Newbie 1070 - Game Over

[Ellyssa]

Yay, it started! Present and confirmed.

[Ellyssa]

Hmm. I don't think the game's started yet (right?) even if you all are trying to distance each other this early.. and if not we have a lot of pages still to write without getting too angry at each other. :/

[Ellyssa]

There is an exception though, a rule that is not meant to be broken. Do

not

self vote. Even if you are driven to L-1 (a capital L usually denotes a lynch happening. The succeeding number represents the number of votes before a lynch happens.), you are not dead yet. There is always hope. Stay alive and fight for your cause. Only the French surrenders. Are you French?

@Rain To the above, welcome and thanks for the info! Doing some reading (since there's no real newbie-mechanics-question thread on the forums), I think that even this rule may have an exception, though not very often. But a possible one here may be when you are VT and at L-1, and the town isn't in lylo or mylo but is right up against a deadline and a no-lynch would make it worse (say odd number of players at the moment) for them. So they can look at your posts the next day knowing you were a confirmed (dead) townie. Is that right? Or should you not self lynch even then because that's one less town-aligned player the next day and there's always.. the chance that the mafia won't get a kill at night?

@Rain I'm not sure if that last question was for all of us, but if so, I think no, since the roles are given out randomly. That being said, we sure shouldn't take all their word as gospel outside of the tips on how to play!

And since Quaroath changed his vote, VOTE: Stels because Recettear gave me fits (though it was nice).

[Ellyssa]

@Stels I don't get the impression he meant they knew each other before, just more along the lines of Split immediately knowing what he meant cause they were both online at the same time and both posted in the thread right after. And what? I said it was a nice game!

@Rain Regarding my earlier question, I meant just lylo, I re-read the definition of mylo and it doesn't apply there; you definitely wouldn't want to lynch there!

@Quaroath Why did you say that you knew Split was online at 12:32, yet you say that

An no I have no idea who anyone here is online or offline.

Preview edit: .. never mind, wait, I think we're just reading the line wrong (re Rain's reply too) and he meant "I don't know anyone here, online or offline" as opposed to "I don't know how to tell if anyone here is online or offline"

Never mind, Quar, ignore that bit, but leaving it in there in case anyone else was as confused as me.

[Ellyssa]

EBWOP: I hope none took that previous post as a personal shot (Especially Ellyssa), it's just a little silly that Skels blew a joke out of proportion like he did and I don't want to leave a grey area people can float in on it.

@Quaroath None taken, I got what you meant (in the end).

It's just dangerous to discuss or bring pre-game stuff into D1 at all, I guess, since at that time the mafia assumedly are still communicating with each other and could damned well be orchestrating some sort of ploy. Though I guess if they did try that in the QT, the mod would probably step in rather harshly. Not sure whether to ultimately throw out that whole conversation or keep it in mind after a few people flip their alignments though, but I didn't read that post as a personal shot.

[Ellyssa]

As for my vote I am going to no vote, it is day one there is not enough to place a vote on someone. I think that RVS is a dumb ass way to pick someone to vote based on their avatar or no avatar picture or even because you dont like someones name. No vote is a good way to go anyways... why kill off someone in RVS, that townie (you are most likely to lynch a townie D1 anyways) could be the person you need to win this game. So why make the game easier for the mafia, vote with me in a no vote and lets have a have a good fun game everyone.

Vote: No Vote

Welcome back, hope your vacation was a good one!

No one gets killed from RVS alone, it's one of the ways to build impressions on people and generate discussion. Sort of throwing all the votes into the soup pot and seeing what conversation comes up, and who looks the most suspicious. RVS is sort of an ice-breaker to get people involved in the game and the votes aren't meant to be lasting.

Was that a true no lynch vote, or simply saying you don't plan to vote at the moment? The problem with no-lynch is that the Mafia will then get a free NK on a townie on Night 1, and then we'll be down to 6 vs. 2, and that's being optimistic (they could hit a power role instead of a vanilla townie). No lynch is very close to the worst move for Town and one of the best possible D1 outcomes for the Mafia, if I'm not wrong... but I'll let you comment on that first before putting real votes anywhere.

[Ellyssa]

@Quaroath #53 Okay firstly, just to be sure, I didn't make that quote, that was Jack and your quote tags got a little upside down there.

@Barefoot Recettear is a computer game; It's where Stels' quote (in his 'location' field below his name) of "Capitalism, ho!" is from.

@Jack What additional chance is there if we all vote no-lynch on Day 1 and lose a townie on Night 1 and go back into D2 with not much more info? People tend to crack under pressure and make a slip or scum tells, and those are what we need to root out the Mafia among us. You're right in that if we rush for a quick lynch then we get no more info and likely lose a townie, but, that's exactly the same if we go for a quick no-lynch. We have three whole weeks (I think) to discuss this and come up with a consensus on the best first lynch.. it's not like RVS will rush us into a quick lynch, or that we have a couple days to come up with something. Now if we are nearing the end of the three weeks and still no one sticks out like a sore thumb, then perhaps, we could consider that, but this early into the three week period?

UNVOTE
FoS: Jack Forman

I don't know if you're Mafia yet, you may well not be and I don't totally disagree with your points, but consider it a mild pressure suspicion vote for now, and moving my vote away from my first RVS one, since at least my posts are out of RVS now. The thing is just that, whether you intend it or not, I believe the consensus is that the best play for Mafia on D1 is a no lynch. (See http://mafiascum.net/wiki/index.php?title=No_Lynch if you haven't.)

Preview edit: Since Stels already has one on you, I'm not going to put a 3rd one on just yet without letting you reply further. Since that would be L-2 with 9 players.. nonetheless, unvoting with intent of future vote because my posts are no longer RVS.

@Stels Ah!

[Ellyssa]

Er, belated post-dinner add: he is already at L-2 I think due to an early RVS vote, I think, so luckily I didn't vote, that would have been L-1.

[Ellyssa]

@Barefoot #60 Two quick things that jumped out at me immediately..

1) I agree Jack brought us past RVS

real

quick, which is nice.

2) I think you may have also missed the situation where we hit a Mafia in D1, so it immediately goes to 6/1 on D2, and that tree will give us a lot more win possibilities and thus skew your final red D4 results a bit.

The thing is though, these votes are not going out randomly, and we have three whole weeks to make the decision so trying to rush to a no-lynch right off the bat, seems so weird. As is your support of him seemingly wanting a quick D1 no-lynch.. because it's in Mafia interest to have as little discussion as possible, whereas a town's most powerful weapon is their day vote (which no-lynch negates) and their discussion.

Now you didn't actually cast a no-lynch vote yet (though technically Jack's just got nulled too due to phrasing) so I don't know if you're also pushing to convince enough others for a quick no-lynch. I think between Jack and you on this case, Jack still seems a little scummier to me because the phrasing of his:

I am only thinking that I am a town person or supposed to appear to be a town person, just like you.

That entire paragraph frankly makes me a bit nervous, as though it were meant to play on and drum up the uncertainty, but I do not want to put him into L-1 so early into our day. A quick Mafia hammer or jittery townsperson and we not only lose a player, but also valuable discussion time.

That is why for now I'll VOTE: barefoot-fighter as pressure/disagreement against your point, even though I consider Jack more suspicious. If we were closer to the deadline or I were more convinced, I'd vote Jack to L-1. But if one of you gets lynched down the road and flips Mafia, I think the other will definitely look a bit more suspicious due to this exchange of words and support.

Also heh, at the OMGUS on Muh. That would totally have been on me if I had typed this faster!

[Ellyssa]

My experience with newbies says that they usually consider NL to be safe, which is unfortunate because that's pretty scummy. However, stubbornness is a fairly strong town tell.

By the way, barefoot, what you did there is called fence sitting. If you (or any player) needs clarification on what it is and why is it scummy, just ask.

@Rain What is/what aspect of that is fence-sitting? I don't see that in the wiki anywhere, and they both (and I don't mean to put either of Jack or barefoot down for difference of opinion, sorry you two) seem stubborn, heh. And/or confused about the length of Day 1 or something. Thanks for explaining the No-lynch thing though.

[Ellyssa]

@barefoot/Quaroath I think the point here, as Quaroath said, is that it's not exactly random - or rather, it's no less random than lynching someone on D2 as either way it'll be a "best guess" scenario based on the info we have at that moment. Even with a dead corpse the first night and the ability to see all his/her posts as coming from a confirmed townie, that doesn't tell us anything more about the Mafia. It would be essentially random if we lynched them on 1 day of "real life" time's worth of evidence, but Day 1 in the game lasts three whole weeks, which is why Jack's move seemed scummy - to try to work toward convincing the town to close off Day 1 immediately on his first real post, with a push toward no lynch right out of RVS, that implies he's very eager to get to night.

Plus you can sometimes tell who the Mafia is by forcing them to vote - if not immediately, then certainly later on in the game when you look back at votes and their reasoning. Wasn't really able to find many resources on a quick search on the forums, but here and here are some decent reads on the theory.

@Jack Forman Where do you stand on the no lynch issue now, since Ald decided the phrasing of your initial vote nullified it, and with the conversation above, would you still revote no lynch?

@muh You have the other, third vote on barefoot currently, that was placed, I believe, during the RVS. Will that be your vote now that we're out of it, as well?

@T-Bone You're the only one who hasn't voted at all yet, outside of Jack's mis-vote. Not that you have to right away, but curious if you had any thoughts on people (when you get back around to the thread of course, it hasn't even been a day yet, just don't want you to feel left out!).


As for me, outside of her numbers analysis, I think barefoot's trying too hard to seem innocent/stay alive, but not sure if that's more of a worried newbie townie or scum brand of "wanting to stay alive" tell. I do see why fence-sitting in general would seem scummy though. Kind of a nervous reaction and trying too hard to stay neutral.

But even discounting that, I'm comfortable with where my vote is at the moment (on barefoot), but if she goes to L-1 this early in the day, then I will switch over to Jack (if that wouldn't in turn put him at L-1), as they're about equally suspicious to me at the moment.

[Ellyssa]

@Quaroath #76 - Could you please explain why, on the 3rd day of a 3 week limit, you seem to be abandoning the 2nd largest wagon to position yourself to jump onto the larger one in the future, with the reason of not 'feeling' a lynch on him?

I understand the FoS, shed in the explanations of fence-sitting (thanks for that, you two). I also agree with the not wanting to put barefoot at L-1 yet. If you had voted I would have unvoted to prevent a quickhammer. But why the unvote on Jack with the wishy-washy reason, and what would that be aimed to portray? That perhaps we should only concentrate on the one wagon at the moment and ignore other possibilities and perhaps, if barefoot is Mafia, quickly bus her and get over with it?

Also, Jack's last post at you included a rebuttal of,

How do I have a "poor town vibe" if I am trying to conserve townies? What do you mean I have a poor town vibe?

Which I do not think you answered yet. Instead you seem to have let it slide, answering others with small notes and then the good analysis on barefoot's post, and then now quietly sliding off the Jack vote (which you didn't have to do for the FoS, nor was he in any danger) because you don't think it'll reach a lynch.

That's fair enough, but your phrasing seems a little bit like seeming to want to hop to and side with the winning side a bit too much and/or bus your mafiamate. There are still a couple other people with no votes at all at the moment.

Not sure if I expressed that well, but while barefoot's last post does seem scummier than Jack's no-lynch proposal so far, you seem to have just dropped the case on Jack with no challenge or reply to his rebuttal at all and no further input from him. I agree with your math on his no-lynch attempt, and share that viewpoint, but he asked what in each of his posts you found scummy, and you just seemed to let it go and slink off.

[Ellyssa]

@Jack Forman: Blah. Regarding

but have any of you ever no lynched D1 or seen a game that it was done in?

This link I posted earlier shows stats, taken from compiled Newbie games (1-900) on this forum, showing Day 1 Lynch Data. All the tables on the page except the first two seem to be broken, but in the 2nd table, it shows the % of wins that have occurred when Town no-lynched on the first day.

3 wins out of 15. Out of the 6 possible lynches on the first day, the

only

worse possible outcome for Town was when the Cop got lynched on the first day in terms of anecdotal evidence there. Even lynching a vanilla townie or the fricking doctor gives us

double

the winning percentage over picking no-lynch, minus statistical variance. Town gets better odds mislynching than no-lynching, because we have more chances to lynch someone overall, and we need 2 successful lynches no matter what to win, even if it means we mislynch another 1 or 2 in the process. No lynch decreases our lynch pool by 1. With 8, we can only lynch 3 times (at 8, 6/5 and 4/3) before losing. AND if we hit townies at the 8 and 6 one, we lose as well without the 3rd lynch. With 9 we get to lynch at 9, 7, 5 and 3, and the first mafia can come after two mislynches and we still won't lose.

Still, I'm having a hard time equating your argument with being Mafia, because it would seem to be way too obvious to blatantly push for this. Your tone of posting doesn't sound scummy/suspicious, even if you're advocating a position that would give them an advantage!

How about this, are you intent on keeping that vote no matter what, or would you consider changing it if we need it nearer the end of the three weeks and you think someone else is likely to be Mafia? This isn't a "rushed" day 1 lynch or anything, and I don't know if you're trying to push this because of rushed day 1 experiences in other games elsewhere or whatnot. We don't need to have

everybody

alive to win.

But one thing you are doing if you are townie but stick to this no matter what the situation is, is that we essentially have one less vote in D1 to try to hit a likely scum if one surfaces. Especially since you are unlikely to get 5 votes for no-lynch based on the support against it at the moment, so it's essentially a wasted vote since D1 automatically no-lynches if we don't settle on someone at the end of 3 weeks anyway. So it's one thing to decide on no-lynch at the end of D1 because no one stands out, and be cautious in the meantime, but to push for no-lynch immediately, which would end all discussion? That does not serve town at all.

Preview Edit
@split Yeah, that may be what he's trying to do, I'm not sure, by -really- sticking to his guns now and trying to seem that way. I believe "policy lynch" in general is lynching people who you think will be bad for the game overall; and could include lurkers and liars depending on people's viewpoints, as well as other general things (like someone typing entire walls of text only in alternate CaPs and being generally irritating while within the rules).

[Ellyssa]

@Quaroath #90 To make a link you do

Code: Select all

[url=https://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?p=2842875#p2842875]Insert name here[/url]

and you get the url itself by right clicking the #number at the top of each post and copying that URL. At least that's what I've been doing. You can quote any post with a link to see the tags they used in the edit box window too.

@Quaroath #91 Not that I don't appreciate it, cause I do, and I have a fairly strong pro-town on you just because we've been agreeing a lot, I just hope you don't flip Mafia in the end and in the meantime are setting this up to sell as an excuse (oh, she was the most pro-town) for a N1 NK or something, since you only pointed me out and no one else.. but we'll see I guess.


I think my other stronger town reads at the moment besides Q are Rain and perhaps Jack, even though they're both on the opposite ends of that no-lynch thing, though I'd probably lynch Jack over no-lynch at the end of Day 1 if it came to that, as the lesser of two evils. I'd have to think very hard on that one though (the argument of stubbornness, vs a heavy dose of WIFOM to make himself seem too-obvMafia to be Mafia). Likely depends how you play between now and that time, Jack.

@Quaroath 101 Oh also, bumped this up to here because it ties in to the last one. Just a quick note that if we don't agree on someone to lynch at the end of the deadline, it still becomes no-lynch, whether we actually vote NL or not. That's what I thought he meant (ie he's our fallback at the end of the day) and thus why I didn't think that

#84[/url]]
muh316 wrote:Guess we have our policy lynch...

seemed scummy at first. It does sound a bit flippant though. Not sure if that's some kind of tell.


@T-Bone

Guess we have our policy lynch...

This post really

really

bothers me.

Because he's....scum??

I'll get to you Day 2 bud. I think Stels should still be our Day 1 lynch.

(Man, the nested quotes)

You found the two scum really fast! Congrats! Actually your reasonings for both seem kind of flimsy.. mainly that you latched onto a single dubious scum tell likely partly based on timing and timezones (who gets on and reads/posts first) and used that as the only argument so far against Stels. Granted he hasn't posted much more.. nm, preview edit, he has now! Have your views on Stels changed upon reviewing his newest post? What do you feel about Barefoot or perhaps Quaroath?

@Stels I did read that a scumtell was that Mafia were more likely to try to talk about mechanics and less about the game to distract conversation. But my main motivation (and I think the others too) for arguing against Jack was that it was essentially a lost vote on Day 1 which we needed to try to get back. And that was best case scenario (worst was that enough people agreed with him right away). Essentially he's now a tree stump for D1, and one with no incentive to participate and an 'excuse' to lurk to D2. Plus it was the first issue out of RVS to comment on. I'm not sure the issue has really gone away, Jack's just not a rabid poster like us and hasn't replied back yet.. but he did re-vote no lynch after I asked him if that was what his stance was.

@Quaroath in #100 and @Rain in #96 I agree T-bone and muh are kind of laying low. Even Stels (Which I just had to edit out of that list!) who's mostly V/LA just posted as much as they've posted all game.

But still early, I guess, but I don't really have reads on T-Bone or muh yet as they haven't really contributed much analysis (they both have, a little, in one post each.)

Neither has split.
@split Do you have any particular reads on people besides Jack that you want to share? I think you brought up an interesting coaching point at Rain back in #85, though that could be a rather WIFOM-y argument, but like Rain said, may be useful in the future if either of them flip scum. What do you think of barefoot?

@barefoot .. hm, never mind, she said she may be away for a day or two. Still the most suspicious read so far in my opinion, but perhaps due to nerves or something. Definitely interested in hearing your catch-up post and thoughts on others after.

Sorry about shoddiness at the end, have to run for now.

[Ellyssa]

Yike, I caught the broken tags in one of the quotes but didn't catch that second one. Oh well. That'll teach me to start composing posts when I only have 30 mins left before catching the bus home.

@splitfarvle #104 Thanks for the reply, split, going to digest on that for a bit, though interesting note on the unvoting. Looking back at that vote, and thinking out loud, they unvoted each other in quick succession (#79 and #81), though hers was an OMGUS and his vote was an RVS one, he downgraded it to an FoS to keep heat on her while actually moving her further from lynch, and I can see why you challenged him.. it kinda seemed like he wanted to still be on her bandwagon while not quite pushing it.

Barefoot was at L-2 at the time with his vote, but Quaroath had just unvoted Jack's wagon (#76) to go from L-3 to L-4 and FoS'ed barefoot to boot to threaten her, so the nearest wagon was further behind (L-2 vs L-4) and she was being heavily focussed and perhaps tempting to going L-1 on, so muh dropped barefoot back to L-3 vs L-4 (#79) while still saying she was still his top suspect (as he immediately FoSed, and explained his unvote in #83).

To his credit he only had one post in his ISO between the "RVS" vote and the unvote though. So not sure. hmm. I can definitely see the scummy line of reasoning. Perhaps explainable, but definitely worth some thought.

[Ellyssa]

@split #108 Oh. I meant that maybe it was just he wasn't on after the time it left RVS until then (his was the last RVS vote besides barefoot's OMGUS), so it could just be him getting on for the day and shifting gears to the 'real' game/vote. Just something that stood out in his ISO for me, that he only had one post (mostly answering RVS questions) in between and wasn't necessarily here all the time. Don't want to explain it away for him though, interested to hear his thoughts and the timing was awfully convenient.

@T-Bone #109 The other person you were considering was me, in this post (#74and hopefully I explained my 'why' case for no-lynch enough. Though I do wonder why you decided to pick us but not, say, Quaroath when his was the second vote on. But fair enough, thanks for the post. I guess I just don't see how someone can convince someone else of being innocent for the Xth person and not the Yth person onto a wagon.

And true enough regarding leading the discussion, but we don't really get anywhere if we don't talk and scumhunt. By fallacies and wifoms one can probably argue anything and everything as being scummy in some way, heh. I disagree it's more scummy than lurking though, because lurking is like hiding in the shadows to prevent slips or scum reads on oneself. (I have a neutral read on you at the moment, but at least it's contentful neutral!)

Not sure I agree that accusing multiple players is bad. It seems more like we have to find 'the most likely' mafia candidate to lynch, and like you said, putting them under pressure to see their reactions, and we don't have enough days to do it if we only look at one or two per day.

@Jack #110 I agree you're not the most inactive (not that anyone really has), I may have said something about you not posting in reply to some other point yet but did not mean it in a 'he's inactive!' sense, sorry. (I think we're doing great so far in activity compared to the dropouts in the other newbie games I've read..) I sure as hell don't agree, but at least you've presented your idea. Thanks for confirming you may change the vote if it came to that.

[Ellyssa]

@T-Bone Aha. Thanks. I missed that, and acknowledged.

[Ellyssa]

@barefoot #129 Welcome back.
a) Are you indicating you are going to vote no-lynch, or that you support Jack in his stance but are going to vote something else? Not sure how to read your paragraph otherwise, as depending what you mean, the "But for reals, don't." part could be read as you also want to vote no-lynch (ie, don't want to vote someone on D1), or you are simply against lynching him (and the policy lynch idea earlier) but don't mind lynching someone else.

b) Half the rest of your post is about Quaroath's multi posting that Toad already mentioned. Assuming you aren't Mafia and not still mostly away from game either, could you please share who your top suspects are at the moment and why?


@T-Bone #127 I think Rain's original comment about some people active lurking was not that they didn't post within a certain timeframe, but that when they did post, they posted short blurbs that toed the "safe" party line, so people would tend to gloss over their participation and they can stay under the radar, which Mafia would more likely to want to do than an innocent townie (even though obviously it's not a sure thing).

I don't agree with Quaroath's views on Rain or Rain's views on Quar, yet, there's a bit too much WIFOM there for me, but at least I can see their views and then judge them on that later when more info is out. If person X is a townie and if they eventually get lynched/killed, it can help us greatly if we know their suspects and reads and reasons, and can view all that in a proven-townie light.


@muh I noted that unvote was just after I asked you about whether your vote was still valid now that we were out of RVS, so I guess I at least can buy that line of reasoning for now. Just weird that the vote was removed and then followed with the FOS.. but you've already tried to answer that point anyway.

I still don't really like that besides answering questions asked your way (playing defence, so to speak), that barefoot issue you agreed with (#79, #3 in your ISO) was the only bit of offence/questioning you've done at all, and conveniently happened to be the same person that you originally RVSed too to cause this little issue, so it seems like she's the only person that's gotten any attention from you the whole game besides Jack/the policy lynch issue. Though you aren't voting for anyone else. You saw what the pressure votes did to her. Who do you think is second most suspicious at the moment? Or do you have thoughts on anyone else you'd like to share? Oh, and you're my 2nd most likely suspect at the moment.

[Ellyssa]

Yeah it has died down a bit in the last day, hasn't it? My suspect list us still topped by barefoot/muh, but neither of them has posted back so I have nothing new in that regard to go on yet.

I like the list that Jack built; good to see his list so far (though for quite a few people nearer the end he has kind of a neutral/not much of a read on yet). I've tried reading his post as being written from a Mafia point of view, and it doesn't seem quite right. I'm still leaning fairly decently on him being town, and that post didn't hurt it (earned a few additional townie points).

Neither Quaroath nor Rain are on my scumdar, though I'm kind of worried I have no real negative spin to say on Rain's posts at all yet. Not going to invoke the too townie or appeal to authority fallacies (yet) though. A little bit of a methodical feel to a couple of the posts but mainly due to the IC-ness of pointing out fallacies and scum tells, which is the role he signed up for anyway, but the posts otherwise that I've seen seem to make sense. Quaroath seems passionate and doesn't seem to be slipping under pressure (that I've seen yet).

I was thinking of hopping onto muh's bandwagon to see if we can elicit a response, since our votes are all split 7 ways, and he is one of my top two suspects, but I don't know how much info we'd get on a potential partner regardless of whatever he flipped (town or scum). Mainly because that does seem to be his playstyle overall, looking back on a few past posts. Not sure how useful he'd be in endgame though. I do agree with split's reasons (besides the RVS avatar one) and did raise some of them already in previous posts, I think. (Do you prefer to be referred to as a he or she, split? Or just 'split' works?)

@T-bone I know other people have mentioned general lurking and you in the same sentence. Outside of that, Rain earlier specified in #96 about active lurking, ie posting but with little content to be the 'face in the crowd', rather than lurking as in not posting at all. Do you think muh is active lurking? Also I called you Toad earlier, sorry, didn't notice that until now.

Actually, @everyone except muh, Jack and split, what are your opinions on muh?

@muh, There's still an earlier question from me to you in #133.

[Ellyssa]

My current views on the players are as follows:

Likely town: Rain, Quaroath (though he's been absent a few days now), Jack, (myself)
Neutral leaning town: split, T-Bone
Neutral leaning scum: barefoot, muh
Not sure: Stels, pending his catchup post, though I read him as leaning town. Also appreciated that he tried to make a contentful post even while he was on V/LA.

I would also support a policy lynch if it comes down to that,
a) For information that may come forth when reviewing his/her posts.
b) Because while one may not be scum, one can still be anti-town (ie, hurting the town through their actions or lack of), and since Mafia are unlikely to NK those people, I don't think they'd serve us well in endgame if they end up with a critical vote. Obviously I'd rather hit Mafia than a PL, but they're unlikely to walk around with neon signs proclaiming who they are.

When there's no other info to go on except what people type and do to judge everyone one way or the other, and someone is sitting back and coasting quietly and only reacting when their name is called, it casts a lot of suspicion on that slot. Although we do have a couple other quiet ones now besides muh, at least they weren't afraid to post meaty content when they have been around and posting.

Since muh never answered my question on who else he found suspicious, he seems to be trying too hard to lurk and "stay neutral", isn't contributing except to play defence, and is still on my top-two suspect list, I think I will
UNVOTE: barefoot-fighter
VOTE: muh316 (L-2)
and see if that elicits a response. Even if you are town you're not exactly being helpful, regardless if it's your playstyle or not.

Plus,

Here's how I do it. I list everyone who I think is town. The rest are not clear enough to be considered town.
Town: Jack, split, T-bone, Rain
The other 4 I'm not very sure of what to think about them.

is weird phrasing that I think I can see a Mafia mindset saying, because it seems to subconsciously convey that you're trying to townhunt instead of scumhunt, no?

@Mod: If you haven't already, could you please prod barefoot-fighter? And Quaroath will be eligible for one in 5 hours, too. Thanks!

[Ellyssa]

Ellyssa: Has often posted things I was thinking, and I think her playing has mostly benefited the town. The only reservation I have comes into play if muh316 flips scum, as Ellyssa offers a defense for him in post #112

Doh. Since I hope he flips scum too, if we do lynch him.. I'll preemptively offer that at that time he was still a somewhat neutral read in my eyes, and that bit in #112 was from you asking me (#107/#108) what I meant with my last sentence in my "thinking out loud" post just prior to that (#106), which supported your points except for that last sentence. So in #112 I was elaborating what I meant, in that paragraph.

@Quaroath - ouch at the work schedule.

[Ellyssa]

It looks like somehow the " in the quote="name" bit got changed to ” for the last few quotes. Weird Microsoft Word auto-correction!

@Rain (or others) Jack put muh at L-1. What should be "standard procedure" now for muh or anyone else at L-1 in a game, if any? (Like, I've seen some games where they claim at L-1, but have no idea if it's a standard thing to do or if it's even really a smart thing to do.) I'd say at least that no one else should hammer him before he gets a chance to speak though.

@Quaroath You said you've felt a barefoot-Stels scumteam. Have you seen any sort of connection between the two, or they just happen to be your main suspects besides Rain? I'm not sure if you've listed any already, may have missed it, I only saw the early post you referred to where you said you mainly suspected them, before Rain jumped on and you two OMGUS'd each other. Adding to the question, which of the three do you think is more likely to be innocent, since you did vote Rain too? One of them at least has to be innocent.

Also, I disagree with one counterpoint you made against Jack; now that I've re-read it,

Quaroath- You flip flop more than a fish out of water with your votes. Lets see, i am pretty sure this is in order- Your votes- 1 stels, 2 rain, 3 jack, 4 bear, 5 rain, and 6 bear. You are all over the board and don't tell me it is to get info out when you have not voted t-bone (even though you have suspicions he is scum), but Splitfavle and Muh you talk about but are posting enough info for you to not vote them for info??

Read what I type more carefully, I have never said I think T-bone is scum, I have said that a lynch on T-bone would be more informative and thus better for the town, than a policy lynch. My scum group has been preety static all game. Pretty sure that's not flip-flopping. What's more..
your vote list for me is simply full of holes. Untrue even. You have 6 votes listed for me, I've voted 4 times (though technically it's only three as I screwed up the bolding on one. The following are the votes I've made:

RVS:
Stels (This is the one i botched the bold on), Rain (voted this because of the bolding issue on my first vote)

Real Votes:
First "real vote"
Jack over the no lynch issue

Second and only other post-RVS vote:
Rain for the misrepresentations.

You did a FoS on bf in #76 between those two real votes, and that is essentially a real vote too, except you did not want to put her at L-1. More to the point it would have been a real vote if she was not in any danger of being lynched. Rain also pointed this out in #113 as well, but that was before Jack's post and your counterpost. Agreed Stels twisted the phrasing on that particular quote a bit though. I definitely read that as "My (suspected) scum group has been pretty static all game".

@barefoot Welcome back! Still staying nicely neutral I see, though. Interesting that you didn't vote muh even though you noted the case against him, though probably a good thing since he is L-1 and hasn't been on to defend himself yet. I think you're still the only one without any vote besides muh. If he is scum, that may heighten the suspicion on you because scumbuddies wouldn't always want to vote each other (except for bussing, but I'm not sure any of the others who aren't on muh's bandwagon at the moment are really even considering him as a lynch yet).

Though if he is town then you just passed on an easy hammer on him (because you wouldn't have to explain an unvote on someone else before voting, like the others would) so perhaps you're not scum if he's town. I'd still like to hear who you feel your main suspects are though, as well as any reaction to what I said above.

[Ellyssa]

(@muh Doesn't everyone eat pizza like that? )

I put muh at L-2 to pressure him to speak more, the L-1 was a bit of a surprise but by the time I had logged on this morning, the war was still raging on between Quaroath and Rain/Stels, and everyone else who hadn't voted for Muh yet already had at least a post go by.

@Jack in #179 I agree. He definitely doesn't seem to be an active lurker in the sense of reading-but-not-posting as some Mafia do.

What I don't get is why I'm at L-1 on such a weak case.

You're coasting and charting the neutral course. You're not actively playing. Only answering a few directed questions. No insight about anyone else at all other than a gut feeling about 4 people who could be townies. No explanation why, even for them. I think you're hurting town, even if you ARE town. @Everyone else, have you read his ISO? In the view of "only plays defence" and "tries to stay perfectly neutral"?

Muh is infuriating though. Really? 3 sentences when you're at L-1, for even what you describe as a weak case? :/ Not caring, to the point of apathy? I agree it's a somewhat weak case, but that's because you've posted nothing of substance, so a large part of the attack is on what you haven't said, as opposed to what you have. If it's so weak, there should be tons you can say to tear it up to shreds. But you're not! I think at this point, really, if you get lynched and flip town, it'd be filed under the policy lynch category. Which is ironic in a roundabout way, but perhaps better to do on D1 than nearer a potential lylo-that-contains-muh, especially when you COULD still be Mafia.

If you flip mafia, great for us - and maybe that IS why you're not worried currently, because you know who the other one is (hi barefoot!) and know they won't hammer you, and everyone else is busy arguing semantics with Quaroath and voting each other. But I'm not as certain you are Mafia now because you admittedly didn't panic at L-1. Didn't do much of ANYTHING at L-1 though.

I'm not convinced on Quaroath to vote him yet (although he has done a few fishy things, one in particular that nags at me that I commented on in #103 - about #91, though there's admittedly lots of wine there now), he still seems to be fairly strong town overall.. I think I will take another look at his + Rain + Stels' ISOs side by side tomorrow though. But you know what? I think I'll let my vote sit where it is for now pending,
a) Meaty post from muh,
b) Bandwagon on barefoot, my other suspect so far, or
c) A re-read on Quaroath/Rain/Stels' ISOs giving some new insight on him, or one of his two accusers.
( d) Extenuating circumstances. Deadline lynch, someone slips up, etc. )

[Ellyssa]

Wow, didn't expect that development. And great, -now- a wagon forms on barefoot.

@muh

I am being pretty lazy here. T-Bone its not good to rush the town. Rushing leads to mislynches. This is obviously the case here. I like T-Bone's mindset of 20 pages. I like that. This game is too slow for me. I have seen Newbie games finish with just 15 pages. They don't end up well. I'm just saiyan that we should pick up the pace in this game.

Above and beyond Jack's comment that you had a period of inactivity earlier in the week - where if we HAD gone at a quick pace like you seem to be advocating, you'd have coasted through to day 2 with little or no work - I don't really get what you mean by the sentence above.

I think it's more phrasing than anything though that's confusing me, but first you say, "Rushing leads to mislynches" and ask him not to rush the town, implying you think we're going too fast, then you say this game is too slow for you and newbie games with "just" 15 pages (which are quick games) don't end well (which I guess implies Mafia wins?). Sorry, just trying to grasp what you mean here.

@Quaroath in #190 Hope you get well soon if you aren't already. And also, I don't think Jack's #179 was advocating a quick lynch, he seemed to be presenting an alternate viewpoint and possible reason why muh shouldn't be lynched based on post activity. ie, he truly hasn't been around much, and was not active lurking in the sense of reading but coasting. I agreed with him in my post and I think you do too in yours.

@T-Bone I'm not sure what to think of you. Bunch of short fluff/neutrality posts recently too. You did kind of explain it with the 4 day thing though. Where have you played prior, out of curiosity?

I had a busy day at work, got about 1/3 through my re-read of Quaroath/Rain/Stels but far from done. I think Q/Stels were tunneling each other heavily for a while there as residue from the pre-game dustup, and that may have coloured their opinions of each other a little.

[Ellyssa]

Sorry for double post. Have to add.

I didn't freak out when I had 3 votes placed on me.

You didn't exactly defend yourself either though. :/ It's really hard to pin you down as mafia or town because while you didn't act mafia, you didn't act town either. Sorry if you are town after all, and you get hammered. (If you are Mafia, then die scum die etc)

Could you explain the vote on barefoot though? While I certainly appreciate it, it does seem like a way to redirect me back onto my original target and I'm not biting yet. This is your first vote all game outside of the RVS stage (which was on barefoot too and which you didn't withdraw for a long time, though you did FoS her when you unvoted). What changed between then and now to make you vote her? To us, it seems like you ARE cracking under pressure, like, now you're going "lynch her instead of meee". Or trying to save her tomorrow by distancing yourself from her via the vote.

[Ellyssa]

Yeah I'm hopping on bandwagons. The second vote is totally a bandwagon.

It is your fault if you guys can't get a read off of me. I'm not gonna say if I'm town or scum, because the moment you say you're town, you become a safe lynch at this stage of the game.

I've seen a bit of a theme "so and so wants to end the day because they wanna use their scum powers!" There are 9 players playing. At most, 4 players have night actions, at least, 2 players do.

I'm not here to make your ability to play easier Jack. If you think I'm scum, don't wimp out. Cast your vote. Don't "waste space" as you so eloquently called it by complaining "I'm not good enough at this game to make reads on other players unless they spell it out for me" with your posts. This has got to be the 3rd or 4th time you've complained that someone else isn't playing good enough. Don't blame your problems on other players.

I'm rushing the town? Really? Because we've had 4 posts in the last day. If I'm rushing the town, I'm doing a horrible job at it.

Wait, what? Why would you not want to say you're town? This isn't a complex game with 3 factions and a couple third parties; 7 townies (PR or otherwise), 2 mafia - the 2 mafia KNOW who the town are - everyone else - so what would your not saying you were town do to sway/confuse them exactly?

@Stels Nods, agreed to muh. It seemed like he was trying to invoke my b) option for unvoting him in my #187. ie bus or mislynch someone else to save himself. Also, I suspect re: barefoot, there may be a slight language barrier in terms of how we're reading her or she's reading our words sometimes.. not sure though. And not sure how much leeway to then give what she says.

[Ellyssa]

@barefoot Sorry to hear, hope everything's fine.
@T-Bone When will you be V/LA?
@muh

My summary/reads from D1 lynch/NK:
- Votes for muh lynchwagon: split (#105), T-Bone (#146), Ellyssa (#154), Jack Forman (#167), Rain (#213)
- Other votes for muh that were retracted: split (#39-#61, RVS), barefoot (#64-#81, OMGUS)
--> barefoot did NOT vote for anyone after retracting that OMGUS vote on Muh early on in the day. I find that a little suspicious, like a Mafia member not sure who to vote on, as they know everyone else is clean. However, she had the opportunity to hammer muh as she made 3 posts between #167 and #213, and she did not, and would have not had to make a case for unvoting/shifting her vote as she wasn't already voting someone else before. It would have been easy for Mafia to just hammer there and go into night with a known (to them) mislynch.
- muh did not have any suspects, his town reads were Jack, Split, T-bone, Rain (#149). He also commented in , his last post, that muh seemed to be hurrying the town because he wanted to get to night quickly.
- Jack's reads: (#136) At that point, Quaroath seemed to be his main suspect, with reservations on Muh, Rain, T-Bone. Looking at his ISO, those four people are the ones he pressed near the end. I still have a mostly town read on Quaroath and Rain, and a slightly scummy one on T-Bone. I think since he died, there's a good chance there's at least one scum in that group of 3 (4 minus muh) though. Also, his last post continued to accuse muh and T-bone of essentially lurking.

@T-Bone I'll start day 2 with some questions to you. I draw the most lines to you from how Day/Night 1 concluded - You were on the lynchwagon (I supported it too, mind you), and also on Jack's suspect list. Jack's very last post also attacked you, and you dared him to vote you if he thought you were Mafia, so you certainly had the motive to NK him.

Can you please explain this quote?

I'm not gonna say if I'm town or scum, because the moment you say you're town, you become a safe lynch at this stage of the game.

I do not follow this logic at all.. everyone here would say they're town, regardless if they were actually scum or town. There aren't any 3rd party SKs here or whatever. It's like you're hesitant to look too townie or something. It was also an interesting unprovoked reaction, I don't think anyone even asked you if you were town, Jack just said in #206 that "if you really are town guys then help us so that we don't have to kill off anymore town than we have to." And from that you suddenly seemed hesitant about your role?

Anyway. To me you leapfrogged ( ) over barefoot as my opening suspect because of the frustration at the end bits of Day 1 as well as dubious quotes like that one above. And the one you opened Day 2 with (#221). So others have to be the one that scumhunt? Perhaps so you can just agree with them to look townie? What's your current opinion? Who are your main suspects? Anything/anyone stand out to you?

[Ellyssa]

EBWOP, the broken quote part for muh and #209 was how he said T-Bone wanted to quickly get to Night 1, not muh.

Also welcome, Nacho!

[Ellyssa]

@T-Bone Yeah, it may have just been a "random" night kill out of the townier-looking townies *shrugs*. Just trying to evoke some discussion out from D1 happenings, what else are you supposed to do otherwise but read their posts in a confirmed-townie light? What I was doing by looking for people with motives to kill Jack, was trying to figure out who would be more likely to not want him around in endgame, because he was a polarizing figure initially.

And no, I still don't really get the safe lynch thing with regards to theoretical 3rd parties. Because the Mafia know exactly who are the actual townies regardless of what the townies might say. And there is no other logical unprovoked (ie, not at L-1) claim on D1 for regular townies, power roles, or mafia besides "vanilla townie" anyway. So that claim is meaningless in terms of convincing others to look more townie in their reads. But whatever.

Agreed to waiting for everyone else to check in, though.


@Rain I grant there's a good amount of WIFOM though, but don't think ignoring the NK is the way to go, though I read the current(?) site meta may be to ignore it. That seems awfully "sweep it under the rug and keep it hush-hush" and I don't understand why, sure there's WIFOM but you can apply that to tons of arguments in the regular game anyway. Not saying it's the be all and end all solid evidence, but I think throwing that out entirely is flawed, and giving Mafia a free pass in that aspect of the game. To me it seems knowing that the players in the game analyze that sort of thing, may also make the Mafia second guess themselves and perhaps kill "less than optimal" targets in later nights so less suspicion is cast upon them, so the WIFOM goes both ways. I think it goes hand in hand with vote analysis at the start of a day though.


@Stels Nod to Barefoot. But since barefoot replaced out I'm not attacking her slot before her replacement gets the chance to post. Awaiting eagerly though. Just too bad the replacement wasn't made within the night so Nacho could have read up already and hit the ground running. And you may be right about that one mislynch thing. I just thought it's a bit weird she didn't vote muh for trying to bandwagon her to try to save herself (he tried #197, she posted back to him in #208), when she had OMGUS'd him back earlier after RVS had ended (kinda) in #64 when she realised he was voting for her. Then again, not sure if that's more of a towntell or scumtell now, since she never actually voted anyone else.. voteless after that OMGUS was withdrawn, all the way to the end of day 1.

Argh, I said I wouldn't be attacking the slot yet. /fin

[Ellyssa]

@Split I was, though I think I wouldn't have right then because of the way muh immediately jumped onto it without a reason in #197 just after Stels did in #196, which made him seem really scummy. That seemed scummy because just before that, I had said,

But you know what? I think I'll let my vote sit where it is for now pending,
a) Meaty post from muh,
b) Bandwagon on barefoot, my other suspect so far, or
c) A re-read on Quaroath/Rain/Stels' ISOs giving some new insight on him, or one of his two accusers.
( d) Extenuating circumstances. Deadline lynch, someone slips up, etc. )

and it seemed obvious to me that he was trying to invoke my b) to get me off his wagon, but it didn't even come with a reason or anything.

At the time I was also thinking that barefoot not hammering was a towntell, though as pointed out she really didn't vote at all. But muh didn't vote anyone else outside of RVS either up to that point, and HE turned up town..

[Ellyssa]

Hehe, enjoy your trip. I'll post a rebuttal tomorrow or sometime soon.

[Ellyssa]

Iiiincoming WoT! @T-Bone #242 Don't worry about answering this before you get back from the vacation. Enjoy it first! I mean you no harm, I just want to lynch you! I won't vote you before you get back and have a chance to reply to it at least, so there shouldn't be a quick lynch.

If this becomes relevant, this is my first game of Mafia ever, anywhere, though I have read a fair number (like 10) on Mafiascum. Now to my points.

It seems to me you're using the Too Townie fallacy on me. I posted what I did as a straightforward analysis of the N1 and D1 flips, as what other new information IS there otherwise? Has anyone else come up with anything else? You have, but that was just about entirely OMGUS on my point because I shed light on you to begin the day, as it was either you or Rain from the connections I pointed out, and I had more of a scummy read on you at that point. And I do call it OMGUS because your second post reply (#232) fairly clearly indicated the upcoming accusation.

Frankly, that's some heavy seed planting. I don't like it. There is no reason for a member of the town to plant seeds. There's a different between asking a question to provoke discussion, and seed planting. In #227 you said "well you had motive to kill him T-Bone." Now one could argue that you didn't intend to type it like that and try to rub it off as your first time playing.

I darn well intended to type it like that. I don't see why not. He was at odds with you near the end of the day, you can't deny that, and I'm not sure whether to classify your seemingly overly defensive post as pure OMGUS or a panicked attempt to get me off your wagon. Maybe you don't like it because it hits too close to home? Pointing out a connection I observed is seed-planting, now? You do realise that's how almost every game on the site is played, looking at vote patterns and relationships (or lack of) between players in the game?

But every post you have made in this game has been concise and deliberate. I hazard to say you've been too careful to look scummy. So much that you look uber town. And that my friends is a dangerous thing. As a member of the town you should worry about making mistakes or looking scummy. Your goal isn't to survive, your goal is to nail scum. Meanwhile the mafia's goal is to survive.

Even though I didn't say anything, you have been the one person to stick out to me Ellyssa. I didn't say anything till now, because I wanted you to post carefree and see what would happen. Your first post in Day 2 gave me the answers I was looking for.

(I assume you mean too careful to

not

look scummy, and as a member of the town I

shouldn't

worry about making mistakes, else I'm not quite sure what you mean in the first paragraph of this quote, sorry.)

My goals in the game so far have been to point at who I find most scummy. I was wrong in muh flipping scum, as was everyone else on the lynchwagon, but I'm satisfied that the reasons we lynched him were solid at the time. Yes I have been somewhat deliberate, I feel that way lends itself to less misinterpretation. I've tried to explain the reason everytime I swap or do not swap votes, for one, so others could decide if I were right and come on board too, or as Stels did recently, overturn/reopen my thoughts on barefoot. Do you prefer a haphazard method with mostly short posts and dubious voting reasons like you've done so far (I'll come back to this) instead? And we shouldn't worry about being scummy? Why not? That causes mislynches, my friend! How did that work out for muh and his unafraid townie vote on barefoot? Earned him the hammer vote from Rain.

Lessee. My starting post on D2 was made about 12 hours after day broke. Let's say I didn't make the post, or made some irreverent, cute comment like you did. And let's say from that you didn't attack me back. Let's see what OTHER content there has been up to this point. We're like 65-70 hours into Day 2 now depending on when I finish this post. So nearly the 3 day prod thing.
- You: Two fluff posts early, and one IIOA post later on (about Jack being one less mislynch cause he was totally townie).
- Quaroath and Rain and Stels: All busy with work/school etc and promising reads at a later day, after hammering the hell out of each other on D1.
- Split: A couple questions toward Rain. Only other D2 scumhunter outside of us two going back and forth so far.
- Nacho: Replaced in, nary a tweet yet. Even muh has posted more since D2.

Really? And you're voting me for being concise (and deliberate). Right. You yourself talked about the slow speed of the game in #230 . Not to mention that's the exact opposite of a typical scum playstyle of coasting under the radar. I agree with Jack and Stels, you've been fluffing your post count with inane one-liners and sarcastic comments and "hurry hurry so I can get to night" posts, except when you've been attacked like now. Whereas refusing to do townie things like post your list of reads when asked - you want to know why that isn't townie?
- If you are town, and had gotten NKed, we'd have gotten a lot less info from your death. Look at this discussion that's started from Jack's list.
- There's an opinion that says that helps scum figure out who's townie and who isn't and thus who to target. That's a fallacy in small, open, clearly-factioned games, they're not complex enough for such a thing.
-

It lets you waffle about and coast through D1, and then fall on whatever side of the fence you choose that is more convenient for you, in subsequent days, when it matters.

About my point about your dubious reads point earlier. You have two votes so far this game.
- One was on Stels for being second to vote (discounting Rain's RVS vote) on Jack. Flimsy reason as hell.
- You then follow it up with a vote on muh, though coincidentally you are the second vote on this townie's wagon this time. So it's not okay when others do it for whatever legit reason they have, but then I get OMGUSed when I attack you partly for being on this wagon, and pooling that with other circumstantial evidence to make my case?

And yes, it's OMGUS (at least the way I see it currently, lacking supposed evidence from other days, even though I haven't voted you yet. Reason I haven't is we're still waiting for barefoot's replacement to make a post. And you're away now.

Here's a question for you then. I'd like to hear why your vote was

not

OMGUS. You did not give Stels a way to defend his vote (though you did ask for onehere, cause an idiotic reason like "being the second person on X's wagon" being the central reason for your vote on him cannot be defended against. And your votes on him, and me, so far have been that kind of vote. He can't just say "oh, I didn't mean to be the second vote" or something. How do you defend against that? You can't. Very easy to pretend to be "scumhunting". And now you say,

But every post you have made in this game has been concise and deliberate.

and

Even though I didn't say anything, you have been the one person to stick out to me Ellyssa. I didn't say anything till now, because I wanted you to post carefree and see what would happen. Your first post in Day 2 gave me the answers I was looking for.

This implies you have examples from D1.

Give me examples I can defend against. I can't defend against a "gut feeling" any more than Stels could randomly being second on a wagon.

Not to mention your other gut feeling on D1 (muh) was dead wrong, if you are town. Don't just make sweeping blanket statements and expect everyone to believe you. You have to prove to town that you ARE town just as much as everyone else does, or you'll become a mislynch like muh, and that is decidedly anti-town. I've been concise and wordy haven't I? Should be lots of material for you to analyze and pick out some quotes from. What burning question did the first post in D2 give you the "answer" to? If I've quietly stuck out to you up to this point, there must be plenty of examples from D1 that have pinged your scumdar too, right?

Lastly, a good chunk of my opening D2 post, about your #211 quote, was directed to the last question thrown your way just before D1 ended, just to make sure it didn't get swept under the carpet, since it did not get answered then. Your logic works in more complex setups but totally breaks apart in this newbie game's open one, which was why you were called on it by more than one player. Plus no one HAD brought up claiming up till that point.

[Ellyssa]

EBWOP, I realise concise and wordy (at the end) are antonyms, but whatever. The gist of it is there!

[Ellyssa]

Welcome back!

@Mod

, sorries, but is there a rule for the time a replacement has to post into a game, please?

[Ellyssa]

@Split and @Quaroath and lists: Yeah, I did half expect to not survive the night, for about the same reasons you all mention. That partly contributed to why I immediately brought the NK up to start D2. It links to the pro-list argument I made in that post to T-Bone - I disagree lists are bad in small/non-complex games, because I'd think that the Mafia would be able to pick out who the townies considered most townie anyway, since people are always declaring who they feel are most townie or obvtown. I got onto Quaroath's case a little bit for that in D1 when he singled me out in particular as obvtown in D1, but he wasn't the only one who did.

I feel lists are good because they make it so that people have to list their suspects too - Like, it draws negative attention to everyone in turn, from the players they suspect, so there's no hiding and coasting along by simply neutral-reading everyone, with no chance of offending anyone. It seems in many other games, everyone's been asked to put forth their town/scum lists and from that scum is caught when their play later on is noticed to be inconsistent with their reads. Though of course opinions change over time, too. But the earlier those lists go down, the harder for scum to hide and the more explanations they must make to get onto a lynchwagon, and easier for people to find contradictions on who others support vs their actual actions.

Which is why I strongly disliked muh's townhunting list, because it listed all his good, safe reads while leaving him options later on to say "oh I thought so and so was scum all the time" and weasel out of a situation that questions his voting pattern and motive. Ditto on why I now think T-Bone is scum, because his refusal to post a list early on coupled with his supposed suspicion of me in D1 (the "every post you have made in the game has been concise and deliberate" bit in #242), which magically wasn't mentioned until he got called out in D2, nor came with any examples that he should already have had and not have to take time to dig for since I was his prime suspect ("you have been the one person to stick out to me").. all that to me clearly shows signs of someone trying not to commit to reads unless they're safe or desperately needed, but instead stay on the fence until he either sees a prime opportunity to mislynch someone, or is attacked a little bit too close for comfort.

Plus Rain started the lists to jumpstart discussion to try to boost the level of activity, which T-Bone had been understandably complaining about too (lack of activity) at the time, but then went 180 degrees and flatly refused to participate in it. It's like he first says he likes short, quick games (implying lots of quick activity flow), but then doesn't want to post actual content that may out himself in the future. But of course everyone else should post more, so he can play judge and jury.

@Nacho #257: Welcome (redux)! I have a question for you from your opening post; why do you think Stels is town? I agree with you on the other two though, but Stels is currently lying neutral for me. Did anything stand out for you? In particular, you seem to have a playing history with him - is it something from that that is jumping out re: him as town? Or that your main suspect is pushing him and thus eliminates him as scum? [Also I have two ll's in my name, grr! ]

@Quaroath #259: Omg yuk. Condolences and glad she's doing better. Also, interesting case being built on Rain (by others too). Will be interested to hear any rebuttal. I admittedly haven't read much into him because I still have a town read on him from D1 carryover. I will have to reread (again) to see how his posts and actions hold up if read from a scummy light, as I hadn't personally seen much I could attack in his posts. Which is a bit weird, as even Quaroath, whom I read as town as well, I have seen a number of things to attack in his posts. But that's getting into that Too Townie territory from earlier again.

I am satisfied with Nacho's first post for now. It's obvious he did do a read, but did not fall into an interesting scumtell trap that I would have voted him for. (I prefer not to mention what it is, till after the game if desired or it's triggered, since it may still come up in the next couple posts -- no pressure ). Now that both him and T-Bone are around and have posted (briefly, at least) and T-Bone is in no danger of being lynched yet, I can put my money where my fingers are:
VOTE: T-Bone.

[Ellyssa]

Game question reply:

I think it depends on the game; to me in this case it really isn't complex enough that it matters. Open setup and a simple two faction thing, we know the numbers of each, though not the roles. So there are only two scum, and instead of knowing who is obvtown to target, the mafia can easily just target the people that are not on anyone's scum lists, since they're thus on everyone's town lists. Town lists would show the degree to which people think others were town, though.

But I feel list + vote analysis is the surest way to catch scum in subsequent days if everyone makes the list early on, since you get to find things like Rain's [url=http://mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopic.ph ... 883199#249[/url] and see how the person explains it. I've read several games where Mafia get caught out because they name someone as strong town, then a couple days later vote them to be on the bandwagon with something like "I agree with X's analysis, I've been noticing your scum play since day 1" etc. So personally I like lists as a mafia hunting tool in general. Even if it gives them a bit of info, I don't think it gives them much in these open setups either. And because it's also one of the things we can revisit on a player that died during the night kill.

---

Scum picks:

T-bone is currently high on my scumdar for reasons stated earlier. I'm not sure if I post too much since no one else seems to agree!

I think there may be one in the Quaroath/Rain/Stels voting bloc too, just because they've been at each other since middle day 1, but concentrating on a different person each time, and effectively tying up votes in relation to trying to lynch anyone else. First Rain attacked Quaroath and Stels joined in while Quaroath attacked both of them back, then now Rain attacked Stels and Quaroath attacked Rain (joining on Split's points) and Stels hasn't weighed in on either of them due to RL assignments. I get the feeling one of them is instigating the other two a bit to keep the flames fanned, but I can't decide who, because both Rain and Quaroath have voted each other, as well as Stels (and even Jack) by now.

Nacho/barefoot has residual suspicion, but it's weaker than I felt middle of day 1, because I felt on a reread I did near the end of D1 that much of it was due to a slight language barrier, so she ended up fighting lots of words and phrasing instead. There were some valid points early on that were either newbtells or scumtells (though possibly both) that were pointed out, but she seemed to try to avoid them after. Nacho has only posted once and I did not get scum vibes from that.

---

Answering T-Bone separately.

[Ellyssa]

@T-Bone #266
Okay, I wrote up a really long post and am trying to cut it down because I just got to the end of your post and saw the massive post comment. I'm going to try. Believe me, this was longer! >< Maybe this will make it easier for others to follow too. This means some less important rebuttals got left out, however. If I miss any points in your post that you want me to address as well, please feel free to point out.

My case on you:
1. The

reaction

to my post, where you call it seed planting, is as suspicious to me as the actual action analysis. I tried to present the facts as I saw them, and my conclusions for them, opened up with questions to you, and then, as far as I can see, you became afraid and manufactured the case on me out of thin air after (see point 3 below). That isn't a breadcrumb, I flat out stated what I thought you were most suspicious from the analysis, and that was why I opened with a question on you from D1 again, asking why you had talked about claiming, as well as asking you who your reads were before anyone else had given theirs. My only other suspect had replaced out. If questioning is breadcrumbing future votes, I've probably done that to nearly everyone else this game. And so have many others. It's scumhunting, putting pressure on others.

2. I held out on my vote because I wanted to see Nacho's opening post. A replacing player's opening post can be very telling as to whether they are scum or town, especially when replacing into a scummy slot. He did not at all seem scummy, so earned back some townie points in my book that separated the two of you in my list. It's true you voted first, but I feel that was due to your OMGUS-like overreaction in #230 and #242, to my initial analysis. It's not that you're suspicious of me in and of itself. It's that you seemed to overreact by claiming I was your prime suspect for a large portion of D1 at first, besides evidence to the contrary (votes on others, no mention of this in D1) AND point 3 below. You're launching this as an "I knew it all along" attack but only when you were provoked, which sitting on the fence and not giving reads ALLOWED you to do.

3. You seem to be making unsubstantiated accusations, or keeping all the "evidence" to yourself, where you'll never be able to convince others to vote for me even if you truly believed that and had evidence. Even now, I don't see the requested examples of me being concise and deliberate in D1 and how that is remotely scummy. I requested them at the bottom of #246 in underlined text, and you ignored it. I shall repeat it here:

And now you say,

But every post you have made in this game has been concise and deliberate.

and

Even though I didn't say anything, you have been the one person to stick out to me Ellyssa. I didn't say anything till now, because I wanted you to post carefree and see what would happen. Your first post in Day 2 gave me the answers I was looking for.

This implies you have examples from D1.

Give me examples I can defend against. I can't defend against a "gut feeling" any more than Stels could randomly being second on a wagon.

4. It's not that you're not making massive posts etc. Split isn't, but his posts have been targetted scumhunting too. Rain has been too to a point. Muh wasn't either. A good portion (not all!) of your posts are a little on the sarcastic and flippant side, mocking people for not having reads on you and thus calling you lurking, or trying to rush town along but refusing to give information at every possible turn. It's anti-town even IF it's not scum. And your votes have been for undefendable general gut reasons with no proof shown.

5. You've been fence-sitting, or at least trying your best to stay neutral, an example being the lists. I've explained why in the italic waffle point in #246, as well as in #260. I also respond to this in the excerpts below, but nonetheless it's one of my reasons that together make the case, as it contains example quotes as requested. And not wanting to consider more than one suspect is ludicrous and stinks of wanting to only work on one mislynch at a time, since scum know who the mafia are and thus that everyone else is town and so want to concentrate their efforts on a mislynch one at a time. Plus it contradicts when you had two suspects (Stels and muh) earlier anyway.



Below are a couple other excerpts from my original written post that I wanted to keep but didn't squeeze in above.

---

Replying to this quote from the post:

You act as if I was the only one at odds with Jack during Day 1. I defended his no lynch. He was brought to L-1 at one point. By this reasoning, just about everyone had motive to kill him. Why didn't you bring up the 4 players that voted him? Rain, Quaroth, Stels, and Barefoot all had a vote on him at one point. Didn't they just have as much motive to kill him as I did?

So if every game is looking at voting patterns and relationships, why did you only single out me and Jack?

I singled out Jack because he left more info on his flip that muh did. I looked at his flip and his last post. He was never brought to L-1, actually, barefoot never voted him. Hell barefoot was the only one that supported him.
- Rain voted Jack in #30, unvoted in #65.
- Quaroath voted Jack in #47, unvoted in #76.
- Stels voted him in #55, unvoted in #154.
(And isn't it a weird coincidence they're all at each others' throats now after all being on Jack at the same time in the past?)

Plus Jack did not die due to lynch, so I think the votes on him were less relevant. What I meant by the motive was not who voted him, as I think they all had strong reads on him at the end. Instead it was #199 and #206 where HE attacked YOU as a preface to Night 1 that I am referring to with the motive thing. Two of his last three posts.

---

And this quote:

Show me an example of me fence sitting. Is my vote on you 'fence-sitting?'

Your vote on me is not an example of fence-sitting, but it is an example of getting off the fence on the side that suits your current predicament the most, after having sat on the fence through Day 1. Your fence sitting in Day 1 came right in the link in your quote, I shall repeat it here:

@ Rain, sorry I don't post lists. I don't believe they help. You may disagree and have X amount of reasons, so if you want to teach everyone else why posting lists is important, but I don't feel em, so I'll rarely post em.

That is fence sitting because you refuse to show your hand. Here's more:

Is my vote on Stels circumstantial? Kinda. If anyone actually read my post I debated between voting him and the person who voted behind him (name escapes me). Ultimately I went with Stels. Someone said, "well T-Bone is latching on to one scumtell", but isn't exactly what everyone was doing on Page 2? "Oh Jack voted No lynch, scumtell!" Now I realize since then the focus has shifted away from him, but still.

<snip>

So here's where I'm at. Stels hasn't convinced me to remove my vote from him.I'm not advocating that we end the Day right this very second. I'm saying this is the lynch I believe in at the moment. I won't join a Day 1 bandwagon for the sake of joining a bandwagon.

Obviously I didn't like Muh's "lets policy lynch" idea, so I pointed it out. However, I don't feel it's best to try to accuse multiple players at the same time. Ultimately we can only lynch one person (or none at all) today. I'll be comfortable with a Muh lynch if I decide he suddenly becomes a better choice.

It's interesting to see how people change their playstyle once people start putting pressure on them. I've been reading the posts. I don't have an opinion of Quaroth. Talking in circles doesn't seem all that scummy to me.

And finally Ellyssa since I guess I'm addressing your questions, I don't even recall what barefoot did that warranted him the votes he got.

Summary:
- I know my vote on Stels is weak, but I have no better read and refuse to commit to one.
- I won't put pressure on people for the sake of putting pressure on people.
- I don't like muh's idea but won't vote him at the moment, but oh, maybe if I decide the grass on his side is better, I'll vote him.
- I read Quaroath's posts but haven't decided if he's lynchable or not. But hey, even though I won't put pressure on people, I sure like seeing how they react to pressure. Maybe I'll find a safe bandwagon to hop on.
- I know barefoot has votes and Ellyssa's trying to convince me to vote her, but I don't want to bother reading up to find out why she has the votes even though she was one of the potential lynches. Interesting. Maybe this is the link between the two of you if you both are scum.

Anyway. That works as another example of fence-sitting, I think.

[Ellyssa]

Can't help but notice that Quaroath you view as town and agree with Nacho, but in the next post you contradict yourself entirely and put him in the scum-picks... Wishy-washy much?

Word twisting. I did not put Quaroath in the scum picks. I said, and I re-quote,

I think there may be one in the Quaroath/Rain/Stels voting bloc too.

Elaborating on that a little, it's because it makes a lot of sense that a scum would be trying to inflame the conflict that's been going on there. Yes, I do see Q and Rain as town and you as neutral (and split's in the mix a little too but he wasn't in day 1), which is why I think one of my reads is wrong, cause I can't see them ALL three being town, and mafia not stepping in to try to distract town into making a possible mislynch out of one of the three, or get caught themselves and get lynched. Is it possible? Sure.

@T-Bone: Any reason for Rain suspicion? That opinion's been unmentioned so far as well?

@Quaroath/Stels/Rain What is your read on T-Bone? Do you think he's top two scum from my arguments? I don't think you three have said anything about him or this little war in Day 2 yet. He's obviously scummy to me and I'd like to know if I can get the support for a lynch or if you all are set on killing Rain or barefoot (though Stels is voting barefoot now for a comment he made to T-Bone, he didn't actually address T-Bone or my points againts each other).

[Ellyssa]

EBWOP: It used to say "Sure, but unlikely" at the end of that one paragraph, and then the last couple words got eaten.

[Ellyssa]

Right, my bad, you're voting Nacho now. Meant the slot, but you are voting Nacho based on a Nacho action and not a barefoot action.

Ah I see what you mean from the dashes comment. The first dash was to divide it between the two questions that Split had asked everyone (#265). So part 1 answered his game question there, and part 2 his "Who are your scum picks?" question there. Why I divided it is to isolate the game mechanic question away by itself as it may have been seen as more of a theory question (which people frown on as scummy I believe?).

The second dash was added when I preview edited, I saw T-Bone's reply and was going to craft another wall of text back at it (after dinner). It was separate from the scumpicks thing so I threw it in in its own section.

That's the thing about the three of you. You seem to be scumhunting now (even attacking me, but giving me points and quotes and 'proof' that I can try to refute) so you seem to be leaning town to me too (or I could be just tunneling T-Bone and not seeing others' scumminess, that's probably partially true too), but while all 3 of you were neutral or town at that point, I couldn't pick one out of the three, even though my logic states there's one in that crowd.

That's possibly better stated as "I think it's likely two of them are town and one is scum, but I'm not sure WHICH one is scum." Not that I think all 3 are scum. And the answer to why they were in the same group was due to voting and argument patterns on each other from mid Day 1.

[Ellyssa]

Well the smiley (sadfacey) was to his bah post, as an apology since I was on the wagon too. Could you/someone please define the town for cred thing? I thought that was mostly something done by someone not on the wagon as an "I knew it all along" kind of statement post-flip?

[Ellyssa]

Oh, I was trying to garner support for a lynch because while I feel you are scum, part of it is convincing the rest of the town too or we'll go nowhere regarding the lynch. Same goes the other way, you may feel I'm scum but if the rest of the town doesn't agree, you won't going to be able to lynch me. Call it an extension of this:

But like Split you are taken responsibility for your vote, and part of me doesn't see scum doing that.

No problem if you're scum since you can just NK me, but if you're town, you'd have had to convince the rest to vote me at some point, and similarly I on you, so when I went back to look for opinions, I did not see any by those three on this topic thus far, and I poked them about it.


Also I don't feel like you've answered a couple points yet (regarding reads from earlier days on me and such) but I like the hunting in your post anyhow, so thank you very much if you are town. I'll analyze it tomorrow though. *late*

[Ellyssa]

Sorry for lack of posting recently. Most of my free time has been going toward an MMO commitment.

@Quaroath Congrats!

@T-Bone I agree with your latest post. Except that I don't think he meant me, I think he was talking about either Stels, or muh, which were the two people you voted D1. Or were you referring to another post besides his #294? However, like you mentioned, I think there's a lot of WIFOM being thrown around, and Mafia may be trying to set up an NK by proclaiming someone townie though, just like what I accused Quaroath in D1 for.

I don't really see a problem with the pre-votes for the most part, honestly, since there are still two more scum, in that it's an extension of having suspect lists. If there was only one more then it would be a major, major scumtell.

@Rain #293 Appreciated, but wow, that's an uncomfortable post. See the possible thing about NK above in the point to T-Bone. That WIFOM bomb is oh so muddy, heh. We didn't really need that, we're more than halfway through, only 10 days away or so (right mod?) from the end. I do wonder if you meant to say that as an IC, or as a player under the guise of being an IC. I'm not sure it's inherently scummy, but it's kind of softclaiming cop..

@Quaroath You voted Rain early on in D2 via agreeing with split's points, and now you're voting split. Does that mean you think they are the two scum and think split was distancing himself from Rain there?

[Ellyssa]

But Toad didn't tunnel Jack on D1.. they argued a bit at the end over his lack of any sort of tells but Toad was mostly on Stels D1.

[Ellyssa]

Blech, stagnancy is not good.

@Rain: Why? Have you got any other reasons to vote Stels besides #249? I may have missed something or other? Are you that confident he's scum from a single D1 play? I don't even see a strong argument against him of any kind besides that, yet you seem to want to risk putting us into lylo (if he's town) based on a single read. I think even T-Bone has a stronger case on me than that, despite me blowing a few holes into it (from my perspective anyway). I get that you're a bit bored with the game, re: the D1 lynch and that #311 just above; the pace has definitely died down, but I don't see how there's logic there that implicates Stels at all besides the same kind of logic that T-Bone used on him early in D1 (Randomly being the Xth person to do something.) that I called him on..

[Ellyssa]

@Nacho

I think that Stels is town because of how transparent he's been this game. As scum, he's a bit more reserved. He avoided the muh bandwagon yesterday, but didn't call muh town for cred after the lynch. He's also had some really good scumhunting this game (#9 and #12, especially), and nothing he has done has been remotely scummy.

What was good about Stels' scumhunting in #9 and #12? One thing common in both posts is that he expresses strong suspicion of barefoot (you!) and Quaroath, whom he votes for at the end of #12.

(For finding a scum-slip/claim that he had to twist my words to find)

UNVOTE:
VOTE: Stels

Have reasons, but I won't go into them right now.

So.. Stels and Nacho are the scum? Convince us to vote too or it'll go nowhere?

No idea T-Bone. This is definitely confusing.

[Ellyssa]

Hallo. I'm here. Not much more to report since my last post since I was hoping QUaroath would give his Stels reasons too.

Can we have updated town/scum picks, maybe, as a way of opening more discussion? We have.. 5-ish days left?

Day 2 dawns with 7 alive. It is 4 to lynch. The deadline is set for the end of April 2nd, PST.

I'll start, with just a reread of Day 2.

Quaroath has voted a bunch of people since D2 started.. for me that initially seemed like a fairly strong town tell, despite some questionable things here and there in D1. One question jumps out at me though.

@Quaroath: You voted Rain, then Split, then now Stels, in D2. You give a reason each time but you I don't think you've retracted any of the earlier suspicions of the first two in your posts. Since there are only two Mafia, which one of the three don't you believe is Mafia now? You seem to be jumping at people a bit instead of trying to find the scum pairing, as I tried to allude to here but it kind of got ignored.



I'm majorly wavering on T-Bone. I'll present my conflicting thoughts I get from re-reading T-Bone D2 even if it makes me look wishy-washy:

I'm worried I am/was tunneling him a bit too much, because even though I don't like his D1 posts and his lack of evidence for a couple of his votes, the responses after our little squabble seem to be solid scumhunting. This quote below from a D2 context (ie, the situation at the time, since I mention below that I don't think it applies now anymore), seems bluntly townie on a reread, though I disagreed against it earlier since there are still 2 scum left and people may have other suspects they were chasing.

Truth be told, if/when I get lynched, it'll tell a lot about the people voting me, and the town might have a chance come LyLo Day 3. Those who were giving excuses to justify when they jump on by bandwagon later. If those people making excuses to vote me later really think I'm scum, why aren't they voting me now? Why haven't I been lynched? Because they realize I'll flip town and they'll be in hot water come Day 3?

What I don't quite get is that since I have a fairly strong town read on split too (much stronger than T-Bone read anyway), if all 3 of us are town, then why aren't the scum jumping on this wagon? They could have just agreed x2, and cause a mislynch, especially since so many quiet days have gone by. That's one of the things that makes me doubt a town read on T-Bone.

This post by split gives the other viewpoint though, that in terms of voting patterns (from here as well as D1) T-Bone seems ten shades of scummy. With split's new position of T-Bone and Rain being the scumpair, the last line in that argument doesn't hold anymore but the rest of the argument still stands and maybe they both have been soft-FoSing each other without voting each other. I'm finding myself agreeing with that pairing more and more as a distinct possibility.


A similar case for Stels. If he is town, and both Quar and Rain are town, then why haven't the Mafia sidled on with "oh I've reread the entire thread" arguments since so many days have gone by with not much action? I don't think what T-Bone said about hot water is true anymore in this stage of D2, because we're obviously not going anywhere until we consolidate the votes since we're approaching the end of the day now, after over a week or two of little activity, so there's been plenty of opportunity to jump wagon. They can't possibly be waiting a townie to be mislynched by the other 4 townies, and I doubt they want to be the 4th vote on a mislynchwagon, though maybe they're trying to play for a no-lynch.

The battle lines seem drawn (split/me on T-Bone, Quar/Rain on Stels), and is it mathematically reasonable to conclude that with 4 needed for a lynch, there is exactly 1 scum in each grouping, on each of those wagons or being wagoned, which is why neither is being pushed? If that's reasonable, that's what I'm using in my mind as more evidence that Nacho is town to me (ie, not being in either group), not only due to his postings (Sorry Stels, but that coaching bit really seems just like defending his viewpoint to T-Bone) but also how he entered the game, his first few posts are more reminiscent of town than scum because he didn't discuss his predecessor's scumminess, which is the major scumtell I was watching for.


@Rain: You still have everyone as a neutral/town pick besides Stels, which is a dubious argument by your own admission at best? At the end of D2? Your posts recently haven't been too inspiring or scumhunting. At all.

FoS: Rain

Stels' #12 was not unprompted. Jack's list was, I followed suit and invited others to join. Stels came later, after Ellyssa.

The gist of why my vote remains on Stels is this:
- He provided no explanation to his read-change on Jack right after Ellyssa and I changed our reads.
- He keeps his vote on Nacho despite acknowledging the original reason behind the vote may not be a scum tell.
- He exhibits no town tells (subjective, and admittedly weakest argument here).

My reaction to these points are:
- It seems everyone flipped-flopped on Jack there, whether they actually posted it or not, though you may be partially right on that.
- At least he's trying to scumhunt. He questioned Nacho, questioned me, questioned Quaroath (on a misinterpretation), and doesn't seem to be worried about offending T-Bone.
- But neither have you, recently.

I don't see you being a partner with Stels though. If he flips town, I might reconsider a T-Bone + Quaroath duo since Quar's latest posts have yet to mention T-Bone in any significant way (reminiscent of my d1 point much? sans confusing names this time around), but honestly, there's little scum motives behind his D2 pushes. His infrequent posts and RL issues might be clouding scumminess but.... eh. Stels is still scummier.

Barefoot was iffy. Nacho is town. I believe in Nacho, even if Nacho doesn't believe in me.

That worries me in another way too because if Stels flips town, and you are town, you know as an IC that we'll be in lylo and any considering should probably be done now while we still can survive another mislynch, instead of at that time. That just could be seen as setting up tomorrow's mislynch.

[Ellyssa]

@Rain Okay, that kind of makes sense, thanks. Who you thought Stels' partner was was what I was trying to get at. T-bone if he's your 2nd scummiest then?

We have like 4 days left.. Stels, hopefully when you said sometime this week, you didn't mean like Friday afternoon just before the deadline.

@Quaroath What swayed you on T-Bone becoming one of your top 3? Last week (#294) you said you had a neutral read on him, when I was trying to get more people to vote him. Now he's one of two potential scum partners.

[Ellyssa]

Er, Nacho? How does he come into the picture?

[Ellyssa]

Hrm. What about Stels? I thought in your ISO, 3 posts ago,

I missed you guys.

Guess the only problem I have with the most recent posts is Rain. At least make a case on Stels. Geez.

and 2 posts ago,

What is the case on Stels exactly?

@ Split, the simple answer is I haven't decided yet.

indicated you didn't have anything against Stels and were calling for more evidence? Or did I misunderstand/misinterpret you there?

Last post it was:

Oh whoops my bad. No one had any new thoughts and neither do I, so I didn't post.

So no opinion change from before, and there's been no case against Stels since that post, so

[Ellyssa]

Yeah, sorry, I kind of glossed over that abbreviation. I wish more forums had that feature!

And I don't know how much to blame you really, with the speed of the game.. but my vote's already on you anyway so I don't have to make some long justification.

[Ellyssa]

@Ellyssa/Everyone: Why the hell are you all talking about scum partners when we haven't even nailed a single scum yet? The fact that you guys are doing so is freaking weird.
List of people who do so:
Ellyssa
Quaroath
T-Bone
I see some correlation between these three people. If I were to say something about this in a similar manner as they have that distracts people from their main scum suspects and gives them a pre-vote advantage in a subconscious way is that there is either a Ellyssa/T-Bone team or Quaroath/T-Bone team... Ellyssa/Quaroath team I don't see, due to their interactions with one another being distanced... How do you like them apples now!?

Interesting. It's because there are only two scum and Quaroath seemed to have three suspects, so I wanted clarification (on my latest query anyway) if he still thought all 3 were scum, as he thought them scummy enough to vote them (for pressure or otherwise) back to back to back in D3. He seemed to explain it fine though. I was trying to feel out if he was just fishing for mislynches or not.

Why are you speculating on scumteams then, if you think it's freaking weird, in addition to the fact that despite thinking Nacho is scum, you're trying to breadcrumb several combinations of scumteams that don't include him at all?

[Ellyssa]

EBWOP: .. in D2, of course, not D3.

[Ellyssa]

I totally meant to avoid using the word breadcrumb as I looked it up and it means an entirely different thing. Apparently I forgot to change it after checking the definition.

Curious to see what Nacho will do. I still think Bone's the better lynch, but will wait for Stels to reply anyway (or hammer late tomorrow/sometime on the 2nd if needed to avoid a NL).

[Ellyssa]

I will hammer Stels if neither have got their hammer vote in about 36 hours-ish. I feel T-Bone is scummier overall, but for whatever reason I find myself agreeing with a number of his posts in the last week or so. Including #360 to some extent.

Would like to hear from Nacho though so hopefully he comes in before the end of the 2nd. Or someone else decides their votes are better.

[Ellyssa]

EBWOP: Better on the other suspect (and thus cast the lynch vote).

[Ellyssa]

Stels: He referred to/is making fun of my careless use of the word breadcrumb in #353. It didn't mean what I thought it meant, and I meant to change it after looking up the wiki (to something like "theorize") but didn't remember to before posting it.

Doesn't the part in Rule #5 (in Ald's 2nd post) about no encrypting text, refer to things like breadcrumbing anyway?

[Ellyssa]

Wow.

@split
While awaiting claim order, I know I'm town (while awaiting claim order) and you're scum (or VI, but that's unlikely). Which is weird and very personally disappointing as you were my top town read. Is that why you've kept me around so long, so you had an excuse to not get NKed yourself? I have been wondering why I wasn't dead yet too.

Question for you, if you are so sure we are scum (by process of elimination according to your post, we

have

to be), where is your vote? Hesitating and waiting to see if town believes your claim? Or too worried about the 50-50 chance or whatever of being counterclaimed by a real cop and thus wanting to break claim order to get yours out there first to look more credible?

I don't know who your partner is yet (Nacho maybe? Hoping to bus one guilty to get cred? Or one of the other you proclaim innocent? Seems equally likely.) but we can at least get one scum down and get into tomorrow and figure the other out. Lylo or no lylo, it's a safe vote from my point of view: VOTE: splitfarvle

[Ellyssa]

EBWOP: Woops, rearranged the brackets to move it to the front for grammar's sake, but forgot to actually remove the bracketed text.

[Ellyssa]

My strategy was to investigate those I didn't think would get NKed, Stels on N1 and Rain on N2. I was trying to walk a

fine line between saving Stels on D2 and revealing what I knew.

As to my vote, I'm waiting for Rain and Stels to come to a consensus and then I'll drop the hammer myself.

Or that you knew that wouldn't get NKed, anyway. How did you think they wouldn't get NKed, if you weren't involved in discussing who to kill or not kill, when you said the exact opposite near the start of Day 2 in #256, that,

I was surprised that Jack got the nightkill, as I was mostly neutral towards him and I expected someone like Ellyssa, for her imo town playing, or Rain or Stels, for their relative experience, to get killed instead. Hell, I even expected myself to get nightkilled before Jack since I turn up as town in a few player's analyses.

Outside of hinting I wouldn't be killed again.. if you were a cop, you DID expect that one of them may have been killed due to experience, so using your logic of investigating someone you didn't think was going to be NKed, T-Bone or Quaroath or barefoot/Nacho should have been your D1 investigation, not Stels. Especially since you had lingering doubts of T-Bone from D1, according to your ISO.

Furthermore, if you were cop, why would you bother waiting for them to come to a consensus? What consensus exactly? Which one is a "safer" mislynch (note, I don't know Nacho's alignment, not saying he's town) and thus which one is better to hop on, whether they believe the more pro-town or the scummier target you've picked? You have your two scum, the game is won, and voting one or the other wouldn't hurt.

That

shows you aren't certain of your information, which you would be if you were a cop.

Rereading some of your posts in a scummy light, they seem to show you building a very carefully neutral stance, mostly agreeing with others opinions (and occasionally adding or rephrasing an argument on them) but generally only when others have already started attacking them.

Do we have a backup plan in case Nacho either isn't willing or able to drop the hammer before the deadline? Is anyone willing to switch their vote to avoid a No Lynch? I'd like to see Rain lynched before Stels, anyone agree?

That struck me as weird at the time as well, though I didn't quite grasp why then. It's obvious now though, while you can explain it as trying to avoid a lynch on Stels, wouldn't a cop try to convince one of those voting for him to vote for T-Bone and ending the day instead? Since you thought he was scum? Instead with under 48 hours to go to the deadline, you ponder the possibility of starting a new bandwagon on a scummy-looking Rain (Whom you now declare town because either he's scum and your buddy, or that he's town so that he feels vindicated and thus more inclined to vote with you), perhaps hoping due to inactivity that another partial bandwagon starts and the day ends in a no-lynch instead. It smells of playing for a draw, since it would make no functional difference to the outcome if Nacho hadn't posted, whether I was the one to swap and hammer Stels, as I said I would just after, or if you did.

I don't know that you'd be able to build a case as me and bf/Nacho as scum partners due to interactions, and I'm not going to try either as I know that's not true. Feel free to. I will point out though that according to your theory, if I and Nacho were scum, T-Bone-townie seemed the scummier one by the middle of D2, and he would have been a much easier mislynch come D3 and I had several days to swap my vote to Stels-townie to lynch him right away when he was at L-1, especially when I called out what I saw as a contradiction from him in my #353 and could have used that as a late-day excuse to lynch him right away. Since essentially no one else agreed with T-Bone on any of his arguments by the end, it doesn't make sense that I didn't. Point being I think my play has been clearly with the town's best interests at heart and speaks for itself otherwise. Even though I was ultimately on both mislynchwagons - so were you, split.

Nothing jumps out at me from analyzing Quaroath's NK because he declared both of us to be town. Perhaps that's indicative of who your partner may be, or perhaps it's WIFOM, but we can figure that out some other time.

[Ellyssa]

My first initial impression is "I don't know", because I was musing the likelyhood of a Nacho-Stels scumteam buddying each other based on their interaction right at the very end of D2, but that doesn't work anymore because that hinged on both of them being Mafia together, not one or the other.

That being said I'm working on a comparison of you three in this light, and will hopefully be done by tomorrow if not Friday.

[Ellyssa]

I'll make a list.. two main things I was looking for here - Interactions with split and Quaroath, and D2 play. A bit of consideration given to guessing scum motive for killing night targets (Jack Forman, Quaroath) - likely a weaker thing to look for than the other two, due to WIFOM as mentioned since this was talked about after Night 1, but I like to consider it in the overall view of things. It's likely not a complete list either, as it was based off of one reread, but hopefully catches most of it.

Nacho

Aye

- The major one here, and the one I can't quite shake off, is that Split named Nacho as my partner. Does this mean that he's not voting because he knows it's one-true, one-false, and while he could lynch me to win or lynch Nacho for credit, he'd rather wait to see which wagon forms because winning with two scum left is "safer" than winning with one even though Nacho could be the easier lynch for towncred for split? Would he be audacious enough to name two townies as the scum, have them both OMGUS vote him, and hinge all his hopes on convincing the third townie (Rain or Stels), to vote along with him and his other scum partner (Stels or Rain)? Instead of naming 1 town 1 scum, and only needing to convince one of the two remaining townies to vote along with him. This might hinge on what Nacho actually does and how he votes when he comes back from his V/LA.
- If they're both scum, you could read #258 as one scum trying to say hello to the other replacement scum and directing them toward his preferred lynch target for the day, although as it turns out, split never actually votes Rain (but Nacho does, until his hammer swap).
- They ultimately were both on the T-Bone wagon at the end, though this is weak as, well, I was on it too, and so was Stels.

Nay

- He didn't hammer either Stels or T-Bone when they were at 3-3 for some time, though he may have been V/LA then. He didn't push either wagon to L-1 either when we had under a week left and they were 2/2 though. That would likely have sealed the deal on whoever it was, and get to nightfall faster.

Rain

Aye

- Split tries to distance from Rain here:

One thing that I find difficult in reading Rain is his role as IC. It doesn't help us to scumhunt if Rain is dropping knowledge that might be used by scum to appear more town. I don't think that part of my suspicion goes away if Jack flips town.

- Split goes,

Didn't see that coming, hope it was a good decision

right after Rain goes

Still no defense. I don't see any bandwagon forming on anyone else in the near future. Also, I'm getting a bit bored in this game. Gotta make something happen.

Die scum.

Unvote
Vote: Muh316

Which makes it seem like split knew Muh was town, and was trying to deaden the impact of Rain being the one to cast the hammer vote.
- Rain was the other secondary suspect that came up from my analysis on Jack's N1 NK, even though T-Bone got the brunt of my initial suspicion. Rain also then tried to bury N1 discussion (#235), and backs down in his next post on #241.
- Rain's D2 play in general is short and shoddy, with posts like "Moar votes on Stels please." and "Lynch Stels please." to avoid prods (for the first of those two anyway) and generally coast through D2. He then uses the Negative Proof logical fallacy here:

Unless you have some ungodly explanation to why Stels is town, my vote stays.

on what he admits is a weak case, because he's saying that he won't move his vote unless Stels can be proven to be town, which no other townie can do (besides the cop.. was that foreshadowing and trying to test the waters to see if there was a cop, which he continued on with the WIFOM bomb at #293?, which is not a townie thing to do at that point of the day at all). Basically he's saying, "You can't prove Stels is not scum. Therefore Stels is scum."
- He slips up in #339 by naming someone as scummy whom he hadn't been focused on,

second

time this game, though this one he never acknowledges. He also says T-Bone seems like a scummy suspect but refused to consider changing his vote through the end of the day. Or at least never said so. Despite knowing as an IC that no-lynch there would be critically bad. While Nacho and Stels were on T-Bone's wagon, Rain stood out for calling him scummy but trying his best to stay off that wagon.

Nay

- Not directly "agreeing" with split and jumping on either me or Nacho, even though he posted immediately after the cop claim.
- They clashed around #85 when split called Rain's comments on Jack as coaching.
- In Day 1 at #96 Rain applied pressure to Quaroath with regard to following the safe vote, out of nowhere. I don't see Mafia doing that to a townie at that point because they'd very much appreciate the support and vote.
- Split attacks Rain in #256 about seed planting and declaring Jack town.
- Split attacks Rain again in D2 about his D1 quickhammer around #238-240-241, #256, #264, #279, before it's finally dropped, with only a further brief reference at #295, I think. Split also continues attacking Rain by proxy in #295 by attacking Quaroath. Rain never really replies or acknowledges it, though.

Stels

Aye

- Possible reason to want Quaroath dead (Q had attacked him on and off, in pregame and day 1 and 2). Q was wishy washy on him up to the end, and voted/said so several times with regard to whether Stels was scum or not. Q also jokingly voted split early on in pregame/start of D1, and Stels jumped on him to defend split. - However this is weak primarily because it started in pregame. It could have been overreaction, even though it's long since been water under the bridge, but that kind of "too obvious" overreaction seems unlikely since everyone has shown themselves to be relatively mature and proficient (unlike some of the other newbie games) thereafter.
- Like Nacho, they ultimately were both on the T-Bone wagon at the end, though this is weak as well, as I was on it too, and so was Nacho. Plus the other wagon was his own..
- Split and Stels have barely talked about each other the entire game at all, except to say they think each other is town. They haven't attacked or pushed each other on any points, that is. Which is why this aye/nay list is woefully short.

Nay

- In #156, argued against split's "Lynch Muh in D1" post and called it tunneling.
- #284 is weakly pro-town, at least the bit about not caring whether he looked town or scum.


I think it's either Nacho or Rain that's split's partner, though more by process of elimination than anything. I was leaning toward Nacho because I find it very hard to believe that Split would gambit and name two townies instead of one town and one scum. Until I read what Stels said, that they may have been banking on his emotion from being vindicated since split claims both of them are town. I did not realise that in my initial read.

But I find it interesting now that I've done a read through and initial list, that Rain decided to vote anyway without waiting for my promised case post - he brings up points that I can and will try to refute, but without even waiting for my answer to his question, which he posted after my supposed "flailing", he now wholeheartedly agrees with split and is willing to vote and lynch me

even though he's an IC and this is two days into Lylo, and Nacho hasn't even checked in after the claim yet

. This is not townie play - you cannot be that sure if you ARE town! To me, this is a strong hint that Rain is panicking because Stels turns out to be leaning against their gambit of naming both of them town, and Rain is now trying to use absolutes and appeal to emotion to force through a quick lynch. Oops? Scumteam.

FoS: Rain

.

[Ellyssa]

Oh, and I am VT as well. I won't have time to reply to split right this moment, but,
@Rain I did vote barefoot at first but eventually took it off and moved on because it was obvious she had a language barrier and that was affecting her play, and I couldn't decide if the joking-around tone of some of the posts was part of that or not. There are simply things that I try not to morally attack anyone on, regardless of alignment, and that's one of them. Another in this game is pregame shenanigans (the point I brought up above, while it relates to that, talks more about the possibility of Chainsaw Defense there rather than the content of said pregame conflict), and yet another is "OOC" stuff, or even the use of the word OOC like T-Bone did early in day 2, which I could have said implied that his other posts were "in character" and that therefore he was acting, ergo scum. Now moot since obviously he's not.

But I didn't think barefoot (sans replacement) would have been able to survive to the end if she was scum, anyway, based on her D1 posts. So while my suspicion on her steadily degraded, I was also looking for that second scumpartner and thus went to muh on the suspicion of his interaction with barefoot. Plus no one else was on her wagon to apply pressure anyhow.

[Ellyssa]

Also

@Stels, if you are town, in all fairness you should consider the split/Nacho or split/Ellyssa teams as well, as he could be naming 1 town-1 scum and trying to kill one scum to get town cred, and promptly use that to lynch the other.

[Ellyssa]

To further expand on my N1 investigation, the wiki suggested I consider the future of the town instead of just who I thought was scummy. I decided that the mafia would kill players that probably wouldn't get lynched or that were an immediate threat to them. I also considered who might not be drawn out to post more through pressure (because of votes or D1 play) on D2 and thus slip through the cracks. Stels fit the criteria I set for myself.

Well yes, of course that is a legit assumption to make about who Mafia would be after, but my point was that you're saying you picked Stels because you didn't think he would be NKed, and I brought up a quote from you which directly contradicted that, saying that you thought after N1 that he had had a decent chance of being NKed by virtue of being one of the two remaining SE/IC. You obviously can't say you picked Rain N1 because of your attacks on him on D2, so you're trying to pigeonhole the Stels investigation into that slot, and I'm pointing out the logic there doesn't jive in comparison to the quote I linked.

Stels and Rain are sure of their own alignment, but not of each other's or mine. All I can do is convince them I'm telling the truth and vote along with them. Unless, of course, you're willing to vote for yourself or your scumbuddy Nacho. How about it?

Oh I don't know, your scumbuddy Rain magically seems pretty certain I'm scum a post or two after yours, without waiting for rebuttals or anything of the sort.

Why would you be willing to "lead" a wagon on say, muh, back in D1, based on deductive work, but now suddenly when you have cop information you're kitten-shy with regards to dropping that vote? I think you're hedging your bet and wanting to see which one gets the crucial townie misvote before you vote. Mafia love voting last in Lylo - it allows them to swing a wagon one way or the other.

- If you and Stels are Mafia, the game would be over by now because you've both posted since Rain has, so you'd have quickhammered me. Thus Stels is 100% town, since he's town in your theory too.
- If you and Nacho are Mafia, then Rain is voting for me and is the crucial townie misvote, so you may be waiting on Nacho's return and vote before you vote me as well, so Rain doesn't get cold feet and back out. This does hinge on his reaction/vote, but is also why I think Rain is the other Mafia - experienced town would

never

do this without being absolutely sure after having examined all the evidence first.
- If you and Rain are Mafia, then you still need to convince Stels, which you seem to be quite desperately doing at the moment, or Nacho or me, which won't happen anymore since we know you're scum from the fake investigation.

I would think that rereading anybody's posts in a scummy light would make them look scummy. And I really don't see how this opinion jives with my D1 playing, remember muh? Or me building a case on Rain on D2?

Yes, fair enough, I started to make a point and was going to pull out a couple quotes from your ISO to back that up, but got sidetracked with that comparison thing instead, trying to figure out the other scum. Though our play has been very similar in a way, since I built the case on T-Bone and started his wagon in D2 too. And both our wagons were mislynches. And either your case on Rain was wrong as well, if you were a cop (which you aren't), or that is classic distancing from your scumbuddy because I believe he only ever really bothered defending himself on one point, which was the hammer on muh, and Rain's rebuttals seem like contrived, half-hearted "yeah, i'm not worried you'll lynch me, let me fight back just a little to look realistic" attempts. Actually looking at your ISO, the only three posts that really attack Rain are #17, #20 and #22 and they're all about the hammer plus one reference to coaching in D1.

All subsequent ones are hints dropped while talking to players that you already think he's scum. Quaroath even calls you out for hedging your vote against voting Rain, and while your point is valid there that you didn't want to put him into L-1 early in D2, you also spent the rest of the day saying others should vote him, while your vote was firmly on my T-Bone wagon. Even after Quaroath unvoted and the day went on, and Nacho was the only one still voting him. Hell, for all the wondering even on the last 48 hours whether anyone was still willing to lynch Rain, it ultimately took the person with the only other vote ON Rain switching his vote to end the day. You were obviously trying to distance yourself from Rain without actually voting him and putting him in danger.

Do we have a backup plan in case Nacho either isn't willing or able to drop the hammer before the deadline? Is anyone willing to switch their vote to avoid a No Lynch? I'd like to see Rain lynched before Stels, anyone agree?

That struck me as weird at the time as well, though I didn't quite grasp why then. It's obvious now though, while you can explain it as trying to avoid a lynch on Stels,

wouldn't a cop try to convince one of those voting for him to vote for T-Bone and ending the day instead

? Since you thought he was scum? Instead with under 48 hours to go to the deadline, you ponder the possibility of starting a new bandwagon on a scummy-looking Rain (Whom you now declare town because either he's scum and your buddy, or that he's town so that he feels vindicated and thus more inclined to vote with you), perhaps hoping due to inactivity that another partial bandwagon starts and the day ends in a no-lynch instead. It smells of playing for a draw, since it would make no functional difference to the outcome if Nacho hadn't posted, whether I was the one to swap and hammer Stels, as I said I would just after, or if you did.

This seems like a convoluted point you're trying to make. How exactly would I keep Stels from being lynched without claiming? The only way I could see was to provide an alternative that I thought was scummy and see if we could avoid either a No Lynch or lynching Stels. If I go to bat really hard for a townie on D2 without knowing there's a doc, all we get is one confirmed town on D3.

Classic misdirection here. I did not say you should claim to save Stels or "prove" his innocence. I said, and bolded for reference, that a townie cop would have tried to convince Quaroath or Rain (or Nacho) to vote T-Bone instead, as that was a much more likely thing to happen than a brand new wagon on Rain with 48 hours to go, like you instead suggested. That made no sense and that was playing for a draw instead for a kill.

If you were a cop, you knew Stels was town and T-Bone and Rain were scummy, but why phrase your thoughts about avoiding no-lynch as "I'd rather lynch the L-3 wagon (but someone else has to initiate it - I'll keep my vote on this one!) than that other L-1 wagon that I know is town" instead of "Hey guys, there are two L-1 wagons, and here's my case on why you should vote this one with me as this guy is scummier".

To re-rephrase, a townie cop would have written a "lynch T-Bone (instead of Stels) on D2" post instead of a "hey, let's perhaps spread our votes out with under 48 hours to go" post.

It isn't a theory, it is fact that Rain, Stels, and I are town. You seem incredibly defensive now without me having tried to build a case at all. Why are you defending yourself against things I haven't said? Did you read your own ISO and realize you made a scumslip somewhere?

Nope, just anticipating and cutting you off. Of course I'm defensive - you're accusing me of being Mafia, on a gambit that will end the game! I'm not just going to sit back and let this happen.

@Rain and Stels: I feel the best way to convince you that I'm telling the truth is to give you the info I have (done) and letting you decide what to do with it.

I don't want to push for either Ellyssa or Nacho because I think that if you guys make the decision to lynch one today, then I can't be accused of bussing which could become important on D4. But today is the hard part.

Ellyssa and Nacho will both flip scum, the ball is in your court. Expect the best cases I can muster on both by this weekend.

What? "They're both scum but I don't want to push either of them because when I'm

right

I'll look more suspicious on D4?" So instead of pushing/making cases on either of us, you're going to let them "come to a consensus" with Rain trying to influence Stels using his former-enemies-now-buddies-cred, and once either of me or Nacho have double votes on us, then you'll move in and pounce? Ah, gotcha.

(addressing later points later)

[Ellyssa]

I believe splitfarvle, if only because the two people he thinks are scum are the hardest to nail. scum fake-claiming cop to convict Stels would've been a too easy option. And I'd be voting for him if he investigates me as scum.

Try as I might, I have no idea what Stels is referring to about Nacho setting a trap for himself.

This part of the post is written on the off chance you are town, and Nacho and Split scumteam will quickhammer me when he gets back from V/LA:

Didn't you see what Stels said? It's not that he picked the team of me and Nacho to attack, but rather it could have been by elimination that they wanted to clear you and Stels specifically.

Another thing about Rain and this tactic is that the aggression caused between him and myself will build into friendship/buddying if it is revealed that we are both town. Clever tactic. I vote, they quick-lynch. I refrain from voting until Nacho gets here.

And perhaps then they NKed Quaroath because he had been focussing on all 3 of you (split, Rain, Stels) for D2 and most of D1 (I don't think Q attacked split on D1) with barely any attention directed at me/Nacho/T-Bone (besides listing the last two as possible Stels-partners, but Stels was still his main suspect and was not lynched). So he maybe would have muddied the waters had he remained.

I raised the possibility of a safer tactic to take if I was scum, that of pushing for the lynch of someone who almost got lynched on D2. You denied the possibility that it could happen and I countered with how it could. You still deny that you might've gotten lynched on D2 and I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. My point is that you and Rain were probably the best candidates for a lynch on D3, so why wouldn't I go the easier route if I was scum? Or why not NK you and point to trying to get Rain lynched instead on D2 for cred? After all, I am 0-2 with muh and T-Bone, couldn't I use some cred today if I wanted to push the lynch of a townie? It's pure dumb luck that things have turned out the way they have, but I'm going to do my best to make the most of it.

BTW, Ellyssa herself suggested that you consider Split/Ellyssa. Rather "helpful" of her, no?

Yes and perhaps you can tell us why in endgame. I can turn the argument around and ask why you think we then offed Jack, and then Quaroath, if we were scum, but I'm sure you can't come up with any plausible reason either. Nor do I have strong reasons as to why you/Rain or you/Nacho would have done it.

What is the easier route exactly? Besides the theory about picking Stels/Rain as town targets (rather than me/Nacho as scum targets) for your gambit to buddy them together, maybe you realised that every single vote I've placed this game has been well-explained and that I would be the more likely one to see holes in the game plan if I were analyzing as one of the two "confirmed town"? I think you didn't want to leave the lylo decision to me, is what it boils down to.

Or perhaps, another theory if we want to talk about possible reasons why you picked Stels and Rain as your townies, it could be that you picked Rain as an "I pushed him hard in D2, therefore obviously I investigated him in N2 and he turned up town!", and between me, Nacho and Stels, you had no reason to investigate me N1 (via your investigating unlikely NK targets theory) and between Nacho and Stels, Stels is newer and therefore you picked him, hinging your hopes that he would misvote.

Also, yes to being "helpful", this is a newbie game after all and regardless of who wins, I'd like to be an IC in the future so I try to point things out too? Plus the fact that I was at the point still considering a 3 way split between who split's partner was, whereas he seemed to be focussing on just one.

One more thing to expand on my point in the last post about you picking Stels as your N1 investigation target, you said, in D1, your 3rd last post of the day,

barefoot-fighter: She had some pressure on her due to perceived fence-sitting about Jack and her initial support of a No Lynch, and she didn't come across as scummy to me in her responses. Her posting style makes her seem like a new player to me. She hasn't been contributing much since, though. In my limited experience scum likes to slip through the cracks. It struck me in both games I've played how often a scum flip would elicit a "Man, I forgot he/she was even in the game" from other players. I would support a barefoot lynch at this time for that reason alone, but would prefer a replacement if she continues to lurk.
<snip>
Stels: Seems fairly clear about who he thinks is scum and why (even despite being V/LA for a spell), and I see that as more pro-town than scum.

It doesn't fit at all that you'd investigate a pro-town target that you acknowledged could have had the possibility to get NKed due to newbie scum getting rid of experienced players, but that you had a leaning-town read on, rather than investigating who you thought was a lurker and was leaning-scum on. I don't think that thing in the wiki about investigating for the future really applies in Newbie games where there are only 2 scum and one kill a night. Why would the cop townhunt on D1?

[Ellyssa]

I won't be able to post walls of text before tomorrow if not later (though I'm reading along), but do you want me to unvote as well then? I have a vote on split at the moment.

[Ellyssa]

So you don't think there's even the slightest possibility that Split and Nacho are the scumteam?

[Ellyssa]

If you were town, you should be 100% behind my lynch. Asking Stels what you should do with your vote doesn't make sense either since you claim not to know if he's town or not. But you do know he's town. If I was scum, all that would be left for you to do is to find the other scum. But instead, you are simultaneously trying to discredit me, appear more town, and buddying up to Stels.

I was wondering if you'd bring up this one. Simple reason is that it's not a 100% sure thing without Nacho checking in, that you and Nacho could still be the scumteam instead of you and Rain. For all I know if you get a 2nd vote if town-Rain switches his vote, he could quickhammer his scumbuddy (you) to end discussion and NK someone else, and then either he now suddenly looks really townie heading into D4, or you quickhammer yourself and now a town-Rain looks scummy as hell. Unlikely scenarios as I think you and Rain are the scum pair, but not out of the realm of possibility given how this day has gone. You're guaranteed scum, those two are currently maybe-scum with Rain being the stronger suspect, but there is still the possibility my vote could have muddied the waters and allowed one of them to quickhammer, so I offered.

Where did I recently claim I'm not sure if Stels is town? Stels is 100% guaranteed town, and I've already said that in D3 (re-quoted below). That is because in your theory, me and Nacho are scum, so Stels is town. In my theory, you and Stels cannot be both scum because Rain already voted me, and if you two were the scum pair the game would have been over, as both of you have posted several times since. He's the swing vote that the game will be won or lost by, so yes, I'm sure going to try to make sure there aren't any misunderstandings.

And thanks to Rain's vote, it should be clear when Nacho comes in whether the scum pair is split-Rain or split-Nacho.

- If you and Stels are Mafia, the game would be over by now because you've both posted since Rain has, so you'd have quickhammered me. Thus Stels is 100% town, since he's town in your theory too.

[Ellyssa]

The rest of that post,

I've had a family emergency so I'll post some of what I have and get back to the game in a few days.

Condolences, hope all goes well.

Ellyssa, new player or not, has obviously done her homework about the game of Mafia. For the entire game she's shown a clear understanding on how things work for both town and scum, and is quick to ask questions when she doesn't. It seems as though she's played a good town game with generating discussion and most players have been convinced she's town.

I think that she came into D3 confident of a scum win, and my reveal has thrown her off.

Yes I have, I've read a number of games and the wiki, though I don't have actual game experience. Are you trying to nudge people along the Too Townie fallacy without actually outright saying it? You've been fairly townie yourself, probably as much so in peoples' minds as me. Except Quaroath, I guess. He's the only one who's voted you all game. Oh wait, he's now dead. That nightkill sure does look a lot more logical from your end than mine, doesn't it? And we couldn't have planned it if we were Mafia to implicate you, because surely we'd have had no idea you were a cop going to claim us.

I don't know that you'd be able to build a case as me and bf/Nacho as scum partners due to interactions, and I'm not going to try either as I know that's not true. Feel free to. I will point out though that according to your theory, if I and Nacho were scum, T-Bone-townie seemed the scummier one by the middle of D2, and he would have been a much easier mislynch come D3 and I had several days to swap my vote to Stels-townie to lynch him right away when he was at L-1, especially when I called out what I saw as a contradiction from him in my #353 and could have used that as a late-day excuse to lynch him right away. Since essentially no one else agreed with T-Bone on any of his arguments by the end, it doesn't make sense that I didn't. Point being I think my play has been clearly with the town's best interests at heart and speaks for itself otherwise. Even though I was ultimately on both mislynchwagons - so were you, split.

She says she doesn't know if I'd be able to build a case on her and Nacho as a scumteam, and that she's not going to try either. Why would she consider trying? I strongly doubt that, in all her research, a town strategy has popped up that either recommends trying to build a case on yourself or demanding that another player build a case on themselves. Scum might want to, however, in order to make sure that they've covered their tracks. And in this same segment, we see she reverses what she already said about not trying to build a case on herself and Nacho. It seems to me to be a convoluted point to make that somehow she's town because T-Bone would've made an easier lynch on D3 than Stels. Nacho would've had to reverse what he'd already said about Stels being town in order to switch votes, and Ellyssa pointing out a contradiction really doesn't seem to be a good reason to switch in the face of a case on T-Bone that spanned several points and much of D2.

After appearing unsure, then confident, then contradicting herself, she thinks she's made a point that somehow proves that her "play has been clearly with the town's best interests at heart and speaks for itself otherwise." And then back to being unsure, as she points out she was on both mislynchwagons. She points out that I was as well, but the difference between us is I'm not scrambling around trying to appear more town:

What? The first part of this doesn't even make the remotest sense to me. I found a scum strategy that does what? By making a case on myself or asking others to do so? Why would any scum want to do that? How are you reading into my mind and concluding I found some sort of magical strategy? Wouldn't scum be happier not having anyone look at their post history? Which is why in the first place they generally post very little content. I've left plenty to analyze. You're desperately grasping at straws for something to say here but it's not working. At the time I was puzzled as to the logic of why you had chosen the two of us in particular as scum, and awaiting the case attempt you'd have to make to justify that. This was before Stels's theory (Unless I misinterpreted what he said, in which case then it's my followup theory from his) of scum selecting the "two townies" as opposed to the "two scum" to make this gambit, or my other theory that perhaps it was by process of elimination on who you could have logically selected the first day as your target.

The lynchwagon comment was part of the previous statement "I think I've been clearly town all game, even though I was on both lynchwagons" and "so were you, split" part was to ward off anyone trying to jump onto that, before they try, because we both did the same thing.

On the part concerning easier lynches, why would Nacho have to justify anything? I never mentioned him. I said

I

could have swapped to lynch him since his wagon was at L-1 without me, since I was still attacking something he wrote two or three days before the deadline, and everyone else agreed T-Bone was scummy.

Thu Mar 31, 2011 7:39 pm

The deadline is set for the end of April 2nd, PST.

It would have been easy enough for me to use that to lynch him, the tougher lynchwagon, on the pretext that he had slipped with 36 hours to go, if I were scum. That was my point, nothing to do with Nacho or anyone else. I don't think I had a firm "second suspect" past T-Bone on D2, so I could have jumped on that if I were Mafia.

Also

@Stels, if you are town, in all fairness you should consider the split/Nacho or split/Ellyssa teams as well, as he could be naming 1 town-1 scum and trying to kill one scum to get town cred, and promptly use that to lynch the other.

If she was town, why would she suggest this? She claims she's practicing to be an IC. In the middle of something that will decide this game. On a player more experienced than her. I think that the answer is that she's rattled deeply for the first time in the game, and is looking for reassurance from Stels that he is truly disbelieving me.

Also, yes to being "helpful", this is a newbie game after all and regardless of who wins, I'd like to be an IC in the future so

I try to point things out too

? Plus the fact that I was at the point still considering a 3 way split between who split's partner was, whereas he seemed to be focussing on just one.

I'm not practising to be an IC, you're focussing on the wrong half of that sentence as my reason. I said I was pointing out the other possibilities because while I highly suspect Rain, split/Nacho is still a distinct possibility until Nacho gets back and posts. He didn't think split/Nacho was, I thought it was possible so I threw that in. I threw myself in for completeness, because I don't think there was any proof for 2 of Rain/Stels/Nacho at that time, or even now, that it wasn't technically possible, even though you and I both know it's not.

If split/Nacho does turn out to be the scumteam, Rain's vote on me ends the game once Nacho comes back and they're both available to vote before Rain is convinced to retract. Why is that not townie in the least to ask Stels if he has thought about the other possible cases at least? I don't know Nacho outside of this game, or his playstyle at all, so all Stels' meta-evidence means nothing to me and thus I am still not yet convinced. Besides, what's wrong with feeling out all possibilities in a newbie game? Isn't that the point of even playing a newbie game above and beyond winning - to learn and gain experience and improve critical thinking by being thorough? Even if Stels is experienced, do you think the others aren't reading along or there won't be other browsing newbies in the future who may?

[Ellyssa]

Stress argh. Hi T-Bone! <3 Sorry

So sorry to town, I felt extremely scummy IRL throughout the game. I'd like to say you all were a great group of folks to play with in general compared to some of the troll-like posting and screaming in browsing some of the other Newbie games!

@split I think if you had actually voted early on in Day 3 it would have added a bit of credibility; in the end it was one extra thing we could attack you on.. that being said I think you did about all you could overall.

@Rain, T-bone, others: Can you point out some of the things that stood out to you and raised red flags about my play? I know I was definitely hesitant about attacking barefoot for a bit there.. but not sure if I would have even if I was town heh. I still don't get how I flailed against split in D3, I thought my points stood up quite well, if you could elaborate a little Rain?

Big thanks for Nacho to replacing in too, and Alduskkel for modding! It went a bit slow near the end of D2, but thankfully picked up again.

Our QT is here:
http://www.quicktopic.com/45/H/JaktMYeE38L
Is there a dead QT or something in newbie games?
there's not much on it. We didn't actually get to talk after Nacho replaced in early on D2, barefoot didn't give any indication she was going to leave until after the day had started, so doh there.
Jack Forman drew the kill on Night 1 because he voted no-lynch and as much as it was a scummy thing to do, I thought it was also a new-cop-like thing to do, wanting to get to night early. Nice job on his part heh.
Quaroath drew the kill on Night 2 because of well.. process of elimination. I didn't want to kill split due to sticking out like a sore thumb in terms of being obv-townie and still alive, nor did I want to kill the bottom couple potential mislynches, so he was kind of in between.
Never suspected split. Had a heart attack when you claimed cop on D3. What were the odds we killed the two you didn't inspect, grrr.

[Ellyssa]

Hi! Sorry about killing. Hope you and your wife fare well! I'm fairly sure that would have come from someone on D3 anyway if split didn't flash his (obviously fake!) cop badge in.

Not sure how to really deal with that overall as scum though. I'd probably have invoked the too townie fallacy, and say that all my lynchwagons were all fake so far, so maybe scum was laughing all the way to the bank at me and waiting for town to say that. I mean Rain survived as the IC, and split also survived as being very townie.. I don't like to kill the too obvious ones. :/ I think I probably could have done better/different on that bf-lynch though if it stood out that much. Hmm.

Nah you generated discussion and did good, good enough to warrant the NK for being dangerous, and I like your hamster sig.

[Ellyssa]

Definitely please if you don't mind (And thanks for the thoughts so far as well!)

[Ellyssa]

Thank you very much for the time you took to do all those. The insight is very much appreciated!