Newbie 1079: Feed the Lynch Mob (Game Over)

[Equinox]

Vote Count 1.07

Sn1pe29 (4) - Nachomamma8, tarsonisocelot, pandabear, GreyICE

pandabear (2) - bristep123, Sn1pe29
Traveller (2) - Herodotus, thil13
Herodotus (1) - Traveller

With 9 alive, it's 5 to lynch.

The deadline is Thursday, April 7, 2011, at 11:59 PM EDT (UTC-4).[/area]

[Herodotus]

Everything suspicious about Sn1pe29 could be attributed to either newb-town or to newb-scum, it just gave me more of a newb-scum impression.

Post 107 was my first clue that Sn1 was town. Being unsure what to look for is a newb-town response to the question of why they weren't scumhunting. Giving three town-reads doesn't strike me as something mafia would do. I know there was some prompting from Nacho, but Sn1 didn't seem too reluctant to give that out.

Post 113 is odd because suddenly there's a distinction between bristep after Sn1 had previously put him together with Thil and tars, but I don't see that as scummy; in fact, it adds to my point about post 107. The issue of placing a vote after it wouldn't be an L-1 vote also gives me a gut town impression.

Finally, Sn1pe's most recent posts. If they were Mafia in this situation they should claim a PR, or consider self-hammering to prevent a townie from doing it. I acknowledge your point about post 136, but I'm still undecided.

Besides, if Sn1 is mafia and doesn't self-vote, his partner may hammer him if they aren't already on his wagon. I'm okay with that. All things considered, I see no harm in my assuming for now that he is town.

[GreyICE]

Okay, I get your point on the three town reads (though it's 4 really, he adds Nacho as an afterthought), but I'm not overwhelmingly impressed with the reasoning there, nor am I overwhelmingly impressed with four town reads in this setup. I've legitimately backtracked on town reads as town simply because things changed inbetween me giving the read and me changing the read. Sure, I can usually articulate what they are, but changing reads isn't inherently scummy, and none of the reasoning he gave was very strong - it'd be easy enough to go back. Hell, I just changed my read on Panda based on his most recent post, that doesn't make me scum.

I really have two questions:

1) Why do you think Panda would be the better wagon? (Followup: If you don't, why do you say that Panda would be scummy tomorrow?)
2) Before it was a feeling that Snipe is town, now it's an assumption. I don't mind analysis based on assumption, but it seems a tad premature if we don't even know his flip.

P.S. I always walk a fine line in newbie games on setup speculation. Too much is distinctly anti-town, since people will chime in asking stuff, and it turns into a combination role-fish/time-waste. On the other hand, I remember reading through a game when I was looking for reads in a mini-normal, and one of the people chimed up and asked the IC how a cop should be played. Guess what power role was killed that night? I can't help but think a little information is better than none. I'm slowly working on 'things I should tell newbies' versus TMI in my newbie games.

[Herodotus]

I think Grey's last post was directed at me...
Re: your first paragraph, can you explain:
A) how many town reads it would take to "impress" you? (I assume you mean making you think the person stating the reads is town)
B) how Sn1pe29's level of reasoning on those reads is relevant to his alignment?
C) what you're saying about backtracking being relevant? (This seems so irrelevant that it makes me suspect that you are interpreting things in a way that only someone who knew the mafia team would.)

@1) I never said that? I have him as a high scumread, but as I said, my reads are fluid right now (i.e. subject to sudden change), and I'm not voting him.
@2) It's just a temporary assumption (maybe "supposing" would have been a better word?) and will be affected by future information.

[GreyICE]

A) Between 1 and 6 (more is obv fail, zero is bad). It's not about quantity, it's about quality. Most of them are for weak reasoning that I think would be easy to backtrack on later. Like 'me and nacho trying to help the town by asking questions and pushing people' (well, they were trying to look pro-town, but this nifty piece of evidence came up). Or traveler being cheeky (well, I guess maybe he could be cheeky town). It's just not very strong reads or reasoning, and it echoed what had been said by several other people earlier in the thread. There was no real authenticity to it. In ISO it looks okay, but it is not a very strong argument of towniness.

B) I've found scum tend to have weak/bad/sheeped reasoning more often than town. Reason being they have no need for 'reasoning' on whether they're scum or town (yes, newbie lecture, newbie game). So it'd naturally make me suspicious of the player. I liked Panda better, but that last post just gave me a very strong town vibe. It was very townie frustration with the pace, and suggesting lynching himself with barely any mention of Snipe seems town.

C) You stated that it wasn't likely for scum to give four town reads. This seems ridiculous to me, as anyone whose halfway decent will have scum and town reads that change over the course of the game. At that time, he needed to give town reads to keep Nacho happy. He gave some. If they changed, would anyone necessarily call him out on it? I don't know. More to the point, I doubt he knows, and I doubt giving one weak town read or saying "you're all sorta scummy" would have been the better move for scum there.

1) In fact pretty much next sentence you say that your reads are very fluid right now, which means that if you gave four town reads, you might easily change them over the course of the next few days. Would that be scummy? Would it prevent Herodotus scum from giving me four town reads? I doubt it. If I asked you for four town reads, and you gave them, it would probably say very little about your alignment, and you later changing them would probably say very little about your alignment.

As for the assumption, fair enough. Have to work with something given the content level of this game :p

[Equinox]

bristep123 and thil13 (a couple of hours early) have been prodded.

[thil13]

@Thil13:
What do you believe Nacho was trying to accomplish by moving his vote around so much at the beginning of the game?
Do you have any opinion on pandabear putting King at L-1 in post 68?

I think he was just trying to put some kind of pressure on people to answer questions (though when ever he did put a vote on somebody there was a complete lack of questions to them on his part) or maybe to provoke a slip up. It was almost surprising play considering it was from an IC, and I don't think it accomplished much of anything.

For your second question, I think it was somewhat appropriate considering KoH's actions up to that point, though I do somewhat disagree with using L-1 just to get answers out of someone. I have my opinions on L-1 pressure based on the first game I played on this site where such a position was an extremely deadly spot to be at.

[pandabear]

Everything suspicious about Sn1pe29 could be attributed to either newb-town or to newb-scum, it just gave me more of a newb-scum impression.

Post 107 was my first clue that Sn1 was town. Being unsure what to look for is a newb-town response to the question of why they weren't scumhunting. Giving three town-reads doesn't strike me as something mafia would do. I know there was some prompting from Nacho, but Sn1 didn't seem too reluctant to give that out.

Post 113 is odd because suddenly there's a distinction between bristep after Sn1 had previously put him together with Thil and tars, but I don't see that as scummy; in fact, it adds to my point about post 107. The issue of placing a vote after it wouldn't be an L-1 vote also gives me a gut town impression.

Finally, Sn1pe's most recent posts. If they were Mafia in this situation they should claim a PR, or consider self-hammering to prevent a townie from doing it. I acknowledge your point about post 136, but I'm still undecided.

Besides, if Sn1 is mafia and doesn't self-vote, his partner may hammer him if they aren't already on his wagon. I'm okay with that. All things considered, I see no harm in my assuming for now that he is town.

In Post107, I see more of a desperation in Sn1pe of Nacho getting off his back than a reluctance to answer his question.

But i agree with you Hero that post 144 is peculiar. I don't know what to make of it because I have not had much experience with what the common reads from responses of people on the D1 L-1 hotspot. But Grey also pointed this out which I was about to mention: I posted a similar "final defense." Either that's a town tell from both of us, or he's riding off of my argument again.

I think most of us who are voting on Sn1pe agrees that he has had little of his OWN scumhunting...He can make all the town-reading he wants, but if in a scum's point of view, that would not be very hard, would it? I don't care if he votes for me, but at least have your own reason to do so rather than riding off of other people's arguments. Even acknowledging their arguments as making sense would be a little less suspicious but I do not see him even doing that. A reluctancy to scumhunt or using the "i don't know what to look for" excuse (though I have the same sentiment) seems very scummy.

[GreyICE]

It kinda defeats the point of town tells when someone does one, I think they're town and say so, and the other obvious suspect immediately does it.

It's why there's no real formalized system of tells - scum can fake it.

[Herodotus]

What do you believe Nacho was trying to accomplish by moving his vote around so much at the beginning of the game?

I think he was just trying to put some kind of pressure on people to answer questions (though when ever he did put a vote on somebody there was a complete lack of questions to them on his part) or maybe to provoke a slip up. It was almost surprising play considering it was from an IC, and I don't think it accomplished much of anything.

I see Nacho asking questions of each person he voted, though sometimes not in the same post. Why are you surprised to see him using pressure to get people to answer questions? Do you think this is scum or town behaviour?
Do you think anyone (including you or Nacho) developed a better understanding of who is scum and who is town as a result of Nacho?

Do you have any opinion on pandabear putting King at L-1 in post 68?

For your second question, I think it was somewhat appropriate considering KoH's actions up to that point, though I do somewhat disagree with using L-1 just to get answers out of someone. I have my opinions on L-1 pressure based on the first game I played on this site where such a position was an extremely deadly spot to be at.

It doesn't look to me like Panda was trying to get answers out of King.
On a related note, what do you think of bristep123?

Would you like to lynch Traveller? Nacho? Me? Someone else?

But Grey also pointed this out which I was about to mention: I posted a similar "final defense." Either that's a town tell from both of us, or he's riding off of my argument again.

What do you think it was, in your judgement?

[Traveller]

GreyICE and Hero: When you talk about town "reads", what do you mean? Serious newbie here and I don't know the board jargon yet.

I am unvoting, since KoH is gone and I don't have a read on Hero yet. My opinions:
- Sn1pe29: I'm not convinced enough that he's scum to cast the lynching vote.
- thil13 and bristep are tougher reads since they aren't posting as much.
Not enough for me to go on (yes, I understand this is a game of supposition) to be really comfortable knowing I'm voting to lynch scum (that is, if I am town). Instead of looking at each player and trying to determine if they are town or scum, I'm trying to pick up on "scummy" behavior.

The one person no one has seriously suspected yet is tarsonisoscelot. She's been actively posting but has yet to arouse much suspicion. Perhaps a bit of gender assumption on the part of the membership ("she can't be scum - she's a GIRL!"). I'm not buying it. She has been very careful not to rock the boat, which could be a Mafiosi tactic, so - for the time being anyway - I'm going to cast my vote for her.

Unvote

Vote: tarsonisoscelot

[Herodotus]

GreyICE and Hero: When you talk about town "reads", what do you mean? Serious newbie here and I don't know the board jargon yet.

Usually on this site, if someone says "town read" as a noun, they mean "a person they think is town".
So when I say that Sn1pe29 gave three town reads, I mean Sn1pe29 named three people he thought were likely to be town.

I am unvoting, since KoH is gone and I don't have a read on Hero yet.

Since I replaced him, KoH and I have the same role. If he had been mafia, I would also be mafia. (Fortunately he wasn't, so I'm not.)

[Traveller]

Usually on this site, if someone says "town read" as a noun, they mean "a person they think is town".
So when I say that Sn1pe29 gave three town reads, I mean Sn1pe29 named three people he thought were likely to be town.

Thanks for the clarification. Thought a town read was some kind of action or word that indicated a player was town.

Since I replaced him, KoH and I have the same role. If he had been mafia, I would also be mafia. (Fortunately he wasn't, so I'm not.)

So you say...

[thil13]

I see Nacho asking questions of each person he voted, though sometimes not in the same post. Why are you surprised to see him using pressure to get people to answer questions? Do you think this is scum or town behaviour?
Do you think anyone (including you or Nacho) developed a better understanding of who is scum and who is town as a result of Nacho?
...
It doesn't look to me like Panda was trying to get answers out of King.
On a related note, what do you think of bristep123?

Would you like to lynch Traveller? Nacho? Me? Someone else?

But Grey also pointed this out which I was about to mention: I posted a similar "final defense." Either that's a town tell from both of us, or he's riding off of my argument again.

What do you think it was, in your judgment?

I think it would have been better asking the questions at the same time as the vote instead of just placing the vote and expecting a reaction. I would classify it as null, I don't think it really points to any alignment. I didn't get much out nacho's questions, and I can't say for sure if anyone else did, but perhaps.

At the time king was slow to answer questions and would take several reminders to answer them so I see it as a way to prod him into doing so.

I don't really have any opinion on bristep, or anyone else for that matter.

Right now I'm just trying to figure out who to lynch. I'm sure you would agree the lack of activity doesn't help.

It was probably coincidental , but I'm not so good at reading between the lines, there may have been an ulterior motive other than self preservation.



So, I assume your intense questioning of me means you think I'm scum?

[pandabear]

But Grey also pointed this out which I was about to mention: I posted a similar "final defense." Either that's a town tell from both of us, or he's riding off of my argument again.

What do you think it was, in your judgement?

After reading it over again, it seems he was way too nonchalant for scum but then again, even for town. It fits that he has almost given up at L-1 and is just saying this.

I know I should be fluid with my analysis of scum and town reads as well, but I cannot help but think that this fits with his past habits of mirroring others' posts. It seemed to have worked last time to get people off of his back, and it may have actually worked this time as well. So my opinion of him as scum has diminished only a little, but I think he's still more scummy than everyone else so far.

[GreyICE]

Usually on this site, if someone says "town read" as a noun, they mean "a person they think is town".
So when I say that Sn1pe29 gave three town reads, I mean Sn1pe29 named three people he thought were likely to be town.

Thanks for the clarification. Thought a town read was some kind of action or word that indicated a player was town.

A single action or statement that gives you a reason to believe something is called a "tell."

Like a classic (and normally useless nowadays) "scumtell" is this sort of post:

VOTE: Player A
And because of X,Y, Z
FOS: Player B

Player B being a scumbuddy, Player A being town. Basically it's distancing and 'straighten up buddy!' built into one post.

Reads are typically broader and deeper than that. It's not a single post or action, it's a bunch of things put together that make up a "read."

@Panda: Questioning can serve all sorts of purposes. For me, I usually do it for three reasons:

1) I am genuinely curious as to their answer because I want their input on the situation
2) I don't have a read on the person and want to see how they think, act, and feel
3) I'm looking for extra information about their actions

It's usually a little from each category. Questions with little purpose and weak/no followup are (outside of RQS) generally considered scummy because questions are generally "townie" due to the above motivations - but a lack of followup when the answers were weak can indicate that the person doesn't really care about their questions being answered (aka they're just trying to "look town").

And that's been my theory discussion for the day, and has probably used up my allotted theory discussion for a newbie.

Maybe it will at least get people talking. Not that I could discuss mafia theory for days or anything

[Herodotus]

I see that Grey and I might end up disagreeing on a few things in the course of this game. For instance, I don't personally see questions without follow-up as inherently scummy. It's probably good that we have different approaches. I also hope Grey isn't planning to call it scummy that I'm talking more about panda and Thul but haven't changed my vote from Traveller.

I also need to apologize for jumping in with terminology that some of you might never have seen before. Looking back, at the top of the page, I notice I said "newb-town" and "newb-scum". I was referring to how people play with town and with mafia alignments if they aren't used to the game. It's not uncommon for new players to feel like it's impossible to find scum, although when an experieced player appears to feel that way, it's a sign that they are not on the town's side.

---

Traveller, I like that you're taking a look at a player who hasn't received much suspicion. But I question whether you're voting her because you think she's mafia, or just to make the votes more rounded.

I think it would have been better asking the questions at the same time as the vote instead of just placing the vote and expecting a reaction. I would classify it as null, I don't think it really points to any alignment. I didn't get much out nacho's questions, and I can't say for sure if anyone else did, but perhaps.

One thing I noticed is that Nacho voted and questioned you in the same post. You answered, and Nacho was satisfied and unvoted you. So Nacho's questioning helped him (at least) to get a more pro-town impression of you.

So, I assume your intense questioning of me means you think I'm scum?

I suspect you might be, but you may convince me otherwise.

I'd like to hear from tarsonis, bristep, and Nacho, who haven't posted since I joined the game.

[tarsonisocelot]

I see that Grey and I might end up disagreeing on a few things in the course of this game. For instance, I don't personally see questions without follow-up as inherently scummy. It's probably good that we have different approaches. I also hope Grey isn't planning to call it scummy that I'm talking more about panda and Thul but haven't changed my vote from Traveller.

I also need to apologize for jumping in with terminology that some of you might never have seen before. Looking back, at the top of the page, I notice I said "newb-town" and "newb-scum". I was referring to how people play with town and with mafia alignments if they aren't used to the game. It's not uncommon for new players to feel like it's impossible to find scum, although when an experieced player appears to feel that way, it's a sign that they are not on the town's side.

---

Traveller, I like that you're taking a look at a player who hasn't received much suspicion. But I question whether you're voting her because you think she's mafia, or just to make the votes more rounded.

I think it would have been better asking the questions at the same time as the vote instead of just placing the vote and expecting a reaction. I would classify it as null, I don't think it really points to any alignment. I didn't get much out nacho's questions, and I can't say for sure if anyone else did, but perhaps.

One thing I noticed is that Nacho voted and questioned you in the same post. You answered, and Nacho was satisfied and unvoted you. So Nacho's questioning helped him (at least) to get a more pro-town impression of you.

So, I assume your intense questioning of me means you think I'm scum?

I suspect you might be, but you may convince me otherwise.

I'd like to hear from tarsonis, bristep, and Nacho, who haven't posted since I joined the game.

Hi.

Sorry I haven't been posting much over the past few days (when the game finally became active again ) I've been readying and submitting projects for my Comp subjects (400 ish lines of code over the past few days plus READMEs etc, and I'm still not entirely sure where and when you would actually want to implement a visitor pattern - but my head hurts a lot more than it did before I started).

I'm afraid I don't have anything much to add at this point in time. I still think Snipe is scummy.

[Nachomamma8]

I guess I'm not a bad lynch. I do not have an important role and as most of you have brought up, am not doing much to help the town. If I do get lynched, hopefully the activity level in day 2 will improve.

I absolutely hate resignation posts like these. If you're town, you AREN'T a good lynch, and you should be fighting your lynch as hard as you possibly can. The activity level in day 2 will not improve if you go out like this, flip town, and an active player dies in the night.

Herod, why did you find in the random questions that GreyICE posted? They seemed as a way to promote activity when they were posted, but I don't exactly see a use in them now.

Finally, Sn1pe's most recent posts. If they were Mafia in this situation they should claim a PR, or consider self-hammering to prevent a townie from doing it. I acknowledge your point about post 136, but I'm still undecided.

This is weak reasoning. Scum don't always act in the optimal way, especially in newbie games.

Traveller, I like that you're taking a look at a player who hasn't received much suspicion. But I question whether you're voting her because you think she's mafia, or just to make the votes more rounded.

Why do you think mafia would try to make votes more rounded? Does that mean he's trying to draw attention off his scumbuddy, or he's just ignoring the main mislynch wagons?

[GreyICE]

I see that Grey and I might end up disagreeing on a few things in the course of this game. For instance, I don't personally see questions without follow-up as inherently scummy. It's probably good that we have different approaches. I also hope Grey isn't planning to call it scummy that I'm talking more about panda and Thul but haven't changed my vote from Traveller.

I wasn't actually inclined to call anything you've done scummy right up until this weird preemptive defense. But hell, you've contributed (since you replaced in) like 5x as much as the rest of the town, so <3, buddies forever.

I don't see questions without followup as scummy, but I see questions without a real purpose that are given weak answers and never followed up as scummy. One of the best ways to catch MoI scum, for instance, is if he's spamming questions at anyone, but doesn't really seem that interested or concerned with what answers he's getting.

[Equinox]

Searching for a replacement for bristep123...

[Herodotus]

I guess I'm not a bad lynch. I do not have an important role and as most of you have brought up, am not doing much to help the town. If I do get lynched, hopefully the activity level in day 2 will improve.

I absolutely hate resignation posts like these. If you're town, you AREN'T a good lynch, and you should be fighting your lynch as hard as you possibly can. The activity level in day 2 will not improve if you go out like this, flip town, and an active player dies in the night.

I agree with the advice here. Sn1pe29, your being lynched is a bad lynch for whichever team you're on.

Herod, why did you find in the random questions that GreyICE posted? They seemed as a way to promote activity when they were posted, but I don't exactly see a use in them now.

I saw no reason not to. Also, it's possible that others might find my answers useful in figuring out my alignment later. (I wouldn't rely on it myself, but it's not up to me to decide what others find useful.)

Traveller, I like that you're taking a look at a player who hasn't received much suspicion. But I question whether you're voting her because you think she's mafia, or just to make the votes more rounded.

Why do you think mafia would try to make votes more rounded? Does that mean he's trying to draw attention off his scumbuddy, or he's just ignoring the main mislynch wagons?

Since you asked this from the perspective of Traveller being mafia, I'd say that if Traveller is mafia, he's avoiding the Sn1pe29 wagon, but wants to appear to be participating. I could even speculate that his buddy might even be Tarsonis, and that he's trying to put some distance between them, but this type of speculation would be very premature.
The other possibility is that he's town, in which case I would like to see a more thorough case; if Tarsonis is in fact mafia, Traveller might be able to convince people of that. And if she isn't, then she might be able to convince people of that in her responses to Traveller's case.

[Equinox]

}|{opa replaces bristep123! Thank you!

[Traveller]

Traveller, I like that you're taking a look at a player who hasn't received much suspicion. But I question whether you're voting her because you think she's mafia, or just to make the votes more rounded.

This game is tougher than if we were playing face-to-face - no body language, no tone of voice, no facial expressions to help discern the scum. I voted for tarson for two reasons, because no one has seriously suspected her of being scum before (again, I suspect partly because she is female), and to draw her out an (maybe) force her to defend herself.

[Equinox]

Bump for vote count.