Confucius:

Locke/Kinetic/Button

Locke/Kinetic/Seacore

Locke/Kinetic/Confucius

Locke/Button/Seacore
Locke/Seacore/Confucius
Kinetic/Button/Seacore
Kinetic/Seacore/Confucius

Five potential scumteams, from my POV.

Let me know if I've made any mistakes. Anyway, these are my tentative conclusions:

If we lynch Button and he flips scum, vig Locke, Kinetic, or Seacore.
If we lynch Button and he flips town, vig Seacore or Confucius.

Disclaimer: don't take this as 100% rock-solid evidence, since it's possible that there are only two scum or that the scum haven't been able to coordinate a speedlynch.

[Mina]

Sorry for the double-post. EBWOP: I just realized that Con could have the role he said, but be a scum tracker.

Do you guys think I should just vote Button? He clearly isn't interested in answering our questions. And no one's tried to speedlynch him even though he's been sitting at L-2 all day. Maybe putting him at L-1 would bring him back to the thread. This day has been a fiasco. I'm just paranoid about voting so early in a potential LYLO situation.

My main doubt is that I'm starting to think Seacore would be the better information lynch, particularly after his posts today. He appears in all possible pairings except for Locke/Kinetic/Button. If he flips town, then we'd have the entire scumteam lined up.

The problem (other than the fact that this analysis is useless if there are only two scum on the team that killed xvart and Percy) is the roleblocker. Button claimed no result on D1, and Confucius claimed no result on D2. Since one of them must be town, the Mafia must have a roleblocker. So Mac's vig kill wouldn't go through.

So I'd rather go for the player who's most likely to be scum.

[Mina]

*dies laughing*

So much for Kinetic claiming two-shot PGO cult leader.

First of all, this is so embarrassing. Mac, my attack on you was 80% genuine (the other 20% was me deliberately acting like your answers were scummier than they were just to make you think you'd given yourself away).

You don't understand. I was utterly convinced you were the SK. CONVINCED.

We set up a code on N1: MaB would start his first post of the day with "Just got home from..." if you took no action and "I've been rereading a bit" if you targeted the first person mentioned in his post. So when Flutter coded that you'd targeted Inq (but you didn't reveal as vig), I put two and two together. Since we all had roles, I really thought there was a SK.

D2, my goal was to force a claim from Bogre (Kinetic thought he was roled) while testing the waters to see if people would go along with a Mac lynch. My frustration with Bogre's lurking was genuine, because it meant I wouldn't have enough time to push a Mac lynch. After Button voted for you, I thought we could use our voting bloc to push your lynch. If we lynched the SK, we'd only need one more mislynch to win. But MaB/Flutter was absent and Kinetic wasn't playing along. And I was afraid Alternate-Universe-SK-Mac would murder me in my bed for going after him so hard, so that only made me more desperate to get him lynched ASAP.

Every time someone said, "Gee, Mina's heart seems to be in the right place, but this argument isn't helping us find scum," I wanted to yell, "NO! My heart is in the wrong place and I AM helping you find scum!"

Seriously, I really thought you'd claimed vig because Con had hinted so obviously at role-related knowledge of your night action. Those breadcrumbs sounded fake.

To be honest, I'm a pretty bad scumhunter. I always come up with some crazy paranoid conspiracy theory proving that the confirmed townie is scum, and then hound him for the rest of the game. Luckily, it was an asset this game, because I could beat up on poor MacLock all day and look like I was contributing.

Oddly, this is the fourth real town-aligned vig claim in a row that I didn't believe. I have some weird anti-vig complex.

[Mina]

As for the game itself...

Faraday, you did a great job of modding. This is the first game I've played on mafiascum that hasn't imploded. The setting and scenes were great. I remember my total shock the first time after I complained about how much I sucked at links, you'd ACTUALLY EDITED MY POSTS AND FIXED THEM FOR ME. No one had ever done that before. I would definitely sign up for one of your games again.

Versus a two-shot cop, a vig, a double-voter, and a one-shot BP, I think two power roles would have been fine. Three was overkill. We were given too many ways to find and neutralize roled townies. I was expecting way more town roles than there were. (Faraday was probably laughing his ass off at a longwinded PM I sent him on D2 panicking that everyone was a power role.)

Kinetic and Confucius: I enjoyed being teamed up with you. Kinetic's nameclaim set the stage for the entire game. And Con was incredible.

The replacements were excellent. I remember I did a mental, "Oh shit, better move this guy from the lynch list to the NK list" after Percy's first post. And I don't know how he did it, but Confucius's posts sent out subliminal brainwashing messages. I was screaming at people all day to vote MacLock, and no one listened to me. But the moment he showed up, people fell over themselves calling him the towniest townie in the whole wide world and voting for whoever he told them to.

By the way, Confucius picked out BOTH Kinetic and me as scum before getting his PM. He saw through my godawful distancing on D1. If he'd replaced Bogre, this might have gone very differently.

No offence to the town, but you didn't make this much of a challenge. Percy, xvart, and Raivann certainly had their moments. (Mac, too, but I'm still having trouble thinking of Mac as town. ) But so many players were in-your-face antitown that we didn't have to do much of anything. D3 was a mess. Seriously, why didn't anyone push for a massclaim? And why didn't Buttonmen claim No Result and vote Confucius? And why was everyone so quick to vote Button in a potential LYLO situation without so much as rereading the thread? LYLO is not the time to cast an impulsive vote long before the deadline just because you're sick of waiting for someone to show up.

At least my paranoia about the SK and MaB claiming Sandor instead of his Bran Stark fakeclaim put some pressure on me. There's nothing like knowing your death would bring down two-thirds of your team to motivate you to work your ass off.

Seacore, for next time, don't ever claim VT like that unprompted. Especially not on D1. It helped us a lot when we were planning our night actions.

Oh, and lastly, why didn't people lynch me? Raivann caught me on page one :

That's because Mina is caught scum.
Unvote, Vote:Mina For fencesitting, then when questioned about it she tried too hard to appease and took a hard stance.

To be honest, I wasn't sure how to react to Kinetic's out-of-the-blue nameclaim suggestion. On the one hand, I'd have accused him of obvious rolefishing had I been town...but on the other hand, I didn't want to get in the way of his rolefishing. Raivann, take satisfaction in knowing that I spent a LOOOONG time thinking of a non-scummy response to that.

[Mina]

gg scum. You guys earned that win. I haven't read the scum QT yet, but I think reading the paranoia during the last night will at least provide some small shred of satisfaction.

Thanks. To be honest, I'm kind of disappointed that MacLock wasn't an unblockable, unkillable SK who vigged Confucius last night. All that scheming for nothing.

Everyone who voted for name claim sucks.

I don't get the people who voted for nameclaim either. And I REALLY don't get the people who screamed that it was a terrible idea and voted/FOSed Kinetic for the suggestion...yet suddenly voted in favour of a nameclaim without explanation. Actually...sorry, town, but I don't get half of you. All the VIs and easy targets made this victory feel a bit hollow. (Seriously, when a roled townie posts, "Yay, my death helped the scum!" in the graveyard topic, that's a sign that he should be blacklisted from all future games. He's breaking site rules.)

I feel for the sane townies in this game. Glad I wasn't in your shoes.

Two things I loved. With a little bit of bait Seacore was the one who "lead" the push for nameclaiming. Once he started championing the cause I pulled back and played it close to my chest. Didn't want to seem too eager, but also trying not to contradict myself. In many ways I got the benefit of it, but I didn't get the brunt of the scummieness. Admittedly I played pretty shady, but half of that was intentional. If I was heavily called on it I would have played the "last few games I was town I got killed day 1, so I'm trying to act scummyish to avoid NKs" card.

What I don't get is that everyone kept calling Kinetic scum, but no one ever tried to lynch him. Usually, I think being brazenly antitown isn't worth the risk. (Personally, my style as scum is just to act as protown as possible and attack scummy townies, because I hate being suspected.) But in this game, Kinetic's plan worked wonders, particularly since so many townies' behaviour WRT the nameclaim was more suspicious than Kinetic's own.

As I mentioned in the graveyard QT, I claimed Coldhands because I was trying to draw the NK by appearing to be a third party.

But if you were third-party, wouldn't we be

less

likely to kill you? Odds are you'd be a BP SK or a survivor (who'd help the Mafia).

Speaking of which, had Raivann not been lynched D2, I'd have probably pushed to nightkill him because of these quotes:

If your scum who are you gonna kill at night?
Answer: The characters who are more prominent and powerful.

All this is gonna do is out PR's!

If we are to believe Seacore with his VT claim, which I do atm, then Kinetic's theory of everyone having some sort of power role is wrong.

Were they intentional attempts to look roled?

[Mina]

What I don't get is that everyone kept calling Kinetic scum, but no one ever tried to lynch him. Usually, I think being brazenly antitown isn't worth the risk. (Personally, my style as scum is just to act as protown as possible and attack scummy townies, because I hate being suspected.) But in this game, Kinetic's plan worked wonders, particularly since so many townies' behaviour WRT the nameclaim was more suspicious than Kinetic's own.

I tried, I really did. I didn't focus on the name claiming in my suspicion because I haven't been in enough flavor theme games to have a knowledge base on that; but his justification and everything else was just rotten. I should have stayed focused.

I'm sure you'd have been a thorn in our side had you survived. It's just weird how not one person voted for Kinetic from D2 onward, even though almost everyone suspected him.

But if you were third-party, wouldn't we be

less

likely to kill you? Odds are you'd be a BP SK or a survivor (who'd help the Mafia).

I was thinking, based on my bad memory of the prologue of GoT that Coldhands was a member of the Others, and would be seen as Cult recruiter or something along those lines, which would be a problem for the mafia; plus my sharp reservations against name claiming would stand out even more in that regard.

That's a funny coincidence, because Kinetic wanted to claim Ser Waymar Royce (the guy I think you mixed up with Coldhands) as cult leader.