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

[mith]

Kmd, no offense, but that's a stupid conclusion to reach. If I were scum, why would I be looking for a reason to vote town-zoraster? Scum-mith would have been quite happy not being on that wagon.

I think you've just demonstrated the possible advantage scum-zoraster might have in playing dumb.

zoraster: Can you explain why you were wanting to discuss the "elmo tajo thing" earlier? Were you aware before Rhinox's post that Elmo had claimed Vig?

[Ellibereth]

I did a readthrough a few days ago when I was catching up with the game, and then did the person-by-person analysis mostly by iso (sometimes checking the context for things).

OIC.
I'm curious, because when you were looking at the MME slot there's no mention of Kerri. And I think he did some stuff.

[Patrick]

Votecount

VasudeVa (5) -- Seraphim, ooba, SpyreX, AdumbroDeus, Kmd4390
ooba (1) -- Papa Zito
DrippingGoofball (2) -- Elmo, zoraster
Seraphim (1) -- My Milked Eek
zoraster (5) -- DrippingGoofball, ekiM, Plumegranate, Rhinox, mith
Papa Zito (1) -- Herodotus
mith (1) -- VasudeVa

Not voting: Ellibereth
17 alive, 9 to lynch.

Deadline: 11th of September, 6 am GMT.

[Herodotus]

UNVOTE: Zoraster
VOTE: Papa Z

'splain?

I hope that the big wagon on him is NOT going to make the others feel that they can relax and lurk.

All right, I'm at L-1. Before anyone hammers, give me half a day or so to get my thoughts on all the players

I'll process later, but obviously post 1131 is no good.

@Zoraster: unless you are scum who considers your lynch inevitable, please try for real. ATM, it looks like that's what you are.

@KMD: there are about 4 days left, right? That's enough time for any wagon.

[Kmd4390]

Sera, not likely before deadline unfortunately. That's why I voted Vas and not mith.

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

mith, explain to me why zoraster could possibly want to act like he didn't know I'd claimed tracker. I think you wanted to jump the wagon and felt the need to add a reason you didn't actually believe. Why? Not sure. Maybe your buddy is being wagoned and you wanted to contribute to the zoraster wagon's momentum. Maybe it's a late attempt at bussing for town cred. Maybe you thought he was a power role. I have no idea why, but nothing about it looks like legit suspicion.

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

Hero, I doubt that in 4 days I'll be able to get 9 people to vote someone who has hardly been suspected all game.

[zoraster]

UNVOTE: Zoraster
VOTE: Papa Z

'splain?

I hope that the big wagon on him is NOT going to make the others feel that they can relax and lurk.

All right, I'm at L-1. Before anyone hammers, give me half a day or so to get my thoughts on all the players

I'll process later, but obviously post 1131 is no good.

@Zoraster: unless you are scum who considers your lynch inevitable, please try for real. ATM, it looks like that's what you are.

"try for real"? Once again. You want something, be specific. "Play better" is a nearly worthless suggestion. I have tried to engage people in actual conversation, but when I've done so I've been asked for a rundown of all players in the game. I don't believe a series of essays is in any way useful to the town. Got an issue with a specific part of my post? please point it out.

As to the inevitability of my lynch, eh. I don't really know which way that cuts. I'm not saying any of that out of any sort of "take my ball and go home" kind of thing. Just that from where I was standing it seemed very likely I was going to be lynched, and while that wasn't ideal (from my perspective, the chance of me being scum is 0% after all), it wasn't all that bad either (given I'm not a PR, I hadn't been terribly active in the game, and I may serve as a distraction for later). My goal, then, was not necessarily to stop my lynch but rather to make my lynch and flip as profitable as possible. Lynching lurker is not all that positive. Lynching a more active me who has given thoughts (whether you consider it "real" or not) could potentially lead to bigger dividends. At the very least it's started more back-and-forth.

[ekiM]

KMD, why are you assuming zorascum would have to be "acting like" he didn't know about your claim? Maybe he

actually

didn't know about your claim, because he hasn't read the thread very carefully, because he doesn't care about figuring out who is scum.

I don't see how someone reads between #791 and #838 with any sort of interest without becoming aware that KMD was claiming tracker and is basically confirmed town. zoraster doesn't seem to be aware of this. In fact, in his "catch-up post" he didn't even mention the exonerating possibility that KMD was tracker in order to dismiss it. He seems totally oblivious to that whole episode. After all this...

Dgb is definitely on the right track.

Kmd: At this point, I think you may as well spell out what you're hinting at.

Kmd is claiming track on elmo to someone?

Elmo didn't even hint at suspicion of amished yesterday. I checked before voting.

DGB, Kmd: Kmd's result makes it

likely

Elmo is scum; I absolutely agree with that. His lack of Amished suspicion yesterday does not make that a certainty, though, and lynching him is still not the correct play.

Has KMD actually claimed to have a tracker result or not?

In fact, given that last bit, I don't think Elmo should even claim unless he

didn't

target Amished (in which case we do lynch him and then Vig Kmd if Elmo is innocent).

This is me not calling KMD a liar. Where do we go from here?

Mith, why are you playing up every option besides "KMD tracked Elmo directly to the kill".

Also, just for clarification, is KMD claiming to have tracked Elmo to Amished or is he claiming to have tracked to tajo?

Well, there, my question is answered. I'm going with the consensus that neither Elmo nor KMD is getting lynched today.

KMD is a tracker.

For clarification, elmo shot AMISHED, not tajo.

... he isn't even aware that he needs to talk about KMD's claim when discussing whether or not he's scum. Later he said...

So maybe it got lost in the shuffle, but are we completely leaving the elmo tajo thing alone? It seems like in our quest for information, this might be a good place to start, especially since we know they have a roleblocker.

I still am curious about the elmo tajo dynamic.

so he's "curious" about it... and yet he's not even aware of the basics of what the heck was going on there? He doesn't appear to have given the episode he's curious about more than a cursory once-over. How can that be?

[SpyreX]

God prods.

Simple explanation: I'm an idiot. In my defense, to my knowledge KMD has never actually outright claimed tracker, he just made statements of certainty. Regardless, it's something I should have caught, I suppose.

If you've read close enough to see statements of certainty, there's NO way (as illustrated by ekim above) that you could have missed the fact he actually was a tracker. Maaaybe while it was going on, but no way in a reread.

The QT angle makes little sense - why, WHY, would they say in this group under pressure to play dumb versus speeding things up?

Unvote, Vote: Zor

[AdumbroDeus]

@Vas

: Could you provide the latecomer with a clear and concise case for why you're not scum and Sereph is?

Hello-not-reading-the-thread. Other people have explained it far better than I did and this question has been getting old. Basically: Seraphim has been pushing the argument that I've been coached to play like a VI to not get vigged. I mean, read below:

My counter-argument: I think that the scum team either figured that VV would be less likely of a vig target if he acted like he did now, playing up the VI aspect of his play and trying to convince people of that aspect, or that VV was expendable.

This is stupid because its stupid.

I was looking for you to try to convince me rather then a regurgitation of one of his possible ideas to explain your obvious-scum behavior.


You haven't.



UNVOTE:
VOTE: SpyreX

Still waiting SpyreX.




I've got a null tell on Zoraster atm and that wagon gained momentium WAY too fast for my liking.

[Kmd4390]

Ekim, its not about whether I personally think zoraster saw my claim or not. Its what mith said. Mith believes that if zoraster were scum, his buddies would have informed him of the claim, therefore if zoraster doesn't know I claimed, he must be town. Mith goes on to say zoraster is playing dumb, then votes zoraster. I don't understand how mith can possibly honestly believe that zoraster would act like he didn't see the claim just to fake a scum read on me, but not vote me.

My personal opinion is that zoraster honestly didn't see my claim. Mith brings up a valid point that it was likely discussed in the QT, but if zoraster fell behind, I could see him as scum not really grasping the QT discussion. Its a slight point in his favor if anything. I just don't like the way mith brings up what he sees as a point in zoraster's favor, then dismisses that point in order to vote him.

[mith]

Kmd: I don't think you're understanding what I was arguing in my previous post ([preview edit]I don't know how you get "therefore if zoraster doesn't know I claimed, he must be town" from my post at all[/pe]). This was my approximate thought process:

a. Oh, zoraster posted, ~reads~, wait, Kmd???
b. Wow, that's one of the biggest "not-a-clue" moments I've seen in Mafia.
c. Maybe that's a point in his favor, though. Surely scum would know what was going on.
d. Though they might to play dumb for WIFOM reasons/so we come to that conclusion...
e. But wait, how could he not know what's going on if he's town? He's been asking about stuff, he's supposedly doing a big reread...
f. Thoughts c and e make actual ignorance a null-tell (he

could

be ignorant either way, it just seems really unlikely); feigned ignorance can only come from scum.
g. Expressed ignorance is a point against him.
h. I'm already suspicious of zoraster. This is another point against him. Is there anything about his read-post that points toward him being town?
i. No. What Rhinox/Seraphim thing? What concern on Herodotus? His comment on DGB reminds that zoraster hasn't made much of a case on her, and that he hasn't voted her today. Other little wording things (like the MME comment).
j. He's already second on The List, nothing about this reads town, let's put him back at L-1, get a claim, and lynch him.

I wasn't saying that he

was

definitely playing dumb, nor voting him for that reason; I was saying that the possibility of him playing dumb breaks the deadlock of ignorance and turns it from a null-tell to a slight scum-tell. (If I were just looking for an excuse to vote for him, why bring up the "scum shouldn't be ignorant" point at all?)

As for "explain to me why zoraster could possibly want to act like he didn't know I'd claimed tracker" - I already pointed out one; he dropped from 8 to 5 in a few hours. My own initial reaction was "wow, he has so completely missed the plot, he can't be scum", and it's possible he was trying for that reaction in a last attempt to survive.

If you don't think that's legit suspicion, and that I'm just making up the above thought process, fair enough. You're wrong, but there's not much else I can say to convince you.

---

zoraster: I want an answer to the question I asked in 1150.

Current thoughts on zoraster - after 1136, playing dumb seems a more distant possibility (if he is, that's an impressive acting job). However, I'm still not seeing how he as town doing a reread and posting thoughts on everyone could have possibly missed the Kmd claim (see ekiM's post).

1155 continues the "ask specific questions" schtick... which doesn't impress given the two specific questions waiting for him at the top of the page. Additional questions:

What "concern" on Herodotus were you addressing in your big post?
What Rhinox/Seraphim "thing" felt like two people on the same side fighting?

[DrippingGoofball]

I've had scumpals not following the game AND the QT... the two often go and in hand. I do agree he's unlikely faking ignorance. Doing it for WIFOM reasons might backfire badly, I don't think that's what's going on here.

[Plumegranate]

Quick post, busy today.

Zoro's big post is null leaning scummeh - there are extremely Townish I'm-at-L-1 posts and there are others, and this one's definitely an other. It's unlikely he's playing dumb, but ignorance of stuff like that is pretty null if you're skimming everyone in ISO and/or skimming the game. Though ekiM brings up a good point about Zoro not even knowing much about what he's curious about, and the apathy towards the game that shows while complaining loudly about how he'd read through 30-odd pages just like we asked is somewhat incongruous. Just see here again:

What a load of horsehockey. You ask me to read effing 30 pages of stuff and come up with a post on every person (you being whoever was asking -- elli and DGB in particular). I have done that. If you don't particularly like it, so be it. I'm not particularly detached from the game. I've read each and every person as carefully as I can manage. If you're not particularly interested in that read, that's fine. But to simply yell "detached!" without actually elaborating why (you have made no effort to say what the relevant posts are. there are a lot. It's not just me not wanting to delve in, it's not having a clue what you're actually talking about) is ridiculous.

Violently protests about not being detached, protests that he did what we all wanted him to, while actually not reading clearly enough to see the major revelations which are the reason why, as he asked, we are 'Accusing mith of trying to take any venom from the reads is laughable, considering the general lack of bite in the reads to begin with'.

V/LA through Saturday night/Sunday morning. Jewish New Year and all.

[Plumegranate]

God prods.

Simple explanation: I'm an idiot. In my defense, to my knowledge KMD has never actually outright claimed tracker, he just made statements of certainty. Regardless, it's something I should have caught, I suppose.

If you've read close enough to see statements of certainty, there's NO way (as illustrated by ekim above) that you could have missed the fact he actually was a tracker. Maaaybe while it was going on, but no way in a reread.

The QT angle makes little sense - why, WHY, would they say in this group under pressure to play dumb versus speeding things up?

Unvote, Vote: Zor

I (Pom, that is) find that this looks more opportunistic (and makes less sense) than mith's vote.

[SpyreX]

@Rhinox and SpyreX: As of right now, who do you wanna lynch toDay and why?

This is what you're still waiting on?

VV or Zor.

VV is pretty clear.

Zor, again, could not have reread and missed that. Its flat impossible.

[ooba]

Sorry - other games got my attention so wasn't able to re-read ..
Thankfully have a long weekend coming up in 24 hours .. expect a catch up then ..

[Kmd4390]

mith, that actually is a helpful way to lay that out. You state c which shows a solid opinion that scum would know what is going on. But with c in mind, d makes no sense. Why would scum play dumb? How could that possibly make sense as a strategy? E could be explained by laziness. He could have skimmed and not caught everything. Not indicitive of alignment, but my point against you is based on the reasons for

your

read on zoraster, not my own. G is such a bad leap that it makes me want to take my eye out with a spoon, feed it to a squirrel, find an Ethiopian with AIDS, and have them piss in my empty eye socket. H is pure confirmation bias.

The playing dumb vs ignorance thing makes no sense. I know you are a football fan, so let's go with this example. I picked the Packers to win the NFC East. But there's a slim chance that the Lions or Bears could take it. So does that make my Packers pick a bad one? No, because the Lions and Bears suck something about 9 inches....around. Point is a slight chance of something happening doesn't nullify something that there is a greater chance of. Until you tell me something that convinces me that zoraster was playing dumb or even could have been, I don't accept that reasoning.

I don't see how you could think that zoraster would expect someone to go "oh, wait, he doesn't know that? He MUST be town! Now we can't lynch him anymore! Let's have a tea party instead." Nooffense to zoraster, but I don't think he's good enough to force a reaction like that, so I doubt that's what he was trying to do.

Unvote Vas, Vote mith

. I'm just so much more sure of mithscum than anything else in this game (aside from elmo killing amished and my own alignment). Let's get this done quickly. Deadline approaches us. GOGOGOGOGO.

Wait. The part where you say "I'm still not seeing how he as town doing a reread and posting thoughts on everyone could have possibly missed the Kmd claim" ... Why does he have to be scum if this is the case? You could replace the word "town" with "scum" and it still makes just as much sense. How could scum possibly miss that? How could town? The answer doesn't change either way.

Damn, this is gonna be tough to win. DGB and mith are both scum and I'm dying tonight. Who wants to make sure both of them are lynched for me? If Spy is scum too, we are flat out screwed. And he might be. Crap.

[DrippingGoofball]

I agree with KMDarian2.

WE CAN DO THIS

unvote, vote: mith

[Plumegranate]

I agree with KMDarian2.

WE CAN DO THIS

unvote, vote: mith

This is the stupidest thing I've ever seen and scummy to boot.

[DrippingGoofball]

No it's not.

KMD's is absolutely correct. It's like mith took a scummy logical detour in his urge to switch from me to a more viable wagon, like zoraster.

Did you read KMD's #1166??? Thoughts?

[mith]

~bangs head on something~

Kmd, part G of my thought process is a rather simple syllogism. Obviously if you don't agree with a premise (D: playing dumb is possible), you aren't going to agree with the conclusion.

Your football analogy completely misses the point. Let's fix it to make it look more like my actual argument:

Assume the Packers and Vikings are equally likely to win the NFC

North

. You have a sum of money you want to wager, and you see that you get even odds on a "Packers to win NFC North" bet. Is that a fair bet from your point of view?

No, because the Lions and Bears (no matter how much they suck), have some non-negligible chance of winning the NFC North. They might play really well by accident, the Packers and Vikings might all lose their legs... who knows

why

it might happen. The point is that the actual chances of the Packers winning the NFC North are less than 50%. Maybe 48%, maybe 45%... the actual number depends on how much the Lions and Bears suck. So it's (slightly) more likely that the Packers won't win the NFC North.

That was my thought process here. "He's town, scum would know what was going on" = the Packers. "He's scum, he couldn't have missed that on a legit reread" = the Vikings. "He's scum, playing at being dumb either to make us Packers fans or for some unknown reason" = the Lions and Bears.

I don't have any idea how likely it is zoraster-scum would play dumb, and any guess as to why he might do it is just that, a guess. (As I said in my previous post, I don't think it's all that likely after his response to me.) But if you want confirmation that this is how I think, look no further than this very game - my nagging suspicion on VasudeVa (who I otherwise find likely town) had a similar premise (that he might be playing up to the VI label that was being used). It's not a strong point against either of them - but in zoraster's case, it was one small point among many.

"How could scum possibly miss that? How could town? The answer doesn't change either way." - That's the whole point of F, part 1. To spell out the syllogism one more time:

Premise 1: Actual ignorance is a null-tell.
Premise 2: Feigned ignorance is possible, and can only come from scum.
Conclusion: The ignorance on display is a slight scum-tell (add a small possibility of definite scum to what is otherwise a null-tell).

[Premise 1 is actually a bit more complicated than that. On the reread itself, town should be more likely to catch something like that, because they are more invested in the reread/analysis. Scum-zoraster, if he's making that post out of ignorance, might be playing some WIFOM mind games, but otherwise doesn't care about any of his reads. (This is countered by the quicktopic factor - scum-zoraster has more opportunity to catch the Kmd-claim, because he might catch it in the quicktopic rather than in the thread.)]

---

tl;dr: Your case boils down to "I don't think mith believes zoraster-playing-dumb is an actual possibility"; the remainder of my post follows logically from that premise. It is easy to demonstrate that one of the main things I look for in reads is whether the post looks genuine (ISO me in this or pretty much any other game), and thus "he could be feigning ignorance" is one of the things I considered a possibility when looking at his post.

---

I still want answer from zoraster, but I don't buy that DGB agrees with Kmd's post, particularly after 1161 (which now looks like a "wait and see" post). Back to DGB.

UNVOTE: zoraster
VOTE: DrippingGoofball

[mith]

On other quick point, Kmd. Let's imagine I'm scum and want to vote for zoraster (for whatever reason).

zoraster has just made a big post. Said post contains a big gaping hole of ignorance. Said post also contains four other things I want to pick on. Which of the following actions makes more sense, from my perspective:

a. "Gee, I really don't like that post, for these four reasons. Btw, zoraster, you should really try to read the thread next time before you make up reads."
b. Hm... well, ignorance is a null-tell, I can't attack him on that basis. Oh, I know! I'll create this idea of him "playing dumb", which I totally don't believe is possible, but I'll say it is so that I can call his ignorance a point against him. That makes five, that's sure to look convincing!

Your reason for voting me hinges on the belief that I added in a point I don't genuinely believe in

for no reason

. Does that sound like something hypothetical scum-mith would ever do?

[DrippingGoofball]

I've had scumpals not following the game AND the QT... the two often go and in hand. I do agree he's unlikely faking ignorance. Doing it for WIFOM reasons might backfire badly, I don't think that's what's going on here.

I did agree with KMD's post, before he posted it. Evidence above.

Gawd you are so scum it hurts.

[AdumbroDeus]

@Rhinox and SpyreX: As of right now, who do you wanna lynch toDay and why?

This is what you're still waiting on?

VV or Zor.

VV is pretty clear.

Zor, again, could not have reread and missed that. Its flat impossible.

Yes, I would've preferred an answer with more information.


UNVOTE:


Question, does Zor normally have a reputation as an intelligent player?

[DrippingGoofball]

Question, does Zor normally have a reputation as an intelligent player?

Yes. Analytical. Not VI.