Mini 1046 - Murder in the Desert (Game Over!)

[Oso]

Hmph, seems that RVS might be getting over with rather quickly. No matter.

VOTE: xvart

If his performance in our last game is any indication, RVS might be my only opportunity to vote him the entire game.

[Oso]

Vote: Xine

for totally legitimate reasons.

Some history there maybe? If that isn't a total joke, the story behind it might be good before we really get into the meat of the game.

[Oso]

..

Hmph, seems that RVS might be getting over with rather quickly. No matter.

VOTE: xvart

If his performance in our last game is any indication, RVS might be my only opportunity to vote him the entire game.

@Oso: Why would you want to get an opportunity to vote for him?
..

A bit of joking really. Last game we played together he managed to live until endgame as a claimed Doc in another Mini with another protective role already confirmed on the dead list. Actually pretty impressive in how town his play was (he was town as it turns out) and how he remained unlynched simply because of that, when anyone else in that game (me included) would have been lynched out of hand in his position as probably lying scum.

[Oso]

That means:

CES: Two bandwagon votes. No relevant game material/discussion.
Lowell: One vote. No relevant game material/discussion.
Oso: One vote, one explanation. No relevant game material/discussion.
xvart: One vote, no explanation. No relevant game material/discussion.

Game Opened: Tue Sep 07, 2010 9:58 am
Quoted Post: Tue Sep 07, 2010 6:07 pm
This Post: See Time Stamp above.

By my count, that is about 8 hours. A hair over from game open to your post. Please, for future reference tell just me how often I should post (in minutes and seconds please) in order to satisfy you.


P.S- I do reserve the right to go at least 8 hours between posts so as to get some sleep occasionally. But if it hoses you up too badly, I suppose I could sleep/eat/work every other day or so.

[Oso]

For those of you that missed the sarcasm, the above is me being irritated.

[Oso]

Also I love how you spent the whole time posting all of that out and yet you still have added nothing useful to the discussion

And until I have time to wade through the posts made so far (there were a lot over the course of a few hours), I won't add anything useful.

Answering questions/comments made directly towards me or have my name in them (search function is good for that) is one thing, trying to get something useful out of what 4 or so pages already? Takes a bit longer. I'm going to guess though there is the usual Like/Don't Like RVS discussion in there somewhere and I'm also guessing someone(s) made a vote off of that and there have probably several "walls of texts" trying to tie a bunch of null/slightly scummy tells together into a shaky case.

But I will have something substantial to contribute no later than noon(PST) tomorrow. There should be at least a couple of things useful in there once the usual game start chaff is weeded out.

[Oso]

@Slaxx

..
But I will have something substantial to contribute no later than noon(PST) tomorrow. There should be at least a couple of things useful in there once the usual game start chaff is weeded out.

Just noticed it's Noon. Post under construction, morning busier than I thought it would be.

[Oso]

OK, here it goes. Apologies in advance for being a bit later than I said and for being long, as I'm going to try and hit on everyone. If I don't mention a player then assume a dead neutral read.

Xine

: No post so far, so no opinion. Not even a neutral here.

boberz

: Seems he's one of the early flavors. Not getting a real town read off him but also not going to vote for him. Seems that most of the votes on him are for things that are early game attempts to get the game started (however poorly(?) he did it). Some folks mentioned some contradictions about his RSV and they are valid but I'm still trying to figure out if they are actually scummy or a result of game start jitters/excitement.

Parama

: Also an early flavor. Managed to garner 3 votes at one point but, as far as I can tell, they were no-reason RVS votes. The only bells ringing here, and they are not very loud ones, is his logging off CES's and Lowell's votes to bitterness over prior games. I'd willing to let that go unoted except that in the same post, and it's his first, he votes the only wagon that is competing with him. Regardless of how he justified the boberz vote, it seems off. But not enough for my vote at the moment. Keeping an eye on him though.

DemonHybrid

: Pretty much boberz partner in the RVS discussion and pretty much the same reason I'm not going to vote him either. Both players threw out a lot of static behind the RVS thing and am seriously considering throwing out most/all of their posts in relation to that as unusable. DH does get a nice big brownie point from me because he did take boberz off L-1 with his unvote. Indicates that he is town that is afraid of a hammer by scum rather than scum looking for a quickhammer. I'd expect that if he was scum, he'd have left his vote there and fall back on blaming boberz play for his own lynch had he(boberz) been lynched and had showed up town on the flip, if he was questioned about it at all.

Charter

: Pretty neutral here. Don't mind keeping him around though. He has only 3 posts so far and that is a bit thin to make any determinations off of but I do like his Post #79 where he responds to a comment made by Weaps. He's thinking and not afraid to defend his reads.

Lowell

: He's being the Lowell I played with before. Unlike the Lowell I played with, he actually made a point though that seems decent about Slaxx. In Post 99 and Post 116. I may have to reevaluate my overall opinion of him.

xvart

: From my RVS you might get the impression I like playing mafia with him. You'd be right but he remains neutral. Thinking out loud here but, like Charter, I like the direction his thinking seems to be going in.

Bub/Weaps

: Dead Neutral at the moment. Only difference between the two is that Weaps has voted, Bub has not. Both strike me as players who are getting themselves oriented and getting into the game but I can't even make a guess on alignment.

Slaxx

: The person I will vote if my actual vote goes no where. Main reason is L-1 on a player he has made a zero case on. He doesn't even bother to borrow someone else's. Just uses a 'see above post' in his vote post and the 'see above' post is based on the 'possibilities' and go back and read the thread to find them. Weak, very weak.

Unvote

VOTE: Cogito Ergo Sum.

Here is why:
Votes Parama. RVS vote but it is the third on Parama. Then switches his vote to boberz after it looks as if the Parama wagon is going nowhere, making him 5th on that wagon but with no explanation. He did give a reason of sorts. Called it a *hop* . But gives no explanation for the *hop* . Even when asked for an explanation (by Bub I believe) he accuses Bub of being confused and still doesn't give an explanation. Just implies that the reason, a *hop*, somehow is all the justification that is needed.

My conclusion is that CES is going to be on whatever wagon has even the slightest chance of going all the way to a lynch. And he is going to do it with as little explanation and reasoning as possible.

[Oso]

@Parama.

Despite the quote fail I think I can sort out what you want.

The short version, I think there is a high likelihood one of them is scum. Slaxx for his L-1 on boberz with basically no stated reasoning other than "I agree with the possibilities set forth." and not even attempting to recap those possibilities or even add any thinking of his own.

CES for his hopping on whatever bandwagon (whether you agree with you being a legitimate wagon or not) looks like it might lead to a lynch.

Of the two CES action are the scummier by the reason of no reasoning at all, not even weak reasoning.

[Oso]

..
Oso, your thoughts?
..

I think there is a lot of posting Which is good but makes it hell to keep up on one read through a day.

Also, from looking at the VC list Slaxx posted it seems I am still the only person on CES. And I did a quick ISO and he hasn't posted anything since I last looked so there is nothing to add to my original reason for a vote. So I'll switch to my second scummiest suspect.

Unvote

VOTE: Slaxx

For the reason stated here:

..

Slaxx:

The person I will vote if my actual vote goes no where. Main reason is L-1 on a player he has made a zero case on. He doesn't even bother to borrow someone else's. Just uses a 'see above post' in his vote post and the 'see above' post is based on the 'possibilities' and go back and read the thread to find them. Weak, very weak.
..

There are quite a few posts that I haven't had a chance to read yet. I see that boberz has fallen off a bit and Bub and Slaxx seem to be gaining ground on him and I need to dig in and see what has went on in the last day or so. I have a couple or three hours before bedtime so I hope to give a more substantial post later on.

[non-game]I see Xine made an appearance. Hi Xine.[/non-game]

[Oso]

First off, can we lynch Bub for answering inside the quotes?(<-Joke, but not by much)

I'll say I like my vote where it is for the moment but on re-reading I see that there is also no current support for Slaxx lynch either. Seems I'd be better off looking at Nico's VCs than a players. In addition to my own concerns about Slaxx, several others have made their own doubts known. But I'll go ahead and drop if for the moment.

I've looked over the Bub wagon (for reason other than his answering inside the quotes) and can't find much wrong with any of the reasons.

@Charter, you voted Bub here Post #190

..
I support this Bub wagon, as well, since his double standard he applies to Slaxx reeks of scumbuddies.

Help me out and point to that? I've been going over Bub's posts. Some of them are big and I probably missed something you didn't.

Unvote

Not going to replace a vote tonight (too fried from a long day) but I probably will after Charter points that out. I've obviously missed something.

As to others in the thread, I think Parama did have a good point about Xine not L-1ing boberz and voting Parama instead. Unlike the way I took exception to Slaxx putting boberz at L-1, Xine actually had some pretty well thought out reasoning.

@Parama, If I read your reasoning correctly, you think that Xine FOSed a scumbuddy and voted a townie. Then bub came in chainsaw defended a scumbuddy as well?

[Oso]

Early in the morning here. Just got up.

If you want my FOS first then I'll go with Weapons. I'm ISOing him now as I write this. Wanted to post and let you folks know that yes, I am here and and fairly well caught up.

I'll make a case as to why I like Weaps in detail later in the morning. Quick reasons: Day 1 interactions with Bub (I remember that part of the game from before I had to replace out) and the way he does manage to slip the burgeoning wagon of himself yesterday and get it on to Charter.

One thing that is ringing bells but I need to cross reference and confirm, is the posts he made trying to use anger and frustration to try and explain why he was the hammer on Lowell, a person he had mentioned several times was town. Reeks of scum trying to absolve themselves of responsibility for a lynch in a believable way.

[Oso]

Oh, and as for the popcorn FOS, I choose Weapons for next.

[Oso]

I know. I'm assuming it's LyLo as well. Safest that way. Lynch scum today and it isn't LyLo then Game Over, that would be sweet.

As to my second FOS, I'm hoping that Xine can help there and got a positive track off of someone last night or that she did indeed track Weapons to the kill. A lot of who I think the second scum is will be based off what she says.

I'm still cross referencing Weapon's posts (I'm pretty much at the computer all day today) but he's definite scum regardless of information Xine gives. If she tracked him and he's negative that just means his partner made the kill. At least as far as I'm concerned.

[Oso]

Ok, I've been replaced then replaced back in so you folks don't have a lot of posts of mine to go off of. I thought I'd go ahead and make a post of what I thought of the game state at the time I replaced out which was near the end of Day 1.

First off, I wasn't going to change my vote to Bub (I know, he turned out to be scum), at least not initially. I was going to change it to Parama (inb4 'Oh my god, but he was a town PR'). The post where I took my vote off of Slaxx and didn't replace it I asked him(Parama) a question:

..
@Parama, If I read your reasoning correctly, you think that Xine FOSed a scumbuddy and voted a townie. Then bub came in chainsaw defended a scumbuddy as well?

He never did answer that question as far as I can tell and that was my last post before replacement (real life got hectic and I never did get a chance to put together any sort of post before the day ended.) but depending on how he answered it, I would have started in on him rather than go with the more obvious choice. I would probably have voted Bub at the end of the day had it been required, if for no other reason than to add weight to the case I would have made on Parama had he not answered that question to my liking. But Bub was pretty much lynched and I was looking down the road.

At the time all of this was going on, he(Parama) had a vote on boberz but was simultaneously casting suspicion on Xine and Bub. My thinking at the time was, that Bub was cracking under the pressure and that a bussing was just about to get underway. That is what I was looking for.

I was able to keep up on the thread somewhat while away and when Bub did flip scum I was positive that Parama was as well and had used their interactions with Bub to set up one, possibly two mis-lynches with Xine and Boberz.

Obviously, that thinking was wrong but I felt you remaining folks should have my main train of thought at the time I left the game. It might help you evaluate my posts for the rest of the game.

[Oso]

As promised.

Here:

Okay, on page 37, I got really pissed, and hammered to prove me right. That probably wasn't the best thing to do, but with DH in ugh mode and Slaxx egging, shit happens.
..

Pretty much sums up what I think of the motivations for Weapons this game. From my experience, the best scumtell I have ever found is a person who tries and absolve themselves of responsibility for being in on a lynch (no matter what position, First on or Hammer or in between when questioned.). Being wrong happens, getting frustrated and angry happens but he has to qualify it by referencing DH and Slaxx. Had it been an honest case of being frustrated, he would would have, in my opinion, just went ahead and said "My bad..." and left it at that. Trying to spread the responsibility around is what makes the Lowell hammer scummy.

I can see he's frustrated though because he KNOWS Lowell is town but not from a gut read. Lowelltown is probably the most potent and effective weapon that scum can have if they can get him to endgame. Weapons really doesn't want to hammer him. That part is honest. He wants to keep Lowell as the game winner if possible. The fact that Weapons doesn't want Lowell lynched at that time is the only part of that whole interaction that comes across as genuine.

I want to keep this from becoming a wall but I do want to point out additionally about his voting record.

Lynch wagons: Bub,Lowell and Charter. (Scum/Town/Town)

The rest of the time he has his vote parked on people who have no chance of being lynched that day and frequently he is the only person voting that player (disclaimer:I just looked at the Nico Vote Counts and didn't dig into the individual posts looking for votes/unvotes so there may be times where he is not the only player voting another player for long periods of times but the VCs just make it look that way).

In any case, he tends (in my opinion at least) to find a person to vote who will not be lynched and only changes over to a lynch wagon when he has some sort of way to distance himself from the lynch. Frustration in the case of Lowell and I'm going to guess that even though he was first on the Charter wagon, he is going to try and find a way to weasel out of his responsibility on that by blaming the lynch on Charter himself rather than just admitting he was wrong.

The Bub wagon he needs no justification for. He was on that early and there is really no reason to have to justify the lynch of a scum. Especially if you are on the bus just for the ride.

As to who was on the wagon for the Bub wagon Day 1, every player still alive except for Xine. I include myself because as I indicated in my last post, I'd have voted him at the end of the day to help reinforce the case I had hoped to build against Parama. So no help there for me figuring out who Weapon's/Bub's scum buddy may be from that alone. Need more digging and help for that one.

[Oso]

Now that Xine has given her information, I am 100% sure she is town. I had my doubts.

Mainly because of the no kill night. That bugged the hell out of me even before Nico PMed and asked me to replace back in. I was certain it was some sort of scum gambit to have the claimed Doc clear Xine by publicly stating he protected her on a no-kill night.

But for that to work Xine would have come in today selling a bogus positive track on a townie. The window of opportunity to use the credibility generated by that move would be limited to one day and this being assumed LyLo (something I agree with), now would have been the time to cash that in.

Why there was a no-kill night? Aside from giving Xine an ironclad claim, I have no clue. Something we'll find out in the post game talk I suppose.

So for my second FOS: Slaxx.

POE my friend. I'm absolutely convinced Weaps is scum for my reasons stated earlier. I happen to agree with you on boberz (It's really nice when someone who is in a position to know, namely Slaxxscum, confirms a townie). By not trying to sell a positive track, Xine just cleared herself in my eyes.

It's good to know that my initial read on you from Day 1 was spot on. I was wrong about CES but that makes my average for Day 1 votes this game 50% (or 33% if you go ahead an factor in Parama, who I would have voted for had I not had to bow out). Which is better than it usually is.

So no point in waiting

VOTE: WeaponsofMassConstruction

or Slaxx. Lynch order doesn't matter as they are the last two scum.

@boberz, I'll make the same offer to you that Slaxx did (I did a preview edit), any questions you want to throw my way I'll be happy to answer if you want. If it is something Socrates did or said (rather than me me before I replaced) I'll do my best to try and figure out what might have been going through his head.

When Weapons gets lynched I don't want there to be any doubt in your mind about me tomorrow in a to a you/Slaxx/Oso endgame.

[Oso]

..
Boberz, Oso was waiting

for your reads before he outted his

to confim that Xine didn't have a positive track on anyone but Weapons...

Fixed that for you.

[Oso]

Just out of curiosity Oso...Why WOMC first? I mean, you've FoSed me since d1 after all. I should be a stronger read for you.

As I said above, lynch order doesn't matter to me, both of you are scum. Weapons was my only solid suspicion coming into today so I chose him by order of FOS. The second FOS(you)didn't solidify until Xine gave her results.

[Oso]

No, I will tell you why you are voting WOMC. Its your only hope of getting town cred for 3 way lylo tomorrow (assuming that happens). Well you're not going to get it, because tomorrow I am going to tear apart the ingenuine comments between you and WOMC so hard that boberz is going to feel like he just witnessed the raising of the world's savior.

I look forward to it These are the situations that make mafia worth playing. I love taking down scum in a 3 way end game. I've only been in this situation twice and and the first I was in boberz seat and guessed wrong...that felt bad. But the second time was sweet. Three scum down in the last 3 days. That was fun, nerve wracking game. I'll see if I can dig up the link to share after the game. It was on another site but it's as much fun to read (I think) as it was to play.

[Oso]

Actually, town didn't really blow it.

Kudos to boberz. By the end of Day 3/Start of Day 4, he would have won in any 3 man endgame that included him/Slaxx and Charter or Weapons. Which was pretty much a given by the time Lowell was lynched. boberz play and the town player's perception of him, is pretty much what won the game for scum. So:

Well done boberz

Lowell's lynch sealed the scum victory Day 3. That left DH/Xine as Obvtown, Slaxx/boberz as probable town and Socrates(me)/Charter/Weapons looking middling bad to very bad by comparison to the the other 4. The only real question in my mind (on reading the game before being offered a spot back in) was whether it would end today in a 3:2 or tomorrow in a 2:1.

Honorable mention to Soc as well. boberz and Soc did an excellent job of not making connections to each other. Simply by not forcing that. From what I can see they both pretty much forgot the other was their partner during the day and pretty much succeeded in not being connected by ignoring each other and the game unfolded so that they could do that very naturally.

Bub. Dude I'm not going to tear apart your play but man, you need to work on your Day 1 scum game. Seriously though, I can't quantify it but I think, in my opinion, getting a scum Day 1 put the town enough at ease that Me/Soc/Me was able to make it to end game. Without that high about nailing a Scum RB Day 1, I get the impression that people would have been seriously looking at the Soc/Oso player spot maybe a day earlier which could have tipped the balance in me being able to have a spot to replace back into. If this slot had been lynched then I wouldn't have had the opportunity to goad Slaxx into voting a townie so that he could rip me apart in the end game. So I thank you for that and it was a pleasure playing with you even for so short a time.

On that town side. Parama, Slaxx and xvart. Scum scored big, at least in my opinion by xvart being removed through a lynch. Starting the game, I would have bet money that xvart would have to be NKed to remove him simply because of the way he played in the last game I played with him. Parama almost made me crap my pants when he tagged 2 of the 3 scum almost immediately as the game started. Granted, boberz was the first Day 1 flavor and that generally doesn't lead anywhere but it is still jarring when you see 2 of you buddies mentioned in the same post with the word 'scum'. Slaxx, because (and I'm guessing here) of your experience with Real-Time Mafia, you came across to me as a bit spastic in your posting. Unfortunately, for the scum team, it came across as mostly town. Believe it or not, what I said at the end of the game was true. I would have loved to get boberz(town), you(town) and me(scum) into this endgame. I very seriously doubt I could have pulled it out but man, it would have been fun trying

Xine. I know you slightly from oustside the game through PMs and other threads and was really disappointed that we were on opposite teams in our first game together. In way (even though this is just a game) I was a bit relieved that I had to replace out when I did. Part of a plan I was toying with Day 1 was to get you lynched and then by proxy, Parama lynched when you flipped town based on his boberz/Xine/Bub connection. You were only common link between them and, according to Parama's theory, if you could get lynched then not only would that make Parama look bad, it would go a ways to relieving the pressure on boberz and Bub. I can't say I'm sorry I wasn't able to do that But even though your team lost Xine, you did make it to end game and that is not very common for a new player, especially from what I can see on this site. You did well.

To the rest, I very much enjoyed playing in what little of this game I managed to do and apologize to all the players that I wasn't able to be here for the entire run.

Also, thanks to Nico for taking the time to set this up and run this for us. I liked the set-up, the flavor and would happily play in another one of your games anytime.

[Oso]

[quote="xvart"..
but when I first suggested looking at

why CES was NKed

and voted for Boberz I was planning on going back and building a case on boberz with the CES being supporting evidence (then I just didn't have it in me and nearly resigned until I jumped all over Slaxx.
..[/quote]

We knew he was town (obviously) and that was probably the only contribution I made to the night talk the entire game. I figured that since he was playing the way he was as town, he must have a really good RC to fall back on. I really suck at spotting PRs but that was why CES was killed. He was giving off what I thought of as PR vibes. We know he's town but he is playing borderline scummy. That is the real reason I backed off his lynch and switched to Slaxx Day 1. I didn't want to take a chance of getting his wagon up to claim. I didn't want him claiming and making me look bad in comparison by forcing the outting of a PR day 1.

[Oso]

True.

Not only am I bad at spotting PRs though, I generally stink pretty badly as scum as well. So I get paranoid

I noticed that Nic didn't post the Mafia QT so there it is.

[Oso]

I think it has to do with the pressure being taken off. Clears up the thinking a bit. I've been a part of one other dead QT late in the game and the players there had it pretty much doped out by the time I arrived.

[Oso]

Xine, did you have any thoughts/plans on how to counter an accusation that you(scum) used a Town Doc to fake-confirm you by no-killing on a night you were almost 100% sure you would be his protection target?

You would have definitely gotten some help with that from Slaxx but he's the only one between him and Weapons that you would have gotten that support from. Especially since you and Slaxx had me and him paired as a scum team.

Had you tracked me and got me killing DH, I'm curious as to how you would have countered a bogus track accusation on my part. Especially as Weapons was town but would have been very willing (or at least open to) believing the crap I would have fed out? Or I think he would have been at that point.

How about the day it happened? Same question but a day earlier and it came from an actually townie this time instead of scum.

[Oso]

The reason I ask is that one thing I have always been unable to not do (even as town) is try and figure out the best way to lynch a PR. Not NK them but rather get them lynched and do it in a way that won't backfire on me.

Call it an intellectual exercise...or a really twisted sense of fun.

[Oso]

Good points with both.

Mainly an exercise on my part mentally. I was curious though if in her speculation, even if it was just in her mind, if it had occurred to her that scum might have done something like deliberately?

Honestly, on the no-kill night (even though I knew from reading the mafia thread when I returned that it was a confluence of errors that caused it) I was very surprised that hardly any mention/discussion was made of it. Not from scum but from town.

I can only imagine DH's thoughts on the morning he found he was still alive. "WTF, I'm still alive?" Paranoid bastard that I am, I would have least mentioned (were I in DH's shoes) that after I was out of the thread to be at least open to the possibility that scum had just used me to 'confirm' one of their members.

Or maybe he did and I missed it. There was alot I just skimmed while I was gone and this was one big thread.

[Oso]

Oh, and yes Xine. Being Godfather (in this game at least) only protected me from a Cop (which we didn't have). Any other role would have worked as advertised. Had you tracked me that last night you would have found that I visited DH.

[Oso]

Before I read the mafia QT when I got back from my trip (I read the thread first) I had convinced myself that boberz/Soc were convinced that DH had been lying. If I remember the timing correctly, DH claimed last didn't he?

Wouldn't be the first VT to claim Doc at the end of a massclaim to draw the night kill....I remember thinking to myself, "No, they didn't do that..." and that the no-kill night actually was an attempt on Xine.