Mini 1140 - Mafia Mishmash...Game Over!!

[vollkan]

First off, a public service announcement for those who I haven't played with before:
1) I use a points system to keep track of scumtells. Each person has a score ranging from 0 = absolute town, to 100 = absolute scum.
2) Each person starts at 50. A score of 50 means "I do not see a preponderance of town-ness or scumminess". Thus, a score of 50 does not mean "I have no opinion on this person". The reason I emphasise this will become clear in 3.
3) I am extremely sceptical of towntells and more-sceptical-than-average of scumtells. The towntells part is the big thing - it is extremely difficult for people to go below 50. It's not impossible - but it is really difficult (ie. "X is being really logical and posting a lot" will never be a towntell for me)

At this point in time, the points scale is:

Player	Score
Andrew94	50
pappums rat	50
Regfan	50
Surprise_Carcinogen	50
Maxous	50
Truant	50
curiouskarmadog	50
bgg1996	50
Magnetic	50
subgenius	50
tclawren	50
yura-chi	50

I couldn't agree with this more, I don't see any real logic behind random-voting in an attempt to gauge reactions as people know that's the intention is.

What do you think RVs are meant to achieve?

1. What's your time-zone
2. Have you played with anyone in here before, if so what was their play-style like? (Remember you can't mention ongoing games)
3. Do you prefer being town or mafia generally?
4. How often are you likely to post?
5. Do you generally like leading or following?

1. GMT+10
2. I've played a large number of games with CKD. I can't really define his playstyle, other than saying I think he's a good player.
3. Mafia
4. I tend to make a small number of large posts, especially as there becomes more material to read - unless I feel that I am onto something really good.
5. I don't care either way about "leading" (my playstyle means that I sometimes do end up leading, but it's rarely intentional). However, I hate following.

[vollkan]

vollkan, your points system seems to contradict what the guy in your avatar is yelling.

My avatar is meant to be expressing anger at the use of "gut". FWIW, if I have a schtick on this site, it's for hating gut-based play.

Among the justifications for my points system is that it directly ties every single suspicion I have to specific reasons. (eg. if I find something scummy, I say why and then say, eg,

+5

. What this means is that my suspicions are always clearly linked to specific reasons.)

also, hos tclawren for not joining rvs.

Why do you think this is scummy?

[vollkan]

Honestly, I ALWAYS consider refusing to RVS to be at least a little scummy. Not enough to suspect someone on it's own, but still a point to look back at in the future.

I should say, refusing to partake of rvs is a little scummy because it prevents us from getting a read on that person. "I refuse to partake of RVS" is a nice way of saying "lurking time!"[/quote[

I have three problems with this:

First

It seems that your reason for disliking refusing to RVS is that it amounts to a form of lurking, by avoiding giving people an opportunity to get a read.

The trouble with this is that you are presuming that everybody thinks the same way about RVS as you do - ie. people who don't RV may be opposed to the RV stage because they think it is counterproductive or (more commonly) they are ambivalent toward it because they see it as generally accomplishing nothing.

Thus, unless you have good reason to think that the people who aren't RVSing are lying about their opinion on RVS, you can't call it scummy

Second

I'm inherently wary of any argument which says that something isn't scummy "on it's own" but that it is something to "look back at in the future".

Things are either scummy or they aren't. The approach you are suggesting leads to a form of confirmation bias. It also lets you get away with not having to think too much about why something is scummy

To illustrate with an example:
Say a person who doesn't RVS also then plays evasively later on in the game. The fact that they play evasively down the track doesn't magically transform their non-RVSing from a nulltell into a scumtell. It is terrible play to say, for example, "This person is being really evasive now and LOOK they didn't RVS so they were also evasive then".

The question has to be whether there is any good reason for thinking that their non-RVSing is actually evasion. If you can't find one, it isn't scummy.

Third

I also don't like the fact that you are determining scumminess based on the effect that not RVSing has (ie. "because it prevents us from getting a read on that person"). This is basically committing the classic fallacy of equating anti-town with scummy. Something is not scummy if it hurts the town - something is scummy if scum is more likely to do it than town. There is, of course, a lot of overlap between those two. But, here, people have been clear about giving reasons for why they don't want to RV. Ignoring that and focussing solely on effects is a recipe for disaster.

With that all in mind:

Suprise_Carcinogen + 5

for weak arguments that dance around the issue of why non-RVSers (who are something akin to sitting ducks) are scummy.
VOTE: Vote: Suprise_Carcinogen

(I should have said earlier, that a basic scale for points is: 5 = minor, 7 = moderate, 10+ = serious. I try to keep my points scaled so that a score of 70 is my "I am completely comfortable lynching this person" threshold.)

Hm, seems like a pretty powerful tool for giving your completely subjective observations a false air of objectivity. I do not like it. I'll reserve judgement until I've seen it in action for at least a little while, but I trust well reasoned cases better than I trust a tally of isolated scum tells.

You're like the 200th person to make exactly this argument.

I've never once pretended that my points have any validity beyond being an expression of my own opinion.

I'd also point out that my system is in no way exclusive of reasoned cases. It does, however, force my suspicion on each person to be a composite of a number of specific subpoints rather than a vague general impression of a person.

Unless you are a Cop and had a successful night check getting a guilty result or positive result, I would like to see to it that you never place someone on 100 or 0. There never can be 100% sure something. Got that?

Nobody ever gets to 0 or 100 without cop clearing, etc.

[vollkan]

Honestly, I ALWAYS consider refusing to RVS to be at least a little scummy. Not enough to suspect someone on it's own, but still a point to look back at in the future.

I should say, refusing to partake of rvs is a little scummy because it prevents us from getting a read on that person. "I refuse to partake of RVS" is a nice way of saying "lurking time!"

I have three problems with this:

First

It seems that your reason for disliking refusing to RVS is that it amounts to a form of lurking, by avoiding giving people an opportunity to get a read.

The trouble with this is that you are presuming that everybody thinks the same way about RVS as you do - ie. people who don't RV may be opposed to the RV stage because they think it is counterproductive or (more commonly) they are ambivalent toward it because they see it as generally accomplishing nothing.

Thus, unless you have good reason to think that the people who aren't RVSing are lying about their opinion on RVS, you can't call it scummy

Second

I'm inherently wary of any argument which says that something isn't scummy "on it's own" but that it is something to "look back at in the future".

Things are either scummy or they aren't. The approach you are suggesting leads to a form of confirmation bias. It also lets you get away with not having to think too much about why something is scummy

To illustrate with an example:
Say a person who doesn't RVS also then plays evasively later on in the game. The fact that they play evasively down the track doesn't magically transform their non-RVSing from a nulltell into a scumtell. It is terrible play to say, for example, "This person is being really evasive now and LOOK they didn't RVS so they were also evasive then".

The question has to be whether there is any good reason for thinking that their non-RVSing is actually evasion. If you can't find one, it isn't scummy.

Third

I also don't like the fact that you are determining scumminess based on the effect that not RVSing has (ie. "because it prevents us from getting a read on that person"). This is basically committing the classic fallacy of equating anti-town with scummy. Something is not scummy if it hurts the town - something is scummy if scum is more likely to do it than town. There is, of course, a lot of overlap between those two. But, here, people have been clear about giving reasons for why they don't want to RV. Ignoring that and focussing solely on effects is a recipe for disaster.

With that all in mind:

Suprise_Carcinogen + 5

for weak arguments that dance around the issue of why non-RVSers (who are something akin to sitting ducks) are scummy.
VOTE: Vote: Suprise_Carcinogen

(I should have said earlier, that a basic scale for points is: 5 = minor, 7 = moderate, 10+ = serious. I try to keep my points scaled so that a score of 70 is my "I am completely comfortable lynching this person" threshold.)

Hm, seems like a pretty powerful tool for giving your completely subjective observations a false air of objectivity. I do not like it. I'll reserve judgement until I've seen it in action for at least a little while, but I trust well reasoned cases better than I trust a tally of isolated scum tells.

You're like the 200th person to make exactly this argument.

I've never once pretended that my points have any validity beyond being an expression of my own opinion.

I'd also point out that my system is in no way exclusive of reasoned cases. It does, however, force my suspicion on each person to be a composite of a number of specific subpoints rather than a vague general impression of a person.

Unless you are a Cop and had a successful night check getting a guilty result or positive result, I would like to see to it that you never place someone on 100 or 0. There never can be 100% sure something. Got that?

[/quote]

Nobody ever gets to 0 or 100 without cop clearing, etc.

[vollkan]

1: I suppose I can understand the idea of someone being against RV for the sake of finding it pointless, but at the same time, refusing to partake still leaves us out an early read of that player.

But that's just it! A person who finds RVS pointless will, by definition, not see "refusing to RVS" as depriving people of anything worthwhile.

2: Refusing to RVS is a span of time a person is lurking. Lurking a LOT is a scum-tell, or at least anti-town. We can't ignore a gap in playtime for a reason like 'I don't find it productive'. Lurking is still lurking at that stage.

Leaving aside the issue of lurking being scummy (it isn't), the fact is that you need to look at any instance of lurking to determine if it is scummy or not. If a person doesn't RV, and posts less as a result, you can't say "that's an example of them lurking" without tanking account of the reason that they aren't participating.

3: I agree. I misspoke. Anti-town is a much more reasonable way of putting it as opposed to scum-tell.

In which case, I am now completely confused as to where you stand. You've spent much of your past few posts arguing why it is scummy, but now you turn around and say that it is anti-town "as opposed to a scum-tell", which would seem to undermine everything you've been saying until now.

In other news, out of curiosity, if I were to cop to being a Town Miller, what would general reaction be?

@ EVERYBODY:

DO NOT answer the above question!

@SC: if you want to claim miller, claim miller.

[vollkan]

Once again,
1. Then that person and myself will disagree. See pt.3
2. I mean that you need to look at refusing to RV as a section of time a person was refusing to play. For example: You are not RVing, but you're still investigating. IE: not lurking. The first guy who said he wasn't going to RV hasn't said anything else since, but it's still early. If he continues to say nothing for a few more days, it becomes lurking.
3. Under the misconception that it was a universally accepted fact that RVS is beneficial to town, I made the decision that refusing to do so is a scum-tell. Your argument has swayed my understanding. I consider refusing to do it to be anti-town, as it is still my opinion that you can get good information from RV(see pt.1), as it has been my experience that SOMETHING good comes of RVS. It is a slightly moot point at this stage though, as I think we've skipped entirely through RVS phase.

1. NO. It's not a mere disagreement. Your entire argument for it being a scumtell depends upon a person not having any good reason for refusing to RVS. If they think RVS is useless, then regardless of whether or not you agree with them their action isn't scummy.
2. What you're saying here is a response to something..but not to my second point. Again, in case you just didn't understand me, my second point has been focussed on your suggestion that refusing to RVS might be relevant "down the track". My problem is that either a person's refusal is scummy or not - how it looks later on is irrelevant.
3. So, you don't think it is a scumtell any more?

Why did you not want people to answer this?

As my second sentence ("@SC: if you want to claim miller, claim miller") indicated, I thought there was at least a possibility that SC was contemplating a miller claim, genuine or otherwise. Given that, I didn't want people to be giving an opinion about it. The opportunity cost of people not answering what appears to have been a random hypothetical is tiny compared to the risks involved in giving somebody guidance about how to claim.

[vollkan]

Ahhhhh since no one is choosing volkan for their vote Ima choose him n n ders miles edgeworth Acting funny

VOTE: VOLLKAN

I've read this 5 times now, and the second part regarding Edgey still makes no sense to me :S

Is English your first language yura-chi?

@Subgenius: You are suspicious of anyone that has'nt posted yet? It has been around a day and as you said they could easily be doing anything.

That comes across as a filler comment.

Scummy was probably a stronger word than I should have used. Suffice it to say, I would like to hear from those who haven't posted yet.

Please don't fall into the trap of attacking lurkers for the pragmatic reason of encouraging them to post. Far too many people all ready are under the delusion that lurking is scummy, that it only creates mass distraction if people play that way (ie. attacking lurkers).

waaaa im sry!!! my ipod doesnt respond to me well....thxs for the tips n wat nots!! also yea ik i suk at this..... :S

Vote: Unvote

Yura + 7

VOTE: Vote: Yura-chi

Newbscum tell.

Let me explain:
He cast a random vote for me. Whilst some people questioned what me meant and/or offered suggestions about how to format his vote, nobody attacked him (mainly, I guess, because it was an obvious non-case vote). His reaction above is completely disproportionate to any criticism that he might have received, and I can't think of any way that, if he was acting genuinely, he would unvote as a response. The obvious newbscum reason, however, is that he doesn't like the little attention that he got and is now being contrite and unvoting to avoid it.

nothing's going on i just unvoted my mistake....

"Nothing to see here officer!"

I JUST WASNT SURE ABOUT MY VOTE N SOMEONE SAID 2 ME I SHUD NOT TALK ABOUT USELESS STUFF SO I DID N MADE IT SHORT... N I VOTED FOR VOLLKAN CUZ MY GUT TELLS ME SO! N FYI IM A GURL!!!!

I'm reading this as I post, and I'm honestly amazed that the suspicion theory about him being paranoid newbscum I typed out above is actually becoming more and more validated with every post.

ehhh!?!? im dat big of a threat???

This gets a

Yura +5

There is no way that town-Yura, however newbie or incompetent he would be, would respond to a vote by asking why he is such a threat.

So the scummiest looking is Yura, but you can't really tell if she's scum because she is obviously bad at the game. Puting aside that small contradiction , is being 'bad' at this game a scumtell in your opinion?

Being bad at the game doesn't make a player unreadable. At some base level, they will still be operating under town and scum motivations - it's just that their modes of acting will be more irrational and/or extreme than most people's. Yura's play maps perfectly with a newbscum pattern, and doesn't gel at all with a town thinking pattern.

[vollkan]

Pappums rat - Posts seem to involve traces of buddying, though I don't find any scum-tells and I find myself agreeing with and thinking his post #96 was a town-tell. Leaning town.

What do you mean by "traces of buddying"?

Vote: Regfan

I claim Town Weak Doctor. You are wrong Regfan. I'm town.

I claimed cuz u were putting so much pressure on me.

brain'splode

He cast a single early vote for you and even said he was "leaning mafia-null". You can't seriously think that constituted "so much pressure".

@vollkan u are wrong as a noob i got da most easiest part just vote on ppl

See headdesk above.

Oh, so is that the correct definition of town-weak-doc?
Didn't know. So I'm confirmed town.
Everyone, looks for scums OTHER than me.

Wow...just....wow.
1) You clearly imply in the above that you didn't know what your claimed role was until Regfan quoted the WIKI definition.
2) "scums OTHER than me" actually implies that you are scum

I'm confirmed town cuz I'm town's doctor. Get it?
Cuz I'm confirmed, I want everyone to exclude me from their list of scummy dudes and look for someone OTHER than me who's scummy. That makes 100% sense.
I'm just increasing the town's possibility of catching the real scum and saving many minutes for other people who might want to look into me. I'm town, so don't anymore.

NO

Guess what? As a result of your eye-bleedingly terrible claim, I am now going to look at you even harder, and I'm going to give seven gold stars to anybody who also does that.

No claim should make a person immune from being analysed - let alone one so utterly stupid as yours.

For the above, Magnetic gets a

Magnetic + 10

. Panic claims from VI newbs aren't unheard of, but his level of ignorance about his role and his blatant attempt to use his claim as a means of avoiding any criticism make me lean scum on his claim. Obviously, I don't think he should be insta-lynched because it is possible that this is just extremely appalling town play - but my money would be on him being scum.

Vote: magnetic
For spazzing over one vote

Oh
the
irony!

Yura+5

[vollkan]

What the fuck. So you are going to get a Doctor lynched? For claiming under massive pressure?

Unvote

Vote: Yura-chi

miss yura, our RVS is over, if there ever was one, your hasty vote and the fact that you are going for the ONLY CONFIRMED Town in this game is outrageous. You are scum!!!!

P-edit: No I don't think there are cheaters in here. What the fuck are you thinking?

Every time you call yourself "CONFIRMED TOWN", I am going to flay a kitten.

[vollkan]

Actually i think magnetic might b mafia n i did miss his claim

Bullshit.

You voted him for "spazzing over one vote". His "spazzing" was his claiming.

[vollkan]

Bottom of post #30, his interaction with Subgenius seems to be an attempt to suck up.

Look at the context though.

Subgenius jokes (I hope) about divinational powers. Pappum then says "i dont have the skills that you do, so i had to come to my suspicion the old fashioned way. as to why i voted bgg: the entrails know all." Whilst I can understand how it looks suck-uppy, the fact is that it looks more obviously like a joke. I don't think anybody would try buddying by praising a person's magical powers

Oooo i thought u guys meant his claim is the part where he proves his town doctor

As opposed to what?

[vollkan]

As usual, no idea what Yura is saying.
Lol.
I Lied. I'm not doctor. I won't claim anything until I'm on L-1.
I was just looking at your reactions. Yura is scummy.
Regfan is also scummy. Unvoting when a PR claims is always scummy read on me.

I call BS.

Magnetic + 15

.
VOTE: Magnetic

Gambiting is a perfectly legitimate way to play. But, and I say this as an occasional gambiter, you never ever do a gambit without having some sort of special goal in mind. "Let's do something crazy and see what happens" is rarely useful, and it's absolutely absurd to do when it involves something so serious as fake-claiming.

Look at his "analysis" of reactions above for proof of this - but Magnetic clearly had no intention of generating information from this. He makes a blunt assertion about Yura and a stupid assertion about regfan (unvoting a claimed PR is scummy? Really?).

So, there are two possibilities left:
1) Magnetic is lying scum who tried to immunise himself with a claim, but had it blow up in his face.
2) Magnetic is a troll (technically, the term would probably be "griefing")

If it is 1), he should be lynched.

If it is 2), he should be lynched anyway (because we can't play the game based on assumptions that people are breaking the rules) and then banned from the site

[vollkan]

Okay Okay.
I'm Town Weak-Doctor. I'm genuine.
I was fucking with u all.
Lynch all liars?
Damn.

[vollkan]

i think yura-chi is trolling this game tbh. however, notice what i have bolded in sc's last post:

He's been 'not posting' for about 9 or 10 hours. That's not exactly a drought. It's not suspicious to go less then 12 hours without posting. Otherwise, I have a list of about 6 or 7 people who are also suspicious. I mean, for example,

that yura-chi guy

went, like, 13 or 14 hours before making his first post!

this seems a bit like he may be distancing himself from the guy who just happened to share the same qt as him. i dont see why he couldnt just say 'yura-chi'.

Actually, I was speaking directly to Yura, and not trying to distance myself. I was attempting to point out that he's a hypocrit.

On the matter of the incredibly stupid claim by Magnetic...wow...Well, it's obviously good policy to LAL, but at the same time, I wouldn't mind seeing Yura go as well. It's a fairly certain matter that both are acting against the town's interests in all cases, thus far at least. The difference is, I think the odds are pretty good that Magnetic is trolling, but I'm more inclined to think that Yura is actually newbie scum acting up. I'd rather kill scum then town, even if it's bastard town.

This is kind of my big problem at the moment.

Policy-lynching is bad. At the same time, the game simply becomes impossible if you even seriously entertain the idea that somebody is trolling rather than playing seriously. At the very least, Magnetic's play has a clear scum motivation. I don't want to run away from that, and also permanently protect Magnetic, by giving him an out on the basis that he is 'trolling'. And, don't forget, aside from the scum motivation, bear in mind that trolling =/= town. If he is trolling, that has no relationship to his alignment.

So, whilst I am conflicted on magnetic, I think the balance favours him being lynched immediately. The only reason for keeping him alive is if we think he is trolling - but if we give him an out on that basis, he will never be lynched.

Yuro is a bad vote, vollkan you SHOULD know better than that day 1...interesting..

Did you even read what I said? I'd like to think that I am at competent enough to reasonably differentiate newbscum from newbtown

[vollkan]

you really think he is scum vollkan?

If you're asking whether I want him to be insta-lynched, no (see also: Magnetic)

If you're asking whether I genuinely think he merits the score that he has - then an emphatic yes.

[vollkan]

What do you think the possibility is that Magnetic is Strong doctor?
That would explain why he claimed weak doctor, why he didn't know what it did, perhaps why he thought that claiming a role that he didn't know what did would clear himself.
He could've been scared that he would die, and take back his claim, and then put it back when he realizedit made him more suspiscious.
It's possible, if not likely.

Aside from the fact that this is just conjecture, which makes me wonder why you are bothering with it at all, this is also wrong: a PR claim draws scum's attention, whether it's strong doc or weak, so the notion that he is protecting some actual role is rather weak.

Highlights of what I missed: Yura is (unfortunately) my strongest town read; pretty much for the exact opposite reasons as Vollkan had initially voted him for (the threat comment makes no sense coming from scum; especially somebody as seemingly ignorant as Yura where I can't believe he'd be bright enough to think about saying that as scum).

This doesn't make sense to me. I don't see anything clever about Yura-scum making the comment.

Okay, somebody needs to unvote.

EVEN IF it was confirmed that magnetic was scum, we would still want to drag the day on as long as possible.

Dragging a day out for the sake of dragging a day out is rarely useful and can be counterproductive (leads to distraction and more information for scum going into night). I'm happy to have a few more days go by (I don't think it will help, but I also don't think it will hurt), but Magnetic needs to be lynched sooner rather than later.

If nobody unvotes, he may just vote himself, if he is scum, just to make a short day.
Long days are good for town, Short days are good for mafia.

Town tends to be better when it doesn't quicklynch. That's the reason why long days are generally better - because the longer you gather evidence, the more accurate a case will generally be.

However, the reason for lynching Magnetic has already crystallised (ie. the case against him has no chance, realistically-speaking, of being improved or weakened by prolonging the day). This doesn't mean he should necessarily be quicklynched, but it does mean that the expected value of a long day is markedly diminished.

Sounds rather pointless unless somebody has something specific they want to talk about.
Bgg you are saying we should talk. Okay, but talk about what or who? Espically since you're saying we should lynch Magnetic anyway. There is no difference to lynching him now or in 2 weeks.
The only reason to extend the day would be for the possibilty of the town changing thier minds and pick a better candidate to lynch. I'm quite comfortable with the candidate we have right now - keeping around someone who has blatantly lied is not pratical IMO.

this post is noted....I mean, if we had lynched him (no matter alignment) a second before this post, I wouldnt have found out you wanted to shorten the day....information is information.

unvote vote Maxus

I think some pressure needs to be applied here. interested to hear this thoughts on the matter if he was at -1.

I don't entirely agree with him (ie. I'm basically ambivalent about taking a few more days), but I can see where he is coming from.

unvote vote Maxus
I think some pressure needs to be applied here. interested to hear this thoughts on the matter if he was at -1.

Want to explain to me the point of a pressure vote if you've already stated it's sole intention is to create pressure?

if you tell a man that he is under pressure when a 400 lb woman is sitting on him, doesnt he still feel the pressure?

and what I was asking was for more votes for pressure...

you have some problem with my vote? you think it is not valid?

False analogy. As Regfan said, physical pressure is different from mental pressure. An explicit pressure vote , especially one made in a situation where the lynchee has already been confirmed, has no threat of a lynch behind it.

[vollkan]

Pressure IS pressure. It could be any analogy.

If you hold up a dagger, and tell somebody that it is a dagger, it is still a dagger, and still serves its purpose.
If you hold the dagger up to somebody's neck, and say "I am only doing this to apply pressure to you so that you tell me this secret", you are not reducing any pressure of this threat.

I agree with everything Regfan has said on this. Given how completely ridiculous bgg's reasoning is on this point, if Magnetic does flip scum (though I see that, after being lynched, he is still claiming to be doctor), I will be looking in bgg's direction.

Vollkan: First off, does it look to you that Yuri is a competent/smart player? To me, that answer would be no. Therefore, if Yuri is scum, him asking if he's a threat doesn't fit with his other postings. It's an unusually clever statement, in my eyes. Scum don't generally view/vocalize themselves as a threat, where townspeople see themselves as threats to the scumgroup in one form or another. The threat comment just makes more sense from a stupid town than a stupid scum (since I believe it would require a more competent scum to say something like that.)

I've already said that I think he is clearly a newb player, and a bad one at that.

I just don't see why his threat comment doesn't fit in with that. He overreacts to being attacked. Let me put it this way: what path of strategising (which you seem to think would be beyond yura-scum's ability) would lead to scum making the threat comment? Conversely, what process of semi-stupid reasoning would lead to yura-town saying it?

We are clearly not going anywhere more then we already have until we deal with one very important problem...

the lynch is in no way

decided

for today.

Wrong again, bgg

vote:Magnetic

Either he is scum, or he is a troll. If troll, his answers wont matter, cause he's going to bs us. If scum, his answers are either going to make us think he's scum more, which doesn't matter, or less, which would be a problem, and so are at BEST non-productive. And, we're clearly not making any progress on leads outside of lynching Magnetic. So, let's remove the distraction, and hopefully N2 will give us some info, and on D2 we can get to some serious scum-hunting

^ Yay, sense

Uhmm this is my first game! And I think me coming here was a mistake..... N I was supposed to be in a game before but I didn't reply sooner n thus replaced.... That is why I'm trying my hardest to eliminate mafia! And just another tip u shoudnt really act like a troll n lie next time....

What is this in response to?

[vollkan]

Thoroughly pissed off at Magnetic. When I saw the lynch result, I thought he was one of the worst VIs I have ever come across - but, since it turns out he was cheating as well, I'm more just angry than anything else.

Mod: has he been site-banned for this?

- He had previously been banned as parknourie. As far as I know he is banned again as his user name no longer exists

.

First off,

Yura+7

for posts #202 and #203 - panickingly apologising for a mislynch, before the result was revealed. It fits with what I identified yesterday about yura basically being textbook newbscum.

On that note:
VOTE: Yura

1) How many mafia do you believe there is, do you think we still have multiple ML's?

From the flavour, it looks like there is either an SK or multiple scumgroups. With 10 people alive, it is most likely either 6:3:1 or 6:2:2. Mislynching has a possibility of reducing it to either 3:3:1 or 3:2:2. So, we may not have more than one ML left.

3) What do you make out of the twilight conversation yesterday.

See above

3. Mentions that discussion revolves around theory without adding his thoughts on it, progresses to predict a replacement while calling a 'RVS vote on Voltron' bad. Votes Pappmus after RVS period with 'gut' as his explanation. S2

Why should he have added his thoughts on a theory discussion, when he seemed to be complaining about it anyway?

Also, gut is horrifically anti-town, but it isn't scummy.

(I do love your use of a scale for ranking scumminess, though )

1. Answers RQS questions. N.
2. Mentions he's catching up on reading. N.
3. Mentions that discussion revolves around theory without adding his thoughts on it, progresses to predict a replacement while calling a 'RVS vote on Voltron' bad. Votes Pappmus after RVS period with 'gut' as his explanation. S2
4. Brings up that Yura is a bad lynch without going into why again, asks Magnetic a question without chasing an answer. S1
5. Asks Volkan if he really thinks he's scum again. N leaning S1
6. Questions Magnetic, again doesn't chase an answer. S1
7. Votes Maxmum stating it's a pressure vote removing the entire point of it. S1
8. Pushs his reasoning of 'delaying the day is good'. N leaning S1.
9. Attempts to defend his reasoning behind the pressure vote via bringing up an illogical comparison. Asks if I have a problem with the vote when it's clear that I was against the rasoning, not the vote. S1.

I'm not giving scumpoints for this, because it's a problem I remember having myself a while back. Basically, one of the problems with ISOs is that you end up determining a person's scumminess by looking at every single post and asking "Is this a good post?" As I mentioned above on a specific point, gut is BAD, but it isn't scummy. Similarly, saying "This is a pressure vote" is stupid, but it's hardly scummy. Part of the problem is that ISOing means you focus on quantity of posts analysed over depth of analysis - this is also why ISO is extremely easy to exploit as scum.

Couple thoughts: tclawren most likely was onto something since stabbing is typically an SK flavor (gogo mod-guessing); and SK's normally try to hit town and lynch scum while they're at it. Either way, (if there's an SK or a Vig) I doubt that there's only 2 mafia since mods generally don't like it if there's a chance that a scumgroup could theoretically be eliminated d1 (lynch and being NK'd would wipe out a scumgroup of 2). To support this, I don't really think that anyone ever expressed real suspicion of tcl yesterday (though while being trolled by (was town, now officially a troll banned loser) magnetic) that's less of a point.

Looking back at TCL's posts, he really was only suspicious of Yura before Magnetic's claim.

Speaking of Yura...
@vollkan: The reason I think/thought yura is/was town from that statement was because I don't see even a stupid scum thinking of them as a threat to anybody, while even stupid town have confidence that they're the best scumhunter in the world (and therefore making themselves a threat to any scum out there).

@Regfan: Why did you decide to ISO CKD above the others?

Vote: Yura-Chi

Gonna look over the game with the new information out there when I wake up.

Why are you voting Yura, when your response indicates clearly that you think/thought he is/was town?

[quote="bgg"
Wait, did that mean that the weak doctor did what the wiki says it does, or what magnetic said it did?
[/quote]

Why did you even ask this question?

I am suspiscious of anybody who decided to lynch him anyway, after I told you not to, or at least not yet.

No, but if we extended the day, we may have found evidence to believe Magnetic, or found somebody more scummy than magnetic, to lynch somebody else.

bgg+7

There was no reasonable argument against Magnetic's lynch, and the case for stalling was weak (let's not lynch right away, in case something happens!). Magnetic's was scummy as hell and, moreover, any reason for doubt relied on assuming he was trolling (which is an impossible assumption to make).

Faced with that, it's absurd that you would now turn around and attack those who lynched Magnetic, based on the off chance that the skies would open and proclaim his innocence. Coupled with your "too townie" rhetoric, the most reasonable explanation is that you are scum trying to capitalise on a quick lynch of a terrible (but ultimately town) player.

VOTE: CuriousKarmaDog
I suggest this because after looking back at everyones post, when everyone started to claim me as possible or actually scum ckd sided with me so i'm assuming

CKD is scummy for not thinking you are scum ?:roll:

[vollkan]

Logical theory discussion allows for an ice-breaker into the game therefore even if he were to complain about it as he did he would have no reason to avoid discussion related to it.

At the risk of repeating exactly what I said about the RVS argument....

If a person thinks a particular line of discussion is useless, it's perfectly understandable for them to not contribute to it.

Yes, in an ideal world full of puppies and rainbows people would contribute anyway just to be nice, but the fact is that when people in this game see it take a turn they don't like, they will more often than not refuse to join it,

Disagree, saying a vote is due to 'gut' allows the player to shy away from explaining the real reasons behind the vote, therefore allowing a player to be excused when the concequences of an incorrect lynch go through.

I completely agree with you.

But pointing out a scummy motivation for something is only half the equation. Remember something is only scummy if:
1) There is a scummy motivation for it; and
2) It is not reasonably likely that a townie would also do it

That's a simplification, obviously, but it suffices to make my point, which is: gut sucks and only helps scum, but plenty of townies use it (which is partly why it's so bloody annoying).

It's actually a lot like lurking, insofar as it is something that is really anti-town and which there is no pro-town motivation for, but which a lot of people will do anyway.

By all means, point out gut and facepunch whoever uses it, but don't call it scummy.

[vollkan]

I'm voting for Yura right now as

my vote is useless if it's not used

, and it's

based on what I believe to be the best hard evidence so far in the game

. Also, as an overall meta standpoint that I firmly believe in: if we punish scum for making "optimal" decisions (killing those who are a threat to them) by analyzing every NK for motivation, then we can force them into making suboptimal decisions because they don't want to get outed. Therefore, by forcing them into making suboptimal decisions we can gain a slight advantage resulting more often in a town win.

1) Your vote being useless if not used is not a reason for voting

Yura

rather than anybody else
2) What hard evidence? You've dismissed the arguments I've been making against Yura
3) I don't even understand the 'optimal ' decisions part of this...

Truant+5

contingent on response

@vollkan, agree about the iso, dont agree about gut (gut is good bro).

*cringe*

First of all, I could go on all day about what could've happened if we had extended the day.

I have no doubt. The point is, as I have said a few times already, that there wasn't any real likelihood of anything important happening. We would have been crazy not to have lynched Magnetic in all but the most extreme cases (eg. if scum claimed).

Second, the main reasoning for prolonging the day is that we have more input from those who would've died last night. There are three people who arenow confirmed town, who have average 16 posts each. There were 48 posts total, 29 of which were Magnetic's.

You're assuming that the day would have continued with a substantial amount of discussion on new and important topics. That simply isn't how these things work. The day would have plateaued off and, if past experience is anything to go by, such D1 discussion would be next to useless.

Thirdly, I'm not saying we should not have lynched Magnetic, I'm saying that we should've used the time that was remaining in that day. We weren't going to make Magnetic look any better or worse, but we probably would have found much evidence about other possible scum.

Yesterday, we had less information than we do now. Thus, we are better off information-wise.

If we spent more time yesterday discussing for discussion's sake, scum would have been more informed going into night.

I see no realistic way that more discussion yesterday would have substantially improved our situation now

Lastly, what "Too Townie" rhetoric are you referring to?

I mean that your arguments for extending the day sound extremely pro-town ("more information" is like this game's equivalent of "kittens and puppies for all!") but your arguments are based on extremely unrealistic assumptions about the value of prolonging D1. So, it's a case of appearing really pro-town, by actually spouting nonsense. This stacks with the way you explicitly stated that you were suspicious of anybody who pushed the lynch.

Is it unusual on this forum for a stab not to represent a kill from a Serial killer? I.E. is it safe to assume that the shot was from the mafia and the stab was from a third party?
It's not going to be say, a shot from a vig and a stab from the mafia?

Stab often represents SK, but it's not a hard and fast rule.

[vollkan]

@Vollkan
You are saying that if we discussed further, we would not have any more substantial information, but scum would still be more informed.
If I am overstating the merits of longer days, then you are definately understating them.

And Vollkan, I started off agreeing with you(A longer day really wouldn't have helped. We were going to just keep ending up being baited or confused by magnetic, and not really said anything of import) But you are contradicting yourself now. After all, if scum would have had information(they wouldn't have) wouldn't we? There's no solid reason for having ended the day that early except for impatience, but there was no reason to extend it either. We weren't gaining anything either way, except waiting three weeks for what would undoubtedly have been pointless nonsense

I assumed you'd realise that there are different types of "information".

To be explicit:
Town is interested in information about who is/is not scum. To that end, continuing a D1 discussion when the lynchee is already known is not likely to be fruitful. ie. discussion can occur on D2 anyway with the benefit of being more accurate (as a result of the knowledge gained from the flips).

Scum have at least three types of information that they are interested in, going into N1 at least: power roles, player skills and player suspicions. Drawn out discussion, whether it helps catching scum or not, does give scum information about the different players and their suspicions.

Bear in mind also, that I am not saying that those who wanted to extend the day were suspicious or that extending the day would necessarily have been harmful. As I said yesterday, I was ambivalent on the whole issue. My point is that it is ridiculous for bgg or anybody else to get sanctimonious about the early lynch, when the benefits of prolonging the day were purely speculative and potentially offset by (equally speculative, fwiw) risks.

[vollkan]

@S_C
Would that be because you are the vigilante?

bgg+10

Give me even a single decent reason why you would ask that question.

[vollkan]

Give me even a single decent reason why you would ask that question.

Because I didn't believe that he would answer, and it would set the right state of mind for my question to the mod.

This makes absolutely no sense

[vollkan]

Is there a reason I shouldn't ask the question?
Sure, if he actually had to answer it would make me seem like scum, but if he isn't going to tell me, then it's fairly obvious that it's not going to actually affect anything.

I'm liking the 10 points I gave you for this crap.

For starters, it's simply evasive to say "Why SHOULDN'T I do this?" And the fact that he wouldn't likely answer it in no way justifies you asking it in the first place.

You're really just dancing around the key issue which is that there is absolutely NO pro-town reason for you to ask that question in the first place.

If you attempt to analyze every post I make, most likely, you will come to the conclusion that you already had in mind before you started analyzing. It is quite possibly the most pointless thing that you can do in mafia.

Bullshit.

I haven't been tunnelling on you. I've attacked a lot of your posts recently, but I defy you to point out a single instance where I have been unreasonable.

And the nonsense of this accusation of tunnelling only becomes clearer in light of the fact that you raise it in relation to me attacking you for something so outrightly scummy as your "Are you a vig?" question

Vollkan. Take a step back, for your own sake. I had to back in D1 when I was tunneling on Reg without realizing it. You can't take apart everything a person says without eventually coming up with whatever it was you wanted to find anyway

Are you defending his question?

If so, why?

If not, on what basis do you think I am tunnelling?

The reason is that the answer only benefits scum. Even if he answers no, it still benefits scum. Whether or not you believe he's clever enough to refuse an answer is irrelevant. You asked a question that would have helped scum decide their NK's if he had answered.

This doesn't strike me as over analyzing a single post. It's just a straight out scummy thing to do.

^ QFT

[vollkan]

*stonewalling*

Fixed.

I can't honestly defend his question. It was awful. I also don't have any basis for thinking your tunneling aside from the fact that you've taken apart/quoted every single post he has made since. I just don't see Bgg as being scummy.

You've just stated that you think his question was indefensible. And yet you don't think he is scummy?

1. I had already specified the people who I was suspecting. It wasn't a broad statement like "all the jumpy people" where a lot matters on opinion and context. It specified a group of people that can easily be identified.

Identify them now.

Do I really need to explain why it is a bad idea to let people get away with laying a general charge against an unidentified group, rather than having to justify their attack on each specific member of that group?

2. The reason I am not naming said individuals, is because I wasn't saying "I suspect these people, the people who did this.", I was saying "Doing this is a scummy thing to do". Does that make sense to you?

You explicitly said that you were suspicious of the people that did this.

I am suspiscious of anybody who decided to lynch him anyway, after I told you not to, or at least not yet.

So, again, I ask you to identify them.

[vollkan]

EBWOP: The *stonewalling* was in reference to post 283

[vollkan]

Score update:

Player	Score
Andrew94	50
Regfan	50
Surprise_Carcinogen	55
Maxous	50
Truant	55
curiouskarmadog	50
bgg1996	67
subgenius	50
yura-chi	74

Yes. I did state his question is indefensible. And while yes, he is acting scummy, I definitely think he is town.

This makes absolutely no sense to me. What has he done which is so pro-town?

Agreed. As the hammer-drop, you are preaching to the choir. The trouble is, the statement that prolonging the day might have been helpful is just as valid as the statement that it would have been harmful. It`s not a productive conversation.

You're missing the point here. Nobody is currently arguing that it was scummy to want the day to be prolonged, but bgg (at least) is arguing that it was scummy to want the day to end (though, as I pointed out in my previous post, he's changed his tune on this since he got called out on it)

[vollkan]

The people that I would be referring to are not unidentified. You can find out who they are whenever you feel like it. The fact that you do not do so makes me think that you want me to say their names, so that you can make a big thing about how those people have nothing scummy about them, and make a case on me for it.

Nope. The reason is that making an attack against a group gives plausible deniability in relation to any specific member.

Let me explain with the following;

Mr Scum: "I think all the people who did

X

are scummy"
Mr Town: "The people who did

X

are A, B, C, D, E and F. You suspect all of them?"
Mr Scum: "I'm not identifying specific individuals"
<time elapses>
Mr Scum: "I don't think C is scummy."
Mr Town: "But C did

X

"
Mr Scum: "Did I ever say that I suspected C?"
Mr Town: *facepalm*

Furthermore, I did not "change my tune" or whatever you like to call it.
If I were to say "I suspect the people who made the 3rd and 6th posts." that would imply that I knew who they were and may think that they are scum for whatever reason.
If I were to say "I suspect whoever made the 3rd and 6th posts." then it would imply that my suspiscions relied not on the people, and whatever else that they might have done, or even what is on those posts, but on the fact that I believed the act of posting third and sixth is scummy.

Before anybody makes a big thing about it, I do not believe that the act of posting third and sixth is scummy.

This is seriously the most hair-splitting semantic defence I have ever encountered.

There is absolutely no difference in substance between saying "I suspect the people who did X" and "I suspect whoever did X". In either case, you are indicating suspicion. The only difference between the two is, as I indicated in the analogy above, that the latter gives you a form of plausible deniability.

(FTR, the reason it gives plausible deniability is right there in bgg's post - it doesn't rely "on the people, and whatever else that they might have done". In other words, he quarantines the reason for suspicion from the subjects of the suspicion.)

He hasn't actually done anything pro town, so much as he has played almost exactly the way I used to when I was first starting to play mafia, false scum-tells and all, I haven't seen anything majorly wrong come from him, just a lot of small things, so I am disinclined to comdemn him just yet. I think he, at worst, reads null to me, but I am more inclined to read 'misguided town' in his actions. Things like 'are you vig' aren't something even the worst of scum would outright ask, after all.

How do you think his play would differ if he was scum?

As to the second point, what conclusions do you draw from him changing his mind?

Well, I don't think he did "change his mind" in the sense of forming a different opinion. The point is that he clearly made an attack on whoever wanted the day to end quickly. Then, when called out on this, he has resorted to this weird semantic defence about how he wasn't attacking anybody in particular but, rather, was attacking their conduct - like it makes a difference.

So, with that in mind, the scumminess in this is not a contradiction but, rather, the fact that he is refusing to actually commit both to defending his position and identifying his suspects and, instead, is just playing word games.

You think I did something scummy, but that doesn't mean you suspect me. Is that right

This is it.

I'll start going over the thread.

Going from #1-13, I see that Andrew definitely needs to contribute more.

Was that so hard?

(I know this makes the points I made above kind of moot, but I want them left in since I think they clarify the issues)

That aside, I've made the only case in Bggs defence that I think there is. I don't find him scummy because I have seen less-then-adept town including myself play exactly this way, but I haven't seen scum behave quite so textbook scummy. It's much, much more likely in my mind that's he's just a townie who made a mistake and can't do anything to remedy it without looking worse. "Woops, made a mistake, sorry" at this point would look just as bad against him as anything else.

A quick look over things and Yura's current post continues a rather disturbing trend of contributing nothing, and riding nearly every single bandwagon, or potential bandwagon so far this game. She has rarely missed even one. This is terrible practice, and not at all in the town's favor, possibly bordering on a definitive scumtell. The constant wagoning would combine with the lack of original evidence to keep Yura in my top spot in spite of andrew climbing quickly closer.

Whilst I give a QFT to the second quote above, I want to juxtapose the two, because I don't think your position is inconsistent.

Both bgg and Yura are playing badly. I also think they are both scummy. You', however, only think that Yura is scummy (in fact, you indicate that she is your #1 suspect). This is interesting because your defence of bgg (which boils down to "too scummy to be scum") should apply equally, if not more so, in the case of Yura.

I recognise that there is a difference between the two, in that bgg at least has a thread of reasoning to follow, even if I think it's ridiculous. Nonetheless, I'm interested to know what the difference between them is in your view.

Most of them. I wish I still had my first game of mafia handy. Admittedly it was a first, and I know this isn't Bgg's first, but I got myself speed-lynched day 3 as a townie behaving the exact same way he is now. I simply don't see a mafia making this MANY mistakes, I should say. Slip once or twice, yeah, but even under pressure I consider it more likely a desperate townie fumbling for survival then I do a scum fumbling for his disguise.

Apologies if you already answer this in response to my "How would his play differ?" question, but I'd like to know how you think "fumbling townie" differs from "desperate scum"? Reason is, I am concerned that this might be a case of you sympathetically projecting your own history onto bgg.

erm bro. i come on once or twice a day. then do my stuff, sleep etc. (and this is the weekends)

is 'one day' lurking? notice that its my sleeping time when the 2 pages roll in

again, you are pointing to my lack of posts to suggest that i am lurking and to discredit my case. do you even know what lurking is? its not 'posting low amounts', its 'cant post a lot'. then, the only confusion about magnetic was the fact that he said 'weak doctor protect fails if attaack by more than 1 person', to me: that was what THE NORMAL DOC does anyway. and also at the end where he listed everyone as likely town.

Andrew, lurking is more about content then it is about number of posts.

Take the above two posts as a classic example: despite everything that has happened since your previous post, the only thing you see fit to do is to argue that you aren't lurking.

????
on which paricular things

The fact you need to ask this is proof that you are lurking.

Time to issue my tried-and-tested ultimatum:

Read up, or replace out

Please give us, in your next post, two sentences minimum on each player telling us your opinion of them.

If you can't or won't, for any reason, do that, then leave.

I think that even if it is normal for him to be lurking, if he refuses to post his opinions, and such, then he deserves to be lynched. The chance that he is scum is as good as anything, but we won't lose much if he isn't.

We aren't lynching lurkers.

That logic is almost reasonable. Lynching town is never a good idea on the principle that they aren't going to contribute much even if they are town. On the other hand, his refusal to point out his opinions can be a good indication that he ISN'T town.

No.

When people lurk, it is far more often a product of real life and/or boredness and/or laziness then it is a calculated move to avoid giving content.

The case is a bad case and it was obvious that you went into it with the mind set that I was going to scum at the end of it..

I agree that the case is bad.

But as I pointed out earlier, ISOs have an inherent tendency to produce a tunnelling effect.

That said, I think you are right to point out that it's unclear why he chose to ISO you in the first place (I see he has posted below, so I don't yet know if he's responded to that issue)

did I sign up for a newbie game and not know it?

*waves*

[quote="SC"
Reading through CKD's rebuttal, I'm struck with the sense that he is going into this doing what he accuses Regfan of. Both of them are on my list, so I'm not really certain which of the two I should believe, but I do find many of CKD's counterpoints to Reg's initial ISO stab to be reaching. More on this when Reg answers though, I suppose.
[/quote]

Which points of CKD's do you think are 'reaching' and why?

Out of nowhere? I was refuting the logic you used throughout the entire second half of yesterday. You attemtping to say 'This comes out of fucking NOWHERE' is merely an attempt to gain symapthy if anything.

In which posts yeseterday did you attack CKD?

The !!!!!!!!!!!'s are an attempt to put emphasis on soemthing rather then explaining it this all smells of AtE.

This is just reaching:

Reg+5

AtE is where emotion is used in lieu of argument. He used the !!!!!s in a response to Yura's god-awful vote for him. Given that, it was perfectly legitimate and natural to use the !!!!s.

And seriously, the whole town is going to fall underground if you all don't stop tunneling.

Public Service Announcement

Repeatedly attacking a single player is not 'tunnelling'. It's scumhunting. It ONLY becomes tunnelling if the attacks go beyond the point of reasonable argument and instead become an exercise in latching onto the scummiest possible interpretations of a person's actions.

[vollkan]

Perhaps AtE isn't the right way to explain it, but adding !!!!! does nothing to benefit the town, nor do I see how it's 'legitimate or natural' considering it lays emphasis on a point without elaborating on what the point actually is.

I just posted a picture of an elephant. My doing so did nothing to benefit the town. Does that mean my elephant is a scumtell?

The point CKD was making was pretty damn obvious, considering he made it in the two lines directly above his !!!!!s

I also point out that saying "Perhaps AtE isn't the right way to explain it" is a massive understatement. The reasons you give above for it being scummy are pathetically flimsy and have nothing whatsoever to do with AtE. So, basically, this is a typical case of somebody misusing a boilerplate scumtell.

[vollkan]

And are you really telling me that nobody here has made a post that goes beyond the point of reasonable argument?

Of course I don't think every single point is reasonable. My point is just that, for all the whinging about tunneling, the back-and-forth is still within normal levels.

That's a nice script, but one thing I don't understand is why person 1 waited until the end to start (questionably) scum hunting instead of wasting person 2's time by speaking in twisted analogies and parables.

^ This.

[vollkan]

uhmm im getting confused so first of all what's tunneling???

The theory answer would be that it is where X starts continually attacking Y, by interpreting every single post Y makes in the scummiest way possible. It's called "tunneling" after the phrase "tunnel-vision".

However, it's very rare that such tunneling actually occurs. More often than not, when somebody is accused of "tunneling" it's just because Y or Z doesn't agree with X's attacks.

[vollkan]

Perhaps AtE isn't the right way to explain it, but adding !!!!! does nothing to benefit the town, nor do I see how it's 'legitimate or natural' considering it lays emphasis on a point without elaborating on what the point actually is.

[img]Elephant%20picture[/img]

I just posted a picture of an elephant. My doing so did nothing to benefit the town. Does that mean my elephant is a scumtell?

The point CKD was making was pretty damn obvious, considering he made it in the two lines directly above his !!!!!s

I also point out that saying "Perhaps AtE isn't the right way to explain it" is a massive understatement. The reasons you give above for it being scummy are pathetically flimsy and have nothing whatsoever to do with AtE. So, basically, this is a typical case of somebody misusing a boilerplate scumtell.

The fact you're attempting to compare !!!!! and the elephant picture is beyond mind boggling. Context is a highly important factor when looking at something and deciding whether it's a scum-tell, a null-tell or a town-tell, you know this much. Stating !!!!!!!!!! before and after pointing out something that someone else has done IS an attempt to add emphasis on it, there's no two ways about it. The attempt is one that detracts from logic and reasoning being what articulates your meaning and instead attempts to read it differently as to which they normally would. I'll give you an example:

Person 1: I'm not mafia!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Person 1: I'm not mafia.

Those both can be read differently purely due to the !'s thus ! is not a null-tell. Another example would be:

Person 1: Look at my case, he's confirmed mafia and no one is following!!!!!!!
Person 1: Look at my case, he's confirmed mafia and no one is following.

Again both can be read differently. Heck, what's the difference between '!' and 'CAPSLOCK' invovled in a post, and capslock may not lead someone to be mafia or not, but it may make their post seem like angryobvtown, or caughtscum.

There were two elements to your attack on CKD:
1) Does not benefit town; and
2) Lays emphasis without elaborating

On 1), I posted the elephant to show that there are plenty of things that have no benefit to the town - that doesn't make them scummy

On 2), see my second sentence - his point was obvious.

Also this is a game all about persuasion, and you can't seriously think that doing something like !!!!! for rhetorical emphasis is unacceptable. Yura's vote was patently terrible and CKD was clearly annoyed by it. If he wanted other people to recognise this, why shouldn't he post exclamation marks?

(seriously, between bgg trying to argue that "the people who" is fundamentally different from "whoever" and you trying to argue that rhetorical emphasis is a scumtell, I think I am going to go insane)

[vollkan]

/Headesk.
Seriously.
/Headesk.

It's impossible to compare posting something with the sole intention of proving a point, which is what the elephant is. (You posted it, not to help, not to hurt, not to seem like you're helping thus it has no meaning) and posting filler posts all which have no benefit to town while attempting to seem as if you're 'helping' (Which is what I read from CKD's posts).

You first attacked CKD here because his !!!!s did "nothing to benefit the town". My point is that the mere fact that something doesn't benefit the town doesn't make it scummy (posting the elephant is an aburdist way of making this point)

Further, as I point out in the previous sentence, your attack on CKD there was because the !!!!s did not benefit the town. Now, however, you seem more to be arguing that his posting as a whole was merely filler designed to look like content - which is a completely different accusation

His point was this:

This just feels like a bullshit case job (lets get another quick mislynch)…..so I am scummy, because I thought you a vote from vollkan against you was bad?...explain.

Explain how his point is 'obvious here', he's saying, your case is bad because it's bad.

In original context, he said:

VOTE: CuriousKarmaDog
I suggest this because after looking back at everyones post, when everyone started to claim me as possible or actually scum ckd sided with me so i'm assuming

WTF?

This just feels like a bullshit case job (lets get another quick mislynch)…..so I am scummy, because I thought you a vote from vollkan against you was bad?...explain.

!!!!!!!!!this vote makes just as little sense as regfan…please someone else see this!!!!!!!!!!!

Yura's vote is just terrible. CKD really shouldn't need to give a detailed considered rebuttal of it; Yura's vote is just BS.

It's perfectly fine for CKD to draw attention to this, as he has done with his !!!! marks.

[vollkan]

There were two elements to your attack on CKD:
1) Does not benefit town; and
2) Lays emphasis without elaborating

I read this as. 1) Refering to the rest of my case, and 2) Refering to the !!!!. Correct me if I'm wrong.

1) is in response to

but adding !!!!! does nothing to benefit the town,

2) is in response to:

nor do I see how it's 'legitimate or natural' considering it lays emphasis on a point without elaborating on what the point actually is.

[vollkan]

2) Hard evidence = night kills. Who whomever has killing roles is hard evidence that can't be falsified. Almost everything else in the game is subject to opinion and how you read what they wrote where you know the mafia/sk killed for a reason. I also believe that it's easier to pin down one person's motivations than a group so I decided to analyze the SK's decision over the mafia's decision first when I had little time to analyze everything the way I would like to.
3) Everyone in mafia plays to win. Non-town try to ensure their survival while town are fine dying if they can catch scum. Therefore, scum generally get rid of threats to them if and when they think that they can get away with it. SKs fall into this even moreso than mafias cause they don't have anyone but themselves to rely on so they're more likely to kill off direct threats. Therefore, when I saw that TCL was stabbed, I analyzed who he was suspicious of to see if I could get a bead on the SK.

Night kills are NOT hard evidence, for two main reasons:
1) There are too many potential motivations to be able to accurately guess; and
2) Even if you can get an accurate guess, it's too common for scum to deliberately WIFOM the whole process for it to be accurate.

i think this is starting to get interesting... since everyone's opinions are different were going to have a long day time so that means more time to hunt scum!

Yura+3

"Yay, we all get to scum hunt"

i did give opoinions on almost every player apart from volakn himself(who is a bully)

Then quote each instance of you giving your opinion on each player apart from me, because I sure as hell haven't seen it

(Also, something like "ckd lurking: null on that" doesn't tell us anything about your actual position on CKD).

[vollkan]

@ Voltron, how exactly does the point system influence your voting? Do you always vote the player who has the highest score?

Yeah, that's right. It wouldn't achieve its purpose of directly linking votes to reasoning if it was discretionary whether or not I followed it

Subject to an exception which I've never had to use which is as follows: suppose I am forced to choose between two players. One of them has been really active and has a relatively low score of, say, 55. The other has lurked constantly, and so only has 50. Because there is much greater "uncertainty" surrounding the lurker (ie. I haven't been able to judge him), it's conceivable that I would vote the lurker.

[vollkan]

@volkan post 383.

What I learned from your post 383:
- you were at some tournament
- you think bgg is 'opportunistic'
- you think SC OMGUSd (?)
- you don't think CKD is lurking
- you Subg is coaching yura

None of that helps, at all, in actually telling us your positions on the people you do mention, let alone on everybody as a whole.

Try again!

p.s. volkan,, respond to the definition of lurk pls

@volkan, lurking doesnt mean not reading, it means not posting on purpose. ffs.

Ever heard of active lurking?

Lurking is far more commonly a product of people not reading and not posting sufficient levels of content, then it is about "not posting"

(and it also definitely does not mean not posting

on purpose

. Most lurking is actually accidental - which is why lurking isn't scummy)

[vollkan]

@volkan, acitve lurking is reading and not posting. im reading AND posting

Wiki says no:

A subset of lurking is the so-called "active lurking", where a player posts in the thread but without making any contribution to the progress of the game. Their posts may be minimal in length, off-topic, or merely parroting what other players have already said.

That definition matches your play exactly. You are posting, but not making any contribution.

QED

It's scummy because scum hunting or doing anything else for the purpose of not appearing scummy is scummy.

WRONG!

Here's a nice quote from the wiki to help explain why.

Do not go gently into that good night.
Lynching a Townie is a bad thing in general, but lynching a confirmed Townie is worse. To yourself, you ARE a confirmed Townie. While getting lynched is not the end of the world, the fact is that getting lynched is the one thing you can guarantee will hinder your faction. Do not acquiesce to your lynch unless it would be clearly anti-Town to do otherwise (although those situations are not common).
Along these same lines, the occasions where it's pro-Town to self-hammer as Town are extremely limited, and offing yourself out of spite toward the (evident) morons who are about to lynch you isn't one of those occasions. Even if the wagon on you is mostly Town, you still have to win with them in the end, so stay helpful.

To a townie, anything to help not get me lynched is PRO-TOWN.

Errr, what I meant to say was, when I am a townie, anything to help myself not get lynched is PRO-TOWN.

Aside from the possible slip here, the argument you are making is just BS.

It's obviously true that, as town, you should do everything you can to stop yourself getting lynched.

HOWEVER

, town also has other objectives which necessarily modify the way that they should go about "not getting lynched". Lumping suspicion onto another player by tunneling, for the purpose of saving your own ass is technically "pro-town" if you are confirmed town. However, you are completely ignoring the fact that there are other, much more pro-town, ways that you can avoid getting yourself lynched - ie. by honestly explaining your behaviour or actually making decent, non-tunneling attacks.

This is why your "I might tunnel people" suggestion is scummy. Whilst you can argue that it's technically pro-town, it nonetheless involves you making a clear choice to take a far less-than-optimal approach (ie. by knowingly playing badly). Whatever you can claim about subjective knowledge of your own alignment, for the rest of us it's a matter of trying to work out your alignment from your objectively evidenced motivations. If you are choosing to play in a self-interested manner, rather than a manner which objectively helps the town (ie. which can be considered pro-town even if we don't assume a priori that you are pro-town) then that can constitute a scumtell

[vollkan]

Have I tunneled already? I didn't think I even made an accusation yet.
The tunneling itself may be bad play, but I am only warning you that it is a possible side effect. Besides, if one of you earlier posts is any judge, your definition of "tunneling" is a bit different than mine.

Anyway, you have yet to tell me why my argument is BS.
My argument is specifically made against this sentence
"It's scummy because scum hunting or doing anything else for the purpose of not appearing scummy is scummy."
"It's scummy because scum hunting or doing anything else for the purpose of not appearing scummy is scummy."
"Defending yourself is scummy."

Somebody's argument is BS, but it certaintly isn't mine.

bgg+7

And again you resort to semantics.

Let's review the paper trail.

You said:

Anyway, I feel I'm not contributing as much as I should. Just thought I'd say it before vollkan gives me points for it.
Forgive me if I tunnel a bit to make up for it.

Whether or not it's a side-effect is irrelevant - you appear to be seriously suggesting that it's okay for you to make bad accusations (which is, by definition, what tunneling involves) in order to save yourself. I've explained why this is scummy.

Subg makes the obvious response:

To answer your question (even though I suspect that you are fully aware of the answer), It's scummy because scum hunting or doing anything else for the purpose of not appearing scummy is scummy. Town hunts scum because it helps acheive their win condition, not because it makes them look town.

You make your rebuttal, which I counter-rebut.

And now you have the gall to reduce subg's initial argument to "Defending yourself is scummy" when it is

f***ing obvious

from the initial context of this discussion that this has been about YOUR indication that you might tunnel.

I don't see you finding any scum.

Pure tu quoque

[vollkan]

WTF?!
How is this_ no, what does this quote have anything to do with tunneling?!
Now you're just BSing us.
Furthermore, the statement that I quoted says quite clearly that defending yourself is scummy.
It's scummy because scum hunting or doing anything else for the purpose of not appearing scummy is scummy.
scumhunting or anything else is the exact same thing as doing anything.
That makes it It's scummy because doing anything for the purpose of not appearing scummy is scummy.
That includes defending yourself.

*sigh*

Maybe an analogy will help:

X: I think I might go and rob a bank.
Y: Robbing a bank is wrong. It's wrong to take money off people.
X: But shops take money off people! You think shops are wrong! How can you say shops are wrong?!

X is being a douche because it's obvious from the context that Y is not referring to innocuous takings of money.

Same thing here. You indicated an intention to tunnel. Subg calls you out on this. You then make a song-and-dance about the broadness of the semantics of what he was saying.

Pure appeal to hypocracy? Maybe. There's nothing wrong with it, at least that I can tell.

It's a logical fallacy.

Whether or not he was finding scum doesn't alter whether or not his attack is valid.

(obviously, hypocrisy can be a scumtell - but it doesn't actually invalidate the argument that a person is making)

[vollkan]

Quick question, unrelated: How many days are left in this Day?

Deadline is March 31. So we have just around 9 days left.

[vollkan]

vollkan just told a fib

What?

@Vollkan, 1. What if everybody in the town was "robbing banks"?
2. I still should've pointed it out, since you're saying that it can be a scumtell.

1. It would still be wrong. In the context of mafia, if everybody was tunneling, it would still be scummy but, assuming everybody did it equally badly, it would increase everybody's rankings equally and so it wouldn't actually change people's relative positions
2. The point is that it shouldn't have been an option to begin with.

[vollkan]

No, it's not. If four other people act too scummy to be town, then my chance of being mafia lowers significantly.

It seems this debate is at cross-purposes.

Obviously, your alignment is fixed from the beginning of the game (and I don't think you are arguing otherwise).

What I understand you to be saying is that what people

consider

your likely alignment to be necessarily varies based on how scummy other people have been. If so, then I agree. If not, what are you saying?

[vollkan]

From the people I want to lynch most, to the people I want to lynch least:
Andrew94, curiouskarmadog, Truant, Yura-chi, Regfan, Subgenius, maxous,

vollkan

, Surprise_Carcinogen, bgg1996

I'm leaning towards Andrew. Other than that, I suppose that

vollkan

just told a fib, Yura-chi is being completely unhelpful, and... Not very much else.

So I go from being #2 or 3 of your suspicions to third-last in the space of a page where my only interim posts were the following?

vollkan just told a fib

What?

@Vollkan, 1. What if everybody in the town was "robbing banks"?
2. I still should've pointed it out, since you're saying that it can be a scumtell.

1. It would still be wrong. In the context of mafia, if everybody was tunneling, it would still be scummy but, assuming everybody did it equally badly, it would increase everybody's rankings equally and so it wouldn't actually change people's relative positions
2. The point is that it shouldn't have been an option to begin with.

No, it's not. If four other people act too scummy to be town, then my chance of being mafia lowers significantly.

It seems this debate is at cross-purposes.

Obviously, your alignment is fixed from the beginning of the game (and I don't think you are arguing otherwise).

What I understand you to be saying is that what people

consider

your likely alignment to be necessarily varies based on how scummy other people have been. If so, then I agree. If not, what are you saying?

[vollkan]

Don't worry, you are still in the top four/five of my scumminess chart. But your big posts are too helpful to risk. I don't want to lose you D1, until I'm a bit more sure that you are scum.

bgg+5

Where to begin?

1) For starters, it's D2 - not D1.
2) It's already been established that this is a game where we potentially have only one ML left - so the notion that you would keep a major suspect alive is absurd. Beyond that, it suggests that you aren't really concerned at all about the consequences of keeping a major suspect alive.
3) In the first post I quoted before, I was 2/3, then I became third-last (and, I note, that you were the last suspect, so among the people you actually can suspect, I was second-last), and now I am 4/5. So, you still haven't explained the variation in your opinion of me.
4) If you are town, then the last thing you should want is vollkan-scum being able to make influential posts - so I can't see any sense in which you would both suspect me and yet also find my posts helpful

[vollkan]

Why do you consider this a scum-tell?

Because it demonstrates a significant inconsistency in your suspicions, which inherently makes it more likely that your suspicions are not genuine.

And shouldn't you be voting for me by now?

Checking scores:

Player	Score
Andrew94	50
Regfan	55
Surprise_Carcinogen	55
Maxous	50
Truant	55
curiouskarmadog	50
bgg1996	79
subgenius	50
yura-chi	77

Yeah, you've hit the lead.

Unvote, Vote: bgg1996

[vollkan]

well i don't mean to bandwagon but i think sub is making sense bgg is getting into useless arguements (tho i don't really think i have any say in this, since everyone also thinks i'm useless and dumb) and i wanna see how he wud react if he face some heat

At the risk of this becoming a bgg-yurachi see-saw,

Yura+5

Unvote, Vote: Yura

1) Once again, Yura jumps on a bandwagon for crappy reasons.
2) Hypocrisy (Ironically, this is a perfect demonstration of what I was arguing earlier about tu quoque. Whilst Yura is completely correct about bgg's useless arguments, it is hypocritical and thus scummy for yura to vote bgg on that basis - even though the reason why yura is voting bgg is actually valid)
3) Explicitly voting to add pressure
4) The fact that Yura has not been involved with any of the extensive prior debate on bgg, but suddenly decides to vote for bgg (for weak, short reasons) as soon as subg invites a wagon

[vollkan]

@voll uhmm sorry but i'm not really getting it call me dumb but i still dont get what ur sayin here:

2) Hypocrisy (Ironically, this is a perfect demonstration of what I was arguing earlier about tu quoque. Whilst Yura is completely correct about bgg's useless arguments, it is hypocritical and thus scummy for yura to vote bgg on that basis - even though the reason why yura is voting bgg is actually valid)

It's hypocritical for you to admit that you are useless, but then treat uselessness as a scumtell in others (see below). The stuff in brackets is about an earlier discussion and isn't relevant to you.

I've found your scum tells to be pretty solid up to this point, but I don't agree that hypocrisy is a scum tell. If making crappy arguments is a scumtell when bgg does it, then it's also a scum tell when yura does it, but it's not scummy for either of them to say the other is scummy for making poor arguments. If one of them wants to build a case against the other why should he be forced to make his case weaker by omitting the mention of poor arguments?

I assume you mean "omitting the mention of good arguments"?

Anyway, I get what you are saying, but I completely disagree.

If Player X accuses Player Y of being scum, for doing

A

, then that implies that Player X thinks that

A

is something which is so unlikely to come from a townie that it should be treated as making a person more likely to be scum.

Given that, if Player X is himself guilty of

A

, then one of two things can be the case:
a) Player X does not genuinely believe

A

to be a scumtell. Obviously, this means that Player X is scum.
b) Player X does genuinely believe

A

to be a scumtell.

b) is, on first glance, consistent with Player X being either town or scum. However, if Player X is town, this simply doesn't make sense - because Player X has a firsthand understanding of how it is that a townie could do

A

.

As with any scumtell, it's weaker in the case of a newbie like Yura, to be sure, but the underlying point remains intact: that the player is either lying or not actually making a genuine effort to scumhunt.

[vollkan]

3) Explicitly voting to add pressure

This is a scumtell now? Why did'nt you call CKD out on it earlier?

I did criticise CKD's pressure voting.

I don't consider CKD's to be scummy, because it was in a completely different context. However ineffectually his chosen means, CKD tried to start a pressure wagon; Yura was joining a wagon which, at that time, had the most momentum. The incentives for scum in the two scenarios are entirely different. Scum has nothing to gain and everything to lose by trying to start a "pressure wagon", on a weak ground, late in the day (remember, Magnetic was the decided lynch at that point; it was only a question of time). Whereas, there is a clear motivation for scum (especially newbscum), to cite "pressure" as means of attempting to add credibility to their vote.

As for point 4) Why should she of had to be involved in previous discussion to agree with Sub's assement of Bgg? Otherwise what is the point of trying to persuade each-other about lynches?

My point is that she spins on a dime (from a position of apparently having no suspicions of anybody), to voting bgg coincidentally at the same time as SubG gives the green light for a wagon.

[vollkan]

b) Player X does genuinely believe A to be a scumtell.

b) is, on first glance, consistent with Player X being either town or scum. However, if Player X is town, this simply doesn't make sense - because Player X has a firsthand understanding of how it is that a townie could do A.

Here's the thing, though. There are very few, if any, scum tells that town don't engage either due to carelessness or poor play. If you really thought that scum tells are defined as actions that only scum do, then you'd only need to see one of them from a player to conclude that they are definitely scum. Scum tells are useful because we believe they are actions that are

more likely

to have been performed by scum, a hypocritical town player knows with certainty that his scummy actions were not the result of scum motivations, but he can't say that about any other player, and he shouldn't hesitate to point that scummy action out (although he should probably be prepared to explain his own scummy behavior afterwards).

On the technical definition of scumtell, that's correct.

At the risk of entering a thoery debate. On a theory level, "more likely" is neither the proper standard to apply in the game, nor is it the standard that the vast majority of people, in fact, apply. I'm hesitant to start a theory debate on this, because it gets into fairly abstract issues. But, basically, a) since almost everybody can see that almost nothing is scummy divorced of its circumstances (ie. it is terrible play to apply a blanket set of scumtells) and b) nobody has the empirical evidence needed to actually know what scum are "more likely" to do, we fall back on a behavioural/motivational approach. In short, we can't ask "What are scum more likely to do?" so we ask, instead, "Can I see this person reasonably doing X action as town?".

Maybe you disagree, but I'm not going to assume that Yura plays differently from the vast majority of people in this respect. That is, my assumption is that Yura is asking the latter question I identified above, not the former.

In which case, for Yura, somebody who not only is (by her own admission) useless, but has also come under fire for being useless, to vote another player on that basis makes no sense. If she is town, then her own uselessness should have caused a massive roadblock to her suspicion of bgg. On the contrary, however, we find that it does not. In fact, she mentions and entirely glosses over the evident contradiction.

[vollkan]

. If Yura is town, she would certainly realize that town players can be useless as well, but that doesn't mean that she can't find uselessness generally suspicious or think that bgg's particular type of uselessness is extra suspicious or think that he should be encouraged to explain himself and shape up. You, yourself said that she her reasons for voting bgg were valid. If she's right, she's right. She's still scummy for being useless, but not extra scummy for pointing out uselessness in another player.

Again, I don't disagree with you - I just think we are talking at cross-purposes.

It's true that I think one part of her reasons for voting bgg is valid.

But that's completely different from saying that I think it is valid for her to think that it is scummy.

This is the level where this issue with Yura lies

. Yura clearly KNOWS that she is useless, so if she is town she KNOWS that town can be useless.

Now, of course, that doesn't mean she has to completely write off uselessness as a scumtell.

BUT

it does mean, as I said way back in my first post explaining my position here, that she has firsthand insight into the reality of useless town. My 47 overstates this next part, mostly because I assumed that you'd understand what I was saying - but, basically, the point is that she can't genuinely be guilty of uselessness herself but also consider it a scumtell in others without some distinguishing element. There needs to be some reason why it's scummy for bgg, but not for her.

Yura's post doesn't even show an attempt to reconcile the two. She gets some leeway in that regard because she's a newb, but, at the same time, she's also playing to standard form of newbscum, so I'm hardly going to write it off to inexperience.

WHOA...how the fuck did I jump so high on this list? Based on what?

See my earlier posts on his list (or, specifically, my place on it); it looks fake.

the bgg vote wasnt much of a strong scum sus like which i kinda have on ckd it was more of to see how he would react and base on it.... and for now my sus are not that big yet for i have no big evidence yet...:/

Yes. There were no strong reasons to vote bgg, and it wasn't just a case of you voting to join a bandwagon. Just like this isn't you retreating from yet another crappy vote after you come under attack

Also, what on earth si the strong evidence you have on CKD?

@Voltron, with the exception of Yura and BGG do you have any other scum-reads in the game, do you have any townreads in the game?

See my most recent score post. I have other people who are above 50, but by far Yura and bgg are the only two people I'd be comfortable lynching.

[vollkan]

[quote="Sub"[/quote]

well i don't mean to bandwagon but i think sub is making sense bgg is getting into useless arguements (tho i don't really think i have any say in this, since everyone also thinks i'm useless and dumb) and i wanna see how he wud react if he face some heat

At the risk of this becoming a bgg-yurachi see-saw, Yura+5

Unvote, Vote: Yura

1)

Once again, Yura jumps on a bandwagon for crappy reasons.

2) Hypocrisy (Ironically, this is a perfect demonstration of what I was arguing earlier about tu quoque. Whilst Yura is completely correct about bgg's useless arguments, it is hypocritical and thus scummy for yura to vote bgg on that basis - even though

the reason why yura is voting bgg is actually valid

)
3)

Explicitly voting to add pressure

4) The fact that Yura has not been involved with any of the extensive prior debate on bgg, but suddenly decides to vote for bgg (

for weak, short reasons

) as soon as subg invites a wagon

Alright, first, the bolded portion contradicts the bold italicized portions.
1)Contradiction is pretty clear
3)If she expressed a valid reason to vote, I really don't see it being scummy to add that part of the reason for her vote is to ratchet up pressure on bgg, especially since I explicitly said that more pressure on bgg might be useful.
4)clear contradition with the bolded part. Reasons were short, but short valid reasons are better than long invalid ones. I can't really argue about the bandwagon charge. I don't find it scummy, because she did exactly as I asked, but if someone else thinks that bandwagonning is scummy in general, it's hard to say she didn't do that.
[/quote]

It's not a contradiction, though I can see why you'd see it that way. I'm trying to be brief here, since I don't think there is much value in this debate being prolonged.

Basically, I think the uselessness thing is a valid reason to suspect bgg.

When I say that "Once again, Yura jumps on a bandwagon for crappy reasons", I wasn't so much trying to say that the reasons were

invalid

as I was trying to say that they were inadequate, especially given the context (push for a wagon) and history (Yura's patterned wagoning). Perhaps this would be clearer if I approached it from the opposite direction: I wouldn't have had a problem with Yura's vote if she'd given even an attempt at having semi-original reasons for voting bgg, rather than so obviously parroting.

This, as I've already explained, is why I found the pressure thing scummy (with CKD's pressure vote serving as the obvious point of contrast).

As for the bandwagoning, I know that she was doing as you said, but that's not an excuse for it. She's been mindlessly wagonning all game, and I can't see why you inviting her to do so should give her a pass.

Now as for point (2). Besides what I've already said about not finding hypocrisy to be a scum tell, I don't think she was being hypocritical. If you read Yura's post, she accuses bgg of "making useless arguments," While she admits not to being "useless and dumb" but of being thought of as "useless and dumb". Making "useless arguments" and being thought of as "useless and dumb" are two different things, which invalidates the charge of hypocrisy. Both involve being useless, but one is a judgement by others while the other is a deliberate act of creating dumb arguments. Even if she actually admitted to being useless and dumb, that is still not the same thing as making dumb arguments.

Since Yura's posting has shown on a number of occasions that she is aware of her own deficiencies, your point here is inapplicable.

She words it as though it is others thinking she is bad, but it's clear that she agrees with that assessment.

@Vollkan: NK's ARE hard evidence. They are the people who died. Nobody else did. There's always a reason for it and *rarely* it's for WIFOM purposes. Even if the scumteam manages to evade all suspicion, they still have the motivation to want to get rid of people that are likely to get on their trail, unable to be swayed, etc, etc, etc. Being a threat to the scumteam by attacking one of them typically gets your name on their short list pretty quickly so it's likely that scum NK'd to save their own skin. When there's more motivation to do something over another, it can be analyzed and shouldn't be relegated to just WIFOM and ignored.

You've already basically admitted my point: "they still have the motivation to want to get rid of people that are likely to get on their trail, unable to be swayed, etc, etc, etc". That "etc etc etc" captures a huge array of possibilities (including WIFOM, which is far more common than you are making out). There are so many possibilities (WIFOM and non-WIFOM) that relying on NKs as evidence is extremely unreliable.

[vollkan]

@Everyone, who would you vote right now if you had to vote someone other then bgg.

Yura, obviously.

Surprise_Carcinogen, I find his play and his defence of Bgg to be a town-tell, I also find majority of his posts to be beneficial to the town.

Sorry if you've explained this in an earlier post, but why do you think it's a towntell?

(NB: I don't believe in towntells as a matter of theory, but I'm particularly surprised that you'd think SC's defence of bgg is one)

subgenius, similar to S_C his posts have had substancial content and I find it hard seeing anything in particular that he's done that's scummy.

vollkan, has posted the most logical points in the game by far but at the same time I find it impossible to attain a read on him, nothing he's done has screamed town or scum.

Why is sub town and I am null when you don't seem to find anything scummy about either of us?

[vollkan]

Your playstyle is one that holds logic above all else and while it's one that I respect greatly it's one that I believe can easily be faked as mafia. You read players actions as either:

1) Revealing to their allignment thus a scum-tell deserving points.
2) Irrelevant to their allignment thus adding nothing to your reads.

The fact that you do this means you can classify and explain the reasoning behind your reads due to just pointing to the posts in which you believe 1) was the case. Therefore I don't believe that logic is a town-tell for you in any right, in fact I'd like it if you could link me to a few of your mafia games.

Everything you say about my playstyle is true - but I'd like to know why that makes me different from sub.

Also, if you want a history of my games, check out my wiki page. It's only out of date by one or two games, so it provides a good index (I include details of the games as well, to make it easier to look through).

[vollkan]

The difference is, he's finding you hiding behind the logical nature of your system, and logic is neither pro-town, nor pro-scum. It is a null-tell, and since your entire play and playstyle is based off of the logic, QED: null-read.

I can see that. My point is, I want to know what it is about Subg's play that he thinks is different. SubG's play is hardly illogical, nor is he particularly emotive as a player, so I'm curious as to whether he sees something different in Subg's play, or if this is just a meta thing against me

[vollkan]

@vollkan
What do you think of Truant's vote on bgg?

For some reason, I had it in my head that he'd attacked bgg before that vote and that his vote was just triggered by that quote about not attacking anybody - but, having just run a Ctrl+F, I see that it actually comes out of nowhere.

With that in mind,.

Truant+5

His explanation of the vote is as follows:

You admitted to not accusing anybody of anything. Town accuses people of being scum, of something being scummy. You saying that you haven't accused anybody means that you're scum that doesn't want to step on toes. If you were town you would be doing something, anything; but not accusing anybody of anything is not pro-town, especially on page 17.

Aside from the fact that this indicates he is voting bgg based on just a single quote (thus, making it more likely that this is pure wagoning), his reasoning is simply wrong: not attacking CAN mean that somebody is evasive scum, but it doesn't necessarily mean that.

[vollkan]

Hmm about Vollkan, he has seemed quite narrow in his approach to this game. He went after Bgg and Yura quite a lot, even to the point where he did'nt give his opinion on the Andrew vs SC and Regfanb vs CKD cases in particular along with other stuff like my voting changes for example. Who does he agree with?, who does he think is more likely town and mafia?,he has'nt made it clear.

First, my rankings system automatically tells you all the information about who I suspect relative to one another.

Second, as a general rule, if I don't comment on something it means that my position is ambivalent. You have to understand that, given my logical approach/scepticism, I am going to disagree on a theory level with a lot of what people say without actually finding it scummy. If my game appears "narrow", it's only because I choose to focus my (in between work and uni, limited) time on addressing things that I consider worthwhile alignment-wise.

For reference, current rankings are:

Player	Score
Andrew94	50
Regfan	55
Surprise_Carcinogen	55
Maxous	50
Truant	60
curiouskarmadog	50
bgg1996	79
subgenius	50
yura-chi	82

Hey, check out Andrew's only three posts on day 1:
1. Votes Magnetic, answers Regfan's questions, says Vollkan's system is useless, says he hates walls, and will only skim them.
2. He goes to a tournament, Yuri talks like a man.
3. Says Walls of pressure are distracting, expresses suspiscion of tclawren, who was later stabbed to death. (by the SK)

It's obvious that he's lurking, but that doesn't make him scummy.

I realize that night kills are WIFOM territory, but either:
1. He is the SK.
2. I am the SK, trying to implicate him.
3. The SK made the choice randomly.
4. Somebody else is trying implicate Andrew as the SK.
5. The shot was vig, the stab was mafia.

I know that I am not the SK, I am fairly sure that there is not a vig, and I don't think that the kill was random.
Nobody has yet tried to call Andrew the SK, and I wouldn't try to implicate somebody who only had three posts.

Comments, concerns, criticism?

For starters, "I know X is WIFOM but...." is a red flag that BS is about to follow.

There are reasons why an SK might kill their own suspect, but it's absurd to make arguments based on that assumption.

If a hypothetical stereotypical serial killer is going out of his/her way to kill somebody who he/she thinks is mafia, which, as my quote says, is the biggest threat to his victory.......
Then who would he kill if he isn't "going out of his way"? Vollkan?

As you might imagine, I get the "Why weren't you NKed argument?" thrown at me in almost every single game that I survive past N1 in.

On a theory level, this argument is WIFOM-laden. But, more importantly, the argument is not even borne out in reality. Check my wiki page for proof of this.

[vollkan]

@vollkan

Am I right in assuming you'd be willing to lynch either Yura or Bgg? Is there anyone else on your lynchable list?

Yura and bgg are the only two I would be comfortable lynching.

If neither of them is a viable option, then I would support a lynch of Truant, since he's the next highest (but much lower down that Yura/bgg)

[vollkan]

He can't, thus why him flat-out claiming right now is the best way to progress.

I'd like you to explain why you think this.

The only information we need is what SC's already said - that's enough to take SC and bgg off the table lynch-wise. Any other information, as Maxous has already pointed out, simply gives scum more information to use at night.

In other news, it seems like people are willing to lynch Truant now, cool.

I just can't see the case for lynching Truant, against whom there is a case but by no means a particularly strong one, over Yura, who has played like textbook newbscum. I'm seriously worried that the debate over my contradictions point (which was just one part of the reasons for a mere 5 points) has sullied the entire case against Yura. Also, nobody has been able to mount a defence of Yura's play, other than the standard newbie write-off.

[vollkan]

I wouldn't say I think Yura is town, the problem is I find a lot of his posts to be null due to his experience, if you can convince me otherwise I'd be happy to change. At the same time, I don't believe we would gain a great deal of information from a Yura flip apart from his allignment, whereas I believe an Andrew lynch will certaintly give us more direction.

The priority should be lynching scum, not lynching for information value. Yura's play has, as I keep repeating and as you will see if you go back through my points assigned to him, been textbook newbscum. The only consistent motivation he shows is wagoning (and, on the side, a constant apologising and "too townie"-ness), which only makes sense if he is scum

I don't mean to reverse the onus of proof here, but ask yourself: what more would you need to vote Yura?

It just seems as though there are really only two options with her:
a) Think she is scum
b) Write off all her actions to inexperience/VIness

I don't think b) is viable, given that, despite her obvious inexperience, her underlying motivations are still resonating through her play. When newbies get mislynched, it's because people confuse "bad" play with "scummy" play, but the case against Yura rests on her motivations, not her overall poor play.

@vollkan, right now who would surprise you as being scum? (note: this is different question than who do you think is town)

SubG and yourself, on play (obviously, SC and bgg also, as a result of the claim, even though their play is scummier)

I am actually reasonably happy with your thoughts on things, Subg. It's pretty well exactly where my feeling lie. I'm only about half convinced of Truant, but I'm not as suspicious of anyone else, so he stays on my mafia list. I'd much prefer Andrew or Yura to go down(two primaries) and my thoughts of Yura as SK(which I did mention before as well) make me think that she's probably a good target #1, just to prevent a 2 kill night. I would be happy with a CKD lynch, and need a little more convincing on the Truant case, but would much rather see one of my primaries go. In that regard

unvote vote:yura

if you would prefer Andrew OR yuro, to go, why not keep your vote on Andrew?

and since we are also talking about my lynch....would like to hear a couple points from you as to why I am scummy, it is easy to say you would be happy to someone's lynch, but harder to actually back it up with something..

unvote..

suddenly not okay with the shifting of votes.

the more I think about it, the more I want to

vote Andrew....

if he flips scum, have a feeling who might be a buddy.

Andrew's basically the counterpoint to Yura. Insofar as Andrew has been playing badly and lurking, but I don't have any sense of his motivations.

[vollkan]

@volkan just an aside, when you referred to yura as 'he' than 'she', do you have any additional info?

Nope, it's just a typo.

@Andrew: Is the entirety of your case against CKD contained in the above two posts?

[vollkan]

Seems to be that no less then five of us would like to see Yura go. Unless I am stunningly off on my reads, I don't see any reason not to just make it happen. If we wait to long and she replaces out, the confusion following would be too big a smoke screen for whoever replaces in, especially if we're right and she is SK. We would probably never catch her.

FTR, I think this position is wrong but not scummy. The risk of a smart replacee squirming a scum slot out of a lynch is a low one, but it's definitely a real one (I've done it myself on a few occasions). The key point is just to understand that the replacee doesn't get a clean slate, or even an opportunity to "redeem" themselves. Yura's replacee is as scummy as Yura. The benefit of a replacee coming in is simply that it gives a new voice and keeps Yura's slot talking (which is good no matter what the slot's alignemtn)

[vollkan]

And put a

pressure vote

on

vote:CryMeARiver

.

*headdesk*

@ Vollkan – Can you keep two point scores for me? One with the person who I replaced, and my own?

Yes and no.

There is no way that I am reducing Yura's score by a single point for you - and any scumminess from you will add directly to hers.

But, for the sake of clarity, I'm willing to include, at the end of each score summary I do, a score which will be 'yours' (ie. it will be 50 + [however many points you earn]). Your individual score will not, however, influence my vote in any respect.

My avatar is meant to be expressing anger at the use of "gut". FWIW, if I have a schtick on this site, it's for hating gut-based play.

Why is this? Just for the record, I’m a very gut based player but have found it holds very little influence over what happens during the game, so I re-read my gutscum players and form logical cases against them.

Then I don't hate

your type

of gut play. In fact, I play that way myself on occasions.

What I am really targeting is people who, when you ask them to explain their suspicions, will say "It's just gut" - or, as happens more often, something like:

X: I think vollkan is doing this thing for [scummy reason]
Me: Why is [scummy reason] a better explanation than [town reason]?
X: I just think it is
Me: But why?
X: That's my opinion

In a nutshell, my position is:

If a player can't provide an explanation that could reasonably persuade somebody to adopt their position, they should either try to find such an explanation or abandon their position.

Stop throwing fuel on a fire, she obviously was saying sorry for her ipod not being able to bold properly.

Then why didn't she re-vote me?

@Haylen: Does your read post contain your entire case against your suspects?

@ CMAR's 693:

CMAR+5

I hate explicit pressure votes as much as anyone, but your argument here is just ridiculous. For starters, you've parsed every single phrase in the worst possible light, culminating in the absurd conspiracy argument that bgg is acting on a hope that would be dumb enough to all drop their scumreads and all come put stupid "pressure votes" down all at the same time on CMAR and he will be quick hammered"

#0: She's a newbie, all newbie town follow people. They also tend to be more afraid of making mistakes that newbie scum are. Newbie scum just like to lurk. Note that she said she doesn't want people to hate her, this implies the majority of the people in the game ie. the rest of the town, if she messes up and loses.

First, I don't think there's any basis for saying that newbie town follow and newbie scum lurk.

Second, whilst many newbies will follow, Yura is distinct here because she explicitly acknowledges that she wants to follow and that the reason she is doing that is because doesn't want to mess up. It's not scummy necessarily (given how bad a player she is), but it's hardly a town-tell

#2: She's upset that her ipod didn't work and she failed with her vote.

It's not clear what she's apologising about - but given that she didn't revote me (and her vote had been criticised in the interim), I think "It was just her ipod" is too generous

#5: That was a question, posted in a confused tone. Newbies don't see themselves at threats to scum. She obviously thought the person who was voting for her was scum and asked him whether she was a threat to him.

"newbies don't see themselves as threats to scum" - exactly...hence why it fits that she would ask the question

More importantly, on what basis do you say that she clearly thought her voter was scum? She gives no indication of that.

#24: This is where she realises that she's not sure what she's supposed to be doing and should be in a newbie game where she can learn the basics.

This would be fine - except for the fact that she breaks down into apologies BEFORE the flip.

#28: She's accusing CKD of buddying her. I find paranoia in newbies to be a towntell.

On what basis...?

#35: Very very genuinely. She seems happy that town has more time to discuss about who's scum despite the fact that she's likely to be the one lynched.

You're really ignoring the fact that she is consistently resorting to this sort of "too townie" play style. Focussing on each post individually, of course you are going to say that she appears genuine - the point is that the pattern she is playing to (constant apologies, all over the place on positions, and constantly spouting pro-town rhetoric) is textbook newbscum

[vollkan]

@ CMAR's 693: CMAR+5 I hate explicit pressure votes as much as anyone, but your argument here is just ridiculous. For starters, you've parsed every single phrase in the worst possible light, culminating in the absurd conspiracy argument that bgg is acting on a hope that would be dumb enough to all drop their scumreads and all come put stupid "pressure votes" down all at the same time on CMAR and he will be quick hammered"

-_-

I was making fun of the fact that he was actually speculating on that situation to seem more protown. Not actually saying that he really thought that it was possible that everyone would drop their reads and put down votes on me -_-

"Hopefully town would be dumb enough to all drop their scumreads and all come put stupid "pressure votes" down all at the same time on CMAR and he will be quick hammered. I'm speculating as to what my buddies should join me in doing" doesn't make sense if that's what you meant.

[vollkan]

@ CMAR's 693: CMAR+5 I hate explicit pressure votes as much as anyone, but your argument here is just ridiculous. For starters, you've parsed every single phrase in the worst possible light, culminating in the absurd conspiracy argument that bgg is acting on a hope that would be dumb enough to all drop their scumreads and all come put stupid "pressure votes" down all at the same time on CMAR and he will be quick hammered"

-_-

I was making fun of the fact that he was actually speculating on that situation to seem more protown. Not actually saying that he really thought that it was possible that everyone would drop their reads and put down votes on me -_-

"Hopefully town would be dumb enough to all drop their scumreads and all come put stupid "pressure votes" down all at the same time on CMAR and he will be quick hammered. I'm speculating as to what my buddies should join me in doing" doesn't make sense if that's what you meant.

You're right, it doesn't sound that way the way I typed it. But it is indeed how my thought process went when I read it. My point was that the situation he proposed was impossible and the only reason someone would even speculate on such a situation would be to seem more protown.

CMAR+7

I can't see

any

way that you would have typed what I quoted above, which so clearly indicates that you were accusing him of voting you as a scum ploy and of him making his BS scenario as a hint to scumbuddies, if you meant to simply be suggesting that he was being unrealistic.

[vollkan]

You are right. I typed something I didn't think. Now go back and read my bgg case and see how it's not "ridiculous".

As I said before, your "case" was really just you taking every possible negative interpretation and spinning them together. To go through this:

So, you have no scumreads? Do you really think that one vote on me is really going to pressure me into rereading and making a post faster? *whew* I'm in real trouble now! You've gotten this far through the game (28 pages and D2 with 3 flips) and yet you find that no place else could better serve your vote than on me... -_-

Oh goodie, there's more! You actually felt the need to explain why your vote was a "pressure vote" so town didn't find you scummy for it.

*keeps reading*

Pressure voting is useless, but here you actually construct a conspiracy argument* around it being a tactic to stop his vote being criticised. Aside from the fact that your assertion that he has no scumreads is both wrong in fact and was not a reasonable opinion even from this single post that you based this attack on, your argument here really only proves that the pressure vote was useless - not that it was scummy

(* by "conspiracy argument", I mean an argument based on you attributing a motivation to him without proving why that motivation is the most reasonable explanation for his play)

...really? You would "very much" like to lynch him? And it's not like you just snuck that in there, hell, you fucking underlined it... *checks rules to make sure I can curse. we're clear. goes back to ranting* I mean, it's not like you voted me for "pressure" then said "oh, Andrew is scummy", you fucking said "I would like to LYNCH him" and, just in case no one saw it, felt the need to emphasize it by underlining it.

In other words: I here what you're saying. Yet your actions say differently.

*keeps reading*

Or, you know, he might have decided that his vote was doing nothing on you and decided to place it elsewhere. It's useless, sure, but hardly scummy.


...

This is how the game is played. You find someone scummy. You vote them. By voting them, you ARE FULLY AWARE that you are contributing to their lynch BECAUSE YOU FOUND THEM SCUMMY. The point of voting him would be to CONTRIBUTE TO HIS LYNCH. Why else would you fucking vote him?

*sighs, goes and gets something to eat and to drink, comes back hoping it might make a little sense, but doubting it*

I agree with you on the theory side of this, insofar as I don't believe that votes have any use beyond contributing to lynches (ie. I never pressure vote - in fact, my system makes it impossible).

However, and at the risk of sounding like a broken record, you still haven't explained why this is scummy. Despite your BIG WORDS IN CAPITAL LETTERS you still haven't explained what is scummy about this, as opposed to it just being a stupid way to play

It's not just going to become fucking possible because everyone just goes "WELL HELL, I THINK ANDREW SHOULD BE THE LYNCH BECAUSE I FUCKING FEEL LIKE IT". No, it will become, as you say, "possible" when you do something, maybe ISO him and show the town WHY he should be the lynch. It shouldn't just be "sitting on him", you have to actually give valid reasons and stuff of why you vote him.

*goes back to reading, hoping it will end soon*

The only way this is scummy is if you are implying that he isn't doing enough to push Andrew as a lynch candidate. Since you hadn't read any of his previous posts, however, you can't possibly be drawing that implication on any reasonable grounds. Thus, your argument is, again, you latching onto the worst possible interpretation.

Do you REALLY think that? REALLY? That I might come to the computer, see your one vote, and shit my pants and make sure the reread and my posting comes faster because of one vote? I hope not, or whatever...

*could it get much worse?*

Again, useless =/= scummy

Translation: Hopefully town would be dumb enough to all drop their scumreads and all come put stupid "pressure votes" down all at the same time on CMAR and he will be quick hammered. I'm speculating as to what my buddies should join me in doing. Now I'm going refer to CMAR as a townie. Whoops! A scumslip! Now I'm going to speculate that town will lose if they lynch a townie for no reason. Now I'm going to confirm that I indeed don't think CMAR is scum by saying that he's not yet "at that level", but that I'm going to vote him anyway because I damn well please.

And, as I have already demonstrated, this flat-out contradicts your subsequent explanations - and you still haven't provided any meaningful explanation beyond, in essence, "I was thinking one thing and typed the exact opposite in staggering detail"

She said prior to this that she is a sheep. So perhaps she felt she'd done something wrong when she was criticised and should be voting with everyone else.

And yet, she'd been comfortable enough with not being sheepish in voting me in the first place. In fact, she even said:

Ahhhhh since no one is choosing volkan for their vote Ima choose him n n ders miles edgeworth Acting funny

The above actually shows that, far from following people, she was actually trying to go against the grain. If she really is just confused and scared about breaking from the pack, such an attitude makes no sense. If, however, it was just newbscum trying to be contrite and avoid the limelight, it makes perfect sense

Because, from her point of view and my point of view, the only people who could find her threatening is scum. Thus why she asked the whether he truly found her to be a threat.

Which relies on us assuming that, on being voted, Yura would, to begin with, think "They must be voting me because they are scum and consider me a threat". The first part is a strange assumption to make, and the second is downright ridiculous.

Newbie town are infinately more paranoid than newbie scum. Newbie scum only have to worry that they have been caught out. Newbie town worry that anybody in the game could be scum: "is it the guy who's claimed cop or the person I've been defending all game", they worry that they have done the wrong thing (for example: hammer) and that they're going to get lynched next day. They worry that their skills are so shockingly undeveloped that their reads are totally wrong. They worry that they've somehow said something that could be mistaken as a scumslip. Mostly, what they are worried about is that if they're lynched, the town isn't going to win - they have a massive fear of being lynched when it really doesn't matter.

Scum don't have to worry about anybody buddying them, cause they're the one doing the buddying most of the time! They don't gave to worry that the person they're attacking isn't scum, because they're scum themselves. ect ect.

Town paranoia is completely different to scum paranoia. In this case, she was worried CKD was buddying her. Only a townie would need to be worried about this.

All fine as a matter of general theory, but what doesn't make sense is that this gives her an entirely contradictory attitude - she both thinks that anyone who votes her is trying to eliminate her as a "threat" but also that anyone who defends her is scum buddying. It's actually unusual for newbie town, given (as you say) the high priority they place on survival, to be worried about somebody defending them; generally, they tend to be thought of as a white knight

A fallacy that tends to be wrong.

"too townie" is a fallacy where the argument is "This person is playing too well/too hard, so they must be scum"

It isn't a fallacy where it is directed at a person who makes superficial rhetorical attempts to appear town/genuine

[vollkan]

what do you have to say about bgg and surprise.

Unless I've missed something, I just don't get any relevant read from it. My understanding is that bgg is making a statistical argument (which I don't follow) about the setup, but I can't see what the ultimate issues are. Frankly, I'm waiting for it to reach some sort of conclusion so that I can understand it properly.

[vollkan]

The first thing that sticks out is that he doesn't seem to be reading the thread very well.

Which isn't a scumtell

The second thing that sticks out is that he seems to be posting unrelated information. Usually, I would disregard this, but he mentioned that Yura talked like a man at least twice. When you start repeating useless things like that, it's more because you want to fill space in your posts than goofing around.

My recollection is that spammy stuff hasn't been the bulk of his play though...

ISO#9 is fairly strange as well. After attacking S_C about deflecting the conversation away from day 1, S_C makes a post saying "Well, what would you like me to refer to about day 1?". ISO#9 quotes this exact post, and says "again, you are pointing to my lack of posts to suggest that i am lurking and to discredit my case." He then goes on to attack him more for deflecting. I can't make heads or tails of it.

This I agree with. It makes no sense to me. Not in a scummy way - but in a VI way

Finally, there's something off to me about his votes and suspicions, but I can't quite put my finger on it.
Help me out?

I suspect that the sense of something being 'amiss' is really just a reaction to his poor play. As a point of contrast, Yura was probably worse at the game, but she was much easier to read. Whereas, Andrew is not as bad as Yura (or, at least, prone to weird outbursts), but also much harder to pinpoint any alignment on. Since his play hasn't been objectively pro-town (in the sense that he has made no contribution - not in the sense of being scummy), the common inclination is to think his play is scummy (this is a pattern that is common in respect of VI-ish players)

@bgg, well surprise soft claimed and it concluded you in the 'innocent' list, so ill wait till he claims.

This is a frankly ridiculous position to take. If you believe SC, then you ought to believe it is more likely that bgg is town than not. If you don't believe SC, well explain why.

Also, I've noticed that, in spite of us wanting to lynch yura not too long ago, lo and fucking behold, Haylen has kind of managed to convince you all that YURA WAS TOWN. This is, to say the least, unnacceptable. I'll ACCEPT and Andrew lynch, but I'm 90% more likely to think that Yura was SK then that ANdrew was, and at this point, it is in EVERYBODY's best interest, scum and town alike, to kill the SK. ANYTHING we can do to peel it back to 1 death a night rather then 2 is INCTREDIBLY beneficiel.

Wha?

Haylen is still at 3 votes. I haven't seen anybody convinced by what Haylen has said (quite the contrary in fact). If there has been a change, it seems to only be that people are (and I'm still confused as to why) finding Andrew increasingly scummy.

[vollkan]

also i find surprise's mumbling of lynching the sk = peeling back 1 death = good etc

how about if there is a sk and we fail to lynch it = cross kills?

think about it
10 ppl now
9 ppl lynch, if sk lynched

8ppl at next day (5:3 ratio MYLO)(assuming 3 scum)


so yea i just decided i didnt believe you surprise, claim plz and i have conclusions depending on what u claim

WTF is your point?

For starters, SC didn't "mumble" the theory about lynching SK. The fact that you characterise her remarks that way only suggests that you are trying to discredit her on emotional grounds. So

Andrew+5

on that count.

As for the substance of your argument, the only thing I can see you saying is "even if we lynch a SK, it might be MYLO tomorrow". Obviously, that's true - but the situation is pretty clearly worse if we lynched mafia rather than a SK. So, your argument is BS. The fact that you are using such a patently stupid argument to try and make SC claim merits a further

Andrew+5

[vollkan]

@bgg look at these
geez
post 237 i accused surprise
post 244 surprise defends himself
post 245-246 surprise says i have low posts (AND THAT IS WHERE I SAID WAS THE DEFELCTING)
post254 i say he is deflecting
and so on

After the last post, went back and looked at this:

SC defended himself thoroughly in 244. In which case, why is it wrong for him to point out anti-town behaviour from you? It's hardly "deflecting" when he's already dealt with your accusations.

[vollkan]

did you not see my 'crosskills' part before commenting?

You're seriously arguing that it's better not to lynch a SK because there 'might' be a cross-kill?

lol i have alrady made a case agianst surprise, i dont need to downgrade surprise by saying he 'mumbles', do you know what mumble means? im pretty sure it means speaking retardedly.and thus i said that that point is wrong, not a 'discredit' dumbass.

Actually, "mumble" means "to speak quietly or inaudibly". And, as for your argument, see my previous post for why it's rubbish (again, it's absurd to argue that eliminating a scum faction is not the best use of a lynch)

also, did you even read 244? are you saying that is a good defence?

Your argument against him was a speculative conspiracy that he voted for Yura to divert attention from him being the hammerer. It has no proof, relies on an assumption that SC would be dumb enough to think that the rest of us are dumb enough to think hammering is scummy, and ignores entirely the strong case against Yura. Against such a bad case, 244 is fine. Frankly, I wouldn't have even taken your 237 seriously if it had been directed against me.

in the next post surprise basically just pointed out my lurking, which i explained on day 1 'going to tourney' to DEFLECT MY CASE.

Regardless of whether or not you agree with his defence in 244, he responded to your case - so you can't argue that he was trying to deflect.

[vollkan]

For starters, SC didn't "mumble" the theory about lynching SK. The fact that you characterise her remarks that way only suggests that you are trying to discredit her on emotional grounds. So

Andrew+5

on that count.

As for the substance of your argument, the only thing I can see you saying is "even if we lynch a SK, it might be MYLO tomorrow". Obviously, that's true - but the situation is pretty clearly worse if we lynched mafia rather than a SK. So, your argument is BS. The fact that you are using such a patently stupid argument to try and make SC claim merits a further

Andrew+5

1) That 'mumbles' expression was shown to be a misunderstanding about what it referred to.

You're right. His position is still wrong, but his "I thought it meant retarded" explanation really just means he was making a standard rhetorical attack so

Andrew-5

2) If we don't lynch the SK today, to realisticly win the game the SK has to take out a mafia. He will almost certainly be aiming for one.
How is the situation worse if we lynch a mafia? The mafia are the greater of two evils to the town (i.e. the biggest threat against the town winning the game). Who the SK is the biggest threat to is the mafia, not the town. The mafia will likely be aiming for the SK as well.
How is this thought BS?

I haven't done the math on this, but if we go on the assumption that eliminating one NK altogether is better that weakening one by half or one-third, then it stands to reason that lynching SK is better. In any event, this is really distracting from the central point - which is that, no matter how debatable this issue is, it's patently ridiculous for Andrew to suspect SC, to the point of demanding a claim, based on the theory (when the theory appears to be against him - certainly, he hasn't shown any understanding to the contrary - and at best is ambiguous)

[vollkan]

1) I'll Unvote: Bg You are absolutely correct that I don't have enough information to make a good vote. I trust the town that Bg is nearly clear and the fact that I am leaving my vote on Bg is indeed a mafia stance.

I'm going

CMAR+5

for this.

Changing one's mind isn't scummy.

However

, there should always be some sort of mental process that a person goes through to make that change. In CMAR's case, all of his play up until the above post involved voting for a player based on manifestly incomplete information. He even admitted as much when he said in 800:

2) I absolutely trust the town that Bg (and apparently S_C) are clear for some reason. However, I am voting based on what I personally know and because I have yet to reread, I have no reason to take your word that andrew or whomever is scum because I can't know.
3) I am gathering votes on the premise that I have not reread yet and somehow that is scummy. I am town, I just haven't had the time to reread. That's not scummy, it's lurking, and it's certainly antitown, but it's life. I'm not trying to be stubborn, but I have more important things right now.

So, we have:
a) "Post 800 CMAR" who clearly thinks that it is acceptable for him to vote on incomplete information, based on the (utterly wrong) premise that he should vote based on his personal knowledge even when he knows that that knowledge is significantly incomplete
b) "Post 802 CMAR" who thinks that it is wrong to make a vote on incomplete information

SubG didn't point out anything in Post 801 that "Post 800 CMAR" wasn't aware of. Since CMAR had been attacked for some time over his voting, I find it hard to believe that he wouldn't have given the matter any thought up until then.

[vollkan]

For now... a Haylen/Yura lynch seems too scum-motivated.

You've got Vollkan, S_C, Maxous, and me voting for Haylen. Which of us is scum?

^ This

@ Vollkan : While it may look like a short amount of time, and relatively, is, there were three hours between posts 800 and 802, where he was most likely contemplating it, after his thought process was called into question.

You've missed my point entirely. In 800 and a number of his previous defence posts, he clearly showed that he KNEW he was voting based on incomplete information. In other words, he had turned his mind to the question of "Should I vote based on incomplete information?" and, as he articulated most explicitly in 800, he clearly thought that it was okay for him to do that.

SubG's post in 801 raised an issue which, if he was genuine, CMAR must have already considered - namely, that a vote based on incomplete information is inherently likely to be inaccurate. Instead, CMAR's 802 makes it seem like some great new revelation.

Or, to use a simplified analogy:

X: "I don't care about the serious health risks in smoking, I am going to smoke anyway!"
Y: "But smoking poses serious health risks!"
X: "Oh,wow, you're right! Smoking poses serious health risks. I don't think I will smoke."

In the first quote, X clearly shows that he is aware of the argument against his initial position (ie. "to start smoking"), and that he doesn't care about it. And yet, when the issue that he just rejected is pointed out to him, suddenly he changes tune completely. It doesn't make sense.

[vollkan]

@voklan, w/e

Meaning what, exactly? I attacked a number of fundamental points of your argument, and all you can reply with is "whatever"?

[vollkan]

Carcin, I think you/Regfan, Andrew and Bgg are scum together. Until either of you are confirmed town, or something drastic happens, I'm going to be sticking to that. Nothing that happens in thread could convince me otherwise. I also don't lie about being ill, it's poor form.

Give me just one good reason for this position. It's ridiculous.

Although Haylen is closer to being lynched at the current moment - I much prefer an Andrew lynch over a Haylen one. If Andrew is town he's not going to benefit us whatsoever, if Haylen is town she will. With that said the reasoning behind my vote has nothing to do with skill level of the players but the fact andrew has been consistently avoiding any damning questions or advances asking him to post real content.

So your reason for preferring an Andew lynch is "who will be more useful if they are town" rather than "who is most likely scum"?

[vollkan]

I'm aware of that, but it doesn't clarify my question - do you think Andrew is scummy, or just useless? (because "avoiding questions and not posting content" hardly resolves that)

[vollkan]

I believe I stated earlier - I went through his previous games and avoiding of question is something he does as scum and much less often as town, I view it as an incredibly strong scum-tell in this game.

That couped with the fact I didn't have a particular scum read on Yuras earlier play (I read it as allignment neutral) leads me to prefer an Andrew lynch over any other.

Okay. Your most recent posting confused me, but that makes sense

[vollkan]

@Haylen: Claim time.

[vollkan]

Gah!

Unvote

.

Second highest (excluding Bgg) on scores is CMAR, so

Vote: CMAR

I'll support Andrew over NL, but I'd prefer CMAR by far.

[vollkan]

Volkan - Does your unvote mean you believe her claim and thus she's town - Or does it lead you to just want to postpone a decision?

Probably closer to the latter.

It's good policy not to second-guess, or to allow the second-guessing of, claims. The point is that, with CMAR also sitting at a high score, I can't justify keeping a vote on a claimed PR. As in, it's not so much that I believe the claim as it is that I am not so certain that the claim is wrong that I can justify voting Haylen over somebody else with a reasonably high score.

[vollkan]

Also, I'd like to see Volkan's latest points chart. Until then, do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars.

Player	Score
Andrew94	55
Regfan	55
Surprise_Carcinogen	55
Maxous	50
CMAR	77
curiouskarmadog	50
bgg1996	79
subgenius	50
Haylen	82

i am a vt. haylen's claim seems bs

Why was it necessary for you to claim?

unvote vote crymeariver

survival etc

Andrew+5

This makes no sense whatsoever. If you genuinely think Haylen is lying (and, since you've got no good reason to think that, I suspect this is BS), then you should be voting her.

[vollkan]

Finally....

I've been waiting since midnight... For this.

For what?

Anyway,

Vote: CMAR

. Despite Andrew's deleted posts to the contrary, I can't see how his flip invalidates Haylen's claim, let alone to the point of justifying me voting her over CMAR,

[vollkan]

Unvote, Vote: No Lynch

You're right. It's MYLO in WCS, so NL is the best option.

[vollkan]

About to catch a bus, so no time to make a big post. Just wanted to address the NL issue quickly

Gee, it really would have been nice if Haylen had redirected that kill. I'm not sure NL is the best option, since the scum will probably just take the opportunity to kill bgg. I suppose he's not technically confirmed since he could still be a godfather, but in our current situation, I think it makes sense to assume he is actually town.

NO. NO. NO.

Policy-wise, Bgg needs to be treated as confirmed - that is, he is objectively more likely to be town than anybody else. However, it is absolutely the wrong play to adopt a play approach which assumes that he actually IS town (ie. by depriving ourselves of the information that flows from a NK).

The test is pretty simple:

Do you think Bgg's prob-town opinion is more useful than confirmation of his alignment? (other of course, in the situation of bgg not being NKed, in which case it's basically a question of whether him being a GF is more likely than scum not killing for WIFOM value - but that in and of itself would be a form of information)

I can't see how anybody could think that the answer to the test is "yes".

we go into the night, so scum will eliminate a possible canidate for us...they will not...bgg is cleared as town, so that will be their obvious to kill..

so if we no lynch, all we are doing is getting rid of a confirmed town...and we will be in the EXACT SAME POSITION WE ARE NOW..

consider us at LYLO right now.

@Everybody

See above; this isn't correct at all.

[vollkan]

Addressing NL first:

REALLY?...what is incorrect?

I asked you to explain your logic, and you just say I am incorrect?....

please do explain when you get off that bus.

why do you have a problem with us treating today like it is already LYLO? I am not going to vote for bgg....neither is anyone else....so it is like we no lynched, and scum has already killed him.....most likely we are dealing with a 3 person scum team. there is absolutely NO REASON TO NO LYNCH TODAY.

No lynching is all kinds of stupid.
First of all, we would lose our one-shot redirector, if we even have one.

Most importantly, if it was actually beneficial to town to no lynch, then all that the mafia would have to do is not kill anybody.

Addressing the worst argument against me first; namely, bgg's "mafia just won't kill" point. The same argument can (and is) made against NLing in any MYLO situation. In fact, the stalemate it leads to is called "Happily Ever After". But, in practice, that stalemate (to the point of the game ending in a draw) has only ever happened once, according to the wiki. I think I've been in one game in the past where scum twice refused to kill (meaning two cycles of NL and NK went by), but they gave in in the end.

The second worst argument was the one raised earlier about LYLO being more dangerous than MYLO because of the risk of one errant townie throwing the game. To an extent, that's an increased risk, but I don't think it's an unreasonably high one. It can also be dealt with by a "No voting until a majority is settled" rule.

Now that that is out of the way:

CKD, I didn't just say you were incorrect. The point was that I addressed your arguments at the top of my post. To reiterate, and respond to bgg at the same time:

If we NL and bgg-town is killed:

Pros:

1) Alignment confirmation

Cons:

1) We lose bgg's opinion

Verdict

Pros > Cons

If we NL and Haylen-town is killed:

Pros

1) Alignment confirmation (Haylen's lynch is a live possibility, if not today then tomorrow, so this is actually even more valuable than the bgg confirmation)

Cons

1) Loss of Haylen's opinion
2) Loss of Haylen's power

Verdict

Pros > Cons*
(* If we mislynch Haylen, it's game over so it's something better left to a scum kill)

If we NL and somebody else is killed

Pros

1) Alignment confirmation

Cons

1) Loss of their opinion

Verdict

Pros > Cons

In every single case, it is the better course of action.

Despite Andrew's deleted posts to the contrary, I can't see how his flip invalidates Haylen's claim, let alone to the point of justifying me voting her over CMAR,

When did you get a chance to see those posts?
If you were online at the time, why didn't you post? Let us know that you were online?

By recollection, I didn't see it until the lynch had already happened, because I remember seeing that the mod had posted, reading the flip, then reading backwards to see what happened.

More objectively, in my timezone, the flip was revealed on Thursday April 7 at 6:14PM. That day, I checked the thread first thing when I got up, and posted (#81) at 6:26AM. I left for work at about 6:30AM. I worked until 4:00PM. Got home at around 5:00PM. In between showering once I got home and making myself dinner, I don't think I checked the thread before after 6:14PM (the flip) - but, if I did, it would only have been in a "I have three minutes until food is microwaved, might as well see what happened in the game" mode (as opposed to "need to sit down and post and think" mode)

Scum took the shot because I announced yesterday that under no circumstances was I going to use my ability until I was sure I was right.

Claim: One Shot Redirector. Yura did not use her ability. If I'm allowed to live, I plan on using it in mylo to reflect the scums kill back at themselves. If we reach lylo and I haven't used it by then, I THINK I the night will play out and I can redirect the scums kill back at themselves if we mislynch.

The first quote is a lie. You did not announce that you wouldn't use your ability under any circumstances. You suggested that you were planning on saving it for a mylo situation, and you also suggested that you weren't even sure how a lylo would play out in the final sentence of your claim. Nowhere did you mention that you required certainty in your reads before you would feel comfortable using your ability.

Your willingness to make things up in order to defend yourself does not improve my opinion of you.

Good find.

Haylen+7

[vollkan]

First, the "Happily ever after scenario" you're talking about is quite nice, but you see, scum aren't the only ones who will give in. There will be the scum, who will want to mislynch. They will always be able to switch back to no lynching if the lynch turns to a mafia member. Then, there are the people who won't give in, and only want to no lynch, unless they can lynch a confirmed scum. Finally, there are those who only want to lynch. Type 3:They will pretty much lynch anybody in their top 3 or 4 in favor of not no lynching, just to get the game moving.

Do you know how that game would work out?
Think about it. Eventually, the scum would build up a wagon on the scummiest non-scum. All of the no lynchers would vote no lynch. All of the lynchers would wagon onto the non-scum, and we would lose.

You're constructing a ridiculously artificial scenario, specifically with respect to your second group: "the people who won't give in, and only want to no lynch, unless they can lynch a confirmed scum". I am the biggest (only?) proponent of NL at the moment, and even I would compromise and push a lynch on my preferred candidate if it was clear that NL was off the table and that, if I didn't vote somebody, the result would be a lynch I disagreed with.

Next, the majority of the eight players is 5. Let's assume that there are 5 town, including myself. Since I'm town, and I'm not going to no lynch, you would need a scum on your boat to no lynch, or just wait 'til the deadline. If no lynching benefits town as you say, which it won't, the scum would never get on it. It won't even work.

1) I think that if I can convince enough people to agree with me, they can put pressure on you to fall into line; and
2) Even if you do hold out, the fact remains that unless you get 5 people in favour of a lynch, the result at deadline will be NL. You need to convince 4 people. I only need to convince 3

Then, you're assuming that Haylen is the only power role left. That's a pretty big assumption to make, you know. I don't think that anybody here, except maybe you, by assuming that, have claimed a VT position.

I'm not sure how the possible existence of another PR is relevant. If anything, it only strengthens my case, since if you and/or Haylen is/are town the other PR would very likely not be NKed, thus meaning that they will have another night to use their power, potentially leading to yet more information come the following day.

Now, as I've already explained, if we get to lylo, townHaylen's ability won't save us. Therefore, she has to use it after mylo. Out of eight players, I doubt that she can get it right. We will have wasted her ability.

Again, not sure how this is relevant.

Yes, if we mislynch today (which is inherently a lynch that is based on less information than a post-NL lynch and, thus, is more likely to be a mislynch) , we need to rely on town-Haylen to save us (and those odds aren't good).

Whereas, if we NL, Haylen might be able to redirect tonight anyway - but even if she doesn't (either by failing or not acting), we still get to lynch tomorrow with more information.

Now, it's also

completely untrue

that Haylen's ability won't save us. Imagine a 4:3 LYLO. We mislynch, it goes to 3:3. Yes, as you said earlier, scum can just No Kill, but they don't win with a tie. The reason that games get endgamed when there is a tie is that there is no way for town to win. However, in 3:3, we still can win - by Haylen redirecting at night. (and, for obvious maths odds reasons, it's better that we rely on Haylen in a post-LYLO mislynch rather than a post-MYLO mislynch).

Finally, and probably most importantly, When you made your little chart, or whatever you want to call it, you didn't include yourself. To me, that is a major scumslip. I know, townVollkan didn't include himself because he A) didn't want to give any information away about his role, and B) was someone else. But, he is probably the most logical player, and losing him is definitely different than "someone else".

I don't understand this at all. If anybody is NKed (whether it be me or anybody else), then we lose one townie's opinion. Obviously, the cost of that varies depending on who is killed, but having the alignment confirmation is always going to be more useful. And, on me specifically, no matter how logical I am, it would still be better for me to be NKed than for me to be mislynched.

Volkan - I understand that NL'ing would allow validation and confirmation of Bgg's role, but is that really needed? On top of that you're ignoring and forgetting multiple other cons that are caused by a no lynch.

Right now, do you believe he's mafia? If we NL and he wasn't killed would you lynch him? If the answer to both of those questions is no then there is nothing really gained from a no lynch, whereas there are downsides, I shall list them if you want, NL'ing leads to:

1) Removal of Bggs opinion.
2) Allowance of mafia to have extra time to converse and plot possible ways to progress.
3) Removal of the ability for us to place votes to gauge reactions due to it leading to a potential lylo.
4) Addition of extra night activity leading to some players losing interest in the game and not performing as well.

My answer to your questions is "No", but the questions as you've asked them really miss the point. I can't think of any realistic situation under which I would vote BGG - because the objective likelihood of another candidate being scum will be higher.

However

, BGG being scum is still a live, if unlikely option (the pro I've already explained).

Addressing your cons, the short answer is that I don't think any of them are sufficient to override the above.

To address each individually:
1) We already have bgg's opinion on everything that has transpired so far. His semi-confirmed status means his opinions are probably genuine, but that's really the end of it. Remember: NL always deprives the town of one townie's perspective, but it's still almost uniformly accepted as the best move in MYLO. I may be speaking only for myself here, but I can't conceive of any situation in which, despite his semi-confirmed status, I would trust bgg's judgment over my own.
2) I accept that this is a con; but I don't think night discussion is likely to be sufficiently influential on the day game to override the pros
3) As somebody who has designed a playstyle that pre-commits my vote, I take a particularly dim view of the value of reaction-gauging, let alone so late in a game.
4) Seriously? Given that a Happily Ever After cycle is exceptionally unlikely, the timeframe you are talking about is most likely only the length of a single night phase. I'd be amazed if anybody would lose touch with the game in that time.

But mostly, yes, I just want him to admit I'm right

@Regfan: Yup. It's

really

important that we keep this guy's opinion

If we No-Lynch and Haylen is town, there will be no reason to kill her - that is the point. Her ability is much less effective.
Whereas if we keep the MYLO and the numbers thin down, town Haylen would become increasingly dangerous for the mafia to keep around and may decide to just off her and not take the risk.
It would potentally allow the town to get away with a mislynch through night abilities, whereas a no-lynch would'nt.

However this is admitally complicated by Haylen being one the main suspects for mafia.

See above in response to BGG where I prove that Haylen's ability is still useful in LYLO.

[vollkan]

2) S_C got an innocent on Bgg. While Bgg is likely town (despite my dislike of her scummy play), there is a chance that he is investigation immune and we cannot regard him as a clear in situations like this when town could possibly lose depending on the lynch. Now of course we listen to his reads and he is not the lynch for today, but he is not clear.

I'm confused. Do you or do you not think BGG is scum?

I didn't care for how you both started the day out with theory talk rather than scum hunting.

Please.

The question of whether or not NL is the best strategy today is not "theory talk", any more than debating whether or not a person's conduct was scummy or not is "theory talk".

Moreover, given that a number of people found my position scummy, it was directly game relevant for me to go into detail justifying that position. You only have to look at Bgg's #1022 to show that the argument has had an impact on his opinion of my actions, in that whilst he still disagrees with me he no longer sees it as a scumtell.

Yes, if we mislynch today (which is inherently a lynch that is based on less information than a post-NL lynch and, thus, is more likely to be a mislynch) , we need to rely on town-Haylen to save us (and those odds aren't good).

Whereas, if we NL, Haylen might be able to redirect tonight anyway - but even if she doesn't (either by failing or not acting), we still get to lynch tomorrow with more information.

Now, it's also completely untrue that Haylen's ability won't save us. Imagine a 4:3 LYLO. We mislynch, it goes to 3:3. Yes, as you said earlier, scum can just No Kill, but they don't win with a tie. The reason that games get endgamed when there is a tie is that there is no way for town to win. However, in 3:3, we still can win - by Haylen redirecting at night. (and, for obvious maths odds reasons, it's better that we rely on Haylen in a post-LYLO mislynch rather than a post-MYLO mislynch).

I do not like Vollkan justifying a no lynch by arguing that Haylen's ability would be more likely to succeed after a post LYLO mislynch. Haylen still has the highest scum score according to Vollkan, and she is in no way cleared. I cannot imagine why town Vollkan would argue for a NL on the assumption that Haylen's claim is valid. Town Vollkan can't know the truth of Haylen's claim. Scum Vollkan knows she is town and therefor assumes she is telling the truth or knows she is faking but has a motive for playing along with the claim.

That quote needs to be taken in context. Maxous made the argument, with which other people agreed, that one reason NL was bad because Haylen-town's ability was only useful in MYLO. My point in the above was to prove that, if Haylen is town, her ability is just as, if not more, useful in LYLO than in MYLO.

In short, I was rebutting an argument which assumed that Haylen was town on its own terms.

[vollkan]

Hold on, if the mafia make up 50% of the town at any time it is game over right?
We would'nt have a night period after that.

No.

Mafia only tend to win at 50% because usually, once they reach that point, there is no

possible

way for town to win (other than by mafia deliberately playing against their win condition). If Haylen is town, then there is still a possible way for the mafia to lose. Hence, the game shouldn't end.

Better yet:

@Mod:

If mafia make up 50% of the overall living players, do they automatically win even if there is still a possible means for town to win (other than by mafia playing against their own win condition)?

Standard town/sk/mafia win conditions apply

.

One thing I was wondering. So far, the following town PR's have been revealed: sledgehammer, cop, and doctor. That seems like a pretty powerful arsenal of power roles, and I find myself wondering if another PR as potentially powerful as redirector would be included in this setup. This is pure speculation, and I haven't played enough games to have a strong sense of how likely this would be. Even if I had, it would be pure speculation, but this seems like a lot of PR's to me.

I don't think its imbalanced, at least to the point of making me any more skeptical of Haylen's claim than I already am. Especially given that Sledgehammer is a role which is inherently unlikely to be useful (odds of a player being hammer vote * odds of scum targeting that player = low) and, moreover, is unlikely to be a convincing claim (combination of the fact that I've never heard of the role before + it's a claim which is impossible to verify); and that a weak doctor is much less useful as a means of protecting claimed PRs in a setup with two scum factions. Add to that the fact that Haylen's claimed role is only one-shot, and, while the setup is looking PR-heavy, I don't think it is imbalanced.

[vollkan]

EBWOP:

@Mod

I asked you a question in my previous post, but messed up the bold tags.

[vollkan]

I'm thinking Subgenius and Vollkan scumteam. I don't know what to think about whether there's a third mafia because 1 SK and 3 Mafia in a 13 player setup seems a bit heavy to me. And oh hey, if it is mylo/lylo, they're going for the easy target.

2 problems with this, aside from what's already been said:
1) I'm not "going for you". I'm going for NL and, even if I wasn't, I'd be going for CMAR.
2) Implying that this (though, I'm not sure what "this" is, since I'm not "going for you") is late-game opportunism on my part entirely ignores my entire history of suspecting your slot

My read on Max and

Vollkan

is slipping.

Oh hey, distancing alert!

The fact that you could have equally said the Maxous comment was distancing only demonstrates that you are now playing under confirmation bias.

[vollkan]

If we NL and bgg-town is killed:
Pros:
1) Alignment confirmation
Cons:
1) We lose bgg's opinion
Verdict
Pros > Cons

Whose alignment is confirmed? Bgg?..who the fuck cares if his alignment is confirm if he is dead..beside, in my book he is already confirmed (ie SC). There is no point no lynching today…a lot of things can happen and I would like to have one confirmed town with us as long as possible.

As I said when Regfan asked me basically the same question:

1) We already have bgg's opinion on everything that has transpired so far. His semi-confirmed status means his opinions are probably genuine, but that's really the end of it. Remember: NL always deprives the town of one townie's perspective, but it's still almost uniformly accepted as the best move in MYLO. I may be speaking only for myself here, but I can't conceive of any situation in which, despite his semi-confirmed status, I would trust bgg's judgment over my own.

You can chant "he's semi-confirmed town" again and again, but in practical terms it doesn't mean anything more than that his opinions are probably genuine. The point isn't that I think he is likely to be scum, it's that faced with the negligible value of his opinion versus the likely negligible value of his confirmation, I'm going to go with the certainty that comes from a confirmation. Not to mention the other pros I've already discussed in the event that somebody other than bgg is targeted.

I am also not surprised that vollkan is defending haylen…I for one don’t believe the claim.

Quote for me please where I have defended Haylen.

On that contrary, I've said numerous times that I think she is still more likely scum than not - but my score on CMAR is sufficiently high that I am not going to vote a claimed power role over him. I can also imagine this in the reverse, and that if I was voting Haylen over CMAR, people would be attacking me for "voting the claimed power role".

[vollkan]

before I do, are you saying that you have not (today) defended Haylan in any way?...

No. I've been pretty clear that I think NL > CMAR > Haylen, and I have already said that I think her role is plausible balance-wise. The reason I asked is that I think describing me as "defending Haylen" because of a few minor points completely ignores the vast bulk of my play.

as vollkan can tell you, I believe that if vollkan survives day 1..he is probably scum....now this is mostly a joke, but I am find it to be true in most games that if he survives the first couples nights, he is probably scum.

there are reasons (previous games that we have shared) that I believe this...I think I have been screwed 2..maybe three times where vollkan has been scum and I either couldnt get a read on him oooorrrr, he survived day 1 and I made this same "joke"....he is a good player and scum would usually off him. I know as scum (WIFOM ALERT) I would off him early...unless his reads were just completely off or we were scum together(do with that what you will).

I've said a few times already that this just isn't true - and you can check my wiki for proof. (Theorywise, I suspect this is a combination of wifom and, more importantly, because my meta is now so entrenched that nobody ever thinks of my logical play as "pro-town" anymore, at least without being corrected by somebody who has played with me before).

Also, given SC's claim, I think it's pretty silly to hold the fact that I wasn't killed N2 against me.

[vollkan]

I know that people strongly dislike night-kill speculation but I think at least something can be read from this games ones. I looked back at Pappumrats post now that we know mafia were the ones to shoot him, his suspicons were completly off-track considering the fact he FoS'ed, Tcl and S_C and none of his posts resembled any form of a power-role tell, I'm interested in hearing peoples thoughts on why he was shot?

Since pappum doesn't seem like a particularly good player (ruling out "playstyle" kill) and his suspicions were inaccurate (ruling out "threat" kill), it was most likely either power-role hunting or WIFOM.

I see this case as a slight town tell for CKD though. He mentioned at the very start of the game how 'good' a player Vollkan is and when the game wears on and the longer Vollkan does'nt die I could see town CKD get more and more suspicious about why the 'good' player is not dead yet? There could be something going on, Is he fooling us here? etc.
I experienced it before.

I don't yet think CKD's argument is scummy, but I'm getting increasingly wary of it because I've already shown from my meta and the circumstances of this game that it just isn't true.

I'm an easy target because I replaced into the scummiest role in the game and I'm on people's scumlists - how does that not make me an easy target?

When you call somebody an "easy target" in mafia, it means that they aren't really scummy (in the sense of being more likely to be scum) but, because of their playstyle, people are spinning it to appear that way. Therefore, the fact that you replaced into the slot of somebody who was scummy doesn't make you an "easy target" - Yura was genuinely scummy.

Your argument is basically a backwards way of asking for us to ignore or downplay Yura's conduct.

[vollkan]

Actually, I'm pretty sure that an 'easy target' is just a town role that's easy for mafia to lynch. Likelyhood of being scum doesn't really come into play. Scum knows who is scum.
The only requirements for her to be an easy target are that she isn't really mafia, but is still quite scummy.

Of course, you're the expert.

Yes and no.

It's hard to word this clearly, but here is my best attempt:

Obviously, it's to be expected that Haylen will play on an assumption that she is town. Therefore, she can claim that her slot is an "easy target" for scum. That is, she can say "I am town; therefore, scum may be exploiting the scumminess of my slot".

The problem, however, is when Haylen takes that argument and applies it to anybody who attacks her - ie. by claiming that I and others are attacking her

because

she is an "easy target", rather than because she is scummy

As in, her reasoning appears to be:
1) I am town
2) My slot is scummy
3) Therefore, scum will want to attack my slot
4) People are attacking my slot
5) Therefore, those people are scummy

Now, the first point to keep in mind is that her whole argument is premised on her being town. Thus, it only has validity for her.

The second point, however, is that even for her the logic is clearly messed up. She is jumping from the fact that some people attacking her may be scum to a conclusion that anybody who attacks her is scummy - even though, as is proved by point 2), her argument requires her to admit that her slot is objectively scummy.

[vollkan]

That I am. I've been modding my game and failed to give this game any time. I sent the mod my replace out last night. So I leave you with an apology and a claim.

I get the "I wanted my replacement to know my breadcrumbs" - but the way you deal with that is by asking the mod to allow you to send a PM to your replacement explaining them, NOT by claiming

As for the claim itself, it is plausible balance-wise and I have no reason to doubt it, but I'm now more skeptical (of it and Haylen's) on "swinginess grounds" (ie. add too many PRs to a setup, and even if it is technically balanced at the start of the game, the trouble is that it may only take a few lucky decisions for the entire game to become broken.)

Well, it's still possible he

is

the best mafia player here, but then, we still shouldn't lynch him, as he would be the best mafia player here, and would still play as the best town player.

Are you saying that since a large part of a mafia player's strategy is to look like a town player, Vollkan would still be helpful even if he's mafia because he'll do such a good job looking like town that he will actually help the town? If so, you're insane.

I'm making a mental note to try that argument next time I am in a game and somebody does the "Let's lynch vollkan just in case he is scum" routine (which I have encountered before).

See, I don't actually see any problem with this thought process. And people are spinning it to make me look scummy, cause the reasons for people suspecting me come under the heading of 'Stupid cases that make Haylen angry' If they're not stupid, then explain why they aren't.

Why your reasoning process is poor - an analogy:
1) Some people drink wine
2) Wine contains alcohol, which is addictive
3) Therefore, some people who drink wine will become alcoholics
4) Mr X, Mr Y and Mr Z are drinking wine
5) Therefore, Mr X, Mr Y and Mr Z are probably alcoholics

I don't see why "the first few" is even relevant. Does the order in which people attack you materially affect their likelihood of being scum?

How am I meant to explain why my case against you isn't "stupid"? We've already debated the case against Yura and then the case against yourself ad nauseum; it's to be expected that you'll disagree with it, but it doesn't make the case against you scum-motivated.

Anyway, in light of CMAR's claim, score chart:

Player	Score
Regfan	55
Maxous	50
CMAR	77
curiouskarmadog	50
bgg1996	79
subgenius	50
Haylen	89

The highest non-claimed or non-semi-confirmed player is Regfan, but he is only at 55. In the circumstances, my points system becomes much less useful - which makes me rather uncomfortable. Anyway, to state my current position: I would favour Haylen's lynch over Regfan's, whilst a CMAR lynch would sit roughly equal (probably slightly above) a Regfan lynch. No Lynch still remains the number one option, however.

[vollkan]

Volkan - Does the fact that three players on your list still remain at their starting score lead towards their play being entirely null or just unreadable?

By definition, a score of 50 means "I haven't seen a preponderance of scumtells over towntells from this player". Seeing as, in practice, I don't believe in towntells, it really means "I haven't seen any scumtells from this player".

That can include "unreadable", but in the case of the three here (CKD, SubG and Maxous) I can say that it is more that I don't see any scumtells (rather than, as may be the case with serious VIs for example, that I can't read them at all)

Considering we currently now have two power-role claims out loud and three dead power roles, does anyone see the possible advantage in mass-claiming right now? We need to reach a consensus in regards to lynching today or no lynching, I suggest everyone states their agreement/disagreement with mass-claiming and no lynching in their next post.

I think we need to make a decision on Lynch versus No Lynch before we make a decision on Mass claiming - because, obviously, in the event that we NL, it's probably better not to have a MC. But if we are lynching, then we should have MC beforehand.

[vollkan]

I think that's unnecessary. If we are NLing, we want as little extra information out there as possible going into the night. And, even if we are lynching, the odds of you being scum are already so low that any breadcrumbing shouldn't alter anyone's ability to trust any role you claim.

[vollkan]

One-shot jailkeeper and a one-shot re-director.
Even if true, both are abilities mafia can have (jailkeeper would be pratical due to the SK)

Agreed. Though, if either of them is a mafia PR, then I think there would have to be town PR to balance.

If we're going to mass-claim, should I breadcrumb now?

Okay, I understand that you're practically clear barring a GF and you're not the lynch for today, but it's statements like these that make your play scummy.

If we're going to mass-claim, should I breadcrumb now?

Okay, I understand that you're practically clear barring a GF and you're not the lynch for today, but it's statements like these that make your play scummy.

What's scummy about it?

I'm not sure how helpful a mass claim would be at this point. We already have four PR's claimed, and I'm not sure how many more we can expect or how useful it would be to hear more of them. I feel like it would only serve to further muddy the waters. I do agree with Vollkan about definitely not mass claiming if we decide to NL, but I don't think a mass claim would even be especially useful if we do decide to lynch today.

I actually think it would clear things up considerably. Both of the current claims (CMAR and Haylen) are scummy, and they've both claimed roles which can plausibly be mafia roles. Nonetheless, their claims have made me more reluctant to lynch either of them. If we are lynching with the prospect of losing (because it is most likely MYLO), then it makes sense to lynch with the clearest picture of game balance possible.

If, for example, we MC and there are other PRs, that makes it far more likely that CMAR or Haylen is scum. The opposite isn't necessarily true, though, but it would still clarify the situation

As far as a NL, I'm more open to it now that my two prime suspects are both claimed PR's, but it still makes me uncomfortable simply because I feel like it is a collective admission from the town that we have no leads.

Not really. Much like MCing, NLing is simply a means of ensuring that a lynch is made in light of the most accurate information possible. Even if we had clear reads, NL would still be the right play in MYLO.

[vollkan]

Do you mean if one of them are mafia the other may not be due to balance or do you mean somebody else entirely from the town would likely make up the balance?

The first part, but it wouldn't rule out the second (as in, if there is one mafia PR, I think there would have to be either one or two town PRs to balance it).

[vollkan]

Why would you suspect Haylen and CMAR more if more claims appeared rather than the players that made the new claim, particularly since you've announced that a new claim would draw suspicion to the previous claimers rather than the new claimers?

You're right that by saying that, I kind of undermined my own argument (or, at least, inadvertently created a WIFOM).

Outside of that though it's simply a function of my suspicion of CMAR and Haylen that, to the extent that there are other claims, they become more likely to be scum (though, obviously, the situation would still be far from clear).

In fact, as I write this, I'm becoming more convinced that I'd prefer to NL with no MC.

You mean you favour NL over lynching now? Or just no-MC+NL over MC+NL?

[vollkan]

It's obvious isn't it?
The NK is a

choice

, not a random event. It shall be assumed that the mafia will choose the kill that has the worst outcome for the town.
I'm an available NK candidate, and my death will accomplish nothing. Since they will only choose the worst possible kill, the only things that can come of it is nothing, bad, or worse.

We've been over this already but let me reiterate:

If any of Haylen and CMAR are town, then it is by no means self-evident that you are the most logical NK choice. It would depend, at least, on how much of a risk mafia perceived the claimed powers versus how much of a threat they perceive you to be. Those are by no means the only relevant factors, but even on those two alone, you can see that it's basically impossible to determine what the likely course of action for mafia would be.

The important point is to remember the touchstone reason as to why NL is widely considered the best choice in MYLO:

because a lynch that potentially risks the game should be based on as much certainty as possible

. Your "choice" argument is simply wrong - NL always gives mafia a "and mafia will always exercise that choice in what they perceive to be their best interests. The point is, though, that town, being in an uninformed position, sees an improvement in their position from the increased certain knowledge

The fact that you are semi-confirmed makes the case for NL somewhat weaker, but (and this is a point on which people will differ) not sufficiently so to outweigh the certainty that would come if you were NKed. And, critically, we need to remember that, despite how much people keep asserting otherwise, there is a clear chance that the mafia might NK somebody else, in which case there is a clear and, I think indisputable, information gain.

Assuming they are both town, the mafia would have to be crazy to night kill Haylen or CMAR.

I don't think that's true at all. Keeping the assumption that Haylen and CMAR are town the powers themselves would be a threat and, beyond that, mafia would be taking a gamble that people would see Haylen/CMAR as preferable lynches over anybody else. The debate this day alone has proven that such a bet is by no means a safe one for mafia.

vollkan's NL is bad. CKD said that vollkan is experienced. If true, this makes no sense unless you know about the setup. I would be more weary of a MYLO situation if there wasn't a third party, but we have no idea how many scum exist.

Unless I am misunderstanding you here, you are saying that NL is bad, to the point of making my advocacy of it scummy, because there might only be two scum.

For starters, it's generally best to approach the game with a worst-case scenario presumption (ie. I would rather NL in pre-MYLO than lynch and lose in MYLO). In this particular case, though, we have good reason to think that three scum is more probable: first, the increase in mini size from 12 to 13 (2 scum and SK was difficult for mafia even under 12 player); and, second, the power roles we have seen so far as well as the claims suggest that this is a town-PR heavy game. In the circumstances, I think it would be simply stupid to not assume that there are three scum.

Also the pappums kill N1 was really random. Yeah its gigantic WIFOM but at this point we have little to go on with crappy lynches of crappy players. pappums was only suspicious of Haylen's slot.

I love the irony that you complain that the lynches were crappy, but then proceed to use NK analysis.

As I've already said, I think PR-hunting and WIFOM are the most viable explanations for the pappum kill.

Hate the CMAR JK claim. JK is always a scum fake claim I feel. I don't like the appeal to emotion either. SORRY HAD TO CLAIM BC IVE PLAYED SO BADLY SORRY SORRY SORRY

He claimed in the context of thinking he was going to replace out, and wanted his breadcrumbs to be used. His tone makes sense in the context (though, he should have PMed the mod about the breadcrumbs, rather than claiming)

Alright after all that, WE ARE THREE DAYS TO DEADLINE. There are FOUR people not voting. This is unacceptable. vollkan is surely scum. The NL idea is awful, just puts us in the same spot tomorrow down a town member most likely.

See above for a (very potted) summary of the argument for NLing. I've already learned that it depends on theory points on which people seem to vehemently disagree with me, but my reasoning is internally valid.

[vollkan]

It's not null to want a NL. It will only benefit scum. Right now we have an advantage. Why let scum lessen that advantage and decide who to kill. We get more information off of a wagon and a flip, than letting scum probably pick you off given the cop softclaim result.

And if we mislynch?

I think we're already pretty certain that I'm town. It would increase it from a 99% to a 100%.
And Regfan has listed the downsides

1) Removal of Bggs opinion.
2) Allowance of mafia to have extra time to converse and plot possible ways to progress.
3) Removal of the ability for us to place votes to gauge reactions due to it leading to a potential lylo.
4) Addition of extra night activity leading to some players losing interest in the game and not performing as well.

I've quoted my response to Regfan's downsides below, because I think it highlights the theory differences between me, on one hand, and you and him (and the other NL opponents) on the other:

1) We already have bgg's opinion on everything that has transpired so far. His semi-confirmed status means his opinions are probably genuine, but that's really the end of it. Remember: NL always deprives the town of one townie's perspective, but it's still almost uniformly accepted as the best move in MYLO. I may be speaking only for myself here, but I can't conceive of any situation in which, despite his semi-confirmed status, I would trust bgg's judgment over my own.
2) I accept that this is a con; but I don't think night discussion is likely to be sufficiently influential on the day game to override the pros
3) As somebody who has designed a playstyle that pre-commits my vote, I take a particularly dim view of the value of reaction-gauging, let alone so late in a game.
4) Seriously? Given that a Happily Ever After cycle is exceptionally unlikely, the timeframe you are talking about is most likely only the length of a single night phase. I'd be amazed if anybody would lose touch with the game in that time.

1) Completely understandable.
2) I think night discussion plays a bigger part then you're giving it credit for but aruguing over this is trival.
3) I can understand where you're coming from given your play-style but I'm a big fan of reaction testing and pressure voting in certain scenarios so we're going to have to agree to disagree with this con.
4) I've seen far too many games end in mafia wins purely due to the fact that town nl'ing too often when they shouldn't have.

And I don't think you understand what I'm saying about choice. I mean that you can't say "maybe the mafia will kill one of the others, and it won't be as bad", because they would only do so if they judged the outcome to be worse for town.

That's what I thought you were saying...but my response mustn't have been clear, so I'll try to be clearer:

Mafia will make whatever decision they think will maximise their chances of winning. Factors that they will have to weigh up in making that decision include:
a) Threat posed by CMAR-town's power
b) Threat posed by Haylen-town's power
c) Threat posed by BGG-town
d) Who will be lynched if bgg-town dies?
e) Who will be lynched if CMAR-town dies?
f) Who will be lynched if Haylen-town dies?

It's overly-simplistic to think: "BGG is semi-confirmed and not going to be lynched, so no matter what he will be NKed" because it ignores all the threat judgments that scum would rationally be need to be making. It's already clear that it is by no means certain that Haylen and CMAR would be lynched, which poses a huge problem for scum if either Haylen or CMAR is town.

And so, mafia, despite being the informed faction, is left having to make difficult probability and risk judgments. For obvious reasons, I think it's a bad idea to debate what we think the best or even most likely strategy for mafia in that situation would be. Likewise, as SubG has already said, it's a bad idea to debate what would be "worst" for town. The point is that, by forcing mafia to make such a difficult judgment and force a flip, we get more information and a more accurate lynch tomorrow. In contrast, lynching today, with a high likelihood of it being MYLO, when nobody has any confident suspicions, is a recipe for disaster.

[vollkan]

If we mislynch, then maybe its 3v3 worst case scenario. Not every scum WC is 1/2 of the remaining players either. Anyway, if we do mislynch, then these potential one-shot redirecting, JK, whatever else is out there should act. There could easily be 2 scum. I think we have enough solid scum suspects that a lynch is worthwhile. Also a flip gives town PRs a better chance to help town. If there's another role tracker, hider, anything, it is one less option to investigate/jail/redirect/whatever and allows them to make more informed decisions.

Now that minis generally have shifted to 13-player games and now that we know that this game in particualr is relatively PR-heavy, it is far more likely that there are 3 mafia than 2. It is also highly likely that at least one of the claimed PRs at the moment is scum. I'm not willing to risk losing the game based on the off chance that they might use their powers correctly.

[vollkan]

CMAR claimed it earlier, I guess they did'nt beleive him.

Belief or not, it's good practice to force replacements to reclaim, on the off-chance that they will forget to see if their predecessor has already claimed.

[vollkan]

All of these votes or commitments to vote happened within just over a 24 hour period:
Maxous ISO 77Apr 21, 10:47 am
SB ISO 2Apr 21, 10:15 pm
Regfan ISO 115Apr 21, 11:41 pm
Bgg ISO 180Apr 22, 12:40 am

This is pretty fast considering there was nobody pushing a case and more players were discussing whether or not to lynch at all than who to lynch. This sudden focusing of attention on CMAR seems unnatural and untown to me.

I haven't read back to confirm or refute this, but if you take account of the

history

of suspicion of CMAR (especially the D2 suspicion), I don't think it would look quite so dramatic as you present it. Also, to an extent, I think it's only natural that people would begin to declare their position in quick succession as the deadline approached, especially given the added uncertainty arising from the NL issue.

[vollkan]

Reading over the start of the latest discussion, I basically agree with SB's 1169. The Reviewers are not idiots and would not have allowed multiple non-normal roles into a normal game - not only because, obviously, it makes the game non-normal but also because it would lead to precisely this sort of setup debating. Which means that the only logical conclusion is that Haylen is fakeclaiming.

Frankly, the rationale for NLing all but evaporates in these circumstances, since we have as clear and compelling evidence as is really possible that Haylen is scum (on top of the history of her slot).

She explained why her role can be in the game, why should she be outraged and surprised if she moderated a game that had a couple of these 'unusual' or whatever roles?

She cited the inclusion of GF, which is explicitly mentioned as a normal role to validate her claim of redirector, which is explicitly non-normal. Mentioning a mini-normal with a GF does nothing to make her claim more believable. If she can remember what the other roles are and show that they were outside the normal rules of the time, I would be willing to listen.

I think a townie's natural reaction to someone pointing out that their claim is contrary to the rules of the game would be to read the rules, recognize that they've been somewhat screwed over by the mod, and protest that regardless of the clearly stated rules, he or she did in fact receive that role. Instead, Haylen is trying to argue that her role is allowable without giving any compelling evidence. I see her putting more effort into showing that her claimed role is feasible than that she actually received that role. I think this is because she fake claimed and she has a bit of pride on the line if she's lynched on the basis of a foolish role choice.

Agreed. If SB had merely told her that the role isn't normal, without quoting the rules, it might have made sense for her to go looking for other games. But faced with the rules which are clear on this point, it's unnatural for her immediate response to be to defend the claim when, if you genuinely held the role, you'd immediately see it as a problem with the

moderator

rather than the claim.

Which brings me to another point:

@MOD: Does this game depart from the normal requirements as outlined on the wiki? I get that you might feel that it would be inappropriate to do so, but the fact is that, on joining a normal game, the players are meant to be able to assume that the game

is

normal; if we can't make that assumption here, you need to tell us asap.

[vollkan]

Good find Regfan; that pretty much answers my question to the mod. Really only waiting on Hinduragi to catch up now.

[vollkan]

It's safe to say that Haylen's claim is pining for the fjords

[vollkan]

I'm now basically left without a clear suspect. CMAR obviously has the highest score, but his claim obviously complicates things. I agree with SubG that there is a decent chance that CMAR was sheeping Haylen's claim.

Either way, I will not be pushing NL today, despite the fact that it is most likely 4:2 MYLO.

My reasons (to state the obvious):
1) BGG is now 100% confirmed town, given that Haylen was a GF.
2) If Haylen was town, there was a good chance she'd be killed over BGG given her power. Seeing as how: a) that is no longer a possibility; b) if CMAR is town he would be the most likely lynch; and c) that there are no other standout suspects or clears; it's almost a certainty that BGG would be NKed with no real possibility of anything else happening.

[vollkan]

I'm going to reread Maxous around the Haylen-Normal issue (I probably won't get to this until tomorrow, because I am in depths of mid-semester assessment atm)

Before that, I want to respond to this part of Regfan's VCA:

Votecount 2.19:
Haylen – 2 ( Suprise_Carcinogen , subgenius)
Andrew - 4 (curiouskarmadog , bgg1996 , Haylen , Regfan )
curiouskarmadog - 1 ( Andrew )
CryMeARiver - 2 (vollkan, Maxous)
Not voting: (CryMeARiver)
Anaylsis: Wow. Haylen wagon is being pulled apart here. Volkan and Maxous have both changed to CryMe, need to read into their reasoning but scum points to them both.

I usually hate VCA (Mainly because it ignores context), but Regfan has at least done it in a way that he has promised to look at reasoning, so my main gripe is suspended.

My reason for changing vote there (I switched in 847) was Haylen's claim in 845.

[vollkan]

Okay, thanks to wine making me unfit to study, I have gone back and reread Maxous regarding the Haylen-Normal issue as promised.

ISO82: The thing most problematic here is:

Granted I am not familiar with the rules and requirememnts for this game but lynching somebody due to set-up speculation is not a good idea at all.(maybe open games but not normal ones).

Dismissing the whole thing as "setup speculation" strikes me absurd. There is a clear difference between speculating about the setup, and analysing whether a given claim confirms to the rules or not. Maybe hindsight is 20:20 here, but can't see any way that somebody genuinely looking at SB's argument would dismiss it so readily.

In short, it both fails to make sense, and had a clear scum motivation (defending Haylen). For this,

Maxous+5

She explained why her role can be in the game, why should she be outraged and surprised if she moderated a game that had a couple of these 'unusual' or whatever roles?

I don't have so much of a problem with this, even though I disagreed with it

The "confirmed to be mafia" thing came after her self-hammer, so I wouldn't call it scummy

[vollkan]

Okay, thanks to wine making me unfit to study, I have gone back and reread Maxous regarding the Haylen-Normal issue as promised.

This wine... Is it in front of you?

Yes (well, at a 45 degree angle forward and left, but close enough)

More importantly,
Don't anybody think that there is something missing between the post he says its absurd to lynch her, and the one where he acknowledges that she was certainly mafia, and comments on how her epilogue sounded like a game he just finished? Like another post saying that he was surprised that the one he was defending was mafia?

There's always an issue with expecting people to be contrite or apologetic, because metawise it so often leads to accusations of insincerity or backpedalling. But, that said, the initial starting point of dismissing it all as "setup speculation" makes it odd that he wouldn't at least acknowledge how completely wrong he was about it.

[vollkan]

N3- One-shot tracker ability. Target Hinduragi. He visited Scott last night.

Vote: Hinduragi

If there happens to be a third I would suggest Vollkan for his 'CMAR' claim complicates things, I dunno if I

This statement is unusually equivocal for you, Vollkan. You want to say he's scummy, but then you mention his claim affects your opinion, then you say that there's a good chance that he's lying about it anyway. You don't want to NL, but who are you thinking you want to lynch?

Both of you are misunderstanding me.

I was clear yesterday that CMAR was my second suspect after Haylen (both being behind NL). When I said that his claim complicated things, all I meant was in the sense of "hence, why I am not voting him instantly". It's no different to how everybody else, despite declaring suspicion for CMAR, was unwilling to vote him right off the bat. The fact that I explicitly acknowledged my position (which, given my stance yesterday, I uniquely had to), shouldn't alter that at all.

Also, claim

Vanilla

[vollkan]

I am currently very slightly leaning to SubG being scum, but I'm going to have to reread because I have almost nothing to differentiate Maxous and SubG.

The reason I am leaning to it being SubG is that, if Maxous was gambiting scum, it would be against his interests to effectively declare Regfan innocent. By doing so, he has lowered the lynch field today from 3 (SubG, Maxous and Regfan) to just two (Maxous and SubG). This is obviously WIFOMy, and I have no intention of voting on it, though.

I'm slightly hesitant to hammer here, this is a position where mafia bussing causes them to lose due to Maxous being able to RB tonight yet Vollkan and Subgenius voted along so quickly. I need to do some thinking, something isn't adding up.

I haven't done anything near a full re-read yet, partially because I realize that anything I say at this point is bound to be taken with a large grain of salt, but Regfan nailed it here. I didn't think so at the time, because I believed Max's claim, but Regfan was right. Vollkan and I both voted very quickly despite the fact that if either of us was a mafia member lynching our partner, we would be almost guaranteeing ourselves a loss. We both voted quickly, because we both believed the claim and saw a town win coming out of it. This would not be the likely mafia response when faced with a town PR claim with a guilty against a partner. A bit of WIFOM, I admit, but Regfan spotted it before night even fell.

There's one major problem with this: you only voted Hindu (1274) after Maxous had declared his intention to RB me (1273). Further, in 1251 Maxous indicated that he thought I was the third scum because of my "CMAR's claim complicates things post" (which you agreed with and said you had forgotten to post: 1253). In which case, I doubt SubG-scum would have fought against the claim, since it would have outed you as scum. Instead, it would make perfect sense for you to play along with it.

[vollkan]

I waited to vote until a plan had been settled upon because I didn't want night to fall without an agreed plan in place. I believed Max's claim, so it made no difference to me whether he RB'd you or me. Either option would have won us the game if Max was telling the truth. The "CMAR's claim complicates things" was actually a factor in convincing me that Max's claim was credible. Max's claim proved you to be scum (at least from my perspective) and the quote also made you look scummy aside from that. The claim and the quote were mutually reinforcing in my eyes.

As far as saying that playing along with Max's claim makes perfect sense for scum, I think you'd have to admit that it also makes perfect sense for town, since you made the same decision, and it is now clear that you are town.

That's all fair enough, but it does refute your previous claim that your action was not the likely mafia response. Your behaviour around the claim is basically a nulltell

One thing from last night that strikes me as strange is that bgg was killed rather than Regfan. I don't think anyone will disagree when I say that Regfan has been the stronger player, so why is he still alive? I think it is because Regfan never claimed, and it's possible that his flip could have contradicted Max's claim. If Regfan had flipped paranoid gun owner, some sort of unused vig role, or some other gun-owning town role, it would have been obvious that Max was lying. He killed the safer target, the one who had no chance of contradicting his claim, bgg1996.

The only reason I can see for Maxous-scum not killing Regfan is that, having declared Regfan gun-free, Maxous-scum may have felt that Regfan would be more disposed to see Maxous-scum as innocent. But that's obviously pretty weak

[vollkan]

The first point wasn't necessarily to argue that going along with the claim wasn't the likely mafia response but to provide an account of my thought process, which was town. You seemed to think that voting only after Max announced he would RB you was scummy, so I explained why I waited and why I mentioned your quote about CMAR. Obviously, there wouldn't be much difference in the actions of scum Sub and town Sub yesterday (although I do think there would have been room for scum Sub to resist Maxous's claim if he chose to), but I hope that explaining the thoughts behind the actions will be helpful in convincing you that I had town motivations.

It doesn't convince me that you had town motivations, but it at least explains something that on its face looks scummy.

I would like Regfan and Vollkan to both think about how appealing a role claim and bus would be from scum's perspective yesterday.
1. Going into yesterday, scum knew that they only needed to get one more mislynch out of the town. It didn't matter if it happened D4 or D5. As long as town is lynched at any point, scum wins.
2. CMAR/Hindu had clearly drawn a lot of suspicion, and at the end of D3, Regfan and I both named Max as also suspicious. Scum had time to discuss this during the night before Max's claim and plan their strategy.
3. Think about how well a false claim followed by a bus for "confirmation" of the role with the intention of mislynching a townie the following day represents a winning strategy for a scum pair that is entering a MYLO day knowing that they are probably going to be the two leading suspects.

But, equally, I doubt Maxous-scum would have been under any illusion that his bussing would clear him. After playing this game for so long now, he couldn't have expected to be considered confirmed town by virtue of gambiting. Of course, it would still have been the best move in his position (at least as far as neutralising any allegation of him being linked to Hindu). I agree it places him in a better position and so makes sense as a scum strategy, but not enough that I consider it a scumtell...if that makes sense.

[vollkan]

I'm pretty sure if Regfan has a role that involves a gun he would of called me out on it in the last day period

Not if he felt that there were benefits in not claiming (eg. if he was a PGO). But anyway, it doesn't seem like a risk that Maxous-scum would realistically need to be worried about (the odds of a town gun role being in a game are slim)

[vollkan]

I'm flattered but you give me too much credit >_>

Considering Haylen and CMAR have both already been proven to have employed the exact same tactic, I don't think that it requires a criminal mastermind to realize that purposely making setup mistakes can serve to mislead the town either about alignment or the state of the game. You were employing the same tactic as the two confirmed scum, while every town player arrived at a different conclusion. Regfan and Vollkan should consider just how debatable the setup actually was and whether it is more likely that you guessed wrong as town or that you purposely continued a tactic that your teammates had used in an effort to bolster your credibility in the exact situation we now find ourselves.

@Maxous: Why exactly was it that you thought it was 2 mafia? And I guess this applies on two levels because even if a townie acknowledges the possibility (or even probability) of a lesser number of scum, the normal thing to do is to assume the worst-case scenario. IIRC, you never actually explained why you felt it was 2 scum.

[vollkan]

Pretty sure I did. I thought there was 2 mafia because Haylen (the flipped mafia) and CMAR(the likely mafia) talked about there only being 2 mafia a few times. I thought they were mafia hinting at the set-up which I have seen mafia do before - I don't know why they do it, but they do.

Have you actually seen mafia hint at the setup in terms of the number of scum? Let alone in such a way that lowers town's impression of them as a threat?

1) Narrowing the decision to 2 players instead of having a standard 3-way choice in LYLO.
2) A gamble that Regfan's role did'nt involve a gun
3) A gamble that Vollkan and Subgenius had no active ability of any sort. (to roleblock)

1) I agree with SubG here.
2) As I've said, it seems like a negligible risk
3) This actually makes sense. Given the setup, it is surprising that you'd stake the game on me not having a power

[vollkan]

Just rereading bit more:

Maxous ISO 90 Bolds are added

For myself to be in a mafia team that would require the mafia to brillaintly double-guess who Hinduragi would roleblock/protect and take a big chance in revealing that he visited Scott to frame him. I can't be a mafia tracker because my buddy would have to be a roleblocker and if the two of us used abilities then who sent in the kill?

Oh wait! Actually I could be mafia with Hinduragi and we set this whole thing up.

Ah still, anyway you look at it Hinduragi has to be mafia unless I'm like, half-psychic

This is Max explaining how unlikely it would be for him to fake claim and correctly guess who Hindu jailed while also having a role blocker. The interesting part is that he sarcastically mentions the exact tactic his team actually used as if it's absurd. At that point in the game, I will admit that I had not thought of the possibility of Hindu and Max being partners. Nobody else had mentioned this possibility either. Would the possibility have occurred to town Max? And if it did, would he have highlighted it as an absurd idea like this? Or was scum Max having fun with his partner (this post was partly in response to Hindu's phony protestations of Max's claim) or possibly flaunting a fake claim that seemed to be proceeding swimmingly or maybe preemptively making an attempt to dissuade the town from taking such ideas seriously.

Again, this is hardly a smoking gun, but think about it. Is it more likely that town Max was the only town member to consider the possibility of a fake claim/bus combo, or that scum Max was riding high on a fake claim that town was eagerly swallowing and decided to flaunt his success a bit?

The idea had not occurred to me. Regfan, Vollkan, did it occur to either of you?

No; I suspect in large measure this was because, given that Hindu was so scummy in his own right, the prospect that Maxous was fake-claiming scum seemed distant when compared with the immediate fact that he'd outed Hindu.

With the benefit of hindsight, it obviously doesn't look like a ridiculous suggestion, but, in its immediate context, it is unclear why Maxous would even countenance that idea. I believe he was responding to this post by you:

You're leaving out the possibility that Max is fake claiming, in which case, he would be straight out lying about knowing who Hindu visited last night. It is possible that Hindu was roleblocked and Max fake claimed and happened to accuse Hindu of visiting the correct player (who wasn't the obvious protection target), but the odds seem pretty long on that.

Hindu, you really should have taken the angle that Max is faking and claimed to have visited bgg. You're almost certainly scum.

Nothing in that even hints at the prospect of Maxous being scum with Hindu, so I'm not sure why he'd raise it.

There's also something else, I think even more serious, in Maxous' post that has grabbed my attention:

I can't be a mafia tracker because my buddy would have to be a roleblocker and if the two of us used abilities then who sent in the kill?

There is absolutely no general rule that mafia power roles cannot both use a power and carry out a kill. The position in specific games varies, generally depending on mod preference and balance. And yet, the quote above has Maxous very clearly assuming a particular position on this issue, which implies inside knowledge.

[vollkan]

however there is some legitimacy to the timing of his claim as well as Hinds reaction towards it.

One other point regarding Hinds reaction to Max's claim. According to Hindu's profile, he has played in about a dozen games, and based on his posts, he has demonstrated an ability to write coherent thoughts. This would lead me to conclude that he is both experienced and not a moron.

Now consider a scum player's possible responses when faced with an incriminating tracker claim from a town player.
1)Admit that you targeted the player who was killed the previous night, thereby incriminating yourself and bolstering the claim of your accuser.
2)Lie about who you targeted and do your best to discredit the town player's claim.

Option one is for dumb people. Option two is for smart people. Option one can also be for smart people if a bus had been prearranged.

If you believe that Max is telling the truth, you also believe that Hindu had a massive brain fart as he formulated his response to Max's claim. Confirming your accuser's role makes absolutely no sense unless you're part of some kind of bussing scheme.

1) also makes sense as a WIFOM strategy. As unlikely as it is that 1) would ever work, 2) was hardly viable for Hindu (as in, there is no way that he would have been believed over anybody)

What Subgenius has suggested in that post is that "scum Max was riding high on a fake claim that town was eagerly swallowing and decided to flaunt his success a bit?". This was after suggesting that I was an experienced mafia player "knowingly planting town-slips".
So as mafia I have carefully planned my fake claim by accusing Regfan of being mafia in day 2 and then not mentioning any suspicion on him in day 3(even implying that he was a clear at the end in case I flipped), constantly hinting that CMAR and Haylen abilities could easily be abilities for mafia(in the knowledge that I had a town PR), not posting for 2 days in the day 4 period waiting for Hinduragi to answer my question that I asked straight away on day 4, dropping deliberate town tells etc. but at the same time it is likely that I was openly flaunting and hinting at my success as mafia.
If as mafia, I was being as meticulous and careful about my fakeclaim as is being suggested then it would be quite erratic to leave such obvious hints.
I have been accused of being mafia for two contradictory reasons

This still doesn't explain why the prospect of a fake-claim gambit entered your head in the first place. And, given the derisory way in which you raised the idea, it's hardly implausible that, maybe unthinkingly, you'd do it as a means of pouring cold water on the idea.

[vollkan]

Vollkan, I did not raise the possibility in a "derisory way".
I listed:
- conceivable possibilty no. 1
- conceivable possibilty no. 2
- conceivable possibilty no. 3
Yes myself bussing him *was* a possibility, I was not going to purposely omit it.
It entered my head becasue I thought of it, regardless if others did'nt.

This:

I can't be a mafia tracker because my buddy would have to be a roleblocker and if the two of us used abilities then who sent in the kill? Oh wait! Actually I could be mafia with Hinduragi and we set this whole thing up.

sounds very much like you are deriding the notion that you could be scum bussing.

I can accept that you might have thought of it; but it just seems unlikely given none of us also thought of it.

[vollkan]

If you guys are more willing to beleive that myself as mafia night killed the people more inclined to beleive me in LYLO, fake claimed a power role, argued against the set-up speculation reasoning during Haylen's lynch inviting the suspicion on me, cleared Regfan as a gambit on Day 3(him being a realistic mislynch), cleared Vollkan as a gambit(reducing the lynch options to myself and Subgenius), suggested there was only 2 mafia as a deliberate misleading town tell, gloated and suggested myself as bussing Hinduragi in a derisory way to pour cold water on it, and whatever else you guys think I gambited on - simply to create a motherlode of WIFOM to bring into a deliberate one vs one confrontation against a very pro-town looking player then you guys are over-complicating things here.

The clearing of Regfan and myself both make sense as a WIFOM gambit - presenting it as implausible, when you clearly have the intellectual capacity to plan a gambit like this, is just wrong. Also, you couldn't plausibly have claimed to want to RB anybody other than me, and so it makes perfect sense that you'd want to keep me alive, given that you probably would have thought that clearing me would make me more likely to side with you.

Again, you seem to be missing the point about this piece of evidence. It doesn't matter why you mentioned the possibility of you busing, the fact is that it never crossed the mind of any other player, because it seemed so absurdly unlikely that you would have a connection to Hindu. It's odd that you would have thought of it unless it was actually the case.

^ This.

I don't think it will surprise anybody to know that at this stage my vote would probably be going to Maxous. The evidence on either of them is slim, though; so I will be kicking myself if I get this wrong. Obviously, I'm not ready to vote yet, though.

[vollkan]

So, this is Hindu responding to the post where Max mentions the possibility of the two of them being in cahoots. He responds to each of Max's statements in sequence, and I've bolded Max's mention of busing and Hindu's response to the busing idea, which is, "LOL, that would be awesome." Why on earth would he say this? This is almost a covert high five between the two of them.

There's a risk that Hindu may have done that deliberately, but if so I would have expected his response to be something more like over-the-top denial, rather than joking about it being awesome.

@Vollkan
Are there any loose strings that you would especially like to see addressed?

My questions have been answered; and, given where I started at the beginning of the day, I think you've made the case against Maxous (what little there is) clear enough. Neither of you is scummy, but there is just a much greater amount of things from Maxous which don't make sense but which are consistent with the bus ploy.

[vollkan]

The clearing of Regfan and myself both make sense as a WIFOM gambit - presenting it as implausible, when you clearly have the intellectual capacity to plan a gambit like this, is just wrong.

My point with all I mentioned is'nt that I don't have the "capacity", it's the praticality.
The actions as mafia would be counter-productive simply to get myself into a situation where I would have to attempt WIFOM my way into a mislynch.

That's my entire point here.

I agree - it doesn't make sense (other than as a gambit) for you to declare Regfan innocent, shrinking the field.

Ugh...I'm getting really frustrated by the WIFOM swinginess of this. Behaviour gives nothing to separate the pair of you and, whilst SubG is being convincing, everything just collapses into WIFOM.

[vollkan]

I said the set-up speculation reasoning was a bad idea. Just because I think somebody is mafia does'nt mean any reasoning goes. I could of been wrong about her being mafia, and there was mafia taking advantage for an easy lynch.
I thought it was valid claim...as a mafia power.
I did'nt prefer to keep mafia alive I was stating my willingness to lynch Haylen most of Day 3.

This makes no sense to me, so I'll try and break this down:
1) At the end of D3, did you or did you not think Haylen was more likely scum than not?
2) At the end of D3, did you or did you not want Haylen lynched?
3) If you DID think Haylen was scum, but did not want here lynched, why not?

[vollkan]

He likely just made a mistake, since he did'nt have much time to react.

I doubt he purposely confirmed he targeted Scott just to make me look bad.

Aside from what SubG's already said, I'm not sure what "mistake" you are alleging he made here. Hindu was a competent player and clearly had the ability to understand the game. Hence, I can't see how you can seriously say that Hindu might have thought he was achieving *something* but that he was, in fact, mistaken.

[vollkan]

1) At the end of D3, did you or did you not think Haylen was more likely scum than not?
2) At the end of D3, did you or did you not want Haylen lynched?
3) If you DID think Haylen was scum, but did not want here lynched, why not?

1) Yes
2) Well, no. I wanted CMAR/Hinduragi lynched. Haylen was my secondary choice however.
3) I was'nt again her lynch per se but was concerned at the reasoning given. I thought if she was town mafia might of been taking advantage for an easy mislynch. Ironically the main one was Subgenius(hence the questioning) Read this again.

Since we are running out of material to discuss, I will add that I really can't understand the reasoning in 3).

To whatever extent she might have appeared an "easy lynch" it could only have been a combination of Yura's transparently newb-scum play + Haylen's own scumminess + her impossible roleclaim. This is very different to an "easy lynch" in the sense of, say, pushing a wagon on a player who is bad at defending themselves - because Haylen was genuinely extremely scummy.

I can understand why you might have misunderstood SubG's attack that you link (though, as I said at the time, I thought SubG made sense), but it baffles me why you'd see that as a reason playing against Haylen's lynch, given her own scumminess and, of course, the prospect that it was simply SubG-scum trying to come up with a semi-original angle to improve his bussing of Haylen.

[vollkan]

I do find it amusing that Hinduragi's response will likely end up sinking the town despite me nailing a mafia.(he was probably going to be lynched anyway but whatever). I honestly don't think I could of used my night power much more effectively in this game
The irony is really not lost here

I always feel like a jerk when I call someone on AtE, but I feel like I have to do it anyway. The resignation, talking about how you did your best, etc is fishing for sympathy, and I don't expect Regfan and Vollkan to fall for it.

I'm not going to "fall for it", though I also don't see it as a scumtell in this case. If I approach it without an a priori assumption that Maxous is scum, I can see why he'd feel that way as town.

[vollkan]

1.This is an incredibly awful point, because although he deviated for half a second he never showed intent to voting elsewhere, scum have no reason to stop 'bussing' their partner merely to poke elsewhere especially when they know the likelihood that their partner gets lynched is incredibly high.

SubG's argument that the wagon's speed indicated scum was weak. However, I agree it couldn't realistically have been an attempt to dissuade the wagon. First, because (as you note) SubG never showed any intention to push elsewhere.

But also because, looking at the substance of SubG's argument again, I seriously doubt he could have even entertained any hope that it would stop CMAR getting lynched. If scum are going to try and derail a wagon, they need to do it effectively. Thus, if that was SubG's intention, you'd expect him to have actually either argued against CMAR's lynch or, alternatively, jumped to another candidate. I accept that SubG-scum would have had good reason to want to stall the wagon on CMAR - but in the circumstances, I don't think he would have judged a temporary stall as outweighing the risk that he would come under suspicion for it.

The wagon did build up quickly, even though, as I pointed out, if you took a more complex view and looked at its history, it wouldn't look so sudden.

This is an incredibly tough spot, as much as I hate it, I have a horrible feeling that I'm going to end up voting wrong. Logic seems to be pointing towards it being a buss. Ugh, Volkan, what's running through your head right now?

At the risk of repeating myself, it's a difficult situation because neither of them has played scummily (in the sense that I'd award points for). Instead, it's basically a much more WIFOM-riddled question of determining whose play is

more plausible

as scum and/or

less plausible as town

. For somebody like me who has a very strict definition of what a scumtell is, it's uncomfortable terrain.

All that being said, I think the discussion today has shown, there is more in Maxous's play both of conduct which makes sense as plausible scum play and which is less plausible as town play. The difference between him and SubG is so slight that I still feel like I'd be able to be persuaded either way, but given the clear lack of any smoking gun on either of them, I don't think that's likely.

[vollkan]

Bleh, that would of been fine if the reason for the lynch was 'Haylen is scummy'.
The actual reason was 'I don't think the mod would of put in a re-director so let's lynch her'
I did not realise how strict the rules were and thought exceptions were allowed since they said weak doctor and sledgehammer was an exception so it did'nt make sense to me at the time. I explained this in Day 4.

As SubG has said, the rules had already been quoted. Even if you didn't agree with the lynch, calling it an "easy lynch" is extreme.

I'd also add that whilst it's true that the Normal Guidelines were the immediate cause of Haylen being lynched, keep in mind that she was only in that position to begin with because people thought she was scummy enough that she was forced to claim. So, it was really the case that most people wanted her to be lynched, then she claimed and temporarily stalled the lynch, but then the claim was refuted, making the case against her even stronger.

[vollkan]

That's really not how it came across to me but I'll digress.

How did it come across to you?

I can't understand how you could have possibly thought that Haylen had been forced to the position she was in without being under suspicion. Hell, you had quite a few posts partly criticising the Yura case, then you voted Yura yourself in ISO29 and ISO41,

Wheter or not I was correct is'nt important..it's that my intenions were so obviously genuine :p

Obviously

[vollkan]

Deadline is in five hours, and I'd rather end this today and not have it go to a three-way. Volkan, I've said it earlier and I still mean it I will defer to your judgement if you feel even slightly confident in either vote, until then I feel forced to stick with my inital thoughts, that being that Maxous's claim is indeed legitimate.

That's okay. Since I'm scum, I'm happy to defer to

your

judgment - because I know it's wrong

Vote: Subgenius

GOOD GAME.

-------------
I expect you're all wondering what the hell happened.

Basically, I am Mafia Roleblocker.

Last night, I roleblocked Maxous. It appears that the mod is using the version of Night Action Resolution under which two Roleblockers cancel each other out. As such, the kill I submitted on Scott was able to go through. This is highly unusual (and I intended on starting a MD thread addressing this issue), but not (as far as I know) technically non-normal

[vollkan]

Question for the townies:

When you decided that I was confirmed town (whether you were alive at the time, or just reading along), was it because you didn't consider the prospect of me being Mafia RB, or was it because you assumed that, even if I was Mafia RB, my kill would have been blocked?

The reason I am asking is that if people are assuming that RBs don't cancel each other out (ie. they both RB each other, which would have caused my kill to also be RBed), then that's something that probably has to be explicitly required as part of the Normal Guidelines (or it needs to be made clear in the Guidelines that various possibilities are open). I don't think that the non-cancellation view is logically better than the cancellation view, but I do think that players need to know EXACTLY the way that night actions will resolve.

[vollkan]

EBWOP: By "need to know EXACTLY" I am including a situation where players are made aware of a number of possibilities. The point is just that they shouldn't need to scour through past MD threads (like I did after seeing my kill go through; I honestly thought it was game over) to realise that RB vs RB is actually a debated topic.

[vollkan]

Our QT: http://www.quicktopic.com/46/H/Kq7fP6fijwDRD/

The fact two roleblockers were included never came up as a potential issue in the pre-game review. D4 it became obvious there was a good chance they would be pointed at each other on N4. I felt the RBs..if pointed at each other...would cancel each other out and in N4 discussions with the reviewers that was acknowledged as the appropriate course of action.

I don't think there was anything out of the ordinary with regard to the Night Action Resolution. I followed the one on the wiki. Is this something that is typically included in rulesets? It wasn't until it became apparent the RBs were going to point to each other did that situation become apparent so there was no foreseen need to explicitly clarify any specific scenarios of Night Action Resolution.

If anyone had asked me a hypothetical RB vs RB question in the thread I would have provided clarification.

As this was my first game modding, any comments directed my way are welcome.

As I said, I am going to start a MD thread on the RB v RB issue (typing the OP now).

I don't think you made any mistakes in your modding, and so I don't intend to criticise your decision in any way.

(For what it's worth, I do disagree with your view of RB v RB: I take the view that RBing a player is basically like paralysing them. Applying the default rule that the same actions resolve simultaneously, that would mean that two roleblockers who target each other will both successfully role block one another. As such, I think my kill should have failed).

However, I think the real issue here is a site problem; namely, that most players assume my view by default when, in fact, it isn't so clear-cut (for the mods or the players).

[vollkan]

Also, my MD thread is here: https://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=17556

[vollkan]

@ Vollkan - The problem is...whose RB goes through first? If you are blocked from both your RB AND your 'only until now available NK' (as prior to Hinduragi's kill you could only do one or the other) then that is saying your RB did not go through on Maxous. If Maxous is allowed to be RB'd then his doesn't go through on you. Like I said...it was a bit of an unanticipated N4 conundrum that was dealt with IMO as fairly as possible. If you (Vollkan) are totally blocked...you are implicated and doomed. I understand this will be viewed as something that perhaps took away a bit from the game but I hope everyone enjoyed the game and doesn't let the conflicting RBs detract from it.

It really was Murphy's Law (or Sod's for any UK players) the way things transpired in the game to wind up with competing N4 RBs.

I think about it this way:
1) Blocks are resolved prior to kills; and
2) Blocks are resolved simulataneously

If two roleblockers target each other, it is like two people in balaclavas going up to each other and injecting the other with a paralysing fluid at the same time. They both collapse and can't move.

[vollkan]

Vollkan, I can't say it enough, your play was stellar, with the exception of the push for the NL I couldn't link anything you did with a scum-tell as much as I wanted to.

The NL thing was a massive screw-up on my part. Maxous's 965 made me panic and think that NL must have been the best course of action, so I hastily voted NL. Then, when it turned out I was wrong, I figured that any backdown from me would be construed as vollkan "making a mistake when he should know better".

The result was that I spent the better part of a day making arguments in favour of NL, despite realising pretty early on that they were complete BS. And...it seemed to at least mollify most of the suspicion over it.

[vollkan]

And interpreting it the other way would have led to scum's almost guaranteed loss instead of win. So which outcome was fairer? Was there any set up speculation on D4 or D5 that could have led to the possibility of there being more than just the GF as a scum PR? I would not have wanted to answer any questions that would definitively implicate/clear a player but in this case, a hypothetical situation involving 2 RBs would have been clarified. One mod lesson learned on my part is I do not think I will introduce the possibility of competing RBs in the future.

For future reference, I don't think you should ask which outcome is "fairer". Absent clear guidelines (which would really fix this whole problem), actions should be resolved in the way that makes most sense (the principle behind the Natural Action Resolution page on the wiki).

Also, whilst you may not like implicating/clearing a player, night action resolutions are meant to be public knowledge (the only reason that they aren't usually put at the start of games is that normally everybody knows what the resolutions are). So, if a player did ask you about the resolutions, you'd have to answer honestly. This is another reason why "fairness" is a bad consideration - because you'd then be forced to discuss actual players rather than natural principles

[vollkan]

Oh, also, vollkan, a question I had during my re-read: When you have VI scumbuddies, do you always bus them? (Going back to that one Yura point)

It depends on whether I think they are likely to be written off as a townie VI, or whether I think it is likely that they will be seen as scummy. In Yura's case, her early panicking behaviour made me pretty sure that she'd be seen as scum-VI. Thus, I figured it was best to ride her hard and early.

[vollkan]

Would you have pushed NL as town D3? I thought that was pretty evident of you being scum.

As I said, my initial support of NL was due to panicking. If I was town, I probably would not have panicked like that.

If I had panicked as town and voted NL, I probably still would not have backed down immediately after realising that NL was a bad idea. Instead, I would have most likely tried to downplay the strength of my support for it sufficiently that I could get to a point of saying "I guess it doesn't matter" and then just go ahead with lynching. That would let me avoid a bad outcome whilst also avoiding the inevitable "somebody like vollkan doesn't make mistakes" arguments that would fly if I admitted I hadn't been thinking about my post.