/in-vitational Game 8 - Nito City (over) after 1015

[Locke Lamora]

Farside: best of 3?

Vote: Sotty7

Caught you this time.

[Locke Lamora]

Sotty's 'look over here, Zach's lurking' post feels off to me. It's not that she isn't right about Zach-scum (in my experience, anyway), it's the way she was almost apologetic about bringing it up this early. I think I'll leave my vote there.

I think Poro's view of Sotty's vote on Jack is fair. I see where he's coming from and I don't think it's scummy.

[Locke Lamora]

Farside: I never said Poro's reasoning was good (the way he stated it was quite convoluted, really). I said I saw where he was coming from, in that Sotty admitted this is Jack being Jack and Poro therefore interpreted it as Sotty voting Jack for a null tell.

Sotty: I agreed that in my experience, scum-Zach is less active. That wasn't my problem with what you said. I felt there was something off about the way you brought it up. It didn't ring true to me, the tone I got was 'Sorry for calling you a big scummy lurker this early, Zach, but I'll do it anyway'. If you want to create pressure, why not just call him out for his lack of activity? Why is a townie bothered about making accusations early? To me, it felt like getting in an excuse for your attack at the same time as making it, which I find scummy.

[Locke Lamora]

Sotty: what do you mean by "no chance to back off"? If he came in, posted up a storm and gave you a town read, then surely your suspicion would lessen and you could say as much?

Zach: a couple already spring to mind for Sotty-scum: it could be a conscious effort to depart from her scum meta and in doing so make you, and others, think she's more likely town; or you could be scum together and she's saying "hey Zach, don't lurk or I'll have to bus you". Plausible scenarios, plenty of WIFOM, so let's not go there. Also, I don't really see why it hurts her status with the town if she prods you into activity and you respond with lots of activity. The fact that she brought it up at all seems to have given you a town read, so as far as I'm concerned it would be an effective move by Sotty-scum.

Farside: I thought I explained where Poro is coming from (or at least how I interpreted it). Sotty votes Jack. Sotty says Jack is playing like Jack always plays. Poro therefore thinks that Sotty is voting Jack for something that has no bearing on Jack's alignment, and is making the attack because she thought it would be easy to attack Jack for it rather than because she thought it was scummy. Poro can correct me if I'm wrong, though. As for how I feel about others:

I have no idea what Jack was on about earlier and I don't think deliberately being obscure is helping. I've only briefly played with Jack but apparently this is a null tell. Personally I find it a little scummy.
Magna's line of thought that he doesn't think Sotty is scum so Charlie and myself are likely to be is flawed. I'd like him to explain exactly what is weak about our votes and scummy about our play in general.
I think Zajnet's vote is weak and the rest of his brief contribution is very non-committal. Sheeping onto the Magna wagon is enough for me to:

Unvote; Vote: Zajnet

Same question as Sotty. Stronger stances on others too, please.

[Locke Lamora]

Hey Zajnet, how about some of those stronger stances I asked for? You seem to have failed to talk about anyone other than MOI since I asked that question. You haven't really said much about MOI either, other than to repeat what's already been said. Any analysis on any other players in the game?

Magna: yes, I agreed that Sotty bringing it up was scummy. Last time I checked, the rules of this game do not require you to post entirely original suspicions before you make a vote. I think the thrust of my attack was a little different because I've played with Sotty and Zach in the same game before, as well as playing in scum games for both of them, and I actually followed up on it more than you or Jack did. What I'd like to know is, as of post 109, what made you think I was just bandwagoning and not genuinely interested in whether Sotty is scum?

Charlie: what was the point of that L-1 vote if we have lots of time and your opinion is divided on him?

[Locke Lamora]

Magna: so what exactly was your problem with what Sotty said about Zach, and how was it different from what I thought?

Zajnet: is the idea that we give you a free pass for D1 because you're not very good at it? 'I'm shit for analysis on D1' seems like a catch-all for a general lack of content.

IKD makes some good points. Jack is getting away with scummy stuff that's being put down to meta.

[Locke Lamora]

What about this, Magna?

I'd also like to point out that Zach is lurking. Normally with a game only just opening I wouldn't go as far as calling someone on lurking, but he has posted in all this other games today but is avoiding this one. Zach's scum meta is to lurk, he hates playing scum and will only contribute to the thread if called upon. The thing is, he knows that I know this is his scum meta because I poke him about it all the time. SO I am feeling very WIFOM'ed right now.

So you call out Zach for lurking as Scum Meta and then undercut your own argument?

That was your original objection. I don't see anything there about why she brought up only Zach. The tone of that seems more along the lines of my objection; that is, she's making a point against Zach but excusing (or undercutting, if you prefer) it at the same time that she makes it.

Sotty: if it's not clear, I find Zajnet pretty scummy right now. His attempt to excuse just about everything he does on D1 and his lack of tangible opinions on just about everyone except Magna (who he hasn't got much more on) are contributing a lot to that. I'm dubious about Magna but I'm following up on that right now, so I'll come back to you. I think Sando has made some good points about Farside and Charlie lately. I agree with his assessment of the L-1 vote and I really don't like Charlie's revote. Speaking of which...

Charlie: how do you go from agreeing that there are better lynches out there to putting your vote back on? Are you trying to prove to us that you can play aggressively for some reason?

[Locke Lamora]

Sotty: so you think I'm scummy for choosing an apparently weak target, or are you just saying this is Zajnet's playstyle? Zach seems to agree with me, does that compound his scumminess?

[Locke Lamora]

I have not. Personally I don't really find what amounts to 'I'm no good on D1' and 'so what if I don't have many reasons for my vote' to be something that should be excused by meta.

[Locke Lamora]

Magna: I don't see it. How does your first question lead on to anything to do with widening the meta field? Was your original objection similar to mine or not?

The above post diminishes my opinion of Zajnet further, if that was possible. Perhaps I'll put the issue in a different light; can anyone tell me why we shouldn't lynch him?

[Locke Lamora]

Charlie: so do you think Magna is mafia? It took me a while to decipher some of that post and I'm still not sure what the point of most of it is, other than to be obscure.

[Locke Lamora]

Hi Ythan. Who's scum?

[Locke Lamora]

Hmmm. Maybe. I think it might get the game going more than a Zajnet wagon, which I don't think has been greatly reinforced by Poro and Zach hopping on. Why would you rather lynch Zach over Zajnet if you think they've both contributed as much as each other?

[Locke Lamora]

You do make some good points. Zach seems exceptionally passive in every post. Let's see where this goes.

Unvote; Vote: Zachrulez

[Locke Lamora]

Farside: I haven't fallen off of the Zajnet case. The fact was, the only people who seemed to back it was the lurkfest that was Poro and Zach, and the most my pressure brought out of Zajnet was him admitting he wasn't very good at D1. Personally, I saw nothing town-worthy in his contributions at all, but it simply wasn't going anywhere and we're near deadline. Switching to Zach at least had the possibility of getting some momentum and interest up, and Sotty's right that he was completely failing to be proactive in this game (as I stated when I voted him). Sometimes you have to recognise the wagon's not working. Doesn't mean my suspicion of Zajnet's disappeared. As for Charlie, I find him pretty strange, in all honesty. A lot of the time he says bizarre or obscure things that I don't see the point to but I'm not sure if they're scummy or not. I do get a scummy read from his "I'm not really sure of what I'm doing" answer to Magna. It's a catch-all excuse in my book; if someone he wants lynched flips town, he falls back on 'so, I really don't know what I'm doing this game!'

Jason: what do you think of my vote on Zach?

[Locke Lamora]

Ok, so Zajnet has been online, posted in other games and yet can't be bothered to post in this one despite deadline being less than 24 hours away. His total contribution in the last week is a prod response and then a V/LA notice. He's just lurking out this lynch.

Unvote; Vote: Zajnet

Your turn, Sotty. Join me.

[Locke Lamora]

Honestly, I'm getting particularly exasperated at Zajnet right now. I'm sharing your frustration that people would sign up for this and then lurk this heavily. The fact that he's bothered to come back and post in other games particularly irks me and gives me the impression that he is just staying well away from producing any content whatsoever at the business end of the day. It's so anti-town I'm compelled to vote him.

[Locke Lamora]

Masonizer? In a normal game? Are you serious?

[Locke Lamora]

Right, my thoughts having caught up on everything:

Really dislike Jack right now. Looking back he includes Sotty, vollkan and myself as targets, all of whom are town (from my perspective obviously). I think his post justifying his LaL vote on Ythan is weak and seems out of place with his earlier gut-read playstyle. Generally he seems more unsure now than he did earlier when people was saying 'oh it's just Jack's meta' so I'd like to hear what those who thought he was playing to his meta earlier think about him now.

Zajnet is still awful. Call him a weak target if you like, Sotty, but you have to consider what he's actually done in this game: deadline hammered Charlie, voted for Jason with little reasoning and made a lot of excuses about why he hasn't contributed. Surely you have to recognise that it's got to the stage where he's so consistently avoided stating an opinion or contributing anything at all that it amounts to deliberately preventing us from getting a read on him.

The CDB/Ythan/Erg0 slot is similarly devoid of any useful content. That recent catch-up post by Erg0 is the first time any genuine analysis has come out of that slot. Would like to see a lot more firm opinions on who's scummy in his next post as I feel like a lot of his conclusions are quite ambiguous.

Sando I think blatantly damns himself by not mentioning Zach or Jason for the entire game, as far as I can see, despite the fact that Jason was a major topic of discussion yesterday and Zach's scumminess was being shouted by Sotty for all of D1. Incidentally, I just finished modding Mini 984 with Sando as scum and he was very similar there in barely mentioning his scumpartners; I think he pushed some slight suspicion on Poro and that was about it.

Vote: Sando

[Locke Lamora]

Hi Farside. How are things?

Zajnet: are you serious? Really? Sando doesn't mention the lynch target

at all

on D2. That's a lynch target who turned out to be scum. It's nice of you to confirm you're Jason's other scumbuddy, though.

Sando: you might be less happy to hammer a partner if your buddy Zajnet had just bussed him. Your willingness to hammer a buddy is pretty much null here, as you knew we'd seen you attempt to do it very recently. Granted, it wasn't actually your buddy, but you didn't know that at the time. I notice neither of your buddies were on the wagon then.

[Locke Lamora]

My argument's not based on that at all. I'm just saying, your 'I'd clearly hammer Jason if I was scum with him' argument is not relevant until we have the complete context of the lynch. The part I'm saying is null has nothing to do with Zaj being scum; it's to do with your knowledge that we were both aware you thought you were hammering your buddy in 984. As for your questions, neither of you has many links to the other, which would certainly reinforce my scum read on you either way. You've already admitted that you avoided targeting players you thought would be potential lynch targets in the future in 984, and your lack of focus on Zaj certainly matches the behaviour I saw towards your scumbuddies previously too. In short, my read is that when scum-Sando ignores a player, he's either avoiding clearing them later when he flips scum, or he's their buddy. If you'd actually bothered to acknowledge Zaj or Jason's scumminess in this game and tried to make a case on them, that would have given you some town points. Zaj doesn't have much links to anyone and has really said very little in the way of analysis, so I'm going to go with null on his.

[Locke Lamora]

Zajnet's been on my scumlist all game. That's just another example of him yet again failing to take a firm stance. In case you couldn't guess, I am exaggerating there.

Incidentally, I just skimmed through your contributions in Karma, and I really don't see you talking about your buddies that much. You keep BV on your suspects list D1 despite the fact that I think your only point against him is agreeing with something someone else said, instead focusing on saying the people discouraging the wagon are scum trying to derail it. You make one 'high and mighty' accusation against Javert, who I notice tells you it's not a good idea to bus in a large game at that stage, from which point there is little else apart from answering some questions, and you don't provide an opinion on Faraday either way. Not done much to convince me you behave differently towards your scumbuddies than I think you do.

[Locke Lamora]

You mention BV, but mostly in the context of others trying to derail his wagon. You're trying to make them look scummy, not him. As far as I can see, your points against BV are thus:
1. He accuses someone of role-fishing, which scum are often the first to do.
2. You agree with Plum's point that he treats Espeonage as town.

That's it. If you can tell me if there's more, but that's about all I can see. Sure, it's more of an attack than you made on Jason, but not much. So, contrary to the '8 times' you mentioned BV's name, I find two points against him, no questions and no actual interaction with BV.

In any case, perhaps we should talk about this game. Can you explain to me why you ignored Jason yesterday?

[Locke Lamora]

You were the one who brought up Karma. I was using 984 as my original basis for how you approach your scumbuddies. I said I read it and found that you didn't have a whole lot of interaction with your scumbuddies there either. The fact remains that even if you think you had loads of interaction with BV (and I don't think two lines against him and then inclusion on a scumlist is a lot) you had little with Javert and virtually none with Faraday. Anyone who's dubious of my line of attack should read 984 and Karma Mafia and draw their own conclusions about how you interact with your buddies.

Do you think I'm one of Jason's buddies?

Also, I was specifically curious about this:

What about Jason Sando? He also found it "interesting"

How'd you miss that one?

[Locke Lamora]

So your answer is that you acknowledged Sotty's comment but felt no need to respond to it? Just clarifying.

[Locke Lamora]

I checked back in case I'd missed some obvious interaction between you and Zach/Jason and here's what I got:

Farside, does Jack get better later at least? Or do we have to put up with this the whole time?

Zach, you were listed as one of MOI's top suspect, yet you accuse him of only attacking 'lurkers'. So you're saying that you're a lurker?

That's the only time you mention the Zach/Jason slot while it was alive, either directly or to make a point against it. Again, please correct me if I'm wrong and there's more but I think I've represented your lack of interaction fairly here. Thanks for making me look back again, I have also noticed that you open this game with the same allegation against Jack that you made against your buddy BV in Karma, that the first to mention rolefishing is scum.

Finally, do you honestly think I need to reach for an easy lynch? If I was scum I could just sit back here. Jack has specifically stated that you're the lynch for today, Farside has said you look like 'lazy scum', Zajnet has tentatively admitted you look the scummiest and Magna's VC analysis conclusions features you as a suspect. Need I go on? I was trying to establish whether my scum read on you was accurate and you've convinced me that it is. I've said that your Karma play isn't as bad as your 984 play for ignoring buddies but there's still a substantial absence of attacks or interaction with them in the game,

even when you're bussing one of them

, and everyone here can go and see that for themselves.

[Locke Lamora]

Having a very busy time at work right now, will all be cleared by tomorrow so I will be catching up then.

[Locke Lamora]

I think Poro is town. Call it gut.

Sando: are you suggesting that both of the wagons are on townies despite the fact you are voting Jack?

Jack's hop onto Sando is remarkably unsubstantiated and somehow continues to be so, despite promises of further content. What he has offered since he declared that he thought Sando was scum has actually addressed Sando very little, other than to say 'yeah he's obvscum'. Don't see much pro-town motivation behind this. Anything else you've got to say on Sando, Jack?

[Locke Lamora]

Let me rephrase: does the apparent ease of wagons building on yourself and Jack make you more inclined to think you're both town? If you think they both built too easily, which votes on each wagon do you think are most likely scum hopping on?

[Locke Lamora]

Farside: I just haven't picked up on anything that sounds scummy to me. All of his posts feel genuine, despite his general lack of contributions. Other than that, I can't really elaborate.

Jack's total refusal to properly respond leaves me feeling pretty good about lynching him too if it comes to that. His choice of targets has been scummy and he has seemed much less proactive as the game has gone on, culminating in this recent dearth of contributions. Sando has made a lot more effort to defend himself but I find some points of that defence to be a bit of a reach or an effort to suggest suspicion in whatever direction seems convenient, such as his pointing out that his and Jack's wagons are 'interesting' for building so fast. Plus I still think his direct avoidance of the Jason issue is scummy (obviously I don't want to discuss this again, my view's just not going to change on that one).

[Locke Lamora]

Zajnet: why would you think that Sotty's vote on Erg0 and claim of information meant anything other than Erg0 being scum? Why did you ask about yourself when, as far as I can see, Sotty makes no mention of you?

Erg0 was heavily pushing Sando as a Jack buddy if Jack flipped scum, definitely arguing for him over Zajnet, but he does maintain suspicion on both Sando and Zajnet with Jack as the 'common denominator' in their scumteams. A brief summary of his reads in his conclusion post:

Strong Town - Sotty
Town - Farside, Magna
Null - Porochaz
Mild Scum - Locke, Sando
Strong scum - Jack, Zajnet

He is the second vote on the Jack wagon when Sando is at L-2 and doesn't move his vote after that. His vote comes not long after Magna has made a detailed case on Jack and laid his vote down there. He makes several references to either Sando or Zajnet being possible buddies for Jack, which does lend weight to Jack-scum with Erg0 keeping a choice of targets open in case of Jack's death. That said, it would be quite a strong bus to make Jack a more viable wagon at a stage when Sando was looking like the lynch.

[Locke Lamora]

I still don't think Porochaz is scum. It just doesn't feel like scum play. At the moment I feel like it's Jack or Zajnet, but I'm going to reread and see how everyone fits in with Erg0's flip.

[Locke Lamora]

You just seem to be a mixture of indifference and frustration at that indifference. It feels like a townie struggling to get into the game, if that makes any sense.

[Locke Lamora]

I was deciding between Jack and Sando on D3, and Sando was my preferred lynch, for obvious reasons. As for an FOS, I just never use them.

The italics? I found that despite the fact Sando was listing one of his buddies high on his scumlist and voting for them, he was actually barely interacting with them. The emphasis was to indicate that even in situations where he did bus a buddy, you'd think he would have a higher level of interaction with someone he claimed to be a top suspect but he still displayed very little tendency towards directly interacting with them, whether in the form of questioning, accusations or even simple discussion.

[Locke Lamora]

Well, early on I thought Jack's obscurity wasn't really helping and didn't serve much of a purpose other than to confuse and annoy the town, which I thought was scummy. Several other people said it was his playstyle, so I didn't really make too much of it. I don't think there was much else I said about Jack until D3. My scum read went up then because I'd caught up with everything I'd missed D2 and reviewed him in the light of Jason's flip.

I do notice now that scum-CDB was one of those people who called Jack town for meta reasons. Point in favour of Jack being town, I think. The only other thing CDB says of note about living players is that he's very non-committal about Magna's L-1 vote on Charlie. I expect that's him keeping his options open for later. Ythan's vote on Jack comes when Zajnet is the leading wagon and Sotty had just started a Jason wagon. Hard to tell much from this vote, given the lack of other Ythan contributions and the fact it puts Jack under relatively little pressure.

[Locke Lamora]

Looking back, I think scum go after Jack too much for Jack to actually be scum. The only real point in Zajnet-town's favour is that Zach puts the third vote on him to make his wagon more viable when Charlie was leading. Zajnet's contributions obviously win him no town points whatsoever.

Vote: Zajnet

Convince me who's scum if it's not you.

[Locke Lamora]

I think Magna has contributed more than just VC analysis and he went pretty hard at Jason in the first place. Are you saying that the rest of Magna's posts are analysis-free?

[Locke Lamora]

Magna: yes, I mean the L-1 vote on you. I was reading in ISO and misinterpreted the point of that line.

On the topic of Jason/Erg0 avoidance: first off, I don't treat this as a general scum-tell, I just thought it was something Sando had a tendency to do as scum, which obviously proved to be unreliable here. Sando also directly ignored Sotty asking him about Jason and claimed he didn't see the need to respond to it, which didn't improve my opinion of him. As for how it affects my Zajnet and Poro reads, I've pretty much been treating Zajnet as null on that front, as he has so little content of note. The only thing I would have been confident about saying of Zajnet is that he wasn't scum with you, which we now know for sure anyway. Poro, as I've stated, seems like he's genuinely struggling to get into this game and I think a lot of his lack of interaction is down to that. Maybe it's because I've recently modded him as scum, I'm not really sure, I just know I've thought he was town pretty much all game.

As for not following up, I'll have to confess that I was a bit too interested in my Sando-scum theory to look at other players much.

I agree with Poro, I want to hear more from Farside before we lynch anyone.

[Locke Lamora]

I think mass-claiming can't really hurt at this stage. I would say yes on the no lynch.

[Locke Lamora]

Vote: No Lynch

I'm moving house this week and I'm probably not going to have a lot of time. No lynch seems like the best option here.

[Locke Lamora]

Sorry for the absence, waiting for internet to get installed in my new house and thus having to grab internet access elsewhere when I can.

I'm a VT too. Really not sure about the hider claim. Will have to think about Magna's claimed actions and decide how legit it sounds.

[Locke Lamora]

Magna, if you hid behind Farside N2 and hence knew she was town, why did you say this on your D3 analysis?:

farside appears in more suspicious places based on my analysis than I would have expected given my read. I’ll have to re-ISO her with a fresh set of eyes.

[Locke Lamora]

Hi everyone, had a bit of a fiasco with my internet reconnection in my new place. I have been assured it'll be done by Monday, so I'll be back up to full access then.

[Locke Lamora]

Magna: I'm guessing you didn't, but did you attempt to leave any stronger indicator that you'd hid behind Farside/Jack, confirming them as innocent? Given your D3 comment about Farside in particular, had you been killed N3, it wouldn't exactly have been the most obvious breadcrumb that you'd hid behind Farside.

Poro: no lynch is pointless. From your perspective, either Magna or myself is scum. Either one of us would just kill Boberz, and we'd be in exactly the same situation except we'd have one less confirmed townie voting.

Boberz: the same as above. You're going to die if we get to night.

[Locke Lamora]

No, you don't understand. Magna's claiming hider, so the two possibilities (from my perspective) are:

1. Magna's telling the truth, which means Boberz is town as Magna has (twice) hidden behind him, so you're scum.
2. Magna's lying, which means Magna is scum.

Swap me and you around for your perspective and you have the same choice as I do.

[Locke Lamora]

Vote: Porochaz

Sometimes you just have to admit your reads are wrong. I went back and reviewed both Magna and Poro's posts for links to the Erg0/Jason slots, as well as those slots themselves, and I found that Poro's behaviour seems like the more likely scum. In particular, Zach votes for Poro early on but then shifts his suspicion to Magna with more force behind his arguments and largely ignores Poro. Magna also goes after Jason pretty hard and points out that Zach started lurking as soon as the pressure lifted off him. Erg0's comments on the two players seem to revolve largely around the ideas that Magna is town and Poro is null, and he is relatively wishy-washy on Poro's actions.

I also went over Magna's posts again with the claimed hider actions in mind and they seem to fit in. He doesn't really go after Farside or Jack at all after he has hidden behind them; that comment I found on Farside is the only real point against either of them following his successful hiding. Either he's telling the truth or it's an incredibly well-judged and planned fakeclaim.

My gut has been telling me all game that Poro is town but a thorough reread indicates that he's far more likely to be Erg0 and Jason's buddy than Magna is.

[Locke Lamora]

Magna: one more thing - is use of your ability compulsory?

[Locke Lamora]

Magna: did you have any concerns that Boberz would be the NK last night?

Uh...Poro? Boberz has replaced into Farside's slot. I've been here the whole time.

[Locke Lamora]

A couple of little things are niggling at me. Number one:

Zaj and CDB need to post more, especially CDB.

Why did you single out CDB?

Number two is the fact that had our weak Doc protected scum N1 or N2 and our hider hidden behind scum N2, with two mislynches and two successful kills, scum win on N2. I'm aware that it's unlikely, but it's possible. I was always under the impression that it was bad for game balance to allow a game of this size to be over before D3.

[Locke Lamora]

I have an interview today but I should be back before the deadline expires so I'll review my reads once more. Otherwise I guess we just go to night again unless Boberz changes his mind.

[Locke Lamora]

Well, town probably doesn't want to hear this, but I was just on the way home from my interview and I'd decided to vote Magna, basically because of that CDB comment.

[Locke Lamora]

Well, I still haven't forgiven myself for going back on the one strong read I had all game. Credit to Magna, he played really well, and when it came down to it, I had stacks of reasons why Poro could be scum over him, while the only real reason I had for Magna being scum over Poro was that my gut said Poro was town. This game has also helped to reaffirm my suspicion that I'm really not very good at being town.

Thanks to Incog for modding, I liked the setup and I think it was reasonably balanced, perhaps a little town-leaning, but it certainly would have made it more even if scum had actually used their rolecop ability more often.