Newbie 480: Game Over!

[Erg0]

Vote: ZeekLTK

Just because.

[Erg0]

Two votes early on day 1 is not a big deal. If everyone split their votes evenly so that we all had 1 each at the end of random voting then we might as well not vote at all. Asking someone to remove a second vote seems a little panicky to me.

[Erg0]

First off, y'all need to get avatars so I can tell you apart.

Numbers-wise, 1-for-1 trades in these games always benefit the town. In my experience, it's unusual for a newbie game to finish without going to LyLo (lynch or lose) at some point, so anything that gets us a scum lynch is good for the town. For a person to be in a position to be hammered by scum on day 1 they'd have to have at least two townies voting for them, so they're probably already under suspicion, in which case we're losing one suspicious townie and gaining one dead scum. Sounds good to me.

Having said all that, there's no guarantee that the person hammering a townie is scum, so we shouldn't try to play to that situation. More than once, I've seen newbie townies drop a quick hammer on day 1.

This game does have a slightly more action-packed first page than many (barring the ones where someone gets lynched), which I like.

Casting around for some other topics of conversation, I don't really like Zeek's second post:

[quote=""ZeekLTK"]

No just me...Porochaz, you might want to reconsider that vote, cause I'm so civil it's disgusting. I'm starting to wish I had chosen a different name, but since we are rolling, here's my obligatory point-back. vote: leetonicon

So first he panics and asks that a vote be reconsidered (and why is he only asking one of the two people voting for him to remove it? Why would you not ask both people? Why is he "okay" with leetonicon voting for him but not Porochaz??), then he casts a vote that for some reason he feels he has to justify, so he tells us he is "obligated" to cast an OMGUS vote (which he most certainly is NOT obligated to do... I don't think anyone else did).[/quote]

Zeek's points seem like a bit of a reach - I assumed the reason that CS asked Porochaz in particular to unvote was that he was the one that had just put on the second vote. If he'd asked leetonicon to unvote, that would be a different story. Also, it seemed fairly obvious to me that CS did not literally mean that he was obligated by the rules to vote for Porochaz. Coming after a few people had already expressed suspicion of CS, this looks like either overeager scumhunting or scum trying very hard to look like town.

[Erg0]

I think he was half-joking - using the word "obligatory" to indicate that he was making an OMGUS vote, but not to say that he felt he was bound by the rules to do so. I often use the word obligatory in a more casual sense, meaning something that is expected, as opposed to required.

One thing I have learned is that analysing the exact wording of someone's post and trying to divine their alignment from it is an extremely unreliable approach. Intent is far more important than precise phrasing.

[Erg0]

Pretty simple, really: leet was the first vote, Porochaz was the second. If I put you at lynch -1 you're going to go after me, not the guy that made the first vote. I agree that the entire situation was an overreaction on CS's part, but I don't see this particular point as strengthening the case.

As far as the "obligatory" point - half of your paragraph was devoted to that, so I didn't see it as a minor point. I don't see how I'm supposed to get that from your post.

[Erg0]

I probably didn't phrase that very well - my basic point is that the greater the number of votes on a player, the greater the burden of proof on the next voter, especially early in the game. If the guy that puts me at lynch -1 doesn't make a case, I'm going to focus on him specifically as someone who made a bad vote. In this case it's lynch -2, but CS reacts like it's a lynch-1 vote.

Anyway, I dislike theory discussions in place of actual talk about players. What I'm saying is that I think people are reading too much into that specific point. CS's phrasing was half-joking (he referred to Porochaz's random reasoning regarding his civility) and his OMGUS vote was on the first voter, not the second. It's not like he didn't mention leetonicon at all in the post.

[Erg0]

Ok, quotes:

vote Civil Scum

I have reason to believe he's not civil at all!!!

No just me...Porochaz, you might want to reconsider that vote, cause I'm so civil it's disgusting. I'm starting to wish I had chosen a different name, but since we are rolling, here's my obligatory point-back.

vote: leetonicon

Do you see how he was responding to Porochaz saying that he wasn't civil? It looks to me like a play on words or somesuch. He addresses one of his voters, and then the other. I really think this specific point has been seriously blown out of proportion, and is receiving far more attention than it should. The reason this came into focus was that Porochaz responded to CS's post with a comment about reconsidering his vote, while leetonicon didn't.

Your second question is just speculation. We can't judge him on scenarios that did not occur, nor on actions that he did not perform. If he was at lynch-1 we'd be having an entirely different discussion.

[Erg0]

Post 12 is in response to Porochaz's post 10 - why would CS talk about leetonicon in that post?

I wasn't defending him, I was attacking you. Subsequent responses have required me to justify my position. As I've said a number of times, I still think CS overreacted to having tw ovotes.

[Erg0]

Semi-random interjection: when I'm placing my random vote, all I ever check is that I'm not putting someone at lynch-1. A second vote is not an issue, even if I don't have a real reason to vote them.

[Erg0]

The overreaction aspect has been well explored, I didn't see a need to throw my two cents in as well at that point, because CS was already under plenty of pressure and I wasn't going to put him at lynch-1 for it. The appropriate thing to do at that point was look around for other topics of conversation.

It's not accurate to say that nobody else is paying attention to my actions, Porochaz and Ripley both made posts addressing my points on the previous page. Porochaz, in particular, asked me to explain CS's actions. CS also commented on my posts above. The only people who haven't talked about me are the two that haven't posted since my initial post.

Quite often the explanation for someone doing something really odd like freaking out on two votes is that they don't know any better. If you're going to freak out at two votes, you'll do it as a townie or as scum. Nobody wants to be lynched, after all. There's no question that it's overly defensive, but can you present a reason why it's

scummy

?

Likewise, I don't necessarily think that Zeek is scummy, just that his page 1 argument wasn't as valid as others took it to be. The OMGUS vote isn't helping that situation, though.

I'm mildly suspicious of leetonicon, as he's kind of stayed out of the way while keeping his vote on CS. I don't like the way he immediately speculated on a CS/Porochaz pairing on page 1; it's far too early to be forming conspiracy theories. Still looking at everyone else.

[Erg0]

Discussions not revolving around you are "less interesting"? It's the discussion of the game right? Ripley and peapod are lurking a bit yeah?

Was this directed at me or Zeek?

[Erg0]

ErgO: This post

Written by Zeet

Let's look at erg0 shall we? No one else seems to be paying attention to his actions and are just accepting that he is attacking me for questioning someone who is acting suspicious (is that pro-town?).

On page 1 what did erg0 contribute? The first random vote of the game, and then a post with very little (if any) substance to kinda remind us that "hey, I'm here... even though I'm not contributing anything".

All he says is that "CS seems to be a little panicky" to address the situation that was a major talking point of the first page (and still is), and he just leaves it to that. Then he waits and, instead of following up on his own suspicions, he picks out people (me in this case) who are making valid cases and, for whatever reason, tries to divert attention on them.

Is it because he is CS' scum partner? Maybe. Or possibly another answer is that he is scum and knows that CS is town, so he is free to defend him because if somehow we do lynch CS then erg0 can be like "hey look, I was never trying to get him lynched, I'm not suspicious".

I think this post sums up what I am thinking currently, he's trying to be both sides of the fence and it's not working very well. His latter posts whilst having substance don't sit right, in post 54 he is sorta defending CS and then says what both me and CS have been saying about leet. Whilst you suggested CS was a bit panicky early on (according to Zeek, Im going to go back and check this) and were unsure about him, you've defended him to quite an extent but there is nowhere in this thread showing why you changed your mind... It doesn't sit right with me at all and I'm going to go and look at the thread again to look at some of the content in your posts but I am already thinking your scum.

Major Fos: Erg0

whilst I read over and then will probably vote right afterwards

I never changed my mind on CS, I've said the same thing all along: he overreacted to being put at two votes. I don't believe that I ever said that this was scummy, or even that I was suspicious of him. Post 54 gives a pretty thorough explanation of why I don't necessarily equate panic with scumminess in this instance.

In fact, post 54 addresses the entirety of the post that you quoted, and neither you or Zeek have really commented on my reply (except to say that I was defending CS, which is true and consistent with my previous posts).

[Erg0]

Well I don't know what your point of this is because I have never come out and specifically said "I am sure CS is mafia", so I don't see why flip-flopping is worth pointing out or even "scummy behavior" on my part. Is it bad that I am still considering that you could be either scum or town and exploring both possibilities instead of picking one and blindly making accusations based on that choice?

That is what lead me to the point against erg0 - considering that you could be town and examining his actions from that perspective.

So you're voting me on the basis that I called you out on a craplogic case against someone that you don't believe is scum? Surely that just makes me perceptive?

[Erg0]

Quick clarification: "craplogic" is not quite as derogatory as it sounds, it's just a term I (and many others) use for a case based on bad reasoning.

CS, scum would have no better idea of what you were trying to say than town. Once again, all this proves is that I'm perceptive enough to correctly interpret your intent. I come under fire for this sort of thing in almost every newbie game I play, so I knew what I was getting myself into.

[Erg0]

Can you give quotes where Ripley and Porochaz agree with you? I can't see them saying that specifically, but I'm not sure if I'm looking at the right part of the thread.

I think that this line in Porochaz's first post explains the delay in voting:

Major Fos: Erg0 whilst I read over and then will probably vote right afterwards

It is a little strange to make a big post and then vote five minutes later with no additional reasoning, but I guess I can see how he might have written it up and then done a re-read before voting. I'm more interested in why he's quoting a case that I already responded to without acknowledging the response.

[Erg0]

Just briefly, the OMGUS vote I'm referring to is Zeek's vote on me in post 53.

I'll respond to the rest of your post later on.

[Erg0]

In the strictest sense, OMGUS is as you said: voting someone for no reason other than the fact that they voted for you.

I'm using it here in a slightly broader sense - I believe that the main reason Zeek found my actions scummy enough for a vote was because they were directed towards him.

[Erg0]

Not me!

Also, I changed my avatar to lighten the mood a bit.

[Erg0]

Finally, a response:

The overreaction aspect has been well explored, I didn't see a need to throw my two cents in as well at that point, because CS was already under plenty of pressure and I wasn't going to put him at lynch-1 for it. The appropriate thing to do at that point was look around for other topics of conversation.

But at that point you weren't prepared to defend him either. Surely if you thought that it wasn't scummy all the way through you may have played a bigger part on page 2?

I was happy to allow the pressure on CS to continue, but I wasn't prepared to put a third vote on him. I'm glad you recognise that I wasn't defending him, though.

Quite often the explanation for someone doing something really odd like freaking out on two votes is that they don't know any better. If you're going to freak out at two votes, you'll do it as a townie or as scum. Nobody wants to be lynched, after all. There's no question that it's overly defensive, but can you present a reason why it's

scummy

?

It wasnt just the over defensiveness, it was everything from and after the second request to take my vote down. A couple of people (including yourself?) told him that it was nothing to be worried about and its just to generate discussion. But he asked for a second time and OMGUS me purely on the basis I was voting him thats what made me think he was scummy.

Hmm that's a fair point. As I said, any defence I made for CS was incidental to my discussion of my position on Zeek.

Likewise, I don't necessarily think that Zeek is scummy, just that his page 1 argument wasn't as valid as others took it to be. The OMGUS vote isn't helping that situation, though.

Right time to clear this one up. You do know were talking about the OMGUS vote against me and leetonicon, don't you, because the leet one looked random enough. The only reason I ask is because when you talked about it you quoted post 12 (?) Which was the one he OMGUS leet.

I personally think the OMGUS vote was a big part of this and was a desperate scum trying to find a way out

See my post yesterday in response to this. You are correct that CS's vote on you was OMGUSy.

I'm mildly suspicious of leetonicon, as he's kind of stayed out of the way while keeping his vote on CS. I don't like the way he immediately speculated on a CS/Porochaz pairing on page 1; it's far too early to be forming conspiracy theories. Still looking at everyone else

Whilst were here, he kept his vote on CS because it was random, at the start the only person to go against was CS. However I agree with you that his theory was strange and slightly to early.

Unfortunately he's being replaced, so this probably won't go anywhere.

The Fos then the vote happened purely because I wanted to make sure I had my facts straight before voting, I looked and found my reasoning to be good enough to vote without any further explanation. I mean if your looking for a reason why I voted just look directly above that post.

That's what I figured.

[Erg0]

Unvote

I can't really get a read on Zeek right now because 90% of his posts are about me. I'd probably switch to leetonicon right now if he wasn't on his way out. Waiting for the replacements to arrive for now.

[Erg0]

Let's try to keep things moving at least a little bit while we wait.

Vote: destructor

leeton's early conspiracy theories are the kind of thing that I've seen from newbie scum before, hoping to misdirect everyone early and keep the spotlight off themselves. This often results from not knowing the pace of the game on MS and thinking that the first wagon on Day 1 might lead to a lynch.

[Erg0]

Destructor, that case just made me happy with my vote.

Also, I have a question for anyone that cares to answer it: Is it scummy to ask the second voter to unvote you but not the first? If so, why?

[Erg0]

Yes, that question was mainly in response to destuctor's post. I wasn't sure if the basic question had actually been examined before (I missed your previous post).

I will point out that I think your response to peapod aligns fairly closely with my own opinion: it's worth noting but it's not necessarily scummy.

[Erg0]

Erg0

In Post 38 I didn't like the way Erg0 makes blatant assumptions about CS's motives. This comes across as a defense of CS, but one I think no one but CS himself was in a place to make, assuming he's town. He uses this as the basis of his attack on Zeek. Later, in Posts 49 and 101 he suggests the opposite, claiming that his defense of CS was a result of his attack on Zeek. This doesn't ring true:

Zeek's points seem like a bit of a reach -

I assumed the reason that CS asked Porochaz in particular to unvote was that he was the one that had just put on the second vote.

If he'd asked leetonicon to unvote, that would be a different story.

Also, it seemed fairly obvious to me that CS did not literally mean that he was obligated by the rules to vote for Porochaz.

Erg0's accusation that Zeek was reaching were based on his defense of CS, which I've underlined, not the other way around. I agree that Zeek's post seemed very eager, which may be what Erg0 was refering to by 'reach', but he raised valid points.

Every time I read a player's posts I'm looking for motivation - I'm expecting that everyone else does the same. It

is

my place to interpret CS's post, and if someone else comes out with a radically different interpretation to my own it makes me wonder. If that interpretation is considerably more negative than my own, that makes me suspicious.

Zeek was making assumptions about CS's motivations too. His (and yours, apparently) were considerably different to mine - he assumed that CS's post was motivated by scummy goals. I thought (and Ripley apparently agrees) that this was a stretch. Given that he was using these assumptions as the basis for a vote, I found this notable. I was attacking his assumptions, just as you're attacking mine. The assertion that my assumptions are correct is a natural product of my attack. This will inevitably become an indirect defence of CS.

Post 45 came across to me as insincere. Erg0 says he dislikes theory based discussion over game discussion, which seems hypocritical since he was the one that started said discussion. This coupled with more speculation/defense about CS's motives didn't sit well with me.

The theory discussion was an answer to a direct question from Porochaz, which arose from a practical point that I didn't explain clearly the first time. I didn't start the discussion. I suspect that the only reson that you dislike my speculation but are ok with Zeek's is that you either agree with his or it suits your goals better.

In Post 47 he continues his defense of CS. In reference to the CS/Porochaz issue, he said this:

I really think this specific point has been seriously blown out of proportion, and is receiving far more attention than it should. The reason this came into focus was that Porochaz responded to CS's post with a comment about reconsidering his vote, while leetonicon didn't.

I didn't like this conclusion, because it's misleading. The truth is that leet was never asked to reconsider his vote, so Erg0's point is moot. It was the fact that leet was not mentioned besides an OMGUS vote that made it noteworthy.

CS didn't write a novel, it was a two sentence post. One sentence was about Porochaz, the other about leeton. It's not like he was giving one or the other a disproportionate amount of attention, it's just that Porochaz responded and leeton didn't (until later).

Post 54 was not too hot either. I can appreciate his point about looking for other topics of discussion, but to do so while dismissing the current topic in the way Erg0 did is suspicious. Calling Zeek's vote on him OMGUS was innapropriate and notable, maybe even more OMGUSy than Zeeks posts, heh. His comment about leet was fair enough and one I'd have made too.

I stand by what I said in that post about my motivations. Zeeks vote looked to me like it was entirely based on the fact that I was picking on him, hence OMGUS. Sample quote: "you are off on your own little crusade against others who have done nothing to warrant it."

In Post 82 Erg0 seems to implies that he is sure that CS is town. CS commented that Erg0 was either perceptive or scum. Erg0 suggests that his interpretation of CS "proves" that he is perceptive, when, even if he is so perceptive, is untrue. It proves very little, but does suggest a few things.

In that particular post I'm arguing under the assumption that CS is a townie, because there would be no sense in even saying what I said if he's scum. My point was that if he's a townie then scum would have no better understanding of his motivations than a townie, so the fact that I figured out what he was trying to do (assuming that he's telling the truth when he says that I did) just shows that I am good at figuring out motivations. Scum don't get a mind reading device along with their PM.

His last post was a vote on me, based on my leet's actions. Given that I can't repond directly to his vote, I don't know if this is opportunism or, as he says, a genuine attempt to keep the game moving. Based on my read though, I'm leaning towards the former.

I already said what I didn't like about leeton. We'd had a few days with no real action and I wasn't voting for anyone. Putting the first vote on you hardly qualifies as opportunism.

Erg0's play has been chracterised by what looks like buddying up to CS. My read reveals him as the most suspect player thus far based mostly around his defense of CS, which was uncalled for and, I may even argue, anti-Town.

Any buddying up is purely incidental. Heh, anti-town. Why, exactly? Do you think CS is scum?

[Erg0]

Zeek was making assumptions about CS's motivations too. His (and yours, apparently) were considerably different to mine - he assumed that CS's post was motivated by scummy goals. I thought (and Ripley apparently agrees) that this was a stretch.

I don't see Zeek assuming that CS's goals were scummy. I see him noting behavior he found illogical from CS, questioning it and wondering why he did it. Time and time again he asks: "Why?"

That is actually a fair point - I'd forgotten that Zeek didn't switch his vote. The tone of his post gave me the impression that he was attempting to cast CS in a negative light, though.

Incidentally, I've found the "pointing out two lurkers" tell to be fairly accurate, though I wouldn't usually look at it seriously unless one of the people involved has actually been proven as scum.

[Erg0]

destructor: to help you respond to the most important points, my basic issue with you is that you can't seem to make up your mind what you want to accuse me of. In your notes on CS you think he might be distancing from me, then in your notes on me you say you think I'm buddying up to him, then you say that my "defence" of his actions was anti-town.

If CS is scum then only the first and third could be true. If he's town then only the second could be true. You can't use all three points in the same argument, they're mutually exclusive.

Your point about Peapod following me is a good observation, but then you add this:

Very similar wording and sentiment, six posts apart. I'm not sure if this says more about peapod or Erg0, if anything at all.

I don't see how this could possibly say more about me than it does about Peapod, since I made the statement first and he echoed me. You're pushing too hard to find points against me.

Finally, I take issue with the criteria you're using to rate scumminess. Zeek, for instance, is aggressive and defensive, but you dismiss that because he is "scum-hunting". Ripley is more or less playing the middle so far, but again you dismiss this because he's "scum-hunting". You seem to miss the fact that he hasn't moved his vote since the very first post of the game, a fact which I find very interesting. Porochaz has been tunnel-visioned, but again it's ok because he's "scum-hunting". Would you say that I've been scum-hunting? I think I've asked my fair share of questions and raised my fair share of suspicions.

An additional note - I realised something about this point from Ripley:

Also, I have a question for anyone that cares to answer it: Is it scummy to ask the second voter to unvote you but not the first? If so, why?

You're just going over old ground here. peapod already covered this in post 60:
<snip>

In re-reading I found that I actually raised this myself as well, in post 54 - this is another point of mine that peapod repeated. Peapod's post 60 actually seems extremely similar to my post 54 in all respects.

[Erg0]

EBWOP:

Civil Scum

has been tunnel-visioned, but again it's ok because he's "scum-hunting".

[Erg0]

destructor: I don't want to turn this into a massive post, so I'll just summarise rather than replying to every single point.

• The essential issue seems to be that you see my vote on Zeek as a product of a defence of CS, not the other way around. I said several times that I thought CS's reaction was noteworthy, but that I thought Zeek's case (
  specifically
  Zeek's case) was a reach. It seemed to me that he was wilfully misunderstanding CS's response. My attack was on Zeek's case, which I suppose means that I was defending CS indirectly against Zeek's case, but
  not
  against anything that anyone else had said. Pointing out weak cases is
  not
  anti-town. I provided a more general defence for CS's actions later on, but as I said earlier that was only because I needed to justify my position under direct questioning. It was not the basis for my initial attack (at least not the
  stated
  basis, which is what's relevant to this discussion).
  
  
• I don't need to put a question mark in a post to ask a question, I obviously expect a response to any accusations I make. This is not a point of distinction between your attack and mine.
  
  
• Porochaz's question is in post 44 - immediately above the post in which I answered it.
  
  
• Re: Zeek's OMGUS, "You're attacking me and I don't deserve it"
  is
  feeble reasoning. That's the very definition of OMGUS.
  
  
• Your original point about peapod's echoing was not "this says more about Peapod than Erg0". I don't like that you try to pass this off as me defending myself - it was an attack on
  you
  for trying to tar me with someone else's actions. You seem to be having trouble telling the difference between attack and defence.
  
  
• I stand by my belief that the biggest reason you have for disliking my play is that you agree with Zeek and not with me. You say he was assuming suspicion while I was assuming innocence - I didn't assume innocence of CS, but I
  did
  assume suspicion of Zeek. You obviously think his suspicion was more valid than mine, and I think that's where this is coming from.

If nothing else, at least I'm fairly sure that your suspicion is genuine now. I would ask you to consider one other thing: assuming I'm not a bad player (which I'm not), what do you think my motivation would have been for doing what I did? I think it's reasonable to assume that I'd be aware that I'd be bringing suspicion on myself by going against the flow of the game in the way that I did.

On Ripley: Leaving a random vote on is one thing, but we're up to page 7 and this game isn't light on content. He seems content to poke and prod, without really doing anything that will thrust him into the spotlight, such as expressing genuine suspicion or placing a vote or an FoS. This is a pattern of play that I commonly see from scum on day 1.

[Erg0]

Oops, meant to

Unvote

.

[Erg0]

Ripley: "Genuine" might not have conveyed the meaning of what I was trying to say. I mean that you've asked lots of questions and talked about how others' actions are scummy, but you've left your vote on a player who is essentially a lurker all the way through. Lurking is bad and all, but the implication of you're actions is that peapod/Garnasha's lurking is scummier than anything that anybody else has done.

Yes, the validity of this scumtell is based almost entirely on personal experience, but then all the best scumtells are like that. Scum tend to play more tentatively, whether they intend to or not. I'm not really trying to build a case, this was just something that destructor's analysis brought to my attention, and it was worth noting. I can't see that I have anything to lose by putting everything out there at this point.

Also, the bolded part: Complete WIFOM. Scum still knowingly do things that bring suspicion onto them and then hope that no one notices what it is they really did. If people get a free pass for doing things that "they know are suspicious" we'll never catch scum in this game.

Everything is WIFOM. There are degrees of WIFOM though, and that's what you need to think about here. I would not normally ever raise a point like this regarding my own actions, but it was pretty clear that nobody was thinking about it.

I felt my logic was fine, as I pointed about right above this quote. However, BOTH erg0 and CS said that they thought it was poor logic. So, I noticed that you had also voted for erg0 and your vote was pretty much based on my logic, which at least 2 other players considered bad...

This is actually an interesting point, as voting a player based on someone else's bad case is apparently a very reliable scumtell (though one I haven't really tested myself).

Try and read my post with this in mind (if u want)->That I don't like the way Ergo brought that up (somewhat weakly) and says it's something he's seen from scum before. Just like Post 112 wherein he lists several things Leet had done which Ergo says he had seen from newb-scum beofre. This was of course his post re-voting Leet/Destructor "...to keep things moving at least a little bit while we wait." Right after he unvoted Leet while the replacement came in.

I actually unvoted

Zeek

in 102, and said that I would vote leet if he wasn't being replaced. After giving it a couple of days I decided not to wait any longer.

I was getting the feeling for a while there that CS was setting himself up to jump on my wagon, but he seems to have come back around in 183. He's confusing me greatly at this point.

1. We have numerous others in the picture of scumminess. We have two scum in this game, so whilst Im not taking Ripley out of the picture it does seem unlikely. 2. I'm a bit of a mathematician, if were going to play it by odds then its unlikely that our two IC's are scum together, especially with there wee arguments they have now and then. Personally I think Erg0's scum, that why I have voted for him. 3. I don't believe that in 13 months, Ripley can become uber great at town being scum. Whilst experience is key how would we as noobs be any good if the IC's were infallable. 4. Whilst I'm not going to buy into it just yet, I can see where the Erg0/CS connection is coming from.

I don't really like this post.
1. Relativism. Just because you find four other people scummy, that doesn't mean you should ignore the other two.
2. Ripley and I have the same mathematical chance of being a scum pair as any two players. Our IC status is irrelevant, I'm as likely to be scum with Ripley as I am to be scum with CS, or anyone else for that matter.
3. It's not

that

hard to play scum in a newbie game. 13 months is plenty of experience to become good at playing as scum on day 1.
4. Awaiting your expansion of this point.

I think that's it for now. As time allows I'm going to start being a little more proactive, as I seem to have a lot to respond to each time I log on right now.

[Erg0]

All you really have to do on day 1 of a newbie game is stay out of the way and wait for a townie to do something scummy. There are usually more than enough mistakes by other players to allow you to readily get a townie lynched. It's days 2 and 3, where you have to deal with power roles and connections from day 1, where it becomes more difficult.

Sorry, didn't make it clear that point 1 was a hypothetical.

You are correct that CS has been very up and down with relation to me, even going from semi-accusing me to defending me on this page. I'll show that I've learned my lesson about guessing at motives and ask him for a summary of his thinking on me right now.

[Erg0]

My vote on leet was based on leet's actions. destructor (eventually) satisfied me that he was acting in a pro-town manner, hence my unvote. I'm just probing at the moment, prior to deciding where my vote is best placed.

A quick note: if you expect everyone to always give a detailed case before voting, you're in for a great deal of disappointment in the future. There are quite a few players on this site that deliberately don't state cases most of the time. Finding the balance on that issue is one of the key things that will help you to develop your playstyle.

[Erg0]

It wasn't destructor's PbP that made me unvote him. In fact, you may recall that I said it made me happy with my earlier vote for him. It was his subsequent response to my deconstruction of the PbP that led to believe that he had valid (to him) reasons for his conclusions, hence my unvote.

I'm not necessarily trying to convince other people at this point. I'd prefer to be more sure of my own suspicions before I try to carry anyone along with me.

[Erg0]

I like that big post, CS. What is it about Poro and Zeek's votes on me that makes you sure they're town?

[Erg0]

Sorry, been busy for the last few days. Will catch up and post ASAP.

[Erg0]

Gah - every time I start to like CS, we get something like this:

Of course practically the entire case against Ergo rests on my civility.

Being so reductive just makes you easy prey for counter-arguments. I still believe in the basic case against Ripley's pattern of posting, but I could really flip a coin between the two of you right now.

[Erg0]

I'm very interested in that last part, hence my question to CS in 205. Hopefully he'll follow up on this when he has more time.

[Erg0]

I almost feel like we should lynch the lurker at this point. There's a lot of what feels to me like townie vs. townie arguments at the moment.

Zeek: I say "apparently" because I haven't been in any games where this tell was successfully applied. A number of experienced players swear by it, though. In regards to your second point (about WIFOM), there's a difference between doing something that will attract votes and doing something that mafia would do.

I'm ok with Ripley's playstyle argument as it addresses the biggest problem I have with his play. That doesn't mean he's not scum, though.

[Erg0]

vote: garnasha

Unfortunate, but there's nothing he can say or do that would make me think it worthwhile to keep him around. REGARDLESS OF HIS ALIGNMENT

To be clear: do you believe that garnasha has a good chance of being scum? Much as lurkers can detract from the game, we don;t have enough townies to be sacrificing any at this point.

[Erg0]

Let's see what happens when I do this:

Vote: Garnasha

If lynch-1 doesn't prompt a decent re-read then nothing will. I'm not moving my vote unless Garn changes my mind.

[Erg0]

Why do you mention Ripley and destructor?

[Erg0]

Sorry for my recent lack of content, I've been really busy this week and the debates of the last few pages have done little to inspire me. As I said earlier, I'm getting town-on-town vibes from most of it, and I've reached the conclusion that Garn is our best option for a lynch. Of everyone, he's the player that I'd least want to have to try and get a read on tomorrow.

[Erg0]

Careful with that vote, Poro - it only takes one townie-on-townie vote for the mafia to be able to pile on and win the game with a speedlynch. You need to be very sure that the person you're voting for is scum (or you're scum yourself, in which case never mind).

I'm going to reread before doing anything. Please be cautious in your actions, if we lynch a townie today then we lose.

[Erg0]

A quick question while I get things together.

Porochaz: Why did you vote so quickly?

I don't see what's so significant about destructor's post at the end of day 1 - he was basically repeating himself and/or splitting hairs. I already answered most of those points in previous posts, and I find it odd that it's suddenly so much more credible now than it apparently was yesterday at deadline (since nobody voted me other than destructor).

CS: I really don't like the way you're trying to steer people towards me based on Ripley's death. That sounds to me like "my cunning plan to set him up isn't working, I'd better point out that Ripley was suspicious of him".

Don't worry, I'm not so clueless any more. Big post coming in the next couple of days.

[Erg0]

Also, a quick IC tip:

In a 5 player LyLo situation, once the first vote is placed every player who posts afterwards without voting is almost certainly either:

a. Town
b. Scum with the voter
c. Scum with the person the vote is on

This is one of the few principles that I have been able to apply with pretty much 100% accuracy. The reason is that if the voter and the votee are both townies then the scum can just add their two votes to the wagon and win the game by lynching the townie. Unfortunately it's not that much use to

me

in this game, since I was the only one to post between Poro's vote and unvote, but this sort of thinking will help you to narrow down possible scum pairs.

[Erg0]

I think that both you and Zeek have missed the point of my post 314. All that I'm saying is that if I were scum with either destructor or Zeek then I would have simply voted CS so that my buddy could hammer. I've seen this happen multiple times in newbie games, where day 2 has been over in a matter of hours thanks to a quick townie misvote followed by two scum votes. Regardless of your feeling on IC tips, I'm not going to intentionally mislead you on strategy. It's important that you wrap your head around the consequences of votes today.

Zeek, your dislike of my post 300 is fairly baseless. My advice on voting was the same advice that I (and many other ICs) give in the same situation in every Newbie game I play. As I said, I've seen games end in a matter of hours thanks to a town-on-town vote early on day 2.

[Erg0]

Like it or not, here's another IC tip:

Trying to read anything into the night 1 kill is useless, if you can think of a reason that the kill incriminates somebody then you can be fairly sure that the scum could have thought of the same thing. The only exception to this is where there are claimed power roles from day 1, which we do not have in this game.

I'd go so far as to say that the first person to express suspicion based on the NK is usually scum. The fact that Poro did this in his first post of the day (as well as making a quick vote, which is a big no-no on day 2) makes me suspicious.

I don't get why Zeek is apparently Mr Townie all of a sudden. I'm half way through re-reading day 1 and he doesn't look squeaky clean to me so far.

It would help me to scum hunt if people would actually respond to my posts instead of making a quick jab based on a bad read and then moving on.

Mod:

Can you please prod destructor, since we haven't heard from him on day 2?

[Erg0]

I liked your post because it looked like you had put some genuine effort into researching Ripley's play, rather than just voting him based on the points that I'd made earlier. I also wanted to make Ripley feel like he was under some pressure so that he would give a decent response to the case. I felt like he'd been fairly dismissive of my points against him earlier because there was nobody else really looking at him at the time, and I was hoping that your post (and my support) would change that.

Ripley's reaction seemed townish to me on the whole. However, my experience has been that his pattern of play on day 1 is usually indicative of scum (or someone with a power role that is trying to hide themselves). From memory, after a couple of posts back and forth between you I started to feel like you were pushing him too hard and for the wrong reasons. I haven't re-read this section yet, but I'll give you a more detailed response on this tomorrow.

Looking on a bit, my post 217 gives one reason why I reacted negatively to your later posts.

I still don't fully understand the Zeek and Poro thing. This was your initial response, I believe:
[qoute="Civil Scum"]The thing with Zeek and Poro keeping their votes on Ergo, and his being at L-2 for so long, and so much attack but no FOS no voting, leads me to believe Zeek and Poro are town, as well as Ergo. I don't have time to go into this, gotta study for a test. Let's just call it a feeling for now.[/quote]

Did you ever clarify this further?

[Erg0]

I was still working it out in that post, as I thought you were both doing scummy things and the fact that you were in direct conflict with Ripley made me think of it as a false dilemma for a little while (i.e. one of you had to be scum). You'll see that later on I resolved this and decided that you were probably both town (thought this conclusion is still subject to review).

[Erg0]

CS has been swinging back and forth on me for the entire game. For every post you point out with him defending me, I can point out one where he attacks me. This is actually one of the primary problems that I have with his play.

It's strange that Zeek just accused me of only responding to stuff that relates to me, then you accuse of the opposite, yet both of you manage to find me suspicious.

And you're right, it

is

the pot calling the kettle black. In any case, my re-read is done (Zeek, you may recall that I said I was working on that and promised a big post, hence why I've just been hunt-and-pecking for the last couple of days) and you'll be getting my write-up this evening. After that we'll talk again about who's sitting back.

[Erg0]

No, you accused me of not responding to stuff that relates to me. In that post right above mine.

[Erg0]

If you're talking about your post from the end of day 1, I already said (in post 313) that I didn't think it warranted a detailed response at this point. Much of your post is just a repeat of your previous case, and the rest is semantics. I recall that at least one person agreed with me about this.

[Erg0]

All I can really say to 286 is "see my original post". All you're really doing is quoting my response to your earlier post and then saying "I disagree" after each point. I can't think of any clearer way to explain it, so you'll just have to be happy with the response that you got the first time. If there are any specific points that are particularly significant to you then let me know and I'll respond, but I have a finite amount of time to dedicate to this game and I'm trying to avoid wasting it on repeating myself.

[Erg0]

I think I might post these one player at a time to prevent creating the now-famous wall o' words.

Porochaz

• I'm ok with the early random vote on CS and initial refusal to move his vote. His early statement that he is sure of CS being scum is forgivable as overenthusiasm, I think.
  
• This sentence from post 23 confuses me:

  leetonicon, I like your erm... logic... if Im getting this right... so Im going to ask you to clarify your statement, so I make sure before I make any wrongful assumptions.

  This was in response to leet's 22, in which he talks about having two wagons being good. Porochaz FoSes leet for the same post in post 28, which appears to contradict his earlier statement. Am I missing some sarcasm or something here?
  
• I don't think I ever specifically mentioned his question to me in post 33 before, and I probably should have:

  ...So I ask you and NOT Civil Scum what was CS meaning if he wasn't meaning it?

  When I talk about my defence of CS being incidental to my attack on Zeek, this is what I'm referring to. The only reason that I gave my thoughts on CS's motivation was that Poro specifically asked me to. I don't think it was Poro that pressed me on this later, though he certainly didn't raise it when Zeek was accusing me of defending CS.
  
• As of post 70, he likes peapod, Ripley and Zeek, is mixed on CS and leeton, and votes for me. The "townie but not 100%" comment on peapod seems like a simple case of unfortunate phrasing to me. He seemed to ignore some of my previous responses in this post, but catches up in 87 after I point this out. I'm not completely comfortable with his reasoning for the vote, especially the part where he says I defended CS without saying why I changed my mind, which is a serious misrepresentation of my actions. He also relies to an extent (though not totally) on a quote of Zeek's reasons for voting me.
  
• There's a pretty big gap from post 91 to post 184 where Poro leaves his vote on me but doesn't talk about me at all. In 184 he says he thinks that I'm scum, yet he's sat on my wagon for two whole weeks without pushing it
  at all
  , even when destructor expressed strong suspicion of me. This is a strong point against him in my eyes, as it serves to minimise his attachment to the wagon if I'm lynched. Most of this time is spent on a minor back-and-forth with Zeek and a number of general statements of theory (e.g. that destructor must be held responsible for leet's actions). He does persist in expressing suspcion of CS throughout this period.
  
• The reasons given in 184 for Ripley being town are pretty weak.
  
• By post 210 I've fallen below CS on his radar, and he switches his vote to CS. This seems to be mainly based on CS's attack (and vote) on Ripley around this time. The case itself in this post isn't that strong, though he's been on CS more or less throughout the day.
  
• 223 is significant, because Poro talks about his meta on Garn being similar to what we're seeing. This is a townish thing to say, since it's unlikely that this would have been raised otherwise (and Garn turned up town). From this point forward he sticks to defending Garn and attacking CS up to deadline.

I like Porochaz's consistency and his defence of Garnasha, though the defence of Ripley was less convincing. I don't like the way that he tended to follow others' cases on me and CS later in the day. He also didn't really put any effort into pushing his preferred lynch targets, especially in my case as he practically ignored me once his vote was on me.

[Erg0]

ZeekLTK

• I'm still not a fan of Zeek's attack on CS at the start of the game. I stand by what i said at the time, I feel it's a reach. I do like his comment in 54 on avoiding speedlynches, though - if the quick lynch had worked for him as scum previously then I could have seen him trying it again here.
  
• There are a lot of contradictions in Zeek's posts, particularly regarding the validity of his own cases. In 83 he talks about Ripley and Poro possibly being scum for following his "crap logic", and later on he talks about his case on me being based on the idea that his case on CS was wrong.
  
• Zeek has some back-and-forth with Poro through the middle part of day 1, mainly regarding alleged lurking, Poro calling Garn town, and Poro following his vote onto me. Nothing much comes of this, and he still says he's supicious of me and CS in 230.
  
• Post 230 is the game's first mention of the idea of lynching Garn as a harm minimisation strategy. At least two other players refer back to this as a good plan later on, when it really isn't as presented.
  
• Post 264 states his only two scum pairings, both of which are now impossible from my perspective (Poro/Garn, CS/Me). He expands on this further in 276, and I don't particularly agree with his reasoning, given that the pairs are both on wagons together at the time. This really seems like a very shallow analysis to me, as the incidence of scum pairs jumping on the same wagon one after another at deadline is not very high.
  
• Post 295 (the hammer post) doesn't really justify the vote in my opinion. In post 230 he said that he found CS and me scummy, but would accept lynching Garn. By the time 295 rolls around there's a definite movement in my direction by destructor and, to a lesser extent, Ripley, but he ignores it and opts to hammer Garn instead.

I'm not sure about Zeek right now, but I will say that I definitely do not find him to be the paragon of towniness that others have cast him as. The weird self-contradicting case on Porochaz and the abandonment of his prior position when hammering Zeek are marks against him in my book.

CS and destructor will come when I get the chance to write summaries from my notes.

[Erg0]

Oh, I had a question. Why was Ripley saying that a lynch was going to be better than No Lynch in Day 1? If we didn't lynch yesterday, even with a night kill, we wouldn't be at lylo now, would we?

Yes, we would (6 players left after night, 1 mislynch + 1 nightkill = 2 scum and 2 town remaining). A no lynch is almost the worst thing you can do on day 1 of a C9 (apart from lynching a power role).

[Erg0]

Not really, since there's only a 50% chance of having a doc, and even then the doc needs to pick the right person to protect. I believe that one of the resident mathematical geniuses has done the sums on this and found the no lynch on day 1 to be the worst option statistically (assuming random choices, I guess).

In any case, I'd rather have two guaranteed shots at getting the lynch right than one with a <50% chance of a second.

[Erg0]

Not a contradiction, just a progression. A townish reaction doesn't make previous scummy behaviour disappear, it just mitigates it.

I can't actually figure out what I meant with that "stated basis" thing. I think I was referring to the fact that I wasn't trying to derail the wagon by saying you weren't scummy, just challenging someone else on their views on the subject.

What I

should

have said at the time was that the reason I defended you was that Poro asked me to.

Sorry that I didn't have time this weekend to finish my write-up. It's literally just a case of transcribing my notes, so it will be here tomorrow along with some conclusions.

[Erg0]

The self-contradiction that I'm referring to from Zeek is his argument for Porochaz being scummy for following Zeek's own "crap logic" case on me. I kind of see what he was doing, but it seriously weakens his position on both of us.

[Erg0]

Basically, it's a poor foundation for a case. As Ripley said on day 1, scum need to fake suspicion, and a bad case can be a sign of that.

Going back to your earlier point, this is similar to the reason that I like Poro's consistency. He picked his suspects and stuck with them rather than leaping on the townie wagon du jour. Opportunism is a definite scumtell, and he didn't show any of that.

[Erg0]

Paranoid much?

I've just been really busy the last few days, but you seem to be extremely anxious about what I'm going to say about you. Considering you think I'm super-scummy, I'm not sure why you're so worried.

[Erg0]

Yeah, but Zeek didn't think his logic on you was all that bad at the time. He later points out that You and I both seemed to think so at the time. And then began wondering that if his case was not all that strong, then why Poro latched onto it so readily. Especially considering that it was based on buddying up to me, who he has constantly voiced assuredness of guilt.

This is exactly my point - Zeek was attacking Poro for following his (possibly bad) logic, but Zeek's vote was still on me. It's one or the other, surely? If he actually thought his logic was bad, he shouldn't have still been voting for me. If he thought his logic was sound then there was no case against Poro.

[Erg0]

Ok, I tried summarising this and it wasn't really working so you're just getting a selection of my notes in raw form. This is pretty much a summary of CS's statements of suspicion throughout the game.

Civil Scum

51 - likes Erg0 for defending him, wishy washy on Zeek, dislikes leeton
62 - doesn't think I'm buddying up, wishy washy on Zeek, dislikes peapod
80 - thinks my defence of him could be viewed as a scum tactic, mentions this a few times. peapod lurking, still dislikes leeton (reaching a bit)
111 - still dislikes leeton. Wishy washy on buddying up
121 - dislikes destructor, wants to hear from peapod.
137 - says he's waiting for peapod before voting
142 - defends Erg0 from destructor
152 - waiting for someone to defend destructor (?), thinks porochaz is defensive
156 - votes destructor (appears to have thought he was already voting him)
170 - defends Poro against destructor, wishy washy on leeton, waiting for Garn, thinks destructor made several valid points (?)
178 - starting to back down on leeton, questions me on case against Ripley, dislikes Garn, prods Zeek
182 - suspicious of Erg0, says he won't pick up on case against Ripley
183 - starts to swing towards Ripley, calls him defensive
193 - says he won't vote Erg0, makes a case on Ripley. Thinks Ripley/Garn or Ripley/leeton (destructor).
203 - leaning towards Ripley/destructor
209 - Defends Garn, Erg0. FoS destructor, mainly for leeton's behaviour
231 - likes Erg0, calls Zeek 100% town. Still dislikes Poro, backing down on Ripley.
234 - moves towards Garn lynch, Person C tell (cites Ripley & Zeek's cases)
238 - thinks Garn is town (but not 100%), unvotes destructor
239 - "little case can be made for destructor or Garnasha"
240 - willing to listen to case on Garn or destructor, but won't lynch purely for lurking
242 - accuses Poro of following, votes Garn "regardless of his alignment" ("sneaking suspicion" he is scum)
249 - thinks Zack is "not at all scummy", says he changed opinions due to thinking Ripley is innocent, starting to think destructor is town, thinks Poro is scummy but wants to lynch Garn
279 - thinks Poro/Garn are scumpair, increasing suspicion of Erg0

As can be seen from the above, CS swings around a lot on day 1. Two of the biggest examples are his swing on Ripley between 182 and 193, and on Garnasha between 238 and 242. I take his point about my vote on Garnasha being similar, but an important difference is that I never said that I thought Garn was town. I also didn't have someone else in my sights as the scum at that point.

There are other bits and pieces as well - he says in 303 that Ripley thought he (CS) was a deluded townie, which is not really true (see Ripley's post 267). I somewhat agree with Porochaz on this point, though saying that Ripley was moving towards making a case might be a bit strong.

The issue that I really have here is that for all the hopping I can't really divine CS's intent because of the age old "newb or scum?" question. I'd like to hear his reactions to this and then go from there.

[Erg0]

And finally...

leetonicon/destructor

leeton started off on a bad note with his overly developed conspiracy theories in the first couple of pages. Looking back, I have a slight feeling that he might have been trying to set up a wagon so that scum would come in with a quick hammer. Failing that, he just seemed to misunderstand the workings of the game a little bit - an impression which is reinforced by the way he looks to the ICs for input (when he would have known we were both town if he were scum).

I wasn't a big fan of some of destructor's theories on relative scumminess (or his strong insistence that he not be held accountable for leet's actions), but his follow-ups in response to me make me think that he was being genuine. Ironically, he's about the only person I really think is solidly town.

With that out of the way, I have some outstanding questions to answer. That's next on my "to do" list.

[Erg0]

The self-contradiction that I'm referring to from Zeek is his argument for Porochaz being scummy for following Zeek's own "crap logic" case on me. I kind of see what he was doing, but it seriously weakens his position on both of us.

We already went over this several times. Interesting contradiction from you again... Earlier you said it was a great scum-tell... but now you just "kinda see" what was going on?

I said it was "apparently" a good scum tell, which isn't the same thing. Also, it's only a good scumtell if you actually believe the case was crap, which you apparently didn't.

I understand your explanation, but I still think that the whole thing was either ill-conceived. Why would anything that CS and I said about your case have a bearing on your opinion of it? At that time we were the two scummiest people in the game from your point of view.

On the hammer: a hammer is not the same as avoiding a no lynch. Unless I'm mistaken on the deadline rules, we would have had a lynch on Garn with or without your vote. I do take your point on possibly splitting the vote, though. You're mischaracterising me by saying I'm upset, when I simply said that your post didn't seem to provide sufficient reasoning. Now that you've given me additional reasoning I'm happier with your hammer.

There are two reasons that my post on destructor is shorter:

1. Other than his four big posts, he didn't post that much on day 1.
2. I've already said plenty about him and didn't need to revisit it - unlike others, I already had a fairly clear opinion on him.

[Erg0]

Zeek hasn't given us an incredible amount of material, and I think Ergo is trying a little hard to find something dead-lock incriminating.

Well, I've got to work with what I've got. I did think that Zeek was being given a bit of a free pass, so I probably did emphasise some points against him in order to gauge reactions.

Isn't Ergo saying "Newb or Scum" who can say? as inappropriate as my using that as a defense early?

Not really, I'm just voicing it as an issue that I need to work through (I've got a bad history of being unable to tell the difference).

I almost feel like we should lynch the lurker at this point.

Isn't, 'regardless of alignment' sort of written into this?

Only if you choose to read it that way. The fact that it was followed by a comment about finding three other players townish at that time, and a later comment that we shouldn't sacrifice a townie, should indicate that I wasn't thinking town for Garn at that point.

Ergo- You can do better than overreacting at L-2 right?

It's not a pillar of my case, but you're coming off as really defensive again now. It

is

a scumtell, especially when it doesn't fit with your history.

This seems incompatible with you liking Poro's consistency. You're uncertain on me, but you don't caution Poro about the danger's of his current tunnel-vision.

I'm not really sure what your point is here - I could accuse both of you of tunnel vision today, with all the time you spent arguing with each other. As a side point, I'm wondering how you feel about destructor's tunnel vision on me?

I get the feeling that the last part of your post isn't aimed at me, since I already know we're not buddies. I will point out that you seem to be going back to arguments from day 1, using both my "degrees of WIFOM" statement and point on the odds of us both being scum. I agree with the first point (obviously), but the answer to the second (as stated previously) is "exactly the same as the odds of any other scum pairing". The fact that you resorted to this argument even after it was previously discredited reeks of desperation to me.

[Erg0]

Wow, this is what I get for taking an evening off.

Good game scum, I really didn't have a clear idea of who the pairing was (beyond being fairly suspicious of Zeek). I wasn't quite as sure of destructor as I said I was, but I was basically planning to choose between CS and Zeek on day 2 and then re-read again on day 3 if we were still going.

This was definitely a wordy game, and I apologise for not fully being on top of things towards the end of day 1. I admit that lynching Garn was probably the soft option, and I just didn't have time to do proper analysis at that point due to RL issues.

This was definitely among the better Newbie Games I've played, hopefully everyone learned a lot!

[Erg0]

Also, please pardon my shameless whoring but if anyone has a spare game slot I would really appreciate a replacement in my Clerks mini game. No serious flavour knowledge necessary, what's on Wikipedia and IMDB will suffice. Link is in my sig.