/Invitational 11: Pick your Poison 5 (Game Over)

[Mr. Flay]

Fifth Vote Count of Day One

Hoopla (6) -- Papa Zito, Amished, mith, ekiM, VasudeVa, Elmo
Kmd4390 (4) -- Rhinox, Ellibereth, Herodotus, Hoopla
zoraster (2) -- DrippingGoofball, Kmd4390
DrippingGoofball (2) -- zoraster, Zorblag
ooba (1) -- Plumegranate
Rhinox (1) -- ooba
Herodotus (1) -- SpyreX
VasudeVa (1) -- populartajo

Not Voting (2) -- My Milked Eek, Slicey

With 20 alive, 11 votes will be needed to lynch. Deadline: 25th of August, at 12:30 am US Central Time.

[Plumegranate]

That said, I think his hider stuff Day 0 was terrible and more scum-motivated than town. Also law of averages.

Yes law of averages but WHAAAAAAT on saying it was more scum-motivated than Town. It's clear now we have no Hiders; if Troll was scum he'd know that beforehand and wouldn't have anything to gain out of it as far as I can see, and might lose out a bit by letting the Town in on info they didn't previously have. And considering I think we've both played in games where Troll attempted similar things as Town (Drunk!Mafia, nu?) - why the read would be anything on the scum side of null absolutely baffles me. Hmmmm. You never did get around to answering Troll's questions about thinking more about the pros and cons of the Hider claim, partly because it started happening on you. But could you maybe do it now, I wanna see some stuff.

@Papa Zito, Troll realizes that you no particularly like to try to get into the game mechanics at the start. You have demonstrated that on multiple occasions in games that Troll has played with you. That no means that what we do here in terms of claims be useless as you be saying. Whether we claim various things or not and what roles we give the scum based on that actually does much to effect the shape of the game and making the best choice about that now after thinking about it should improve our chances of winning. The fact that we have a Day 0 and have these choices in the game means that we should be approaching this game differently than we do most games; we explicitly have a time when setup speculation be helpful and taking advantage of that helps us.

Flay, I didn't get prodded on either of my accounts, but given the crossed out bit I guess I didn't need it?

Ooba, I suppose I did miss the 'agreed to massclaim' bit on your Townlist criteria. You get the point on a technicality; I personally find the other Towntells you used more satisfying and found your Day 1 play underwhelming. Tajo makes a nice point on you as well which I'll quote because I recognize related feeling and motivation in my own play as scum/as Town:

My point was that I really dont see scum forcing to positions in RVS. What ooba has done (assuming he is scum) is to strongly reduce his possibilities to support a well thought wagon on a townie just for the fact that his analysis proved he was town. The fliflop is really painful to write and to make it look sincere.

It's a good point but it needs to be followed up to see how easily and also how sincerely Ooba writes off the early Townread or doesn't.

MME, any suspects and any comments thus far? All I have right now is 'I would've opposed the Hider claiming plan, which has been done by now'.

I find them crippling. What was that one game... I think it was Plum's, where you'd lynch people but they wouldn't flip right away, and you'd have to vote them again to make them flip. It was absolutely maddening.

Still apologizing for this

Rhinox: I still read your "couple extra deaths aren't necessarily a bad thing" followed by "as it reduces the player pool and gives slightly better odds on the next day's lynch. Similar to, a vig who goes to town starting on day 1 might hit a few townies, but thats not necessarily a bad thing." That's an explicit comparison. Assassin reduces the player pool, better odds on the next lynch, not necessarily bad thing vs. Vig reduces player pool, mediocre players, not necessarily bad thing". A kill which hits only PRs and is given into scum control in addition to the regular NK AND kills PRs only is necessarily a bad thing if it hits. The fact that you continue to argue that the odds of a hit are poor, which we'll state for the sake of argument as true, does not affect the fact that you used a misleading and poor argument comparing the Assassin hits to Vig his on Townies, and stated that both were not necessarily bad. That does still disturb me.

Ooba is out; Hoopla's responses to mith's questions are way up there. Loljanitor vs. strong Janitor hatred + temporary insanity due to bedazzlement + 'I'm wary that maybe you're gonna lynch me' = bad news. Perhaps I was too hesitant to look critically at Hoopla's Assassin + lynch all claimed PRs plan due to . . . dang, did I fall into the too-scummy-to-be-scum hole because I thought scum would try to avoid standing out by suggesting plans as outlandish as that? Especially playing down the points about outed PRs we'd be a little too confident in to want to lynch but if Assassin was locked in. The last post stinks of politician but it reeks even more of direct fear of being lynched, feels like it's Hoopla's primary motivation rather than a secondary one. Primary motivation of scum is avoiding getting lynched. Or otherwise killed. I'd be happy to try doing just that.

UNVOTE: ooba
VOTE: Hoopla

[zoraster]

got a prod. been traveling to visit my folks. I'll evaluate why there aren't more DGB votes shortly (as well as whether the other wagons have merit).

[Amished]

zoraster: which is more scummy: defense of something that's anti-town (somewhat scummy) by another player, or an anti-town action by a lone player. That should give you enough information.

[SpyreX]

A more global question:

I love killin me people but this KMD wagon seems to be growing on its own fat. Que?

[Papa Zito]

@Papa Zito, really, you think that the hider claim idea was terrible and more scum-motivated than town-motivated?

Er, yes. Which is kinda why I said it.

town now be explicitly in a better position in terms of knowledge of the setup. What be the scum motivation there and how does it be terrible.

It was a big fat rolefishing expedition. Scum want to know who the powerroles are.

So if you thought that the janitor would give a crippling result restricted to just one day what were your thoughts of the rolecop and assassin.

I think that's just about the worst combo possible. I'm not sure why we're having this conversation now?

It's clear now we have no Hiders.

Is it?

This is not an explanation for not pressuring someone you suspect; why didn't you?

Because it was Boring Mechanics Day.

@Papa Zito, Troll realizes that you no particularly like to try to get into the game mechanics at the start. You have demonstrated that on multiple occasions in games that Troll has played with you. That no means that what we do here in terms of claims be useless as you be saying. Whether we claim various things or not and what roles we give the scum based on that actually does much to effect the shape of the game and making the best choice about that now after thinking about it should improve our chances of winning. The fact that we have a Day 0 and have these choices in the game means that we should be approaching this game differently than we do most games; we explicitly have a time when setup speculation be helpful and taking advantage of that helps us.

I'm not sure what you want here, Plum. This is Zorblag chiding Papa Zito even though Zorblag knows (and demonstrates in the first few sentences of this paragraph) that Papa Zito could give a rat's ass about this sort of thing.

Zorblag is free to chide me as much as he wants of course but that's not going to suddenly make me more interested in what I consider a boring part of the game. All I want to do is lynch the scum; I really don't care what shiny toys they get, they're all going to die anyway to who cares really. Especially when the PRs available all are fairly weak and crappy anyway.

I love killin me people but this KMD wagon seems to be growing on its own fat. Que?

It's the obv Hoopla counterwagon, SpyreX. Come on man.

[mith]

Still happy with my vote, still want a coherent post from My Milked Eek, a little annoyed that DGB is V/LA because I would like to see how she reacts to the growing Hoopla wagon.

Hoopla: Why do you find Kmd suspicious? Who else do you find suspicious, and why? You've made two votes with negligible reasoning to back them (and the reasoning you gave when unvoting ooba doesn't really explain why you found him vote-worthy in the first place). I'd like to figure out which scumbuddy you're distancing from before we lynch you.

[Zorblag]

@Papa Zito, saying that the hider claim was rolefishing is ridiculous. A claim that takes advantage of the nature of the setup and the potential roles be somethign that should be considered. In this game the hider claim was one that was good for the town (and Troll believes that it would have been decent for the town no matter what the outcome.

Further, in this game we've now had everyone claim not to be a hider so, yes, Troll be fairly comfortable saying that there no be any hiders in the game. As there would have had to be hiders for Troll to be fishing for them as scum in this particular instance the rolefishing claim goes to preposterous.

How about your thoughts on the rolecop or the assassin individually (which be what Troll was asking)? We be having this conversation now because you no were about when it should have taken place after Troll asked. By the time you got here we were most of the way through the hider claim and Troll no wanted to put any distractions in the thread until that was over.

UNVOTE: DrippingGoofball
VOTE: Papa Zito

Papa Zito no be this dense (especially with the rolefishing garbage) but Troll thinks that him would fake it by trying to hide behind the idea that he doesn't like to think about anything other than getting in there to hunt scum. Him took that further than was reasonable with his calls to end all talk of claims in the middle of the process and the way him be treating it now. The vote for the janitor, a role who's ability he calls crippling to town no be what Troll thinks him would make and him no seems willing to talk about his thoughts on the other roles. Right now him be in an obstructionist mode that be much more likely to be coming from scum than town. Troll would call the overall behavior scummy coming from anyone and Troll knows that a town Papa Zito should be able to put things together better than this.

DrippingGoofball clearly hasn't done anything to look better since Troll voted her; she could be either scum or town fairly easily.

Troll no minds the Hoopla wagon overly but Papa Zito would be a better lynch.

My Milked Eek needs to show up and play or be removed somehow (replacement, vig, lynch probably in that order so far as Troll's preferences go.)

Kmd4390 seems no better a wagon that My Milked Eek would be from what Troll sees of what others dislike. It no be bad but there be better ones. Him should show up and do more though.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Herodotus]

@PZ: Why do you think Troll's hider stuff day 0 was scum-motivated? What was the scum's goal?
And if you can get impressions of peoples' alignments from day 0, then why do you think it was only boring mechanics?

@Elli: The janitor wagon is suspect because the ability, even one shot, is more powerful than any of the others.
You're voting KMD already... after we lynch him today, don't you think it would be valuable to see his scumflip?
Or to take a more abstract example, suppose on day 3 we had five people claiming PR's, we lynch the one who is scum, and they are janitored -- after that, at least four, if not more, would-be confirmed townies won't be confirmed. While they may be able to confirm each other, that would use up their time and actions, and would depend on their roles (and the existence of a RB may make it impossible.)

@Spyrex: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=13932 Don't complain if you find this link useless, I already said there was no point. FWIW, I had you and ekim overlapped as far as that thread was concerned because you agreed with his main point.

[Hoopla]

Hoopla: Why do you find Kmd suspicious? Who else do you find suspicious, and why? You've made two votes with negligible reasoning to back them (and the reasoning you gave when unvoting ooba doesn't really explain why you found him vote-worthy in the first place). I'd like to figure out which scumbuddy you're distancing from before we lynch you.

I'm not not sure KMD is scum -

if that makes sense

. Planning out my attack on him is more difficult than I envisaged, but I'll make an attempt now. On the face of it, KMD's one-liners and backseat commentary are vaguely reminiscint of some of his previous scum games, although his town game isn't rich with active powerhunting. Drawing on this, I'd like to defend this wagon under '

The Castle

' justification of it being the '

vibe

' - it has a real '

vibe

' about it. More to the point, I'm worried my inability to successfully weed out specific pieces of 'evidence' is generating votes on me. Votes that seem very safe - very safe indeed. To some, that line will be extra reason to vote for me.

Neutralize me on Day 1 might be necessary, or it might not, but I'm so deep in this hole. The difficult thing about this hole is even if I climb out there are still plenty of ways for me to be pushed back in. Janitor-based reasons are the obvious ones, but I don't think my crimes have been too significant to lynch on. I'll like it if someone can give me an umbrella to stop the dirt trickling down on my face, because I've just showered. Do we even need to do this? This is getting silly now, but I'm getting distracted and finding it hard to focus. By the way, I don't want to make excuses but English isn't my first language, I can't find my glasses and I'm pregnant, so it's difficult to get this done. Self discipline has never been my strong point, I guess, but I can assure you I am trying my best to figure out this game. Hammering home my weaknesses and so-called scummy behaviour isn't necessary because I can do it myself.

[Hoopla]

Actually, ignore that post. I'm still scrambled.

[ekiM]

Hey, Hoopla, have you ever used appeals to emotion as scum?

[Hoopla]

Not to my knowledge...

Why?

[Amished]

"Why?" ? Really? Read your "scrambled" post again.

Also, congrats on the pregnancy.

[Papa Zito]

How about your thoughts on the rolecop or the assassin individually (which be what Troll was asking)?

I wouldn't have voted for rolecop under any circumstance. I also mentioned in thread that I was okay with the assassin after re-reading the role. Maybe you could just go back and read my posts instead of grandstanding?

While we're here... plz to explain why Hoopla's sudden debilitating inability to play the game somehow makes her a less ideal lynch.

@PZ: Why do you think Troll's hider stuff day 0 was scum-motivated? What was the scum's goal?

To find the hider(s). Is this one of those forest/trees situations where people are missing the obvious?

Current theory is that there are one or two hiders out there who were smart enough not to claim despite all the noise in the thread about them. I guess we'll see.

And if you can get impressions of peoples' alignments from day 0, then why do you think it was only boring mechanics?

The purpose of the day was to decide what the scum get. If I was to charge in there and start trying to pressure people (without a vote, no less) then I'd be distracting from what was supposed to be happening.

[Herodotus]

Votes that seem very safe - very safe indeed. To some, that line will be extra reason to vote for me.

Indeed. Also your

Be nice, ekiM.

and

You don't trust politicians, Elmo?

don't look like posts I'd expect from a townie. I'm going to have to consider your KMD vote, since it's still easier to believe that he's scum and you're town than, for instance, the reverse.

[Kmd4390]

A more global question:

I love killin me people but this KMD wagon seems to be growing on its own fat. Que?

What about the Hoopla wagon?

[SpyreX]

The Hoopla wagon, while I'm still not sold,

at least makes sense

for why it is happening.

The KMD one seemingly just grew on itself. I was curious if that's all there was to it.

Watching Hero get the oil out to grease up his coming votejump is always fun though.

[ooba]

My meta experience with Spy (Scum:Victorian Vampire\"another", Town: LoL comes to mind) points to Spy town.

Unvote. Vote: VasudeVa.

I want to see where this goes. Also law of averages.

Im also having a bad feeling about Vasudeva, that is based on the town meta I recall from him.

Which particular game?

[Herodotus]

The Hoopla wagon, while I'm still not sold,

at least makes sense

for why it is happening.

You're probably town, then. No offence intended, but I'd rather that you had been scum.

The KMD one seemingly just grew on itself. I was curious if that's all there was to it.

There are good reasons for the KMD wagon, but wagons are often more informative without explanations.

@Ooba: Law of averages? Really? I assumed PZ was joking when he said that about Zorblag, but your post tastes more serious. Partly because of the vote, and partly because it's a second reference.

@mith: what do you think of KMD's response (or lack of response) to the votes on him? Scummish, townish, or null?

[mith]

I hesitate to say this, because I don't want to encourage his inattentive playstyle, but townish. (I'll withhold my reasons for now, because his play in the immediate future could completely negate the read. On that note...)

Kmd4390: Who are you suspicious of, and why? What are your thoughts on the current wagons?

Hoopla: Would you answer the second question asked in my previous post? (And the first, if I am to ignore the answer you gave.) Also, girl or boy?

[Hoopla]

Hoopla: Would you answer the second question asked in my previous post? (And the first, if I am to ignore the answer you gave.)

Hmm, I am suspicious of Herodotus, Ellibereth, KMD and zoraster. That is my guess at the scumteam, so far. I'll keep you updated, I suppose.

Also, girl or boy?

23/f/aus, and u?

[Zorblag]

@Papa Zito, Hoopla be a less ideal lynch than Papa Zito because Papa Zito has a better chance of being scum at this point. Troll would think that would be clear.

If hiders have chosen to lie during the hider claim then them have made a massively bad play. If she ends up being town you can see DrippingGoofball's play for an easy to find comparable example. If you think that there be even a reasonable chance that there be two hiders in the game then opposing the hider claim just be idiotic or a great indication that you be scum. On the other hand, your current attempts to throw doubt on useful information for the town and re-open the door for hider claims that we were trying to claim look much like an attempt to remove the town advantages of a process which you strongly opposed for no good reason.

If you think that the town power roles are "all are fairly weak and crappy anyway" then there be no rational reason for you to blindly oppose claims at the start of the game. Troll no thinks that you would fight them so hard as town. You might not care but if you did have your claimed attitude then wouldn't have any investment one way or another. This idea that claims at the start of the game need to be bad with no evidence that you're even thinking about them be dogmatic to an extent that Troll no finds in line with your town play. Even if you think that one of the interesting and important aspects of the game be boring you no should fight as hard against it as you did. You say that you couldn't wade in and start pressuring people without a vote or you'd disrupt the process of picking the roles to give scum but instead you though it was fine to try to disrupt the process by stopping discussion about the claims without even the scum hunting that could possibly have been justified.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Rhinox]

Thx Flay. At least one of these guys is scum.

DGB, Elmo, KMD, Plum, Rhinox and Zoraster.

Remember to isolate Tajo when you are in endgame and POE gives you a name out of this list.

I don't know if you meant this as a joke or serious, but you realize that mathematically, if you pick any random 6 people in a 20 player game in which there are 4 scum, there is an 80% chance that at least 1 of those 6 players are scum. Unless you feel being prodded is a scum tell, you might as well have picked 6 names at random.

By the way,

Mods, if we're going to continue with 48 hour prods, I'm going to have to announce a Pre-emptive V/LA on weekends, as I can't always guarantee I can post. Usually, posting friday and then not again til monday is enough to avoid prodding. I typically make up for less activity on the weekends with more activity during the week. I just don't think I need to be prodded every weekend.

Rhinox: I still read your "couple extra deaths aren't necessarily a bad thing" followed by "as it reduces the player pool and gives slightly better odds on the next day's lynch. Similar to, a vig who goes to town starting on day 1 might hit a few townies, but thats not necessarily a bad thing." That's an explicit comparison. Assassin reduces the player pool, better odds on the next lynch, not necessarily bad thing vs. Vig reduces player pool, mediocre players, not necessarily bad thing". A kill which hits only PRs and is given into scum control in addition to the regular NK AND kills PRs only is necessarily a bad thing if it hits. The fact that you continue to argue that the odds of a hit are poor, which we'll state for the sake of argument as true, does not affect the fact that you used a misleading and poor argument comparing the Assassin hits to Vig his on Townies, and stated that both were not necessarily bad. That does still disturb me.

Well, sorry but that was not my main argument for being pro-assassin. It was more of a small "in-addition", like it didn't even play into the reason why I wanted to give the assassin, it was just to say that I didn't feel the negative of an assassin in the unlikely event it actually got a successful shot off was really all that bad. Even if it would be a scum directed kill on a PR, typically targets of scum nk's are suspected by someone in the game, and eliminating them as a suspect (through nk) helps those players narrow in on scum. I know there are times where I've been in a better position the next day when a scum nk hit a player I had a gut scum read on that was clouding my reads on everyone else.

We're not likely to agree on this, I just don't want you to keep pushing the "Rhinox liked assassin because it reduces the lynch pool" angle because that is a clear misrep. I was at like 80% thinking the assassin would never get a successful kill, and 20% that it would. And even if there was an assassin kill, it wouldn't be that damaging because 1) can't be used to create a scum majority/win, 2) an outed power role typically becomes lame anyways, 3) chances that an outed PR can still be protected from an assassin kill, and 4) the very tiny add-on that i personally would not be concerned with an extra death via assassin for the reasons I gave. I also provided an option to limit the hurtfulness of the extra death with a no lynch when we have an outed PR that would be vulnerable to an assassin. Basically the result would be (much simplified), if the game would go to 7 days, an assassin kill on N3 would drop us down to 6 days if we lynched on D3, but if we no lynched we would still go to day 7 at the smaller cost of losing our D3 lynch instead of our D7 lynch (when the odds of hitting scum are greater).

I think I want to move away from theory discussion now though, unless you want to continue pursuing this further.

A more global question:

I love killin me people but this KMD wagon seems to be growing on its own fat. Que?

I disagree. Its not really growing at all, actually. KMD doesn't seem too concerned with the votes, but he doesn't seem to be doing any scum hunting either. So far, KMD seems less active and analytical than he is in another game with me (ongoing), and while its not a tell because he didn't flip yet, its enough of a reason for me to keep a closer eye on him.

It was a big fat rolefishing expedition. Scum want to know who the powerroles are.

I agree with that as a possible conclusion regarding mass claim, but... if there are no hiders, why would scum bother pursuing a hider claim? maybe as a distraction and a time waster (from a scum perspective, maybe thats worth the town knowledge that there are no hiders), but certainly not role fishing. Despite being initially against a hider claim myself, I feel scum would have more likely been indifferent or against a hider claim, due to already knowing there were no hiders.

To find the hider(s). Is this one of those forest/trees situations where people are missing the obvious?

Current theory is that there are one or two hiders out there who were smart enough not to claim despite all the noise in the thread about them. I guess we'll see.

I find this stance a bit scummy. It seems like an attempt to invalidate town knowledge (similar to questioning sanity after a cop claim). I'll policy lynch any hider claim on the spot later in the game, unless there is some damn solid evidence in support of the claim.

PZ, I also don't like how if you feel the town PR's were so worthless, what makes you think the scum would be so concerned with finding them that they result to rolefishing? and also what troll said about you opposing claims

unvote, vote: papa zito

still got my eye on KMD

I liked VasudeVa during D0, but lately seems to be voting anywhere a wagon might start. Especially the KMD and Hoopla votes. I'm not against voting jumping, but there needs to be actual reasons for the votes, and you can't just forget about your previous votes after you change. All seems not very genuine.

Hoopla seems to be intentionally trying to play the too scummy to be scummy card. I don't know if its because she's town or actually scum who slipped up and is trying to emerge from the hole she's dug by digging to the other side, or if she's just town fishing for opportunistic wagoners. Either way, I'm not ready to hop on board yet.

I've been hoping for more from DGB. Normally I see agressive scum hunting after a town player breaks off from a gambit. I want to see DGB pursuing any of the reads she listed in her coming clean post. So far I've been a bit underwhelmed.

[Herodotus]

In response to Rhinox's post:
If multiple townies are lurking, it's likely that one or more scum will decide they may as well lurk too, so I agree with PT. Even if it doesn't help a lot yet.

If there is a hider who decided not to claim, then they were not doing their job as a townie. First, because the scum know they're out there, and the list of people who might have fakeclaimed not-hider is short, and second, because if they ever claim, and can't be confirmed right away, they will be lynched.

Ironically, I'm more concerned that Hoopla wants to play the too townie to be scum card. Just tossing that out there for future reference.