Newbie 1116 -- Game Over

[VisceraEyes]

I think L-1 should be reserved for people you intend to lynch...is anyone who's voting for him right now actually INTENDING to lynch bigAl? If not, the couple of votes he has now should suffice...but if you intend to lynch him, by all means, vote away.

[Grimmjow]

I agreed that Al hasn't really done anything to scum hunt today, or yesterday for that matter. Yesterday he made a few decent comments, but today he's not offered up anything, really. I also feel that, as an IC, he should be doing more than just offering helpful little insights into gameplay, which is in essence all he's really done.

I don't think, however, that placing a pressure vote is very effective when another player asks if the vote is there with the intention to lynch... If you say "no, I"m not really intending to lynch this guy" then there's really no pressure, is there?

[The Fonz]

I'm not, but I feel confident he'll pick up the pace with a little pressure. Your votes are well placed.

I'm not voting him because I want to pressure him into taking positions.

I'm voting him because I feel his not taking positions or offering any kind of leadership is indicative of him being scum.

[bigAl]

Sorry for the absence guys, various work emergencies have reduced my mafia time last couple days. Should be back now.

Anyway, to respond to the last 48 hours.

I agree with Zach about arguing about a point which isn't paticularly useful and variable based on how you would read a statement.

Would is be worth putting Al at L-1 to get some answers?

This is the most pro-town post I've seen from cy all game. Making me (re)consider him.

Can anyone really say they're happy with his contributions this day phase?

What's really happened this day phase? Mostly: Fonz doesn't like my vote which turned up town. Workdawg and Grimm don't like Fonz's phrasing. Lots of back and forth about this and that.

At this point, I feel like Workdawg is distracting the town with semantic arguments. Fonz (unfortunately) has a valid point against me. Despite him being wrong about me being scum ( ), he is doing good scum hunting and I'm seeing him as more pro-town lately. I disagree about the accusations that he was phrasing it to "make me look scummy"; he was just saying that he thinks I look scummy. I don't like how Workdawg/Grimm are ganging up on Fonz for this.

[VisceraEyes]

bigAl, then back something up with a vote or a case or something. I disagree that the cymru comment makes him look more town. It reads to me like he's asking permission to put guy at L-1...which from what Zach tells me is very scummy.

If you don't like how Workdawg and Grimm are ganging up on Fonz, vote one of them guy. Get a bandwagon started. Do SOMETHING. Just sitting back and saying 'Oh, you know, not much has happened' reads super scummy to me after a 34pg d1 and 41pgs overall to go through.

I agree with your town read on Fonz, and I think that if you're not scum than it has GOT to be cymru96/Workdawg or cymru/Fonz...I'm leaning more Workdawg though because aside from being a little abrasive, Zachrulez has been posting in a pretty pro-town manner.

Say more, or you get my vote. Your experienced inactivity is starting to outweigh cy's scummy behavior. That is all.

[bigAl]

I see a big difference between asking to put someone at L-1 after three weeks and thirty-some pages of discussion, compared to one week and a couple pages. Shrug.

(Gotta run to work now, more this evening.)

[Workdawg]

I don't think, however, that placing a pressure vote is very effective when another player asks if the vote is there with the intention to lynch... If you say "no, I"m not really intending to lynch this guy" then there's really no pressure, is there?

This x100. I swear I already mentioned this at some point, but maybe I didn't. If you admit that the vote is just for pressure before you vote (or while the vote is still there), then you are taking all the pressure off.

Asking people if their vote is for pressure or for intent to lynch is a stupid for the above reason IMO.

--------

Other thoughts:

I agree that bigAl hasn't done anything useful today, but he isn't really the only one. The bickering between The Fonz and I has distracted the town a little bit and there hasn't been much of anything going on besides that unfortunately. I tried to just drop it, but I couldn't. I also agree with The Fonz that it's suspicious that bigAl didn't bother to actually defend himself or call anyone else out... but I got a town read from him D1 and I don't think this is enough to sway me completely... especially not if he's been busy (I have too).

As for who I DO find to be scummy, there aren't any obvious targets to me... at least not from any of the new information today.

The Fonz has piqued my suspicions a bit today for the previously mentioned things, but he also seemed town yesterday and therefore is not a suspect yet.

cymru seems to be continuing his pattern today. Few posts with little content. I'm still not sure how to feel about him. I guess his content has gotten slightly better, but he' still flying under the radar IMO. Still no stance, etc. His asking about putting bigAl at L-1 rubs me the wrong way again, I dunno. He did the same thing with hammering cobbler. Continuing his trend of not committing to anything and being worried about how he looks. Newbie tells as much as scum tells.

Zach gives me the strongest town read out of everyone. He was V/LA for a long time, but he's back now and seems to be bringing his A game. He hammered a day early, but that's the only thing I have against him.

Grimm, I don't really have much to say about. He joined in the bickering a little bit, but mostly neutral today.

VE...
With The Fonz focusing on bigAl today, it seems like VE has slipped from people's minds. At the end of D1, cobbler and VE were pretty damn close to me. Cobbler was actually posting more town and VE more scummy.

Go back to D1 and read Zach's thoughts on VE.
He also jumped wagons from me to Cobbler very shortly after (Zach suggested this was to try and lynch early to avoid suspicion building on himself).
Today he votes for me and then switches to cymru after cym makes a cym style post. I suppose this is continuing the trend of not really taking a stance on anyone.

VOTE: VE

[Nobody Special]

Votecount 2.07

bigAl - 2 - The Fonz, Zachrulez
cymru96 - 2 - Grimmjow, VisceraEyes
VisceraEyes - 1 - Workdawg

Not Voting: bigAl, cymru96

With 7 alive, it takes 4 to lynch.

Deadline: July 29 (expired on 2011-07-29 14:00:00)

[Zachrulez]

I see a big difference between asking to put someone at L-1 after three weeks and thirty-some pages of discussion, compared to one week and a couple pages. Shrug.

(Gotta run to work now, more this evening.)

Being fair to VE, I have to say that Cymru's action is pretty similar actually.

Workdawg's VE vote is throwing me off. My impression was that he was most suspicious of Fonz.

[Grimmjow]

@Workdawg: What is your opinion of Zach?
@Zach: The same question, but about Workdawg.
@Al: What is your current suspect list and why?

[Zachrulez]

@Workdawg: What is your opinion of Zach?
@Zach: The same question, but about Workdawg.
@Al: What is your current suspect list and why?

His VE vote looks kinda sudden and disjointed with where he seemed to be going with his back and forth with Fonz up to that point. I can't help but get the feeling he might be worried about backlash from actually voting Fonz.

It has me rethinking my read on him. (And is raising doubt on VE scum where I once felt certain.)

But right at this moment I'm still focused on the big pile of nothing coming from BigAl who continues to post just enough to continue to simply exist in the game.

[Workdawg]

Like I said, other than Zach's hammer, I find him to be very much town. (also, he is from MN and clearly there are no scum in MN)

As for my vote on VE. He was tied with cobbler at the end of the day yesterday and has done nothing to dissuade me today.

The Fonz seemed very town yesterday and other than the couple of things I've already mentioned still seems that way. They've made me more wary of him indeed, but not enough to overcome my suspicions of VE.

I would have likely voted VE much sooner if I hadn't been so distracted by the previous argument with The Fonz.

[bigAl]

Damn it, I'm having trouble making any kind of decisions here. (I may be considered the IC, but I never claimed to be any good at this game...) I'm going to look at voting patterns here for a sec and see if that leads to anything. Particularly for cymru96, Grimmjow, Workdawg and The Fonz (top suspects).

Some of the major cases among these people:
Fonz->Workdawg
Grimmjow->cy
Workdawg->(cy)
cy->JJ (aka Fonz), Workdawg, Fonz again

So Grimm is the only one who hasn't been voted for by these four. Of all the possible combinations, the only ones that remotely make sense are:

WD + Grimm
Fonz + Grimm
(WD + Cy)?

Looking at Grimm's contributions today - his most significant post is a case against cy - the easy newb target? Most of his points are old ones too. Also the whole thing about whether Fonz was intentionally misleading everyone about how scummy I was - I don't like his support of Workdawg there, further increasing the chances of a WD+Grimm scum team. That, combined with my bad feelings from yesterday, is enough for me to

Vote: Grimmjow

I don't think, however, that placing a pressure vote is very effective when another player asks if the vote is there with the intention to lynch... If you say "no, I"m not really intending to lynch this guy" then there's really no pressure, is there?

I think of "pressure votes" more as "I'm prepared to lynch this guy if he doesn't do x" rather than "I'm not going to lynch this guy".

[VisceraEyes]

Hmmmm....I don't agree with you there bigAl, and I don't mind saying it. Grimmjow has been playing VERY pro-town since dawn today (or middle of the day d1 if you prefer...but I think of today as a new day so...)

Do you have any analysis to back that up besides 'your bad feelings yesterday?'

[cymru96]

So it would appear that either Wordawg, Grimm, Fonz or me (apparently!) are scum.
At the end of day 1, there was loads of pressure on Wordawg and now there's hardly no pressure (exept Al's last post). Why has the pressure suddenly dropped? Is there better targets or is he seen as town now?

Big Al's theory about a Wordawg + Grimm team doesn't really go well because Grimm has seemed pretty town to me. BUT... what about a Word and Al are a team?

He said that it was most likely that it was Grimm and Word but then he didn't state anything on Word, found a small amount of evidence and voted Grimm. If this lynch went ahead and Grimm was town why Al could just claim to be mistaken and suggest that it was Word and someone else and vote that other person.

Vote: Big Al

[Workdawg]

Cym has put bigAl at L-1... just so everyone knows.

[cymru96]

oh yeah, didn't notice that...

[Grimmjow]

@Al: What, pray tell, is your evidence against me? Your play has been increasingly... horrible. D1 you spent almost the entire day riding cy's ass, switching vote to me once using bullshit reasoning ("Hey, I stated exactly what you're talking about but you called it a good catch when someone else said it") and when I refuted your case, you didn't even respond to me. Then you flipped your vote back to cy and held it there for the majority of the day, unvoted him without ANY reasons whatsoever (you actually stated several points as to why you should keep your vote on him) and then finally dropped your vote on Cobbler at a fairly opportune time (L-2). Furthermore, you followed up stating later that you felt that the L-2 and L-1 votes are more suspicious than the hammer vote. Note that you put Cobbler at L-2. Today, you have posted next to nothing, and absolutely nothing substantial. I'm curious about your vote on me. I'm not complaining about a vote on me, because if someone has

evidence

against me that can withstand questioning, then yes, vote me, but what is your evidence? A "bad feeling"? That's crap, and you know it.

@cy: you place Al at L-1, get called out for it, and say nothing about it except "didn't notice"? For someone who skirted around the hammer vote yesterday, you seem pretty determined in your vote of Al? Is that because you're less concerned with looking suspicious at L-1 than with a hammer vote?

@Workdawg: your rationale behind voting VE seems odd to me. You seem incredibly suspicious of Fonz and Zach, but then vote VE, saying only that he seemed more scummy at the end of D1. Care to give reasons why you found him more scummy D1's end?

And I'm getting tired of people throwing around suspicions without presenting any real evidence. If you're suspicious of someone, go find some damned evidence. Just throwing out suspicions and votes is going to get us nowhere. We need evidence to back up our claims so that the rest of the town can decide if they support that evidence.

FoS: bigAl and Workdawg

for not presenting any real evidence. It's a perfect way for scum to say "Hey, pay attention to this person" and let the town whittle down the rest. And with two mafia still left in the game, all it would take is one saying "I'm suspicious of X," two townies saying "Yeah, X is suspicious," and then mafia jumping on to lynch them. Give evidence because otherwise all it does is screw the town over.

I'm also going to keep my vote where it is, especially with cy's latest L-1/"Oh, didn't notice" vote.

[cymru96]

I didn't notice but I have no regrets about placing the vote. If he swings town then it looks bad for me but I know that it's almost worse to put someone at L-1 than to hammer so I'm aware of the risks.

[bigAl]

Responding to Grimm's points (but not necessarily directed specifically at Grimm):

@Al: What, pray tell, is your evidence against me?

Like I said, my evidence:
1. Making a case against cy: easy target, old reasoning. Easy for scum to say, "well look at his record, he deserved it" if he flips town.
2. Saying Fonz is intentionally misleading people to think I'm scummy. This seems like it's stretching to find a reason to be suspicious of someone.
3. Stuff I've mentioned on D1 (eg. #186). Things like looking too hard for crappy reasons to lynch people (lynch all liars, etc.). It wasn't bullshit reasoning then, though I admit that most of my accusations were a couple posts back from my vote so that might not have been clear. (Sorry if I missed your response at the time.)

Furthermore, you followed up stating later that you felt that the L-2 and L-1 votes are more suspicious than the hammer vote. Note that you put Cobbler at L-2.

The L-2 and L-1 spots are where I often look for scum - however

someone

has to vote at L-2 eventually or the day never ends. Make of that what you will.

[VisceraEyes]

/facepalm

@bigAl

1) There's a case to be made against cymru. I mean, you need LITERALLY only look at his record, as you said. The more he posts, the less sure I am that he's even a newb.
2) Fonz' methods, while effective in making his points, can be viewed as unorthodox and...well, scummy. I don't see them as scummy myself, but I can absolutely see someone else thinking so, and I'm in NO position to disagree just because I think he's town. If someone else thinks he's scum, and someone else wants to vote for him, I'm not stopping them. But I'm not voting for him.
3) Really? 186? Didn't you JUST vote for Grimm based on his 'old evidence'? Furthermore, that was an entire post dedicated to responding to MY case against Grimmjow, which you pretty much treat MOST of my points with the same lack of committal as you've been treating the WHOLE of d2. And at the end you go on to say that you TENTATIVELY support a Grimmjow lynch, in the same breath that you say 'even lynching a townie gives us more information than a no-lynch'...which reads to me like you're admitting that he's probably town, but based on my analysis you're willing to support his lynch anyway. And you're giving THAT post as an example of the reasons for your vote today.

I'm not satisfied. In fact, this most recent turn...

Al, are you really the MOST suspicious of Grimmjow? Like, in 41 pages of material, you literally refer back to the last 2 and one other post on a page in the teens somewhere as the most compelling case you can muster?

cymru is by far scummier than Grimm has turned out to be...and he even puts you at L-1 based on flimsiness. Concerned about putting him at L-1 and looking scummy? Rather put your vote somewhere safe, where it's guaranteed to not be on the wrong side of a lynch? Or is it that you don't want to risk getting rid of your scum-buddy? Not when some opportunistic fence-sitter like me could just swoop in there and hammer him down.

You're at L-1 bigAl. I suggest you claim.

[cymru96]

I'm not concerned at putting him at L-1. I just didn't notice but I have no regrets. If someone hammers it doesn't bother me because I didn't pressure vote. I hope we hear more from him now but my vote stands untill I find a worthier candidate.

@Viscera. Why do you not think that I'm a new player?

[Zachrulez]

I agree with Zach about arguing about a point which isn't paticularly useful and variable based on how you would read a statement.

Would is be worth putting Al at L-1 to get some answers?

You were aware it was going to be L-1 then.

[cymru96]

I knew that it would but then I forgot. Basically it makes no difference because even if I had remembered I still would have made the vote.

[Zachrulez]

Yeah, that's fine, I just wanted to see what you'd say about it.

Still happy with my BigAl vote.