Mini 578 - Mistery at Montescuro - Game Over!

[Singing Librarian]

Hello, everyone. My, isn't this civil?

Vote: SensFan

for not coming up with a reason for what may or may not be a random vote.

[Singing Librarian]

Agreed with Yos2, Joudas, MacAvenger and PyroDwarf above. Lynching anyone quite so quickly can only harm our chances, as we'd have so much less information going forward. I personally need more than a vague intimation that it's a good idea to follow along quite so early in the game.

[Singing Librarian]

FOS VampanezeHunter

for not falling for OMGUS trap and voting for Dasquian or Macavenger.

FOS Joudas

for talking weird. Watch for post game restriction.

This is the most suspicious thing I've seen so far. An FOS for not falling into an OMGUS? That's about the most bizarre logic I can imagine. The rest of the thread is also making my head hurt, but that stands out as bad logic, so:

unvote

vote: Near

[Singing Librarian]

Near, there's no way I'm changing my vote - your post had no indication that it was a joke, and from many games I've read here, coming up with spurious reasons for suspecting people is a tactic scum are forced to use (since they know exactly who is and is not scum), hence it leaping out at me. With a smiley or some such indicating the non-serious nature, it would have been an obvious joke, without it looks like reaching.

I think Near and VampanezeHunter are more likely scum than Guardian at this point. They'd be my top two most likely, but I have yet to detect a third to go with them.

[Singing Librarian]

Agreed, we definitely need to hear from VampanezeHunter. Also, having looked back over everyone's posts, from SensFan.

For what it's worth, the re-read also makes me think Guardian is not scum, though I do agree that it's possible his questioning style could cause town to panic almost as much as it could get scum to slip up.

[Singing Librarian]

I'm not at all convinced by Near's latest post, but I too am wondering where on Earth VH is - stuck on page 4 of the re-read?

Also like others, I am having serious trouble finding any other hints of scumminess. I don't see Near's case linking JamesthePhox and Macavenger at all, and I'm almost at the point of finding that strange-looking avatars make me suspicious. Yet another re-read is in order. Hopefully mine won't take as long as VH's!

[Singing Librarian]

Another re-read completed, and still nothing new leaps out. Near still seems scummiest, with VH coming second in the rankings. However, a replacement may change that entirely. Newcomer awaited with interest.

[Singing Librarian]

That's an interesting view on Joudas' post, Coron. Looking back, it seems as though I was actually reacting to that post rather than to Guardian's. That could be indicative of scum manipulating town to their advantage, more so than any of the others you mention. It certainly puts that little debate in a different light.

However, re-reading Joudas' posts since that point doesn't make me at all suspicious. He seems to be contributing and discussing a lot more than most of us.

[Singing Librarian]

Near continues to be the scummiest-looking player to me, no matter what new posts arrive or no matter how many re-readings I go through.

I'm not sold on the JtP case, but Near's reasoning for it is just awful, almost as bad as the alleged 'joke' FoSes. And the line in Thursday's post ("I like the fact that you take this game seriously.") is not at all encouraging either.

[Singing Librarian]

Maybe I vary my playing style. Maybe I'm ADD this game.

None of that doesn't change that my post 259 is accurate and that Dasquian is scum.

Guardian, I still don't think you're scum, but reading your posts is getting increasingly frustrating in this game (not that I can talk - reading my posts is getting increasingly rare). It seems that in general your posts are making less and less sense, and your arguments don't have very much substance. I can't help feeling that Joudas is right, in that you're trying to be Mr Charisma, but also forced to be Mr Cryptic because you haven't got anything solid.

I looked back at the stuff surrounding your initial vote for JtP.

* Post 36 - voted for James the Phox
* Post 43 - indicated that you don't want to say why you voted for JtP and said "It requires 4 more votes to lynch Fox. Use your votes wisely ." Even with the winking smiley, this is essentially an encouragement to vote for Phox for no reason.
* Post 68 - finally gave a reason for voting Phox. However, the post referred to (post 38) occurred after your vote. "Some more foxy votes would be nice" certainly looks like an encouragement to join the bandwagon.

I don't see how that can really be squared with post 269/270.

I didn't want more phox votes at that time, I just wanted to leave the implication that I did. I think that that's fairly obvious from my later postings.

I also don't see much difference between your calls for more votes on Phox and more votes on Dasquian. The Dasquian case seems even weaker than the Phox one, but you're still doing the 'come on, vote for him, come on!' thing that you did with Phox. "Follow my lead." "Try voting him. It just feels so right." "(more duckscum votes plz)".

[Singing Librarian]

I find these two statements of Guardian's from the same post quite fascinating.

1:

Why can't you just trust my motives and judgment?

Because we're playing Mafia.

You'd be surprised at how many games I'd finished and realized that we'd have won had the town just trusted me implicitly.

2:

I'm tired of playing your everyone-has-to-justify-everything-to-me game.

You're not playing the right game. I'm playing the everyone-has-to-justify-everything-to-me-and the-rest-of-the-town game, and I think that's a great game to play in mafia, leads to successful lynches, and town wins.

So... You're essentially saying that everyone has to justify everything to everyone, except you, who does not have to justify things and should be trusted implicitly? Double standards much?

---

In other news:

I was like wow, guardian must be cop and he checked out dasquian N0.

Had I cop'd dasquian, I'd have gotten a guilty result? Thanks for that tip .

So you seem to think I made a slip here.

Don't you think my saying this was too deliberate to be a slip?

Urgh. Don't you think that the sentence in bold is the most WIFOM-y sentence in the entire game? If your aim was to make yourself seem even more suspicious, then Mr Near, you have succeeded admirably.

[Singing Librarian]

Near, as far as I'm concerned, almost every time you post, you simply confirm my suspicion that you are scum. Your reasoning for voting for someone is truly dreadful, even if there are perfectly good reasons to suspect them, and you even did the 'surely I'm too scummy to be scum' thing a while back, as I and others pointed out, which is just horribly suspicious.

Welcome, mikeburnfire. Welcome.

[Singing Librarian]

Darla, that was a pretty rash first post in the game, but if you're really new, I'm sure it can be overlooked. Macavenger explains it well. Welcome to the game.

I'm not sure the gorilla merits an FoS, but I can understand that more than the duck-related suspicion.

[Singing Librarian]

I am going to

Vote: Macavenger

, I find it fishy you are so on top of things, and yet have no votes thus far, seems like a thing a very skilled scummy would do.

I would guess, that as 3 of the people voting for near have no votes themselves, that this could be a very suspicious scummy clue.

I can only assume Librarian or Joudas could be your scum buddies

As soon as I saw this, I was going to explain why that's dreadful reasoning, but Dasquian beat me to it. And then you QFTed his explanation of why your reasoning was flawed, yet you don't change your mind? I don't get it.

DBE - do you agree with yourself or with Dasquian? My own view is that it is essentially meaningless - would you agree? It is much wiser to focus on things that are suspicious rather than to say "Macavenger is really active, but nobody's voted for him - he must be scum". It's much more likely that nobody found anything that merited suspicion about him.

I'm not sure what Mac and Guardian's little exchange is about. It might be best to ignore it. For now, at least. It might make more sense later on.

EvilGorillaz' most recent post is incredibly dismissive and unhelpful. Suddenly I see where the FoS came from. DBE's play also strikes me as suspicious, from the first post onwards. Intriguing, since I didn't particularly suspect JtP. It could just be newbieness, but I'm not so sure.

However, for now, my vote stays on Near, as the explanations offered for scummy behaviour are not convincing.

[Singing Librarian]

And my reaction to potential cop investigation? Again, I was not using WIFOM to defend myself. I was pointing out that either answer to Guardian's question would result in WIFOM.

Your first reaction to the accusation of the slip was this:

So you seem to think I made a slip here. Don't you think my saying this was too deliberate to be a slip?

As several people have pointed out, this is not only WIFOM, but a particularly bad example of it as well.

Dude, it was Guardian who said "Had I cop'd dasquian, I'd have gotten a guilty result? Thanks for that tip ."

No,no, no, no, no. That is not what concerns me, and I doubt it's what concerns anyone else either. The sentence that screams out at me is your one - "Don't you think my saying this was too deliberate to be a slip?" That is the scummiest, most problematic few words I've seen in the whole game. So you're saying that this was deliberate? That leaves various options.

1 - You're scum, and made a slip. You realise it's a dreadful slip, and instead of explaining it, you simply say you did it deliberately, though you don't explain why, in the hope that we assume it's a gambit by a member of the town.

2 - You're scum and deliberately made what looks like a slip, in order to fall back on the worst of all arguments, ie "surely I wouldn't have done something so stupid if I really was scum".

3 - You're town and made what looks like a slip, quite deliberately, for reasons unexplained.

However, if we go back far enough, it doesn't actually look like you made a slip at all, until Guardian makes his comment about investigating Dasquian. Not does it look like you said anything in a particularly deliberate way. Your explanations of it since I first highlighted that sentence of yours babble away into incoherency as well. I said:

Urgh. Don't you think that the sentence in bold is the most WIFOM-y sentence in the entire game? If your aim was to make yourself seem even more suspicious, then Mr Near, you have succeeded admirably.

And you responded:

This was the point of my argument . That is, if I was deliberate and careful, this would be WIFOM which would nullify what Guardian said initially: "Had I cop'd dasquian, I'd have gotten a guilty result? Thanks for that tip ."

What? What? What does that actually mean? How does what you said nullify Guardian's comment, and why does it need to be nullified? I can think of no good reason why anyone allied to town would want such a comment nullified. You later argue that Guardian's comment was WIFOM, which is nonsense. If anything in this exchange smells of WIFOM, it's your comment. It's horrrible.

Also, this post:

quote="Near"]

I second Dasquain's motion,

You should probably be voting for Near then. By supporting Dasquian's motion, you're supporting Near's bandwagon but not voting for him, which is generally considered a scum tactic.

I also agree with Dasquian here, which should be obvious based on the way I've been calling for Near to be lynched for a while now.

Agree with Joudas that Darla's mistakes look more like "new player" than "scum" to me. It's certainly something to keep in mind, but Near is a far better lynch today.

Unvote

Vote: Macvenger

so, you were a scum...

Also don't mind voting for Dasquian.[/quote]

What about Macavenger's post can possibly justify the response "so, you were a scum..." There is no logic or sense to that which I can see. If you had posted any form of reasoning with your vote, this would seem much, much less scummy.

[Singing Librarian]

Of the people who currently have votes, I obviously prefer Near as lynch target. However, as Coron has asked who we'd be willing to vote for if needed at deadline, I have to say that the only other one I'd be happy voting for at present is DBE, and I think she's much less likely scum than Near. Her mistakes seem like genuine new-ness to me so far, whereas Near just looks like backpedalling scum.

[Singing Librarian]

I am in agreement that the claim is unmotivated madness, but I think it would be best to look at that tomorrow. If it is a mad scum gambit, then if we concentrate on it, it's likely to distract and could, in the worst case scenario lead to a no lynch by disbanding bandwagons. If everyone claimed under that much pressure, the random voting stage would end up being the random claiming stage as well.

[Singing Librarian]

Can we please have a EvilGorillaz prod? His vote could prove beneficial.

It could do, yes, but when you posted this, it was only a day since EG had posted. Hardly inactive.

Also, I agree with Coron that your claim he'd been inactive was completely inaccurate and unhelpful.

[Singing Librarian]

Oh. My. Goodness.

I have no idea whether Coron is going to show up as scum or town (I can see arguments for both), but my goodness that was a *lot* of posting overnight, guys. I could not believe how many new pages you'd managed to create in less than twelve hours. Urgh.

I have to go and train people now, so by the time I come back, no doubt Coron's allegiance will have been revealed and we'll be in night.

[Singing Librarian]

Vote: Guardian

I don't like the way he led the crusade against Coron, but I do have to admit that it didn't seem to serve any likely purpose for scum unless Near needed to be kept alive for some reason - the only thing I can think is that scum would rather see a claimed power role than claimed vanilla townie dead. However, as that is currently the most worrying thing I can see about anyone in the game, it's what I'll have to go with.

[Singing Librarian]

Guardian's claim is certainly a curve ball. I can understand the disbelief he had about a watcher/tracker/cop triad if the claim is true, but the way these claims are now in the open is alarming. I think the chance of there being a doctor in the village is pretty much zero with the amount of town power floating around. Unless we have ludicrously high-powered scum as well.

Unvote: Guardian

Of the two claims I can see his more. DBE's is slightly fishy with the whole 'I was aware of watchers' thing - which reads almost like "I needed something to claim, so I went for something I'd heard of but know isn't very frequently found". Both claims could, of course, be true, particularly since a tracker/watcher pair just feels right.

I would suggest that nobody else claim *anything* at all now unless they're at L-1. At the rate we're going, scum could soon be aware of everyone's role while town is still in the dark.

Ignoring the two claimed roles for now, scumhunting becomes increasingly difficult. I agree that the case on Macavenger is weak, weak, weak.

[Singing Librarian]

Mass claim = bad?

Absolutely, yes. Any further power roles in the town simply become more targets for the scum, who already have too much confirmation of the town's roles for my liking.

[Singing Librarian]

Grrr - I've just typed a long post about the MBF wagon, but lost it when the site decided I had to log in again. This, then, is the remix.

The short version is that when I started thinking this through, I thought the wagon was rubbish, but by the time I'd got to the end of my train of thought, I fully understood it but wasn't prepared to join it, particularly as that would have put him at L-1 at the time.

I reiterated how I thought Guardian was the driving force behind the Coron lynch and that I found the way he drove it highly suspicious. However, his claim of cop made that make sense - his dubiety over multiple investigative roles. I then thought about reasons that scum could latch onto this bandwagon, without being in the driving seat and came up with two. To lynch a power role who might have been able to detect them, or two save a scumbuddy. Near did seem highly suspicious yesterday, but doesn't seem anywhere near as suspicious today, and that strategy would be way too risky to chance, so it seems that the first reason is most likely.

If we assume Near is scum and Guardian really is cop (and neither of those is 100% certain, but fairly likely at least), then candidates for this role of aiding and adding momentum to an advantageous bandwagon are DBE, Macavenger and MBF. I did find DBE fishy, but thinking about it, I cannot imagine scum false claiming a watcher role when we have a confirmed tracker, since the pairing is quite natural. A trade of outing a scum member in exchange for outing a watcher seems pointless and unlikely. That leaves Mac and MBF and of the two, MBF stands out more.

There are a few more assumptions than I'd like in my train of thought there, but I was surprised how much of a change my feelings about the MBF bandwagon went through as I thought about it. The post was originally intended to be a "what on earth is everyone doing?" sort of thing, but became something different. I'm not prepared to join the wagon at this stage, wanting to be sure of scumminess rather than thinking he's one of the two most likely candidates.

[Singing Librarian]

Yos and Mac are making a heck of a lot more sense here than MBF, in my opinion. I'm still not going to place a vote just yet, but I do have a question for MBF:

Is there anything you can point to from yesterday that would lend credence to your claim that you actually wanted a 'no lynch'? As Mac suggests, it seems to come out of nowhere.

[Singing Librarian]

Well, a bit of posting since my last post and none of it makes me feel any better about MBF, particularly as he does seem to have changed his story since yesterday from 'I'm voting for Coron as he's the best candidate available' to 'I voted for Coron because I wanted a no lynch'.

Vote: mikeburnfire

[Singing Librarian]

FoS: PyroDwarf

Whether you think mbf is insinuating he's a doctor or not, that isn't something town should ever voice, I feel. Any hints to the scum that someone may be a doctor are a bad, bad thing. Scum could have good reasons for flagging it up (e.g. hoping to gain a reaction from the doctor, if there is one), but I can't think of a good reason for a town member to do so.

[Singing Librarian]

Joudas, here are some thoughts:

If either of the claimed power roles is lying, my money would be on DBE. Guardian's play makes total sense in retrospect, though it seemed crazy at the time, but DBE's doesn't unless you put on a major newbie filter and excuse things for that reason. Half-claiming and waiting until the next day to claim, seemingly misunderstanding how best to use the watcher ability etc. are all equally possible as newbie watcher and newbie scum, in my opinion. However, false-claiming watcher when we have a confirmed tracker seems like a risky gambit at best.

I don't get the cases on Dasquian or Macavenger, but Pyrodwarf does suddenly loom larger than before as potential scum due to what seemed like doctor role-fishing.

And I should point out that I did explain my thoughts on mbf before I placed my vote, just not in the same post (though looking back I said "if we assume near is scum" when I meant "if we assume Near is town" - must preview posts, grr).

Most likely scum for me (in alphabetical order): DBE, MBF, Pyrodwarf. Due to the doctor-fishing, which is either serious scumminess or terrible play, the latter now tops the list in my opinion.

Unvote: mikeburnfire; Vote: Pyrodwarf

[Singing Librarian]

I am not willing to change my vote to Dasquian. As I have said, I do not understand the case on the duck at all. In fact, going back and looking at ABR's long explanation of the supposed case just made me more confused, particularly his deconstruction of post 515. The thing that perturbed me most here was the claim that "DAZ connects DBE to other players, under the assumed prediction that she is scum." I have read, re-read and triple-read Dasquian's post in question, and nowhere in it can I see this behaviour exhibited. I see Dasquian questioning DBE's method of hunting for scumpairs all the time, but there is no linking of her to other players.

As Dasq connecting DBE (apparently his partner) to other players appears to be the core of ABR's argument and I simply cannot see it, then I can hardly go along with ABR's plea to vote Daquian and "make him win". Happy to switch vote to DBE, though, if needed.

[Singing Librarian]

Unvote; vote: DarlaBlueEyes

Words cannot begin to express the scumminess of her recent posts, which holds true regardless of whether Dasquian happens to be town or scum. The 'fine, I'll vote for Dasquian to make you happy' feel to the posts is awful, as is the implication that she'd be laughing if we mislynched her.

The recent posts push her way past the 'I'd be prepared to vote for her' threshold to the 'way scummiest person' level. Ick.

[Singing Librarian]

DBE, what you call lurking I call "being asleep when most of the posting on this thread happns". I frequently go to bed and then wake up to several pages of posts. Unfortunately, this latest batch of pages seems to just go round in circles. I never got the Daquian case, so his rebuttal doesn't make much difference to me. Other than that, it's mostly people repeating what they've said before, which I don't like doing.

That said, the scummiest-looking people to me are DBE and PyroDwarf. mbf certainly seems much less suspicious now. I would be prepared to switch votes back to PyroDwarf if that has the support of more of the town, but any other wagon would require much convincing.

[Singing Librarian]

To be fair, PyroDwarf has expressed suspicion of Guardian from the beginning, and since many of us are expressing suspicion of one claimed power role (DBE), maybe him suspecting the other is more reasonable than we're assuming. A fake cop result could be far more damaging than a fake watcher result.

I'm still suspicious of him, but it does make sense to be worried about that.

[Singing Librarian]

I agree with Yosarian2.

None of that makes any sense at all. Scum are more likely to vote for themselves than town are, so if DBE votes for herself, ABR will unvote her? How does that make even the slightest bit of sense.

I am now torn - is DBE scum trying to please the town by doing as we ask, or is she a really, really confused townie? She seems far too eager to please "yes, yes, I'll do that to prove I'm town." I'm definitely considering moving my vote back to PyroDwarf, because it would be so frustrating if DBE was town. Grr.

[Singing Librarian]

DBE, you do come off as extremely scummy, but it does make sense to avoid lynching either the claimed cop or the claimed watcher today. So

Unvote: DBE; vote: Pyrodwarf

.

[Singing Librarian]

This game is becoming overloaded with deja vu moments. Ever-decreasing circles.

So Dasquian is at L-1? I still don't get it, and I'm still not willing to vote for him. PyroDwarf, absolutely. DBE, if we go back there, maybe. Dasquian? Barring some sort of major new information, no way.

[Singing Librarian]

Bah, didn't get to shoot anyone! Good luck, town!

[Singing Librarian]

Well done, scum. The only one of you I ever suspected was PyroDwarf.

As for not using my one-shot vig, I was waiting for a moment when there was a clear and obvious target, which there never was. The vote leaders up until my death were town all the way, so if I'd followed the crowd there, the game would surely have ended in scum's favour earlier.