Newbie 480: Game Over!

[Porochaz]

He is responding in that post to me, he then asks straight after to reconsider my vote. He votes for leet. This is a random vote.

I say no.

He asks again.

I say no again.

Because I refuse to budge he OMGUS votes me, which he is allowed to do providing he's doing it for the good of the town and not because Im voting him, which he has admitted.

After his random vote leet is not mentioned once.

The point remains, I responded to his "please can you change your vote" because he asked me, he didn't ever ask leet to take the vote off of him. It would have been ok if he had left it at that or then asked leet and whilst my vote may still be on him he would be looking a lot less suspicious. He looks so suspicous now because he asked a second time and OMGUS me... He also tries to pass off Ripley noticing his uneasiness as non-evidence as he's new. When whilst that may be correct its still able to be used to show he is scum.

[Civil Scum]

I explained my "obligatory" OMGUS vote for leet, a semantics issue nothing more. My second vote to L-2 porochaz was really just silliness, I retracted it quickly; I don't really believe he's scum.

This 1 for 1 thing troubles me for a couple reasons.
1- I don't like the idea of applying a set of working principles and rules to a game where every situation and player is different.
2- As town, I can guarantee my lynch leads to lylo (barring a correct doc protection-if we even have a doc) and while likely some (1 or 2) of the people who will have voted ar scum, it seems that with the limited amount of info available, town would have a tremendously difficult time sorting it out. It is doubtful that L-1 and the hammer would both be scum (it seems well established that this would be too risky) but even if one of the last two voters are scum (not neccesarily guaranteed) which is it? L-1 or the hammer? Town would be left with quite a dilemma. I guess it would depend on how well/poorly those last two justify their votes.

RANDOM VOTES- "I have reason to believe he's not civil at all" Is this justification for a random vote? Sort of, but not really. My name is good fodder and it makes for a first vote that is always accompanied by a joke.
People put random underneath their first vote, but I don't know if that's the case. If all but one person has voted and all but one p[layer currently has a vote, is their vote random? No, they make a decision whether to have 1 vote on every player or to L-2 someone. Whether or not they do this, while not indicating alignment ( a case can be made that a newb scum might purposefully avoid placing someone at L-2 and drawing any attention), it is CERTAINLY not a random DECISION.

I'm admittedly glad that Ergo is sticking up for me so readily, I doubt a scum would come to my aid in explaining what I have tried to. It is coordinated, but for me this makes me lean town in his direction.

Zeek did bring up my odd behavior originally, but is witholding his vote. Either he pointed it out (like a good townie) and doesn't believe that the case is strong enough yet to warrant a vote (or wants it to run a longer course-like a good townie) OR he wanted to throw it out thereand hope townies run with it while he maintains a safe distance (like a good scum). I have no feeling either way as of now.

Leetonicon:
My problem with leet's play is this; he is really JUST jumping on the BW (not quite there yet but it could easily become one) which, again I'll point out, is now based largely on three things: an OMGUS vote (scummy?), that I requested that only one of my accusers (porochaz-the 2nd one) retract their vote, and my overreaction to L-2 early. Being at L-2 in the first few votes (not concerned so much with it feeling "unfair") just seemed so quick, I sort of had the idea that the next two could be as well. Leet has not really added anything to my list of accusations. He seems mostly to only be giving the impression that he is scum hunting. He talks about how he's been WIFOMing and trying to figure this and that, but his posts don't really suggest that he is doing any of it.

He has also retracted just about any reasoning he gets presured or questioned about. If he had put much thought behind the connections he is "trying" to make on weak evidence/no evidence, then I think he'd be more inclined to defend some of it than simply toss it away at the slightest pressure. In my opinion, it is fairly obvious that he has STOPPED scum hunting, but is trying to pretend this is what he's doing. He asks for the IC's for help in analyzing the game for information to use in D-2. Why is he already concerned with the D-2 implications of my quick-lynch?

Leet, since coordinated actions are arguably the strongest scum-tell (tough early on), shouldn't you be a little more concerned with looking at how people are reacting to the present situation? Why are u thinking and planning on D-2 already?

If Leet is scum, I would have to believe his partner is one of those not too invovled, fearful of being connected with his over-zealousness perhaps.

Early list:
Leetonicon ******

[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.

[ZeekLTK]

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.

I will start at the bottom: yes, CS did overract to having two votes... that is the case against him. Or at least why I am suspicious of him. It was a huge overraction... does it not make you wonder WHY he overracted? You seem to just be saying "he freaked out and got really worried that he had 2 votes on him... so?" So?? So WHY did he freak out? Why are you not interested in figuring that out? Did he panick because he is scum and was worried that he had been found out? That is what I am trying to figure out while you are off on your own little crusade against others who have done nothing to warrant it.

And it is interesting that you say that you are attacking me because that is what I was going to point out, prior to you even making this post.

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".

--

CS, all I have to say about my vote is that it is still early in Day 1. There is no point in putting someone, no matter how suspicious they are, at L-1 because even if you are scum, a short day that could result from that does not give the town enough information to identify your partner. If we let the day go on a bit then we can gather more information on everyone and have a better chance of nailing both scum instead of just one who slipped up early.

I was mafia in my first newbie game and we managed to lynch someone almost on page 1. We killed another town at night and then quick lynched on Day 2 to win within 3 pages total. I do not want to see that happen to me this time around, so I am in no hurry to help anyone lynch right away. However, since Ripley hasn't really done anything suspicious yet, I am not going to sit here and throw out blame without using my vote, so...

unvote, vote: erg0

[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.

[Civil Scum]

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

[Ripley]

Ripley and peapod are lurking a bit yeah?

I'd say I'd contributed roughly as much as Zeek and that both of us have contributed significantly more than peapod. peapod certainly stands out to me as the only real lurker at this stage. Makes me wonder if you don't want to see peapod singled out for lurking and are getting a pre-emptive strike in.

[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?

[Porochaz]

K lets do something about it then...

mod

can we get a prod on peapod please?

[pablito]

peapod has been prodded.

[peapod]

Sorry. I'm here.

I'm kinda busy with school work lately. SATs are coming up in two days, and I really have nothing significant to add to the CS conversation because the issues have already been throughly explored. Over-explored, if you ask me.

But just for the sake of it:

So

why

is the OMGUS vote scummy?
So

why

is asking someone to unvote twice scummy?
So

why

is his ignoring leet scummy?
In other words, why would scum even do these things? Granted, CS does seem rather defensive. But what

else

?

((And I'll be back later to look at other people, when I have less to do.))

[Ripley]

Any kind of behavior that seems unnatural, illogical, perplexing, inconsistent or just slightly odd is always worth noting, as is behavior that seems nervy or an over-reaction. You can't always neatly summarise such an observation with a precise account of what the person stood to gain from this behavior if they were scum. Scum don't by any means always behave rationally, especially if they're a bit nervous. Lots of these leads eventually lead nowhere; it doesn't mean they weren't worth pointing out.

Nervous behavior is particularly interesting, because although nobody likes to be in danger of getting lynched, and it's possible that a new player might get nervous on two votes, scum are basically more nervous than townies to start with. That's the effect of a guilty conscience.

I really have nothing significant to add to the CS conversation because the issues have already been throughly explored. Over-explored, if you ask me.

Can you suggest something you think we'd have done better to explore?

I'm admittedly glad that Ergo is sticking up for me so readily, I doubt a scum would come to my aid in explaining what I have tried to. It is coordinated, but for me this makes me lean town in his direction.

Scum buddying up to a townie is the oldest trick in the book. If you're town, you can see by your own reaction here how well it has worked. Erg0 has gained your support, which will be valuable if you survive. If you don't survive he looks good for sticking his neck out to support a townie who was under pressure. I'm not saying Erg0 is scum; he could perfectly well be genuine. But you should be aware of the dangers of assuming anyone is town for this reason.

[Civil Scum]

Was this directed at me or Zeek?

Directed at Ripley.

Scum buddying up to a townie is the oldest trick in the book. If you're town, you can see by your own reaction here how well it has worked. Erg0 has gained your support, which will be valuable if you survive. If you don't survive he looks good for sticking his neck out to support a townie who was under pressure. I'm not saying Erg0 is scum; he could perfectly well be genuine. But you should be aware of the dangers of assuming anyone is town for this reason.

This is a good point, of which I am well aware. Given the circumstances when he began his "crusade", I was under heavy suspicion. This seems risky to me in the sense that doing so could alleviate the pressure on me (an innocent townie) when he could just have easily gone with the "flow".

I would expect/suspect this type of buddy-up from scum only after the BW appears to be slowing. Which is why post 53 from Zeek troubles me.

I will start at the bottom: yes, CS did overract to having two votes... that is the case against him. Or at least why I am suspicious of him. It was a huge overraction... does it not make you wonder WHY he overracted? You seem to just be saying "he freaked out and got really worried that he had 2 votes on him... so?" So?? So WHY did he freak out? Why are you not interested in figuring that out? Did he panick because he is scum and was worried that he had been found out? That is what I am trying to figure out while you are off on your own little crusade against others who have done nothing to warrant it.

One of his main talking points against me was that I had only requested one of my voters to reconsider their vote, and while I wouldn't expect him to re-hash every point or suspicion about me in every post, here it sounds as if my panicking was the only set-off. Over the course of the post he flip-flops back and forth on me a little. Saying I do look scummy, then maybe not, and then 'well even if he is scum we may as well leave him there'. Eventually he accuses Ergo of exactly the behavior Ripley has just mentioned.
So, in that vein, Ripley the timing of other people's defense (Ergo) of me and deflection (Zeek) away from me, would make me lean towards accusing Zeek of scummy behavior.

Overall however, Zeek's efforts have a pro-town feel and I am still more concerned with peapod. Obviously I could just be turning in my scum buddy after I blew it as a sort of strange distancing tactic, but prolly not. I (and everyone, right?) would very much like him to answer Ripley's question.

[pablito]

leetonicon has been prodded.

[Porochaz]

I don't have much time at the moment but

unvote

, Ive contemplated doing this for a couple of days but have only now decided fully whilst I believe to an extent Civil is scum, there are others who have acted just as scummy in the last wee while. Im going to do some research and give my thoughts on each poster and give out my vote again (which could still go to Civil)

[Porochaz]

eta: Im not doing that till tomorrow

[leetonicon]

Interesting on the prodding... I've been less online lately and haven't actually seen the email telling me I have a prod yet, but I see pablito's post (and now need to reread and see if anyone asked for me to be prodded or if Pabilito is actually being more proactive than most of the mods I had seen (i.e. I thought usually mods didn't prod until requested) Anyways:

I came in with certain assumptions which may or may not have had any validity to them. These are below and hopefully justify why I've said/done what I've done so far. More importantly, my original intention was to then lay out why I'm still most suspicous of CS, by laying out places where he appears to be strategically twisting what I've been saying, the problem being that when I went back to cite places where he did, if I look at them objectively, he's making certain assumptions which are opposite certain assumptions I was making so I don't agree with him, but I can't say it's as scummy as I was thinking.

Assumptions below

1) Looking towards day 2 is essential. Basically: day 1 vote is a crapshoot but odds slightly favor lynching a townie even if the mafia don't obviousily attempt to influence the vote; this puts us at lylo (barring doc save) on day 2 and so we better have some insight into who's most likely to be scum to maximize the odds of getting to day 3

2) 2 band wagons good. Assuming I did the math right, there are slightly better than even odds that with two bandwagons on day 1, one of them is scum; who jumps on and off a bandwagon may suggest who the other scum is.

2a) Having 2 incestous bandwagons is less good, especially if the only half the group was involved in discussing them. I was overlooking the fact that to get from L-2 to Lynch does require two more votes and unless the lynched is scum, at least that last vote is likely to be scum without a good justification for voting without much discussion (i.e. deadline), but if a deadline came up, I could see scum or town casting the 4th vote to avoid a no-lynch (which I'm assuming is always worse for the town on day 1 for newbie games)

So, now I need to go back everyone else's postings and figure out who I think the most suspicious person is. In the meantime,

Unvote

[leetonicon]

eta weird... when I previewed my post, Porochaz's comments weren't there... believe me or not, but it looks like CS is completely off the hot seat.

[Porochaz]

Not technically, Im reviewing my position, I only unvoted to show that Im doing this fairly and evenly, as I said I think hes still scummy, to a degree.(not that you get degrees of scumminess but in relation to other people) I also assume you havent ruled Civil out of the race yet either. My vote stayed on him to keep the pressure up now whilst this is splintering off into other people (which is what I hoped would happen) I don't see the point in keeping my vote on Civil whilst I review people actions in the game.

[pablito]

Interesting on the prodding... I've been less online lately and haven't actually seen the email telling me I have a prod yet, but I see pablito's post (and now need to reread and see if anyone asked for me to be prodded or if Pabilito is actually being more proactive than most of the mods I had seen (i.e. I thought usually mods didn't prod until requested)

I am a more proactive mod than most. I will prod without player request if I see that a player has not posted for a long period of time.

Also, you didn't get the email beforehand about the prod because I sent it at the same time that I posted about it in thread. For future reference for all, email notifications about PM can be turned on or off by clicking on the Profile button up top and then go to Preferences section to fourth line that says "Notify on new Private Message". Yes means you get emails to PMs, No means you don't get emails to PMs.

[Porochaz]

Right Im going to try and keep this short but knowing me its going to get quite long...

Start with the easiest:
peapod: has had few posts and the one she made latterly in the game explained her absence which, I believe , she also thinks she doesn't have much to contribute to the "over-explored" Civil talk, which is fair enough I guess. Town but not 100% until we have a few more posts.

Ripley: Has been helpful in clearing stuff up for us noobs (as have they both so thanks both of our IC's). He hasn't been scummy in any way I can see. Which means hes a good experienced player. (which I believe he is) or he's town (which I also think he is)

Zeek: Has had more or less the same thinking I had with Civil. I think he's the most likely to be town. In my eyes he hasn't done anything scummy. (there was an accusation earlier on but I can't find it in my posts below this reply... so if someone wants to highlight that I would be interested...)

Civil Scum: Is the most difficult to place, he acts scummy but always has an air of noobishness to him, for evidence against him you could look through many posts in the first 3 page and find it. However I decided last night when I unvoted him that he seemed more nooby than scummy and that most of the many things that he did could be explained by his lack of experience. This seems stupid thinking to me but its the most logical I can be and I don't particularly want to vote for someone just yet who I can't put my finger on.

leet: His logic at the beginning confused me, He explained it and I wasn't convinced. His comments about 2 bandwagons I didn't think was correct and for a while I was wondering if that could be viewed as scummy but just decided it was a difference of opinion. He thinks that two bandwagons is good, two "incestous" bandwagons are bad. I personally feel that maybe against Civil was a bandwagon because although only two people were voting for him there were others who went against him. Against me however I don't think that was a bandwagon. Not sure what I think about his being offline recently, however I hadn't really noticed and wouldnt of asked for a prod, so am not going to use that to build evidence against him. But will ask other people, was leet's absence felt by you? I'm not sure but I'm tentatively saying town at the moment but am definetly watching with interest.

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

[Porochaz]

K thanks for telling us that pablito

Vote: Erg0

for reasons above

[Porochaz]

pablito can we get a vote count please?

[Ripley]

I'm planning to reread the game and post some thoughts tonight or tomorrow. One thing, however, that struck me as a bit surprising on reading Porochaz's player summaries is his generosity to peapod:

Town but not 100% until we have a few more posts.

I agree that it's too early to form any firm decision on peapod, although the game has been running for eight days now, which is long enough to start to take notice of a player who's posting excuses rather than content. But "Town but not 100%" is a way more charitable verdict than I'd be willing to make at this stage on a player who's posted so little. I'm certainly quite happy leaving my originally random vote in place.

[Porochaz]

Peapod hasnt posted much but her excuse for not being here is a valid one, in my opinion, even though she shouldnt of signed up if she was going to be away... what she has posted though has been in no way scummy to me anyway, when I say "Town but not 100% until we have a few more posts" what I mean is if I had to choose Id say town but Im not about to recommend her as "Townie of the year" as we dont have enough substance to say either way.