Mini 1090: Of Rogues and Curses ~ Game Over

[Zorblag]

Good day everyone. Just in case anyone isn't familiar with me I'll say that I go by Troll as often as Zorblag so that'll be who everyone's talking about when they use the term. Beyond that most everyone here has seen my introductions often enough so I'll largely skip them this game.

VOTE: Exe for being the first player alphabetically by user name not to have posted in the thread since the game started.

@gandalf5166, that's a cute way to go about a random vote I suppose. Have you got any precedent of doing it elsewhere or are you trying it for the first time?

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

UNVOTE: Exe
VOTE: inHimshallibe for being the first player alphabetically by user name not to have posted in the thread since the game started.

@mothrax, I think you're the first person that I've ever seen pick that up. You're doing it wrong though. Exe has posted.

@Mariyta, I'll probably take a look at the game. Like I said it's a cute way to go about getting some reads out of a random vote. It should be most effective the very first time it's used though. It'd also be a bit more of a town tell if he was doing it for the first time I think because I sort of expect that it'd raise his chances of getting lynched early in the game slightly due to attention which I don't think scum would want. Once he's got a record of having done something like that it gets diminished though.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@gandalf5166, OK, I'll bite. Why pick me out of the crowd here if you're not doing it randomly? Have I forgotten a scum game of mine in which I came across as dangerous or some such thing?

@mothrax, VP Baltar's case isn't that I'm hard to read so much as that he thinks that I've been scum in every (completed) game that we've played together. He's forgetting Quick and Dirty mafia where we were town together but that's understandable; it's a pretty forgettable game. He could certainly be scum here but this is the opening that I expect from him (I almost preemptively said the following to him in my first post for just that reason.) I'd call it fairly null.

@VP Baltar, did you know that every game I've been in with Vi they've been scum? They've also won all of them. Clearly they're more dangerous than I am, neh?

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@Uite, because it's not actually a good reason to vote for someone and is instead a tongue and cheek response to how I knew VP Baltar would start the game regarding me. For a fuller answer I'll direct you to the first paragraph of this post in my GTKAS thread. My early game votes are on players who haven't posted yet and hence have done nothing to help the town. It's a particularly weak reason but it's a reason that has some bearing on the game. I do it systematically because I've got to make the choice somehow. Voting someone because they've been scum in the past isn't productive.

If Vi either doesn't post before everyone prior to them alphabetically has or acts in a way that I think is scummy they'll get my vote.

@gandalf5166, how silly of me not to have seen that. Everything's clear now.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

UNVOTE: inHimshallibe
VOTE: tanstalas for being the first player alphabetically by user name not to have posted in the thread since the game started.

@Vi, gandalf5166's move draws attention to himself (slightly anti-scum) and generates discussion (slightly pro-town) both fairly unnecessarily. If he didn't have a history of such things I think it would be a bigger tell just because I think it'd increase his chances of getting lynched with no great trade off (something scum should be less likely to consider) but even without that I think that as far as starts to games go it's slightly more likely to come from town than scum. It's not a huge thing but not all that much at this stage in the game will be.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@Uite, how well do you know Vi's play offhand?

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

Hmm, it seems like Vi is doing a fine job of explaining a fair number of things for me. I joined this game in large part because Vi and VP Baltar were in it (no offense intended to the other players I know here) and because Ythill puts thought into his setups. I'm going to be perfectly willing to have some fun that uses my knowledge of them at the start of the game. If people want to think of that as fluff I suppose I can live with that though I tend to think of it more as simply playing the game.

@tanstalas, it feels like you're pretty close to seeing what I said but not quite there. Earlier in the post where I said voting someone just because they've been scum in the past isn't productive I clarified that my statement to VP Baltar (slightly further clarified here):

@Uite, because [what I said about Vi]'s not actually a good reason to vote for someone and is instead a tongue and cheek response to how I knew VP Baltar would start the game regarding me.

It's a bit surprising to me that two people are not getting that as the intent from the context but now I suppose I've got better expectations for how people will play.

@Uite, great news! I'm now ready to cast what you think are real votes. My votes prior to this have been real and were cast for a reason but as others have said we can talk about that later.

I'm pretty curious as to why you list Vi on your scum list an then put me there because of the associations with Vi. It really looks like it's my play that your not caring for along the way (the voting bit, apparently the impression that I've not done much in the game, the bit where you think I'm saying Vi is a threat and not voting for them.) Sure you found the voting method anti-town rather that scummy but it's not the only thing that you've disliked. It sort of looks like you think that Vi is suspicious because they're aware of how I play and you don't like the expectations maybe? Actually, that sort of looks like the case for VP Baltar as well. Is there something I'm missing? Your failing to see the point of my comment to VP Baltar about Vi was why I asked what you know of their play before (as I said, the literal interpretation given the context was surprising) and your interactions on that front continue to have me a bit confused.

**edit** you answered that while I was getting this post finished; it looks like my take was largely correct but I'll say that it feels like you're assuming that familiarity with my play is scummy which I find odd.

Oh, and VP Baltar's daykill on VI is somewhat clever if you're aware of the players involved. If I've done this

right

wrong you'll see why in just a bit. If not then it's an in joke which you probably won't like my having made.

@nocase, if tantstalas had only failed to interpret my comment it might be suspicious but I think he's made it pretty clear already to me via his play this game that he's prone to missing context. I haven't played with him before but Mariyta's comment on the issue would seem to indicate that's fairly normal (Vi's question to inHimshallibe has a decent chance of indicating the same thing.) Right now I'm more inclined to think he's scum bait than scum.

re: Mariyta, the bit about nocase's initial vote was probably fine to start the game (you've got to do something to start the game and that was something) but at this point she's posted enough that I'd expect her to have other things she'd be trying to sort out. I see a lot more reacting to comments directed at her and explaining things that she already understands. The votes for her are fine at this point.

@xvart, welcome to the game. If you had to guess who do you think Mariyta was talking about? I claim that it should be particularly obvious and that your question feels manufactured.

inHimshallibe's list is pretty reasonable. He can answer the post restriction question for himself of course but I'd be pretty surprised if he wasn't just having fun with the flavor. If he keeps this sort of play up I'll have no interested in lynching him today as he's making good sense.

UNVOTE: tanstalas
VOTE: Mariyta

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

My experience with mothrax (one game in which I was scum and he was town) was that I found him pretty attackable for many of the things that he did. I'm inclined to think that he plays a somewhat scummy game by default. He needs to do a bit more but I'll wait till he's had a chance to deliver the post he promised before judging too much.

@Exe, are you familiar with tanstalas's play? If so do you think that it's par for the course? Have you got any opinions of gandlaf5166 outside a joke reaction to his day cop claim at the start of the game?

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@Uite, I don't think that being my scum buddy or mason buddy would give Vi (or anyone else) any inherent ability to answer the sorts of questions for me that he has. What you're seeing thus far is simply knowledge of how I'm going to play. I suppose that if you think he's defending my play that's a slightly different issue but it makes much more sense as a laying out of expectations in my opinion.

@Vi, mostly the comment that the votes on Mariyta were my thinking that those voting for her were making moves that I was fine with (and believe I understand the reasons for.) Adding my vote to the wagon at the end of my post without saying anything else was my indication that Mariyta's the best spot I see for it just now. A push might come later after I've seen more but I'm not one to push cases most of the time. It's more valuable to see how other people will chose to vote on their own than to have them following my lead.

@Exe, do you think that Mariyta is likely to be misrepresenting tanstalas in any way with her defense of him?

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@Uite, in the end that's going to be your call to make (I don't think that the motive you're attributing would actually be much of a factor at all personally) but I will say that I hope you'll not get too hung up on it. What do you think of Exe's vote for tanstalas? Well reasoned scum hunting or an opportunistic vote on a wagon on a weak player?

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@Uite, I ask about Exe as you seem to have been giving him some thought so I figured you might have an opinion about it. It was also an attempt to provide you a route to a topic of discussion which was different than the ones you seemed to be entrenched in; you seem largely to be fielding things addressed to and about you (my question was at least about something new) and I'd like to see what you do in a broader context.

I'm a bit happier with the Mariyta vote than an Exe vote now because I'm sure that Mariyta's lack of contribution to scum hunting is scummy (though the latest vote is interesting.) With Exe it's a matter of trying to figure out his motives. If he's sincere about his belief that tanstalas is scummy for his actions rather than playing to what I current expect is a playstyle then the vote's just fine; I think he's reading the player wrong but I often think that of other players. On the other hand, if he's going for an easy target and ignoring the likely play expectations it's a scummy move to have piled on the biggest, easy wagon and overstated his feelings about it. There are other possible motivations for what he did but he should probably either be town and trying to scum hunt or not town and going for a mislynch.

@xvart, you're right, it was gandalf5166. He was also the only player that I'd said anything of any not about and I think that it's pretty surprising that you'd not pick up on the context there (there wasn't all that much going on yet.) This game is showing that I shouldn't make as many assumptions for some players along such lines but I still find it an odd thing to wonder about on your part.

Why essentially no comments on how scummy the two main wagonees are? Are both wagons bad ones if you're not considering either as a place to put your vote?

@Mariyta, how strong do you expect cases from tanstalas to be as town?

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@Mariyta, yeah, let me rephrase that. Is making weak cases a scum tell for tanstalas? And in particular is it really the scummiest thing that's happened thus far this game?

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@mothrax, does gandlaf5166 not having done anything make Mariyta's lack of productivity any less scummy? Hypocrisy doesn't really enter into it so long as he's pointing out scummy behavior does it? I'd also say that identifying his scum reads is doing something of note, wouldn't you? Do you think that Mariyta is town at this point?

@VP Baltar, I made my comment about mothrax because I was trying to figure out why inHimshallibe had him placed where he did when I hadn't been particularly bothered by his play. The reason is that I expect a somewhat scummy looking game from mothrax and that seemed worth noting. Even taking that into account I dislike his last post but it hadn't been made at the time.

@Exe, I've got my scum reads (Maryita, you, xvart, and mothrax to some degree after that last post would be the prime examples) and I'm pursuing the leads I think are likely to be useful with my questions. When I think that someone's getting too much or too little pressure I'll do something about it (much like I have with tanstalas thus far; the attacks on him seem to completely fail to take reasonable expectations of his play into account.)

@Uite, I very much considered just ignoring or simply making light of the false dichotomy part of your question as you seem to be particularly primed to complain about the minutia of my posts just now (I apparently shouldn't include any levity in my comments to you; those two options I provided were supposed to be an obvious exaggeration of the possibilities) but I decided to take question seriously and pointed out how there were really two main interpretations of Exe's actions worth considering. Apparently you think that's a dodge somehow which is mind boggling to me. I really don't this as a scum ploy (I think that you're probably really not understanding my intent with these posts and I don't think that scum would find these sorts of details worth quibbling about) but it does seem to be hindering my ability to interact with you in a useful way which is irritating.

I'm blatantly trying to redirect your attention to an aspect of the game that I think will be more productive than where you were looking before. It's one that I think has some chance of paying off in terms of finding scum and I think you're town and want to know what you think of it. If you've got a problem with that then you're just going to have a problem with my play in general (which is apparently the case.) If you think that I'd pull that sort of thing as scum there's nothing I can say that's going to change your mind about it but you seem to be approaching my play from the perspective that I'm scum attempting to deceive to begin with. I've gotten that in the past (prime example would be BridgesAndBaloons in Tofu Mafia and Sawyer in Newbie Game 979) and I simply wasn't able to say anything that would satisfy them. I'll continue to answer your questions but I'm not going to be particularly hopeful that you're going to be satisfied with my responses at this point.

@Vi, was there anything in particular that you wanted to get my comments on at this time? VP Baltar's vote change to xvart is reassuring. You seem to be about as leery of me as I expect you to as town or scum. inHimshallibe has dropped off a bit but I'm still not interested in him today. The claim request and resulting claim both came too early (no one should be claiming until we're ready to lynch.) xvart's vote does feel like he's going along with the popular wagon because he's under pressure rather than because he feels Mariyta is scum. I'm stll not convinced that Exe's vote makes sense on tanstalas. tanstals and gandalf5166 are probably getting attacked for reasons that don't indicate that they're scum. Mariyta still hasn't done anything that's helpful to town and seems to have enough experience to know better than that. Uite is completely missing the forest for the trees but he's probably town. nocase is pushing a case that I don't think is all that convincing but I don't really think he's doing it in a scummy way.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@Vi, thus far the decay is just Uite and I don't mind their move. Beyond that it's hard to judge what sort of motives we might be looking at without seeing how and why the votes move. Do you think the wagon is going to fade away?

@mothrax, has Mariyta done anything that you think is particularly townie? I don't see why gandalf5166 is overly scummy relative to her based on the reasons you gave.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

I haven't forgotten about this game, I've just been dealing with a surprising full and pleasant weekend and then getting ready for and through the last week of classes. I'll take a closer look at what's happened since I was about last tomorrow but for now here are some quick thoughts.

It seems Vi was correct to predict a Mariyta wagon deterioration. Or perhaps complete implosion at this point. What confuses me about it here is that I don't think the people who are leaving it are indicating that they think she's less likely to be scum or that the reasons they had for suspicion have been addressed; we just seemed to get a bunch of talk about flavor and power roles (that was probably much more useful to scum than to town) and most everyone picked up and went various directions.

Of the resulting wagons I don't think the one on gandalf5166 is a good idea; I don't think that he's done anything particularly scummy and other than not liking that it happened at all I'm reasonably satisfied with what he's had to say about his role and PM. Exe and mothrax are decent choices if we don't want to lynch Mariyta at this point but I'm not sure why they're superior.

VP Baltar is probably getting hung up on more trivial things that I expect him to at this point but I'm used to watching him play while I'm scum so that sort of thing probably wouldn't have bothered me at all in almost all the previous games I've been in with him and I might not have been as inclined to noticed it.

@mothrax, you certainly seemed to be more suspicious of gandalf5166 than Mariyta when you cast your vote. Are you saying that you found them equally suspicious at the time? I wonder why you didn't make some mention of the merit of the cases on Mariyta at the time if that was true rather than just saying that there was scum on the wagon (which incidentally I wouldn't really expect would need to be true if she was scum.)

@Mariyta, you've said you're busy and that you'll be back with more analysis but are Exe and xvart currently the only two players you're particularly suspicious of? They seem to be the ones you're concerned with based on who you've been talking about.

@Exe, why was it that you weren't interested in staying on the Mariyta wagon if your vote wasn't a hammer? If the wagon was hammer-worthy then why wasn't it worth showing support for with a vote other than a hammer?

@Those who left the Mariyta wagon, do you think that she's significantly more likely to be town now than when you were voting for her or do you just think that your votes since are on even stronger candidates?

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@VP Baltar, it's interesting that you'd answer the Mariyta question given that you weren't actually on the wagon but I appreciate it. With the knowledge that everyone has access to fake flavor claims on demand I'm a bit leery of that as a reason to think that anyone should be taken as town and I'm surprised that we've gotten the reaction to it that we seem to have.

My take on Mariyta is that until somewhat recently she wasn't doing anything much to find scum. I like her two targets now (Exe and xvart) and I'll be interested in seeing who else she comes up with but too much of her game hasn't felt as though it's trying to figure things out in a pro-town way. A particularly egregious bit was where she tried to get confirmation of nocase as a PR or not (around Post 233 when I think she was at the peak of being likely to be lynched.) There's so much more potential scum motivation to go out like that than town motivation. I'm still struggling to figure out what it is that people think is a town indicator from her play.

Do you have any thoughts about my opinion that you spent too long stuck on thinking about tanstalas or gandalf5166 as serious candidates for scum today?

@Vi, so would saying Mariyta has been too scummy to be scum be a fair interpretation of your feelings about her?

Like I said earlier, I prefer an Exe or mothrax lynch today if we're not lynching Mariyta (and apparently we're not I guess.) I'll take a look at both of them again and see which one strikes my fancy more.

While I do that, does anyone know how prone to bussing Mariyta is when she's scum? Mariyta is welcome to answer this (with examples of games where it has or hasn't happened.)

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@VP Baltar, actually if you could go over the thought process where you decided that Mariyta is town in more detail I'd appreciate that. As I said I'm having trouble understanding the motivations there. I do feel like you were hung up on tanstalas in particular for his failing to get things for longer than made sense. It was pretty clear to me within a couple posts that he was just focusing on the wrong parts of what was being said for his reads; you didn't realize that nearly as quickly as I expect you to and I'm trying to sort through that. I don't think that it took much exposure to come to that conclusion and it wasn't all that much based on what others were saying (though they did reinforce it.)

A slow start isn't ideal but it's not a huge scum tell. What's more of an issue for me with Mariyta's play is that she's largely reacting to what people say for most of the early game (past the questioning of Nocase's reaction to gandalf5166) rather than making an effort. She's got a strong, surprising reaction to xvart's entrance to the game that I don't understand (and which has now changed to a more reasonable reaction I think) but I just don't feel like she cares about finding scum until after she's made her claim. Even then it's a bit reactive (though I'll wait to see what else she has to say after her last replay to me.)

@inHimshallibe, your call for the claim was too early as was the claim itself. We're now looking at two VT claims on players that have a fair chance of not being lynched. All that's doing is helping scum narrow in on any power roles we might have. We shouldn't ask for or give claims until someone is ready to hammer. Right now we're giving up ground to scum in the information game which just lets them make more informed night kills. The best case scenario is that the claims have come from scum and not done any damage, but in that case we should have gone through with the lynch anyhow.

Town shouldn't hammer before a claim. No one should claim before someone's ready to hammer. Claims shouldn't be asked for until the hammer commitment is there. If we follow those policies then there's no excuse for a surprise hammer and we can actually have a process which helps the town information-wise (as opposed to what we're doing thus far this game.)

Re: Exe. I don't like the way he's reacted to tanstalas for many of the same reasons that I'm trying to work out VP Baltar's reactions. In addition the Mariyta "hammer" didn't seem to have that much in the way of a scum read behind it but rather seemed to be coming because a hammer could come there. The immediate unvote once he realizes it wasn't actually a hammer adds to that impression. I see a lot more that I think is an attempt to look like he's scum hunting than actual scum hunting.

Re: mothrax: As I've said, I expect him to look scummy from the game I played with him. Having said that, he's particularly detached here and we don't have much at all in terms of his suspicions. The gandalf5166 vote when Mariyta was the main wagon sticks out in part because there's not much else to look at and in part because, despite what he says it does look like he's trying to center attention somewhere other than Mariyta when she's getting plenty. I'm not inclined to believe that by saying he doesn't dispute gandalf5166's case on Mariyta he's saying he finds it equally valid (which he seems to be trying to claim now.) If Mariyta is town then I lose a lot in the way of motives for mothrax's play but there's still esentially no scum hunting that I like given that I don't buy the gandalf5166 case he's making (I was fine with what gandalf5166 did there.)

If we're not lynching Mariyta today I'd prefer Exe. If we were going with mothrax I'd rather just stick with Marriyta, really.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@Vi, if I wanted to call inHimshallibe's call for a claim scummy I would have. I noted that it was too early and then when he asked about it I explained why. I do think that it's anti-town but I've seen too many towns do it to be interested in pushing some sort of case based on it. I'd love it if people learned the correct way to handle claims but I don't count on it happening. I've tried making statements about that sort of thing at the start of games and they don't seem to make any difference so at this point I'm reduced to simply not being happy when they happen.

At this point I also do want an Mariyta lynch, yes. I think that her behavior is much more likely to be coming from scum than from town, even more so since the flavor talk started and she pushed for the Nocase PR confirmation. I'm not trying to be subtle about that; I'm trying to figure out what it is that you and others think you're seeing that I'm not. Unless you've got a reason to think that it's the sort of play that we should expect from her (and that's where the experience kicks in) I'm not sure why you think there's a point where anti-town is no longer scummy. If there's a point where you came to that conclusion outside of your vote I'd like to see it. There was a huge change in the momentum of the game that happened while I wasn't here and I don't understand how it relates to how scummy Mariyta's play was.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

Well, at this point as we're apparently not going to be lynching Mariyta I can live with an Exe lynch. As I've said, mothrax wouldn't be worth lynching before Mariyta at this point in my opinion as the particularly scummy thing that he did falls apart if she's not scum and just becomes another of the vaguely scummy moves I expect from him and there's more I dislike about her play when taken in context.

gandalf5166 and tanstalas seem like poor lynches right now, xvart might be a third choice and the rest of the game I'm not interested in lynching for various reasons that don't need to be gone into just now.

@Vi, so Mariyta is town because she would have tried harder as town? Is that closer to what you're getting at with her? Does that apply to the bits about whether nocase is a PR as well?

UNVOTE: Mariyta
VOTE: Exe

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

So posting this while taking a break from grading finals (and having less tolerance for mistakes that shouldn't be made than I might normally) is probably going to color my reaction here.

Damn it, we're doing this wrong and we need to stop. Now. We've now got claims for 1/4 of the game on day one which is just stupid unless we're planning on lynching one of them. We do nothing but help scum when we run someone up to claim and then back off. Mariyta's claim should not have come as soon as it did but even when it did I don't think that we had reason to stop the lynch. gandalf5166's claim was entirely unnecessary and we shouldn't have been looking to lynch him anyhow. Now apparently we're back to L-3 on Exe after a claim that, even if true, doesn't have any reason that it has to be coming from town that I can see (neither neighborizors nor trackers are inherently town in alignment.)

If we're going to ask for claims we should be ready to lynch someone pretty much regardless of what the claim is, especially day one. If his play warranted a lynch before the claim then we should be lynching Exe at this point. If it didn't then people shouldn't have been voting for him. This nonsense about the back and forth from Mariyta and mothrax when he thought he had a hammer isn't a reasonable story. If he was ready to hammer Mariyta then he'd have no reason not to leave his vote there after the attempt; if she's scummy enough for the lynch and there's support for it then mothrax could wait. Outside of his willingness to hammer Mariyta (which there really wasn't enough reason to see coming) he's been pushing cases based on poor play that seems much more representative of the players than their roles. He's absolutely a fine day one lynch.

I people no longer want to lynch yet another player that we've now run up to claim I'm going to want better reasons for backing off this time. As it is, this is simply a dreadful way to play the game if we want to maximize our chances of getting use out of any town power roles we've got.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@gandalf5166, if no one needed to say that then we would have lynched Mariyta. Further, we wouldn't be at L-3 on Exe after just having asked him to claim. Clearly we're doing this wrong and it does need to be pointed out.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

So at this point my preference is definitely the Exe lynch. His protestations have yet to convince me that the vote shuffle around what he thought was a hammer is reasonable and I still get the impression that instead of scum hunting he spent the early part of the day going after relatively easy mislynch targets. Vi is right that I'm not overly impressed by my own ability to find scum (especially in the early game) but I'm as happy with Exe's chances of being scum based on behavior as I'm likely to get day one.

I've been thinking about his claim and I've decided that not only is it not a reason to avoid lynching, I think it's actually less likely than average to come from town. I'd be pretty shocked if he were just fabricating it; it's way too verifiable and complicated. He's probably got that role or something close to it. There's some chance that there was a delay for flavor from Ythill but I'm not overly concerned about the possibility. The big thing that troubles me about the role is that it doesn't help with scum hunting so much as it does gender hunting. Unless we think that gender is indicative of alignment (and I don't really want to talk about gender but I will say that I find that pretty unlikely that we could narrow in on scum based on gender) his moves at night from that role aren't driven primarily by who he thinks is scummy or might have a power role he could track eventually but rather by who he thinks is male. It's setup speculation but that's just throwing an unnecessary twist in a town role before it can be usable. Third party who needs to find males or scum who already know something about alignments seem more likely to get a role of that sort offhand. Without knowing the rest of the setup I don't know fully how reasonable that concern is but I don't feel that we should treat the claim as though it's inherently likely to be coming from town.

I don't think that we should be lynching Exe because of the claim; I think that we should be lynching him for his actions prior to the claim and that the claim shouldn't be stopping us.

@Vi, unless we think that further wagons are more likely to be on scum than previous ones there is benefit in lynching the earliest one that people think is actually scummy. I'm not convinced that day one wagons get that much more accurate as the day goes on.

@xvart, out of curiosity, are you saying that I'm a lurker, that I'm posting fluff or that I haven't said anything you can see a scum motive for?

@tanstalas, I don't think that mothrax is a great lynch now myself, but if you intentionally avoid lynching people who aren't contributing then you're giving scum lurking as a tool to get away with never seeming scummy and not getting punished for it. mothrax should be contributing more and that is something scummy beyond just the overall nature of his posts (which, as I've said, came across as particularly attackable even though he was town the one game I was scum and playing with him.) The main action that I dislike from him though was the vote around the Mariyta wagon and then the presentation that he thought she was as scummy. Unless Mariyta is scum that's not that huge an issue for me though; it'd probably be another example of him doing things as he does them in a way that comes across as scummy rather than an alignment tell.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@nocase, if Exe and I are in the same corner with inHimshallibe (which I assume is the corner you put people in that you don't trust) why not vote for Exe who's got a wagon that might end up in a lynch here? If you want to suspect inHimshallibe that's up to you but I have my doubts about how useful the vote on him is right now. I do want people to make their own decisions about who is scummy, but if one of your top candidates is a lynch that could happen when we're on in the day I'm not at all sure why you'd stay off them.

@Vi, did mothrax's post live up to your expectations? I sort of hope that you didn't have them set too high.

@Ythill, I'll be V/LA from tomorrow till the deadline while I visit Portland. I'm hoping that I can talk my host out of some computer time periodically to stay caught up; perhaps you could put a good word in for me? *grins*

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@Vi, you mean the bits where he says that my irritation at too many claims sounds like town frustration (complete with build up that he had a town read on me for a reason) and then almost immediately finds it troubling that I'm on both of the wagons where there was a claim and am complaining about it? I don't think there's anything there that I need to explain to others particularly, and I'm not overly convinced that he'd have good motives for that sequence of thoughts as scum (as opposed to just a player using unimpressive reasoning regardless of alignment) so no, I don't really see a huge need to respond. At this point Exe is still a better lynch.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@Vi, upon thinking about it, the big thing I didn't like about mothrax's play (outside of what I expect from the play itself) was the interaction with the Mariyta wagon. If Mariyta isn't scum then mothrax is a player making a bad move there, but one that doesn't have particularly good scum motive. If Mariyta is scum then I think that mothrax makes a great candidate for a partner. In any case he's a player who I think I should be able to approach using game state and connections later. If we're not lynching Mariyta today after her claim then I'm not interested in lynching a player who hasn't claimed yet who is scummiest in connection to her.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

First off, nocase is almost confirmed town at this point. He's going to potentially look suspicious in a bit if we don't keep flavor in context but once the action with the flavor goes down I'll be willing to vouch for his clan without question. I'm not the least bit interested in going into details yet but I'm not vanilla and I used an ability that would lead to exactly this sort of behavior (other than voting me) and it only would have worked on a member of the Ungrika clan. If it weren't for the flavor I think we'll be getting in a bit I probably wouldn't do this pre-emptively but this reveal had to be made today so you get it now.

Beyond that, as I'm claiming not vanilla I can now come out and say that while I don't know if the VT PMs say explicitly that one can request a fake claim from the mod, gandalf5166's play still strikes me as town. I'm not convinced that it would have been a move he'd make as scum to make the last minute Exe post; it draws attention to him where it's not needed and doesn't really help him if he's scum due to the obvious WIFOM. gandlaf5166 does some unnecessary things but I don't particularly think that he's trying to be tricky here.

Vi, if scum, probably would kill VP Baltar during the night (as I wasn't an immediate threat I don't think) but I'm not really troubled by the reactions to Exe. If Vi had wanted to save Exe I think there would have been more that could have been done; as it was I hated the drop of the vote right at claim but this doesn't feel quite like the scum play that I got from Vi in Tofu Mafia.

inHimshallibe is a better candidate for scum and I'm not sure how to react to the claim offer. If there's information he has to share that he thinks will be of use to the town then clearly I want him to share it (and this is exactly why I'm talking about my role and nocase.) If he's just interested in preventing his lynch (which seems to be the case) then he shouldn't be claiming yet and I don't like the way that he's offering it. I need to take into account that not everyone agrees with my claim theories but it's bothersome. To a large extent I expect town PRs to want to stay under the radar until they've got useful information but I expect scum with a claim they think will quasi-clear them to want to get it out there sooner rather than later.

Uite is still probably sincere town who I continue to think is focused on the minutia rather than the game. I don't see the benefit for scum for spending the time making the attacks he did day one to end up in the state that we're in now.

I need to take another look at Maryita and xvart in particular. Going into the day they're the players that I had an eye (Maryita) or half an eye (xvart) on based on day one. I'm not thrilled with the xvart opening on Vi which feels more agressive than his day one play. Maryita still hasn't done anything to shake the not contributing to the town feeling for me but perhaps a look at the interactions with Exe will be informative.

If mothrax is scum then he's still probably a partner with Maryita. I'll add gandalf5166 as a connection that I'm trying to work out as well. He's still not worth focus on his own though.

tanstalas's push on gandlaf5166 doesn't feel like something that would come from scum on town. It's too obviously PR hunting which scum get accused of but which I don't think is actually a viable tactic if done explicitly. Unless I'm wrong and gandlaf5166 is scum or tanstalas is more brash than I expect that should be a pretty good town tell.

My suspects are at this time, in rough order, inHimshallibe, xvart, Maryita and mothrax.

VOTE: inHimshallibe

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

I'm back from more days than I expected out and about.

Now that the kill has happened I can, as I said, confirm that nocase is Ungrika which should be as good as town. I'm a brewer. In addition to the flavor only beer I've got two recipes that I can brew which will only work on members of the Ungrika. The first was that lycanthropy one which clear gave a (mandatory) day vig. The second removes a curse. That might mean that if Vi (who almost has to be telling the truth given the knowledge of how nocase would go) happens to know that they'll be dying from a curse tonight I'd be able to stop the kill but I sort of expected curses to be coming from a fortuneteller type role so I'm less sure what to expect of them now.

I need to catch up on some sleep at this point but I probably still only want people to claim if they've got information right now that they think helps the town. I can pretty easily imagine roles which would do us more good if they kept quite still being about. Given that scum apparently need to decide kills in advance the longer we hold off on revealing roles the better shape we're in (moreso than in most games I think.)

With Mariyta dead and town I'd put (modest amounts of) money on mothrax being town and playing poorly. Beyond that I'll figure out what I think of what's happened and share it tomorrow morning.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

This is simply a prod response. The break has continued to be busy and I've not had a chance to look at MS at all since my last post in this thread. I'll get some actual content in before I head out for the evening tomorrow and once the quarter starts on Monday I'll actually be in a much more settled schedule.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

OK, I'm done with break. Let me take care of the game that I'm modding right quick and I'll be back to look more closely at those two claims from mothrax and xvart. Offhand I don't love either one.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

Right, first a couple answers.

As nocase has since clarified the werewolf thing should be done with once he's made his kill. It should just be a one shot vig enabler that only works on members of the Ungrika clan. I don't think that it counts as a curse though though I suppose I'll check to see if the mod would like to correct a misconception. There's really nothing in my role that talks about an alignment change being brought on by the lycanthropy.

For those who asked, I picked nocase because I had a marginal town read on him but didn't have enough in the way of expectations of his play to be sure so he made a pretty good candidate for the ability from the cop-side (given that it's more advantageous if I could hit town with it.) I also hoped that if he was Ungrika he'd make a kill that I'd like and I didn't think he had a great chance of drawing a night kill (that seemed much more likely to come to Vi, VP Baltar or I offhand with a couple other outside chances.) It turns out that he did make a kill that I was happy enough with right up until Mariyta flipped town so, on the whole it went as well as a vig shot from me would have (as I probably would have taken that shot last night if it had been an option) so we're no worse off than if the decision had just been mine to make.

@Vi, I agree that the kill last night didn't look like a curse offhand, but flavor-wise it also didn't look like something that would have had to have been arranged in advance. I'm not entirely sure what curses would look like. How certain are you that you're going to die rather than just being targeted? If there's a chance that I can stop this kill I suspect it's worth trying.

Actually, if you're sure that the kill will go through that's probably a reason to think that mothrax's claim makes more sense from town if we're just looking at the mechanic. If town has a protective role that's going to be balanced against a delayed killing role in a way that would use your ability to know who's going to die a delayed roleblock would do the job nicely (and my remove curse ability must be for something else.) That's especially true when paired with the fact that you knew that the nocase kill was going to happen but not who was going to be killed (which you couldn't have gotten mod information.) Had the roleblock actually worked you probably simply wouldn't have gotten any premonition or whatever about the other kill.

Scum probably wouldn't have a reason to bother blocking a claimed VT which is now what we're looking at. On the other hand, unless Vi is scum there would be a pretty good scum motivation for the originally stated N2 block. If I thought there were scum day talk then I'd be inclined to think that a partner might have pointed that out but we've got a pretty clear indication in rule 6 in the general rules that scum don't have day talk. As such, if mothrax is scum trying to take advantage of it he's doing so in a way that's far more clever than I expect him to be on his own. I just don't see what mothrax in particular as scum would be looking at in terms of motivation for making that change; I think it largely increases his chances of being lynched without any gain that I think he'd see. I'd still be surprised if mothrax was scum.

On the other hand, xvart's claim doesn't fit nearly as well with Vi's claim. if xvart has an ability that lets him do some commuting (and it looks like that's what he's claiming rather than hiding) but which he can't do every night there would be much more trouble having Vi get accurate results about who's going to be dying the next night. If the commute is optional on a given night that xvart was due to die I don't see an elegant way to give results. Assuming that I'm willing to believe that Vi is town (and calling one's own death the following night does a lot to move me towards being convinced) I think that xvart is probably lying.

There are probably similar issues with scum motivation for stealing from a claimed vanilla as there are with roleblocking them but in this case, we've just got the claim going and it's not changing anything. I think that xvart is much more capable of coming up with that sort of reasoning on his own that mothrax would be.

I'd like Vi to verify now whether he knows he's going to die or that he's just going to be targeted. If the answer is that he's going to die (which I think it is) then I'll be voting for xvart.

UNVOTE: inHimshallibe

Also, inHimshallibe should not use his ability today. He should instead use it tomorrow. Assuming that Vi is the night kill we know that inHimshallibe should survive the night. That'll give us access to more confirmed town voices later in the game than we'd get now. That should be better for us in the long run. So long as we can verify that the voices are actually coming from town (and I think that I know Vi and VP Baltar well enough for them to come up with some references to put in that should be easy enough for me to verify that it's them talking) we don't even need to be sure about inHimshallibe's alignment to gain from that ability.

And almost all of what I've said this post goes straight out the window if Vi is lying and doesn't die tonight. I don't think that it's a gambit Vi would go with as scum based on my experience playing scum with them but if I'm wrong and this all turns out to be unnecessary clever planning then I've been played nicely and give my congratulations in advance. Similarly, (but in something I can deal with earlier) if all Vi knows is that they're the night target then we're in some sort of middle ground and I'll need to re-evaluate.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@Vi, interesting. That does nicely explain your reluctance to have protective roles stay hidden which was a bit surprising and the bit about how you're an auto lynch in a 3 player LyLo (or whatever it was you said; I should look it up but now I've got context that makes it unnecessary.) I think I'm happier knowing this now than I would be tomorrow as you being alive was going to look somewhat bad if it was unexpected and now I do know not to use the remove curse type beer. As it stands I'm comfortable still assuming you're probably telling the truth and working with that assumption for now.

To clarify though, did you learn that VP Baltar was definitely going to die or that he was being targeted after N0? It sounds like you're predicting deaths in particular with your ability but the mechanics are confusing enough that I'd like to have them as clear as possible at this point.

In other news related to the beer I've gotten the information that I don't know if the lycanthropy counts as a curse or not so I tentatively think my best plan for now is the following:

Don't use it tonight as it's not clear yet what it's for. If nocase does go wolf on us again tomorrow we use his kill in a more structured way as xvart suggested and then I probably need to use the potion on him either that night or maybe (if we think that the numbers would allow it and I'm not scheduled to die via Vi's prediction) the next night. That second option probably only works safely if we hit scum today or tomorrow and regardless of that, if I'm scheduled to die then I need to use the remove curse on nocase right away to be (relatively) sure it gets in. If nocase doesn't go wolf then I'll try the remove curse on whoever's scheduled for the kill (barring some further information that would make some other option more reasonable.)

@nocase, in the first of those cases I guess the assumption is that you've potentially undergone an alignment change (most likely to SK) without my knowing of that part of the effect but that the remove curse would fix that. If you really have been changed to an SK then this should give you a chance to regain your town win condition when you want to so the ideal way to act for you would be as a town day vig.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@nocase, I only want a more detailed claim than that if you think that it's beneficial to the town to know more than you've already said keeping in mind that we've got pretty good reasons to think that you'll be able to share the information tomorrow. You should be town anyhow so it's fine with me if you act independently in a way that coordinates with the other actions you know about. If we should change our actions based on anything you know then speak up.

@Vi, thanks for the clarification. That's what I was waiting for before

VOTE: xvart

This should be L-1

. No one gets to accidentally hammer.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

Er, hold on, perhaps I'm wrong and in fact I get to hammer xvart accidentally (though not regretfully.) It looks like we've got tanstalas, inHimshallibe, mothrax, Vi and Zorblag. If anyone has anything that needs to get said during twilight it might be good to say it (though if day one was an indication we might have a bit more time than in most games.)

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

My guess is that the hypnotist bit in that last one is just flavor (much like my shotgun from the end of the day yesterday; it'd be nice to have a shotgun but sadly I do not.)

@mothrax, I need to think about it and make sure that I don't just want a claim from you now but at this point I don't want to know who you blocked for the coming night unless it was Uite. If it was Uite then you should speak up right now. Hopefully I didn't even have to say that but just in case there it is.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@inHimshallibe, if you choose to let someone control your votes for a day do they get to communicate with other dead town or does that only happen if you channel someone for a message? Regardless of the answer to this question you want to use your ability tomorrow at the earliest given Vi's information from last night.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@nocase, and you really weren't voting for xvart after his claim? It's a good thing I'm essentially sure you're town.

On the plus side that seems as though that should probably give us a town inHimshallibe. Now we need to see if mothrax blocked Uite (and even if he did we need to get a claim from Uite to compare to what nocase has to work with.) Vi is off limits as a lynch as once again we've got a claim that that's where the night kill will go. If it's not then I don't want to hear about it this time; I've been given the information I need to make a decision and we can sort through any death other than Vi's tomorrow should it be an issue.

We can sort through what that leaves when we've got the information we're missing but it feels like a good spot just now.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@nocase, well there's that and the extra hider/commuter ability that xvart was claiming, but so be it. He got lynched yesterday without you so the result was what we needed regardless.

Now we wait for mothrax and Uite I think.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@mothrax, assuming that you're town that was the right roleblock to go for. As Vi is arguing you've probably cleared our biggest suspect going into today. Well, Vi is actually arguing that we might have 4 scum but I don't think I buy that as likely so I'm going with the clearing option.

At this point either mothrax is scum with Uite (I don't buy that; 4 scum in a mini us just hard to believe), Uite has to be town or Uite has the ability to bypass a roleblock. If Uite was scum without a roleblock avoidance of some sort (and assuming that there are just 3 scum) Vi wouldn't be dying tonight. Given that I still think we should be believing Vi we should at this time be going with Uite as town in reasonable scenarios.

As far as I'm concerned, we've also ruled out nocase, inHimshallibe and Vi for now. Given that I know that I'm town that leaves tanstalas and Seraphim as the most likely scum suspects. I don't think that mothrax would have any reason to clear a townie like he's clearing Uite now so I highly doubt that he'd be our only remaining scum.

*edit* and there were posts while I was typing this up. The minstrel claim is interesting. I'll think about that a bit. I don't think that it changes anything offhand given that Uite really shouldn't be the only remaining scum.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@tanstalas, just to confirm, do you understand the arguments for Uite being town at this point?

@Seraphim, I'm actually curious to hear what you have to say about mothrax at this time. Why isn't he a possible lynch?

@mothrax, what did you think the consequences of role blocking Uite were likely to be? As I said, it was a good choice but I'm wondering what you expected to gain from it when you were submitting it?

@Vi, we're actually a lot better off if we get the lynch right today. Regardless of the number of scum it's a good thing. If we're going to be at all unclear about it then a mislynch today means that we have to worry about LyLo (well, MyLo anyhow) starting tomorrow and that increases the chances of either a mistake or something surprising us. It's more than just the perfect victory on the line, there's also some strategic consideration.

@Uite, if inHimshallibe ever fails to be able to demonstrate his claimed ability we'll be able to lynch him then. It'd be pretty shocking if that was the case but unless we think that extra insight is particularly helpful now (and I don't particuarly think that to be the case) it's better to hold onto it at this point. Also, when did you learn that you had the same role as VP Baltar? Upon his death?

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@tanstalas, well, the pitch pipe certainly makes me inclined to believe the minstrel part of Uite's claim but it isn't what I think makes him likely to be town. Are you aware of any other reasons at this point?

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@mothrax, how many scum were you thinking there probably were at the start of the day today?

@Seraphim, this is voting for mothrax for the same reason that you were voting him earlier or do you have more to share on why you think that he's scummy? Once again, what was your reasoning for him not being the lynch earlier?

@everyone else, help me out with how easy some reasoning is if you will. If mothrax was using his night action to try to block scum for tonight how obvious is it that Vi saying that he was going to die means that mothrax didn't block scum trying to make a kill (assuming mothrax believes Vi)? If mothrax was thinking there were three scum apparently even I'm having trouble thinking that he would follow Vi's vote to start the day like he did. I expect him to look scummy with his play but I'm having trouble with that move as in theory it's the whole point of his night action. Is it not as clear as I think that it is? Upon further consideration I'm less inclined to give the credit for clearing Uite that I had been given that he failed to see mention it.

Past that Seraphim's vote there looks pretty hollow. I'm not sure how he's getting to the stances that he's getting at right now and it feels like the other lynch besides himself is losing momentum so the mothrax vote (without more motivation) is grasping at not getting lynched himself.

I'll let them reply to this and I want to take a look at both of them (as well as gandalf5166) again (with an eye on mothrax to see if I've been too generous) but one of them will probably get my vote tomorrow.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@mothrax, that's a fast answer and an interesting way to have been thinking about it. It looks like you were expecting to potentially block a kill two nights after you submitted the block which doesn't strike me as what I'd expect at all. I'll sleep on it I think.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@Vi, given that mothrax was trying to stop a kill with his roleblock I think that mindlessly sheeping you after seeing the result would actually be less likely as town just because he would have thought the consequences through. The fact that he's claiming that he was expecting to block the next kill accounts for that though it's irritating as I don't think it's a particularly likely assumption for him to have made. On the other hand I'm also pretty shocked that tanstalas apparently didn't think that a roleblocker would block kills. It's a matter of sorting out which are legitimate misunderstandings of mechanics that I think are clear and which are attempts to cover up scummy play.

@nocase, I've got three theories about the curses which I'll probably share tomorrow after I have a chance to see something. I don't think that it works as a straight up recruitment though. If it did then I shouldn't be able to cure it or the recruit would have had some extra information. It might be a delayed recruitment type thing I suppose (in which I'd have a window of a night or maybe two to cure it before it kicked in.) If that was the case then I assume that I'd have some other way of knowing that it would be a good time to use my beer. As it is, since it's a one shot ability I'm guessing that I'm not supposed to just be guessing blindly about how it's used and that it'll be clearer. Out of curiosity, why do you assume that curses recruit?

I also don't think that pitch pipe == town for Uite; the double minstrel role is off as everyone else seems to have had unique roles (which is why I want to know when Uite learned that his role was a duplicate.) It's the roleblock and the assumed 3 member scum team that make that give us a prob-town Uite as far as I'm concerned.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

Yeah, I'm going to stick with my mothrax looks scummy even when he's town take on things. There's stuff there I don't like but I largely expect that and there's at least as much I don't like from Seraphim (e.g. the lack of anything at all of substance.) I could live with a mothrax lynch at this point but I think Seraphim is the better choice.

VOTE: Seraphim

That should be L-1.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

Right. That's not a hugely unexpected hammer but it's not overly reassuring either. Hopefully this game is now over but, if it's not and assuming that Vi does turn up dead tomorrow as foretold by Vi we might as well be prepared.

@Vi, if we're not done and Seraphim flips town do you want us to do anything other than the things that I'd normally do in this situation (get X's info, use Y and then decide whether or not to Z based on what we learn)? I think you know me well enough to not have to spell those out any more. The other option would be to put some odds on scum actions and <redacted> and to have some chance to hold off on Y but I don't know that it's worth it at all given the potential returns vs the risk. If Seraphim flips scum and the game's not over then pretty clearly we skip Z for tomorrow I think but we can talk about it then.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

OK, we have all the claims from night actions that we expect. I didn't use my remove curse beer last night so I've still got that, but it is now time to share my thoughts on what the curse might do.

The three ideas that I had in mind yesterday are as follows:

• Exe's role was able to curse somehow and we killed him before it became an issue; my remove curse is no longer important to the game.
  
• Vi had a curse that they weren't sharing information about with us. This became much less likely as Vi said more for the rest of the day.
  
• The remaining scum individually or as a group have some curse ability that didn't get claimed that I can still counter.

Based on character names and flavor it seems most likely to me that Exe, Vi or inHimshallibe would be the one able to give curses. I expect that Vi didn't have that ability but I want them to comment on these ideas when they post so we'll get that then. I can't imagine that inHimshallibe would have chosen to keep a curse to himself up till now if he's town so that's only an avenue to pursue if we think there's a chance of some sort of Godfather to the thief something going on (which doesn't seem likely to me.) Exe having access to a curse is possible; there's no reason to think that he revealed his entire role and I don't know what else Temptress might entail offhand.

There's also some (fairly small) chance that my remove curse potion will stop a kill (which would fall into the third category.) I strongly suspect that nocase should be the next kill as he's pretty much the most obv town of the remaining players based on my investigation (I know that he's a member of the Ungrika clan) an as such I my plan is to try and use it on him tonight just in case it can stop a kill.

@Vi, at this point we should have a no kill that we can use at some point if we aren't sure about lynches. If there are four scum then this is MyLo this is the best time to use it. If there are three scum then we're safe taking our best shot today (and hopefully winning and making all of this discussion moot.) I'd like to hear your opinion about whether it's worth being paranoid and using that today or going ahead with the lynch. After the end of the day yesterday I'm inclined to say that there really shouldn't be four scum and that mothrax is a good enough lynch for today that we should just go ahead and take the lynch (especially because, as a fallback, if there are four scum he's almost certainly one of them) but I'd like to hear your opinion as well as the opinions of the other dead.

If there's a better lynch then make that case and if you think no lynch is the better option please let us know. If we're missing anything key please fill us in. In particular if you've got any last insights about my remove curse ability I'd like to hear them; right now it's too inert. Do you think that I should hold off on my remove curse ability rather than using it on nocase tongiht?

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

Good day inHimshallibe. That's a fascinating role you apparently have; I'm not quite sure how likely it makes you to be scum but only because you've come out with it when I don't think you were in any real danger. I'm guessing that this new vig bit is the curse that I've got the ability to remove in part because it's coming from the Crone (one of the roles that makes sense to be involved with cursing) and in part because it fits so much better than anything else has up till now. That being said, if that's the case then so long as it's done publicly and in an intelligent way not only do I not have a reason to try to block it but it can also be timed so that I wouldn't have a chance to anyhow.

I vaguely question why inHimshallibe didn't do something to breadcrumb it a bit in order to try to draw a night kill (which would have made good use of the PGO aspect) but perhaps he did and I didn't see it. It does give inHimshallibe a much stronger role than I'd expect town to have (in addition to Vi's role and given what we know of the scum roles) but on the other hand there's really no reason that I can think of for him to have come out with that information now if he was scum.

I need to sort through what this does in terms of our options but it's got a good chance of giving us a certain path to victory even without the assumption that inHimshallibe is town that he's making in the plan that he's outlining. mothrax's roleblock not working if he's killed is inconvenient but I think we've now got enough leeway to work around it. I have to look at the flavor on the Vi kill and see how likely I think the death was to be role mechanic from his role as opposed to a night kill (though one way to get that would be to see what a kill looks like tonight if we've got one.)

Let me sleep on it and see what I come up with in terms of plans for using our tools tomorrow.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

I'm going over scenarios in my head and with the new restriction on information from mothrax that we need to keep him alive till tomorrow to test his block of tanstalas I'm not seeing a completely safe way to do it. At this point I think that nocase has the right approach and that we should focus first on the claimed power roles because there's just no way that all of the claims are coming from town. I know we've already got two particularly powerful roles in the game (Vi and inHimshallibe) so if both mothrax and inHimshallibe are town at this point the remaining scum role would have to be absurd (and there would probably have to have been more to Exe's role than we know about.)

I think that our best bet at this point is to start taking out power claimed power roles until we hit scum. There are really only three ways that it makes sense to do that given the options that we've got:

Option 1: Daykill me and then lynch inHimshallibe when I flip town.

Option 2: Daykill mothrax, have him flip town and then lynch either inHimshallibe or myself.

Option 2a: Daykill mothrax, have him flip scum and then (assuming the game isn't over with a win) re-evaluate based on that information.

Option 3: Use no kills or lynches today at all. This gives us a chance to see if the kill goes through tonight. If it doesn't then either tanstals is scum or scum are pulling a fast one with a no kill. If it does go through and inHimshallibe is town then there's some chance that inHimshallibe would be the target and that would take a scum out for us (though we'd have to wait 7 days in that case to learn it.)

Given that the Uite read (and tomorrow the tanstalas read) is somewhat tied into the mothrax flip if we're going to kill twice today and mothrax is one of the one's we'd kill he makes sense to kill first. If we're not killing mothrax today but do want to kill then, as I said, we should focus on the power roles. Given that I assume inHimshallibe isn't interested killing himself (whether he's able to or not) I would have to be the first to get killed in that case.

A lot of the right move boils down to how likely we think various people are to be scum.


I know that I'm town and it really feels that assuming I'm right and that his day kill/PGO is a curse either inHimshallibe needs to be scum or our roles have been put there to interfere with eachother/draw some mutual suspicion if they stay in the game long enough. If inHimshallibe is scum then the Ungrika Seal has to be some sort of godfather thing to the thief rolecop and I'm trying to decide how likely that is. Pitch Pipe and needles fit a mistral and tatoo artist well; I don't know what would fit the crone offhand. inHimshallibe being scum would also match the stated strength of his belief that Uite might not have been blocked last night and the Vi kill was just part of the Vi's role. If he's scum inHimshallibe needs to have enough possible mislynches to get through the rest of the game.

Having said that a strong argument against inHimshallibe being scum is that he really doesn't have any need to reveal his day kill at this point in the game that I can think of if he's scum. Unless he was pretty sure he'd have to use it later and he needed to get us used to the thought that it'd be coming I don't think he's any better off putting it on the table. I also largely think that if he's scum he could have gotten through the rest of the game without the extra kill given the number of suspects (though perhaps that requires that we buy the Uite thing or that he's able to get my lynched instead of himself at some point.) Still, with Vi's recommendations he had a blueprint for a scum win pre reveal.

@inHimshallibe, why did you wait until after letting Vi talk today to bring up your kill. That might be what's bothering me most about the ability now. That's exactly the sort of extra information that it would have been useful for Vi and the other dead townies to have when giving advice for what to do with the rest of the game. Clearly you were planning on revealing it today anyhow as you did so before we got to the lynch; why not speak up about it earlier? Again, I think that it might have been handy to use as bait for drawing a kill if you left out the PGO part but that's something we can talk about post game when we see what's actually what.

The other player that I need to consider for now is mothrax. As of the end of yesterday I thought that he was a decent lynch and the way the hammer went down felt pretty awful. I sort of think that if he's scum there's a pretty good chance that we'll see a no kill tonight in the hopes of implicating tanstalas (just because that's what I think I'd do in his situation without knowledge of an addition day kill for town) but this latest plan of his where we lynch tanstalas today undercuts that possibility to some degree. The offer to let himself get killed for flips does look as though it's coming from town but now we've got him saying he's got mod confirmation that it won't work the way we need it to which undermines that to some degree.

@mothrax, how certain are you that inHimshallibe is town at this point? Your latest plan seems to rely on that fact. What would you think of inHimshallibe if I were killed and came up town? How much of a chance do you think Uite has to be town right now?

Of the two I think that mothrax is more likely to be scum based on overall play and the plausibility factor of inHimshallibe being a godfather on top of everything else. I'd like to hear their answers to those questions but right now of the options I'm putting out there I prefer option 2 (and think we'll get 2a or simply end the game with a mothrax lynch.) Option 1 doesn't lynch mothrax today no matter what (though it wins the game if inHimshallibe is our only scum) and Option 3 seems to leave too much in terms of decision making to the scum (and has a chance of wasting the day kill.)

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

Yeah, we're about to hit a timing issue. Deadline for the day is just over 8 days away so if we want to use that day vig we want to use it as soon as possible now so that there's as much time as possible to react after it goes through. I didn't get answers to my questions in the last post but at this point (especially after his last post) I'm more comfortable with a mothrax kill than anything else as long as it happens by tomorrow morning at the latest.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

Right, that's pretty much got to be the curse that my beer would stop. If mothrax flips town here I have a lot of trouble seeing it in the hands of town; on the other hand, if mothrax flips scum that'd be far too powerful for the scum team (well, unless mothrax flips goon I suppose. Then scum would be a four player team with a neighborizor +, a stoppable extra kill from a godfather and a delayed kill which might be balanced.)

@inHimshallibe, why didn't you mention your kill before Vi posted his message? Do you have the ability to remove your curse (I assume not but it'd make me feel a bit better about you if you did.)

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@inHimshallibe, that's pleasantly surprising. It makes my remove curse a bit more likely to be a backup if you weren't about to remove one you wanted to yourself.

Hadn't you already committed to your ability (speaking to the dead/letting the dead vote/giving someone a double vote) when you enabled Vi's post? I don't see why you wouldn't have mentioned the kill in that case (or were you just talking about the ability to remove and reapply your curse?)

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

At this point I think that our correct move is to wait to see what the mothrax flip is. If he's town then I really think that inHimshallibe should be our last scum just based on the power of the town. I don't expect the rest of you to believe me over inHimshallibe though. For the rest of you, because we should be counting on having two more lynches a town mothrax means that we need to be ready to use those on inHimshallibe and I and we can't afford to use one on Uite. On the other hand, if mothrax is scum and the game doesn't end then inHimshallibe and I both being town is much more plausible and the Uite (or possibly tanstalas) lynch makes more sense for today.

Based on the resources we have I think we're best served waiting for that information.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@nocase, no you're not the only one thinking that at all. The only way I can see inHimshallibe being town is if mothrax is scum (and then there's a decent chance that we've got Uite or tanstalas as a fourth scum in that case.)

@inHimshallibe, at this point I'm pretty sure that mothrax's alignment is more important to our decision than the confirmation of tanstalas we might get (especially as we'd need to have a dead mothrax anyhow to use it.) If mothrax flips scum and the game doesn't end then our abilities make some sense together on a town team and we should be lynching Uite or tanstalas. If motrhax flips town then you're almost certainly scum and should be lynched. If the town wants to lynch me first in that situation I can live with it as long as you go tomorrow. I just don't see a way that one of the current claimed power roles isn't scum and I know that I'm not. A flip from mothrax gives us much better information about how to use the next kill.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@inHimshallibe, yeah, mothrax confirms tanstalas as town if there's a nightkill and then we kill mothrax (and he flips town) and if we know that there's only only one scum left. I'm simply less interested in that confirmation than I am in making a lynch today based on the information we get from a mothrax kill. If mothrax does flip scum then a scum team including mothrax, Exe's role and you is probably too strong so Uite and tanstalas are our targets (and we've got two lynches.) If mothrax flips town then you should be scum but I don't care too much if town lynches me to get to you tomorrow. I think that letting the mothrax lynch go through is our winning strategy here; killing before that lynch leaves potential holes open.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@inHimshallibe, we're going to have all of Monday to make a decision which should be fairly easy. I'd like more time to make it in but at this point it's too late for that and it's not as though it's not enough. I'd be fine with us talking about what lynch we'd like to make for the flips in the meantime but your push for a lynch before we've got the information that we're going to have later today which allows us to make the right one feels pretty bad. Is there any reason other than the timing that you're opposed to waiting for the mothrax flip at this point so that we can make the lynch which fits our situation?

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

So at this point those who think that I'm scum (though I'm not sure how many actually think that and how many are going along with a process of elimination too soon) think that I'd go with the following actions as scum:

Day One: Make a fuss when we decided not to lynch a scum partner based on a claim and push hard enough to get him lynched when momentum was moving elsewhere.

Day Two: Reveal that I was responsible for the werewolf flavor kill from nocase when I could have let the kill go through and had him probably fighting suspicion for the rest of the day instead of clearing him. Reveal that I had the ability to remove curses despite the fact that if I were scum it would almost certainly be a town ability. Pass on hammering mothrax when I had the chance in favor of calling for the xvart lynch and then lynching him.

Day Three: Choose the claimed vanilla lynch in Seraphim over the claimed roleblocker lynch in mothrax when I pretty clearly had the ability to influence which lynch was going to happen.

Day Four: Avoid the Uite lynch when I had a chance for it (which helps me as scum on my own or as scum with any partner other than Uite (probably to the point of winning the game as scum)) in favor of the actual pro-town choice of waiting to get information before we make a lynch.

If you think I'm scum you've got consistent behavior every game day of me working against my win condition. You have to think that I've bussed 2 partners in the first two games days, cleared a member of the town, left threats to myself out there when I had other option and not gone for mislynches when I had the chance. That would be a terrible scum game and I know that I'm more competent as scum than that; I'd like to think that others would think so as well.

Having said all that, if mothrax flips town here and you still think that I'm a better candidate for scum than inHimshallibe then I'm fine if you lynch me today as long as you lynch inHimshallibe tomorrow. There's no way that all three of the current claimed power roles are town so if it's not mothrax it's got to be inHimshallibe.

The reason that we should wait until after the flip is that if mothrax does flip scum and the games not over then the scum should really be in the remaining vanilla claims. A four man scum team is very powerful in a 12 player game (we've only mislynched once and we'd already be in MyLo in this case) and then it makes sense to have the two extra kills/guilty scum results we've got if both inHimshallibe are town. To be safe in that case we then need both lynches available to have the best chance of hitting the final scum.

@Uite, given that inHimshallibe's curse would have gone off if he'd been killed it would be pretty shocking if he had to be alive for it to continue working. I'm also not quite sure why you think that it would be better to lynch me before a mothrax flip based on the scenarios you went through.

@nocase, the tie-breaker you're using (the quote from Vi) as prior to Vi having information about inHimshallibe's killing ability because inHimshallibe chose to share that pretty vital bit of information after we'd already used our ability to speak to the confirmed town who were already out of the game. I haven't pushed it because it makes more sense to see how this flip goes but we absolutely should have gotten that reveal earlier from a town player.

Incidentally, if inHimshallibe is scum I think he's scum alone. My main ability either gives us a guilty or gives a second shot at scum with the kill (but one in which I could be hit as well.) That's not as powerful as I think you're calling it. inHimshallibe has both a kill that gets around the main scum kill's need to kill in advance and abilities that do a lot to avoid suspicion. If he's scum then he needs two more kills at this point and pretty clearly he's picked out Uite and myself to be those two kills and has been pushing them hard.

Regardless of all that, our best choice right now is still to see what this mothrax flip is and then make a lynch based on the information we get.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@inHimshallibe, yeah, I'm pretty willing to say that I don't think that it's at all likely that there could be a scum team to compete with all the power roles we've got claimed being town. It's surprising to me that you'd think that was a likely possibility if that's what you're trying to say.

If I was scum with nocase I should have hammered Uite for the win earlier today (or nocase should have hammered Uite for the win.)

@nocase, if I was scum with mothrax or inHimshallibe I should have hammered Uite for the win.

I think that mothrax is more likey to be scum than inHimshallibe. Further, I think that if there are four scum it's most likely mothrax and one of Uite or tanstalas we've got left (you're town and I think that mothrax and inHimshallibe is too powerful.) Unless you disagree with those assessments it's much better to kill mothrax and then one of inHimshallibe or I if mothrax flips town than inHimshallibe and I first.

As far as inHimshallibe's paranoia goes, as far as I can tell he's trying to rush a kill that cuts down on our chances of making a correct move here. Town at this point should be cautious; we've got enough flexibility that we should be able to go for the highest percentage moves here which is what I'm trying to do.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@tanstalas, I think that the fact that you didn't hammer either inHimshallibe or I when you had the chance is pretty good information. Barring some craziness with win conditions I don't see how you'd be a reasonable partner with anyone at this point and I still think that at least one of mothrax or inHimshallibe should be scum. That's particularly nice as I think that it takes away the argument that we have to worry about whether you'd get cleared by a night kill or not so there should now be less resistance to waiting to see what the mothrax flip is before going for a kill today.

If anyone won't be around tomorrow to cast a vote I guess I want them to speak up now but I think at this point, given that we've taken so long to get here, we can count on the town to actually show up and make an informed decision.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

That had better not be tanstalas and Uite stealing a scum win because I figured something wrong. That would be exceptionally frustrating at this point. We're supposed to wait to see what mothrax flips before hammering.

Well, here's hoping it doesn't matter and that the game is now over because mothrax or inHimshallibe were our last scum.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@tanstals, OK, first things first. Why did you hammer before the mothrax flip yesterday?

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

Well, first off, thanks for the fine modding Ythill and the good game everyone else. I am pleased with how few replacements were needed.

I didn't expect to win this game at all after xvart was lynched (I agree with him that it was a pretty poor lynch but it's also what I'd do most times in a situation where I think he'd die the next day (and I did think that here) and I could potentially get someone off my case because only an idiot would bus that hard (which I did for a tiny amount of time with Crypto when it was important.) I also thought I had the game in the bag going into Day four and had almost convinced myself that the curse was a red herring. I expected whichever member of the town had it to come after me hard when I made my claim that I could remove it which was supposed to give me a chance to go one on one with them and hopefully take them out or at the very least give xvart the information he needed to work around it in the future. I wasn't expecting it to be a day vig that didn't get brought up till two days later. Once inHimshallibe's claim was out it was a series of things falling either for or against me based on the setup and town play and it ended up being quite the rollercoaster ride. Bi-polar is a pretty decent description of how I took it in the quick topic.

On the whole I'd say my play this game was mediocre. It was (just barely) good enough to get by but I could have done a number of things better.

@Ythill, revealing the remove curse was at least in part to try to get the curse out in the open so that I knew what I'd be playing against. It might have gotten me killed but I work better with information than without. I also think I had to make the reaction to the eventual claim about how I did. I needed to be the one who identified what was going on with the curse as it's clear that I would have sorted it out quickly; I was screwed at that time anyhow so I went in all the way because scum really shouldn't do that.

The hammer on xvart actually was an accident. I believed Vi's L-2 post. I was expecting someone else to hammer shortly and I would have hammered if it was L-1 but I didn't know I was hammering when I put down the vote.

Lurking is only a bad thing for scum if the town are going to call you for lurking; as it was there were a number of times when my not being about shook a bit of attention that I needed shaken. In particular I'm thinking of how I misjudged how Uite would react to my posting 3 or 4 times in a row in the early game. I could tell that I needed to give him time to get hooked somewhere else even if I had to use one of my prods to do it. I was also a bit busy and might not have found time for the game but this didn't seem like a town that was going to punish lack of presence so I was willing to use that.

The flavor for the game really was very good. As far as balance goes, there were probably more weapons on both sides that the other team wouldn't have a great way to see coming than I prefer but that's probably more an indication that I should stick to open and semi-open games (or possibly normals) as I think the mechanics were all OK for a theme game. I tend to prefer simpler games that I've got a better chance of figuring out and then using my expectations of but that's a playstyle thing for me.

I actually did think of using the ability to control votes as a communication system; I asked inHimshallibe if the dead would be able to talk together when one of them was voting or some such thing because, were I town I would have wanted that power to get used with a system of communication we developed from this side of the grave. At the time I thought he had to pick between those powers and could only use one. In any case, when he didn't answer my question I decided that this was one thing that I didn't have to help the town with (unlike lynching my partners, realizing that mothrax could now clear people, etc ...)

@crypto, the busses looked as convincing because it's pretty arguable that neither were necessary. That ended up giving me just enough room at the end but I probably would have been better served by not intentionally knocking out my partners. If I'm going to bus a partner I'm going to do it with enough force that I might be able to get something out of it later. A half-assed bus just loses you a teammate while gaining nothing in exchange.

I was however particularly happy to see that you picked up the seed that I tried to plant about how inHimshallibe should have claimed the vig ability earlier to try to draw a night kill.

@VP Baltar, among the unpleasant surprises that I got this game the earliest was seeing that I'd be up against both you and Vi as town. I do think that you know my scum meta (though having said that, my town games start pretty slow as well so I'm not sure that you'll be able to tell the difference sadly) and one of these days I hope that we'll be on a functional town team together. I will however say that my plan at the end of the game would have led to a town victory if it had been followed (and if I didn't have the obfuscation on mothrax to throw sand in the eyes of reason at the last minute and a love potion to keep tanstalas in check.) I probably would have come up with about the same thing as town and I'm not convinced that it was a particularly terrible way to go about things.

@Uite, I did wonder about the nickname thing as well and had explicitly asked about it prior to it coming up in the game. As someone else who really doesn't use nicknames much at all (or even shortened versions of names) in the game itself it was a bit worrying. In this case though the magic should have worked fine from a flavor point of view. It wasn't me that the spell was being cast on, but tanstalas. It makes a lot of sense for him to fall in love with the person he thinks of as Troll even if it isn't actually my name.

@Vi, my frustration at backing off wagons after someone claims was pretty genuine. I put a bit of extra emotion into it just because people find that to be a town tell but I was tired and the lack of a lynch in both of the cases I was going on about did strike me as absolutely the wrong moves in a frustrating way that I didn't think this game should be putting up with. If we weren't ready to lynch we shouldn't have gotten the claims. In both cases, once the claims had been given we should have been lynching. If I didn't believe that pretty firmly I wouldn't have felt the need to get Exe lynched over something along those lines.

I also wouldn't say that I deliberately don't synergize with partners so much as that I don't deliberately synergize with partners (and also happen to have a style that doesn't synergize with most by default.)

@xvart, I don't blame you at all if you were irritated with me when you got lynched. I pulled this out but not by a lot and there's a pretty decent chance we would have been in better shape (i.e. less susceptible to events outside my control) had I lynched mothrax. I do think that you're a pretty competent scum player and when I was claiming the remove curse ability I definitely had it in mind that I might be handing the game off to you with a bit more information (or if I did it well one less threat) in exchange for my death.

For this particular town it felt about right to rule out lynches. It's what I've been doing in my newbie games lately as town and it felt like those who keep track of me would probably be slightly reassured to see me doing it here (probably no one was keeping track of me but I am pretty self centered so I wasn't going to rule it out.) As Vi said, it's pretty safe to call people town early if you're willing to go back on those reads later. Most of those I was calling town were the ones I thought would be valuable as mislynches later so it was better to take them off the table as early lynches. Sadly, apparently I'm unwilling to do that for partners as scum but, on the plus side, that's just one more way you'll be able to catch me and my partners in the future.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@VP Baltar, you did win a game against me. Reverberation essentially counts, right?

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@Ythill, oh yeah, and I really don't deserve any credit for choices of night kills. They were pretty much all forced as far as I could tell. I considered other options just because I like to make sure I'm not missing anything too vital (Vi can attest to that I'm sure) but the kills needed to be done how they were.

Out of curiosity, what would the thief steal from me? Would it have blown my brewer story? I figured that was the fake claim that was designed with me in mind of the list that you provided but that was just a guess (and I didn't know about a thief when I made it.)

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

Yeah, that Sotty7, she's the dangerous one. You should be on the lookout for her instead really.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@VP Baltar, ohhh, careful about that. She and I just got called Hulk Hogans of mafia scum in a newbie game; clearly she's ready for the wrestling. Actually, didn't she and Zachrulez meet on a wrestling forum somewhere?

Also, the best part of you having a meta on my scum play is that you no longer have to bother with the policy lynches! Hurrah! I really am sometimes useful as town (despite what you've seen from me.)

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@Vi, yeah, at this point we're just missing a game in which we're town together (discounting 3rd parties and multiple scum teams.) I wonder if we combine our forces to try to make it happen whether we can cause the scum to lose or if scum are just going to win all our joint games?

The Hulk Hogan thing is from Post 13 in this Scum QT from NG 1029.

Also, I don't know if you realize it but Troll and Sotty are two of the strongest players on MS, I mean they are like Hulk Hogans -- a casual glance by both of them almost completely cracked this game for town.

Embarrassingly, we went on to lose the game as town despite the apparent intimidation factor. At least we never really attacked each other during the loss (having just come off a hydra game as scum we had a decent idea of what to expect from that front which I think helped.)

@VP Baltar, ah, shape of game or shape of play. I like that sort of tell a lot. I'd imagine that I'm pretty susceptible to it. In any case, if you can get a policy lynch on me in early game (no matter what my alignment) I probably deserve it that game so I should stop trying to talk you out of the attempt before it even happens.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@Vi, I left my copy of Muppets from Space with Obi-Wan (Ythill's son) last time I went to visit. I sort of think that he's watched The Muppets Take Manhattan more of the two that I brought. I can see how the Hulkster's personality doesn't really fit mine particularly well though in any of its incarnations.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@Vi, I don't see any good reason you couldn't do both.

Muppets From Space is my third favorite of the Muppet Movies. It's pretty underrated in my opinion. I didn't run Second String Muppets Mafia just by coincidence after all.

Ythill and Xine have a delightful son in Obi-Wan. I hope to be there for his 4th birthday coming up in a while.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@gandalf5166, so I claim. Also, I shouldn't have been but I really was thrown for a bit of a loop with your original day cop claim. I was unclear enough about the setup that I couldn't actually rule it out reasonably and it felt like you did a nice job of reading my hesitation despite my attempt to hide it at the start.

Nice work.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@xvart, I'm not that worried but I did feel a bit worse than I often do while I was hammering you. If we play scum again I suspect that expectations will be there and it'll go more smoothly. I really do respect your scum play so it'd be fun to give it a second run at some point.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

Hmm, I might have been able to justify dried herbs as a brewer. It's better than the mortar and pestle that I'd feared in any case.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@Ythill, oh, and Troll would have nth'd the flavor bit in the scummies thread but posts past the 4th get ignored. Troll chose not to clutter that thread as it no would have a meaningful impact but Troll be happy to say that Troll would have posted if it would have made a difference.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh