Mini 518: Underground Mafia, The Nightmare is Over!

[Jitsu]

/confirm

[Jitsu]

Vote: Abstract Actuary

because his avatar makes me look fat

[Jitsu]

True, that. Someone has to be unfairly targeted when the game starts though, in order to get things moving.

Then again, the rest of the game isn't always "fair" either. Such is mafia.

[Jitsu]

to prove your point.

vote jitsu

No fair!!

[Jitsu]

Abstract, what happened to your torso?

[Jitsu]

Abstract, what happened to your torso?

It's actually really fat, but it's invisible. It's nice, I can eat what I want and no one even notices a change.

Coooooooooool. In fact, that is so cool that I will

Unvote

.

[Jitsu]

I think I'll

unvote vote: Curiouskarmadog

You put the 3rd vote on CKD. Why?

He's only at L-4 at this point, but you're right, it might be a bit early for a third vote, especially since CKD has only posted once.

[Jitsu]

Interesting.... Well, this game is certainly moving, isn't it?

My analysis so far (not that there's a whole lot to analyze at this point):

We have a CKD wagon and Korlash wagon each with 3 votes on page 2, and everyone seems to be playing it very cool and nonchalant. Seems to be hard to get a read on anyone at this point, though it's likely that scum are on at least one of the wagons.

Jayalay gets a townie point for asking Miztef about his third vote.
CKD has been silent since the wagon formed on him (though it's only been about a day since then), and Korlash is still joking around a bit.

GunslingerKB pops out of his cell and immediately drops a third vote on Korlash.

All of the votes still seem to be (semi) random at this point, and nobody is overly defensive. It could be that scum are building a second wagon to take early heat off of CKD, but it's too premature for a fingernail of suspicion at this point.

Anyone else have any thoughts so far?

[Jitsu]

[quote="Miztef"]jitsu, where is your avvie from? It's interesting.

the game is moving along slightly, but I have very little reads on people. I think I'll keep my vote for now, see where it goes.

I think it's nice that jitsu tried to comment of everyone, although I don't think it makes him more protown atm, as there is little to analyze.

My avatar is Kei Kusanagi from the anime/manga "Onegai Teacher" ("Please Teacher" in the US). Brief plot summary: An alien chick (who of course looks just like a human and is extremely hot) comes to earth to observe humans and gets a job as a teacher. A mixup happens and Kei pretends to be her husband in order to save her job. Things get interesting as the two have to keep up appearances of being married to the school principal, while they try to hide the relationship from Kei's friends.

I am studying Japanese, but I'm only semi-fluent so far.

And yes, I am trying to start some discussion going, though I concede things won't get interesting until someone gets a fourth or fifth vote. I obviously don't have much mafia experience, but I have read through a *lot* of games on this site to learn the strategy before I signed up for this one.

[Jitsu]

Ugh, missed a closing tag there sorry.

[Jitsu]

We do need a fourth vote sometime soon, or someone to slip up badly. (preferably scum)

I agree.

At this point, it seems more likely that the former will occur than the latter. No reason for the scum to overreact yet.

If nobody else votes, I will soon, but I'd like to hear from some of the other players who haven't said much yet.

[Jitsu]

Because we need to get information, and we need to get a reaction out of somebody to get things going. Like the others have said, the random wagons will fall apart and people will unvote if there really isn't anything there. I don't plan on putting a vote on somebody and leaving it there without a reason to do so.

I agree with you that we need more input, but the others are correct about something; when someone only has 2 or 3 votes on them, there is not sufficient pressure for anything to happen. Yours was the strongest reaction we've gotten out of anyone so far -- and I was just talking about placing a vote, let alone doing anything about it.

Besides, it's not like there are any non-random bandwagons out there to vote on, and it's darn near impossible to legitimately justify a vote on anyone else at this point.

With three votes, you're hardly in danger of a lynch, and none of those were serious votes anyway. I hadn't even decided who I was going to vote for yet.

Why so defensive?

[Jitsu]

@Korlash:

I thought we needed a fourth vote at some point because nobody flinched with three votes on them and nobody seemed interested in changing a vote so far. So I dangled the possibility of a fourth vote out there to test the waters. And you reacted. It wasn't a huge reaction, for sure, but it was a reaction.

I saw your reaction and decided to press it a bit to see what would shake out. I would have expected you to react like you did if I had actually voted for you, but not when I was just talking about it.

To answer your question: it wasn't anything specific you said, as much as how much you said and the timing.

I agree with you about not focusing too much on one person. Sure, I could vote for someone that doesn't have many votes on them yet, but I'm not going to learn anything at this point by putting a vote on Jayalay or Anata, for example. Though, if people lurk a few more days, I wouldn't mind putting a vote on a lurker to encourage them to talk. I'd rather not do that on the weekend though, when people are less active.

[Jitsu]

I can think of a few things that would be more efficient, but they rely on people telling the truth (not something that's likely to happen).

Really? I'd like to know what you've got in mind.

[Jitsu]

Guys, I'll comment on the rest of what's happenend in the morning, but I want to comment on the massclaim now:

I don't fault Sudo_Nym for what he said. He did open the door for the question when he suggested there was an effective way he could think of doing things, so I called him on it and asked for an explanation. And he gave one -- preferencing it by calling it a stupid idea is something I agree with, so I don't fault him for that. Once I asked for the explanation, he was effectively committed to saying something, and he answered as well as he could. I believe that it was just an idea that was hanging around the back of his mind that subconsciously found its way out -- I don't think he wasn't entertaining the idea seriously.

Needless to say, a massclaim is a horrendous idea right now. Regardless of what the scum do, any power roles we may have as town, those power roles would be forced into an awful situation: They would either need to: (1) stay silent and lie (pretend to be vanilla townies) to protect their idenities, which would make them seem suspicious later. If a scum falseclaims a power role and the genuine player stays silent, the town will believe the scum for a while (early power role claims tend to be trusted because they are a big, big risk for the scum, plus they are testable), while the scum gleefully cause all kind of confusion. At that point, both townies AND scum have liekly lied, while the remaining players have to sort out the mess. -or- (2) the town power roles tell the truth and/or counterclaim any false scum claims so people trust them. Guess who gets NK'd by the mafia then?

The time for a massclaim is later in the game, when several days go by and we get a better feel for who is suspicious and who is not. At that time, any potential power roles have done their jobs (and hopefully given us results) and are more ready for a claim. Usually such a claim will buy you an extra night's investigation if a doctor is present, or if the claimed power roles can be trusted, can swing the game in the town's favor by helping narrow down the possible scum. The massclaim is a powerful town asset, but not when it's used too early. The primary goals for the town on day one are to lynch a scum if possible, and protect the power roles so they can use their powers.

[Jitsu]

As you may be able to tell, I paid a lot of attention to when and how people claimed as I read over the games on this site.

[Jitsu]

@Korlash:

Your basically putting me in a damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario here. If I don't answer the questions I look scummy, yet if I do you call it defensive and use that against me.

True. I admit it was a little unfair to you personally, but I do think it ended up helping the town with the information it's generated, as you pointed out. If you had thought to mention this right away, you would have looked a lot less suspicious. If you acted like you had nothing to hide (as I expected you to), I wouldn't have gotten much out of it.

This may suprise people, but I also am guessing you are townie. There's only two possibilities to me: you are a scum furiously backpedaling to get out of a bad situation, or you are a townie that got caught flat footed and are working furiously to try to clear your name. I think if you were scum you would have been a bit more careful to start with, and would not have continued to draw attention to yourself like you have. You seem determined to explain your way out of the mess and the suspicions you have raised on the others make sense to me. I believe you were just frustrated and scrambling to fix things -- I am getting a townie read off of that. I actually turned my attention off of you and onto some of the others last night, which you will see in a moment. I still have a little suspicion on you, but I think there are better targets to pursue now.


@Miztef:

You seem surprised that no one voted for you in response to your Korlash vote? I wasn't online then, but when I saw your vote later, I did find it suspicious since Korlash was already squirming at that point. To me, it sounded like a convenient time to put the fourth vote on him without much suspicion, but this by itself was not enough for a vote on you in my opinion -- I think it's possible to justify that you were continuing what I started to see if anything more shook out. However, the thing that really piqued my interested was your post #71. It looked like you were noticeably irritated that people were jumping on Mexal ("

he's on god damn vacation"

?). It certainly looked to me like you were jumping in to defend him and give him some excuses.

Sure, maybe Mexal didn't read closely, but Sudo_Nym was careful to include numerous disclamers. Given that you had to read a bunch of those disclaimers to even get to what Sudo_Nym was saying, I find it hard to buy the argument that he didn't read it carefully enough because he was on vacation. Either Mexal had a really sloppy/hurried read (in which case his comments had limited usefulness anyway), or he just took an opportunity to jump on a wagon. I can't tell if you were being the voice of reason there, or helping out a scumbuddy.

Even if you did want to keep people from jumping to conclusions about Mexal, why didn't you just let Mexal answer in his own defense? You could still have posted afterwards, and we would have gotten a better read on him in the meantime.


@Sudo_Nym

Regarding the mass claim, I find it less suspicious due to all of the disclaimers, but from what I've seen in other games, even saying the words "Mass claim" on Day 1 is right up there with "Suggesting a No Lynch since we can't get a good read on anyone" -- it's a great way to get lynched. a great way to attract a huge amount of suspicion. I think you realized that after you opened the door, but given the number of disclaimers you threw in there, I think you answered me as best you could, so I'm not finding that as suspicious.


@Mexal

As mentioned above, I am havious doubts that you saw the mass claim and missed Sudo_Nym's disclaimers. I mean if there was just one disclaimer, I could see overlooking it, but holy crap, that entire message was like one giant disclaimer with the full claim explanation buried somewhere in the middle. Sudo even put the word "stupid" in italics. Sure, there's a possibility that Sudo_Nym was trying to get away with innocently floating the mass claim idea, but ultimately, I agree with Korlash calling you on it and his FoS on you seemed to be a good response -- strong enough to send a message, but not overreacting. You did state your dislike of the mass claim, but people pretty much have to do that, as fighting for a mass claim would be suicide at this point. Given that Sudo_Nym was the player you attacked, I can understand his vote on you.


@CuriousKarmaDog:

I like your post #81. I agree with your logic, particularly about Miztef.


@anata:

I understand that the newbie tendency is to sit back and analyze without saying anything, but that doesn't help the town at all. Even if you simply state your opinions on what has been said without coming up with a new analysis, that's still a benefit to the town. I would like to hear what you think.


@The others:

I haven't seen anything suspicious from Jerubbaal yet. Several people have commented on my play, even Korlash himself did in the middle of the action, so I don't see Jerubbaal aligning himself with me any more than anyone else has at this point. Jerubbaal did continue to ride Korlash a bit, but I think he was looking more to try to precisely what Korlash was actually saying than anything.

I also agree with oEJo's comments, but I can't get much of a read from him, Abstract Actuary or Jayalay due to limited info. At least oEJo has stated his opinions.


So I will give a

FoS:Miztef, Mexal

for the reasons above. I'm honestly not sure who is more deserving of a vote at this point, but I'd like to hear more from Mexal about the reasoning for his vote on Sudo_Nym before I consider my next move.

[Jitsu]

Ugh, sorry for the typos and such above. I started writing my response very late last night and I didn't catch them before I posted today.

[Jitsu]

Right, why is it that you can never seem to find the typos until AFTER you've actually posted and it's too late to fix it? Oh well, I'm happy to clarify anything that's unclear.

[Jitsu]

Post 84:

Usually my gameplay is seen is heavily scummy right from the get go, so it's just a different feeling for me.

Post 90:

I've noticed that in games where I'm mafia, people tend not to suspect me for a good while, cause I tend to play more cautious.

So, which one is it? It seems like you are contradicting yourself here.


Post 86:

God I am such a bad pro-town player.

Are you trying to make a (not so) subtle play here that you must be pro-town because you say your play is so awful? I don't think I'm buying that. It sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy to me -- it's like you are trying to use existing bad town play to excuse/explain even more scummy behavior.

In my opinion, saying you're a bad pro-town player is more than a bit of a cop out. From the games I've read, many of the best scum are really good town players too, so it seems to me that it would be a benefit to you to try to play better as town.

[Jitsu]

I'm not sure how those first 2 lines are contradicting, as a pro-town player, I am seen as scum quickly, as a scum player, usually it takes a while longer before suspicion comes my way. Does that clarify?

Yes, thanks.

[Jitsu]

Well, this has been an interesting turn of events, hasn't it? When I first read Mexal's posts, I was offended at him for attacking me, but then I decided to reread with an open mind and a fresh perspective after considering his comments, like I promised. The Mexal voters out there will not like this, but it is in the town's interest to consider all theories and not look at things from only one side. So here is my analysis on Mexal's counterpoints.

Jerubbaal kind of beat me to the punch a bit, but it took a while to create this post.

I've also got a lot of questions for people, in light of my reread.

@Mexal

I do agree that Sudo_Nym should never have even mentioned his idea about a massclaim. He should have guessed that someone would call him on his idea. It was a horrible idea for all the reasons people stated. I even credited you for that.

To answer your questions, I honestly didn't consider the case that you had read the post carefully and disregarded the disclaimers. In retrospect, I should have, given that I even mentioned the possibility that Sudo_Nym's massclaim idea was not completely innocent. I think I see where you are going with your counterpoint, though. Sudo either made a really bad slip (which he realized right away), or he totally played us by testing the waters for a horrible massclaim, and then using the disclaimers to cast suspicion on you.

At this point, I can't be sure if it was an honest mistake on Sudo's part, or if he was really trying to slide one in there. Given how most of us seem to have only a few weeks or months of experience, it could well have been a newbie mistake, but you did not seem to seriously consider that possibility. You seem pretty sure that he was not making a casual mistake -- what made you so sure?

I think I would have felt less suspicious of you if you had objected to the massclaim without voting immediately, and then saved your vote for today when you returned so that you could explain your reasons a little better. Also, you seemed to take Sudo's massclaim idea a lot more seriously than did everyone else. Even with several newbies in the game, I think it the chances were nil that it was ever gonna fly (it only takes one veteran player to explain why it is so bad), so your quick and very brief objection coupled with a vote without much an explanation did look somewhat scummy to me.

If you have been really trying to help the town by potentially exposing Sudo, I think you would have earned a lot more town points if you had focused more on presenting the "Sudo is playing us" theory in a less antagonistic way than counterattacking those who attacked you (myself included).

Also, it seems clear to me that Miztef did try to defend you in post 71. Miztef has hardly been racking up townie points this game, so I still really wonder why he so quickly jumped to your defense. He seemed genuinely annoyed at the rest of us who attacked you. From your posts after that, particularly your response to Anata's post, you seem to have suspicions on Miztef also. Why did you not attempt to distance yourself from Miztef's comments defending you in that post or when I raised the theory of you two as a scumpair? I would never have thought to consider the two of you as a scumpair before his post 71.

It's likely that one of you and Sudo_Nym is scum and the other is not, but I don't know who to believe at this point. I'm not ready to completely take my suspicion off of you at this point, but you've raised enough doubt for me to back off and take a more neutral stance on you and Sudo_nym. I am not throwing my support behind you; I am simply acknowledging that your counterpoint is plausible. It is always best for the town to consider all possibilities.

If you can make a stronger case against Sudo_Nym, I'd like to hear it.


@Sudo_Nym

I have some questions for you also, to give you a chance to clarify things. What made you think of the massclaim idea originally? Did you had a previous game where a very early massclaim was beneficial to the town? If you really did think it was a stupid idea as you said, why did you even mention it to begin with? Were you aware that even mentioning a mass claim on Day 1 is a really bad idea in a game of this size?


@Miztef

Post 36:

no real reason for 3rd vote, just decided to get the game moving forward. Seems to be working

Post 49:

We do need a fourth vote sometime soon, or someone to slip up badly. (preferably scum)

Post 58:

However, we do need to start picking out the first candidates for lynch, and I think I'll unvote vote: Korlash

Post 63:

Right now, I think I'm gonna lay off pushing any wagons very hard, we need a bit more activity from other players.

Post 84:

I wouldn't mind changing my vote at this time, just have no one to change it to. I am starting to get the impression korlash is town, but only slightly, so I think I'll stick to it until my scumdar picks up something good.

Post 103:

This game is going crazy fast in my opinion, even for my impatient self. That's why I feel it should be slowed down slightly. I'm not talking about everyone lurking or anything like that, just a little more thought to things, instead of super fast accusations on many people.

I find this sequence highly suspicious. You had a consistent stance that you wanted to get the game moving since the game began, but after post 58, you did a complete 180 a mere FIVE POSTS LATER in post 63! Why?

Between posts 58 and 103, you have run the entire gamut of patience and impatience here. To be honest, I don't think the game is going crazy fast (in terms of moving toward a lynch). Sure, accusations have been flying, but even with that, the players have been pretty good at not voting irresponsibly. In fact, the highest anyone has been so far in this game is L-3, and YOU were the one that put Korlash there. The truth is that there have not been a lot of votes cast in comparison to other games. Actually we have been able to extract good information from people without a lot of votes, which is quite remarkable and good town play. I've seen too many games that random vote for a while, then get someone up to L-2 without a great reason, which compels a claim. The more cautious style of play in this game is greatly benefiting the town, IMHO.

Also, as others have said, you may not have wanted to push the wagons further, but you STILL have your vote on Korlash, even though you say you are starting to think he is town! If you feel that he is at all more likely to be town than scum, it is a horrible play to keep a vote on him past the random stage. You've got whatever reaction you were going to get from him, and I hardly think you are going to get more information by keeping your vote on him.

Do you still feel that Korlash is more scummy than anyone else in this game? If Korlash really is scum and is screwing up that bad, why not leave the "obvious" scum Korlash until day 2 and try to vote for someone that will give us much more information. What would you expect to learn about the other players if Korlash were lynched? If Korlash is giving you a slightly townie vibe, then who are your candidates for scum??



@Mod

I Unvoted for Abstact in post 34. Can you fix the vote count please?

[Jitsu]

Don't ever get offended. It's not personal. I will attack you. I will attack everyone. I'm a very aggressive player and it's amazing what you can find out when you exert the right amount of pressure. Your posts were misleading, I called you out on it.

Yeah, "offended" isn't the right word -- I really need to stop posting at 3 am my time. I really didn't take it personally. I know it's just a game. I suppose I was more shocked than anything.

My frustration level is through the roof right now.

I understand this, but if you are innocent, it's in the town's best interest if you can calm down so that we can get a truer read on you. A highly frustrated person almost always looks somewhat scummy, regardless of what the truth is.

Let's suppose for a moment that you are indeed telling the truth and Sudo_Nym is scum. If that were true, don't you think Sudo_Nym did a pretty good job of introducing the massclaim idea in a subtle and believable way that (us) newbies could accept? So when you come storming in, claiming to see through his lies and acting so aggressively, the newbies are either stuck trying to figure out who to believe, or are latching onto your frustration instead of seeing the bigger picture. Of course, you would naturally be frustrated because you see the truth and can't get anyone else to see they are being played.

If that is what has happened, the picture is not as bleak as it appears. At the very least, I am understanding your argument and am now taking them seriously, even if I'm not in your corner at the moment. And Jerubbaal seems to be considering your points also.

@Miztef:

About the quote wall you made for me, I suppose it is inconsistent, but honestly, that's just me switching my mind about what I think should be happening, It's still not very clear in my mind in the first place. I do agree that the game is going well though.

Okay, so what was it that made you change your mind between posts 58 and 63? I can't see anything obvious that happened in thread to cause that, and your shift was a pretty dramatic one in a short amount of time.

@Korlash:

Yes, I do want to ask you some things, but I need time to sort through what has been said, and to reread the posts involving you. I wanted to get my comments posted on Mexal and Miztef first, because that seems to be the current hot button topic.

I also want to reread to try to get reads on some of the other players. I've been focusing so much on the Mexal/Sudo_Nym/Miztef angle that I haven't been keeping up with reads on the other players, and I want to do that.

[Jitsu]

Ugh, the last sentence of my previous post should not be a quote.

[Jitsu]

I think you have a fairly good read on me

Yes, I think so. I hope it's the right one.

I'm still trying to calibrate my scumdar, as it's fresh out of the box. It's even still got that "new scumdar smell".

[Jitsu]

Sudo_Nym's last post was Monday night. I also am interested in what he has to say.

I am also interested in CKD and anata's thoughts on the recent turn of events.

And as for Jayalay and GunslingerKB, I would welcome a prod on them if we don't hear from them in a day or two.

[Jitsu]

This is in responst to Jerubbaal's post 140. I saw just before posting this that more has been posted since but I haven't read it yet.

Your statements are fair. I agree that committing a fallacy in my logic there, just as I did with Mexal. That begs the question, "if it was a mistake, what were you thinking?" I think in spite of my caution with placing votes and perceptiveness with regards to details, perhaps I was a bit too eager in trying to pin down scum. To be fair though, I did not jump back onto Sudo after I changed my thinking on Mexal.

The second fallacy was honestly not an attempt to put words in Mexal's mouth, though I can see why you thought that. I was simply trying to work out the logic of the theory I had come up with.

I admit I made a mistake regarding what you pointed out above, and another one previously for jumping on Mexal without considering the countercase. I messed up, but I'm honestly trying to scumhunt the best I can. Clearly, I need to think through my logic more before presenting my cases.

As I kind of hinted in my last post to him, I get a townie read off of Mexal and from you as well. Your post was really the first to fully consider the plausibility of Mexal's arguments at a time when such an opinion was still unpopular among the active players -- I had already started my reply but not posted it yet. Also, the tone I read from Mexal is that he seems to be trying to help me improve my play, which I appreciate.

As for Sudo_Nym, I'm not sure what to think now. I want to consider what he says before I make up my mind.

I am getting slight townie vibes off of CKD as well, for his pursuit of the suspicions on Miztef.

As with you, Miztef is at the top of my list also. He seems to have made poor excuses for what he admits is bad town play and is only now starting to defend some of his choices. I noticed his recent posts have gotten a lot tighter too, like he is trying to lay low. For a reasonably active player, he doesn't seem to have a lot of good substance in his posts. He seems to be putting votes on people without following up on them.

For Gorlash, I admit I got a little lost in his exchange with Mexal. I have noticed some things I want to follow up on, but I want to reread to get a more complete picture on him.

I haven't paid a lot of attention to oEJo or Abstract lately. I want to try to get reads on them also.

[Jitsu]

Jitsu
He first started off with a vote for Abstract, and then unvoted him. He stated that Jayalay seems townie-ish and that the initial voting stage was quite random. When Miztef started pushing for a fourth vote, he agreed. He also agrees with Miztef that random voting is good for checking for people’s reaction. He also seconds the guess that korlash is a townie. It’s interesting to me on how he’s sure that certain people have a townie-vibe. After checking for new posts, he agrees that sudo_nym shouldn’t have proposed the mass claim, but he was the one that asked sudo_nym what his ideas were. Am I wrong here?

This analysis doesn't sound fair to me. You seem to have pointed out everything negative I've done, and not mentioned any of the positive things I've done. It even sounds like you are subtly attempting to link me to Miztef by mentioning some things we happened to agree on at the time. How do you reconcile this with the criticism I've put on him since then?

Also, where do I say that I'm

certain

that someone is townie? I don't remember ever saying such a thing, because I was never that sure.

I did ask Sudo_Nym about his idea, but only because he hinted he had something to say first (post #55). I merely called him on it (post #60). I admit to committing logical fallacies in relation to the massclaim, but I don't see how I contradicted myself just by asking what Sudo_Nym meant.

I still can’t decide whether Jitsu is simply really good at scum-hunting, or whether he’s trying act townie, so I can’t agree with Jerubbaal.

I don't really know if I'm good at scum hunting or not. As I said, I think I've been perceptive and asked some good questions, but I believe I need some work on applying the correct logic to what I've seen, based on some mistakes I've made.

It took me a read or two to get it, but I think I see what what you're up to. Your timing for a subtle attack on me is impeccable, as I am reeling from the mistakes I've made on the logical fallacies Mexal and Jerubbaal, which I pointed out. I suppose you are trying to bait me into jumping up and down and OMGUS voting you so you can point to that as further evidence on me? Nice try, but I'm not biting.

Needless to say, you've alerted my suspicions (

FOS:Anata

), but I don't think I can present a strong enough case on you to convince the others. I'll go back to scum hunting, but IGMEOY.

[Jitsu]

I have lots of comments to make, but I really need some sleep, as I spent the last two nights staying up late writing long posts. But I want to comment on what Sudo_Nym has said since I can make comments on his post quickly.

Mexal- Like I said, I appreciate the aggresive gameplay, though I don't do so myself. His style lends itself to natural scuminess, but he strikes me as being innocent enough. I'd say probably town, but could go either way. If he is town, he probably doesn't have a power role- most people (even the aggressive ones) tend to lay off a bit more when they have a power role; though this rapidly denegrates into WIFOM.

Of course it's true that power roles lay low, and aggressive players are less likely to be power roles to protect themselves from scrutiny and help ensure they get to use their powers longer. But why did you see the need to tell everyone this and narrow down the potential hit list for the mafia? We have plenty of newbies in this game, and there is absolutely no guarantee they would have already known this. This is an incredibly awful anti-town move.

Jitsu- Interesting. When the whole thing started, says its innocent; that I was locked into saying something after he asked. However, he has seemingly reversed his opinion on the insistence of Mexal. Perhaps he's trying to blend in with whatever mob appears to be in the lead?

I said it was innocent at first because Mexal was being aggressive and more importantly, I believed you. After what Mexal said, I did reverse my opinion somewhat, and your most recent post has only reinforced my position that trusting you was foolish. I won't say for sure that you are scum, but IMO, your recent post is even more suspicious than the massclaim was.

And Mexal did not insist that I do anything. He presented his case and I made up my own mind after listening to him and to you.

[Jitsu]

And since when does pointing out what should be obvious become anti-town? Knowledge is power, friend- and at this stage, the mafia has all the knowledge. Anything that increases the level of knowledge to the players increases the town's chance to win. Besides, the point I made should be readily available to anyone who cared to research the game before playing it. Though I do understand if others didn't do as much prereading as I did before my first game.

First of all, I'm not your friend.

Look at the join dates of the players in this game. Several have joined in October, and a bunch more in September and August. You seem to be one of the more experienced players, having joined this spring. Almost everyone else has less than 5 months experience. There are many relative newbies in this game and is is not unreasonable to expect that we have newbie scum in our midst. Given, as you say, that you understand that others may not have done as much prereading as you did before your first game, you've all but confirmed my point. It is far from certain that everyone would have known that townies with power roles generally lay low.

You have put any town power roles in far greater danger of being NK'ed than they were before, in exchange for what information? Helping the town get a slightly better read on Mexal? If I were scum, I would make that trade in a heartbeat.

With subtly suggesting the massclaim earlier, and now providing valuable information to scum, you've now commited two cardinal sins of Mafia on Day 1. If you do come up town, this is probably some of the worst Day 1 town play I've ever seen.

There's just one thing about this that doesn't make any sense to me that is stopping me from voting for you right now. If you are scum, why did you give out this information to the other scum when you could simply have told them this at night? It's almost as if you're trying to look suspicious. Maybe because you're a Jester? I don't know. Since I don't fully trust my logic at this point, maybe the other townies can help me fill in the blanks.

[Jitsu]

Or maybe Sudo_Nym is some kind of special role that helps mafia but does not get to communicate with them at night? Is that possible?

I keep looking at it again and again, but I can't make the pieces fit. Sudo's play is too awful to be town, but it's actually horrible scum play also. I just can't make him fit as ordinary scum either. I can't believe that he could be THAT stupid. There must be some other explanation.

Jester is a small probability, but given the rules post, NabakovNabakov said that as soon as someone fulfills their win condition, all other players instantly lose -- that stuck out in my mind, as it is different from most games (which play on until all player's win conditions are achieved or become impossible to achieve). A Jester present would seem to make this game horribly unbalanced against the town, so I can't make that scenario fit either.

What the hell is left?

[Jitsu]

You're making two assumptions here which you would be good to avoid, both in this game and in the future.

I think you are reading what I said the wrong way. I did not assume that join date = experience level. I know that there are other sites and ways to play mafia outside of this one, so join dates are not always reliable. If someone does have a lot of posts on mafia scum and has played in a number of games here, it is not unreasonable to assume they are experienced (and therefore, should probably know better to disclose information that can benefit scum). If someone's join date is recent and they have not made a lot of posts, it is impossible to draw a conclusion, other than they could be a newbie.

Since the join dates of players this game are mostly recent,

we cannot tell

if the players here are experienced or not. Therefore, in this game, it is even worse than normal to say anything that could benefit potential newbie scum in our midst.

I'll say something else. I believe anata to be scum from her recent post about me, but because she was so extremely crafty and careful about her wording, I don't feel that I can make a strong case against her. Thus, I feel that she is either highly experienced (with a lot of experience playing mafia elsewhere) or is highly skilled. And her join date is this month.

2. Townies with power roles generally lay low. This is simply not true. It could be true and sometimes it is, but it's not always true and while you said generally, you're still making the assumption that it's true in this case. Be careful with that.

I didn't really assume it was true in this case either, but I can see how you can get that from my post because my wording wasn't as precise as it should have been. I know power roles are very common in mafiascum games, but I know there are some games that do not even have any. The C9 setup page on the wiki says so (one of the four choices for a C9 newbie game does not have ANY power roles, and that was done to defeat the breaking strategy developed for the newbie games before that). Perhaps I did overestimate a little the probability of a power-role townie to lay low, but to be truthful, in a fair number of games I read, that was the case. I have read more than a few games where it wasn't, so I do not think I would use that logic unconditionally.

I should have said something more like that what he's done has potentially endangered any power roles the town might have. That is the meaning I was going for. I really don't have any clue yet what, if any power roles are in the game, and who they might be. I think it's much more accurate to draw conclusions about that based on night actions.

[Jitsu]

Another matter I want to ask townies about.

If the town does have some kind of cop or investigative role (which I don't know is true or not), is it true that this point that investigating Sudo_Nym tonight might not be the best play? Given that Sudo_Nym's play doesn't seem to fit pro-town or standard mafia, it's feasible that he might have a special role of some sort. If that's the case, whatever result we obtain may not be very reliable.

[Jitsu]

Finishing the thought at the end of post 179:

... even if the cop/investigative role is sane.

[Jitsu]

I don't agree with this at all. Her post lacked any real insight. It was more a summary of what has happened with a few comments. There was no real conclusions drawn or cases made. She might be scum, but I don't think that post says anything about her level of skill or experience.

Good point. I will reread it again.

Anyway, please take my responses as constructive criticism. I'm pretty sure you're town so anything I criticize is mostly to help you improve.

Don't worry, I am. I was just trying to clarify to Mexal what I meant.

@GunslingerKB:
I am really not butting heads with Mexal at all. If you reread the posts he's made and the responses I've given, I've actually been following his advice, because I think he's right about me. I believe him more than a lot of other people right now, and he honestly seems to be helping me improve as a player. I can see how you think I might be acting though, so I don't blame you for the vote on me.

[Jitsu]

I searched for the Traitor role in the Wiki. It says:

Traitor is the most common role on the Mafia side that isn't actually in the Mafia family. There are several variations of this role.

Most commonly the Traitor knows who is in the Mafia, but the Mafia do not know who the Traitor is. The Traitor works, through his or her Vote, to keep the Mafia from getting Lynched.

Another variation is the Mafia Spy (a.k.a. Devil). This version does not know who is in the Mafia, but can investigate once each Night to look for Cops or perhaps other power roles, that he then can try to expose during the day.

In a third variation, sometimes used in conjunction with one of the others, the Mafia can choose at any time in the game to recruit their Traitor. Before this time, the Traitor appears innocent to Cops, and/or has investigative abilities. Once recruited, the Traitor becomes a normal Mafia member.

I'm not saying that Sudo_Nym is a traitor, but this is a possibility we shouldn't ignore. There is at least a small chance that Sudo_Nym could be trying to breadcrumb his role to the mafia somehow, regardless of what he actually is. The wiki text also seems to reinforce the idea that an investigation on Sudo_Nym could mislead us, even if the supposed cop were sane.

[Jitsu]

Wow, with all of the simultaneous posting there, I didn't catch part of GunslingerKB's post.

I thought I had a pretty good read on the game, but after Sudo_Nym's gaffe and some insightful comments from Mexal, oEJo and others, my world just got turned upside down.

I think I have a good read on the players I suspect as townie, but my read on the scum just went kablooey.

I still get scummy vibes from Miztef, my opinions on him haven't changed much., and I still don't like Anata's analysis (I haven't forgotten that I need to respond to that).

And I just don't know where to put Sudo_Nym, because I can't make the logic fit. I don't believe he is a regular mafioso. I am leaning toward either a townie (whose play I completely don't understand) or some kind of anti-town special role.

[Jitsu]

Sudo might be a traitor but he's done a poor job thus far. The point of a traitor is to help the mafia avoid being lynched, not get lynched themselves for anti-town comments.

Alright, let me turn this around and the question another way.

Sudo has apparently done a poor job of being a townie, a poor job of being a regular mafioso, and a poor job of being a traitor.

It's certainly possible (and maybe even probable) that he is still a townie playing poorly.

But let's consider the remaining possibilities for a second: other than a Jester, which would seem to be unlikely in this setup, is there anything that Sudo has been

good

at?

[Jitsu]

I'm not sure I bite on all this weird role stuff with Sudo. It's certainly possible, and we shouldn't discount that he might be something strange like a traitor, but it could just as easily be that he is a townie making bad townie plays or a scum making blatant scummy moves. Maybe he's just a bad player and maybe he just didn't think his arguments through all the way. It seems presumptuous to assume that his strange moves can only lead him to some strange role.

No worries, I'm not assuming that it can only lead it to some strange role. I am merely trying to explore all of the possibilities, even unlikely ones. The thought of a blatant scum is still possible, I think.

Occam and his razor would suggest you are correct anyway. It's the simplest explanation.

[Jitsu]

A better way of stating my comments in post 204 would be, since nothing seemed to fit well for me with Sudo, I was trying to test other theories to see if they were a better fit with the observations everyone has made, but nothing seems to stand out as a better option. At this point, almost anything is possible.

You did make a good point in 203 that blatant scum is still a possibility, so my comments in 204 reflected that.

[Jitsu]

Why is Jitsu trying to direct the cops investigation?

Sorry, I was just trying to help. *sigh*

[Jitsu]

That's fair.

I'm not just new to the site. This is the first game of mafia I've ever played, though I've read a lot of games here on the site before I joined this one. I am quickly finding out that actually playing the game is totally different than "playing along" with one as you read.

I'm just beginning to get a little frustrated. I'm really trying to help the town in the best way I can, but it seems I keep making small mistakes that keep my analyses from being really, really useful. So close, yet so far. I'm grateful to the other townies that are helping me become better.

But getting discouraged definitely won't help the town, so I need to keep trying. At least, it's made it difficult for anyone to call me a lurker.

It's painfully clear that I've analyzed this Sudo thing to death and I need to start looking for fresh leads.

[Jitsu]

more posts, I think sudo_nym is really the way we should go first day. He seems a little wonky.

Vote: Sudo

I can't believe this. Is that the only reason you have, or is there some other reason for voting him?

And more than just voting him, you insist that he is the play for today. That's quite a strong statement to begin with, and doubly so since your reason for voting him is weak in the first place.

One could also get the impression from this post that you're ready for the day to end. Why are you in such a hurry?

[Jitsu]

@Miztef:

I notice your play has gotten considerably tighter. Previously you didn't defend yourself and called your own play horrible. Now you are attempting to say something, and actually defend yourself but I can't really find anything substantive in your posts, and I still get the feeling that you are overall very lazy, and like others have said, attempting to put votes on people and let others push. You've posted no true in-depth analysis other than "general vibes" on people.

Also, you say you think Mexal is the most pro-town and you trust his opinions most of the time, but last I remember, he thought the attacks I and others made on you had merit. I know the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but why do you say you trust someone (a fairly strong statement of innocence) that really doesn't seem to trust you?

[Jitsu]

jitsu - Trying to guide the cop is committing a number of bad things. One, you're claiming not-cop, which makes it easier for the mafia to find the cop. Two, it does sound like scum attempting to manipulate the actions of the town. I'm not so much demanding an answer for this one as pointing out that such guiding is really not a pro-town move. CKD kinda already called you out for this one.

I understand now. Yes, CKD did already call me on it, as he should have.

[Jitsu]

About the Mexal comment, I actually didn't realize Mexal was still very keen on me, I only skimmed through his posts (as there are a whole lot of them, and I was focusing mostly on things that pinged my scumdar).

I wasn't trying to speak for him here, I am only giving my impression on what I think his opinion of you is based on the last few comments he's made about you. Of course, it is better if Mexal gives his own opinions.

[Jitsu]

These comments are largely in response to post 153, with some in response to comments made after.

Sudo_Nym
He started off with a random vote (second for CKD), and tried to prod people when they reacted. He was part of the discussion about the necessity of the mass claim, but he didn’t propose it until Jitsu asked him for it. Later he unvoted for CKD, and voted for Mexal, but I don’t know why. Later he explains that he was just doing more random voting. I have a feeling that he’s just trying to hunt out the scum, rather than acting scummy.

You seemed to completely misinterpret how the mass claim started here. Given how important of an event that was in the game, not taking the time to go back and see how it started is at least a little suspicious. Nobody else seemed to have a problem seeing what happened, so I don't think it was that subtle of a detail. And when you were called on it in post 154 by Mexal, your reply was basically "I suppose" and then you express that he may have been probing for scum. I'm sorry, but how does making an anti-town post like that root out scum? Giving support for a mass claim on Day 1 is potential suicide for any player. Nothing is definite, and even scum would be likely to denounce it or just keep quiet. Given all the lurking that was going on at the time, I would say that it was a pointless exercise at best. And when Mexal voted Sudo for making the stupid massclaim, Mexal retaliated by OMGUSing Mexal for it. How is that decent scum hunting? Sudo may or may not be scum, but IMO, he hasn't been a scum hunter in this game.

Jitsu
He first started off with a vote for Abstract, and then unvoted him. He stated that Jayalay seems townie-ish and that the initial voting stage was quite random. When Miztef started pushing for a fourth vote, he agreed. He also agrees with Miztef that random voting is good for checking for people’s reaction. He also seconds the guess that korlash is a townie. It’s interesting to me on how he’s sure that certain people have a townie-vibe. After checking for new posts, he agrees that sudo_nym shouldn’t have proposed the mass claim, but he was the one that asked sudo_nym what his ideas were. Am I wrong here?

I and others have already commented on how you were mistaken on how the mass claim started. When Mexal called you on this, your reply to him in post 163 was that "You suppose" and you reiterated the possibility that Sudo was scum hunting. I also challenged you to tell me when I mentioned I was sure certain people were townie, and you couldn't come up with any evidence (because there was none), even though you found the whole thing interesting (which tells me it particularly stood out in your mind for some reason).

Conspicuously missing is my long exchange with Mexal where I pointed the FoS at him and then changed my mind as he presented his arguments to everyone -- and that had been concluded before you made your post. Where was commentary on that? And the logical fallacies I made, where is the commentary on that?

I still can’t decide whether Jitsu is simply really good at scum-hunting, or whether he’s trying act townie, so I can’t agree with Jerubbaal. I also don’t understand why he voted or sudo_nym since I couldn’t see a clear explanation. Considering that he feels that the random voting stage is done, then why did he vote for sudo_nym?

Huh? Did you not see the firestorm of suspicion that Sudo was under at that point? And that Sudo's defense was hardly inspiring then? He wanted to put pressure on Sudo to defend himself. It's right there in the post.

Mexal
Mexal voted for Korlash randomly (he was the first one), and then later unvoted and voted for sudo_nym. Again, I’m not sure why, and I would like to hear an explanation. He also agrees that a mass claim is a bad idea.

You're not sure why he voted for Sudo? Are you serious? The exchange that sprung up from this lasted several

pages

. Even if you missed the reason on the post where he actually placed his vote, the reason is repeated several times over on the next few pages. When Mexal called you on this (#154), your response was "perhaps I missed something" (#162). You never answered his question.


When I read your post, I was sure you were trying to frame me. Now I'm a bit less sure, but I still think that's a possibility.

As for the rest of your analysis, I think it's total crap. Most of the stuff you mention is totally pointless and too much of it was a rehash of the random voting stage where nothing much was going on.

But more telling is all the stuff that was missing. You talk about the massclaim, but only to get it wrong about how it started and question the extremely obvious reasons for Mexal and Jerubbaal's votes on Mexal. There is not an ounce of commentary on the aggressive posts, disagreements, and the noticable swing of several players to Mexal's side of the argument. At that point in the game, that exchange provided enormously valuable information and after it was all over, likely formed some of the basis for some the reads people currently on each other.

While I don't expect anyone to cover every aspect of the game in a summary like this, and not every analysis can be completely comprehensive, you talked about a lot of things that had little impact on the game, and did not comment on just about everything that has had a big impact on the game.

One could simply say that you're a townie that has done a really, really sloppy job on reading and keeping up, and that you're lazy. Perhaps you were just looking for posts where people voted and reported some information about it. I admit that is a possibility.

But given that you seemed to know who was involved in the massclaim and you comment on votes that took place during it without mentioning any of the really telling events that happened, I have to think you read at least some of those posts. And if you did that, why didn't you go back and reread more carefully, as it should have been pretty obvious something was going on since votes were actually being placed then (unlike a lot of this game so far). I think it is possible that you intentionally distorted your analysis.

Also, I get the impression that you may have been trying to help out Sudo by deflecting suspicion from him. You didn't seem to understand the reason for any of the votes on him, yet you seemed to notice the votes themselves. When people were talking about their suspicions on him, you replied that it was possible that he could be scum hunting. When you thought I prodded him for the mass claim, it was suspicious enough to move me up to the top two on your most scummy list with Miztef (post 153), but Sudo_Nym, who actually said it, was probably scum hunting? I'm speechless.

You may be just a lazy townie, but at this point, I think it is more probable that you are scum, lazy or otherwise.

I also find Miztef and Gunslinger scummy at this point, but I think the others are adequately pressuring them already. You've given no real comment on anything important that's happened in this game, and I think you are flying under the radar. In light of all of the other reasons above, I want to put some pressure on you to start talking. So here it is.

Vote: Anata112

I'd also appreciate your comments on Sudo's speculation of Mexal having a power role or not (Post #164) and the recent attacks on Miztef and GunslingerKB.

[Jitsu]

For example, I wouldn't take Gunslinger's votes or even his list as seriously as other players simply because he hasn't backed his ideas with sufficient reasoning. I noticed that Gunslinger ranked me quite high on his scummy list, but I don't know the reasoning behind it. Similarly, what is his reasoning behind his whole list?

So are you defending Gunslinger now? How is it correct to not take his votes seriously just because he hasn't backed his ideas with reasoning? Throwing out votes with little or no reasoning beyond the random voting stage is hardly pro-town behavior.

[Jitsu]

I love how people post that their votes are for pressure. For me, at least, saying that a vote is for pressure actually reduces the level of pressure on a person.

Huh? How do you figure that? Putting pressure on someone to gauge their reaction is an important concept of the game! Just because it doesn't work on you doesn't mean it won't work on someone else.

And my answers were never designed to satisfy anybody but myself, and for good reason. I don't know you from Adam; to attempt to soothe your nerves would be a fruitless endeavor. I post to satisfy myself, mainly, as I'm the only member of the game whose mind I know, and I do this regardless of my alignment. It works out well for me, normally, but occassionally gets me into trouble.

If you are townie, it is bad town play to refuse to defend yourself, because it makes you look guilty and makes people want to lynch you. How does that help the town?

The main outpouring of this is theory. I prefer to talk in theory than anything else, because I find it to be an easier way for my mind to approach the game. However, this sometimes means that I come up with ideas that sound great to me but are unconnected with reality.

Your contribution to the game has been two theories, a massclaim that was never going to fly (followed by an OMGUS vote), and a speculation about Mexal having a power role, both of which were very bad town plays. How is this supposed to help find scum? Nobody is saying you have an obligation to act like "Goody-Two-Shoes" townie, but a self-serving defense like this has to rank up there as one of the worst ways to help the town.

And I'm pretty sure being unconnected with reality is a really bad town play.

Are you

trying

to get lynched? It's really starting to look that way to me.

[Jitsu]

Why would I try to get lynched? You forget, that while I've been around longer than some, I'm still new, and still learning. And my own style of learning is to propose as many ideas as I can, and then listen to the reaction to learn whether the idea is good or bad, and why. The massclaim idea was similar. I knew it was bad, but I didn't know exactly why- a situation that made my think there's possibility for improvement down that path.

Other than being a Jester (who wins if they get lynched), I don't know why. Making a bunch of anti-town plays, declaring that you don't care if you get lynched or not, and mentioning that you post only for your own benefit is not the way to avoid getting lynched.

You say the strategy works for you in newbie games, but not in larger ones. So why continue to use a strategy that doesn't work? There is a wide latitude of strategies and playing styles permitted in these games, but Mafia is still is a group game, and not an individual competition. If you keep pulling this "I don't care if you lynch me or not" crap, nobody's going to want to play with you.

You say you like to approach the game by throwing out theories -- fine. Why don't you throw out some theories about who you think is scummy and why -- or is that too much to ask? I'd prefer reasoning and analysis, but at this point, if theorizing is your strong point, I'd prefer theories over "I don't care if you lynch me or not."

[Jitsu]

Who specificially do you classify in the group as having done significant lurking? I can make some likely guesses, but I'd rather not assume anything.

Other than general suspicion due to lurking, do you have any other theories/observations/comments on those who are currently in the spotlight(Anata112, GunslingerKB, Miztef)?

[Jitsu]

The amazing thing that this occurs within three hours. Does anyone else find this interesting? Jitsu makes this long post that I don't think I need to summarize. This is followed by Mexal and Jerubbal who simply say something to the likes of "I agree".

It's not really that amazing. If a case is convincing, the reasoning is sound, and the facts are presented clearly and without distortion, people will vote. Mexal and Jerubbaal can expand on their reasons for voting for you if they choose to, but if a strongly convincing post is made, it hardly needs a lot of commentary. I see Mexal and Jerubbaal as being the most pro-town at this point for their helpful insight, commentary that is helping encourage good town play, and pressure on those that look scummy. If Mexal and Jerubbaal say that the logic is good, it's probably because it is.

In my posts, I have never defended anyone. Everyone is a suspect in my mind until I get more information. However, there are certain opinions that I agree/disagree with, and when that occurs, I voice my opinion. I never purposefully defended Gunslinger or Sudo_nym.

Gunslinger and Sudo_Nym have definitely done some things that are very much anti-town, which I and others have called them on. You were quick to put suspicion on me based on flawed and misrepresented evidence (intentional or not). And yet, you've not even admitted you've done this even though I and others have presented clear evidence of that and questioned your logic. Yet, when Sudo and Gunslinger did things that are at least as scummy (if not more so), you didn't find it suspicious at all. Sudo and Gunslinger may or may not be scum, but they have definitely made some noticeable anti-town plays. Whether you purposefully defended them or not, I don't know. But at the very least, you've condoned or excused scummy behavior, which is scummy in itself.

In my analysis, I was looking for voting patterns. This was also for future reference in later stages of the game.

I have no complaints about your tracking of the voting sequences. I agree this was accurate. But you said you didn't understand the reason for the votes, when there were clearly spelled out in the posts and spawned pages of aggressive posts that were virtually impossible to miss, even if you were just skimming. I believe that all of the other players involved understood the reasons for the votes pretty easily. A recap of who voted for who is nice, but anybody can do that with little effort.

Also in my analysis, I put up a few suspects, and Jitsu, you were one of them. You were the only one that mentioned about impeccable timing of my post and how clearly thought out it was. And now you say it's sloppy and a lazy analysis. So which one is it? And why did it take so long for you to bring up this attack on my post? It was pages ago and since you've been quite active in the forum, why didn't you say this earlier?

I wasn't just one of the suspects, I was in the top two. As I said, on my initial read, I got a strong impression that you were trying to frame me. I focused mostly on the portions that talked about me on those initial comments. On the reread, I considered the entire post altogether, and that's when I began to see patterns in your "analysis" in seeing what you said about the others compared to me. I think you were trying to be careful about who you were saying bad things about, but you did a sloppy job of that. And the glaring omissions of any ot the important game events was either sloppy, or a careful exercise used to distort your anaylsis -- I don't know which it is, but both of them are scummy.

Why didn't I say all this earlier? The answer is quite simple. I knew I needed to reread your post, particularly after Mexal's comments in post 183. I thought you were clearly trying to frame me, but he just said your analysis didn't say much -- so something didn't fit. I knew I wanted to read it more carefully later, and so I put it in the back of my mind, because Sudo committed his gaffe of commenting on whether Mexal has a power role or not before I could respond to your post. I called Sudo on that, and I was following up that lead when the opportunity was there.

Even during that process

, I mentioned in post 200 that I wanted to reread your post and hadn't forgotten. When the lead on Sudo was dry, I finally did my read on your post again and presented my analysis. It never left my mind.

To me, it sounds like you didn't like me bringing you up as a suspect, and now you're trying to deflect the attention back to me. Does that mean my suspicions are correct?

Plenty of other people have commented that I looked like a suspect, and I didn't have a problem any of them when they brought it up. Why? Because in all of those cases, the reasoning was sound and based on fact, or they were gut feelings formed around the logical fallacies or other mistakes I made. Sudo has me as his chief suspect at this point, and even I can admit that at least his theory is based on something that actually happened. Your suspicion on me stands out because it used evidence that was misrepresented, irrelevant, and in some cases, not even there.

Given how you don't seem to be addressing any of the relevant points I made about your analysis (other than denying that you defended Sudo and Gunslinger), I think that you are trying to make a desparate attempt to deflect the attention back on

me

, without having anything very substantive to say. In this post and in #242, I have logically debated your points, and your response has been to point fingers at things that really aren't very relevant.

Do you have anything else to say about the points I made? Because I can't see anything resembling a defense here. I'm happy with my vote on you right now.

[Jitsu]

Nothing is ever "clearly spelled out" in mafia. I mean with all the suspicion, paranoia, stupidity, and newbiness floating around nothing will always seem the same to everyone. Take the massclaim thing. Sudo clearly spelled out that he felt it to be a bad idea but being asked here it was... Yet a few people took that as some kind of scum trap for power roles or whatever. And this is basically what mafia boils down to, who can explain their point in such a way as to make people understand it the best they can.

I agree with you, to a point. Stating that something is clearly spelled out is always a relative term and is always modified by the fact that anyone can lie at any time for any reason. Plus newbie play and even simple misunderstandings can keep points from being understood. Still though, I am allowed to say that I thought the reasons were pretty clear if I feel that way. If you or someone else disagrees with that, then rebut my statement and we can discuss it. Just because it is a strong assertion doesn't mean it isn't true. And I do feel that the other players in the game understood at least the basic reasons behind the votes I mentioned, based on the comments that were made. And if you always shy away from strong language in your posts, it's much harder to pressure someone. At the moment, my vote is on her because I want to apply some pressure to her. I am always willing to consider any new information that comes up, but I haven't heard anything yet that makes me want to change my vote.

So, how about, instead of telling her how obvious they are, you explain it to her so that she does understand them. You cannot criticize people for not understanding something unless you have tried to explain it to them.

In real life, I pretty much agree. In mafia, I don't agree that is always a good idea. A major point of my argument is that she either didn't seem to read very carefully or she did and carefully chose what bits and pieces she commented on. I am trying to figure out what mixture of those two occurred. Explaining to her what

I

think the reasons for the votes are would rob me of any information I could get from her responses to my criticism. Anything she says, doesn't say, or even how she reacts to me questions/commentary is valuable information to this point.

If I felt she was a townie that didn't understand, I might be more inclined to explain, in order to help her. But I see her as potential scum, so I really don't feel I should let her off the hook that easily. If she still doesn't understand the reasons even after a more careful reread, she can say so, and I can decide what I want to say then. But even that tells me something. If I tell her what I think the answers are before she responds, any information I get from her is irrevocably tainted, and therefore, I cannot get a true read on it.

Maybe an analogy would be useful. Do you know the game show "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" If you don't, it is a show where contestants try to answer multiple choice trivia questions to win money. Once during the game, the contestant can poll the audience to get their opinion on the answer for one question. All the audience members vote on what they think the answer is, and the contestant is shown the percentage of audience members that voted for each answer. If I think the correct answer is C, it makes a big difference whether or not I tell the audience that before I poll them. If I tell them I think it's C, more audience members are likely to vote C than before, especially if they are not sure themselves. Thus, I've possibly tainted the results. If I don't state my thoughts first, then I get a truer read on what the audience really thinks. Do you see my point?[/u]

[Jitsu]

^^ Sorry for missing tags in the post above.

[Jitsu]

With those three points I feel your vote had a good chance of gaining info, while Mexal's vote did not add anything to the discussion.

Be careful. Giving a vote without a detailed reason can indeed be a scumtell, but an insincere attempt to agree by merely adding useless fluff can be too. It's wise to consider all the prevailing factors about the vote (such as the current context of the game, voting histories, the voting player's style, etc.) to determine whether the vote is good or suspect.

Giving a lot of weight to how good (or how long) the stated reason for the vote was and not considering the other factors can lead to incorrect conclusions. I'm not saying you did this, I'm just trying to point out something that may benefit the other players.

[Jitsu]

But the downside of that is hiding info from a towny may get them confused, scared, or panicky and thus lead to false info on them. Which could spiral down into a very strong case against them that gets them lynched.

That is true. And yes, I have considered that case. I don't like to hide info from the town unless I think I can learn something by doing so. Based on if/how she responds to our prods for information, I will be trying to gauge whether what you say above is happening or not.

Frankly, in this case, I really do not think that it is a big secret, because I feel the reasons for the votes were not that difficult to understand. Plus, this point (not understanding the reasons behind the votes) is only a small part of my overall criticism against her, so I don't think hiding that little piece of info is likely to lead to a false conclusion on its own.

[Jitsu]

Quick question, Do you agree that the mere statement "I agree with what he said." is all the reason and explanation a vote needs?

I think it totally depends on the situation. If I think I have a good read on a player, understand their motives, and do not have any questions about their vote, I may not require anything more than an "I agree" reason. In this situation, I thought I understood what Mexal means, because he does call me on it if he disagrees. If you really do agree with EVERYTHING the previous voter said, there may really not be anything else that needs to be added. But if I don't have a good read on a player and I want information to understand their motives better, I will ask, just as you did. I didn't think you asking him for a clarification was a bad idea at all. You got him to state his opinion more explicitly and got him to commit to specifically agreeing with everything.

I don't see how that fits here. Not giving a reason just because you do not want to be adding useless fluff clearly means you do not think your reasons are good. So I cannot see why your bringing this up. is it to try and defend Mexal? Or is it to say Jer's reasonings were useless fluff? Or was it to say my reasonings were useless?

None of the three. Mexal certainly doesn't need me to defend him, as he is doing just fine for himself. I think Jer did add a few useful things. And I don't think your reasoning is useless either. I agree with you asking for a clarification.

I was just trying to point out that the presence or absence of a well-explained reason isn't necessarily telling by itself. I've seen many cases where "I agree" votes were cast by honest townies, and many cases where they were cast by lying scum. I'm trying to point out to my fellow newbies that I think it's best to step back and see the whole picture for each vote,

including

the reason. If you can't get a feel for the voter's motives for doing so, you should ask them.

Adding useless fluff can be bad for several reasons: (1) It makes your true points harder to find and dilutes your arguments; (2) It can give others a false impression that you don't really have anything useful to say; and (3) in a game where your enemies are trying to twist and exaggerate every word you say, sometimes saying too much gives them more openings to attack you. In a lot of my posts, I find the need to trim out fluff before I post. A tighter, more focused post is a lot more effective than a rambling fluffy one, but you have to include enough information to make your points. It's a fine line to walk. I personally like to try to explain my votes well, but I know not everyone plays like that.

[Jitsu]

Honestly, at this time, I'd lynch Miztef, Anata or Gunslinger. I think we should lynch one of them then re-evaluate where we stand tomorrow.

They are also my top three at the moment. I do feel that the discussion is starting to stagnate, but I there are a few loose ends that I'd like to see get wrapped up. I would prefer to wait a day or so of real time to see if Anata responds, since she said she was gone for the weekend. I really want to give her a final chance to defend herself, now that a lot of people besides me have asked for it. Maybe we can get some commentary from her and the others that have been gone over the weekend. Also, given that Jayalay has requested replacement, I'd like to give her replacement a chance to come in, get caught up, and weigh in.

While we are waiting, Mexal, if nothing else changes, who do you think is the play, and why?

[Jitsu]

meaning that I think my vote is currently on the scummiest person in this game..

which one (of jitsu's post)?

I believe the relevant posts Mexal is referring to are my 242, then Anata's reply at 265, and my rebuttal at 267.

[Jitsu]

I need to carefully reread the last few posts before I comment further, but I want to cite my statement I made earlier.

As for where Anata put me in her top two, she never explicitly said ther her top X suspects were person 1, person 2, ...., but at the very end of post 153, she says:

After this horribly long post, I still cannot say for sure who I think is scummy or not. However, I’m still keeping an eye of Miztef,

and now on jitsu as well, based on my analysis

.

[bolding mine, for emphasis]

Gien how little else she's posted, and seeing how Miztef and I are the only people she's mentioned she was suspicious of after the random voting stage, this seems to put Miztef and I in her top two list of suspicious characters by default. At the very, very least, she has singled out Miztef and me above all others. And here she does cite her "analysis" (that is, post 153) as her reason for this.

[Jitsu]

OK , I can see how you might think that...

any comments on the rest of my post? Mexal's? Miz's?

Yes, but I want to reread first.

There are a lot of points in my initial read that I think I want to comment on, but the last few several posts especially had a lot of comments and talking points in them. Given that people are starting to talk about who is a good lynch, the stakes have gotten higher, so I want to take extra time to consider what was said.

[Jitsu]

Everyone, I have a really gigantic post coming, but I am still reading over it to check it for inconsistencies. I'll have it up in a bit.

[Jitsu]

I don't think it's useful for me to comment on every point that has been made because the landscape has changed so drastically. But I'll try to generally cover most of the important points since my last substantive post. Sorry in advance for the length of this post. I wanted to try to be complete and make it the highest quality I can.


Post #292 and the Korlash/Mexal exchange:

I agree with Sudo's comments here (bet no one expected that, did they?). It was okay for Korlash to ask Mexal for a reason, though I had picked up on the fact that Mexal was unusually quiet about his reason, when he usually explains his logic so well. I figured Mexal might have been up to something, but I didn't know what he was fishing for. The post I made saying that it is best to consider all factors behind a vote was true, and I believe it wholeheartedly, but it was also a subtle breadcrumb to try to tell people to think a bit more about what he was doing. I also thought people were focusing too much on his lack of reason and missing the bigger picture. I wanted Mexal to try to get whatever thing he was fishing for. Apparently, that was to see who was going to defend Anata. I believe this, because I was looking for the same information. I don't fault Korlash for calling Mexal on his apparent lack of reason, as asking for vote reasons is good pro-town play, even for early votes on a wagon. The gigantic firestorm that erupted out of it, and CKD's reaction did seem like a bit much over just a second vote, IMHO. Mexal is a clever player and has not really done anything this game without a good reason.


Post #293 and Korlash in general:

I think he was in defensive mode for most of the first part of the game (admittedly after I helped push him into it), and his admitted inability to explain things well caused people to misunderstand him further and snowball into something bigger. His most recent posts have shown better town play. They have been tighter and more direct. I liked the patience he showed on waiting for Anata's defense. I think he is considering arguments better, and he has asked some better questions lately. I think he still fixates on the wrong thing sometimes, and his aggressive tone can sometimes rub people the wrong way, but I think he is at least trying at the moment. For now, I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt.


Post #296-297, 310-311, and GunslingerKB in general:

I still think Gunslinger is suspicious also, and he is near the top of my scummy list. I too am bothered by his inconsistent play and lurking. His logic was awful (random lynching is never good), and how he voted me, then later had me low on his list is not good play (even though he did unvote me). He's posted no real substance on anyone in my opinion, but he's hardly the only one to do this. On the other hand, his vote on me saying I was acting was a theory not beyond the realm of possibility. Given how much I'm saying I want to help the town, the two logical possibilities are that I am really an eager townie trying hard to scumhunt in my first game, or I'm acting real hard like an eager townie trying to scumhunt. So even though his justification was horrific, his theory was actually plausible. I did miss part of his post on my first read, but I never reacted to this because I knew it was a weak reason at best. And he did take his vote off of me when people called him on it. I would like to hear him defend some of his statements better. I still think he is scummy and I would support a lynch for him (at least at some point), but I really don't think he is the play for today, because I don't really know what I learn from knowing his alignment. He has not really tied himself to anyone else in a significant way, though Anata may have defended him in #241.


About Miztef:

His earlier drastic turnaround after putting a fourth vote on Korlash and then five posts later saying he wants to slow the pace down and stop pushing the wagons so hard is highly suspicious to me. It is like he wanted to push the Korlash wagon and then claim he was trying to slow down the game as a defense if it succeeded. Plus, his half-hearted defense early in the game where he claimed he was a bad town player just doesn't sit well with me. He's also done no real scum hunting in the entire game other then just posting what he thinks (though, to be fair, neither have a number of others). I disagree with him in #316 where he says that suspecting 5 people at this point is "quite large" [of a list]. Given all of the newbie-ish behavior and lurking this game, I suspect a lot of people too. On Day 1, it is hard to get a really good read on a lot of people, so I think it makes sense to have either a really large list (e.g. "everyone has done some scummy things at some point") or a really small one (e.g. "since everyone is doing scummy things, I can't figure out who the scum are"). The other slightly weird thing about #316 is the timing of his vote on CKD. I assume that it is in response to post #314 where CKD says that he thinks Miztef is the lynch today. But I think Miztef's comments were a bit premature. The attention was still on Anata at that point, and I would have expected Miztef to sit silently and wait a little bit to see if people agreed with CKD first before jumping to head people off -- he was a bit jumpy to defend himself here, I think. Also, Anata has stated suspicions of him the entire game, even before post 153. He never responded to any of Anata's comments until he jumped on CKD for possibly supporting her. Why didn't Miztef attack her previously? He had several chances to do so -- maybe there was some bussing going on there or something, I don't know. For most of the game, his comments have looked to me like an attempt to blend in and weigh in on the current topic without saying very much, though he has started to take stands on various people now because he fears a lynch, I think.


About CKD:

I understand his suspicions around Mexal's vote on Anata. It certainly looked that way. He really rode Mexal hard on it and said he had a reason for doing so, but he never seemed to say what that was. I am curious about that. I think his suspicions on Miztef are valid. I'm not as convinced as Mexal was that he was actively defending Anata, but I still think it is quite possible. I too wonder why CKD is so sure that she is innocent, and he does not even seem to seriously consider the possibility that she is scum (newbie or not) instead. The *obvious* read on Anata from her posts was that her reads were sloppy and she messed up. The question is, was that genuine, or just a facade to hide behind?

In post 314, his comments on Sudo are fair. I can't agree with his assertion that Mexal is not reading this game, though. Far from it. This post was the first that CKD laid out his arguments that Anata was not scum, but a lazy townie. I agree with that a good number of things could be explained by Anata's apparent laziness, but there are still some left that don't fit. Also, you say that my argument about how Anata's summary covered the aspects of the game is subjective (which is fair), but you can't seem to admit that your arguments are just as subjective. You seem to think that a big reason why I am suspicious of Anata is her possible defense of Sudo, but that isn't really true. I've restated my strongest points several times, and that isn't one I have repeatedly mentioned. It's just something I noticed and saw to mention as something that would help my case, if it were true.

And also in post 314, you say:

This is a good point. Jitsu, did she actually place you on his top two scum list? If so, I am missing that post. If she did, that might be scummy, for you really didn’t prod Sudo for the mass claim idea. Sudo said he had an idea, Jitsu asked what he had in mind. There was no way that Jitsu knew Sudo was talking about a mass claim when he asked. However, if there is a post that I am missing that Anata says Jitsu is on her top two scum list, please post.

I cited my source for this and you seem to have acknowledged that my assumption was at least reasonable. Now that you've conceded that, where do you stand on this now? It almost seems like you are agree with me here (to a point at least), on the condition that she considered me scummy, which I think I provided reasonable evidence for.

I don't necessarily think you are scummy. I just find it a little odd that you seem to be so convinced about her, after I've raised reasonable doubts to the contrary. I do agree that there are some small inconsistencies either way that cannot be fully explained by either theory. But in that case, I've made an effort to thoroughly analyze and fully consider the cases as much as possible.



About Anata:

I'm really pissed that she left the game right now, at the height of suspicion on her. At least four or five people at that point wanted info from her, and possibly more. Now she has denied us any possibility of getting that defense. I was hoping to glean information on her from her defense (more on that later). Now she's dropped out of the game without even posting in the thread first. I hate to read anything into the fact that she dropped out (apparently by PM) to the Mod, but given that she said she would be back and posting on Monday, she sure changed her mind awfully quickly. It is at least plausible that the heat got to her and she bailed.

Mexal is mostly right about my view on her. I do believe it is more likely that Anata is scum than just a clueless townie, though I still feel there is a small chance it could be the latter. I thought my case against her was pretty strong (well, as strong as any other typical case for lynch on a Day 1), but I did moderate my opinions of her a bit in my posts, because I had made mistakes so far, and I wanted to see if anyone would believe me (given that Mexal had expressed doubts about my Anatascum theory before). I think Mexal picked up on that a bit.

I already mentioned why I think Anata is scummy, so I don't think I need to fully restate my case here. The rest of my suspicions on her are based on things that I can't prove or apply strong logic to, so I didn't post them before because I was trying to get a read on them when she posted her defense.

Other than the points I presented, my biggest problem with her was her previous attempts at defense were inconsistent. She almost seemed to be playing the newbie card in #162, and said that she would attempt a re-read, but where was it? She had a long, long time to do that. Then after my post #242, she decided to defend herself by turning the tables on me, without saying anything substantive -- that's a dangerous newbie move, IMO. Given her self-admitted cautious nature of not voting or expressing suspicion without some degree of certainty, this style of defense is completely counterintuitive to me. If she still did not understand what was happening at that point, why didn't she say so? Why did she not play the newbie card then, when it seemed to have worked (to a point, at least) in #162? Also, when people pointed out scummy behavior on Sudo and Gunslinger, she did not agree. Even if she wasn't defending them (which is possible), she was at least condoning or making excuses for scummy behavior. That suggested to me that she had at least read enough to know her opinion would be unpopular, in the case of her Gunslinger defense.

In post #241, she seems to be saying that she has previous Mafia experience, but not on these forums -- that she is a newbie here, but not to Mafia in general. But it's not in response to any kind of a serious accusation, and she doesn't take this tone when I attacked her later. And then, she proceeds to subtly defend GunslingerKB (intentionally or not) and not take him too seriously because of bad reasoning, EVEN THOUGH she put the suspicion on me earlier for something that was untrue (and pointed out to her to be such). I just can't quite believe her read was THAT bad (it would have to be really, really awful to reach the conclusions she did). And yet she continued to trust her analysis even though a lot of people were calling her on it.

Finally, if she was innocent, why did she defend herself the way she did. The only real defense she had was to claim that she did not defend Sudo or Gunslinger. She never addressed any of my other points. Even claiming ignorance would have been a passable defense, but she chose the riskier route of trying to fling it back at me.


In my mind, the two likeliest possibilities are these:

(1) She is a newbie townie that got overwhelmed by forum play and got totally and completely lost, and did not want to look weak by admitting she was wrong. Attempting this kind of defense was stupid, in my opinion. It was a huge risk, and I think she would have known it would be seen as scummy from her previous experience in real life mafia. It takes some skill to pull off a defense like she did and have it look decently believable. The newbie defense would have been much more believable and allowed her to blend in. I think this is possible, but unlikely.

(2) She is a scum with some prior experience that made an attempt to cast suspicion on me that completely backfired. After I attacked her, she thought she could use the suspicion of the three quick votes, my uncertainty of her laziness, and the long delay to turn the tables on me, but it failed when I countered with another strong post (#267). I think it left her nowhere to hide and she panicked. She feared she would be lynched, even though that was hardly a certainty. So she quietly dropped out of the game.

I am not completely convinced she is scum, but I still think there is a good probability that she is.


As for who the play is, I tend to look at the candidates that several people at least consider to be scummy (to get a better chance of hitting a scum), and thenchoose the one that we can learn the most information from.

I don't support a Sudo lynch at all. I still can't figure him out from the previous highly questionable plays, and I still think there is a possibility he could be a Jester. Plus, I don't think knowing his alignment will tell me much, other than if he comes up scum, it looks bad for Anata. Plus his play lately has actually bordered on useful. I want to see more from him.

Gunslinger is the "semi-obvious" scum. His behavior was so strange and the inconsistency so obvious, everyone saw it right away, I think. I don't excuse his behavior (it was bad), but I think if he is scum, he's gonna screw up again and it's not going to be terribly hard to see it. We have the potential to learn something about Anata from his lynch. I don't think we can really fault anyone for supporting this lynch if he comes up town, though, so I don't think he is the play for today.

As for Miztef, I think he is scummy for the reasons I said earlier. A decent lynch. If he is scum, he is hiding a little better as a townie then Gunslinger is, and he is trying hard to blend in (though not doing a great job). Many people have commented on him, but most people seem to agree that he is scum trying to blend in. Given the level of agreement, I don't think he is the play if we are trying to gain the most information. I would support a lynch on him though if we can't agree on Anata. Miztef is the (relatively) "safe" lynch, but not the most useful.

As for Anata, if she is scum, she is the scary kind. She was lurking enough for people to not get much of a read on her at all, and it took a good post by me to expose the possibility that she even could be scum. If she was deceiving people, it was in a subtle, calculated way. If she is scum, she is the scum that is the most dangerous to keep around. She has been a person that most people have commented on, and yet disagreed about. So we can figure out who was right and who wasn't if we were to lynch her. Plus, we could potentially learn if she was defending Sudo and/or Gunslinger, if Mexal's case against CKD has merit, and whether or not she was trying to frame me. I really hate to lynch a possible townie, but she still looks pretty scummy to me. I think she is the biggest bang for our lynching buck, at this point. If she comes up town, CKD can be (mostly) cleared, whereas I would only be harming myself, since I led the attack against her. Even in spite of this, Anata is my preferred choice because she is in my top three scummiest list, and it provides the most information and potential talking points for the town. Anata is the strategic choice, I think, as it gives usable info either way she comes up.

I do think that Jerubbaal is right about something. Several people I see as pro-town are really beating each other up when we should be working together to pressure the scum and/or decide the best lynching strategy.

[Jitsu]

So we have permission to nail you to the wall if we find inconsistencies?

You never need permission to do that, but yes. I accept full responsibility for every mistake or inconsistence I have ever posted in this game. If you don't believe something I say or have a problem with it, you should always comment on it. If you feel it's bad enough, you should always nail me to the wall. I will explain and defend my post or admit my mistakes.

I did honestly try to be especially careful here to comment fairly on everything. If that opens me up to greater scrutiny here, so be it.

[Jitsu]

Dang it, it seems a few more posts got in when I was ready to submit this. I will look over them and post again. These comments are in response to Jerubbaal.

Not addressing arguments placed against you doesn't seem like a subtle, crafty thing to do, it just seems dumb. None of the analysis that she did was very insightful or useful at all, it just seemed random. She did seem to try to throw suspicion at you, so maybe you see her as a devious mastermind, but her case against you was badly made and not likely to convince anyone. Don't pat yourself too hard on the back for "exposing" her posts as scummy, I don't think anyone found them particularly satisfying (at least I did not). Her analysis was inept, her posting was inept, her play was inept, I'm having a hard time believing she is devious, crafty, and subtle, as you suggest.

Sorry I didn't explain it better. I've been struggling to explain in just the right way what I mean. Devious mastermind isn't what I had in mind -- not quite that level of craftiness. Her suspicion on me did not quite fit with a sloppy read in my mind. She was noncommittal on almost everything else but on me. Why should I have stood out above everyone else then? There were the logical fallacies, but she didn't make her case based on those. Instead it was for something that nobody really thought I had a part in. Sloppy read or not, if you are going to have someone in your top two, I would think they are the person you are going to try hard to get right on your analysis, and she definitely didn't do that. By the same token, I agree that a devious scum mastermind scenario doesn't fit either, because she made too many mistakes.

It's more like she wanted to throw suspicion on me in a very subtle way. Attacking me alone might have been too risky, so maybe she decided to post an analysis of everyone, and distort just a few things to throw just a little suspicion on me. Most of the content was a sloppy, non-committal analysis based on a quick rehash of the voting history she put together. If she avoided saying too much about a lot of people, it would be less likely that she would be caught. That way, the deception would be harder to find and she could claim ignorance and play the newbie card if she had to. The "Am I Wrong?" post at the end of her analysis on me in post #153 seemed to be almost like a way to backpedal if someone did catch her, but also a bid to convince people that what she said was reasonable.

As I said initially, the timing was perfect for an attack on me, as I was reeling after people called me out on the logical fallacies. I admit being biased in a sense here, as I was the one she attacked, but I think that made it easier for me to see that her analysis on me wasn't accurate. At first I focused more on her comments about me when I read, and I really thought she was trying to frame me. When Mexal seemed to dismiss my suspicion of a frame job (a little too strongly worded based on hindsight, but the concept is right), I knew I had to go back and reread the whole post from a fresh perspective. When I reread, I noticed she seemed to get most of the basic facts right on the others (mainly because she wasn't saying much about them), but when I saw that the analysis of me was noticeably wrong and more certain-sounding than the others, it seemed weird. There were a few oddities with the other players, but nothing as distorted as what she said about me, IMHO.

As for her defense, I'm still a little puzzled by it myself. I would think that she would have played the newbie card either way (whether she were scum or not). But I think she would have more of an incentive to avoid the speaking points and try to return fire at me if she were scum.

And yes, you are right, I did misspeak about exposing her. Several people did find her at least possibly scummy after her analysis, so I didn't expose her as such. I do feel that I strengthened the case against her though, in all modesty.

However, the case against her is strong, and I do find it somewhat damning that she ran away when she came under fire. I would not be displeased with an Anata lynch, but I think Miztef is the better choice, simply because I think the case against him is stronger (maybe just because I've been pushing it lately, so maybe it's my pride getting in the way).

I think the cases against both of them are good and I would feel that we have a decent chance of hitting scum either way (which is about all you can ask for, given the inherent uncertainty and bad odds that naturally come on Day 1). I think that Miztef is a slighly higher percentage lynch (meaning that he is a little more likely to be scum), but as I said, I would prefer Anata for the extra information it would tell us.

[Jitsu]

My opinion of the Anata situation is somewhat neutral. I found her summary post to be acceptable. I don't think she represented it as a comprehensive list of every issue. Of the stuff she said, much of it was a simple restatement of events but some of it was useful. In fact, I found myself agreeing with a few of her points about Jitsu.

What did you think was useful? And which points did she make about me that you agree with?

Is there some sort of penalty for requesting a replacement? Why is this accepted? I know that sometimes there are extreme circumstances, but it seems like there isn't a very high standard used by players who request a replacement. It is really annoying.

Yes, it is. There is really no standard for seeking replacement. You just tell the mod in thread or send a PM, then you are pretty much off the hook without any kind of a penalty. Sucks, doesn't it?

My preference would be to wait for the two replacements, have them catch up on the thread and give their thoughts, and then proceed with a lynch.

Well, anything Anata's replacement says is likely to be skewed given what happened. But if we were to lynch Anata, I would prefer that her replacement could at least claim if we got that far. And I would certainly like to hear from Jayalay's replacement. I remember that she also subtly defended Gunslinger also, though I can't really question her replacement on what she said.

Of the people who have been mentioned as possible lynch candidates I would support lynching them in this order: Miztef, GunslingerKB, Sudo_Nym, Anata112, Korlash.

Miztef and Gunslinger I understand. Sudo I do not understand very well. Please tell me why you support a Sudo_Nym lynch as your 3rd best choice. What do you hope to learn from it?

[Jitsu]

at any rate, I will have time tomorrow to post, and this game is the first on my agenda....I think people need to seriously look at Mitzef.

Huh? Why do you keep saying this like we are not looking seriously at him. We are -- he is number two or higher on many of our lynch-want-lists, and nobody really seems to believe anything he is saying.

[Jitsu]

I can't believe the mess I've got myself into. Since I'm likely to die soon, I'm gonna

claim Civilian

. I guess it wouldn't be so bad if you lynched me, this has been one the of the productive day 1's I've seen in a game without getting too muddied up.

Since you claimed, I am going to ask you to be more clear about what you are claiming. Are you claiming "pro-town" only, "vanilla townie", or something else?

[Jitsu]

Because him and jitsu are both so "pro-town" I'm inclined to believe at least one of them is scum, but I've yet to see any major flaws in mexal's arguments, so I see no reason to consider him for lynch

Does this not make any sense to anyone else? I don't think I need to say much on this one.

His reasoning sounds like WIFOMy crap to me. He praises both Mexal and I and then tries to use some lame WIFOM argument to suggest that "at least" one of us is scum? Sounds to me like he is just trying to sow a few last seeds of miscontent before his potential lynch.

All in all, this post is entirely what I would expect considering your action so far. It seems like a very weak attempt to justify yourself (by claiming civilian? what do you expect that to accomplish?), to praise those who are supporting your position, and attack those who are speaking against you. Your criticism against me in particular seems ill-founded. Popping in and out??? WTF, I've posted a helluva lot more than anyone here excepting your two heroes, and I'm pretty darn close to on par with them. I'm not terribly surprised you don't find my posts useful, considering lately they've been against you. I am increasingly pleased with where my vote is.

Who is supporting his position? I can't really see anyone that is. I'm only saying he is making the only real strategic play he has left as a scum that is in serious jeopardy of being lynched.

[Jitsu]

I still think Anata is the better play, but by doing the math, my hand has been forced. Mexal was right, he was the swing vote.

I cannot make a stronger case against Anata than I have, so I see it as unlikely that people will come back to her wagon unless Anata's replacement trips up and impales himself on his own sword.

By my unofficial vote count, the two leading lynch candidates are:

Miztef (4): CKD, AA, Jerub, Mexal
Anata (2): Jitsu, Miztef

I don't see anyone else making a strong case against any other candidate, so that leaves five others with choices to make: Sudo, oEJo, Anata, Jayalay, and Korlash.

For Anata to get lynched, her wagon would have to run the table to succeed, and I'm guessing that neither Anata nor her replacement will vote for themself.

Since an Anata lynch does not seem to be possible, I must honor my promise from earlier and support the Miztef wagon.

Unvote, Vote: Miztef

Yes, Anata has been saved, it seems.

[Jitsu]

Well, apparently, I've forgotten about Gunslinger (not that that is difficult to do these days), but it doesn't really change much. Anata's wagon would still have needed all 5 other players besides herself to succeed (Sudo, oEJo, Jayalay, Korlash, and Gunslinger), while the Miztef wagon only needed 3 of the 6 left (Anata, Sudo, oEJo, Jayalay, Korlash, and Gunslinger)

[Jitsu]

I am tired of the town doing all the work of Mexal...again I will make it easy...post 3 reasons why you think Mitzef is scum.

Why are you asking for this now, after he's voted? Why are you still pushing him so hard now that you have his vote on Miztef where you want it? That makes no sense.

I have another question. You seem to be saying a number of things about Mexal not suspecting Miztef at all:

Post 360:

I also think it is funny that you don’t want to lynch Mitzek because it wont provide enough info. I think it will provide tons. For instance, you seems to be completely ignoring him, why is that? I am actively pushing a case against him, wont that provide info to you about me? I am noting the blind eye you are turning toward Mitzef, does that say anything about your alignment at this point? No…but if Mitzef comes up scum, it doesn’t look good for you.

Post 365:

It makes you look like his scum partner because you have just stated you felt he was scummy, without providing a case against him. Without voting him ever..the only thing you have done this game in reference to Mitzef is agree with him. You have voted other people in the game you thought scummy...you have applied pressure to other people in the game you wanted us to believe was scummy...Why have you not attakced Mitzef once? Asked him just one question?

I never thought that Mexal was defending/ignoring Miztef, because he's had a consistent position on him for a long time now. It's not just in one post. Granted, Mexal never personally made a case on Anata or Miztef. But I can find five before you made your case on Miztef (post #363) where Mexal expressed some suspicion of Miztef or questioned him about something:

He agreed with Anata's suspicion of Miztef in Post #109.

He agreed with my criticism of Miztef in Post #135:

That being said, I'm not entirely focused there. I will look elsewhere. I don't get tunnel-visioned unless I'm 100% sure I'm right and in this situation, I'm not. It's day 1 and it's impossible to be positive but to me, it's the best thing I've seen. That and your accusations of Miztef. Those have merit as well.

Post #159:

Don't worry, we already know you think Miztef is the scummiest and you want to pressure him. He will not be forgotten, I promise you

In post #221, Mexal states that he still feels Miztef is scummy.

and in post #331:

As for the lynch for the day, I wanted Anata. Now that she's being replaced, I doubt any of you would agree to that. So I don't know. Probably Miztef though I'd have to do a reread of him before I decide on that.

I'd like an explanation for this.

[Jitsu]

Interesting. Now oEJo will be replaced.

Part of the reason I changed my vote from Anata to Miztef was to see if anyone would jump on to finish Miztef off quickly. It appears that did not happen, since Korlash and Sudo have not voted yet.

I admit I am still torn between Anata and Miztef. I still think Anata is the better play, but I will still support a Miztef lynch due to his very scummy actions.

I admit that I think I switched my vote to Miztef a bit prematurely, and I want to take some more time to reread and think about the situation, so

for the moment

, I will

Unvote

.

Korlash, Sudo: (Gunslinger can answer too if he is around)

I will ultimately support either a Miztef or an Anata lynch today, barring any other radical posts. I would like to hear your thoughts on an Anata lynch, a Miztef lynch, and CKD's recent posts.

Sudo, you seemed to think in post #386 that either CKD or Mexal might be scum leading the town by the nose. If so, who do you think it is, and why?

[Jitsu]

Just so it is easier for the mod to find, based on the reasons in my previous post, I will:

Unvote

[Jitsu]

I decided to do some checking up on a few things.

It might be interesting for some of you to know that Anata has joined newbie game #498 and she had made 5 posts since Monday morning.

Game is currently ongoing.

-Mod

[Jitsu]

One clarification I need to make:

Anata signed up in the newbie game queue Oct 15, just minutes before she signed up in the Mini queue for this game. Therefore, the signup itself was not suspicious, and she had intended to play in both games, obvious. (My previous post was not trying to say that she signed up for that game after she dropped out of this game -- most of you probably know that already because of the queue waiting times, but I did want to clarify this to make my position clear.

What I was pointing suspicion at was how she dropped out of this game sometime between last weekend and Monday of this week, combined with the fact that her activity level in the newbie game jumped dramatically since Monday morning. Not to mention, how her play style in that game seems to contradict how she acted here.

I try to be careful when meta-gaming, as all games are different, but I still feel that this information is too much to ignore.

Right now I am leaning to putting my vote back on Anata, but I want to finish rereading first to see if I can get a better picture on some of the other players I haven't paid much attention to yet.

[Jitsu]

And yet again, you're trying to make my vote on Anata seem invalid. You must have a massive hard on for her or something.

Who doesn't? Rowl! Kitty wants some candy!:twisted: (I couldn't resist... Man... I'm going to hell for sure XD)

Come on now, people. There's really no place in the game for comments like this. There are quite a few female players here on Mafiascum, and these kinds of comments are really, really unfair to them. I'd hate for any female players to feel uncomfortable playing here and leave the site because of comments like these. Let's try be a little more respectful to them, shall we?

Also... I just thought of it... The worst game in history of mafia... Vollkan, Jitsu, and Gemelli! O.o... One day of those three would make even the most hardcore mafia fans wet themselves... I think my head would just explode... all over the wall... like... *shudders*

Um... thanks, I think...

... It is way to scary for even me... I think one day of them posting would be like a combined.. 480,000 words, 12,456 numbers, 50,000 "%" signs, and like... 15,678,452 opportunities for your eyes to begin bleeding... AHHHHHHHHHHHHH! MAKE IT STOP!!!!!

I shall try to keep the eye bleeding to a minimum.

[Jitsu]

First, to comment, I did not see the global rule about communication about other ongoing games. I did not intend to break any rules, and I read the rules on page 1 of this game carefully. I have seen lots of people quote posts from other games and I figured the information was publicly available anyway. I did not realize that it made a difference whether the game was ongoing or not.

If the Mod wants to Modkill me for it, so be it.

Until such time, I will continue to post.

And to prove that I am not hiding:

@Mod: Please review this post and take whatever action you feel is necessary.

[Jitsu]

Just to make it perfectly clear:

MOD: Please read the previous post and take whatever action you feel is necessary.

[Jitsu]

Wait a minute. Something just started buzzing in my brain. I could get lynched just for saying this, but I have to follow the logic to the conclusion.

Given the meta-game information I found, I started to re-read, and something stood out a bit me.

For the few posts she made, Anata also spent some time attacking Miztef also. In #105, Anata attacks Miztef's meta-game comments on his own play style. Most of us thought it was a good post (Mexal even says so in #109).

In #153, she is throwing more suspicion on Miztef here as well. And actually, it is not dissimilar to how she threw it on me. The argument itself is not terribly distorted that I can see, but yet it is hardly compelling. I didn't pay much attention to it at the time, because I already thought Miztef was scummy at that point. She basically seems to accuse Miztef of doing a bad job of blending in with the town, which is pretty close to what she says about me (about whether I was that good of a scumhunter or just trying to act townie).

She never mentions Miztef again after that.

Then there's Mexal's #370:

1. Even after his posts get ripped apart...every single one pretty much, he comes back with yet another post that's easily ripped apart. Why? Wouldn't it just be easier to fade into the background instead of setting yourself up even more?

This is a very, very good question. I remember agreeing with it when I first read it, but then I lost it in the ongoing Mexal/CKD battle. Even on the brink of a lynch, he still has not hidden and has even expressed understanding if the town lynched him, though granted he was making other scummy-looking posts around that time. Also, he never seems to deny any of his scummy behavior and admits to it time and time again.

Then in #362 Mexal says that if Anata is scum, maybe Miztef is town.

Plus, there are two more things.

CKD is really, really pushing hard for a Miztef lynch, and continued to attack Mexal even after Mexal changed his vote to Miztef. I still find that odd.

And then Miztef himself. After being horribly scummy for the first part of the game and playing to save himself, the overall scumminess of his posts have dropped somewhat, and his recent posts have looked like they could actually be trying to help.

If Anata is innocent, then none of the above information is particularly helpful.

But let's suppose for a minute that she actually is scum. One possibility then, is that both her and Miztef are scum and they are bussing each other to some degree (both have attacked or raised suspicion on the other at some point). If I understand bussing correctly, one or more scum cast suspicion on another scum to damage their reputation in order to look more townie. However, scum pointing fingers at each other, though possible, would seem to be a bad play on Day 1, as there is a decent chance that the town will believe at least one of the two.

The other possibility is... and I can't believe I'm saying this... That Miztef is innocent and has been framed (first by Anata, and then *possibly* by CKD -- remember that CKD has been saying that we should be taking Miztef seriously for a good while now). Could it actually be possible that Miztef has just been a bad townie player and has actually been innocent all this time?

I want to be absolutely clear: I certainly don't condone Miztef's highly scummy behavior this game, and I still think right now he is a decent lynch for all the scummy things he's done.

I am not willing to say that CKD is scum yet, as I don't have good evidence to support that. I still think it is possible that Miztef is really scum, and CKD could just be an aggressive townie pursuing someone who is obviously scummy and doesn't want them to slip into the cracks. It would also seem to not make sense that CKD would push so hard for a Miztef lynch if he knew Miztef were innocent -- he would naturally attract a lot of suspicion on Day 2 for it, so that is an inconsistency I acknowledge. But I don't think it is enough of one to derail the case on Anata.

With these thoughts, I think Anata is definitely the better play. I still think there is a chance she could have been a townie, as the case against her is hardly airtight, but either way, she looks scummy and seems to tell us the most information.

I will still support a Miztef lynch if we cannot get one on Anata, as I promised. But I still think that Anata is the better play for the town today.

Given that there is a probable lull before the replacements arrive, and all of my recent observations, I will:

Vote: Anata112

[Jitsu]

I have sent a PM to the Mod to ask him to look at the thread and directed him to my post.

[Jitsu]

First, why do you think you'd get lynched for that? Strange statement to make for posting your thoughts.

I was really kind of joking here, more than anything. I should have put a smiley face or something there...

[Jitsu]

Uh, he clarified that already. Did you forget about that post too?

Yes, he is a little late. It's in post #403.

[Jitsu]

who would?

Do you like to fish? It seems so here, at least...

[Jitsu]

There is one obvious explanation, at least...

[Jitsu]

No, Mexal is right. It is really bad to speculate about who would likely be NK'd. This gives way too much information to the Mafia and makes it tougher to draw unbiased conclusions from the NK information that the town gets.

Too much has said about this already, most likely.

[Jitsu]

Here's how I see it.

I really do not think I can make a stronger case against Anata today. I've made all of the points I think I can from her existing posts and metagame info, and as others have said, if a replacement is found for her, I cannot expect to get any reliable information from the replacement about what Anata did (more on that below).

Yes, it will suck if a replacement comes in for her and then would get lynched anyway -- it's true that would be unfair for the replacement. But let's remember that Anata is the one that put her potential replacement in a bad situation. While I feel bad for her potential replacement in this case (I really do), I don't feel it is fair to the town if I give her replacement a free pass today, either. I am here to find the scum and help win the game for the town. I thought she was scummy and a good lynch for potential information even before she left, and with the other information I uncovered, I feel even stronger about that now. I feel she is the best lynch for the town, so that's really where my vote needs to be now. I cannot control what the other players do.

And getting back to the replacement -- it is very unfair (and unreliable) to ask a replacement why Anata did what she did. The replacement will only know what's in the thread, plus Anata's role (and the identities of the other scum, if she is scum). Other than this, Anata's replacement wouldn't know anything more about why Anata did what she did than we do. Unless the replacement slips up really badly, there's really not much of a chance to get any more usable information from him/her about Anata, other than a potential role claim. Of course, the replacement will probably try to say whatever s/he thinks will get them out of a potential lynch, so we have to remember that his/her words are likely to be biased because of that.

I don't think it is bad to wait for a replacement to arrive for Jayalay and oEJo to get their opinions on things (at this stage of the game, their votes may be needed to lynch someone). But I don't see how waiting for a replacement for Anata will help form a better opinion on a lynch for her, given that any explanation the replacement would give for Anata's behavior would probably be unreliable (with the possible exception of a role claim).

I don't think I need to repeat my case against Anata right now. I think most of the players here already know what it is already. If one of the existing or replacement players wants me to summarize the case against her to decide whom to vote for, I will do it then. I feel that the case I've made against Anata, while not airtight, is strong enough to put my vote back on her, so I did.

If I am correct, Anata should have 2 votes on her right now (Miztef, Jitsu). Miztef should be at 4 votes (CKD, AA, Jerub, Mexal). I am not worried that the vote count is going to skyrocket. Mexal and Jerubbaal seem to have already stated where they are on a lynch, but are holding steady at the moment. I don't predict much will happen until some of the players who have not voted yet declare their intentions and cast their votes.

[Jitsu]

@Jerubbaal: Based on the Mod's comments, can you tell us what you wanted to say in post 425?

@Korlash: your recent posts on Anata have seemed inconsistent to me.

In post 472, you see some of the meta on her, but then you say that it proves nothing. You agree that Mexal's theory is "a good possibility", but then you go on to offer others that you don't really seem believe (though one of them is probably close). Then you says that there is "some case at least" [against Anata] but it's "definately not worth lynching". Then you says it isn't your fault that you have no idea what the case against her is, even though you seem to see some of it.

Then in post 474, you said that Anata was your "MOST SUSPICIOUS" person but that you didn't see enough for a lynch. Then you admitted that we had a case against here 8 pages ago (yet he didn't vote then). You said it wasn't enough for a lynch then, and it's not enough for a lynch now. You went into this really weird statement where you told us to go ahead and "take a gamble" if we want to [presumably to lynch Anata], and that you hoped we would wise up tomorrow and that we don't make a huge mistake that we regret later.

My read on you was that before Anata disappeared, you seemed to be interested in what she had to say, so you wanted to hear her defense. I thought at that point you understood the case against her, but wanted to her more from her to feel her out. And now you have said several times that you don't seem to understand the case on her, while acknowledging that there are parts of the case that you agree with. I would like a clarification on your thoughts, please. My questions to you:

Do you feel that you currently understand the case made against Anata or not?

Do you still feel Anata is scummy? Do you still agree that there is a case against her? How good is it, compared to the other suspects?

You said that Anata was your most suspicious player in post 474, but then later in the same post you seem to think that we would be making a huge mistake by lynching her. This sounds very inconsistent to me. If you were only to say that you don't think there is enough to lynch on, I can understand that. But then why do you suggest that it might be "huge mistake" for the town to lynch someone that you found the "most suspicious" of all the players at that point?

Based on comments in 471 and 474, it sounds like you are pretty sure that the town would be making a mistake by lynching her. Why are you so sure?

You voted for Gunslinger because, as you say, he relies too much on the fact that he is new and that he himself has admitted that his posts are weak and dumb. Do you feel that the case on Gunslinger is stronger than that of the other suspects?

Another point I wanted to ask you about. What is your opinion on Miztef and CKD?

[Jitsu]

Ok you are seriously either trying desperately to make some case on me or are hoping to throw anything I have said against Anata out the window... I don't know which...

It's neither of the two. If I were trying to make a case on you, I would have done much better than that. You said that you thought that people should pressure active players like you or Gunslinger. I merely followed your own advice, because I saw something I found to be contradictory in your posts.

But because you never got any real answers from her you all assume everything you talked about is true! And so everything you think makes her scum is just your opinion of it and not hers!

I don't assume it is true. I do find what she did highly suspicious. Since she left the game without defending herself, something that can be seen as scummy by itself, I can only go with what I do have: what is in the thread, plus what I can speculate from her leaving.

You refuse to let her defend herself and you are afraid she will get out of a lynch?

How can I let her defend herself when she is no longer in the game? Realistically, she has to be in danger of a lynch before she can get out of one. She never even got to L-2 (Miztef was at L-2 at one point, and I was the one that put that vote on him).

Point is the "Current" case on her is BS. And until either she gets a chance to defend herself, or her replacement shows up the case will only get more BS the longer you add to it.

I think I know what you mean, but it took me a few rereads to get it because I don't think you explained it well. If by the "current" case you mean just the meta info and speculating why she left, then of course that is speculative. But I don't see there being two separate cases. I only one case against Anata. I tried making sense of Anata leaving and the meta info with respect to the existing case, not as a separate case on its own. If you don't agree with the speculation, that's fine, but that doesn't really change the existing case on her.

Well, do what I did, put yourself in her shoes. What if you were out of internet contact for a week and everyone lynched you on the basis "You did not defend yourself." How would you feel? I mean we have a 1 in 4 chance we all randomly picked the correct person to lynch... Nothing she has posted or any of your attacks have altered that ratio for her... so its a gamble to lynch her... In my eyes at least...

If that was what actually happened, I would agree with you. But it is not. Anata posted that "Anyways, I'll be off for the weekend as well. I'll have a lot of posts to look forward to on Monday." on Friday afternoon. I posted a rebuttal of her post Friday night. Then I left her alone until Monday morning when we found out that she had dropped out of the game without even posting in the thread again. On Friday afternoon, she seemed to be "looking forward" to catching up on the game, then on Monday, she disappears without a trace. And I'm not supposed to find this even the slightest bit suspicious?

I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I think I finally see what the hell you're trying to say -- please correct me if I am wrong. I believe you are saying that if you make a case against someone and they do not defend against it, it is more risky to lynch them because you cannot point to anything they said to help determine if it your case is valid.

My response? Sure it is more risky, because both townies and scum do it, and you are certainly basing your decision on less information. But if the person is actually a scum, you are playing into their hands by not lynching them until they defend themselves. In effect, you are rewarding them with a free pass to the next day after they've played poorly. I've seen plenty of players on this site (both town and scum) play poorly and then make absolutely no attempt to defend themselves. You should always give someone a chance to defend themselves. But if the person chooses not to, then leveling suspicion at them is fair game. I do not like it when people do not defend themselves.

Out of the four listed (My three and his) one of them had to be close.. there were two that involved her being mafia, and two that involved her being town. While thy were all off the wall one had to have something right... Even if it was just her affiliation.

Now this is actually a pretty decent explanation.

On that note.. How the hell can you not see not waiting for a replacement to join before lynching as a town move? How can you justify killing someone without giving them any chance to defend themselves? Give me one good reason...

I don't believe that it is right to lynch someone without giving them a chance to defend him/herself. I don't think I did that. I gave her a chance to defend herself and she chose to leave the game without doing so. If her decision were forced, say, due to RL issues, I would have appreciated some attempt by her to say that. Don't you think it's suspicious at all how she left in a way that provided us the absolute *least* possible amount of information on her (just disappear totally and PM the mod to get him to make the announcement)?

Any chance of letting her defend herself is gone forever, and I don't see how asking her replacement about her actions helps tell me anything about what SHE was thinking. Since Anata didn't defend herself, and since I think it is unfair to get her replacement to defend her, I have to make the best judgment I can with the information I have.

If you don't like me fine.. but you need to stop with BS cases... I like the way you think but either you've become too obsessed with how "great" a player you are, or you are getting annoyed at how hard it is to convince the town to do it your way. (Implying your mafia here)

What makes you think I don't like you? This has nothing to do with "liking" you or not -- don't take it personally. For your first point, I won't even know how my performance was for this game until it's over. And as for your second possibility, well everyone is trying to convince the town to do things their way, to a point. I still believe that Anata is the best strategic play at this point, but she is hardly the only suspect I am considering.

You want the truth? Here it is. I cannot, nor do I want to, "make a case" against you now because I haven't been able to get a good read on you lately, and I thought I had a good read on you before. I wanted you to explain your post because I found it inconsistent. Whether you believe it or not, I am still weighing the case on Anata against the other suspects, and I wanted to understand your opinion on Anata more clearly. In any case, you are not a good play for today, in my opinion.

Also, I wanted your opinions about CKD, because I don't know what to think about him right now, and you stated previously that you didn't like his posts. I think I know how most of the other active players feel about him, except for you and Sudo, and I thought I was more likely to be able to get useful information from you since you talk more than Sudo does.

[Jitsu]

Jitsu, I don't think I can say it explicitly, but I will try to work my suspicions in as we go. For now I'll just say that I find it more difficult to buy the incompetent reading excuse than I did before.

I understand.

I'm somewhat slow to vote for Anata partially because the low volume of her posts makes it difficult to put together a composite picture of what she's been doing in the game. It's harder to evaluate what could be a mistake and what could be scummy when you have so little information on a person. Might I suggest meta work?

I understand this too. As I said in my last post, I think this is what Korlash was trying to say all along, but maybe I'm wrong. If this is what he meant, I admit he is right about that specific part.

I am not without doubts myself. In fact, I have doubts on all of the suspects at this point, to varying degrees.

Meta work is certainly worth pursuing, yes. I will be keeping my eye on her posts elsewhere, even though I know now that I cannot discuss what I find in ongoing games. Even though meta work always carries some element of unreliability, I would rather consider as much information as possible on Anata, since I don't really see any other way to get information on her now.

At the moment, I think my vote is OK where it is. If people suddenly pile votes on her (which I don't think is going to happen), I can always unvote if necessary. She's not really in any danger right now with just two votes on her (if I count right).

[Jitsu]

But I am still against a lynch before hearing from the OTHER replacements at least. I mean if you all think the replacement will be unable to change the case because you are willing to hold them to what Anata did what is the harm in waiting? Or even if you feel the replacement will "Slide out of a lynch" then at least reason with me that the OTHER replacements we are getting deserve some day one input. (Or at least NEED input so we can use it or whatever come day 2)

This is probably one of the best paragraphs you've posted this entire game. It is clear and focused, and the logic is noticeably un-crappy. If you could post more like this in the future, I think it would be a benefit for the town.

I know people are anxious to get the game moving again, but I think this request is reasonable. People can always reserve the right to change their minds if the process of finding a replacement really drags on. I am sure that NabakovNabakov is doing the best he can, though.

Frankly, we may not have a choice anyway, as the town will probably need some votes from the replacements to reach a majority on a lynch candidate.

[Jitsu]

Sorry folks, I've been skimming the thread and have been following. My son has been sick this week and I've been looking after him.

First of all, thanks to Adel and Setael for replacing.

I don't have much to say until I'm sure the replacements are caught up. I would like to second the request for some general comments/impressions/suspicions from Adel and Setael when they are caught up.

@Adel: You mentioned you skimmed the thread and voted him on first impression, along with some other general reasons. Are you up to date on the game yet? In #536, You say about Korlash "you are the person I think is scum". Is he the only one you find scummy right now, or is he just your number one suspect at the moment? I have other questions, but I want to wait until you are fully caught up.

I have no questions for Setael at this time, as it seems she is still completing her initial read.

[Jitsu]

@Mod: I thought I read that oEJo is being replaced. Is that still in the works?

[Jitsu]

this is the scummiest post I've read so far, by any player. I'm caught up through #449. Korlash is scum, and knows who isn't scum. He didn't want to push the wagon on Anata- he wanted to be on the record warning against it.

Anata

Setael is therefor is an innocent.

Keep reading.

[Jitsu]

@Gunslinger: You have promised some content. I would like to see it.


@Satael: What do you have to say about the game? As I promised everyone else, I'm not going to ask you about what your predecessor did, but I still want to hear your own thoughts on the game.


@Adel: How many games have you collected data on? Also, why did you not just do your analysis secretly and not even tell anyone here about your numerical models? You could have gotten your result, untainted, when Korlash's role was finally known, without any risk of shifting the meta.

You have given some reasons for your suspicion of Korlash and Sudo, and now recently some on Jerub and Miztef. I will likely have more to say on that later, but for now, what are the reasons behind your suspicion of Abstract? Also, what is your opinion on Gunslinger?


@Miztef:

I'm still happy with my vote on Korlash, this day just needs to end anyway. I will make a good argument if need be, but I think everyone just wants this day to end, so I see no point in wasting the effort.

I don't just want this day to end. You seem to be saying that you would present your case if people asked you for it. I am asking for it. Make your argument.

[Jitsu]

@jitsu: I can't guarantee I will state my case, but I have been saying parts of it as the arguments have continued. My problem with stating the case is that my scumtells are different then others, as adel has pointed out, having your own system of identifying scum is quite important for proper play. I may present the case soon if I feel like it though, right now it's midnight where I am, so I don't have the time.

I don't care if your scumtells are different than others. You said you would present your case if asked. I'm asking. I'm willing to wait.

[Jitsu]

However, adel seems to know what he is talking about, and no one has disagreed with him, therefore, I revoted you because that knowledge of mine was incorrect.

You shouldn't assume that people agree with someone just because they fail to disagree with them. I've found that what people don't say can sometimes be just as valuable as what they do say.

[Jitsu]

I believe the vote count should be:

Korlash (3): GunglingerKB, Adel, Sudo_Nym
Miztef (3): curiouskarmadog, jerubbaal, Mexal
Anata112 (2): Jitsu, Miztef
Adel (1): Korlash

Not Voting (3): Satael, Abstract Actuary, oEJo

with Miztef in red (he was at three votes first)

[Jitsu]

Korlash's low signal to noise ratio and his premature claim are highly scummy to be sure. On Day 1, this itself is probably enough for a lynch, but I can't put a vote on him right now because I have this nagging feeling that he's innocent.

I am still making up my mind about some things. That's why I want Miztef's case and why I want Setael's thoughts.

[Jitsu]

Jerub, have you done any meta-work on Korlash?

[Jitsu]

I have to say that I do not like encrypted text in the game either, because it breaks the spirit of the game. Using encrypted text gives the advantage of being able to go on record of saying something and then not having to explain or defend it until later, after more information has been obtained. In my opinion the most sacred of all mafia truths is that you are instantly accountable for what you post. That is what makes it necessary for townies and mafia alike to be careful about what they post, because opponents are always ready to pounce on even the slightest mistake.

I have some suspicions on Adel myself. I am willing to believe that he has numeric models that have told him that Korlash is likely to be guilty. Adel's initial overconfidence bothered me too, but if he had stopped at Korlash, I wouldn't have found that overly suspicious. What bothered me most was how Adel used the guilt on Korlash to jump to one-sided conclusions on Jerub, Miztef, and Anata (now Setael), without ever considering the alternatives (at least, not in thread). If Korlash is town, and I think it's quite possible, it makes some of Adel's conclusions outright wrong and casts serious doubts on a lot of the rest. It's funny that Adel lectured Korlash about confirmation bias, because it seems like Adel engaged in some of that also. Either that, or Adel has been holding back on the alternate possibilites, which is somewhat scummy in itself. Still though, I consider it possible that Adel was just a townie whose scumdar was locked on to Korlash because his models told him so, and then tried to find his supposed scumbuddies by extrapolating the logic without considering the alternatives. As Mr. Flay said, Adel has recently backed off of Korlash and admitted some fallibility, so I'll just keep an eye on him for now.

Korlash has done a lot of scummy things, but for me, there is a real possibility that Korlash is innocent. I didn't buy Adel's theory in post 520 that Korlash is the "helpful Mafia Goon", because of the one gaping hole: Korlash hasn't been very helpful. And if Korlash were Mafia (especially a power role), I find it somewhat hard to believe that he would continually seek out the spotlight to keep posting craplogic with marshmallow fluff sauce, rather than sit back and let the townies duke it out.

As for Setael, you acknowledge that my points against Anata seem sound but then you say that I am trying too hard to look town. I was (and am still) trying hard to be a good townie, because it is my first game here and I really want to actively play the game instead of sitting and watching from the sidelines. I admitted my mistake in 179. Regarding 279, you say that it "definitely seems like I had a motive". Perhaps you missed this, because I explained it in post 339 (the part where I respond to post 292). As for 302, I can't see how my scum list matching Mexal's is suspicious, because I had been talking about how I found Anata, Miztef, and Gunslinger scummy for some time before that. I can see why people might think I'm acting (I have admitted it could look that way), but it seems to me that you are really reaching to make that case here.

Then you praise Gunslinger for raising the theory that I am acting (which is fine, I even admitted that in post 339) and for his apology, but you seem to have nothing to say about his mass lurkitude since then. That interests me because there were only two people that defended Gunslinger when he voted for me previously: one was Jayalay (now Adel) in post 226 (her third post of the entire game). The other was Anata (now you) in 241. I don't think it really strengthens the case against you, but I find it interesting that you seem have drawn similar conclusions about me (which I know are incorrect) that Anata and Gunslinger have.

As for Miztef, I still worry a little that he could be innocent too, but it's bugging me how quickly he jumped on the Korlash wagon in post 548. At that point, Adel's case on Korlash was nothing new at that point -- I think Korlash's low signal-to-noise ratio was well known to most of the players by then, even if people didn't refer to it as such. Korlash ended up doing most of the damage to himself (as usual) by reacting the way he did. Miztef also seemed to state that he would make a case on Korlash if the town wanted it, but backpedaled on that furiously when I called him on it. What's he afraid of?

With all the new information, my suspicions have shifted slightly, but my top suspects and my strategy are still the same. I still want to lynch someone who I feel is scummy and provides good information for Day 2. Setael/Anata is still my first choice, but if people cannot agree on her, I think Miztef is the next best play. Gunslinger's continued lurking still bothers me, but I think he can wait.

[Jitsu]

Adel's encrypted message reads as follows:

Robinson Jeffers - So Many Blood-Lakes

We have now won two world-wars, neither of which concerned us, we were slipped in. We have levelled the powers Of Europe, that were the powers of the world, into rubble and dependence. We have won two wars and a third is comming.

This one--will not be so easy. We were at ease while the powers of the
world were split into factions: we've changed that. We have enjoyed fine dreams; we have dreamed of unifying the world; we are unifying it--against us.

If Mr. Flay expresses some doubt about my graphics, but basically approves of my approach, if not my confidence, than that is a town tell for him. If he is scum I expect that he will try to build a strong case against me, preventing a doc from protecting me, so that he can nk me. I am concearned about a lurking Sudo_Nym: I do not have a good read on him. I still really really like the Korlash as a lynch candidate, and I do not believe his roleclaim, but I suspect that he is not a possible lynch for day 1. The wagon on Miztef is looking more and more like a scum led wagon to me, and the major reason I am encrypting this post is so that I can see who drives the wagon, and how far it goes.

Two wars, and they breed a third. Now guard the beaches, watch the
north, trust not the dawns. Probe every cloud. Build power. Fortress America may yet for a long time stand, between the east and the west, like Byzantium.

--As for me: laugh at me. I agree with you. It is a foolish business to
see the future and screech at it. One should watch and not speak. And patriotism has run the world through so many blood-lakes: and we always fall in.

[Jitsu]

Sorry for the bad line-breaks. If you want to confirm the results, enter the key he gave in the yellow box under "Key" and leave Codegroup as the selected option. Then paste all the lines (not counting the header and footer lines) into the red cipher text field. Then press the decrypt button underneath the red field and look for the plain text in the green field above.

[Jitsu]

Sorry. forgot one more thing. To get to the page where you can decrypt his message, follow the link he listed with the message and click the "Encryption/Decryption utility" link there.

[Jitsu]

Uh, are you a vanilla townie or do you have a role? Claiming town is worthless.

This is actually his second claim. He claimed "Civillian" some time ago, and then clarified it as Vanilla Townie.

[Jitsu]

I've been trying to tally the votes. I think it depends on whether Adel's vote in 683 counts or not. If it does, I think it's a lynch. If not, I think he is at L-1.

[Jitsu]

Losing Mexal is a blow to the town. He's already helped me improve my play.

Hmmm -- only one NK. Interesting.

Korlash, who did you block?

[Jitsu]

@ jitsu: Realize I am not intentionally ignoring you here. I guess it can;t hurt to hear from

everyone

before I answer your question. However I don;t think my answer is really going to make a difference one way or another. ><

Yes, I understand -- no worries. Being cautious is rarely a bad idea. If it is in the town's best interest for you not to reveal right now, I wouldn't want you to. I tend to believe that knowing who you blocked is more useful to the town than to the scum, but maybe there is something I'm missing. I'm fine with waiting to see what the others say about it.

A town-aligned RB suggests it is more likely than normal that there are some anti-town players with night choices in the game (other than the standard mafia NK). Even if you don't think it makes a difference, you never know.

[Jitsu]

I can not believe that Mitzef was town.....
are we now assuming that the RB is indeed town aligned?

I'm not even assuming that he is a roleblocker. But he said he was one, so I'd like to know who he targeted.

[Jitsu]

Post 374 jitsu seems to be trying to make everyone think they have to vote mitzef and sounds like he thinks the deadline is the next day with no time for anything to change. I thought this was strange considering there was plenty of time for new arguments/wagons at that point.

I simply saw that based on the math that unless something dramatically changed, the wagon on you would not succeed. Since I found Miztef scummy at that point and I promised I would support a Miztef lynch. I changed my vote because I thought the town wanted him instead. A small part of the reason I did was to see if anyone would quickly hammer him. I didn't expect Korlash or Sudo to vote at that point because they were pretty cautious up until that point -- if they had, I would have been suspicious. When they didn't vote him, I unvoted to think a bit more. That's when I found the meta-info on Anata and voted her. You/Anata were always my number one target, as I said many times.

I don't know where you get the idea that I was implying there was a
deadline. Maybe you have your facts mixed up a little because, in YOUR post 656, you mention:

I'm only up to p. 15 but I want to post what I have thus far so I get it in before the deadline.

What deadline were you speaking of?

And as for convincing others to vote, my vote was on Miztef and back off in about 24 hours of real time, way before anyone else put another vote on him. If I were really a scum trying to push the wagon and get Miztef mislynched, it would have been much better to keep my vote where it was, since nobody seemed to think it was suspicious at the time.

393 jitsu seems really self conscious about his mitzef vote

This is true. The entire second half of Day 1 or so, I was wavering between Miztef being innocent or guilty. I pointed out things that could make him look either way. Ultimately at the end of the day, he started to look more scummy to me because he avoided me when I called him on not posting his promised Korlash case. I had my doubts up until the end, but I was leaning the wrong way at the end of the day, I admit.

NOW you find Gunslinger scummy after I questioned you on it. You say that Gunslinger is reiterating and summarizing and piggy backing in post 470, but he's been doing that the entire game. I understand why you supported his idea that I was acting, but it wasn't scummy that he wanted a random lynch or that when he finally came out with his "most to least suspicious list" that I only made 8th place??

I'll be happy to unvote if something turns up later, but you are still at the top of my scum list. It sounds like you are being careful to keep your facts straight while you cast suspicion and make indirect attacks toward me, yet avoid a direct confrontation. When you keep pointing the finger at me and refuse to address my points, it just makes you look even scummier.

Vote: Setael

[Jitsu]

i do not consider your analysis of my posts to be fair, sincere, or earnest. i asked her how many "several" was. "3 or more" or some equivalent would've ended that line of questioning. i take her

evasiveness

to be proof that she was attempting to mislead us: that is my case. it is not a strong one, but i think it is worth noting. it links her to korlash pretty strongly, and that could be vital later in the game.

Dude, I think you totally missed what Flay was doing. When I read his post, I was pretty sure that he was intentionally crafting a ridiculous argument and using it to show you how easy it is to mislead with statistics, rather than making a serious argument against you.

[Jitsu]

Korlash said this in post 585 (Mon Nov 12)

Theres a mafia RB too? o.O Now that role would work... cause then you would at least have some kind of understanding of who could be who... Instead of having to guess...

I see what CKD and Adel are talking about. CKD has found meta evidence that suggests that Korlash should have known about Mafia RBs. And this evidence occurs less than a week BEFORE his post quoted above.

It isn't really hard to find either. Once I read CKD's post, I found it in about 5 minutes. It isn't necessary to do a lot of reading.

I admit, this does not look good for Korlash.

Korlash, why did you say they were mistaken at first and then seem to know what they were talking about?

[Jitsu]

Wait... Post 585... happened before post 644... You guys are still making no sense... First I think your talking about another ongoing game. Now your seeming like your talking about this game. Which is it? seriously.

I have to be careful here, but I think I can explain it in such a way that I do not actually comment on an ongoing game. I'm not sure that Korlash is thinking of the same meta-information that CKD is.

To answer your question, it is actually both, if I am understanding CKD correctly. CKD has quoted posts from this game to establish the basis that you did not know about the Mafia Roleblocker role. He focused on your post 644 in his most recent post, but post 585 is another good example, and I think where you initially stated you did not know about the Mafia RB.

If I am reading CKD correctly, the other part of this is that CKD has some strong circumstantial evidence from another game (which we cannot talk about because it is ongoing), that suggests you may be lying in this one. I believe I found what CKD was talking about. I did very little reading, and it is possible to find it without actually reading any of your posts. Do you agree with that assessment, CKD?

Korlash, If I understand right, you read the wiki on the Mafia RB after post 585 right? If that's true, that has nothing to do with what CKD seems to be saying.

I'm still not completely convinced that Korlash intentionally lied. I think there is a chance that he is just really careless, but I agree that it doesn't look so good either way.

[Jitsu]

@Mod: I think you missed my vote for Setael in Post 709.

@Setael:

Regarding 302, your point about me forgetting Sudo was valid. But at that point, I had already turned my attention off of him. If mentioning that my scum list matches Mexal's was merely a statement, it was buried between a bunch of other comments that all cast suspicion at me.


Regarding post 339, my motive was in the third paragraph:

I had picked up on the fact that Mexal was unusually quiet about his reason, when he usually explains his logic so well. I figured Mexal might have been up to something, but I didn't know what he was fishing for. The post I made saying that it is best to consider all factors behind a vote was true, and I believe it wholeheartedly, but it was also a subtle breadcrumb to try to tell people to think a bit more about what he was doing. I also thought people were focusing too much on his lack of reason and missing the bigger picture. I wanted Mexal to try to get whatever thing he was fishing for. Apparently, that was to see who was going to defend Anata. I believe this, because I was looking for the same information.

Way back on Oct. 31 (post 374) you said there would not be enough time for an anata wagon and then said "I don't see anyone else making a strong case against any other candidate" so you therefore decided to change your vote to miztef. My points, which I evidently wasn't clear enough about, is that you were talking as if the deadline was Nov. 1 or 2, as though there was no time for anyone else to make another case or start another wagon.

I never, ever said there was not enough time for an Anata wagon. In fact, I never mentioned anything to do with time in that entire post. If you can provide evidence of that, please do. I was looking at who was in the game and the vote counts and trying to figure out if it made sense to keep my vote on Anata. I did not see any way that I could get any more information about Anata and at that point, I did not see how a wagon on her would succeed since the others who voted Miztef did not appear to want to change votes. So I kept my earlier promise because Miztef looked scummy and I thought he was who the town wanted.

Yeah that post (my 656) was on Nov. 14. The deadline was on Nov. 15. What deadline do you think I was talking about?

What deadline?? Please quote me where NabakovNabakov said that. I went back and read all of NabakovNabakov's posts in the entire game and never saw a deadline set. Why did you think there was one?

This seems so off to me. Why say that about being happy to unvote "if something turns up later"? This almost sounds like you're expecting me to be a power role. You're not saying that if I start seeming really town you'll unvote, you say "if something turns up later". Do you mean that if someone starts looking scummier you'd unvote me? Why would someone else looking scummy make me less scummy? I found this sentence really odd. I can't see a townie who really thinks I'm scum saying this.

I don't expect you to be a (town) power role at all. I expect you to come up as scum, at least at this point. What I intended was that if more evidence comes up that suggests you are town then I will unvote, as I knew the vote was early in the day and there wasn't a lot of discussion yet. It was an attempt by me to indicate that I still think you are guilty, but even so, I am not completely convinced you are scum at this point and that I would still be willing to listen to arguments you are town. And voting for someone else would not make you less scummy -- but it's possible that other players could do something scummy enough to become a better lynch than you, at least in my eyes.

As for you not responding, qualifying the statement by saying "after I finished my read" makes a big difference. You did have a chance to respond before then, but you wanted to completely finish your read first before responding to anything. I agree that is not scummy, but I'm kind of surprised that you didn't include any commentary on my earlier points when you did your "I'm caught up analysis". If someone had attacked me like I did you, I would have certainly said something at that point. You could have acknowledged my points and promised to address them when the reread was finished. If you post an analysis, you have to expect that people are going to try to pick it apart, regardless of whether your read was done or not. I attacked you because even though you had some good points against me, many of them didn't seem very relevant. Still though, I admit what I said wasn't very fair, since I probably should not have counted time while the thread was closed. I apologize for this.

I still find it funny that you praised Gunslinger for the theory without mentioning how he first voted me, then only ranked me 8th out of 12 on his most scummy list (post 195). He even said "Note: My vote for jitsu isnt really trying to campaign to get him out. I just wanted to state my concern. If nothing else shows up against him, I will probably unvote." You have no problems with that? Did he just do something stupid as he said, or was he testing the waters on the "Jitsu is acting" theory and then bailed when nobody bit on it? If he would have just stated his suspicion without voting, I would have understood that. Also he mentioned "I figure at this point, a random lynch on someone that seems scummy would be a good idea." You have no problems with that either?

Just because I extract part of your post and comment on it doesn't mean I am twisting your words. As for 279, I don't see how this is twisting your words. I didn't comment on your theories as to what my motive was, because I felt I already explained it in 339 (page 14). Saying "definitely seems like [Jitsu] had a motive" could also be construed as implying that I was hiding something to the detriment of the town.

As for your last paragraph in 733, that statement was my interpretation of what you were doing. You acknowledged my points against Anata, but then cheered Gunslinger for his theory that I was acting and then posted what I did that looked scummy. If you thought I could possibly just be a good townie that started out a bit overzealous, you didn't say that in your analysis.

[Jitsu]

I'm glad to be back and feeling better after a nasty battle with pinkeye in real life.

Quick reaction on last few days:

Wow, nobody died last night?? I think we should be careful not to jump to the conclusion that the mafia kill was blocked. It may have been, but it is still possible due to the long holiday weekend that a kill choice was not received by the mod. (NabNab does not explicitly state what happens in that case.)

And Korlash really was mafia? I was sitting on the fence about whether I should change my vote to him, but he was lynched before I got a chance to check the thread again. The wagon on Korlash did move pretty quickly (thinking in Adel's visual terms), but then again, the evidence that CKD turned up against Korlash was as convincing as anything else we've seen so far.

I need to go back and reread the thread with the knowledge that Korlash was scum and see what I can find. It's great that he got lynched, but since he was heavily criticised by a lot of the players here, I don't know what obvious conclusions can be drawn right away, other than Adel's original guess on Korlash from his models did end up working out.

[Jitsu]

I still need to reread also, but although the lynch on Korlash was certainly justified (given his apparent lie), I'm a bit concerned that people weren't willing to stop and discuss the situation or other suspects, or get comments from some of the other players first. There was a fair bit of lurking on Day 2, and there was virtually no pressure on anyone but Korlash. I was really hoping we could get more information before day 2 ended.

I think it's likely someone bussed Korlash also, given how fast the wagon moved and how generally cautious people have been. Sudo, Setael, and Jerub were all in good positions to bus, since Flay's vote appeared to give the growing wagon more legitimacy, and the evidence against Korlash was damning enough at that point that he probably was not going to escape.

Gunslinger: I got the impression that he never committed much time to the game. He had rarely any posts with any content, though the few that did weren't really great. I'm still highly suspicious of his role, but maybe his replacement will give us something more to work with.

Sudo: He has voted and posted, but he says so little that it's really difficult to get a read on him at all. Out of all the recently "active" players, he's the hardest to read. Some may say that that is a matter of play style, but I think it's somewhat anti-town. To help fellow townies, you should at least post enough for people to get a read on you. He has kept his cards really close to his vest for a long time.

As for Adel, I echo the criticism of Adel's apparent desire to cruise and serve an an enforcer for Sudo. I would have to reread to find out where Sudo has actually asked another player a direct question, because it has been rare, to say the least. I do agree with Adel's apparent desire to see more content from Sudo (as mentioned in the previous paragraph).

As for Setael, I too wonder why Korlash voted Setael after having defended her for most of Day 1. He even stated repeatedly that the case on her was never really sufficient for him -- so why did he vote her with his dying breath then? I think the most likely explanations are that either he was trying to set her up for a mislynch today (as AA said), or he was helping her yet again by distancing from her (since he was already going down in flames).

Jerub's hammer was a bit suspicious. Jerub, at that point, Korlash was really circling the drain at L-1, so why end it so quickly? I know we didn't need a claim for him, but what was the harm in waiting until after the holiday weekend was over and for everyone to get back so we could at least discuss things more?

CKD: I was a bit worried about you given how hard you pushed for the Miztef lynch, but your case on Korlash was solid. I have a question for you: What is your opinion on Setael now, given recent events? You defended her before. What do you think about her now?

Flay: I know my dawn post wasn't great. I was wary on voting Korlash (even though I admitted the evidence against him was good) because a mislynch on Day 2 would have put the town in a really bad situation (we could have even been in LYLO on Day 3). I tried to delicately explain what I think CKD saw so others could find it easier, and see how people would react to the case on Korlash. I was away from a computer between Tuesday afternoon (Korlash had three votes on him then) until Wednesday evening. I was frankly surprised to find out that he had already been lynched Wednesday afternoon.

AA: Why did you think Gunslinger asked for replacement after his scumbuddy was lynched? I don't see where NabakovNabakov said that. NN said that Gunslinger had not responded to his prod and was in danger of being replaced. And that was well before the Korlash wagon got up to full speed. You seem to find Setael scummy, but then you turn it around in the next sentence and explore the possibility of her being innocent (the scum setting her up) pointing the finger at Mr. Flay. Then in the final sentence, you seem to go back to referring to the arguments against Anata and her dropping out. So what do you really think about her?

[Jitsu]

I have a question for everyone who didn't vote for Korlash. Did you check the thread, read the posts pointing out his contradictions and lies and then not vote? If so, why? What reasons did you have for still thinking he wasn't scum after those posts? (I recognize that not everyone will have read the thread since the hammer came so quickly but I'd like to hear from those that did and decided not to vote).

I did see the meta, and I commented on it already. I thought he was scummy (though I admit still had some doubt), but I wanted for there to be more discussion before he was lynched so we would have more information going into today. Nobody else really had any pressure on him, and a mislynch could have put us in LYLO, as I said.

So you defending the quick hammer on Korlash then? Do you really feel that he wasn't bussed?

[Jitsu]

"Nobody else really had any pressure on him" was intended to mean, "there wasn't really any pressure on anyone else".

[Jitsu]

@Jerub: I wasn't questioning your hammer as much as the timing. The hammer was justified. I think we could have waited longer and gotten more information. I don't think there was much danger in letting Korlash dangle for a bit longer, as I couldn't see him arguing his way out of the lynch.

@Flay: Can I ask your specific reason for the FoS? You said it was because of the dawn post, but what specifically was it that bothered you?

As for the Setael wagon, I will support that. Besides the fact that I've been suspicious of her for most of the game, I really don't like how she seems to be focusing on the people who did not vote for Korlash instead of considering the bussing theory more carefully. I know that I am pro-town, Gunslinger is unavailable for comment, and I'm having doubts that AA is scum at the moment given that he seemed to share some of my doubts on Korlash and that Day 2 ended too quickly. I also don't think we should have let her off the hook so easily on Day 1 and 2. I like the idea of putting some pressure back on Setael.

Vote: Setael

[Jitsu]

I actually did not realize that I put Setael at L-2. I do want to keep up the pressure on her because she is still my top suspect, but not at the cost of ignoring other potential suspects. I think Setael is the best lynch at the moment, but I'm really not in a hurry to do it this second. I'm happy with the amount of attention she has on her right now. A Setael lynch can certainly wait until Oman gets caught up, Jerub rereads, and Sudo weighs in, and other suspects are discussed. I don't believe that Setael will get quicklynched here, but it's not worth taking the chance. I will

Unvote

for now, but

my intent at the moment is to revote her after things have been discussed

.

Actually, I don't have a problem with Setael's vote on Korlash, as the vote was justified, and she did state a decent reason in my eyes. As I mentioned previously, I am more concerned about how she appeared to defend the quick hammer and choose to focus the people that did NOT vote Korlash.

[Jitsu]

That's a good question. I wanted to find the answer, so here's a summary I put together for myself on how the Korlash wagon went down, starting with post 762, where CKD finds the meta on Korlash:

L-5 (Adel): Adel had her vote on Korlash before the meta was found.

L-4 (CKD, 762): CKD votes for Korlash because of the meta he found. Korlash's response is that CKD was making up stuff (763), then a little later, acknowledges the meta but says CKD is mistaken and the dates are wrong (766).

Adel revotes Korlash (768), even though she was already voting him, praising CKD for finding the meta. Korlash's response is nothing special, basically a comment that Adel was already voting him.

Korlash says he finds it funny that CKD found the meta but then claims that it actually proves his case about his naivete about the Mafia RB (772). In (774), I post that I can see the meta and that it doesn't look good for Korlash.

L-3 (Mr. Flay, 777): Flay votes for Korlash because of Korlash's professed support of the "posting lost of fluff and looking like an idiot town" strategy -- Flay says it is a hindrance to the town. Flay does not comment on the meta evidence itself but calls Korlash on his statement in (759) that Flay should meta him. Korlash's response is to reiterate that this is how he plays and makes more jokes. At the end of (785), Korlash votes Setael (forgetting to bold it), saying it is because she didn't thank him for helping out Anata on Day 1. Then he comments (786) how the town keeps trying to go for crappy lynches. Mentions the Anata bandwagon again here and refers to "Queen Adel" coming into the game. He says he can't see why his behavior is anti-town and that it's just his nature.

L-2 (Sudo_Nym, 788): Sudo votes for Korlash because he doesn't believe his claim and doesn't care for his playstyle. Korlash's response is to joke about how he predicted that Sudo would vote him.

L-1 (Setael, 795): Initially, in (792), she asks how to find Korlash's posts in other games; Flay and Adel help. Then in (795), she finds a contradiction between posts 521 and 585 in this game and votes Korlash for that, saying she found it while looking for what everyone was talking about in Korlash's other games. Korlash does not respond.

Hammer (Jerubaal, 797): Seems to know he is the hammer. States that the Korlash case is very strong and based on little speculation, so he sees little reason to drag the day out any longer, and congratulates those who caught the contradictions. As this is the hammer, Korlash has no response.


Analysis:

Korlash's strongest reactions were to CKD (presumably for finding the meta), and to Flay (probably due to Flay blasting him for his anti-town playstyle). He barely reacted to Sudo at all at L-2. He did not react to the L-1 vote (Setael) either, presumably because it was only 75 minutes before he was hammered, and the death scene was posted a mere 9 minutes after the hammer.

Of the people on the Korlash wagon after CKD posted about the Meta, the best reasons seemed to be from Setael and Flay, given that they actually were responding to specific posts from Korlash. Of the two, I'll say that Setael's was a bit stronger only because she found another contradiction, this time totally within the game.

The other noticeable connection of course, is the Setael/Korlash connection. The funny thing is that Korlash voted Setael in (785), about 18 hours before she votes him (795). Setael did not comment on Korlash's vote on her at all. Perhaps that's just good play, choosing not to be overdefensive against someone circling the drain at L-1. Maybe the silence is an attempt at distancing (but even then, distancing oneself from Korlash was probably not a bad idea for anyone at that point, so not mentioning his vote is probably more of a null tell).

But why would Korlash vote for her when he did? Setael had not even hinted she was interested in the meta then -- Korlash voted her (785), complained again about the Day 1 wagon on Anata (786), then fixed his vote for Setael (787). Setael did not even mention her desire to look up the meta on him until (792), and her criticism of Korlash before that didn't really stand out to me as being stronger than anyone else's (I need to reread this). Korlash's reason for voting her was so crappy, it should have been obvious that noone would believe it. To me, it seems that he was either trying to distance from her (in a clumsy attempt to protect her) or trying to make it look like he was distancing from her (in a somewhat more subtle attempt to get her mislynched). I'm more inclined to believe the former than the latter.

Given Korlash's strategy of acting annoying, fluffing up the thread, and playing the idiot townie, bussing him would seem to be a good strategy move and could well have been something he discussed with his scumbuddies in advance.

[Jitsu]

Wait, I just found something else. I started looking at where Setael entered the game and looked at her reactions to Korlash. As I was reading I found this:

Post 663:

"Mafia Roleblocker" is a newer type of role, and not as common as some players here would like you to believe.

Since August 2006, Mafia roleblocker has appeared as a role 6 times in a mini-normal, while a protown roleblocker has only been used three times.

NabakovNabakov has been registered with mafiascum.net for less than a year, and has not played in any game with either type of roleblocker.

Korlash is currently a player in an ongoing game where a mafia roleblocker was lynched D2. (note: this line is very close to the boundary of talking about an ongoing game. I believe it to be a legal sentence because it is publically available information from a deathscene written by that game's moderator.

My conclusion is that NabakovNabakov is more likely to include a Mafia roleblocker than a normal roleblocker.... oh, wait. I take that back.

unvote

I'm not nearly as confident as I was before. I think I just talked myself into giving Korlash the benefit of the doubt.

This is exactly I was talking about when I was trying to explain the meta. It was possible to find this out by simply reading the first (summary) post of all the games Korlash was involved in. There was no need to even read any of Korlash's posts. Given some things CKD said, I'm guessing that he may have found something else by actually reading Korlash's posts.

I'm not sure what to make of this, because all of this, plus the contradiction Setael found between posts 521 and 585 in this game, were sitting out in plain sight long, long before CKD posted about finding the meta.

Given what Korlash said in 521 and 585, Adel had more evidence of Korlash's lie sitting in her hands! But instead she decided to unvote. After a reread, the paragraph above where Adel takes back her conclusion and unvotes sounds really strange to me.

Again, I'm not sure what to make of this yet, because it seems like a lot of the players (myself included) just missed this.

[Jitsu]

This was a good analysis, jitsu, up until that last paragraph.

Why? Because bussing is such a completely unfathomable possibility?? I can't believe that at all.

If a scum acts like Korlash did, what other strategy should the scum use? Supporting his craplogic and fluff is really, really dangerous, especially on Day 1. Distancing oneself from him is certainly an option, but bussing him seems to be a much better play if the scum can pull it off. Given the trouble Korlash was already in at the end of Day 1 because of his weak claim that most people didn't seem to believe, I would think that his scumbuddies would have to seriously think about bussing him to try to get townie points out of it.

[Jitsu]

I would interpret this in a slightly different way. In the last two rounds Korlash kept going on about how Sudo_Nym and GunslingerKB were prepared to vote for him on a whim at any time. Then he basically predicts it again a few posts before Sudo_Nym's vote, here.

The point is, I could see this being 1 of 2 things, that both lead to Sudo_Nym and GunslingerKB being potential scumbuddies. First, Korlash may have wanted to hammer home the fact that Sudo_Nym and GunslingerKB have been voting for Korlash all game long. Second, he may have been saying, "it's ok, guys, I am fine with you bussing me, go ahead and vote."

Good catch, I think that is quite possible. I think it only further strengthens the theory that Korlash was bussed (possibly more than once).

Given that Setael seems to be really having a problem with the bussing theory at this point, I am finding it harder to believe she is innocent. Still though, I don't think it is time to revote yet. I want to see what the others think about the recent developments.

[Jitsu]

This was a good analysis, jitsu, up until that last paragraph.

Setael did not even mention her desire to look up the meta on him until (792)

I didn't know how to quickly find posts from other games. I tried to figure it out but wasn't getting anywhere, so I asked in the thread.

her criticism of Korlash before that didn't really stand out to me as being stronger than anyone else's

I don't think I criticized him much at all once he claimed. I believed the claim until it became obvious he was lying.

Why are you even commenting on this? I never asked for an explanation for your vote on Korlash, because I already said that I didn't find your vote on Korlash scummy:

Actually, I don't have a problem with Setael's vote on Korlash, as the vote was justified, and she did state a decent reason in my eyes. As I mentioned previously, I am more concerned about how she appeared to defend the quick hammer and choose to focus the people that did NOT vote Korlash.

[Jitsu]

while I am checking dates and post numbers
Jitsu, curious about your thoughts on Set's comments about claiming at -1...seems like she wants us to think there is something to claim....thoughts?

Possibly. I do remember another place where she hinted at the same thing. Near the bottom of post 733 (a rebuttal to my post criticizing her) she said (bolding is mine):

This seems so off to me. Why say that about being happy to unvote "if something turns up later"?

This almost sounds like you're expecting me to be a power role.

You're not saying that if I start seeming really town you'll unvote, you say "if something turns up later". Do you mean that if someone starts looking scummier you'd unvote me? Why would someone else looking scummy make me less scummy? I found this sentence really odd. I can't see a townie who really thinks I'm scum saying this.

She could have been saying that to plant seeds for later, but I'm not sure.
Even so, I think that her apparent stonewalling of the bussing theory is a lot more suspicious that what she said about claiming.

[Jitsu]

I want to hear from Oman once he's read up also.

Mod: Can we get a prod on Mr. Flay please? He hasn't posted since Monday.

[Jitsu]

Sudo_Nym has been working, attending school, and studying for finals, so he's going to be strapped for posting time; he's been reading however, so don't think I'm falling behind.

I have a question for you. You say that you think it's likely that the scum jumped on Korlash's wagon late because his ship was already sinking. Who is it that you suspect then? Do you think there was more than one scum on his wagon?

[Jitsu]

Hey, Mr. Flay is the same age as me!!

[Jitsu]

Whoa, this game has ground to a halt. So are we basically waiting on Oman, Flay, and Jerub to comment then?

Maybe I'll do some more rereading and see if anything else stands out.

[Jitsu]

The Setael wagon is WAY too convenient. Setael essentially spotted something everyone else missed in 521, but held onto it until L-2? That's weird behavior, whether you're scum or town.

Unvote

for now

I need to consider some your comments more carefully, but for now I have a couple of questions, on first read.

Regarding Setael's vote justification on Korlash on Day 2, if you thought the reason for Setael's vote was good earlier in the day, why did you start a wagon on her then? And now you are unvoting her simply because someone suggested that she found it earlier and held onto it until she needed it?

I don't really believe that either, since I think it would have been a much better play to expose it and bus Korlash with it, getting major townie points in the process. But even though it was a really nice find (she has to get some kudos for that, regardless of whether she's town or scum), I don't see how it clears her either. Isn't it also possible that she was just a scum looking for a better reason to vote (other than "me too") and reread to find one? A lot of people started rereading Korlash's posts around that time, once CKD found his meta evidence.

You don't agree with Adel about Jerub? I'd like you to clarify. Do you mean you think Jerub is innocent? If so, that's quite a reversal of your opinion from earlier where you FoS'ed Jerub along with me. Any specific reason why?

[Jitsu]

Can someone remind me who first suggested that I saw 521 earlier and didn't say anything? I was thinking it was Jitsu but here he says "someone" suggested it. That argument really is a stretch - like Flay said, it would be a weird thing for either scum or town to do. Whoever suggested it first - you are my new top suspect.

I won't have time until tomorrow morning to look through the thread and find it, so if someone else has a few spare minutes, I'd appreciate you looking it up for me.

I can see why you might have thought that given how I've attacked you during the game, but the suggestion was first mentioned by AA in Post 831:

You did switch to Korlash when the bandwagon seemed inevitable. Even though I concede you found good reason to do so, that doesn't mean you aren't scum. You may have had this piece of information in your back pocket all along and been waiting to use it until you saw that a Korlash lynch was inevitable. Or you may have decided, "Korlash is going down, I need to get a vote in for him, but I don't want it to seem like I'm switching late for no new reason", and you went out and found something new to justify your vote.

I agree it is relatively unlikely that you held onto it and pulled it out when you needed it. If anything, the scenario in the last sentence is more probable.

[Jitsu]

Oman has already touched on this, but the wagon on Setael today makes me nervous, despite the fact that I was one of the people on it. I wasn't going to mention the Newbie Game Anata was in being over, but it essentially destroyed the "Anata left because her role there was easier/more appealing" argument, unless she finds Vanilla Townie more appealing than whatever she has/had here. I'm still pissed about the abandonment, but it probably means it was in response to pressure, not role.

Flay, I have another question, prompted by some of Jerub's observations. Why specifically is *today's* wagon on Setael making you nervous?

You started the wagon, then Adel jumped on quickly without much of a stated reason (at the time, at least), and then I voted (and later unvoted when someone (CKD?) told me she was at -2). If you believe that Adel is near the top of your pro-town list, and that I am moderately pro-town, then what is bothering you about today's wagon?

I agree that she probably left because of the pressure. Whether that was because she was guilty or not still remains to be seen. I'm still making up my mind, but I never believed the idea that Anata left because of disinterest with her role, so the recent information doesn't make her leaving less scummy to me.

I want to know where Oman is on his read, and I am still waiting patiently for Sudo's comments also.

[Jitsu]

We did mislynch D1, but we got a scum D2. Plus, there was only one NK on N1, and the Mafia kill failed last night (for reasons unknown). Even better, no town power roles (assuming there are any) have been flushed out yet. And unless there are four mafia, we should survive a mislynch today, if it came to that.

That's really not a bad position to be in at all on D3 in a mini.

[Jitsu]

well, maybe you and Adel know more than I do..but I am currently at a loss who scum might be..I would rather not have another mislynch.

I was really just commenting on the current state of the game.

I am still trying to figure some things out myself, but I'm not worried yet. I'm happy that the activity level has picked up and some serious discussions are going on -- and it seems there will be more content coming from some of the previously active players also.

I don't want another mislynch either, but at this rate, we should get some decent info at the end of the day, regardless. There is a big motivation to try to get this lynch right though, as it puts the town in a really great position, numbers-wise, if we do.

[Jitsu]

er, I mean "...from some of the previously inactive players also."

[Jitsu]

I would also like to say I disagree with Lynching Lurkers on Day Three of a mini.

Why is that?

I can see leaving the lurkers alone the first day or two in order to pursue better targets (and allow power roles to lay low and use their powers for the first couple of days), but starting around Day 3, I think you have to start getting content from everyone so that you have enough information to find the guilty parties at or before the endgame. If someone lurks their way into the endgame, it makes it much more difficult for the other townies to win.

Have you completed your read yet? I think a lot of people want to know your thoughts. Given how much lurking your predecessor did and the suspicion he was under, I think it is probably in your best interest to do so.

[Jitsu]

Adel, why the rush? I don't like Oman's lurking any more than you do, but if he's going to keep it up, there's no need to rush to lynch him right now and end the day. If Oman continues to lurk and not post any useful content, I would support lynching him today, but several people have promised more content, and I want to hear it. I especially want to hear that detailed post you promised. Another question: You seemed to say that you thought you knew who one of the remaining scum is, but weren't sure about the other(s). Is Oman the one you are more sure of?

Flay, in response to post 911, where you said that you didn't have a good answer yet, do you have one now? If you simply came to an incorrect conclusion, what do you conclude about Setael now?

[Jitsu]

actually I do want to lynch him right away. the way I see it we can pretty much hit pause on this day. a little bit mor information should nail it, and there are enough intelligent and usefull players in this town that even another nk isn't going to but us back that far.

Huh? We do have a bit of a cushion right now, but isn't it much, much more advantageous to get the additional information NOW, so we can use that to help interpret the lynch result and whatever happens tonight??

I will vote Oman today (meaning Day 3) as well if he does not start posting real content also, but I am NOT ready for the day to end yet. I disliked how quickly Day 2 ended, but I can understand it to a point because Korlash's lie turned out to be pretty damning. I do not see a similar compelling reason to end Day 3 so quickly.

I do not see why it is a good idea to "hit pause on this day" and lynch Oman right now. I can think of at least one scenario where that does not work out well: if Oman gets lynched and comes up town and you get NKed, then the town has lost a lot of information it could have had otherwise. You may not have time to share information after the hammer if the thread gets locked as quickly as it did at the end of D2.

If you are going to "steamroll this wagon right over" Oman today for lurking, then I want to hear your detailed post

before

he is hammered.[/b]

[Jitsu]

I'll make sure to get the information out. How about a vote on Oman to amp up the pressure a little?

Very well. I will hold you to that.

I'm not sure I want him at L-2 just yet, as a scum vote would then force him to claim. I want some more time to reread and look over some things first.

I offer you a compromise.

Oman has two votes on him (you, Flay) and promises of two more (Setael, yours truly) if he doesn't start talking. That should be enough. If it isn't, I will put a pressure vote on him tomorrow night (real time).

In addition, I will

FoS: Oman

.

[Jitsu]

My only completed game so far was with Oman, and this behavior seems very out of character for him. I don't see why Lynch All Lurkers should be any different day 3 than day 1. Seems like a better rule, if anything. I'll add the third vote since Jitsu seems unwilling.

Seriously Jitsu, it almost seems that you're opposed to lynching. More talk usually benefits the town, but paralysis does not. That FoS is a joke.

I'm not opposed to lynching. I'm opposed to ending the day quickly. I will admit that I was being pretty cautious there for an L-2 vote, but I did say that I would cast the vote tomorrow night. Saying that I seem unwilling to vote because I wanted to wait a day seems just a little unfair.

I confess to wanting to slow the wagon down a bit to be more sure that we can hear from the others that have promised content and so I can reread some more. I am more than happy to vote for Oman if he doesn't stop lurking -- I have expressed my suspicion of Gunslinger for a long time now and that hasn't changed since Oman has arrived.

And the FoS was not intended to be a joke. Even though I did not vote right away, I wanted to express my desire for Oman to post in a way stronger than just "I'm going to vote for you if you don't post some content". Plus, with it in bold, it's harder for Oman to say he didn't see it.

There has been a lot of suspicions and finger pointing going around today and I am still trying to sort some of it out. I know I've been pretty cautious but I am honestly doing what I think is best for the town.

Two things I'm still looking into are Flay's stated case and vote on AA and AA's vote on you.

[Jitsu]

Crap, I just saw that Oman posted while I was writing. I'll read it over and post later tonight.

For now though, I noticed something else on my reread. In post 895, I noticed that Flay said:

Day One, it is almost impossible to find a truly scummy scum to lynch. Therefore you're generally better off eliminating someone who is not going to be an asset to the game. You gain information about who is willing to lynch this person, correlate that with the lynchee's actual alignment, and strengthen the town's position for eventual endgame. Korlash meets all of those criteria, independent of whether or not the Mafia RB thing happened to be an actual lie or not (have you looked at his death scene, by chance?)

It dawned on me what Flay as talking about here. Flay, you are implying above that this may be a limited reveal game, are you not? The mafia would already know if that were true, so I think it is safe to say it here.

[Jitsu]

@Oman:

I don't think lurking is an appropriate response to a bad meta. Lurking and then stating that you were going to protest it by lurking some more hardly seems like it's helping the town.

I'm simply going to refer to post 938 as the Great (Quote) Wall of China, or the GQWoC for short.

On an intitial read, you might have a point or two in there somewhere, but overall I wasn't terribly impressed. I'll reread, but a lot of it seems to be a rehash of existing arguments.

At this point though, I'm more interested in your opinions and impressions of the remaining players, especially about the events of Day 3. It's painfully obvious you don't like Adel, but what about everyone else?

[Jitsu]

@Oman

Um, did you not realize that Adel is voting YOU right now?

And how exactly did Adel create a strawman argument to undermine Setael's credibility?

[Jitsu]

I am still rereading, but I will post my thoughts right now:

I still don't like Setael and Oman. Setael's reason for voting AA was weak, plus there is all of the other stuff mentioned previously. And I still don't think Oman has posted much usable content, and the stuff he did post today has been almost one-sidedly focused on Adel (possible OMGUS post?). I do think they are both potential lynch candidates.

At this point, I think that AA and CKD are probably town. I understand their concern about Jerubbaal, but at this point, I am willing to give Jerub a pass for today because of past good behavior.

Adel and Sudo I'm still unsure of -- they are still hard for me to get a read on, but Adel has done enough good things to stay out of my top suspect list, and Sudo, while hard to read, is not one of the better lynch candidates for today. I'd really like Sudo to post more of what he is thinking. I don't think either one is a good lynch candidate today.

I admit I have concerns about Flay as well, though I want to hear what Adel has to say about him. I will hold back on my observations on Flay until Adel posts his case.


@Adel: So was Flay your prime suspect all along then? If so, you must have been sitting on him for a while now. What specifically make Flay your top lynch candidate?

It is time to end this day. I will not be making a case against him for his partner to hide behind, but I am sincere in this vote, and I

will not move it

for the rest of this day.

Those are very strong statements. I do not discount your sincerity, but I'm afraid I need more than that to go on. If you are going to make that strong of a statement and lead the wagon against someone, you better back it up. I am less concerned about giving a potential Flayscum partner something to hide behind tomorrow than I am getting this lynch right. If you want Flay that badly, make your case against him. I will listen.


@CKD: Why specifically is Jerubbaal a hypocrite?

@Jerubbaal: Is Flay your prime suspect? If not, who is? You say that Flay is a good lynch. Who are the other good lynches for today?

@Sudo: Could you please post your thoughts on the other players you've not commented on already?

@Setael: What is your opinion on Flay?

[Jitsu]

Interesting... Setael's response makes me want to reread today's comments now with a new focus in mind.

[Jitsu]

Adel: Fuck you. Immovable votes are NOT pro-town, and the only thing preventing me from voting you at present is that I feel I have at least two stronger candidates for scum. You're crystallizing again. If you've got a case,

state it

.

Who are they? Jerubbaal is presumably one. Who is the other?

[Jitsu]

I'm pretty sure I was the first one to formalize a case against you, and I'm being opportunistic? The Oman thing resolved alright, he posted, albeit not terribly impressively, but he's not lurking any more. I don't see a case against him other than lurking. If he goes back to lurking, I'll be happy to go after him, but as long as he's participating, I think you're a better target.

OMGUS much? You're just taking swings at the people who voted on you - how is

that

pro-town? You didn't have a problem with Adel's "calculated risks" until they came to bear on you. I would think an experienced player such as yourself wouldn't resort to "you suck" posting after only two votes during a lull in the day's conversation. I don't know if Adel's "I'm not moving" vote was just to produce a reaction, but it certainly did.

Are you referring to Flay here, I presume?

[Jitsu]

I think I know who I'm going to vote for. The last few pages have made things clearer in my mind. I don't have time at the moment to explain my reasons, so I will post later tonight.

[Jitsu]

At the beginning of the day, I did not consider Flay as a suspect. I was suspecting Setael and Gunslinger/Oman.

The first post that started to hint that something was different about Flay was 817. There, he ripped into Adel, then voted Setael and FoSed almost half of the remaining players (Jerub, me, and to a lesser extent, AA and Adel). Then he seems to say that he can't be scum because he would not play so transparently if he were. In the very next post, 818, he sees the need to stop the "nonsensical bandwagon" that was growing on him. This I find odd because Adel's vote in 814 was a clear pressure vote and was the only vote on him at the time. AA mentioned some suspicion of Flay in 806, but it is relatively clear that he was only expressing a thought and not going after Flay in earnest. Jerub was the only player applying any real pressure and he had not even voted yet. I was a little suspicious of Flay at this point, but not enough to think he was scum.

In 825, I find it odd that Setael seems to lambaste Adel for her vote (on Setael), like Adel was the one that was responsible for driving the wagon on her. Why didn't she mention Flay's vote on her (that started the wagon) or my vote? Then in 856, Setael mentions that she didn't think anyone was bussing -- the only possibility could be Flay, but she didn't even think he was. Then Setael echoes Flay's earlier meta defense that Flay is an experienced player and that he would have been more careful than that. Kind of looks to me like she defended him here, thought I didn't catch this until a reread.

In 881, that's when Flay says the Setael wagon is WAY too convienent, points out that she found something nobody else did when she voted for Korlash, then unvotes her. I ask Flay in 882 why he voted for Setael when he thought her reason for a vote on Korlash was justified. Flay responds to me that there has been a LOT of wagon pushing on Setael and thinks some of her detractors may be Korlash's buddies. In 889, Setael wants to know who came up with the theory that she held onto the contradiction she found against Korlash because that person will be her new top suspect. I looked it up and found that that person was Abstract Actuary. Then Setael agrees with Flay's interpretation that it is weird for town and for scum. At this point, I wondered why Setael was focused on AA for coming up with the theory that she was holding on to information. That seemed like a really weak reason for a vote on AA when she could have given a much stronger reason for a vote on Flay or myself. I admit, the theory may not have been very likely, but it was possible. Also, when Flay started a bandwagon on her, she never seemed very concerned about it.

Also in 881, Flay voted AA. I never really liked Flay's case against AA because I am pretty convinced that AA is town, based on his desire for caution and the high quality of answers he has given. I agree with AA on his opinion that Day 2 ended too quickly, and I continue to like his responses today. When Flay pointed out AA's Day 1 support of Korlash, I thought it was kind of bogus because a lot of people seemed to still be unsure of Korlash then. In 614, AA declared his support for a Miztef lynch, but his comment on Korlash was "I admit that Korlash has posted a lot, and a lot of crap, but he seems to readily admit that that is how he always plays. In my experience mafia members tend not to play that way on day 1." I could see how this might be a subtle attempt at defending Korlash, but I would tend to agree with AA's statement, so I don't see how that makes AA scummy. I think it is consistent with AA's cautious nature, which I understand because I feel the same way.

In 895, Flay mentions how the wagon against Setael is making him nervous even though HE started it. At this point, Setael only had 2 votes on her because I unvoted way back in 838. Flay repeats how it makes no sense for Setael to hold onto the contradiction and how he has no evidence that Setael bussed him, so she fell to his second tier of choices. In 910, I pressed him by asking why he felt that way when he started the wagon, and Adel and I were pro-town in his eyes. He had no answer in 911. If Flay thought that Setael was suspicious enough to vote her and in 911 he admits that he cannot explain why he unvoted her, why did he not revote her then? Even after a couple of gentle prods from Jerub and myself, Flay did not try to answer until 946, so I think he was being evasive. On reread, I think it is likely that Flay never seriously intended to push a Setael wagon and was trying to search for a way to get off of her wagon without drawing suspicion.

We all know about Adel's immovable vote placed in 955. At first, I thought she was nuts for suggesting it without presenting any case on Flay, so I demanded an explanation. More on this later.

Things started to get more clear for me in 965, where Setael said she could not see Flayscum and declares she will not be joining his wagon due to Adel not presenting a case on him. I can understand not voting at that point, but I find it odd that Setael has not been able to seriously consider a Flayscum or find any kind of fault with Flay at all on Day 3 (and probably before that -- didn't she say before that she respected Flay's experience so much that even if he were scum that she would follow him into LYLO?) It seems to me that Setael has either a serious case of idol worship (unlikely), or she is trying to lead the discussion away from Flay and help deflect for him (more likely). At the very least, Flay has been somewhat evasive on replies to my questions, something that Flay himself admitted, to a point, at the end of 895. At this point, I started rereading, looking at a potential Setael/Flay pair. This is when I started to think that Adel wasn't nuts and began to look at things deeper.

In 975, Flay labels Adel's vote as a gambit and says that it is ill-advised, giving four reasons why, that all appear to label Adel's vote as foolish or misguided. I have a problem with that, because regardless of Adel's jumping to conclusions a bit, an overreliance on statistics on Day 1, and love for gambits, I do not agree that Adel would make such a foolish play without a reason. I do not think Adel was playing a gambit. I am going to wager here that Adel is not stupid. Voting for Flay and stubbornly denying demands to state her case were likely to be met with resistance, and it's quite obvious if Flay were to come up town, then Adel would probably have the noose around her neck already by the time the night scene were posted. I think it is more likely that Flay is scum.

If I read the situation correctly, and I hope I am, I think there is another explanation why Adel did what she did. I encourage the other townies to consider this also.

Vote: Mr. Flay

[Jitsu]

Jitsu, your entire case on Flay is based on the assumption that I am scum. Just for fun, reread assuming I'm TOWN and see if you still think Flay is scum. This read will be more accurate, since it's not founded on false assumptions.

No, it's not entirely based on the assumption you are scum.

[Jitsu]

Jitsu, your entire case on Flay is based on the assumption that I am scum. Just for fun, reread assuming I'm TOWN and see if you still think Flay is scum. This read will be more accurate, since it's not founded on false assumptions.

To clarify, I am not certain that you are Flay's partner. There are other possibilities I think, but it seems like the most probable choice to me right now.

Even if you are innocent, it does not explain Flay's weird reason for unvoting you and being evasive about it. Flay did bring up your reason for the Korlash vote, but it was not the reason he gave when I pressed him further. I asked him why he voted you in the first place if he saw the reason -- he could have just said that he did not read your reason for voting Korlash carefully at first, and on reread he understood it more fully. But he didn't say that. When pressed for a reason (my post 882), Flay said he unvoted because there has been a lot of wagon pushing on you previously, he was NERVOUS about that wagon building up too fast on you today. If he thought Adel and I were pro-town at the time, why the heck would he do that? If I'm going to start a wagon on someone, and I see two people I think are moderate-to-strong townies jump on it, I would not be unvoting and saying I was nervous about it. Sure, Flay admitted he came to an incorrect conclusion; but it wasn't about your innocence. It was about being nervous of how quickly the wagon formed. If Flay were innocent, I think he would have just stuck to saying "on reread, I think she is innocent" instead of adding that "the wagon on her is WAY too convenient" and "the wagon on Setael is making me nervous". Even if you ARE innocent, it doesn't change the fact that how Flay's left the wagon he started on you was suspicious.

Even if you are innocent, it just not justify Flay's case on Abstract Actuary which I don't believe. That has nothing to do with you, although you jumping on AA later on only makes it more likely that you are Flay's partner in my mind.

Even if you are innocent, I still find Flay's post 975 scummy for several reasons, and that post has nothing to do with you.

[Jitsu]

Jerub,

According to the last vote count, I believe your vote for Flay was not counted because you failed to unvote for Oman first. FYI.

[Jitsu]

I have a question for you Adel. When did you start to suspect Flay?

[Jitsu]

I'm responding to my prod. Expect a longer post tonight.

[Jitsu]

Actually, I thought I had Adel figured out, but when she answered that she started suspecting Flay ~Nov 30, that kind of poked some holes in my theory behind her motives.

As has been the case for most for this game, I find myself wanting to reread more. But for now, I still find myself coming back to Flay and Satael as a pair. In addition to all the other evidence, they are the two people whose reactions toward each other I can explain the least. Setael seems to be deflecting for Flay repeatedly, and Flay's opinion of Setael has changed from guilty, to suspicion on her detractors, to undecided about her, to her being innocent without a really good reason why. The conspicuous lack of direct interaction between the two of them makes me suspicious.

More things that are bothering me about Flay:

Flay's reasons for the lessening suspicion on Setael are inconsistent. At first, he unvoted her because she had a good reason for her Korlash vote on D2. That's true, but then shouldn't he have had that fact in hand when he voted her? When pressed further, he said that there has been a lot of wagon pushing on her and that he wanted to investigate the less obvious suspects. That's fine, but why does that help to clear her? Then Flay stated that he was nervous about the wagon on her today but could not explain why when confronted with the fact that Adel and I were pro-town in his eyes then. And finally, he said that he didn't like how quickly the wagon formed compared to Korlash's. Well, that could be a valid point, but if that was the reason all along, why not say so? (I can think of several reasons why the first few votes on Korlash were slower: after the second vote, people naturally would have wanted to spend time reading meta and rereading the thread. Also, the holiday weekend was about to start and some player's availability, including myself, was already reduced -- whereas, for the Setael wagon, Flay, Adel, and myself were all logged on about the same time.) Overall, I just don't like how the reason seemed to change throughout today (but has generally improved as the day went along).

As recently as 996, Flay still seems to be claiming that we are lynching him based on Setael's scumminess. I did of course, make that one post that presents the case of Flay being a pair with Setael, as I think it is a likely explanation of events, but when asked to provide points on Flay that were not because of Setael's behavior (in response to Setael's request), I did. In particular, the points about Flay leaving Setael's wagon are not because of anything Setael did today. It sounds like Flay is saying "You keep making a case on me based on Setael's scumminess because you can't make one on me alone," which really isn't true.

I have a problem with Flay's post 975. I don't like how he indirectly speculated on Adel's role. Doing that in the context of trying to denfend himself does not sound pro-town to me, especially since he was still reluctant to declare Adel guilty in that post. It sounded like Flay was trying to argue that whatever Adel's motivation was, Flay had to be innocent. In my mind, and in light of his actions today, it's just as likely that Flay is simply guilty. When I read it, I also thought it could have been an attempt at rolefishing. If this is a limited reveal game where only player's affiliations are given (town/scum), then the scum have to work harder, since they cannot ever be sure who the power role(s) are and if they are alive.

As for Flay's comments in regards to 908, I don't really see much of a disavowal by AA. AA said that Jerubbaal was his top suspect, followed by Gunslinger/Oman, with Setael third. If AA felt that way, then it would make sense that he did not *necessarily* agree with the premise that Setael is scum (if Jerub and Oman are, then it's likely that Setael is not). AA could have still felt Setael-scum was a possibility, though not necessarily true, though I wish AA would have just said that if that were the reason. I tried to reread to see if AA was trying to cover up something here, but in context of all of his other pro-town comments, I just can't believe that AA is scum right now.

Also, Flay acknowledges in 996 that AA's suspicions have been mostly consistent, but in 1013, he seems to be attacking AA for casting a wide net of suspicion. Isn't that just a *bit* hypocritical given how Flay at different points today has voted or FoS'ed *most* of the remaining players?

As for Korlash, I still don't think Flay understands what he lied about. Nobody is saying Korlash lied about *being* a roleblocker. What people are saying is that he lied about *knowing* that such a role exists. Initially Korlash claimed he tends to be very good at being a Mafia RB in #521. Then in #585 he expresses surprise that the Mafia RB exists. The dates on those posts were 2 days apart!


@Flay:

Why are you leaning towards Setael being town now? What has changed to make you think that? In 996 you basically agree Setael is trying to tie herself to you and that she is still on your list of potential scum, but then in 1003, you are leaning toward her being town. What makes you think that? Why would Setael tie herself to you if she is town?


@CKD:

I'd like you to comment on the Flay/Adel/Jerub interaction and say what you think. I'd also like to know where your suspicions lie.


@Oman:

I'd like to see your opinions on all the players in general (since you seemed to focus only on certain people so far), and on who your suspects are in specific.


Flay and Setael are my top two (roughly equal in terms of suspicion), and I would support a lynch of either one today. Next suspicious would be Oman (still kind of lurking in plain sight even though he's posteds ome content). I think there's an outside chance that Sudo, Adel, or Jerub could be scum, but not really likely at this point. I don't have much reason to suspect CKD or AA right now.

[Jitsu]

Jitsu, though you have listed reasons for suspecting Flay that don't have to do with me, you are still flagging us as a scum pair and basing a lot of your suspicion on that. To put it into perspective for you, pick a player you generally believe to be innocent. For argument's sake, I'll pick ckd for you since I don't remember you suspecting him much. Now for the sake of our little role play, imagine you are a townie. Players start posting that they think you and ckd are scum buddies and in fact many of their reasons for suspecting ckd are based on the fact that they think YOU are scum. You don't know ckd's alignment, of course, but you do know YOUR alignment and therefore know that they are making incorrect assumptions about ckd. How would this affect your reaction to the ckd case? Would you defend him, or at least state that you don't agree with the case on him?

Maybe this will clarify things for you. I could be wrong about Flay, but if it's being assumed that he and I are BOTH scum, I find myself disregarding the arguments since I know the foundation is flawed.

I understand what you are saying, but I don't see how this exonerates you. You seem to be avoiding the fact that I've made points against both of you individually, and it seems like each of you may still be hiding behind that.

Maybe this will clarify things for you: I'm not ASSUMING that both of you are scum. I'm GUESSING that you might be (an educated guess, mind you), based on your individual behavior and how you've interacted with each other (or more precisely, how you've NOT interacted with each other, in this case).

To say that I am basing much of my suspicion on the theory that the two of you are a scumpair is inaccurate. Both of you still look highly suspicious to me individually. I've posted enough of a case on Flay individually to suspect him and vote him, regardless of your alignment -- and you seem to acknowledge that. I am able to consider the cases on each of you individually, while also being able to consider the case that you two are a scumpair. I don't like the fact that you keep implying that my case against the two of you is based on assuming that both of you are guilty, when that's not true.

When I look at you two together as a possible scumpair, the individual cases against each of you look even stronger to me. At this point, people are not only discussing who to lynch today, but possible scumpair scenarios. I merely gave my theory and presented evidence that makes a Flay/you scumpair plausible.

It is possible for people to agree with the case made individually on Flay while still disagreeing with the case on you, or the two of you as a pair. For example, Sudo now seems to suspect Flay, but not you. You could easily have said that you could see Flay's suspicious behavior as a scumtell, but that you don't agree with the points on you (and thus indirectly, the two of you as a scumpair) and given reasons why. But you didn't do that. Instead of defending youself against my individual points against you, you asked me to reread assuming that you are town, and you seem to dismiss my points on you because because I've presented the theory that you are scum with Flay. Why does considering the two of you as a pair nullify my cases on either of you?

I don't like how you suspected AA simply for his theory that you held onto the reason for your Korlash vote. It may not be a likely theory, but to me it's at least plausible. It seems like a weak reason for to vote him when you would have had stronger reasons to vote someone else. In 965 you say that you don't think that was an argument that a townie would make, but then you went on to agree with Flay and say that such a move would be weird both for town and for scum. So why then did you assume AA was guilty because of it? Shouldn't it have been a null tell if you couldn't make sense of it? In my opinion, it wasn't an argument at all. I think AA is a townie and simply stated a theory he had. As he noted, he did not present it as the only possiblity (he gave another), he didn't vote you for it, and he never even argued it.

I don't like how when the wagon formed on you, the person you attacked for it was Adel, making it sound like he was the one responsible. Why did you single him out when Flay started the wagon on you and I jumped on with the L-2 vote?

Finally, what exactly have you done to help find scum today? Other than a half hearted attempt to question those who didn't vote for Korlash at the very beginning of the day (which I think was kind of bogus anyway, because I had already stated my opinions and Gunslinger/Oman was still AWOL), I've not seen you do much. You've defended Flay, and voted for AA, who I really don't find scummy at all. And that could be seen as an OMGUS vote for his theory of you anyway. If you really are innocent as you claim to be, then you should be scumhunting and putting your skills to work, since you have more or less proven your ability to notice subtle details when you gave your reason for voting Korlash. Since you are into roleplaying, put yourself into my shoes. Why should I assume you are innocent?

I'll tell you what though. I'm a man of my word, and I will attempt to consider all viewpoints as I've promised to do. As an exercise, I will go back and reread Day 3, assuming you are innocent and see what conclusion I come to. Since I'm not 100% certain you are guilty, it would be unwise to not consider your innocence, even if I don't believe that at this point.

I am not completely convinced that Flay is guilty, that you are guilty, or that you two are a pair. There *are* other possibilities, as I stated. There is a possibility that neither of you are scum, but I think it's a small one right now. At the moment, the two of you are by far the best suspects to me individually, and the two of you as a pair seems plausible to me. I think that of the two of you, there is a good chance that at least one of you is scum, and possibly both of you. So that's why I support a lynch on either of you right now.

[Jitsu]

To clarify the timing issue: Setael accumulated 3 votes between 1:13 pm and 2:41 pm on Nov. 26th, 2007, with AA stating 3 minutes later that he would be willing to vote for Setael, and ckd supporting a Setael lynch less than half an hour later. That's enough people to lynch, if everyone jumped on. Within two days of D3 opening.

It's no great stretch to say that there's probably at least one scum in that set...possibly two, in my view.

THAT

is what I've been trying to say, apparently incoherently, for days.

So, who are the scum?

[Jitsu]

This is not accurate. I told you to reread assuming I'm town to see if you still thought Flay was scum. My request for you to do so had nothing to do with your points against me.

I don't think it's that inaccurate. It is still true that you did not defend yourself against my latest points until just now. Even if your request for me to reread was not related to my points against you, I still find it really odd that you basically asked me to reread and reconsider Flay's guilt and did not address my points about yours. Why not just counter my argument against you directly and help to clear yourself instead of getting me to reevaluate Flay and help to clear you indirectly? I'm starting to get the impression that you are much more concerned with how I linked you to Flay than you are with my opinion of you.

This also is inaccurate and shows that you never did understand the argument. The point was that what AA accused me of is very unlikely to be done by

both

town

and

scum and yet he's trying to paint me as scummy for it. To bring it up in the first place was a real stretch and not an argument a townie would come up with imo.

I did misunderstand somewhat -- you are right about that. But I still disagree with you. After your vote on Korlash, you seemed to be pointing to your reason as evidence that you are town (which is certainly possible). When you pressed AA wanting to know about how he felt about your vote reason and others' opinions on it, AA responded how, after reread, he did consider your vote justified, but that it didn't necessarily clear you either, and he gave two scenarios as examples why not.

If AA had taken the initiative to attack you with those comments then I would have felt differently, but YOU were pressing him for explanations regarding the reasoning of your vote, and he played devil's advocate by pointing out two scenarios where you could still have done it as scum. I found the first one (the one you've been referring to) somewhat less likely, and the second somewhat more likely. It's possible to see that exchange as you trying to apply pressure to AA to get him to clear you somewhat, but it backfired when he acknowledged that your reason was good but that it still didn't clear you (and gave two explanations why that may have been so). To me, it showed that he was considering all aspects of the situation instead of implicitly clearing you for it. To me, your overreaction to his theory was more scummy than his theory itself.

In this post, AA casts suspicion on both Flay and myself while distancing himself from the whole argument and being careful to not actually accuse Flay, even specifically stating he is not "advocating a Mr. Flay" lynch. He then does not say who all these better choices for Day 3 are. Right after this, Flay votes me not long after Adel votes him and says "Post or perish". The reason he gives for the vote is "because the idea of a "clever" Korlash framing her makes me giggle." I wondered at the time if this was to see what AA would do after his post 815. AA doesn't respond; instead I got 2 quick votes from Adel and Jitsu. AA then votes jerubbaal without commenting on my wagon other than to say he'd be willing to vote me. At this point it's very much looking like he knows I would come up town and wouldn't want to look like he'd been too involved. I originally voted him because of his crap argument against me, but upon rereading I'm starting to think that if some pressure was put on him and he was forced to talk a little more, he'd reveal himself as obvscum pretty quickly.

I don't know why AA didn't respond. Clearly he found you suspicious, but maybe like CKD, he just wasn't ready to put an L-1 vote on you and force a claim. Maybe he was watching to see what happened. AA did say in 806 that his top 3 were Jerub, Gunslinger/Oman, and you, in that order. Given that you were only his 3rd choice, it's not unreasonable to think he would support your lynch but he wanted to hear more information first. If you wanted to know why he didn't respond, why didn't YOU ask him?

Your explanation of the events is possible, but there are a lot of others. AA has done pretty well countering you and Flay's arguments against him and he has not hid from criticism, so I don't expect he would panic and give himself away as obvscum with some more pressure on him. If you want people to vote for AA, then make a stronger case against him. If it's strong enough, I'll vote him, but I haven't seen anything compelling yet. Upon rereading your post, I'm starting to get the idea that you're doing whatever you can to get people's votes off of Flay.

I was giving Adel credit where she was taking it by claiming that her one vote on Flay sparked my wagon, so you probably shouldn't be misconstruing that as a scum tell against me.

Huh? That's not the impression I got at all. To me, it was clear that Adel was simply enjoying the response she got out of Flay, and his rather colorful language against her. Feelings on Adel aside, her post DID get a reaction out of Flay. Adel's exact quote was "I'm loving how a bandwagon that consisted of me alone prompted such a reaction. Loving it." I am sure that by "a bandwagon that consisted of me alone" was talking about the one he started on Flay.

jerubbaal has at least given legitimate reasons to be on the Flay wagon, though experience has told me that scum are more careful to have legitimate reasons than town.

...and when AA said pretty much the same thing about your reason for voting Korlash, it was ridiculous?

Adel has refused to post a case on Flay, which I don't know what to make of. If she's scum, it makes sense to do this in order to avoid the negative attention that presenting a case for Flay to defend against would bring upon her, especially if Flay comes up town. I also don't understand what kind of case against Flay a scumbuddy could hide behind if Flay really is scum, but this could be due to my inexperience.

I think regardless of Adel's alignment, if Flay comes up town, she is in trouble.

[Jitsu]

Jitsu better turn out to be a townie, he is making far too much sense to me, and his posts seem solid and insightful. The links between Setal and Flay are likely to be significant.

I am, though I don't expect you to fully believe that until I die, or the game is over.

[Jitsu]

Are people gone for Christmas already?

[Jitsu]

@Mod: I believe Flay voted Adel in 1038

[Jitsu]

Well Adel, I'm just interested as you were so sure you'd caught all three scum, and after korlash's lynch you just walked away from Jerrubbal. I happen to think the scumgroup is you korlash and jerrubbal.

I read your case on Adel originally. Why Jerubbaal?

[Jitsu]

Not much new to add at this point. I think there is a possibility Adel and/or Jerubbaal could be scum, but at the moment, I think it is low.

Adel and Jerubbaal at least seem to be defending themselves by rebutting the points against them though. Flay's "oops" explanation left something to be desired. If Flay's problem with the Setael wagon all along was how quickly the votes came, I would think he would have just said that. If he did say something incoherent due to a late night post, I would have expected him to acknowledge the mistake and clarify what he meant much sooner without needing to be prodded to do so.

I also haven't liked Flay's assertions that us thinking he is that transparent as scum is ridiculous. I don't like it when people play badly and then use that to say that they can't be scum.

Maybe Flay just hasn't spent a lot of time with this game due to being busy with modding and other things -- that's possible. If I remember right, Flay did give that as a reason for not posting, but I don't think he gave that as a reason for his inconsistent play, though.

At this point, I believe the evidence against Flay and Setael is better than that I've heard against Jerubbaal and Adel. Also, learning Flay's alignment should give us good information to go on tomorrow. At this point, I'm still happy where my vote is.

[Jitsu]

That's not what I said. I said I don't behave like that when I'm scum, because it's sub-optimal play. If you think I'm purposefully playing

badly

in order to get myself lynched as scum, I'm not sure I can talk you out of that...

I don't think you are purposefully playing badly. I think that you either made some mistakes and are scrambling to recover, or that you just haven't given the game your full effort.

If the latter is true, I'd like you to state your suspicions and lay out a case against your preferred suspect(s). My vote is NOT immovable and I'd like to hear your thoughts spelled out.

[Jitsu]

I'd like to hear Oman's answer to AA's question in 1066.

As for the waffling, I think people are just hedging their bets. I don't think that's unreasonable, IMO. The case against Flay is decent enough, but it's not airtight by any means.

@Flay:
What is your opinion on Setael? I'd also like for you to respond to Adel's question to you about Setael in 1069. If you think Adel is scum, can you list your points against her?

[Jitsu]

I haven't voted for Flay because I don't believe he's the best lynch. Though I believe him more likely than Adel, I think a Setael lynch would tell us more about the game.

Very interesting.

It sounds like you've already thought this through, at least in terms of who is the best lynch. So I'll ask the questions that're begging to be asked here: What does a Setael lynch tell us? Why is a Setael lynch better than Adel or Flay, in terms of information?

[Jitsu]

So, it comes down to this. Flay and Adel are both at three votes, though Flay got there first, so he is the potential deadline lynch at the moment.

Another vote either way will put one of them at L-1 and force a claim.

Flay has been at L-2 for a long time now. That's very interesting.

I think I need to think through the scenarios some more.


@Sudo: I still want to hear why you think Setael is a better lynch than Adel or Flay and what you expect to learn from it compared to an Adel or Flay lynch.

[Jitsu]

I don't have a lot of time to explain at the moment, but the recent posts and some rereading have given me some alternate theories and other things to think about. More later tonight.

[Jitsu]

What the hell did Oman just say??

[Jitsu]

I am still thinking things through, but I have some questions.

@Adel: At the time of your vote, I can only presume you were really sure that Flay is scum. Then in 1069, you talk about what you will do if Flay comes up innocent, and it makes it seem that you are noticeably less confident. Then in 1102, the confident talk seems to be back. My questions are, how sure are you about Flay's guilt now and why did you seem to hedge a bit in 1069?

@Setael: I would like some information from you. Can you give me a list/summary of the relative scumminess of all the players in the game, excluding yourself?

@Oman: Could you clarify your thoughts on Flay?

[Jitsu]

Wow, this is certainly an interesting situation, isn't it?

Asking for more claims than necessary is generally not good as it can increase the chance that the scum will find the power roles and NK them. Normally asking for two claims is a really bad idea.

But I have to say that this is an interesting case. I probably haven't read through many games on this site as some of you here, but I have to think that having two players at L-1 when 9 are alive is relatively rare.

Normally, I would unvote to think about this, but if people were going to quicklynch, they would have done it by now. And I think it is really interesting that Sudo is now the swing vote, so I kind of like the situation where it is now. This could be a rare opportunity to learn something about Sudo.

The other thing we have to be careful of is whether or not this is a limited reveal game. If it is, and we are only given the affiliation on death, then the role information is extremely valuable as scum learn less information than normal from a death scene. Claims then are hugely important, as that is one of the best ways they have to gain such information. It also makes it harder for scum to fakeclaim, sice they can never really be certain if a power role is dead or nonexistant (unless the mod has provided safeclaims for them).

I would like to hear Adel's answer to CKD's question before we ask for/get any claims.

I still think Flay and Setael have acted scummy today, but I'm not quite as sure of their guilt as I was before. And Adel is still a big unknown to me given her lack of explanation for the immovable vote. One big reason I am torn is because of the opposite viewpoints Adel and Setael have about Flay: either Adel is accusing the wrong guy, or Setael is protecting the wrong guy. Adel would be stupid to accuse Flay by casting an unmovable vote without a good reason (if she's wrong, I think she has to rise near the top of most people's suspect lists). By the same token, it is stupid for Setael to continue to protect Flay without a good reason after they have been linked and Flay has come under heavy suspicion. At this point, I am wondering which of the two was right.

Adel and Setael may or may not know if the reason behind Adel's vote was good. But Flay definitely does. In addition, Setael may or may not know if protecting Flay is in the town's interest, but again, Flay does. The only person we can be sure of that knows both of these things at this point is Flay. Of everyone involved in the Adel/Flay standoff, I believe Flay has the most central role and is most directly linked to everyone else. I've said in the past that my lynch candidate is out of the people I find scummy, the one whose lynch provides the most information. And for me today, that is Flay.

@Flay: How do you know that Adel is not an insane cop?

[Jitsu]

Clarification: I meant that Flay knows if Adel's vote on him was justified or not, not the specific reasoning behind the bote.

[Jitsu]

Huh? In the message I quoted from Adel she said that

if

she was a Cop, she might be wrong because of sanity issues, or because I'm a Miller.

I know she's not a Sane Cop because I'm pro-town. I am discounting the "unknown Miller" possibility because this is a Normal game. But she's

explicitly

said she wasn't relying on cop investigation, which throws out the 'hidden' reason for her immovable vote that makes sense: Insane/Paranoid Cop with a 'Guilty' result on me.

Where did Adel explicitly say she wasn't relying on cop investigation?

Interesting. So you'd never hammer someone yourself? Or are there situations where a hammer is not a scumtell?

I was wondering the same thing, especially since Adel was the one who hammered Miztef. If memory serves, she voted for him but because it was not in the proper format, so it didn't count. I remember thinking about whether I should hammer or not, but then Adel did before I could decide.

[Jitsu]

Well, I actually saw the Setael Cop claim coming (for the wrong reason), but not the CKD claim.

So now I have to decide if I found a scum early on Day 1 or whether I have been beating up the Cop the whole time. Heh.

I need to reread and think about who I believe and what the correct strategy should be.

For now, I have some questions:

@Oman: Why did you ask for a claim from Adel (saying you would switch if she had a guilty on Flay) and then switch to Flay anyway, even though she refused to claim?

@Setael: Why did you vigorously defend Flay when you did not have an innocent on him? Second, why did you never investigate me, when I was the one who attacked you so relentlessly for almost the entire game? How did you come to the conclusion I am innocent on D3?

@AA: Why is it better to lynch Setael first?

@Jerub: Why is 3 mafia unbalanced?

I too would like to see the breadcrumbs, if any, that our two claimed cops have dropped.

[Jitsu]

I am intentionally not going to announce who I believe until I consider all of the evidence on both sides. I ask Oman to unvote until we think this out a little bit more -- there is no rush, as we have solid claims out there. Nobody is going to hide.

@CKD: Thank you for the explanation. I will consider your points carefully.

@Setael: Can you go into more detail about your investigation choices and answer my/CKD's questions on your night choices? Also, please point to any breadcrumbs/actions you have taken that show your innocence or defend your night choices.

@AA: I understand your reasoning -- of course, of the four of you (Setael, Jerub, AA, and you), I presume that all of you know the identity of at least one scum (barring some weirdness), and the two suspects with "guilty" verdicts on them are naturally going to side with the cop that did not accuse them.

What I'm trying to do though, is to think through the cases and see if there is a strategy that will give us a good chance of a win from the town's perspective.

[Jitsu]

One more question:

@Setael: If your theory of 3 scum left alive is accurate, and assuming that CKD and AA are 2 of the remaining 3 left, then who is the third?

[Jitsu]

Okay, I think I've figured out the optimal play.

It is very unlikely that either Jerub or AA is a normal miller (by that, I mean the Mod told them they were a miller). Why? Because each one has stated they were sure that the person that accused them is a liar. If either one of them knew they were an innocent miller, they could not be sure that their accuser were lying. It is possible that one or both is a secret miller (by that, I mean that the person is actually a miller, but the Mod did not tell them that), but I think a secret miller is highly unlikely in a Mini Normal.

At this point, I don't think the cops are much useful anymore unless one of the following highly unlikely scenarios is true:

1. We have two innocent cops
2. We have a four-person mafia team

If we have a four-person mafia team (3 still alive), then we have been pretty screwed since the game started, because that's pretty unbalanced. If we have a 4 person scumgroup, we lose on the first mislynch, even though that scenario seems highly unlikely.

If both cops are scum (double false claim), then all of their investigations are useless to us already. They will be able to fix their "investigations" and results as necessary to get a mislynch. If only one cop is lying, then the one that is telling the truth should have already found the two scum for us (the lying cop + the person the innocent cop has the guilty on). Based on this, I think the doctor is likely not very useful anymore either.

If both cops are innocent, which I find highly unlikely, it's likely we are going to lose anyway. Otherwise, at least one of the cops is lying scum, with a small possibility of both.

What we SHOULDN'T do is lynch one of the suspects with a guilty on them first. If they come up innocent, we can nail the cop that accused them, but then we don't know for sure whether the last scum is the other cop (double false claim) or the other suspect (the other cop is telling the truth). In either case, the one that is guilty will lie, and the cop and suspect that are left over will (obviously) not agree with each other. We could probably guess at that point and be right, but there is a better way.

I have a strategy that is highly likely to give us a win if we have only a 3 person scum group (2 of which are still alive) and still give us a shot at a win in the unlikely event there is a 4 person scum team (meaning we are now in LYLO). This strategy will even work if we have a double false claim. The strategy will fail if we have two cops and/or there is funny business going on with secret millers, or the like. But I think the chances of one of those occurring are extremely low.

The strategy would be to lynch our best guess at the lying cop first (let's call that person Cop A).

If Cop A is guilty, we lynch the suspect Cop A had a guilty on. If that suspect is guilty, the game should be over (but if not, we can try to guess who the 4th scum is). If that suspect is innocent, we lynch Cop B.

If Cop A is innocent, we lose if there is a 4 person scum team (but even in that case, we were in LYLO and we did the best we could by voting the person most likely to be scum). Assuming the game is not over at that point (and it shouldn't be) we lynch Cop B, and then the person Cop A had a guilty on.

With this strategy, it actually doesn't matter which cop is lynched first, though the best choice is obviously the one we think is most likely to be lying. And of course, we could adjust the strategy along the way if something really funny comes up during the NK.


For the record though, I think it is most likely Setael is lying and CKD is telling the truth, which would make Jerub the remaining scum. I tend to believe CKD because his investigation logic flows well, his choices make a lot more sense than Setael's given what's happened, plus it's a lot more likely that there is only 2 scum alive and that he counterclaimed a guilty Setael than Setael's assertion that there are 3 scum alive, she was the innocent claimant, and CKD made a fake counterclaim to try to save AA.

There is a scenario that makes sense for Setael-scum to claim early. Let me set the table:

I thought Adel was the cop for most of D3. When I posted how I thought Adel had "a good reason" to put an immovable vote on Flay and not justify it, I was trying to hint to the others that I thought Adel was the cop with a guilty on Flay. But later in the day I started to doubt that. Adel said she didn't suspect Flay until Nov. 30, but if she was a cop with a guilty on him N2, she should have suspected him long before that -- at least when she got the guilty N2, and possibly before that, for wanting to investigate Flay in the first place. Also, when she made the comments about spending Townie capital and made a possible "soft claim" as a Cop, I was starting to seriously doubt that she WAS the cop or the doctor, since I wouldn't have expected her to be so obvious about something she should have been trying to hide. But I wasn't sure.

Then I realized that Setael could be the cop, and she could be defending Flay because she had an innocent on him N2, or that she could be the doctor who protected him N2 and concluded he was innocent because there was no night kill. This is what I meant when I said that I came up with another theory that would lead to both Setael and Flay being innocent.

The fact that Adel was offed last night suggests to me that we have a partial-reveal game, and that the scum either knew that (because of Korlash) or highly suspected it. I think that the scum were pretty sure that Adel was the cop. So the scum shut her up, and thought they were in the clear. Given that, Setael did not expect a counterclaim, so the town would likely be willing to go along with her, as the theory is testable and we likely still have a mislynch left (remember, Setael did not bring up the "4th scum" theory until CKD counterclaimed). Even if AA came up innocent D5 and the town lynched Setael D6, the scum only needed one more mislynch on D7 to win, and the odds would probably be in favor of that. Not a bad strategy.

But IMO, Setael blew it with her claim. It was probably too early for an innocent cop to claim as CKD said, but even then I would have tended to believe her today

*if*

she said she had an innocent on Flay N2 (it would have explained her D3 resistance to lynch him). But she said she investigated Sudo instead! I really cannot see how Sudo was a good target N2. Setael did suspect him D1, but she never mentioned him D2. If she still thought he was a suspect worthy of an investigation, I would have at least expected her to mention him as a suspect early on D2, but she did not, that I could see. Instead, she seemed to focus on myself and CKD, with some Jerub on the side (I think). If she really believed early on D3 that the people who

didn't

lynch Korlash (CKD, Oman, and myself) were the most suspicious, why didn't she investigate CKD or me instead of Sudo?

Because of this analysis, I think Setael *is* the lynch for today. I am willing to take full responsibility for a game loss if we have an unbalanced four-person mafia team setup. But I am ready to vote her anyway, and call her bluff.

[Jitsu]

Let me give a more specific example -- it should help.

Let's say we lynch Setael first. If she is guilty, then I think there are one of two cases:

(1) CKD is innocent, so Jerub is guilty
(2) CKD is guilty too (double false claim)

In either of these two cases, we should be able to lynch Jerub and CKD in either order to win (assuming we do not have a 4-person mafia group). It is a little safer to lynch Jerub first, since I think the case that both Setael and CKD are scum is less likely.


If Setael is innocent and we have a 4-person scumgroup, then we've lost, but I think that's highly unlikely. Assuming the game is NOT over at that point, then we should be able to win by lynching CKD and you, in either order.

Of course, I do not believe Setael is innocent.


Keep in mind, you and Setael should know each other's guilt or innocence, but it's likely that Sudo, Oman, and I do not. Also, Jerub and CKD should know each other's innocence, but Sudo, Oman, and I likely do not. I assert that I do not know anyone's guilt or innocence, so I came up with this strategy to give us really good chance of winning regardless of which cop is telling the truth. My strategy has a risk of losing us the game if we have a really funny situation (two innocent cops, secret miller(s), four person mafia team), but excluding those, it should work. I contend in those situations, we are already pretty screwed.

The strategy would also work if we lynched CKD first, and applied the same logic, but since I don't believe Setael, I would prefer to lynch her first.

[Jitsu]

Jitsu, I am sure this is a typo, but I did lynch Korlash..I was the second vote and pushed for his lynch from the beginning of the day because I got a guilty on him.

Yes, it is a typo, sorry. I stand corrected. That would make Setael's logic more consistent (I'll give her credit for that), but it's still not as good as yours.

[Jitsu]

Agree with Jitsu, we need to lynch one of the cops and go from there. Lynching anyone but a cop simply does not gain us the necessary information. At the moment, I can't see a profitable scenario for a double falseclaim, but I know CKD is lying and I'm only really accepting Set's claim by default. Obviously, I think we should lynch CKD, but I would rather Set be lynched than anyone else other than CKD.

If I'm guessing right that we do not have two innocent cops, there is no miller or other funny business (like innocent cops actually lying), and we only have two scum left to find, the strategy I outlined should work regardless of whether we lynch Seteal first or CKD first. So if people are onboard with this strategy, the best play would be to see which cop people don't believe and lynch that cop first.

I admit I did gambit a bit about suggesting I would vote Setael right away, as I wanted to see if anyone would object (or vote Setael without explaning why) -- either of those could have potientially given me info.

In reality, there really is no hurry, and if the strategy is sound, we could supplement it with traditional scumhunting to make the chances of success even greater, or possibly help cover its weak points. I'd like to hear what everyone else thinks, especially Setael, CKD, and AA, since they are the cornerstones of the plan.

[Jitsu]

I think you mean we lynch Cop A. If we get a guilty we lynch the target of Cop

--B--

.

Yes, you are right. My apologies. Working out the theory has been somewhat complicated as I've gone through the cases over and over in my mind

If we lynch Cop A and s/he comes up guilty, then we lynch the target of Cop B. The logic is that if Cop A is guilty, it is most likely that Cop B is innocent, and so Cop B's target is most likely guilty. If Cop B's target then comes up innocent, it is most likely that Cop B is the final scum (the assumption here is that a double false claim is more likely than having two innocent cops).

One beauty of the strategy is that it works even if there is a Godfather, because it relies only on lynch results and not investigation results.

Unless we have a miller, there should be at least 2 scum in the set {CKD, Setael, Jerub, and AA}.

If there is a miller, there is a possibility of having only 1 scum in the set (one cop is innocent and targeting the miller, the guilty cop is targeting an innocent).

If we have a 4-person mafia team, it is possible we have 3 scum in the set, but it would mean that both cops are guilty, and one of them has a "guilty" on the third scum. This is an incredibly ingenious plan, and if the scum have pulled this off, they are extremely likely to win.

Thus, if there is no miller (or similar role) and only a 3-person mafia team, there should be EXACTLY 2 scum in that set. If I toss out the possibility that both cops are innocent, I can get them both, assuming I can mislynch once. This is how the strategy works.

I will do some more thinking about the 4 person mafia team theory.

[Jitsu]

Good point, AA.

About the 4 person mafia theory:

AA, Jerub, CKD, and Setael cannot all be mafia, or the game would be over now. Therefore, at least one of them is not.

Plus, I know that I am innocent, so AA, Jerub, CKD, and Setael cannot all be innocent.

AA, Jerub, and CKD all have votes on them now (Setael is voting AA, Jerub is voting CKD, and CKD is voting Jerub), and those votes have been there for at least 24 hours.

If we have a 4 person mafia team and AA, Jerub, or CKD are townie, the game should probably be over by now (unless Sudo is the third mafia and hasn't checked the thread -- I doubt this, as if the mafia knew we were in LYLO and they were setting up a fakeclaim, then Sudo should have been put on notice to be ready to pounce if anyone bit on the mafia fakeclaim).

If Sudo posts and the scum don't immediately pile on, the only way there can be a 4 person mafia team is if Setael is innocent. Hmmm.

[Jitsu]

Also, I like trying to decipher things based on if people got hammered or not in a LYLO situation, but I don't think you can draw any conclusion from the votes that are on the table. If we do have 3 scum remaining, in order for them to be able to hammer we need to have a vote from 1 innocent person to another innocent person. None of the three votes in question can be of that type, so there is no mafia hammer possible at this point - so no conclusions could be drawn.

You're right, I did forget one thing. The voter has to be a townie. If a townie votes for another townie and the game does not end in a reasonable amount of time, we are not in LYLO.

[Jitsu]

As people may have guessed, I have thought a lot about the 3-person mafia team case. I am only starting to think about the 4-person mafia team case. I'm trying to figure out if there is a way to improve our odds in the case of a 4-person mafia team, but that case is a *lot* more complex.

[Jitsu]

Also, I like trying to decipher things based on if people got hammered or not in a LYLO situation, but I don't think you can draw any conclusion from the votes that are on the table. If we do have 3 scum remaining, in order for them to be able to hammer we need to have a vote from 1 innocent person to another innocent person. None of the three votes in question can be of that type, so there is no mafia hammer possible at this point - so no conclusions could be drawn.

We can't draw any conclusions about them yet, but Sudo's arrival should eliminate certain possibilities if the game does not end in a reasonable time after he posts. Let's suppose we have a 4-person mafia team, so we are in LYLO. If the votes do not change, and the game does not end in a reasonable time after Sudo arrives (thus assuming all the scum have had a chance to pile on), then we should be able to conclude that no innocent is voting for another innocent. Thus:

1. Jerub and CKD could not both be innocent, or the game would be over (therefore, at least one of the two of them would be guilty)

2. Setael and AA could not both be innocent, or the game would be over (therefore, at least one of the two of them would be guilty)

Since these two sets are disjoint (share no common members), this would prove that out of the "big four", there must be at least two scum, possibly three. That would mean that no more than one of the players left over (Sudo, Oman, and I) could be scum. Since I know I am innocent, that would mean that Sudo and Oman could not both be guilty.

The possible sets the three scum would be in are:

Set 1: {Setael, AA}
Set 2: {CKD, Jerub}
Set 3: {anyone}

Thus, there would be a strategy that should improve the town odds in the 4-player case significantly over pure guessing. If we got the first lynch correct, we would have a 50% chance at getting the second one right too, if we lynch someone from the other set. And if we are still around for a third lynch, we would be at endgame with two townies and one scum left (which is the best scenario the town could hope for if we're in LYLO).

I think we could play both the 3-person strategy and the 4-person strategy at once by picking the most likely lying cop to lynch first. If we are right, we follow the 3-person strategy to see what our two choices for the next lynch are, and then pick the one that is in the OTHER set. So if we lynch Setael first and she comes up guilty, then the next two lynch choices would either be AA or CKD, and we would pick CKD since he is in the other group.

If Setael came up innocent, the choices for lynch would be CKD and Jerub, and we could pick either one (as they are in the same group).

[Jitsu]

Jerubbaal is correct about the strategy of lynching both cops when we have a 3 person mafia team (and I did think of it before). The chief drawback to it is that if we have a 4 person mafia team, we are almost guaranteed to lose, since at least one of the cops is very likely innocent.

This is where the tough part comes in. Of all of the monkeywrenches that could wreck the strategies (4 person scum team, 2 innocent cops, secret millers...), the highest percentage play is to choose a strategy that gets us out of the losing conditions that are most likely to occur. I think everyone should weigh in on what those are.

[Jitsu]

@CKD: Were you voting before? I don't think your vote counted if you were.

I've basically concocted the plan and put it into motion, so if we have a 4 person Mafia group, I need to take the blame for the town loss.

Vote: Setael

[Jitsu]

I was voting Jerb.

If that's true, then your recent vote for Set didn't count...

[Jitsu]

I was voting Jerb.

If that's true, then your recent vote for Set didn't count...

In other words, you have to unvote first.

[Jitsu]

If we are in LYLO and Setael is innocent, the Mafia sure is taking their sweet time...

[Jitsu]

Can't... stop... analyzing...

Unless Jerub is asleep at the gallows switch, then Jerub, CKD, and AA are not a scum trio, and at least one of them has to be innocent. If Setael were also innocent, the game should be over by now if we were in LYLO, as Setael said. Therefore, a Setael lynch should be safe: either Setael is scum, we are not in LYLO, or both.

If Setael is scum and we are in LYLO, well, at least we've got our first one.

If we are not in LYLO, there can be at most 2 mafia alive, and by my earlier analysis, that would mean that the last 2 mafia are in the "big four": {Setael, Jerub, CKD, AA}, unless there is something really odd going on (a miller, some other strange role that screws with investigations, cops whose sanity changes, innocent people lying). That would mean that Oman, Sudo, and myself would be mostly (but not completely) cleared as non-mafia. Since both of the claimed cops have guilties, it would also suggest that if there is a Godfather in the game, it is Setael or CKD. If there are only 2 mafia alive, then a town team of 2 sane cops, plus a probable doc or other town-aligned blocking role (no N2 kill) against a 3 person scum team would seem to be horribly unbalanced, even with a bunch of mafia power roles, so it also seems very unlikely we have 2 innocent cops.

@Setael: If you are innocent (especially if you still suspect we could be in LYLO), why aren't you jumping up and down and pleading with the town to stop so you can present a more detailed case for your innocence? You've already claimed, so you have no motivation to lie down and accept your fate quietly at this point.

[Jitsu]

Correction to first paragraph: we could still lose if Seteal is innocent and the third scum is Oman or Sudo, as Setael suggested. I think the rest of the analysis is fine.

[Jitsu]

I just hope she's scum.

If she really is a Cop, I'm going to feel horrible for hounding her most of the game...

[Jitsu]

I also think that she could be GF, and possibly hoped that we would lynch either Jerub or AA today instead. If she is the GF, then she would not be worried about an investigation from you either.

I agree that Setael is a strong debater. I've seen her argue her way out of a hopeless situation before, where she was about to be lynched. And regardless of her role, she argued her way out of a horrible D1 situation in this game to live for three more days. She deserves kudos for that.

Her attitude does sound a lot more like someone who just got caught than someone whose lynch just cost us the game. Jerub seems oddly quiet too, though maybe he's just not around.

I've been on Setael's rear bumper for most of the game now, so I'm just dying to read this death scene (OK, maybe that's a poor choice of words).

Yes, the strategy says that if Setael's guilty, the target tomorrow should be Jerub. If she's innocent, it should be AA. If tomorrow's target is innocent and the game isn't over, the strategy says the final lynch should be CKD.

If any unforeseen conflicts should arise, we should favor the revealed information (death scene/dawn post) over any investigations, because the reveal is almost certainly more reliable.

[Jitsu]

oh nabnab and your dramatic pause

This is more than a dramatic pause, but I can feel for Sudo (and NabNab, if he's in the same boat). I really could not get into the forums last night at all because of the gray screen of death. It's gotten really, really awful in the last few days. Rereading a day or two of game play is nearly impossible unless the site traffic is really low.

Luckily, I think mith and the site admins are planning to move the site to another host where we won't suffer from the problems. They're talking about it in the Site items forum, I think.

[Jitsu]

Well, so much for limited reveal. In a way, it makes me feel better that it is not. That would suggest to me that Miztef, Mexal, Flay, and Adel are all vanilla townies, and that the number of power roles is reasonably low. That's good -- it sounds even more likely to me that there is only one mafia left. And I think we have a pretty good idea who that is.

Not that it matters much at this point, but, CKD, what've you got for us?

[Jitsu]

the mod has not sent me my results yet..PMing him right now.

Good, that means that you didn't investigate Oman. So was it AA or Sudo then?

[Jitsu]

also, if we do have a 4 person mafia team, I doubt that AA would be the GF.

Isn't it still possible that Sudo could be a normal mafia? I think it highly unlikely, but still possible. Sudo is the only person left in the game you do not have a result on, correct?

I wouldn't read too much into the fact that we've not found a GF. I've seen plenty of mini normals that didn't have one, and I believe I've seen games where the GF was not identified as such upon death.

From the reveal and your guilty on Jerub, the probability is very high that Jerub is scum. Presuming he is, I REALLY hope the game will be over.

A cop + a doc vs. three mafia goons is mostly balanced (it might slightly favor the town, but just barely). Four mafia goons vs. a doc and a cop seems pretty unbalanced in favor of scum, and three goons + a GF vs. a doc and a cop seems really unbalanced. The town has to find four scum, one of whom is investigation immune, and you only have a cop and doctor to help? I don't believe that.

If the game isn't over, I don't think it will be difficult to guess who the final three will be, and in that situation, I can guess who will have to make the decision that decides the game.

I am going for the high percentage play here, as dictated by the strategy.

Vote: Jerub

Any last words?

[Jitsu]

The only thing that's bugging me a little bit is that I've not seen a lot of 3 goon vs. cop + doc setups. I have seen one or two, but it's not common. Still though, I think it is mostly balanced because one of the options for a C9 setup is doc + cop vs. 2 goons, and extrapolating that to 12 players gives doc + cop vs. 3 goons, which is reasonable.

About the town:

If the town had a cop other than CKD, they should already have counterclaimed, so I'm assuming CKD is the cop, if we have one. If CKD is lying about being the cop, then I extremely doubt we have 4 scum, as 4 scum vs. doc would be ridiculously unbalanced (see below). And if we only have 3 scum (1 more alive) and CKD is the last one, the strategy is going to get him on D6 anyway.

Similarly, it seems highly unlikely there is another Doc in the town. Also, we probably don't have an SK or Vig, given only 3 kills in 4 nights. Since an unrevealed Cop, Doc, SK, or Vig seems to be rather unlikely, this suggests that there is not an abundance of town power roles.

Now onto the scum:

About the GF: If we have a 3-person mafia group, then the only realistic choice for the GF is Setael (meaning she was not revealed as the GF on death). If CKD is telling the truth, then Korlash and Jerub cannot be a GF, because CKD had guilties on them. If CKD is lying and is a GF, then why have a GF at all (if there is no Cop)? And as I said, if there is a 4 person scum team, I cannot see how we could have a GF + 3 goons vs. Doc + Cop, as it would seem to be really unbalanced. A GF + 2 goons vs. Doc + Cop setup is pretty common.

Another possibility is that Korlash really was a Mafia RB and was not revealed as such (or that Jerub is something other than a simple goon). Remember, NabNab has not revealed Korlash or Setael as Goons, just as mafia -- they could be anything.

If we do have a four person mafia team, I still think Jerub is likely scum and CKD is likely innocent. If CKD is lying, the balance is awful (a single Doc vs. 4 mafia?) Therefore, the final scum would be AA or Sudo. Since CKD has an innocent on AA and balance-wise it seems CKD should be innocent, I would believe Sudo to be the final scum if there are four.

Either way, I'm feeling pretty good about my vote on Jerub.