Mini 1159 - Powerrox93's Mini Normal I (Game Over)

[Uncle Pain]

VOTE: Me=Weird
Weird nicknames are weird.

[Uncle Pain]

I've played in games with 2 and 19 sides

19 sides? Was that 19 SKs put up against each other? o_O

[Uncle Pain]

I think we should completely ignore the fact that Jase is just throwing around random accusations. Excuse me for being curious to an extent that goes beyond this thread! And also excuse me for just posting only twice in two pages / one day!!!!!11 (man…)

VOTE: Jase. Don’t like your attitude.

[Uncle Pain]

yabbaguy: You realize that you’re giving us a bucket of WIFOM here? Of course you could have done this all with your stated intention… but no one but you

really

knows. You did something controversial and now you get what you deserve. No offence meant, just mentioning. I myself am rather neutral about that move of yours.

andrew94: I’d be happy if I could stick around here without an avatar.

Surprise_Carcinogen: From those who haven’t posted so far, Me=Weird is V/LA and GroupThink hasn’t even confirmed yet, so lurking would be a false assumption. Zdenek and crazypianist1116 have each posted once and both more than one day ago, these two are best qualified to count as lurkers but I think we should wait with accusations until Tuesday when Easter is over.

[Uncle Pain]

Ah, now things are getting interesting, the cases evolve around me… let’s address them.

Uncle Pain: First post voting me=weird was off. Me=Weird had yet to post at that point (and still hasn't) but Uncle Pain didn't comment on anything about the first page and is probably trying to deflect attention away from his scum buddies.
Second post, when has attitude ever been a reason to vote for somebody? Again no content. Probably bussing Jase.
Third post, no useful content. Trying to deflect onto lurkers. Yabba was actual being useful with his original post unlike somebody I know.

My first post was an RVS vote. I felt at that time that the discussion hasn’t become too serious. As I mentioned above, I stand rather neutral about yabbaguy’s attempt to create discussion (and yes yabbaguy, I do see the townie aspect in there, I’m just not sure if it’s the best way to start Day 1) and please don’t get me started about the rather ridiculous “case” against tarsonisocelot because of her welcome post. Hence my reluctance to step into these two discussion threads; my initial intent was to watch and get the whole picture. By the way, my RVS choice was made by skimming the nickname list and picking a name that struck me in any way and well, “Me=Weird” just did that. I didn’t know back then that she was V/LA (the mod only wrote this in #27), otherwise I surely would have picked another player for RVS voting.

My second post (third post actually) was meant to be provocative (hooray it worked), yet has actually three reasons behind it:

1. His first post starts a small case against yabbaguy and then he turns around and votes StefanB. I honestly fail to see the logic behind that, calling someone scummy and yet voting someone else
   without giving any reason whatsoever
   . RVS was definitely over at that point so either he failed to see this or he wanted to provoke and/or attract attention.
   
2. In his second post he just bows down to imaginality’s and [L]’s reactions and votes who
   they
   are suspecting, with some sarcasm being the icing. Now I may not be a big fan of sarcasm in Mafia Scum, hence my “don’t like the attitude”. But my real problem with this post is that he looks opportunistic, already early in the game. Opportunism is always scummy.
   
3. In this fourth post he accuses me of not participating much (a fact I accept) and implies that I should be watched more. And indeed some OMGUS moment arose in me then (if you prefer to call it “touchy”, go ahead), I mean, this guy has hit my scumdar twice in three posts and then he accuses
   me
   of being anti-town by not participating? This was the last straw so I voted him.

I disagree with my third post being useless. I confronted yabbaguy with my point of view on his honey pot in order to clarify my stand on him. I think you went a bit too far by implying that stating my opinion and expecting a reaction is not useful. Regarding the lurkers part, I wanted to rectify Surprise_Carcinogen’s misconception. I mean, he stated it, I checked it and found it false – why should I not call him out on this?

So crazypianist1116, please elaborate what about my statements you actually found scummy.

Obvious omgus and vote hopping on top of it all, godamn, this is almost too easy.

Seriously though...do you actually have a reason for voting me or am I just getting on your nerves?

First, for the voting reasons, see above; this should take care of your OMGUS argument. Second, up until now, I fail to see myself vote hopping, especially compared to you. While I have RVS-voted Me=Weird and then switched to you for the reasons above, you have switched your vote from StefanB (which you, by the way, never gave a reason for) to yabbaguy (which you, by the way, never gave a reason for) to me (which you finally did give a reason for); this should take care of your vote hopping argument. Now what was your case against me again?

Uncle Pain, this is extraordinary now. You have to at least realize that there us Town intent in that post. Don't call the post itself anything but that, or you've sorely missed the point.

Yes I realize this. But as I said, I argue that it’s not the best way to start Day 1 in a pro-town way. It just looks forced and you inflict a small stain on your clean slate. I don’t say it’s scummy. I just say it’s unusual to me.

VOTE: Uncle Pain

Come on, what is that supposed to mean? We’re on page 3 and in the middle of a discussion, you can’t just hop on the bandwagon and not tell us why.

Uncle Pain: Why don't you want an avatar?

It’s a personal matter, nothing rational… it feels kind of neutral and unbiased when I encounter players without avatars. I sometimes tend to interpret avatars and try to correlate this with my findings from their posts. These things distract me. I simply feel better without an avatar that people may use to define me in one way or another.

[Uncle Pain]

Could we please stop the sematics debate and concentrate on finding scum? “is town supposed to convince others” or “is WTF a legitimate type of question” are not helpful.
Also, can we please be more friendly with each other? I don’t like the aggressive tone of some posts here. We’re here to have fun playing Mafia, not for jumping each other’s throat. If someone isn’t good at writing in English, he/she probably doesn’t mean to offend you. Be tolerant and ask questions if you don’t understand anything. (actually I’m feeling ridiculous for having to say this…)

Questions galore!

[L]

: What exactly do you find scummy about Surprise_Carcinogen’s view on things? Why are you (still) voting tarsonisocelot?

andrew94

: Who are your current main suspects?

imaginality

: Why do you read me as town?

Jase

: Would you tell us why you voted StefanB and switched your vote to yabbaguy when “asked” to?

Me=Weird

: What is it you find scummy about Surprise_Carcinogen?

StefanB

: It’s page 4 by now, did anything happen to your stance regarding yabbaguy?

Surprise_Carcinogen

: Who else (besides GroupThink) do you find scummy right now? Has Jase cleaned his slate or do you have remaining suspicions?

tarsonisocelot

: What do you think about the bandwagons on yabbaguy and Jase? Are they justified?

yabbaguy

: What information have you gained from your first post and the reactions to it?

Zdenek

: Care to give us some reads?

[Uncle Pain]

(I’m ignoring the cross-posting, been writing this one for long enough now)

StefanB

: Can you please calm down? Me=Weird attacks you in an in-game way, he addresses your posts and interprets them as scummy. This is totally normal and you shouldn’t get angry about it, it’s part of Mafia Scum. If you don’t agree with his views, that’s also totally okay… but please defend and attack in non-personal, game-effective ways. By the way, as far as I see it, you have three votes on you. In numbers: 3. This means you’re at L-4. You’re not even half-way through to a lynch. Then why in the world are you so crazy about giving up the game or being lynched?
On a side note: If you’re convinced you’re town, don’t

tell

us that you are but

show

us.

Regarding your recent play, I find a few things odd:

• panicking and appealing to our emotion while being at L-4 (#105, #121)
  
• taking on the candy thing from page 1 for no apparent reason (#107)
  
• seems to be very convinced of Jase not being scum (#102)

Hence I’d like you (StefanB) to explain: Why are you panicking at L-4? Which clues do you really see in the candy thing? What makes you so sure that Jase can’t be scum?

My post was totally out of character for my person, heh. I'm just fed up with trying to make sense of the foolishness that was happening prior to that post. I came off of a hard day at work, sat down to read yet again - and the idiocy overwhelmed me and my anger leftover from work poured into my text. I'm the most tolerant person you'll find. My apologies to the thread, but can we clean up the thread a little?

It’s nice of you to pay attention to my notes so closely. Actually they were addressed to all of us, not just you. The part regarding being more tolerant towards non-native English speakers was in fact directed at those who were confused/irritated by the argument beforehand. I mean, it doesn’t even make sense to criticise you when you are the one I’m trying to defend.

Furthermore, I’d also like [L] to answer this one:

when in god's name did I make a post that suggested I know the lay of the land, and why wouldn't you mention it sooner then now?

imaginality

: A beautiful case you’ve built here. Can you point out where you found andrew94 particularly scummy? What convinces you that StefanB is not a VI?

andrew94

: Do I understand you correctly that you suspect StefanB and Surprise_Carcinogen most?

Zdenek

: What’s your stance on StefanB?

crazypianist1116

: Lurking is bad. Don’t do it.

Last but not least, since tarsonisocelot and yabbaguy have already posted since my last post (#91) but haven’t addressed my questions, I’d like to repeat them:

tarsonisocelot

: What do you think about the bandwagons on yabbaguy and Jase? Are they justified?

yabbaguy

: What information have you gained from your first post and the reactions to it?

[Uncle Pain]

It was a false statement.

Then what made you say it?

[Uncle Pain]

(ignoring the cross-posting once again)

Heh, hi Mist7676, didn’t think we’d meet so soon again.

New reads: I can see Jase as town, but adding crazypianist to scumlist. The way he was sarcastic seems like how scum would be, general scumvibes, plus the way once stefan got attacked, he completely lurked off, could be scum scared by their partner getting caught and not wanting to do anything scummy.

Very interesting, I had the scared scum thought as well but to be honest nothing to back it up. It was rather a gut feeling. Do you see anything about crazypianist1116 that supports your hunch?

My reasoning for making such an obviously false statement was to goad surprise carcinogen.

Aw come on, what is this? First yabbaguy, then Jase, now [L]: you do a scummy mistake and later say “it was all planned to fish for reactions”. I’m sorry guys but this is just a tad too convenient. As much as I see that creating discussion is a valid townie move, I find baiting someone (or anyone) rather scummy because we townies don’t need to pull such tricks to find scum, plus it confuses town. The problem I see for myself here is that I don’t know how to evaluate this in terms of suspicion. I gotta admit that [L]’s trick looks the strangest. Not only because it looks the least planned and most retroactively justified of the three but also since she tried to particularly goad Surprise_Carcinogen. [L], do you have an actual case against him? As far as I see it, you dislike his statements about mafia theory and that’s it…

Post #91 lacks views on other players apart from Jase; this is starting to become consistent.

What do you mean? Do you think I’m tunneling on Jase and keep doing it?

Which brings me to…

Who are your scum reads, Uncle Pain?

I actually deliberately waited with posting my own reads because I wasn’t very sure about them for a long time, hence I asked several questions to get to read you better.

My current main suspects are:

• Jase: for the oddities I stated in #71. Although it became less, he still hits my scumdar most.
  
• [L]: for her weak cases against Surprise_Carcinogen and tarsonisocelot, for a general lack of suspicions and for ignoring the bandwagons on Jase and StefanB without giving reasons.
  
• StefanB: for the oddities I stated in #125.

On the town side of my reads are mainly imaginality and Surprise_Carcinogen.

[Uncle Pain]

I know I have freaking towncread of -1.000.000

Than please selfvote so we can get you out of the way.

I totally disagree, even if he’s scum. This is not the proper way to play or quit a Mafia Scum game, period.

Other than that, I’m curious what you (Mist7676) think of [L] and Surprise_Carcinogen.

Zdenek

: You had your vote on Surprise_Carcinogen but switched to [L] due to her false statement. Do you still suspect Surprise_Carcinogen? If yes, where do you see a connection between the two? What do you think about crazypianist1116 now that he’s posted #138?

…eagerly waiting for posts by: StefanB, andrew94, yabbaguy, Surprise_Carcinogen. Gotta love this activity overview!

[Uncle Pain]

Uncle Pain - Annoying Town. Oozing Town, getting in people's faces, not afraid to interrogate anyone, complete recklessness, everything. But people who are saying "come on lurkers, hurry up" annoy me, especially when it means it's my fault.

Would you like to explain what you mean with “oozing town”? So far I’ve asked a lot of questions and I feel this is important to play Mafia Scum properly and efficiently. I admit I’m not very sorry for annoying you if it comes from my attempt to squeeze some participation out of you.

imaginality -

Scum

. Back to his blathering ways, basically saying "yeah, Stefan's scum" with a bunch of nonsense. Biggest perpetrator of a nasty wagon that isn't worth a damn. Read his ISO and tell me if you believe him, I'll do that myself in a bit, but a first glance suggests otherwise to me.

Well, I’ve just read his posts in isolation and I think you’re wrong. What are your concrete arguments against imaginality’s case, where do you find him blathering, what is nonsense? While I find #96 not-so-waterproof, #122 backs the case up pretty well.

@Uncle Pain: Honestly, I think of the people who bit at it, Jase knew, one is Stefan the Magnificent Obvtown, and Zdenek was the worst, but still seemed all right. imaginality had that odd reaction which I just somehow can't shake off. It still pings scummy somehow, I can't tell.

Okay, now you’re pinging

my

scumdar. First, you seem to ignore all the inconsistencies in StefanB’s thoughts and call him an obvious townie. I could live with you disagreeing but ignorance is never townish. Second, that odd reaction that you just can’t tell. Sounds like an obvious attempt to throw dirt at imaginality.

FoS: yabbaguy.

He is saying he has no town cred. If he's just going to give up like that self-vote and save town some time.

Second yust vote for yourself: I may do that if we are very near to deadline and a result of not doing it would result in a nolynch, whitch the rules make imposible this game. Every other selfvote is antitown. It's against playing to win win. (I think perhaps even modkilworthy)
Also rushing the day is only good if you think you have done everythink done to be best prepaired for day 2.
You can not tell me that has happened after one week.

As it seems, Mist7676 stands firmly to her statement. StefanB shows that she’s wrong all the way. Putting aside the fact that I consider self-voting bad play (and asking someone to do it as well): Mist7676, are you so sure of StefanB being scum that it’s okay to get rid of him? If no, why would you

ever

ask him to self-vote? If yes, how did you draw that conclusion? You bet I got my eyes on you now!

In general it seems like you don't want to be ON my wagon but you still want my wagon to succeed. You then use being on my wagon as points against two other players so you can call them out if my wagon DOES succeed, and YOU get to say "I told you there was something wrong with that wagon". Is that about right? Did I leave any part of that out?

I find this view very interesting, I didn’t consider this.

UNVOTE: Jase. After re-reading your posts, I come to the conclusion that you may be more townie than I initially thought. I still don’t like the approach you tried back then but I give you the benefit of a doubt that it’s just your style and not scumminess. Plus, Mist7676 and yabbaguy are running a tight race for my vote right now.

[Uncle Pain]

Hi redtail896! I’d like to comment on some of your reads:

I'm sympathetic to the "frustrated townie" view here, but overall my

Verdict:Leaning Mafia

What exactly speaks against a frustrated townie in your opinion? yabbaguy seems to be very convinced of this theory.

tarsonisocelot: How has only yabbaguy jumped on TO? There is almost no content here. Just go read the ISO. Look at how much of TO's writing is fluff, unrelated, or small, unsubstantiated statements. All of her strongest statements are things that everybody will agree with anyway. Still has a vote on L, but I'm not sure I could tell you why. I encourage everybody to read this ISO (it won't take long).

Verdict: Leaning Mafia

You make a good point. I think most of us were/are busy with the existing wagons so we forgot about her (I include myself as well since I didn’t notice it myself). I’m willing to give this wagon a try depending on what she has to say in her next post, she even promised us reads.

Okay, now you’re pinging my scumdar. First, you seem to ignore all the inconsistencies in StefanB’s thoughts and call him an obvious townie. I could live with you disagreeing but ignorance is never townish. Second, that odd reaction that you just can’t tell. Sounds like an obvious attempt to throw dirt at imaginality. FoS: yabbaguy.

You can assert to the contrary all you want, but you're doing exactly that. You are FoSing me because you

don't agree with me

, either that, or accusing me of simple poor play. Just look at Stefan's attitude, moreso. This is such a common attitude of people who are relatively new to the game and are getting a wagon pressed on them. Whatever logic you're looking at, it's stupid. Stop and think about all the other games where there have been floundering relative-Newbies with a high wagon on them and their reactions. This falls straight into line, Stefan's content blasting through the roof, everything.

You keep playing leader but I don’t like your bossy approach and even more I don’t trust you. So don’t expect me to just believe every thought which

you

are convinced of. I like to follow my own thoughts. Furthermore, I’m one of these relatively-newbie players as well and as such I don’t have much experience with the difference between a newbie reaction and a “professional” reaction to pressure. While I can believe that StefanB’s oversensitive reaction may have been due to being a newbie (no offence meant!), I felt that there was at least some misunderstanding on his side, even going as far as to some erroneous behaviour that points to scum slips. This is what me and the others stated in this thread, yet you chose to just ignore it and declare it newbieness. I didn’t FoS you because you have a different opinion, I FoSed you because you ignored something. And in my book, ignoring things is either scummy or bad play. Considering your Mafia Scum experience, I go for the first.

Yes, I generated strong reactions in order to spark discussion. That's pro-Town. You still haven't gotten the principle 7 pages later.

Where do you draw the line between townish generation of strong reactions and scummy generation of confusion? Don’t you see why someone

can

find you scummy for doing questionable things? Pro-town is what helps town, confusion does not help town – still it’s at least part of what you created here.

So fuck your wagon, and fuck the [L] voters, too. Swap to ocelot please.

-.- Was this really necessary? If you’re pissed, please go elsewhere to let off steam. Keep it rational and stop insulting people.

Well, frankly, you've seen me play as scum. I am much....shall we say....different. My town approach is to analyze more... but this game started out so disgustingly that I haven't even done that. I'll be honest - I haven't been involved in the game the way I wanted to be. I'm frustrated. But I'm not giving up on the game because I'm the type to see things through to their end.

I'd recommend you read my past games. I'm more "townie" when I'm scum.

Please correct me if this is wrong: when you look scummy, you are town; when you look townie, you are scum. A is B and B is A. Seriously?! For someone being at L-2 you’re interestingly evasive, avoiding actual defence.

[Uncle Pain]

StefanB

: I like to see that you’re back in the game, busy defending against each accusation. While I appreciate this very much, I’d like to second crazypianist1116 here: please try to compress your thoughts in one single post. If you need any help with German-English translations, feel free to ask, I’m German as well.

You wholeheartedly admit to playing badly (posting fluff, temper-dependent, naivety,…). Well, I’d suggest you try to improve this bit. It’s not always easy to distinguish bad play from scummy play so don’t be surprised that you have a wagon on you. The fact that you’re willing to compensate for all the confusion and loss of temper by going through each post and replying/defending is a pro-town move in my book.

I fully admite on of my reason for voting you was envy. This guy posts such a bad (very bad) first post and is considered town. WTH are people thinking? So yes I votet a nullread now.
But the point stays you never had a good reason in game for your suspicion, even less for your vote.

Well, yabbaguy will probably once again defend this by saying that his intention was to create discussion. While this was certainly true, I do see your point as well. Still, envy is a bad reason to vote someone. In #103 Me=Weird gave his voting reason which basically boils down to your unvote that looked out of place and inconsequential, plus he refers to imaginality’s #96 which includes criticism on your unvote. It wasn’t such a bad reason to vote you but I’m inclined to say that Me=Weird didn’t really add anything to imaginality’s case, apart from some traces of OMGUS.

@unclePain: The best way to explain it is that when I'm town, I appear scummy because I keep my analyses to myself. When I'm scum I look super townie because I make an effort to look townie, to convince others that I am town.

Well, then I suggest you start

being

super townie and convince us that you’re town?

@jase: I did not fabricate my case against SC.

I smell a straw man here.

I don't understand this. Can you clarify please? What exactly did I take too far? And why do you suspect my slot?

"wababa what the crap accusation, wait that's not clear, excuse me while I put on good Townie face and ask politely as possible 'Just why exactly, good madam, have you decided to accuse me on an otherwise perfectly fine day? Could you be bothered to explain the inner meanings of your grievances about me?'"

Criminey. Scummy scum Mcscum.

Is this supposed to be some kind of case against redtail896? If so, please reword it so I can understand it. Step 1: remove the uncalled-for sarcasm.
By the way, yabbaguy, no reactions to my #194?

As soon as

Mist7676

Prox enlightens us with some of his thoughts, I will rethink my reads and put my vote.

On a side note, I find it funny how many synonyms/abbreviations you find for tarsonisocelot.

[Uncle Pain]

[L]

: Was that in reply to my suggestion to being a super townie?

[Uncle Pain]

@Mod: Do I see it correctly that Votecounts 1.13 and 1.14 contain a mistake? StefanB never voted [L]. This seems corrected in Votecount 1.15.

Just got confused during some rereading.

Scumslips are generally extremely strong evidence for a player's scuminness. To jump off the Stefan wagon and onto TO with little evidence makes no sense whatsoever given her thinking StefanB is so obviously scum. Can we get a lynch here please?

QFT!

Yes. I'm not a fan of giving the scum something to work with.

Okay, so you don’t want to be very townie (contributing much to the game, eager scumhunting, convincing others you’re town, in short:

being pro-town

) because you fear that could be seen scummy. This is WIFOM reasoning at its best and you know that. The only thing I’m not sure about is whether I should call your stance anti-town or pro-scum. Either way, you’re at L-3 and it seems you do need some more motivation. VOTE: [L]

redtail896

:

As soon as

Mist7676

Prox enlightens us with some of his thoughts, I will rethink my reads and put my vote.

I don’t like to procrastinate my decision but I’m curious what Prox and C-Worl have to say. They put their votes on the table but I’d like to see how they back them up. After all, Mist7676’s posts left me a bit confused, which is why I wanted to investigate her further but now she flaked… I’ll see how Prox does.

My current main suspects so far in no order:

• tarsonisocelot
  ’s lack of real game contribution also leaves me with a scummy gut feeling. I’d like to read the rest of her recap analysis, maybe something in her argumentation will eventually make sense. Until then, she’s on my scummy list.
  
• My take on
  [L]
  ’s retroactive justification of the reaction test is still screaming “lies!”: it’s just too convenient (no indication beforehand whatsoever, easy way to get rid of a lie), it didn’t fit the situation (discussion was already going on, no need for odd attempts to spark another one), it was tunnelling on Surprise_Carcinogen (for no obvious reason) and most of all, it was not just a provocative statement but an outright lie. She has been confusingly non-defensive since, taking a lynch quite easy. Anti-town behaviour is anti-town. Since I assume some higher level of expertise here compared to the newbie games I’ve had so far, I consider anti-town scum more likely than anti-town town, hence I find her scummy. And even if she may flip town, I wouldn’t be too unhappy with a lynch (and no, I don’t like policy lynches in general but one has to draw a line somewhere).
  
• Sad to see there have already been three players in the
  GroupThink/Mist7676/Prox
  slot during one Day. Interestingly, both the first two were not obvtown at all: GroupThink had his non-explained vote well after RVS, Mist7676 had her tunnelling on StefanB and the support for a self-vote. None of these two could give me some reasonable explanation so I still suspect the slot. I will however not vote Prox until I see some play from him.

I removed yabbaguy from this list because I tend to feel rather neutral about his actual game contents. While I really

really

dislike his town leader approach to this game, that’s an attitude thing and, more importantly, a null scumtell.
I also removed StefanB from the list because I feel a strong town vibe from his recent posts where he actively defends himself against any cases.

[Uncle Pain]

Hmm, an understandable intervention, Powerrox93. I’d like to continue this game though, I feel we’re in the middle of something and it’s been fun until now. Let’s just hope it won’t get worse with the flaking.

[Uncle Pain]

I’m angry, C-Worl. This was unnecessary! Quoted for the friggin truth:

C-Worl, why did you hammer? Jase clearly explained reasons that you shouldn't hammer. We have replacements catching up. We want to hear more of TO's thoughts. We have time. This isn't prolonging for the sake of prolonging, we have things we want to get done.

I really don’t know how to interpret this hammer as pro-town.

IGMEOY C-Worl

.

And in case I’m misunderstood: I stood behind the wagon, the lynch looked good. I grant C-Worl the wish and explain my case against [L] because I realize that my points are distributed over several posts:

• The “lay of the land” statement: a bold gambit that was quickly revealed as a lie for little purpose. The reason [L] tried this was to create discussion, which looked
  really
  unbelievable after yabbaguy and Jase already pulled of retroactively justified discussion sparking and got beaten for it subsequently. Even as town [L] should have realized that this was just stupid to do. Refer to #125/#127.
  
• “her weak cases against Surprise_Carcinogen and tarsonisocelot, for a general lack of suspicions and for ignoring the bandwagons on Jase and StefanB without giving reasons.”
  (#141).
  
• The scum↔town debate about her play: while I see how this can truly be meant as a reason for her play, I usually don’t buy such things and neither did I in this game. Putting aside that I don’t like using meta as a ground for reasoning, it’s also very convenient for scum, town should never have to use this as a means to properly defend. Not that most of her play wasn’t really helping town, she even admitted to not wanting to play townie. Playing pro-town is most basic thing I expect from any pro-town player. Refer to #194/#218/#221/#246.

I’m in V/LA now until Sunday evening.

[Uncle Pain]

VOTE: C-Worl. No comment necessary.

[Uncle Pain]

I’m sorry I haven’t had the time to do anything besides my usual working schedule. I will now read through Day 2 and write replies as I read your posts.

Do you think we should lynch C-Worl already, right now?

No, I want(ed) to apply pressure. I want a good explanation why he hammered despite the lack of necessity.

@Uncle Pain: I don't think your criticism of my playstyle is warranted. I make these extreme attitudes to prove points that idiotic points are being made, and I try to convey it as such. So no, sarcasm is not uncalled for and I will continue to act like a maniacal egotist until you lot get it right.

After some thinking, let me put it this way: I sincerely hope that you’re just experimenting here and that in reality you’re a nice guy.

Was the hammer bad? Yeah, I admit I probably should have waited. But, I thought he was scum and figured waiting would have made the wagon stall and fall apart. I take full responisibility that my decision was bad and hurt town a lot but mislynching me, very quickly, won't help town.

I don’t think a good, reasonable wagon falls apart. It would have been either [L] or tarsonisocelot, both lynches that most of us would have been happy with. Quicklynching you actually

can

help town – namely if you flip scum. But this is not “an eye for an eye”, I prefer checking out all possibilities before deciding.

tarsonisocelot

: So far you’ve FoSed C-Worl for his hammer and lack of suspicions. What are

your

suspects beside him? Your (current) reads aren’t too clear to me.

There was this post,

I don't understand this. Can you clarify please? What exactly did I take too far? And why do you suspect my slot?

Yabbaguy noted the issue with it:

"wababa what the crap accusation, wait that's not clear, excuse me while I put on good Townie face and ask politely as possible 'Just why exactly, good madam, have you decided to accuse me on an otherwise perfectly fine day? Could you be bothered to explain the inner meanings of your grievances about me?'"

Criminey. Scummy scum Mcscum.

I admit I still don’t understand what yabbaguy’s problem with redtail896’s simple questions was. This may be another yabbaguy attitude thing but he takes it further by calling redtail896 scum. Scum for stating a question that yabbaguy isn’t keen on answering to. In consequence, I don’t understand why Zdenek uses this to incriminate redtail896. The part with the prepared escape from the C-Worl wagon is far more substantial.

The argument between Jase and C-Worl is interesting. Jase focuses on him and looks thoroughly for every clue that points to scum; C-Worl calls Jase on the tunnelling and insists on being town that made a mistake on Day 1. I think Jase’s case is justified and I support squeezing out reactions from C-Worl. One thing I found interesting to read:

If you wish to gain more out of today why don't you target other players that are not me

since the wagon on me apparently isn't going anywhere.

(bold by me)
Note that a lot of us could easily put you to L-1. And to be honest, currently I wouldn’t mind if it weren’t for gaining more information during this Day. You’re not reading obvious scum to me but your hammer is just too large a stain on your slate.

Oh, and that case tarson-scum really wants me to state: Carcinogen's ISO is fluffing mostly, especially with stupid advice like this:

GroupThink, you need to explain yourself. A person doesn't make their first post on page three and make it a completely blank, wordless vote. That's just not groovy.

So you think GroupThink should have just gone along with his unexplained vote? By the way, I said something similar in #71, is it fluff as well?

I still don't know about ocelot. She needs to actually contribute something useful. I'm seesawing between her and redtail right now. That's where I'm at.

So your case against redtail896, which reads to me basically as gut feeling, is more convincing to you that the C-Worl wagon? Plus, why are you suddenly not so sure any more about tarsonisocelot-scum?

[Uncle Pain]

C-Worl

: You gave only one reason so far for your early hammer: you feared that

“waiting would have made the wagon stall and fall apart”

in #326. I hope you realize that this is a weak reason. If there really is nothing else, I think you can’t do anything beside accepting our scumdars pointing to you, possibly leading to a lynch.

[Uncle Pain]

C-Worl

: You’re not dead yet. The one hammering you too quickly will most likely follow your destiny.

tarsonisocelot

: Why do you find it possible that a self-hammer occurs? A sensibly playing townie should never do this. Scum could do this to shorten the day but by doing so it’d be one scum fewer, bringing us closer to our aim.
I’m eager to read your elaborate reads.

The problem with Redtail's post is exactly what Yabbaguy suggested it was:
he's complaining the he doesn't understand the post, asks for specifics about what he took to far, and for a case to be presented against him. It reads like scum trying to suck up to town while muddying the waters of why he might be suspicious.

I’d see your point if redtail896 had done this all the time – but it was only for one single statement from [L]. Why is it scummy to ask for clarification? Actually, I’m asking

you

for clarification right now, too, doesn’t this also count? Look… player A says something, player B replies that he doesn’t understand what A meant, player C calls OMGWTFscum on this. Seriously?!
Just to prevent misunderstanding: I’m not defending redtail896 here, I’m curious why you and yabbaguy use such a flimsy idea as a serious argument.

[Uncle Pain]

This prod was painful… I intended to get through this game without a single prod.

About my defending thing, let me rephrase it as “I didn’t intend to defend him”. Yes, I actually do defend him by criticising arguments against him. My motivation however was and is not to rid him of attacks/attackers but to check out the ones attacking him because of the reasons they gave. At last Zdenek gave me some usable answer to my question.
Of course you are free to believe in any connection between redtail896 and me and I find it important that you at least consider it; ignoring clues doesn’t help town. Still, I’d like to state that, to my current knowledge, I’m not affiliated with him.

So now the great question mark yabbaguy has left the game, too… I’m curious how bvoigt will do.

bvoigt

: What do you think about yabbaguy and his play? How can you explain that everyone else sees me town but you see me scummy? Why don’t you vote me or redtail896? Why do you think my ISO #16 is distancing from [L]’s town flip when in the same post I give my reasons why I still supported the lynch? How can you say that I (and no one else) set up a Day 2 lynch when I was neither the only one nor the first one to mention the scumminess of C-Worl’s hammer? Do you see the WIFOMness of your C-Worl-town argument? Also, aren’t you sheeping Jase’s suspicion case against redtail896 and me? And off-topic: does your nickname stem from some German surname?

RangeroftheNorth

: What do you think about your predecessors and their play? Who are your suspects and why? How do you see the Day 1 [L] wagon and C-Worl’s hammer? Do you think Jase and bvoigt have reasonable ground for suspecting redtail896 and me as a scum team? What do you think about the tarsonisocelot case?

imaginality

: I hope you do well despite your personal situation. I’d like you to stay in the game. We’ve had enough replacements…

[Uncle Pain]

Just noticed…

Mod: Votecounts 2.6 and 2.7 count only four votes on C-Worl although he had/has five. The players listed are correct.

Also, thank you for adding this rule.

[Uncle Pain]

Scumpoints for UnclePain.

Uncle Pain has started losing his town status. The various scummy interjections have hurt as noted in previous posts.

Scumpoints for UnclePain.

Agreed. I'm not sure exactly how to explain it, though.

Care to explain this to me? Why is it scummy to explain my thoughts or to step back from a statement I realized was wrong?

All said I'm content with a c-worl lynch, but I'm not content with the lack of competing wagons/information today. Since nobody else did much scum hunting outside of sheeping along with the C-worl wagon I guess the falls to me.

Actually, there are/were the wagon on tarsonisocelot and redtail896 – and you’re right, they haven’t been investigated as much as they should have been. I find myself guilty of this tunnelling as well.

As it seems, tarsonisocelot is viewed as a recovering townie by now after her lack of real participation on Day 1. As Me=Weird stated, her #386 was indeed a substantial post: she suspects C-Worl and redtail896 the most. While her case on C-Worl is pretty obvious, she doesn’t vote him so that Day 2 is prolonged. This is basically a town move and falls in line with Jase’s behaviour but to be honest it’s also easy for scum to pretend this so I say it’s a null tell.

Prox-slot: Null due to non-contribution. Slight town-lean because surely at least one of them would have been more interested if the slot was scum.

I don’t really like this one. She ignores the odd behaviour coming from that slot and implies that scum would have been more active → WIFOM. Well surprise, lurking is actually a good scum move, so I even tend to put the lurking issue on the scummier side. Unfortunately, RangeroftheNorth currently is no better. So I wonder what is so townie about this slot, tarsonisocelot?


The redtail896 case, as far as I see it, revolves around three things:

• the prepared vote switch from C-Worl to tarsonisocelot once it looks more promising (#319)
  
• the over-sensitive reaction to [L]’s question (#208)
  
• the alleged sheeping of popular votes in his first analysis post (#188)

I already stated my hesitance towards the second point. The first one indeed holds water, I’d like to hear from redtail896 some elaboration about it. I’m not sure about the third one, though; his post comes to me as genuine, especially because he voted tarsonisocelot to investigate her more instead of just going for the most scummy one. As scum, it would’ve been easier to do the latter.

Any notes from anyone on these cases?

[Uncle Pain]

tarsonisocelot

: I said it because, well, it’s just like that. I can’t and certainly won’t blame anyone for looking for scummy things about me. I wouldn’t hesitate to look for clues about others myself, so why should I attack anyone for doing this on me? This is what this game is about. When I wrote the first of these two sentences, I felt that it could be misunderstood as a confession about a link to redtail896 so I made the statement that I don’t know anything about him. The “to my current knowledge” part then occurred to me: if he flips town, I will know that we are (then were) in the same boat.
Actually, I found it a bit relieving to see that someone may finally have found something scummy about me because – since I don’t feel like an expert at this game¹ – a pure town read from all of you just puts me in a position of pressure where I feel I have to keep being the towniest of all. No one plays perfectly, everyone makes mistakes now and then and I’m no exception.

¹This doesn’t mean that I think I’m a VI. I just feel I still have a lot of experience to gain before calling myself a good player.

I remember others saying that the hammer was a bad move, but I don't remember anyone else actually calling C-Worl scummy for it.

Well, if you count actual votes as well, there are already eight people calling C-Worl scummy: the ones voting him, plus Jase, tarsonisocelot and imaginality (as stated in their posts).

[Uncle Pain]

What is scummy about having the same reads as yabbaguy?

It’s convenient to completely agree with the preceding slot player. It’s supposed to look consistent but in fact it looks opportunistic and can be seen as minimising the effort put into the reads. Hence the scumminess.

Oh, I should have clarified. You had the strongest reaction

before

[L] flipped. And yes, I know she implied she was town after the hammer, but scum will also do that. And it sounded like you were still supportive of the lynch.

I was believing [L] during twilight – I mean, why shouldn’t I? Yes, scum could have pretended to be town at that point as well but what would they have gained from it? The flip would have occurred soon anyway, scum couldn’t have change anything. Tricking the other players for hours in which nothing can be decided anyway is so insensible that I deem(ed) it unlikely.
By the way, in #312 I stated my opinion about C-Worl’s hammer, which had nothing to do with my vote on [L] – it was my intention to state that clearly. I then summarised my voting reasons because C-Worl asked me to. I think you read subtext in my post where there is none.

Something weird strikes me about zdenek and me=weird. I need to go back and reread to see their actions more clearly.

A weak attack against me and me=weird.

I agree for as long as he doesn’t provide us his case.

[Uncle Pain]

Huh, never heard of this kind of role. I don’t know if it’s allowed in a Normal Game but caution is never bad. Hence, thank you for pointing that out.

[Uncle Pain]

Well, this kind of makes my longish post obsolete.

C-Worl

: lol. I think you’re overestimating your power here. For what it’s worth, I’m eager to see how you flip.

[Uncle Pain]

I'm having a hard time buying that you actually believe this because you're basically accusing bvoigt of being obvious scum - giving reads that are lazy, and just an attempt at being consistent or opportunistic, but you don't attack him for it nearly strongly enough.

I wasn’t stating my own opinion, I rather tried to show to bvoigt why imaginality finds his reads scummy (i.e. I think I understood what imaginality wanted to say so I paraphrased/explained it). It wasn’t my intention to attack bvoigt for it because I find it a weak argument.

[Uncle Pain]

Jase = +10 scumpoints

Explanation please. This is far from obvious.

imaginality

: Well, it’s mostly obsolete, as I said. Some things still apply or may be interesting despite the obsolescence.

Man, the game seems to fall asleep… time for some questioning.

• Jase: Have you found anything pointing to a connection between redtail896 and me? What do you make out of it?
  
• tarsonisocelot: Since you currently don’t want to vote C-Worl, why don’t you pursue the wagon of your second suspect redtail896?
  
• C-Worl: Just noticed you never told us your suspicions, so what are your reads and why didn’t you come forward with them on your own?
  
• Me=Weird: see below.
  
• bvoigt: Do I understand you correctly that part of your case against me is that I hide my real motivations behind my wall posts? What if I wrote smaller posts with less content, would you then call me on active lurking?
  
• Zdenek: Do you have any suspects besides redtail896?
  
• imaginality: What is your actual case against bvoigt/yabbaguy? You only mentioned yabbaguy’s opening gambit which was quite pro-town in the eyes of most of us.
  
• RangeroftheNorth: see #399.
  
• redtail896: In reference to #319, now that you see tarsonisocelot in a more townie way, who would your lynch today
  “if we agree not to lynch C-Worl”
  ?
  
• crazypianist1116: Why did your scum hunt eagerness drop so hard since Day 2? Besides your case against C-Worl, do you suspect anyone at all?

I'm disliking C-worl even more with all the references to uncommon roles. It doesn't seem like something town would do.

Please elaborate. I don’t see any scumminess in this. He was just explaining bvoigt’s point to me.

@everybody expressing suspicion of C-worl not voting him: Is there any good reason you don't want to hammer?

Is there any good reason to hammer him right now, especially after Jase explicitly (and rightfully) asked not to overfocus on C-Worl?

For any alternate wagon, I would suggest RotN, the least contributing slot in the game.

I kind of agree with this but I favour lynching someone for a real case. Policy lynches are so-so.

RangeroftheNorth still hasn't picked up his prod

Adding to my list of don’ts: applying for a game as a replacement and just posting “Hello”.

[Uncle Pain]

To be honest, I’m quite fond of the idea to completely ignore and forget C-Worl’s WIFOM posts as soon as he flips scum. One can interpret it in a thousand ways, every one of which is more WIFOMly than the other.

[Uncle Pain]

But please unstuck your Shift key first. It’s an insult to my eyes.

[Uncle Pain]

A thought on the nightkill: bvoigt found C-Worl townie, C-Worl flips scum, bvoigt is killed. Where is the sense in that? bvoigt actually served scum by judging C-Worl as town. WIFOM situation: either bvoigt’s other reads were better and would have made problems for scum (if he had had the chance to pursue them more), or scum wants to make us think just that. Since bvoigt had redtail896 and me as his main suspects, I smell that the latter is the case. This is where Jase’s idea of a link between me and redtail896 could come handy. I myself did a quick skim over both our posts and didn’t find anything really besides my defence part (#366).

Apart from that, I’m at a loss right now. Regarding our past wagons, tarsonisocelot really doesn’t give me as scummy of a read as she used to, and redtail896 has been pretty townie in my eyes all along. imaginality has a valid point with his andrew94 re-read but I’ll have to look into that myself to draw any conclusions. And please let’s not fall for C-Worl’s WIFOM garbage.

Besides, I’ve been wondering what kind of setup we have. Now that two night passed by without anything special, I conclude there probably is neither a vigilante nor a serial killer in the game. If there’s a doc/jailkeeper, he’s had no luck so far. If there’s a cop/tracker/watcher, I wonder what results he has got so far (if he wasn’t roleblocked, that is). I’m not familiar with games of this size but I tend to believe that the mod will probably not have chosen a mountainous setup; 11 vanilla vs. 2 goons sounds too easy for town to me, 10 vanilla vs. 3 goons sounds too easy for scum to me, so I suspect we have 3 Mafia players and 10 townies with at least one having a power role.

[Uncle Pain]

So let’s take on imaginality’s theory of the left-out players. I’ll re-read andrew94 and C-Worl and the three left-out players to look for connections. Please beware of WIFOM and subjectiveness.

andrew94: not much to go on, unfortunately…

• ISO #0/#1 takes tarsonisocelot’s greeting post quite seriously. It’s very early for bussing a scum buddy and also quite obvious at that point, I can’t really believe it. → tarsonisocelot “cleared”.
  
• In ISO #4 he tries to question crazypianist1116’s reason for voting me. Looks like a small attempt to link me to him. → Uncle Pain “blackened”.
  
• ISO #5/#6 look too serious to be meant as a real attack, early Day 1? → Jase “cleared”.
  
• Didn’t react at all to yabbaguy’s reaction test. Since we now know yabbaguy was a townie, I suspect that andrew94 either chose not to comment on it or he failed to see the oddity it held. Either way, this points to andrew94 being not too experienced in scum play. If he had posted more, this could have been useful…

I’m a bit worried that I already found two more clues against myself. Since I know I’m town, I could then have assumed that imaginality tried to lure me on the wrong path – but the idea to re-read andrew94/C-Worl is obviously a good idea so I won’t blame him for that.

C-Worl:

• Grasps for any straw he can reach, accusing Jase and Me=Weird of scumminess for voting him. Apart from the OMGUS factor, I think this
  kind of
  gives these two a somewhat cleaner slate.
  
• Never ever mentions RangeroftheNorth/Prox/Mist7676/GroupThink. Zdenek also only gets an odd remark.
  
• Day 2 hasn’t much to go on, defensive posts and AtE all the way. There is a town read about yabbaguy but it’s useless now.

Regarding the three left-outs:

• Me=Weird: hardly mentions andrew94 at all, never actually addresses him. In his first post, andrew94 gets away quite townie. On a side note, Me=Weird has a small negative comment on me but still I’m the towniest player on his list (apart from himself) – is this an attempt to buddy me up? On the other hand, C-Worl is a major target of Me=Weird’s suspicions – maybe he realized that C-Worl was an inevitable wagon and began bussing?
  → null
  
  
• RangeroftheNorth/Prox/Mist7676/GroupThink: Mist7676 completely leaves out andrew94 from her reads and also never addresses him. Prox makes a lazy vote on tarsonisocelot and doesn’t post for the next six days, then Day 2 comes and he jumps on the C-Worl wagon while procrastinating his reads once more. RangeroftheNorth hasn’t even posted in nine days.
  → scum
  
  
• Zdenek: never mentions anything about andrew94. He finds C-Worl’s hammer hasty and not so scummy but when he was at L-1 he attacks C-Worl and calls his play anti-town – five minutes later C-Worl self-hammers. Possible resignation because even his (last?) scum buddy bussed him.
  → null-scum

(Note that the read conclusions only take into account what I’ve found in these isolation reads looking for connections to andrew94/C-Worl.)

So what do I do now? I’d really,

really, REALLY

like to read some content from RangeroftheNorth – or some replacement. Until then, I want to state my general suspicion against that slot with a

HoS: RangeroftheNorth

.

[Uncle Pain]

UP on the other hand talks about Red plenty. However pretty much all of it was non confrontational which could be relevant.

Well you said it yourself:

What's the case against red all about? I just read him and nothing jumped out at me.

I summarized what the wagon against redtail896 was about in #419 (imaginality added that Surprise_Carcinogen’s fluff posting was also a reason against the slot) and concluded that I find the wagon weak.

Speaking of redtail896, he hasn’t posted for almost eight days straight now. Granted that Night 2 was in between, still he could come out of his hole again…

[Uncle Pain]

Jase

: tarsonisocelot is right, you’re exaggerating. We already know what you want us to do, what’s the point then? Trying another reaction test? I don’t see how this helps us at hunting scum.

[Uncle Pain]

Hmm, I’ve been wondering… I know this is highly vague but ever since Powerrox93 decided to give RangeroftheNorth an extended deadline to participate, I had this tiny hunch he could have some important role in this game. Now with #483 my hunch becomes greater. Due to the nature of the posts that this slot has given us so far, I find it not far-fetched to assume that he could be an anti-town PR… maybe a serial killer that failed to kill anyone due to the inactivity of the players? It probably isn’t the scum goon sending the night kill choices, otherwise Night 2 probably would have had no kill. The way Powerrox93 worded it, it’s also possible that it’s a linked role. I don’t know, I’m just guessing… but since all our major questions are directed towards the player behind the slot, I think we could spend our “free” time thinking about things like these.

[Uncle Pain]

Welcome Setael! Finally some content from your slot, thank you. Still, I’d like to attack your points against me. Wall vs. wall, if you like.

Uncle Pain has avoided interaction with Zdenek

Actually, no. I have been content with his posts so far. He may not always have the same opinion as I do but he always gives some reasoning, and even with having different opinions and votes he never stood in the way of a lynch. I simply found that I had no obvious reason to ask him more than I did.

and based on his “scum hunting” regarding everyone else, if he were town, he’d have called Zden out for this.

I usually notice low activity but I don’t necessarily call it scummy. Hell, if I did that, your slot would be my target number 1. Oh wait, it is. And besides, Zdenek may have posted less than others but he did contribute to the discussions – why should I call him out on inactivity when there was none?

His play on the c-worl wagon was definitely bussing.

Sounds quite sure for someone not knowing my thoughts. Would all other votes against C-Worl have counted as bussing to you as well if your case had been against someone else? I’m sorry, this looks arbitrary and convenient.

Andrew post 60 could be scum with pain

OMG, now you’re really stretching it, aren’t you?

p125 Uncle Pain defends Andrew. “imaginality: A beautiful case you’ve built here. Can you point out where you found andrew94 particularly scummy?”

Heaven forbid I want to check the validity of someone’s case from time to time! In #366 I defended redtail896, am I scum for this too? Shouldn’t be redtail896 be my scum partner then? I’m confused how this can be used as an argument against me.

P7-8 uncle pain zdenek lurkingish, have they mentioned Andrew at all?

Watch me closely and you’ll see that I’m usually off Mafia Scum on weekends. And exactly this was the case on page 7/8, too (two large birthday parties with lots to prepare for).
Regarding andrew94, I admit he managed to fly under my radar. I asked him some questions and he replied to them but he never gave me an odd feeling while he was in the game. Others suspected him more, maybe I should in turn have looked at him more.

P304 redtail townish when he calls out hammer
Uncle pain 321 c-worl vote is almost definitely bussing

This is what I meant above: I look like a bussing scum to you but others

using the same argumentation

are townish.

Zdenek post 330 tries to derail cworl wagon and start one on redtail. Then in 360 he’s agreeing with uncle pain that Redtail is scummy for supposedly preparing an escape from the c-worl wagon.

Let me summarize: Zdenek and me look scummy to you when we don’t talk to each other. But we look scummy to you as well when we do talk to each other.
Question: do you actually consider at all that Zdenek and me may not be scum buddies? If yes, congratulations, you managed to think straight and unbiased. If no, well, congratulations as well, you just went up in my scummy-meter for stubbornness on a weak case.

The interaction between zdenek and uncle pain while c-worl was about to be lynched is fishy. It’s like Uncle Pain was seeing that the townies were letting zdenek fly under the radar, so he made sure to ask him lots of questions, just not about c-worl.

This makes no sense to me. Why would I want to bus my partner when he’s in no peril at all? Preventive bussing? Seriously?!

Bvoigt was NK'd for uncle pain suspicion in posts 393 and 432.

Now this at least makes

some

sense. On the other hand, it’s easy to see through such a manoeuvre and is likely to be picked up by town on the next day. Also, I have reservations towards WIFOM in cases.

P399 Uncle Pain says: "bvoigt: How can you explain that everyone else sees me town but you see me scummy?" Sounds like something scum would say - upset they're losing their free pass.

Or maybe it sounds like a townie who is wondering why someone has a completely different opinion than most of the others. This was a simple question, not intimidation.

#422 combined with 398 is weird. Either he thinks it’s odd that bvoigt suspects him when no one does, or he’s relieved by it. The 2 posts don’t work together for me.

bvoigt had a different opinion about my alignment than most of the others, of course I found this interesting and so I wanted to know more about it. On the other hand, it kind of relieved me of said pressure as I’m used to not playing perfect town and thus getting less town reputation than in this game. I don’t see how these two aspects contradict each other. I think you especially read too much into the relieve.

@Uncle Pain - any reason not to post your longish post anyhow, if you still have it?

And then post 444 UP posts it...and it’s questions for most the players. Why not post it when he supposedly wrote it? And if he decided not to post it then, why save it for later when the questions would be totally obsolete? Makes no sense.

I wrote the post because I wanted to squeeze more information out of Day 2. With the lynch occurring in the meantime, many of the questions as well as the intention itself became obsolete (Day 2 was now practically over). If no one had asked for it, I wouldn’t have posted it because of said obsolescence. But imaginality asked for it and so I posted it nonetheless. There was no reason to hide it, why shouldn’t I grant imaginality’s wish then? What exactly is hard to understand about this?

457 Uncle Pain brings up bvoigt NK wifom before anyone else can. He clearly NK’d the person who was suspicious of him and planned to wifom the town.

I’m sorry that I seem to have missed that part of “Playing Mafia Scum 101”. I wonder what is scummy about being first to notice something, to make a statement or something like that? I know that thinking about the motives of a night kill always incorporates WIFOM but I tend to think that it can be useful nonetheless. I mean, I even explicitly warn everyone about the WIFOMness. I assume that any sensible player will take such content with a grain of salt.
On the other hand, I found it amusing to read your conclusion. “to WIFOM the town” is definitely something I will note down somewhere.

At this point, Uncle Pain not being suspicious of Zdenek after he totally avoided commenting on c-worl makes it pretty obv they’re buddies.

Well, if you gave me some pointers to Zdenek’s statements that you find suspicious, I’d be grateful. From my side, he looks fairly townie.

Why would you assume scum PR instead of town PR? This is just thinly veiled role fishing combined with an attempt to cast suspicion on my slot with crap mod-outguess reasoning.

As I said in exactly that post:

Due to the nature of the posts that this slot has given us so far

, I find it not far-fetched to assume that he could be an anti-town PR…

(bold by me)
Or do you actually think that GroupThink, Mist7676, Prox and RangeroftheNorth actually have been very pro-town? If so, please explain why. If not, what is your problem with me assuming an anti-town player behind your slot?
Beside the not-so-obvious connection between thinking aloud about power roles and fishing for roles, what is the problem with fishing for anti-town power roles? I’d love to lynch those first.
Regarding the mod outguessing, I actually found crazypianist1116’s reply most helpful, I realize that it’s probably leading to nowhere.

Well, Setael, what can I say… I could just vote you to L-1 and be happy with that. While your predecessors weren’t very pro-town, your tunnelling on Zdenek and me as a scum pair strikes me as scummy as well. I certainly have nothing against looking for clues and connections and building cases but you take it much too far, it’s especially the stubborn focus on Zdenek and me that bothers me. Still, I’d like you to comment on the other players and give us reads.

[Uncle Pain]

Setael/UnclePain: Could you please attempt to be concise. I'm really not looking forward to reading through those walls.

I don’t want to restrain myself when I have something to say. I know walls can be bothersome but please understand that Setael is a Day 3 replacement and thus I kind of expect her to be more verbose in the first posts because she has to catch up to the game as well as we have to get to know her play.
Also, it’s not so bad actually; the replies contain a lot of quotes that just fill up space.

[Uncle Pain]

Setael

: The more I think about your case, the more I actually like it. It reads plausible at first and if I were you, the things you pointed out would bother me as well. But there are some problems that I don’t accept and I won’t give up just because you found coincidences and bad play.

You are avoiding the crux of the issue which is that the nature of your interactions make you likely buddies. See my response to Zdenek.

I’m not avoiding it, I just don’t know what to say. You have your opinion and I have mine, neither of us can prove anything to the other.

You kill your own argument here. You've targeted my slot as scummy for low activity, but were giving Zdenek a pass. See the problem? And it's not just low activity, it's letting him get away with minimal content and avoiding topics he should've been commenting on.

There’s a difference between low activity as in active lurking and low activity as in posting less without loss in quality. My argument was that

“Zdenek may have posted less than others but he did contribute to the discussions”

, your predecessors on the other hand were worse than that because they almost didn’t contribute anything and even got away with that.

Nope. Yours definitely looked the most like bussing. I kept notes of everything I found scummy or townie, and then only posted what was relevant once I had read the entire thread and gauged my reads. You're trying to paint me as having decided who I thought was scum before reading the thread, and that is not the case.

Exactly this is my impression and you even gave the reason for it yourself: you made notes of everything scummy but decided to post just this one case. This is detrimental for town because it makes judging you and your motives harder for us. And, as I said, it looks convenient.

He's clearly coming to your defense there, but trying to be subtle about it. How is this a stretch?

Already before with the redtail896 thing I really didn’t understand the fuss about defending someone. While you prefer to call it a defence, to me it looks by far more like digging deeper. Stating questions about possible contradictions is pro-town, regardless of andrew94’s alignment.

It's never the exact same. Timing, place on the wagon, their play up to that point and afterward... all kinds of factors which makes yours look like bussing and redtail's look townish.

This looks so plainly arbitrary, I wonder if that even was a defence for redtail896/chkflip?

You're like a bad defense attorney. It's definitely scummy when you avoid each other almost entirely, and even more scummy when you pointedly ask him questions which have nothing to do with the obvscum at L-1. I anticipate reading the scum qt N1 and seeing one of you or Zdenek say "We've been avoiding each other too much. Let's be sure to interact more D2." Then Zdenek said, "OK, you bus the crap out of Mr. Obvscum Quickhammer and I'll make cases elsewhere to see if anything sticks."

I had to smile when I read that because it’s actually not hard to imagine. I fear I must disappoint you, you won’t see any QuickTopic with me in it, not for this game. But your point here lead me to an interesting thought. I skimmed Day 2 to check it and it looks true: I am guilty for not having asked Zdenek more – and so are

all the others

. bvoigt was the first and only one asking Zdenek specifically for his read on C-Worl, guess what, he got nightkilled. In this light, the NK actually makes sense, scum saw a well-performing townie in him, in contrast to us mediocre ones.
My point is: you’re picking me specifically to make your case although others have done the same and should be as scummy for it as I am.

at this point, no, I'm not even considering that you and Zdenek might not be scum buddies. I tend to doubt my reads too easily and I'm done with that. If one of you flip town and I realize I'm wrong, I would still think the other is scum since I do find you scummy independently of the connections between you.

Now things become interesting… First, how very convenient to pick this game situation to be done with doubting your reads. Second, your case revolves primarily around connections between Zdenek and me. If these fall apart, your case is gone. If you actually have arguments against me in special, show me. Otherwise I call you out on throwing dirt at me with nothing to back it up.
By the way, why tell Powerrox93 that you were after an Uncle Pain/Jase scum team? What does he have to do with this?

Have you really not heard of distancing? How many games have you played?

If you’re interested in meta, read my wiki page. Of course I know distancing but attacking the partner out of the blue would seem too risky to me if I were scum, especially when town would otherwise focus on a townie wagon. This is getting a subjective matter, though, a question of play style and the like.

Well, clearly that's a risk you were willing to take. You know Bvoigt would go after you today, and you couldn't have that, especially with the rest of the town thinking you smell of roses. You knew you could NK him and WIFOM would keep the town from being too suspicious about it.

I say scum wants town to make us think that.

That makes no sense. A townie isn't preoccupied with being considered a perfect townie and feeling pressure to keep a pristine town reputation. They're concerned with finding scum and just keeping enough suspicion off to not get mislynched.

Full ack for the last sentence. And now think about it: when everyone thinks I’m super-townie, doesn’t this put me in a strange WIFOMly light? Of course this builds up some kind of pressure! I don’t want to be mislynched because as much as I want to win for town, I also play for my personal fun and being lynched or killed somewhat puts a halt to this. Or so I imagine; I have so far actually never been lynched, I guess this kind of fuels the fire for surviving. Man, this is getting psychological now.

But if you wrote the post to try to squeeze more info out of d2, why wouldn't you still post it? You surely thought c-worl would inevitably be hammered when you wrote it, yes? So nothing should change as far as your motivations for posting it just because c-worl hammered himself. And it is inaccurate to say it was all obsolete because of the hammer. That post contained several statements/attacks on players that were not c-worl, and all of the bolded were not affected by the hammer:

No, I never call a Day done, I write my posts with the belief that the Day’s outcome is open. C-Worl’s lynch could have been averted by another strong wagon, the chances were slight but I don’t write off someone only because he’s at L-1.
It’s embarrassing for me but I admit I haven’t re-read that post since I archived it in my text file. When imaginality asked for it, I just C&P’ed it without looking at it, I have already written it off as obsolete because the situation was totally different then. Thank you for pointing out the specific questions that are still valid, I will pursue them.

If a player with a pro-town rep pointed this out before you did, it could have gone very badly for you. You were obviously aware of this, and so posted it first. Savvy?

Erm. Well, thank you for thinking that I’m savvy. I’m probably not.
Very badly for me, you say, well, why has no one picked it up at all? I incriminated myself, thus making it even easier for others to follow the reasoning. An argument doesn’t become weaker because of the person who speaks it out.

If you were a townie, you would be bothered by his avoidance of the c-worl wagon.

Ok, you’re unable to point out actual posts where Zdenek looks scummy, so the only clue you have here is that he avoided the C-Worl wagon. Well, as I stated above: you blame

me

for not calling him out on this when in fact everyone else (except bvoigt) is guilty for this as well. I want a good reason why no one else looks scummy for this. Otherwise I consider it just another arbitrary choice to make your case work.

Most players are aware that town PRs have a tendency to lay low. The only argument you have against my slot is that all those who've played in it have been fairly inactive. The jump to assume scum PR instead of town PR with the mod outguess reasoning you provided only makes sense if you're trying to paint my slot as scummy.

It’s the other way round: your slot pinged my scumdar and

then

I searched for scummy clues about you. What you call painting your slot scummy is in fact backing up my feeling with some evidence. I have by now understood that outguessing is a bad idea and I retracted it. Can we get over with this now?

Thinking aloud about power roles (if that's what you call what you did) is not much different from role fishing. And I'll answer your question with a question which I believe answers your question. Why would you fish for anti-town power roles when you can just scum hunt?

You’re misrepping me, I did not say I was fishing for power roles, you said that. I was merely stating my thoughts.
Besides, what’s the difference, hunting scum in general versus hunting scum power roles? It’s both hunting scum, only that the latter ones are a bit more important and should be priority lynches.

You wouldn't put me at L-1 because you would look hella scummy if you did.

Oh, are you afraid of my vote? I have no fear of looking scummy when I’m sure I do the right thing for town.

I kept notes of everything I found scummy or townie, and then only posted what was relevant once I had read the entire thread and gauged my reads.
[…]

Still, I’d like you to comment on the other players and give us reads.

I trust you will agree that I've done this in the course of answering you.

What a cheap getaway. Your reads, please. Now.

[Uncle Pain]

I’m sorry I missed your question:

What do you think of Zdenek having a town read on you based on your activity level? (I should mention that the last 2 games he and I have been in together, the scum were arguably the most active players.)

I consider activity a null tell. Scum do have more motivation to lurk than townies but we all know WIFOM and I’ve already met scum that were among the most active players. To clear someone with this reason alone is odd at best. As you (most verbosely) have pointed out, my play wasn’t all good so Zdenek should at least have

some

suspicion towards me. I don’t know why he hasn’t commented on this yet.

So, to spell it out for you, I currently have a town read on everyone except you and Zdenek. Because of suspicion I had earlyish game, if I were to be wrong about one of you I would look again at Jase, me=weird and TO. Pretty sure at this point that they're all town though and I'll never have to do that.

I’m sorry that your previous summary wasn’t enough for me. As I said, I think you’re overfocusing on Zdenek and me and hence I want to know what you think about the others – not just town/scum but also why you think that.
Do I get you right here:

• Jase: null (second in line in case Zdenek/me flips town)
  
• Uncle Pain: scum (reasons given in #497 and #514)
  
• tarsonisocelot: null (second in line in case Zdenek/me flips town)
  
• Me=Weird: null (second in line in case Zdenek/me flips town)
  
• Zdenek: scum (reasons given in #497)
  
• imaginality: town (no reason given)
  
• Setael: town (no reason given)
  
• chkflip:town (no reason given)
  
• crazypianist1116: town (no reason given)

I’d like you to fill out the gaps in this list. You don’t have to be as verbose, just give pointers and reasons.

What specifically that I pointed out do you consider "bad play"? And what exactly do you mean by bad play?

From my point of view so far, bad play has been:

• minor: random voting without realizing the RVS was already ending/ended
  
• major: overfocusing on the active players and ignoring the others
  
• so-so: creating confusion about defending redtail896
  
• major: not posting my Day 2 questions immediately despite their legitimacy

As you can see, by bad play I mean actions or situations that I handled badly.

I find that if I post all my notes going through the whole game, people I no longer suspect get distracted defending against those things and the scum use those things to distract. I would much rather focus on who I think is scum, which is what I'm doing.

It’s okay to focus, I just wanted to make sure we know what you’re thinking about everyone of us. We need a read on you as well, after all.

No one else asked Zdenek questions about the other cases he made while c-worl was at L-1 while completely avoiding asking him about c-worl. So, no, you can't compare yourself to the others and say I should also see them as scummy.

I really don’t get your logic. No one asks Zdenek for his read on C-Worl, we’re all guilty for that, yet no one is scummy to you for that. Then I do ask him a few other things (which isn’t scummy by itself) and suddenly I look scummy. I really don’t get it. Read: I do something townish and become scummy to you. I may have failed to see the wide hole (C-Worl) but I still had a good intention in asking him things and we even got useful responses. You call me scummy because of your theory that I tried to distract town but assuming such a thing implies that you had me in mind as scum beforehand. Therefore the distraction theory is based on your assumption that I am scum. You see where this leads? Circular logic. I’m scum to you because you like to think I’m scum.

The last game I replaced into the scum team was a bit more obvious than here so it was easier to not doubt my reads. It worked splendidly and we won. Before that though, I found scum and then let myself get talked out of it in 3 games in a row. All 3 led to a loss. So yeah, I'm sticking with the 'not doubting my reads' approach, as it has been proven to work.

1. Correlation does not imply causation. 2. Statistical significance needs a certain minimum of samples to be sufficiently sure. I highly doubt four games are enough for this. But this is a meta-discussion, let’s postpone this.

Some of the things related to Zdenek still give you scum points even if he's town.

I’ll do a summary of your points against me in my next post (for the tl;dr people), including my takes on them.

You are not lynched because you are extremely active and post lots of content and people mistakenly take it for a town tell.

Your

theory. I have my own: people here actually have another view on my play than you do.

In all these games where you've never been lynched, were you scum in any of them? I'm guessing your play as scum was very similar to here, but that it's also similar to your play as town. So since you know people read your scum play as town and you know you should not be considered town just because you're very active, if you are town you should have a problem with players clearing you as town for your activity level.

You’re relying on meta gaming, a topic I honestly don’t give a damn about. If someone wants to meta me, they can go ahead, I myself don’t feel any obligation to create any behavioural rules to restrict my town and scum play. For what it’s worth, I have been scum only once and I think my scum play was noticeably different from my town play. Generally I agree with you that activity doesn’t imply townieness; I’ve had my share of experience in this regard already in Newbie 674.

If you are scum, I'd expect you to just go with it and be glad you're not being suspected, which is what you're doing.

Well, then please give me time to finally take a closer look at Zdenek (despite the anticipation that you will twist the words in my mouth and call it bussing so it fits in your case).

[Uncle Pain]

Now about Setael’s reasons to find me scummy independently of connections:

• I seem to have no problem with Zdenek having a town read on me for activity and not saying much else about me.
  → This is not true. I didn’t notice it at first but I’m about to confront him with this.
  
• It's scummy that I asked Zdenek about the alternate wagons he was trying to create while c-worl was at L-1. I should have been suspicious of him ignoring C-Worl.
  → Yes, I should have been, just as everyone else. I see no me-specific scumminess in this, as explained in my previous post.
  
• I defended andrew94 against imaginality’s case in #125.
  → You call it defence, I call it questioning the case to understand the casemaker’s motives better.
  
• My Day 2 vote on C-Worl in #321 is almost definitely bussing.
  → This is based on the assumption that I’m scum in the first place, which is not true. Hence this is not an argument.
  
• bvoigt was nightkilled for his suspicions against me in #393 and #432.
  → Sounds plausible if you assume me scum. If you don’t, you can call it WIFOM as well. Null tell.
  
• My question in #399 to bvoigt (how he explains that he sees me scummy but no one else) sounds like something scum would say, upset they’re losing their free pass.
  → I question people for their scum cases, I question people for the town cases. And I don’t discriminate if it’s about me or anyone else. I asked bvoigt this to make him state the differences between his view and the opinions of others in order to make both sides rethink their position, keeping discussion up and understanding bvoigt better. Pro-town, if you ask me.
  
• #399 and #422 combined look weird: I can either think it’s odd that bvoigt suspects me when no one does, or be relieved by it, no both at the same time.
  → I need more explanation on why this is contradictory. I explained it myself and see no contradiction in it. And I especially see no scumminess in this.
  
• C-Worl’s WIFOM in #437 (
  “Hammered myself to keep suspicion of Uncle Pain from building up."
  ) makes sense.
  → You seriously pick up C-Worl’s WIFOM crap? Sounds like you’re desperately looking for clues to incriminate me. Because your case’s small world doesn’t allow me being town.
  
• I delayed posting my Day 2 questions – why not post it when I supposedly wrote them? And if I decided not to post it then, why save it for later when the questions would be totally obsolete?
  → I wrote the post off when I saw that Day 2 was over. I know now I was wrong with that. I didn’t save it for later on purpose, I just happened to have it still saved in my Mafia Scum notes. Call it stupidity, bad play, whatever, but what exactly is scummy about that?
  
• I brought up WIFOM thoughts about the bvoigt nightkill in #457 before anyone else could, hence I clearly nightkilled bvoigt and confuse town by bringing up WIFOM.
  → This argument itself is pure WIFOM. Should I have waited with posting this, would that have made another impression? If yes, this would be contradictory to the previous point where I’m criticised for procrastinating my questions. If no, is this an attempt to muzzle me? I think what I think and I speak it out. Also, there is nothing “clear” here. Scum made a clever choice by killing bvoigt so that I’m the one who’s blamed – just what they want.
  
• In my train of thought in #485 I assumed a scum power role instead of a town power role, which looks like role fishing combined with an attempt to cast suspicion on Setael‘s slot with mod-outguess reasoning.
  → I was theorising, not fishing. Hell, I don’t even know how to fish without being hyperobvious. And even if you call me on role fishing, I don’t get what is wrong about fishing for anti-town power roles (if this works at all). Furthermore, I didn’t have to cast suspicion because my suspicion was already there and an anti-town power role fitted in my image of your slot.

[Uncle Pain]

Does not ring true. Andrew never did anything that made you go "Well that's weird"? Ever? You're gonna have to explain this to me.

Well, I went through his posts in isolation and stumbled upon these:

• We rarely had the same suspects: when I was voting Jase, he found him townie and voted [L]; I joined the wagon only very late. During Day 2, Zdenek was after redtail896 while I was after C-Worl. If you like to count that as an “that’s weird”, well here it is.
  
• Zdenek’s comment in #253 arguing that redtail896’s question “reads as over defensive” (which follows yabbaguy’s train of thought in #212). I asked both of them why they see this scummy (#218 @ yabbaguy, #356 @ Zdenek); Zdenek at least admits that the argument is weaker than redtail896’s escape preparation from the C-Worl wagon.

These things are merely eyebrow raisers, nothing I’d call scummy. Overall, Zdenek’s views on things often were quite refreshing to see because he considered things that I (and others, too) did not. I find this very pro-town.

The only thing that strikes me odd is why he thinks I’m town only for my activity. This is the only real stain on his slate in my eyes.

[Uncle Pain]

And finally I retry my questions:

• Jase: Have you found anything pointing to a connection between redtail896/chkflip and me? What do you make out of it?
  
• Zdenek:
  (question changed due to new situation)
  Who are your current suspects apart from redtail896? How has Setael’s case influenced your reads?
  
• Setael: What do you think about your predecessors and their play? How do you see the Day 1 [L] wagon and C-Worl’s hammer? Do you think Jase and bvoigt have/had reasonable ground for suspecting redtail896 and me as a scum team? What do you think about the tarsonisocelot case?
  
• crazypianist1116: Why did your scum hunt eagerness drop so hard since Day 2? Now that C-Worl is gone, do you suspect anyone at all?

Enough from me for today.

[Uncle Pain]

My god, I need a break or something. I miss questions, I misread questions, I even miss whole posts.

I generally agree with Setael that the current lack of game activity is hurting this discussion. We have a serious case at hand and no one of the wranglers seems to move away from her/his opinion. We need input from the rest of you as well! chkflip especially.

Jase

: I’m sorry, I read “Andrew” instead of “Zdenek” somehow and hence stated my thoughts about Zdenek in #524. *sigh* Let’s do it again with andrew94…

• I always had some null feeling about andrew94. He wasn’t very active and didn’t post more that he had to; this alone was a null tell for me, though, as I’ve seen townies playing like this as well. I think I lost sight of andrew94 at some point due to the fact that he answered my questions (which satisfied me, even if the responses were brief) combined with his general inactivity (which I accounted to flaking instead of lurking). In retrospect, I should have know better by isolation-reading him, this would quickly have shown that he actually rarely acted, mostly reacted. His StefanB vote in #114 kind of is the only original content from him, I actually see how this reasoning managed to hold some water. Overall, I only see now that he in fact avoided to hunt scum; before C-Worl took his place, I wasn’t aware of any scumminess of his slot.

I’m also sorry for having failed to remember that you’ve already responded to my questions long ago. It wasn’t meant to offend you or something, I think I just lost some overview yesterday. I’m happy with your reply, by the way.

tarsonisocelot

: I basically repeated my old questions; the one directed at you is now obsolete and I didn’t take the time to think of new questions yesterday. On the other hand, why do you need a question at all? Isn’t there anything to comment on Setael’s case? Or let’s try something that doesn’t require you to read the walls:

You also stopped the weirdness that was the main reason behind my vote.

So you’re currently voting Jase for what exactly?

[Uncle Pain]

Uncle Pain

expressed suspicion of Setael and Zdenek, in that order, and a townread on chkflip.

Small correction: I’m currently reading Zdenek as null-town. You probably took my scummy view from #458 but the reads there only refer to my take on your theory, and as such only play one part of the grand picture (this is why I wrote there below:

“Note that the read conclusions only take into account what I’ve found in these isolation reads looking for connections to andrew94/C-Worl.”

). My general take on Zdenek can be read in #524.

Zdenek? I think you need to reread his play yesterday.

While I agree that Zdenek indeed pursued the redtail896 wagon, no one else really did.

[Uncle Pain]

Back from V/LA. Unfortunately, today was and still is too busy to really get back into game, so here are some quick thoughts as I read the new posts…

Skimmed the walls. Lynch preference of those most involved (level of scumminess): Zdenek>Setael>Uncle Pain (whose acronym I keep misreading as undead penguin).

Care to explain your reads a bit? Why you have Zdenek as null, why crazypianist1116/Pine tops him,…

Can anyone fill me in on what's happened so far?

Nothing against this approach to get into the game quickly but I do hope that you make your own image of the game by reading it yourself.

The town read on UP is not just because of activity, it is because of the nature of his activity

I’m sorry but this answer still doesn’t satisfy me.

You play by accusing people who seem to have flaked of avoiding the game? And it wasn't scummy enough for me to change my vote, it just seemed kinda weird to promise content and then take a really easy route that didn't do much. I haven't seen you interact much with anyone. Seriously considering voting you now.

Some OMGUS going around here. Chill, guys.

Unvote

. I need to ISO TO.

Erm, you’re backing away from your case? What makes you so unsure about it suddenly? I thought you were convinced of my scumminess, taken by itself as well as connected to Zdenek?

Enough for today, gotta go.

[Uncle Pain]

This is just weird. Are you seriously trying to make me look suspicious for NOT tunneling? What do YOU think of TO's statement that she finds both you and Zdenek town (him less so but meh) but if Zdenek flipped scum you'd be guaranteed scum? I have a huge problem with it, especially considering she hasn't said what if anything she agrees with as far a connections between you 2. I'm surprised you don't have a problem with it as well IF you're not scum with zdenek.

No, I’m not blaming you for anything, I just want to know why you suddenly backed off the case although you haven’t taken anything back. Considering that you were very convinced of the case, it looks sensible to conclude that your suspicions against tarsonisocelot must be quite strong, otherwise they wouldn’t supersede the case against me. I haven’t said

anything

about tarsonisocelot, please don’t lay words in my mouth, my point was only about you.

I don't think much of the spamwalls. They really don't help the game at all, and I really want UP and setael to consolidate their stuff into a few main points.

I wrote #523 explicitly for you tl;dr folks. Otherwise, I concur with Setael:

“This town is so lazy.”

I have had a townread on UP for a while, The slot that Setael filled was null but Setael has been townie. Zdenek has been a null read and remains one by himself.
Add the contents of Setaels's posts and Zdenek looks like they may be scum. If we lynch Zdenek and they flip scum, then UP scum is likely. Until then they are the towniest of those three players.

Zdenek alone is a null read. If they turn out to be scum that will change my UP read from town to scum. My read on UP has not changed.

I don’t get this. You’ve seen me as a townie all the time. Now you look for connections and find a good scum team: Setael and Zdenek. It would then be sensible to lynch Zdenek BUT should he flip scum (as you expect) suddenly

I

am likely scum. WTF? I even still don’t get it with your recent post:

I never said guaranteed. I never said Zdenek was town, I said null. From skimming the walls I got the feeling they were being a little defensive of one another. That could be a sign of thinking the other is town, of thinking that you, Setael, are scum or of being scumbuddies. A flip would eliminate at least one of those possibilities.

Zdenek and me were defensive for a good reason, Setael came here and threw a dirty case at us. On the other hand, I don’t see where Zdenek and me were

“a little defensive of one another”

, we defended ourselves and not each other. Hence, I think your three conclusions don’t apply here.

• Pine
  : Have you drawn any conclusions so far? Do you still suspect Jase and tarsonisocelot most (with reasons, please)? What do you think of the allegations against your predecessor crazypianist1116?
  
• mastin2
  : What do you think about Setael’s case against Zdenek and me? What are your general reads on everyone? Is your case/vote against tarsonisocelot based on the first five pages?
  
• tarsonisocelot
  : Isn’t there anything to comment on Setael’s case?
  
• Me=Weird
  : Why do you suspect Setael and Pine most? Setael because of her walls? Pine because of… what exactly? Your last statement about crazypianist1116 was on Day 2 in #429 where you read him as null-scum.

Don’t worry, I’ll state questions to the others as well, soon.

[Uncle Pain]

Seriously, read my posts. I'm not going to answer this question again. I initially suspected RotN for completely non-contributing, plus (lack of) interactions from C-worl, and setael hasn't changed that. The huge wall post cases are easy to fake as scum, as I've seen happen multiple times.
About pine, I don't? Maybe you're thinking of chk, now mastin, who I somewhat suspected because of trying to lynch lurkers and not really interacting with anyone.

Erm, please read your own ISO. I

did

mean Pine’s slot (Pine is crazypianist1116’s successor) and I was referring to your statement in #554 (which isn’t that long ago) where you mention crazypianist1116 as one of your main suspects. You never gave a reason for this, the only clue I’ve got was said #429 where you state a null-scum read on him because of a lack of commitment – but this was back on Day 2. Now that Pine has taken over, I’d like you to restate your thoughts about that slot.
Regarding Setael, I think you could have worded it better to avoid misunderstanding – my take on it was the same as Jase’s. What you can’t deny is that you said Setael didn’t contribute, just as her predecessors, which is totally wrong because she did contribute a lot – regardless of what you think about walls. You yourself state that her activity and her walls should be considered a null tell because scum could also fake it. So as far as I see, you have no valid scum tell on her, hence your suspicions against the slot can only be based on the play of her predecessors?

Me=Weird is town.

TO is scum. Probably with Zdenek.

Could you at least explain how you come to each of these conclusions? Especially the first one.

[Uncle Pain]

As for my questions to the rest of you…

• Jase
  : Do you think Setael’s slot is town? How come you have so far seldom mentioned your thoughts about crazypianist1116/Pine?
  
• Zdenek
  :
  (as a direct follow-up to #605)
  What was/is the nature of my activity that makes you think I’m town?
  
• imaginality
  : Don’t you think that Me=Weird’s contradictions/backpedaling pointed out by Jase hold some water?
  
• Setael
  : see #620.

[Uncle Pain]

Could we please stop the metagaming talk? It doesn’t get us any further for our current game. mastin2, please use your energy and time to make a case here instead of getting verbose about your past games.

I started my read-through this evening, will finish tomorrow. Hopefully in the morning, afternoon at worst.

This was three days ago. Well?

[Uncle Pain]

Pine

: I didn’t mean to offend you, it’s just that deadline comes closer once again and you haven’t said anything substantial yet.

Due to my upcoming V/LA I will do a summary of my current thoughts tomorrow and possibly cast a vote as well, just in case that my trip has complications and I’m late for the deadline.

[Uncle Pain]

As promised, here are my current reads:

• Jase
  : the more I look at his play, the more confident I am of his town alignment. Actively pursues clues, questions people, calls out lurkers. He may push a bit too far sometimes but I see genuine aggressive town intent behind it.
  Town.
  
  
• tarsonisocelot
  : ambivalent feeling about her. Her level of activity/contribution/commitment reads like a bell curve to me: first her bad start, then the recovery phase where she posted a lot, now decreasing again. I dislike her vote hopping from this Day, she seems unmotivated to build a real case to back up the votes. I also remember her IioA approach from Day 1 which looks like coming from either a lazy townie or from a calculating scum.
  Null-scum.
  
  
• Me=Weird
  : a bit lurky in my eyes, my impression is that he isn’t good at making cases and thus likes to sheep others’. I fail to see real scum intent behind that though, his posts suggest he’s looking at many options at a time (not only the obvious wagons) and tries to get reads on people to have some confidence in his votes.
  Null-town.
  
  
• Zdenek
  : Setael’s case revealed some interesting oddities in his play which he couldn’t clean himself from. Apart from that, his play has been contributive in a pro-town way and he hasn’t made any major slips.
  Null-town.
  
  
• imaginality
  : seems to care about the game, his analyses and cases have been a good thing for town and his conclusions are generally reasonable. At some points I had this “too townie to be townie” feeling about him but it’s WIFOM and I can’t back it up.
  Town.
  
  
• Setael (RangeroftheNorth, Prox, Mist7676, GroupThink)
  : the little amount and the kind of contribution from the four predecessors keep ringing in my head. Setael on the other hand made up for this with her walls; her former security in her case against Zdenek and me looked like scum pushing hard for mislynches but her current diffidence feels more like a townie rethinking the situation instead of scum looking for easier cases. I find it hard to judge this slot due to the massive difference in play style between Setael and the other four.
  Null-scum.
  
  
• mastin2 (chkflip, redtail896, Surprise_Carcinogen)
  : Surprise_Carcinogen never struck me as anti-town, redtail896 didn’t do much to disturb that feeling although there were some interesting points that could be seen as slips. But mastin2 doesn’t really convince me so far, his posts scream active lurking and voting before having read the thread is way off the pro-town route. This even supersedes the townish read on his predecessors.
  Scum.
  
  
• Pine (crazypianist1116)
  : I never got to know why crazypianist1116 decreased his scum hunting on Day 2; I could theorize about this all day but my conclusion is that he’s been rather pro-town. Pine on the other hand doesn’t fit in this picture, first he tries to get around contributing, then he reads the first five pages and casts his vote. If this isn’t dubious, I don’t know what. In fact, a very similar case to mastin2.
  Scum.

In consequence and regarding the current wagons: VOTE: mastin2. L-1 is where it’s at.

As it looks right now, I’ll probably be

V/LA until June 13th

.

[Uncle Pain]

Whoa what, game over already?! I have to gather my thoughts…

First of all, thank you all for this game. I taught me a lot in ways I didn’t think about.

I was in fact very surprised to see that Zdenek really was scum – his play was a bit lurkish but he never managed to rub me the wrong way really. I’m sorry I gave town the wrong impression that I could be a scumbuddy. I hope I’ll get better at this. At least I managed to not get targeted by scum; although my deputy role was only a backup role, I felt that it could get important.

What I still don’t get is how scum knew so sure that crazypianist1116/Pine was the cop. Was it luck? If he did breadcrumb on Day 1, I fail(ed) to see it.

Having read the scum QuickTopic, it looks like pure luck that crazypianist1116 was chosen as the one to be blocked – and also Night 2! I wonder though what I did to be the second in line for this choice on Night 1 (QuickTopic #13) and why I was an “ultra-obvious target for a doc protect” during Night 1. Most had a good town read on me but is this alone enough to warrant a doc protection?
Nevertheless, the two roleblocks on crazypianist1116 were a major drawback for town; had we not lynched Zdenek on Day 3 (thank goodness mastin2 managed to convince you of his claim), Day 4 wouldn’t have happened like it did. When I read the night choices, my first thought was why the hell scum didn’t kill the cop Night 1/2 but then I realized that by doing so they downgrade the cop to vanilla while killing others, which effectively means doing a better job while avoiding the risk of a possible deputy to take over (who in turn would have to be identified by scum first).
So, good play scum team, you tricked me well the whole time.

On the other hand, I think that I myself don’t deserve the win. I tried to look for clues but I didn’t bring up much, especially compared to Setael’s elaborate case or Jase’s active hunting, and in fact I even managed to incriminate myself by saying stupid things that triggered scum reads for some of you. Especially Setael’s case against me was something I wasn’t sure I could defend against because yes, my play had flaws that she pulled to the surface with brilliant accuracy. What do I learn from this? I don’t know, I think I’m already quite careful about what I say but it seems it’s not sufficient.

Anyway, this set-up looks a bit swingy with the deputy. Yes I know that but it's also hard to predict the human factor. In this game the cop didn't get back any results the first two nights and the bodyguard didn't do anything during the first two nights.

I think town won because of strong town players, regardless of power roles. The setup looks fairly intuitive; as I said earlier in the game, 10 town vs. 3 scum looks balanced as long as town has power roles. In comparison to “traditional” setups (like F11 or Trendy and Subversive), you decided to trade town’s investigative power for protective power by putting in a bodyguard instead of a doctor (decreasing town’s protection) and by having a deputy (increasing town’s investigation) – I think it’s a fair trade and you should try the setup several times to see if there’s a tendency towards town or scum. As a game setup noob, I think it’s a good setup.

Powerrox93

: Thank you a lot for modding this game! Regular vote counts, clear statements, intuitive rules, quick actions when there is need. I really don’t envy you for having had to look for so many replacements, I wish you more luck in this regard with your future games.

[Uncle Pain]

Stefan, have a look at the yGDB in my sig. Although these two games don't go up there since I left (or maybe I'll mark them as such) - you'll notice how I'm constantly complaining about getting it wrong, blowing LyLos especially.

I think that’s partly due to the ever-changing meta of Mafia Scum. People don’t always play the same style, they evolve and adapt their play, even if it’s only a reaction to the style change of other players. I haven’t come far myself (eight games) but already now I think that I’ll never be a perfect player – there is far too much human factor in this game. This is what makes Mafia Scum frustrating, challenging and exciting at the same time.
I suggest you keep playing as long as it’s fun to you. Put the aspect of winning aside, it’s only about the fun.

Happy to see town win, apologies to all players and the mod for ever joining the game. I probably won't do it again.

This sounds like you’re about to quit from Mafia Scum as well? :/

[Uncle Pain]

StefanB

: Why quit after this game? Your early Day 1 play led to several suspicions and complications but you turned the situation in your favour, you defended well when you were in “rage” and most of the town considered you a townie back then. Of course you can still get better, we all can – but it’s only possible by exercise, not by giving up. Or as Bertold Brecht said it: “Wer kämpft, kann verlieren. Wer nicht kämpft, hat schon verloren.” Throwing in the towel should be the last resort when you realize that the game isn’t fun for you any more. Still, a single game should never have a major impact on your stance.