Mini 539: Game over

[Xtoxm]

I don't believe you, and only way to confirm it is kill. As you say we can afford mislynch so whats the matter.

Die scum.

[Nanosauromo]

My that was a lot of voting all of a sudden

Gorgon - 2 (Xtoxm, Incognito)
Xtoxm - 1 (Gorgon)

7 alive, 4 to lynch!

[Gorgon]

I don't believe you, and only way to confirm it is kill. As you say we can afford mislynch so whats the matter.

Die scum.

A mislynch of a vanilla townie is way better than a mislynch of a cop. What part of this are you not getting?

Why do you need to confirm that I am the telling the truth

today

, when the consequences of you being wrong (which you are) are disastrous for the town?

This is stupid. I'm not saying another word until I have feedback on my claim from the other players. If they agree with you and refuse to look elsewhere today, I will self-vote and leave the game to you. I'll be done with this game.

Frankly though, you'd have to be one hell of a bold scum in order to go after me like this ... I find that it's more often town than scum that go after claimed powerroles in this fashion, so at least this speaks well of your role, if not your judgement.

[Xtoxm]

it's not disastruos. There's one left, and we have it pretty much narrowed down to 3.

[Incognito]

Okay, first things first. There's no point in arguing between you two. I'm not going to remove my vote but let's take this one step at a time.

Gorgon, if you're the cop, why did you choose to investigate Jester last night since even you yourself indicated that you found Jester to look fairly pro-town?

[Gorgon]

Gorgon, if you're the cop, why did you choose to investigate Jester last night since even you yourself indicated that you found Jester to look fairly pro-town?

I had some second thoughts on this ... I felt for a while that Jester might have latching onto kuribo's case ... and when Shteven came up scum, this feeling grew stronger; the possbility that Jester was bussing a doomed buddy came to mind. Also, Jester seemed to me to be a potentially good scum, if he was one. I got taken in big time by Shteven, so I was ready to believe anything.

I was originally going to investigate JP, though (since he is hard to read), but changed my mind. I wish I hadn't.

Again, I know that a lot of facts don't speak well for me, but I would assume that an uncounterclaimed cop claim would be enough to at least buy me one last day.* Because unless the last scum really is a GF, it will be very difficult for him to refrain from killing me.

*If you're going to accuse me of being survival-oriented for this statement, then, yes, I am, damn it. I'm a cop, and I don't want to be lynched, when I make a much better NK target for the scum now that I've been outed. I obviously look highly suspicious already, which is partly deliberate (as a cop, I don't want to look too protown), so forcing the scum to NK me (or risk keeping me alive and outing him) is a sound town strategy. If I were a vanilla, I would have few defenses, and would gladly offer myself for the noose at the end of the day, if it looked inevitable, but not as a cop, dammit.

[Incognito]

I had some second thoughts on this ... I felt for a while that Jester might have latching onto kuribo's case ... and when Shteven came up scum, this feeling grew stronger; the possbility that Jester was bussing a doomed buddy came to mind. Also, Jester seemed to me to be a potentially good scum, if he was one. I got taken in big time by Shteven, so I was ready to believe anything.

I was originally going to investigate JP, though (since he is hard to read), but changed my mind. I wish I hadn't.

My two cents: I'm really not buying the claim at all. First of all, you mention that Jester could have potentially been busing a doomed buddy. I believe differently - Shteven had accumulated one vote (from kuribo) and it wasn't apparent that anyone else was completely buying into the case against Shteven. I would argue that the case really began to gain momentum moreso when Jester took hold of it and therefore for you to claim that he was busing a doomed buddy seems like a stretch; Shteven was far from doomed. I would think that this "doomed buddy" idea would be more applicable to Xtoxm whom you had voted for at the end of the day. Xtoxm had placed the third vote on Shteven, and he placed it a lot closer to when the deadline was about to strike. If anything, I think you if you were the cop you would have investigated Xtoxm as opposed to Jester. You even questioned my vote against Jester in which you mentioned the following:

I'm not sure there will be time to switch over to someone else, but I would support the lynch of Xtoxm or Hjallti in that case.

Incognito, why did you vote Jester? Not that he couldn't be scum ... but lately he's been looking better and better to me.

By you claiming that you chose to investigate Jester, you're indicating that my response to your question was enough of an influence on you to actually switch your opinion about your "investigation target" and to target Jester, a person you mentioned is "looking better and better to you".

I think not.

Vote remains on Gorgon unless someone counterclaims.

[Gorgon]

Fine, scrap the "bussing a doomed buddy" idea. It was nevertheless something that came to mind ... remember how I said that kuribo's case on Shteven looked more genuine than Jester's? Well, when Shteven came up scum, the idea that Jester was latching onto kuribo's case grew stronger, only in this scenario, Jester was not jumping onto a town target, but bussing a buddy. The exact timing of things is not something that I looked into.

You're claiming that your response to that question was enough to change my mind, when I said no such thing. Shteven coming up scum is what made me rethink the whole damn game.

Also ... my criteria when deciding on who to investigate was mostly to choose someone who was hard to read, not someone who looked the scummiest to me. Regardless of the outcome, having solid knowledge on these 'slippery customers' would be useful to me. I had little faith in my own judgement regarding this anyway .... especially with Shteven coming up scum, whom I had defended quite vigorously througout the day.

Vote remains on Gorgon unless someone counterclaims.

What the f*uck? You're going to keep your vote on a claimed cop unless someone counterclaims? Explain please?

P.S. The sad truth is that I've been skimming over the game again, and I just can't find that last scum. I'm seeing a lot of reasons for both Hjallti and Xtoxm to look town, and this doesn't leave anyone left. This whole game is a jumble to me. Perhaps this will change if I really take the time to reread ... but seriously ... I'm much better left as NK-fodder, and I find it baffling that I'm perhaps going to be the lynch today, when any rational person should

know

that

regardless of how scummy-looking and useless I look

, lynching an uncounterclaimed cop when there is plenty of leeway to lynch is stupid. Seriously ... if you guys do this, I will not play with anyone who is on board with this lynch ever again. Call this appeal to emotion or whetever the f*ck you want ... but it's the truth.

[Xtoxm]

Well I think that's very silly if that's the truth.

Town is clearly overpowered if there is a cop, IMO. And all the other power is proven.

[Incognito]

All right.

Unvote

for now.

Basically if you really are the cop, we now have three confirmed townies among us. I REALLY don't buy your claim at all but I'll wait for more input from the others.

[Incognito]

P.S. Xtoxm, my theory from earlier was based on the fact that I thought that

you

might have been the cop. When I role-claimed Mason during Day 2, you seemed to accept my claim pretty readily so since I knew you were suspicious of SSK, I thought you might have investigated him during Night 1, found him to be innocent, and knew I was telling the truth. Then when you came in and voted for Gorgon at the start of Day 3, I thought you had gotten a guilty result on him last night.

Since you haven't counterclaimed though, I guess that theory goes out the window.

[Justin Playfair]

Well, here’s how I see it.

We have seven people left in town and (probably) one scum. We lynch wrong today, the scum night kill goes off, and we have five people left tomorrow. We lynch wrong tomorrow, the scum night kill goes off, and we have three people left and a clear lynch or lose. Everything below operates on the idea that we have only one scum left:

We have two claimed players (Incognito and MafiaSSK) who I don’t think any of us are willing to lynch right now. If I’m wrong about this someone please correct me.

We have one claimed player (Gorgon) who is currently absolutely unconfirmed. I want to hear Kuribo’s input on this claim before I go too far down the road as to whether I believe it or not. But I do believe this:

If Gorgon’s claim is not countered (and the only one left who could do so is Kuribo) it would be foolish to lynch Gorgon today. Here are the reasons why:

If Gorgon is a cop he is most likely dead tonight. And we are then guaranteed to have at least one (at that point, if one of the masons is the next night’s kill, absolutely confirmed) mason in the final three. This is a clear benefit to town. If we lynch Gorgon today and he is the cop scum could kill our two masons, should they survive that long.

If Gorgon is not killed:

He stands a one in three chance of coming back with a guilty verdict tomorrow. If we lynch based on his investigation we win, no matter what happens. Either Gorgon found scum or Gorgon is scum.

This likely means that a GorgonScum would come back with an innocent tomorrow. There is a two in three chance that a GorgonCop would anyway. But here’s the thing:

If we only have one remaining scum, the person Gorgon finds innocent is innocent. Because either Gorgon is scum or Gorgon is telling the truth, and if Gorgon is scum the person he clears is (if there is only one remaining scum) town.

Now if scum doesn’t kill a power role there’s a one in three chance Gorgon comes back with another investigation on a dead man. In that case I think we would have to lynch Gorgon, but we’d already be guaranteed of a mason in the final three.

If no power roles die and Gorgon comes back with an innocent it’s as good as a guilty. We lynch the non-claimed who wasn’t found innocent. If he is innocent we lynch Gorgon at the end.

In short, there is considerable possible gain in not lynching Gorgon today, and managed correctly, there is almost no possible downside. Unless, of course, you’re scum and have only two night kills left with three claimed roles.

There are two things that keep the above from being foolproof, of course. One would be the possibility that we have a godfather, which would make a GorgonCop impotent. The other would be that we have four scum, which is theoretically possible. The Wiki mentions three or four scum in a mini. And our situation, with a doctor, a vig, two masons and a cop, might just warrant four scum.

But here’s the thing:

What makes it seemingly possible that we could have four scum in this game is ALL of the above power roles. If Incognito and MafiaSSK are not masons would it make sense to have four scum in a game with only a cop, vig and doc? By the way, that question isn’t rhetorical. If anyone here has experience with a four scum mini please tell us what the balance was like. It doesn’t seem likely to me that would be enough to warrant four scum, but I’ve never been in a four scum mini.

And, if we have two more scum who are NOT Incognito and MafiaSSK then two out of five of the rest of us are scum. If we came to believe this to be the case we would be back to trying to find scum the old fashioned way, because we couldn’t dare to put any trust in anything Gorgon said tomorrow. The question we have to ask ourselves then (and hopefully one someone who has played more than me can answer) is whether two masons, a doc and a vig would warrant four scum.

So the decisions we would have to make tomorrow, would be, at worst:

Do we believe four scum are likely in a game with a vig, a cop and a doc? This would mean we would have to look closely at Incognito and MafiaSSK.

Do we believe four scum are likely in a game with a vig, a doc and two masons? This would mean that we could trust nothing Gorgon tells us, or use any of the above strategies, because Gorgon, if we lynched badly today, could tell us pretty much anything he wanted to tomorrow.

Either way, though, if there is no counter to Gorgon’s claim, I see no town reason to lynch him today. The worst thing leaving Gorgon alive today would do, so far as I can see, is make us decide tomorrow if we really believe there may be four scum in town, and under what conditions.

Oh, and I may be wrong about something above. I did this reasonably quickly. If I am just point out where.

[Justin Playfair]

Although, here is a thought I just had:

Should Shteven's casual certainty that there were only three scum in the game provide us with more certainty that there are in fact three scum, and Shteven made a scummy slip?

Or does it make it more likely that there may be four, and Shteven was repeating the other to try to lead town in that direction?

The only reason I don't completely accept the notion that it was a slip is that Shteven repeated it on day two, even after getting his ears boxed for saying it on day one.

[Incognito]

I'll look over what you said more closely in a bit, Justin, but I just wanted to point out something that I had been pondering for awhile.

We have a first-time mod moderating our game here. I've done some research to determine if Nanosauromo went into the New Set-Up Review thread to have someone look at his set-up and determined that he did not. I also did some further research to determine if Nanosauromo has played in any mini-games as of recent and I found out that he did. The game was Mini 480: here's the game in case you're interested.

The set-up from that game looked like this:

3 Mafia:
1 Godfather (Cant be Vig'd)
2 Goons

9 Town:
1 One-Shot Vig
1 Sane Cop (Guaranteed Sane)
1 Roleblocker
2 Masons (Guaranteed Innocents)
4 Townies

This set-up looks extremely similar to our set-up as far as I've seen with the exception of the town-aligned Roleblocker (it appears we had a doctor instead). The only way I can see a set-up like ours being balanced with three scum still being around is if one of the scum is a Godfather. I'm inclined to believe that the last remaining scum would have to be a Godfather in order for our very set-up to be considered balanced. This means that even if Gorgon is telling the truth he's practically useless at helping us determine who the last scum is by way of investigative abilities. He could be useful if he helps us through good old-fashioned scum-hunting as long as we really do believe his cop claim though. That's the difficult decision though.

[Justin Playfair]

Interesting. That would also suggest that we may well have a cop, though. Which means that if there is no counter claim to Gorgon, he may well be telling the truth.

Just out of curiosity, when did you find the game you've outlined above?

[Incognito]

I looked for it after Night 1 since I knew I was a mason with SSK, we found out that DS was in fact the doctor, and Ythill was in fact the one-shot night-killing vigilante. It just seemed ridiculously overbalanced on the side of the town. I was going to mention it during Day 2, but I didn't want to provide the mafia evidence that there may be a cop in our set-up. I was afraid that the scum might start fishing through the use of NKs to try and find the potential cop if I provided that information on Day 2.

[Gorgon]

I've been looking over the game like crazy, trying to come up with some useful angles, but it's still hard going. I keep going round in circles, finding both townish and scummy things about every player.

Perhaps I need to sleep on it - it's getting really late here.

Anyway ... some comments ...

I like Justin's line of thought there. It's exactly the kind of rational stuff I was hoping to see in response to my claim. There is of course, the possibility of four scum, but that would be yet another reason for me to live, as most likely they're not both godfathers.

Incognito's post is also interesting, but I just wanted to mention something. Incognito assumes that the setup of the game might be similar to the one he describes, and then assumes that since that setup contains a GF, a cop (me) in this game would be useless for his investigative abilities. This is true. However, going the described setup, one can also assume that there is indeed a cop in the game. In fact, the assumption that there is a GF guarantees the existence of a cop, since what's the point of having a GF without having a cop?

Therefore, going by this line of thought, I

am

a cop, and therefore should not be lynched today, as I'm an uncounterclaimed cop in a setup that likely contains a cop. Of course, if there is a GF, he has more incentive than a goon to keep me alive, but that just means that the possibility of lynching me should be deferred until tomorrow, if I'm still alive then.

I know Incognito doesn't say directly that I'm lynchable since I'm useless as a cop, but I just wanted to make this clear. Bottom line is ... if I'm still alive tomorrow, consider lynching me, and I won't object as strongly as I do today, but I'm certainly not today's play.

And yeah, thanks for reminding me so bluntly that the vig is one-shot. I saw this numerous times when reading the thread, of course, but it didn't really register until I saw that setup described. A one-shot vig is significantly less powerful than a full vig, which is, again, one more reason to assume that I am a cop.

I know I probably still sound very unhelpful and survival-oriented, but that's because my cop claim is all I have going for me at the moment, and because I firmly believe that it would be suboptimal and antitown to lynch me and do the scum's work for them. Again, I probably would be today's lynch if I was a vanilla (although still, I probably would have acted more protown in this game if I were, but whatever), and I would not object too strongly to this, since I haven't been of much use so far in this game, and would most likely be a liability at LYLO the way things are going - but as a cop, I object most strongly to being lynched today.

So ... off to bed. Hopefully my mind will be clearer after some sleep.

[kuribo]

Vote: Xtoxm

You guys wanted to know about the epiphany I had about Xtoxm---

The endless speculation about how the town had too much power.

The fact that he didn't suspect me at all, despite the fact that I went after him pretty hard.

The epiphany was that I thought Xtoxm was a cop who had an innocent investigation on me. And since he hasn't counter-claimed, I no longer think that's what he is.

[kuribo]

Also, I am a vanilla townie.

[Justin Playfair]

What a funny old game:

If Incog is scum, I'd bet dollars to donuts that MafiaSSK is not his partner.

If not for this statement by Kuribo I would have gone after Kuribo yesterday for his attack on Shteven.

Oh my. You know, it worked out this time, but you sure can read the thread too hard.

[Incognito]

The epiphany was that I thought Xtoxm was a cop who had an innocent investigation on me. And since he hasn't counter-claimed, I no longer think that's what he is.

It's interesting that we both came to the same conclusion about Xtoxm.

Justin, what do you mean by your statement above?

[kuribo]

The way I see it is:

We lynch Xtoxm. If he's scum, (and he's been scummy) that works out well. If he's not, we move on to night and by morning we should be able to sort Gorgon out one way or another.

See, as I said, Xtoxm has been very scummy throughout the game, but his scummiest movement has come today--- Why lynch an un-counterclaimed cop?

[Gorgon]

Right ... at least my head is a little clearer after some sleep.

One last point regarding the game balance before I attempt to tackle the game itself ...

It's worthwhile to note the last mini I completed; Mini 523. In this game, the town had a doc, a cop, a (full) vig, and two masons. Us scummos had two goons and a roleblocker (me). Hardly a 'balanced' setup on the looks of it ... but we won anyway ... although it must be noted that the town lynched both a doc and a mason, and the cop claimed immediately D2 with an innocent result. Anyway, the point remains that nothing should be taken for granted when it comes to game setup.

Now onto the game itself ...

I'm not sure that Xtoxm is the best lynch, truth be told. Of course, I still stand by the fact that I'm having a hard time finding the best lynch candidate, but still ... at least other possibilities should be discussed.

One line of thought that I had last night, that stayed with me, is the fact that of all the people whom Claus listed as naughty, the only unconfirmed player left is Justin Playfair. I noted yesterday that Jester and Justin were the only unconfirmed players left on that list, but now only Justin remains. Of course, I also said back then that I felt both guys were town ... and I still feel that Justin is more likely town than scum, based on his play and his overall interactions with the known scummos. One funny (but completely irrelevant) point regarding Justin ... as I was driving to work today, I got behind a jeep that bore the personalized license plate

JP

. I'm by no means a superstitious person, though, so I regard this as nothing more than a funny cooincidence.

Do we believe that Claus listed no scumpartner as naughty? That's a big question, IMO. I stand by my statement that Justin should not be dismissed too easily.

One problem with the Xtoxm = scum theory is that it would mean that Claus placed two scummos in the 'nice' category. That's pretty blatant.

Then we have Hjallti. One suspicious thing about him is that Shteven didn't really have a lot to say about, or to him (or Ho1den). It seems to me that of all the players alive and unconfirmed (apart, arguably, from myself), Shteven had the least to say about Ho1den/Hjallti.

This particular quote (from this post) is interesting, though:

... It could point to possible distancing between Ho1dem and MafiaSSK; but that's a bit of a stretch. To test that theory I'd only be willing to lynch MafiaSSK due to his other mistakes, and only if he turned out scum would I still support a Ho1dem lynch on day 2.

Well, SSK no doubt won't turn out scum, and Shteven knew this. But how convenient to have a townie to lynch in order to 'test' whether a scumpartner is scum, huh? It works both ways as well ... if Ho1den should come up scum, Shteven can then go after SSK based on this 'theory' of his.

This is also interesting (from this post):

I'm going to wait before I come to a conclusion on Hjallti (Ho1den), but for now I'm leaning towards Kuribo on this count.

Followed by this later on (from this post):

Holden, now Hjallti - Unlisted - agree. Still want to give him a bit more time. His initial thoughts are pretty consistent with mine, though, so he'll probably move up.

No change. Very convenient.

Of course, there are problems with the Hjallti = scum theory, as with all others. The most obvious problem is the fact that Hjallti not only defended Shteven, but followed him in voting kuribo. Way too blatant and gutsy, IMO, in spite of the potential WIFOM element.

I have (probably way too much) more thoughts that I could share, but they are all along these lines ...

this

stuff points to this guy being scum, but then again, there's

that

stuff that doesn't.

I do find that writing this stuff helps to clear my mind somewhat more, though, so there will probably be more later, even though I'm not sure how helpful it will be.

[Hjallti]

I was wondering if a nolynch-vote would not postpone LYLO one day more and leave us with a test more. Then again Gorgon could be nightkilled, and we gain nothing. Probably we should consider this at some point but today might be to early.

If we have a cop, Gorgon is the cop (now kuribo also not countered), and we have three assured townies.
kuribo has attacked Shteven to hard and to early to be bussing
Xtoxm plays very erratic but I don't think he is scum in this game.

Justin was second on my list after reading the night scenes (behind Gorgon), and now is on one. His playstyle is pretty much townish, but I do think it is really his playstyle.

[kuribo]

I was wondering if a nolynch-vote would not postpone LYLO one day more and leave us with a test more. Then again Gorgon could be nightkilled, and we gain nothing. Probably we should consider this at some point but today might be to early.

No lynch would cost us one of our confirmed townies (either Gorgon, "the cop," or our two masons) and gain us nothing in the way of information, thus resulting in a net loss. That makes this a scummy statement in my eyes.

While I don't think that Hjallti as scum would defend Shteven so vigorously (he seems experienced enough to know that it would backfire), I also don't think we can discount the idea that he would know we'd take it that way. Of course, THAT is the true definition of WIFOM, and would not help us either way, so let's come back to that.

Justin Playfair is by no means a confirmed townie in my book--- I don't like the fact that some of the players think he can't be scum because he's so townie. I also don't want to see him lynched because people think he looks "too townie." I hate "Too Townie" as an argument, since both town and scum will try to look town.

I think we should all go back and look at past events. That's how I got onto Shteven. After he slipped up about the two remaining scum, I went back and tried to see if anything stuck out. We should see what sticks out about Justin, Xtoxm, and Hjallti. Gorgon should be allowed to live at least one more night, but we should BY NO MEANS allow a No-Lynch.