Newbie 1320 -- Game Over

[Rob14]

Confirmed. Will be reading today and then getting up a comprehensive reads post.

[Rob14]

Just started my re-read and I'm on page 2, but I have an almost immediate question. Insanity, are you new to forum mafia or have you played it elsewhere? You don't sound like a newbie.

[Rob14]

Making a reads list in order to keep track of my thoughts. Might as well post it. Not posting reasoning now - that will be in my final catch-up post.

This is as of Post #100. Only the first 100 posts are considered in this reads list. I'm going to continue reading right after I make this.

Strong Town:
Turtle
Cub

Lean Town:
Insanity
Bo

Null:
Enigma
Gadian

Lean Scum:
Catlord
Mr_Ree

Strong Scum:
Ain't no reads here...

Back to reading...

[Rob14]

Had an appointment, back to re-reading. On roughly post #200, but I can't hold this back any longer.

Insanity, when you quote, make absolute certain that you include who you're quoting. If you don't, I absolutely cannot follow anything you're saying. If you click the quote button next to a post, it does this for you. If not, make the quote tags like this:

{quote="Insanity"}

text blah blah

{/quote}

, just with []'s instead of {}'s.

[Rob14]

@Everyone else, please don’t kill Zephyr until Rob posts what he makes of these events, he seems like a really good player and I think his input matters.

How touching. Buddying noted.

I'm on roughly post #275 in my re-read. I hope to be done with it by tonight - if not, tomorrow morning. Either way, expect a big ol' catch-up post and corresponding vote tomorrow. Not sure if my slot's voting anyone, but just in case:

Unvote

[Rob14]

Okay. I just got to the point where Zepher replaces in. I want to note this before I read further. This probably has no bearing on this game, but it's something that needs to be noted.

Zepher, drop the snark. It's not a good strategy ever, but it's especially unacceptable in a newbie game when you're dealing with people who are just learning the game. I literally got like three paragraphs into your #327 (which is where I stopped to write this post) and went "Wow, this guy is ObvTown, but I kind of want to lynch him anyway because he's annoying as fuck." I can only imagine that others shared those thoughts. Don't forget that your shit stinks just the same as everyone else's.

/rant

Back to my re-read. I am at #327, as noted above.

[Rob14]

Done with my re-read. I skimmed 454 and 455 because my eyes were starting to bleed from all the walls and I frankly don't think they'll reveal anything new. From my skim, I was correct. Other than that, everything is read. I was going to do a full reads post, but I am so exhausted after that huge re-read that I'm going to make this short. Here's my miniature reads list and then I'll explain a few things.

Strong Town:

Cub

Weak Town:

Turtle/Remembrance
Insanity
ProHawk

Null:

Zepher/Gadian

Weak Scum:

kuror0
Mr_Ree

Strong Scum:

Cat

Here is why Cat is our scum. Let's start by looking at his votes.

Ree votes Cub in #82. Cat votes Cub in #83.
Prohawk votes Insanity in #139 AND Cub votes Insanity in #146. Cat FOS's Insanity in #155.
Insanity FOS's Prohawk in #202. Cat votes Prohawk in #211.

He has never voted someone who wasn't voted or FOS'd almost immediately prior to his vote. This is a pattern of sheeping and is horribly suspicious.

Next, let's look at #211. Many people have championed this as the reason why Cat can't be scum. After all, scum wouldn't attack the only person they think is town, right?

Wrong.

I am disappointed in you folks. You neglect to consider that Cat sounds defeated in that post. He's given up. He's accepted his lynch. This is actually fairly common in the newbs - they consider themselves goners at the first signs of pressure. This is a null tell by itself, but it vastly changes how you must interpret the rest of Cat's actions.

If Cat thinks that he's already as good as dead, then literally everything else he's said in that post is for people to view AFTER he's dead. This puts everything he says firmly into the realm of WIFOM. You can't analyze the actions or posts of someone who has accepted that they're as good as dead because they could very easily be writing it to fuck with your heads post-flip. If I was in Cat's shoes and had a scum role PM, and I thought I was as good as dead, I would do whatever I could to lower the town's chances of winning after my flip. This would make anything I say inherently worthless to the town because it was all done with the knowledge that my posts were going to come under intense scrutiny post-flip. If anyone has questions about what I'm getting at, please ask. I might not be articulating this very well.

Next, let's look at Cat's recent activity. He hasn't popped in the thread recently, and when he has, he hasn't said much of anything. Now, he does give some explanations for his inactivity, but I'm calling bullshit. Look at his last login on-site. He was logged in 12 hours ago but didn't post. He hasn't posted for 2 days now, actually. He's reading but he's not commenting. He's lurking, plain and simple. He survived the pressure on him and then he started strategically lurking, allowing town to drive themselves in the wrong direction. NOPE - do not want.

Vote: Catlord

Sheep me, please and thanks.

[Rob14]

Yeah, but he's not sheeping like noob-town would sheep.

Look at his #155. He talks about how he knew it was insanity all along. If he was noob-town sheeping, I would expect him to put more of an emphasis on your vote and less of an emphasis on how he knew it all along (without ever spending any time mentioning it or pursuing it). He tries to make it seem like he came up with an insanity scum-read himself when he really didn't.

Look at his #211. He leads everyone to believe he's doing something truly revolutionary by voting you when insanity had fos'd you just a little bit earlier. He puts so much emphasis on how he's going against the grain.

In both of these posts, the way in which he talks about his own process of reaching his reads is off. He's emphasizing how he independently developed the reads when the pattern clearly shows he is following others. It's like he's screaming at the top of his lungs: "I'M SCUM-HUNTING." The more he screams it, the less I think it's true.

[Rob14]

Why did you quote post 174 at the end there?

[Rob14]

I said he was null, not neutral. He's done a lot that makes me think he's town and a few key things that keep dragging my read back down. I have a conflicted read on him (which falls into the null category best). I'll write a more detailed post about this tomorrow, but he's not even close to a scum read in my book.

Can you give me a quick bulleted list of your case on him, because frankly I don't get why he's approaching a lynch at the moment.

Also, explain what you mean by three in your list regarding my case on Cat. Don't get what you mean by "projection".

[Rob14]

Also, for that matter, what part of my case you feel is irrelevant to Cat's alignment. It's all heavily relevant.

[Rob14]

You don't find his voting pattern scummy Rob? Especially considering he is an SE?

That's one of the things that's dragging my read of him down to null. If not for that and the fact that he claimed insanity v cub was definitely not town v town with insanity as probably scum (which, for the record, is a way for scum to lynch one person and then say "oops, got the wrong one!" and go after the other), I would have him as a town read.

Here's a few things that I think point to him potentially being town, and therefore not as worthy of a vote as Cat:

1. He's not going after the easy targets. Suspicions of Cat had pretty much all been dismissed by the time he replaced in. Why would he choose him to go after? Add to that his opinions on my slot. How does he get town from lurking? Who the fuck knows? Most importantly, why would scum want to make a lurker look like town? You would have also been a somewhat easy target, ProHawk, considering that you had 3 votes on you at the time. But you were "iron-fist town" on his reads list. I'm just absolutely not getting an opportunistic vibe at all from his reads or actions, even if he has been throwing around his vote quite a lot.

2. His tone and aggressiveness, especially while he's under pressure. This isn't a town-tell normally, but I really don't think scum would play the way he has. I'm super aggressive as both alignments, and let me tell you, I would never ever ever ever in a million years be as aggressive as he is right now while under pressure. When I'm under pressure as scum, I typically retreat into my little shell. I still act aggressive so I don't get called out on meta purposes, but I'm very defensive in everything I do. I fake it, basically. He's just so very different than what I would expect from an aggressive scum player. Look at all the content he's produced recently. The majority is about other people. He's under pressure and he's still scum-hunting. He's clearly not faking aggressiveness - this is genuine aggressive town play.

These are really the two major categories that his towniness - yeah, that's not a word, but w/e - falls under. I still have him as null for the reason you gave and the reason I listed above. My read on him is extremely conflicted. He's pulling off ObvTown in some posts and ObvScum in the others. Typically when I have a conflicted read, I like to keep the player around until I have more content and can begin to be swayed in one direction or the other. I would maybe agree on him if push came to shove at the last second of the deadline, but not now. We have multiple days left. Let's go for ObvScum Cat.

P-edit: Why is Cat absent from your list, insanity? Do not offer a false dilemma. We can (and hopefully will) lynch cat today.

[Rob14]

I guess you could say...

*takes sunglasses off*

I'm not a cat person.

[Rob14]

I apologize for the above, but when I think up comedy gold, I can't keep it to myself.

[Rob14]

1. Amished tell - Invalid, people asked him about his predecessor's stuff. The Amished tell is only valid in my opinion if they bring it up on their own or if they show that they paid special attention to the complexities of a wagon on them. Simply acknowledging your predecessor when someone specifically asks you about them is totally not scummy.

2. Early random voting - Semi-valid, it wasn't random but his pattern of testing the waters was in fact scummy.

3. Selfish voting - Invalid, he had kuro as scum on his initial list of reads before he was under pressure. I don't think his vote on kuro was only to keep himself alive.

4. Contradictions - Semi-valid, some of the contradictions that were mentioned in the past were out of context, while others were legitimately weird.

4b. WIFOM - Invalid. I'm separating this because it's an important point. WIFOM isn't a reason for someone to be town or scum, and I didn't use it to say Cat was scum. I said Cat wasn't town. If you encounter something that's WIFOM, it doesn't help you either way. It was important to identify it in my case on Cat because #211 was a post many people were using to dismiss Cat as town when in fact it was entirely WIFOM and not indicative of alignment. What you said was a misinterpretation of my case on Cat, which I wanted to clear up.

5. Poorly constructed hypotheses - Debatable. Personally I disagree. I think he's continued to scum-hunt.

6. Investigative reporting - Invalid. I frankly don't know what you mean by this, but I think Gadian's participation in the game was entirely null. Newbies lurking and replacing out is nothing new and it happens as both alignments. The only types of lurking that are scummy are strategic lurking (lurking at a specific point in the game to avoid/lessen pressure) or active lurking (posting actively or at least semi-actively in the game without contributing anything of use). Neither apply to Gadian.

7. Your appeal to pity is the only scum-tell your slot has shown, btw. This may be a topic for future conversation, but I'm going to my play my cards here close to the chest because I want to see if a particular behavior I noticed happens again.

Conclusion: Two semi-valid points that are at least equaled by the town stuff I'd shown before. I don't see any new reason to change my read on Zeph.

[Rob14]

I don't have to choose you or Kuro yet. There are over three days. There is time to lynch Cat still. Multiple people have shown that they're open to the idea. If I have to throw a vote on a different wagon on the last day, I will, but I'd much rather prefer a Cat lynch. Seriously, he's such ObvScum.

Also, for the record, if I have to switch votes at deadline, I'll be voting Zepher.

[Rob14]

I think Rob and Hawk need to pick either me or Kuro to lynch. Cat isn't a viable lynch for today,

sorry Rob. Maybe tomorrow.

Yes I would, Prohawk, because my reads changed a bit. Zepher nearly drew my vote right then and there when he made the above post. He led me on a false dilemma in which he thought he knew which way I would vote because he perceives me as defending him (and therefore unlikely to vote him). He also buddies up to me a bit with the bolded. This post set my scumdar off like crazy. Maybe I'm over-thinking this, but I don't think I am. Also, kuro typically becomes easier to read with time and he's the least scummy out of my scum reads, so I wouldn't mind keeping him around over Zepher the unreadable.

[Rob14]

No, your response is important to my read on you. The fact that you view every one of my questions as being a "setup" usually comes from someone who has something to hide.

Actually, that question was a leading question, ProHawk.

What would Town-Kuror say when asked about the extension? "I wanted more time to scum-hunt."

What would Scum-Kuror say when asked about the extension? "I wanted more time to scum-hunt."

You already had your conclusion regarding his actions when you asked the question. His answer didn't matter.

[Rob14]

wich would end on having very little discusion/information from them at the end of the day.

The above means that he wanted more discussion/info from people. More discussion/info is how scum-hunting works. I simplified the answer, but it's still essentially the same thing.

Can we get some more votes on Cat now? The only way we're lynching Zeph at this point is if there's a counter-claim.

P-edit: What are you talking about Remembrance? If Zeph's scum, then he wouldn't know if there's a cop in the setup or not.

[Rob14]

Zeph, did you breadcrumb at all earlier in this day?

[Rob14]

Rob, put your piece in, I know you're online. Then I'm voting Cat. (I'll make an effort post, after you post)

Blarg. I go offline and 50 posts in two different games. Took a while to catch up. And how did you know I was online? *checks windows for stalkers*

Anyway, nothing has really changed for me. I don't like the way in which kuror jumped on this wagon, especially the end of #591. I think that a Kuror/Cat team is very possible. I'll explain why if necessary tomorrow, as I'm majorly against arguing hypotheticals. It's anti-town.

[Rob14]

Why? Because I sympathize. It's unfortunate, but some of us are a little more obsessive than others. Good luck with your exams!

See you later, Space Cat.

That's the behavior I was looking to have repeated. You dun killed my town-read on your slot, Remembrance. Don't have time to post at the moment, but I'll post about this in Day 2. If I die, look at how Remembrance acts when he's close to pushing a lynch through (or actually does, in this case).

[Rob14]

I just executed an innocent man and now my buddy is dead. This sucks.

Typically, this would ping on my scumdar. Those who discuss how good/bad the night went for town are typically scum. However, the follow-up post by Remembrance makes me think he's likely to be town. It sounds very genuine to me.

I need to re-read a few things and decide what direction to move in on this day. The fact that Zepher didn't die and wasn't targeted is concerning to me. It could be because scum thought a doc/jailkeeper would target Zepher, but they would have no way to know whether a doc/jailkeeper exists. It could also be because they wanted to use some crazy WIFOM (omg, Zepher is still alive after claiming cop, must be scum!). Lastly, he could be scum.

He's not a viable candidate for lynch this day because I think the former two options are more likely than the latter by a long shot. Chances are that claims will out Zepher as a liar eventually if he is in fact lying, so I'd much rather look elsewhere.

Due to Cat's flip, ProHawk is not scum. Scum would not have pushed Cat being town as hard as ProHawk did on Day 1. It doesn't make any sense.

I'm going to look a bit more at Ree and Kuror and post something up soon about them.

[Rob14]

By posting frequently and enthusiastically in defense of Cat, ProHawk put himself out there to be read. Why would scum expose themselves to intense scrutiny by taking a completely "against-the-grain" stance on Cat just to defend a townie? That's not scum motivated.

[Rob14]

He went against the grain early in his earlier defense of Cat and as late as post #467.

He was the first to hop onto Cat AFTER we had a cop claim from another player. No other wagon had close to enough support to get a lynch by deadline. He did what he needed to do as town to prevent a no lynch. In case you're unaware, no lynches are incredibly anti-town because they allow scum to choose a larger percentage of the players to kill in the game.

[Rob14]

Spoiler: To help Remembrance grow as a player...

Remembrance, you're making a lot of assumptions about the way people play. What you consider optimal play is not even close to how a lot of people play the game. I don't take notes as either alignment, and yet I use questioning heavily.

Also, using questioning to flesh out a read doesn't require a response in mind before hand. I often poke and prod at players with questions to see what happens. Often, I'm not looking for what they're saying but rather how they're saying it.

Keep in mind that differences in play-style aren't scummy. You're not looking for one action or play style that only scum performs. Many actions (all?) could be performed by both town and scum under the right circumstances. You're looking for motivations. You're looking for whether the actions someone is taking are town motivated or scum motivated in the context of the situation and everything that is going on. Being able to properly evaluate those comes with time.

As a means of improving yourself as a player, I would strongly recommend that you go read completed games by many "outside the normal" players. Try Vifam and Majiffy. Notice how their actions and posting style aren't necessarily what most would consider pro-town, but their motivations are still coming from town when that's their faction.

Conclusion for those who don't want to read that: This is pretty standard ProHawk. This is nothing outside of the normal for him. Remembrance's points against him do not take into account his normal play style.

P-edit: Hmm...that's actually a really good case against Ree. There were other things as well that didn't sit well with me when I read the game through the first time - I'll go back and point out a few things from his ISO tomorrow.

Vote Ree

[Rob14]

Note, that I'm aware of play style discrimination. I've mentioned it 2-3 times when defending insanity.

Rob, let me you ask a question. Is there a reason, a pro-town reason for Zephyr to have given away that we have a jailor? Is there a reason for Hawk to defend him? Is there a reason Hawk had a whole post ready to convince people to lynch Ree, while feigning to go for Kuro? Except for opportunism?

If you can answer these questions, I will take a 3rd look at Ree's posts.

In order,

1. To avoid lying, which can often result in mislynches. Let's talk about what would have happened had he followed your suggestion and claimed an inno on cub. Jailkeeper would claim and say that there's no way he could have an inno on cub because he was jailkept. Zepher would be insta-lynched. We'd be out a cop and now scum would know who the jailkeeper is going into Night 2. Much worse position for town. Lying is a BIG no-no for town in almost every situation.

2. Yes, there is a reason for town to defend their town-reads against bad logic.

3. This is an extraordinarily leading question and is going to be ignored as such.

[Rob14]

Ree casts himself as scummy to build a wagon.

Intentionally acting scummy is not an excuse for acting scummy because it's impossible to determine whether it was truly intentional. If anyone claims to do this EVER, you policy lynch them immediately. Burn it with fire.

[Rob14]

Thanks! You're a somebody!

I lol'd.

Ree casts himself as scummy to build a wagon.

Intentionally acting scummy is not an excuse for acting scummy because it's impossible to determine whether it was truly intentional. If anyone claims to do this EVER, you policy lynch them immediately. Burn it with fire.

Did i just read it right? You suggest a policy wagon on anyone who proclaims that will act scumy?

Uh...that second sentence doesn't make sense as english, so I don't know if you read it right.

I'm saying if someone is called out on being scummy and their defense is "LOL well I meant to be scummy so that I could find scum! It was a reaction test/gambit!" then you should lynch it with fire.

I generally oppose "standard" scum tells. I don't think there's such a thing. This is the only exception. This is my single standard tell. If people do this, they are almost invariably scum. I have never seen town use this defense (noteworthy caveat: town PRs sometimes use this defense, but only AFTER claiming).

Also, ftr Remembrance, you rely on the wiki and game theory waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much. When people get on the wagon is irrelevant. Seriously. Look at my latest scum game here: http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=24548

Here's where I was on those wagons:
5th of 5
1st of 5
N/A of 4
2nd of 3
2nd of 2

I was never 3rd on a wagon, and I was only second once (I don't count the last one - that was LyLo and I hammered for the win). Look at other games and you'll realize that being 2nd/3rd on a wagon is by no means any type of clear indication that someone is scum. I don't even think it suggests that the person is scum. That is an outdated and stupid tell, in my personal opinion.

So if the when doesn't matter, what does? The HOW. How someone gets on a wagon tells you everything.

Again, most of the above was me with my unofficial quasi-IC hat on.

As a more game-related note, the ProHawk wagon is stupid. PH is so town it hurts. He's the towniest townie in all of townville. I'm almost positive one scum is on his wagon. Maybe even two. That scum is Ree. If not Ree, then insanity by PoE.

[Rob14]

You can't use wagon theory to lynch cat and then say "that stuff is outdated" Rob, that makes me feel old. Oh and it's a contradiction, but you knew that.

Show me where I ever argued against Cat because of a cookie-cutter tell like "he was 3rd on a wagon". My read on him was more complicated and involved the manner in which he moved from wagon to wagon and the timing of everything, not his position in the wagon. You're arguing that I can't both like apples (the stuff I called Cat out on) and dislike oranges ("standard" tells) when they're in reality two entirely different things.

So the real problem here is the first quote. Setting a policy lynch for anyone who claims that they sometimes act scumy, is trying to set a policy lynch for me and Ree. Wich is incredibly scumy.

Oh, you misinterpretted me. That isn't strictly related to this game. I'm not calling for any policy lynch. I was just pointing out something to Remembrance because it was relevant to what he said. If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm trying to boost up Remembrance's game a bit because he has some really good potential but needs to remove himself from the wiki a bit and develop his own opinions on what is/isn't scummy.

I'm definitely not saying that anyone has done anything that I would policy lynch off of yet in this game.

[Rob14]

Can we seriously lynch Ree now? He's not town. Let me make a case. Be back in like 10 mins.

[Rob14]

Hawk, I have considered your argument. If you don't believe me then that's up to your discretion. Maybe Rob will add to your evidence. Maybe we do have Ree-Kuro scum team. I can't tell. I'm pretty much realizing that players dump scum tells on themselves and that apparently none of them work. Rob may be right, in that scum tells are worthless. But then, so are your arguments against Ree.

Scum tells aren't worthless - it's just all about HOW they're given not the fact that they're there. You have to evaluate if something that someone is saying is genuinely town (are they really trying to find scum?) or fake (are they just trying to LOOK like they're trying to find scum?). This takes time and practice. You'll get there.

[Rob14]

Most of you show a decent level of experience or comprehension so I'm going to treat you all as if you are familiar with the game

This is an excerpt from Ree's IC introduction post. Introducing yourself in a friendly way as IC is specifically NOT scummy, however this sentence is. By the middle of page 2 while the game was still in RVS, he was complimenting all the newbies skill at the game. Skill so immense, apparently, that he was going to IC as if you were all experienced players. That's...weird. I don't see what could have led him to this conclusion so early, so I have to assume that he was attempting to buddy up to people with this sentence. He compliments your skill, you look the other way.

*Insert all the stuff about a cell phone here...I'm not quoting it and explaining it. It's been done like a million times. It was reaching - big time.*

Nice. That was a great opening post.

I'm not seeing insanity quite yet though. I'll have another read through but I really haven't made up my mind about anything yet. I see Cat, Cub, Hawk and Turtle as town leaning (oddly enough). I'm working my nulls and reaction testing until something piques my radar.

Are you really? You're working your nulls? You haven't done a thing at this point in the game except vote Cub for precisely no reason and then question how technologically advanced someone's phone is. You aren't analyzing posting. You certainly aren't reaction testing. You're sitting back and doing just about nothing.

Now lurking isn't something inherently scummy, but active lurking is. And Ree did that quite nicely.

Yes, much of the wagon was opportunistic lurker votes but you also say that Kuro and I are accusing him for the wrong reasons. Try this: pull out your cell phone, make a quickpost, hit the submit button and tell me what the site does.

When I read this, I see: "Yo, I've been thinking that this wagon is made up of people being opportunistic/scummy, but I'm totally going to join it anyway. HerpDerp."

May not finish this but...

Basically yeah. there is definitly something fishy there. I unvoted for 2 reasons. 1. I looked at his cell phone specs and saw it was neither iphone, android or blackberry OS and thus I had no way to confirm my suspicion and 2. I didn't like the lurker wagon that preceeded my vote.

At post #191, he's still posted almost exclusively about a cell phone. He does nothing else. Active lurking.

While reading through, I've noticed you setting people up to fall hard. Do you normally use entrapment as a scumhunting technique? If you have done so in the past, I'd appreciate a game link.

He asks a leading question and uses some fancy rhetoric to paint PH in a bad light for reaction testing. But wait...a few pages ago you said that you were reaction testing. Huh? So it's scummy when PH does it but not scummy when you do it? I see...

I have noticed a few setups (or percieved setups) that I'll point out later. i don't know how long my phone will last.

The above quote is talking about ProHawk. It's noteworthy that Ree never followed up on this. I don't think he had any substance to his argument at any time and was unable to support it. He's not scum-hunting at all.

I'm hoping turtle returns. I think everyone had him as solid town.

Saying this is scummy. It's fake.

That's fine if you find me suspicious as, admittedly I have been rather busy lately and haven't yet made a large contribution to the game.

You should still answer all questions directed to you, even if that player is one of your scum reads(or in this case, null, if I understand you properly. Due to the nature of the game, you can't know who is what alignment until they flip, therfore by not answering questions, you deny the town access to information.

If you'd like a better look at my playstyle, feel free to check my meta. I excel at defence, scumhunting and analysing my own wagon. Overall, I prefer to let a wagon build on me so I can use the validity of cases against me to town and scumhunt, then I crush the wagon and ruthlessly lynch one of my attackers, usually they turn out to be scum. In the case where they turn up as town, I use the information from both my wagon and the wagon of the person I lynched off to find scum. So far, it's almost always worked so far aside from the one time MOI hammered me day 1 and I flipped town. Incidently, that was the only town game I lost on this site.

Selfish? Maybe, but I have more confidence in my own abilities than in anyone else's and my win ratio and past track record allow me to be confident in it's success.

Two things in this post...

First, the first sentence is too flippant. It reads fake to me. Scum often try to fake not caring about wagons on them, and I think that's what's happening here. Townies try to defend themselves from accusations more than this.

Second, the last two paragraphs of that post is a 7of7. For those who don't know what that is, check the wiki.

I've said it before that I thought he was lying. I unvoted when I was unable to prove that for lack of an old style cell phone. I'm not really sure what your problem is with it if you actually found him scummy too.

So you want people to analyze only your votes themselves, not the reasoning you give for them? So pro-town...

unvote, vote Zephyr

Yup. I'm down with lynching him now.

Has never once mentioned or talked to Zephyr or his predecessor. No rationale given for the lynch. Seems legit.

unvote

The claim seems genuine. we'll see what happens tomorrow.

Since my reads are off, I'm inclined to go with the majority. Still not quite sure about Cat being scum though. Will vote after further investigation.

So you don't care who we lynch and aren't interested in bettering your reads? Seems pro-town to me!

The above was all Day 1. I'm not going to go into Ree's Day 2 play because ProHawk has more-or-less already ripped it to shreds. I agree with pretty much everything ProHawk has said re:Ree (lol) with very few exceptions. Just imagine I repeated that case here.

[Rob14]

That's why I specifically stated that him making an introduction post is NOT what is scummy. The part that's scummy is him stroking your collective egos for no apparent reason. Look at the one sentence I pointed out and ask yourself why an IC would write that if his job is to teach you the game and no one had so far demonstrated outstanding ability above and beyond that of a newbie.

[Rob14]

If I had to sum up my points in a tl;dr, I would do the following. Note that I think a lot is lost by not reading the quotes yourself.

1. Some early buddying in his IC intro post (please read the above post for more info).
2. Active lurking like crazy.
3. Some fake/forced sounding stuff.
4. No scum-hunting and fully admits to being willing to sheep the majority without forming his own reads.

Again, please read my whole big quote wall because it really is important.

[Rob14]

5. Faked a V/La. a.k.a lying.

No one has ever said this nor should ever say this about Ree. For the purposes of Mafia, V/LAs are assumed true because you'd have to be a pathetic little shit to fake a vacation or extenuating circumstance in order to further your wincon.

[Rob14]

Okay. I think now is a good time to do one of those claim things I've read about. How do those go Rob? Let's do that. That way we can confirm who's town and who isn't. I know it might be pointless, but I think it can save us unnecessary problems later down the line.

I actually agree with this. We don't want a counter-claim in LyLo. We want a counter-claim now if it's going to happen.

The way a mass-claim typically goes is popcorn-style. One person claims and then declares who will claim next. That person claims and chooses the next person and so on. Typically you start with the scummier people first because doing otherwise could allow scum to tailor their claim to those of the people who went before them.

First of all, any objections to a mass-claim right now considering we already have two PR claims on the table?

[Rob14]

What do you even mean by give a scum tell? This isn't show and tell, it's a mass claim. I'm ignoring that bit.

I'm Vanilla, Rem go next.

The fact that you want to 1v1 with whoever is insanely anti-town, Ree. First you wanted to 1v1 with ProHawk, and once you realized he's town, you decided to 1v1 with me instead, despite the fact that (presumably) you should be self-voting right now based on your agreement with ProHawk.

1v1 as a concept ignores the possibility of bussing and also doesn't take into account that town can be wrong. What is a townie supposed to do if they "1v1" and then get it wrong? Just go "Hey guys, it's LyLo, but I'm just gonna let you lynch me for the loss. It's all cool." So no, I won't agree to a 1v1 with you - not now and not ever. I would never even consider going 1v1 in any game regardless of alignment.

[Rob14]

Theory: Ree realized earlier this day that he was a likely lynch based on the early wagon on him. He decided to further the scum win-con by attempting to get any townie possible to 1v1 with him (with the townie going first, of course) because bringing down one townie with him is better than going down alone.

Supporting Evidence: He was really quick to throw himself in a 1v1 with ProHawk. Once ProHawk was basically confirmed town, he tries to 1v1 me in his next post without having talked about me all that much prior to the ProHawk claim. He seems desperate to be in a 1v1 with anyone. He doesn't seem to care who it is.

Discuss.

[Rob14]

Asked you what?

[Rob14]

Or Ree and Prohawk, whoever agrees first.

[Rob14]

Fair enough Zephyr. I will give you a few metaphorical meta bones.

1. Rob is scum, more often than the average.
2. Why is Rob scum so much?
3. Discuss.

That's...fairly irrelevant.

Also, you ask Ree not to go out softly...he kind of self-voted which is also, as a matter of fact, anti-town.

I'm almost entirely confident in a Ree lynch. He has not played this game like a VT at all. He's suggesting that I'm unsure of a lynch of him. I'm not. I'm also not going to lock myself into an anti-town 1v1, though. I wouldn't do this as either alignment because it doesn't make sense for either.

[Rob14]

The issue I am toying with is declaring who I will JK so you will know who it was that was JKed in case I am not successful at stopping the kill...

That might be a good idea. Going into LyLo with a confirmed townie would be extremely useful.

[Rob14]

The issue I am toying with is declaring who I will JK so you will know who it was that was JKed in case I am not successful at stopping the kill...

That might be a good idea. Going into LyLo with a confirmed townie would be extremely useful.

[Rob14]

I'm a derp. Ignore the double post by me quoting myself.

[Rob14]

1. Why did you suspect me when I killed Catlord? To me it sounded like you knew Cat would turn up town and were working on shifting suspicion.

No, it was exactly how you acted both times you were close to pushing through a lynch. You acted overly cocky and sure of yourself, bordering on arrogance. This is something I see from noob-scum sometimes. I rarely see it from town, noob or otherwise, because town is never 100% sure that they were right pre-flip. It was a behavioral pattern I noticed both when you were close to pushing through a Zeph lynch AND when you were close to lynching Cat. Since then, I developed a town read on your slot, though.

[Rob14]

I have to respond to some things that Remembrance has said at a later time (grr...classes/work), but:

1) A lot of your argument lies on the fact that I'm experienced and therefore likely to look like town as scum. This is an argument called Too Townie and it is seriously bad. It relies on the premise that people who look very town must be scum and people who look very scum must be town, which is, of course, a faulty argument.

2) I have responded to all accusations against me with substance. You should never expect a response from me (as either alignment) to a post that says "Yeah, Rob might be scum." If you look into my meta, I'm actually more likely to respond and debunk stuff against me as scum than as town, IIRC. I'm pretty defensive as scum. Lastly, you will get a response to your accusations against me when they actually include something that I consider to be an argument rather than just "You're scummy."

FTR, the votes/pressure on me that popped up as soon as Ree reached L-1 is possibly scum motivated. I am like 95% sure that Ree is scum. Remembrance is starting to look like he's executing a chainsaw defense. I need to revisit my read on him. Either way, Ree is our lynch today.

[Rob14]

@Ree, in the mafia scum winrate thread, you were criticized a lot for your playstyle. With many declaring they would policy lynch you. Given your present circumstances, do you regret not taking their advice?

What is the goal of this question? What do you hope to discover?

Because it looks quite a bit like useless fluff to me.

[Rob14]

only question I have right now is my primary accusation. Answer when you have time.

What question was that? It got buried somewhere in the crap about directing night actions. I can't remember what it was nor do I have the drive to re-read that nonsense to look for it.

[Rob14]

Ree is scum. I'm 95% sure. Could I be wrong? Yes. But I don't think I am.

ProHawk stating who he's going to JK could give us a confirmed townie in LyLo if I'm right. Who doesn't want that? It would be an incredible advantage. It would almost guarantee us the win.

Also, it's worth noting that nothing holds ProHawk to what he says in-thread. If he were to tell us he was JKing you, for instance, then he could choose differently post-lynch if Ree actually were to flip town. Scum has no way of knowing who he'll actually jailkeep if Ree is town because whatever he posts in-thread is based on the assumption Ree is scum.

In conclusion, huge upside, very little downside, especially when you consider that Ree is almost definitely scum. He hasn't played this game like a VT in any way, shape, or form.

[Rob14]

Which point did I "fail" other than time?

(By the way, it was a 4 hour gap. I was playing Minecraft. I didn't post anywhere on site during those four hours, so you know I wasn't dodging your question or something. I don't see how you even remotely find that to be failing that particular point.)

[Rob14]

So Ree, you're going to skip my points on your intro posts because they're "bad" without proving they're bad? Seems legit. You're just refusing to address them because you don't want to.

Answer me this: Why did you write the sentence I highlighted? What led you to write that?

[Rob14]

Rob, do you have any questions for Insanity?

Not particularly. He's given me no indication that he's scum. Early he was a bit more iffy. He was kind of over-aggressive. He's backed off of that, though, and I see him about where you are in terms of "towniness".

[Rob14]

I wouldn't put it that way. I've laid out my case on him. He's chosen certain parts of it and declared them unworthy of response, and the majority he hasn't even looked at yet other than to quote it all and say "this is weaksauce" or something to that effect. Ball's in his court.

As a side note, process of elimination is suggesting that kur0r is the last scum, but he's playing similarly in this game to how he did in my last newbie game where he was town. I need to look into him more. He's a null read at worst if not for PoE. That doesn't leave me with good feelings on the state of my reads.

[Rob14]

Remembrance, you realize that I didn't say I was certain Kuror was scum or even remotely convinced, right? I specifically stated that the fact that I have so many town reads that he, playing as null as he is, is my PoE buddy makes me feel bad about my reads? Do you have reading comprehension skills?

I also never said Ree was ignoring my arguments, other than the one in which he specifically said he would not respond (the intro post). I said he hadn't responded to them yet. Is that not a completely valid statement? My post in #885 wasn't meant to suggest that Ree is avoiding me (other than the intro post thing, which he IS avoiding me on), but rather that I have nothing left to do until he responds. I can't respond to whatever he says until he says it. It's not an "assertion that Ree is ignoring me", it's a "common sense dictates that I have to wait for his response before responding to it."

I'm getting the continued feeling that you're trying to turn everything around to make me look scummy no matter what I write. You did this to Zepher as well way back in Day 1, and you also did it to ProHawk early Day 2. At the time, I attributed this to tunneling newbTown which isn't uncommon. The fact that you're continuing to "hunt" in this style even after it effectively outed the two town PRs makes me dubious of the fact that your show of emotion after each time you hit a PR was genuine. I need to look at Kuror again, but I've seen enough questionable activity out of you that you're not as town as you once were on my reads.

[Rob14]

Rem, I'm not questioning you because you're attacking me. I clearly questioned your style of play. So far it's been the following:

Develop Scum Read --> Reaching to turn everything they say into something scummy --> Be proven wrong --> Sorrow? --> Unsure of self and reads --> Return to beginning

The fact that you're returning to the beginning makes me question whether the sorrow and unsurity is actually genuine.

Do I always change my reads? Hell yeah. Everything you say or do (or anyone says and does) is going to make me rethink my read on them. I want to make sure we're lynching scum.

You claim that you were questioning my lack of any real attention to the second scum. Umm...what? In the very post you responded to (#885), I was trying to start a discussion on the second scum. You're reaching pretty hard right now. You've buddied up to Ree even harder. Look at how, in #892, his post is specifically directed at Ree. He isn't directing his post at the town. He's directing it at Ree. What? Why?

Finally:

I will do everything I can not to get town lynched. And I will vote my second best guess.

Please tell me what you meant by your "second best guess." Who is your "first best" and why are you settling for second?

Unvote

pending response.

[Rob14]

Uh...what? How is #527 and #529 at all related to anything?

Also, I ask questions for two reasons. First, I ask them for clarification. Second, I ask them to back someone into a corner. I needed to do neither with Cat. I didn't have anything I needed clarified and I didn't really spot anything that I could question in order to back Cat into a corner. I presented my case on Cat, and he had a chance to respond to that. The fact that I didn't make up useless filler questions in order to pad my "question count" is irrelevant.

[Rob14]

Uh...what? How is #527 and #529 at all related to anything?

The reason these posts are relevant is because I would have known that I would not receive the number of power roles of the town for this game, if I were scum. Since the message would have contained/not contained them. Is it really that difficult to understand? Insanity got it, his refutation was that I might not have "read" my message.

What caused you to remember and refer to those posts, 350+ posts back?

[Rob14]

Yes, but why those posts specifically? Let me explain where my question's coming from. Often, scum will pull off something like that to make them look like idiotTown. For example, in my own newbie game, I faked an accidental soft-claim of townie. It wound up more-or-less winning me the game because in 3 person LyLo, the deciding voter didn't believe I would have done that move as a newbie, especially in combination with killing off my only scum read in the last night for WIFOM purposes.

Now, the fact that you used your own posts that were 350+ posts old, posts which no one would probably remember unless they purposefully posted them or were ISOing themselves (both actions that town is extremely unlikely to do), makes me think that you purposefully posted that similar to how I purposefully posted an "accidental soft-claim" in my own newbie game. I just don't see how town-you would recall those posts AND make the connection that they could make you look like town.

Vote Remembrance

[Rob14]

Except for the I.C.'s opening post*

And why not? You still haven't explained this adequately. Everything anyone says in a game thread is able to be analyzed. Again, I'm NOT criticizing Ree for the fact that he welcomed you all to the game. I'm criticizing him for one sentence where he basically says "you guys are so good at the game that I'm not going to treat this like a newbie game" with no reasoning or super high quality posting so far at that point to back that up. I think that was an attempt to buddy up to the newbies.

[Rob14]

I love you Rob, my first vote against me in Mafia! Aww yeah baby!

And nice evasion of my points.

[Rob14]

What points? You did the same dumb thing I told you not to. Project unto others. You're flat out wrong.

So what made you remember those posts?

Also, that wasn't projecting. Offering an anecdote (i.e. I did this in a scum game) shows that scum could indeed do this. It is not at all uncommon to do it either, I just offered up one example of many. It's called a gambit. This particular gambit is relatively low-risk and (on the off chance that people notice it themselves) high-reward. It's the type of thing I wouldn't be surprised that a newbie performed.

[Rob14]

Again, dodging the question I asked and the points I raised. You picked out one word that I used that you don't like and criticized it instead of addressing my entire post.

Introducing...THE STRAW MAN!

[Rob14]

Let me break this down for you. Here are the facts of my pressure on you. I wouldn't really call it a case.

"Newbies perform gambits." --> This is an indisputable fact.
"Town is unlikely to remember two insignificant posts" --> This is very likely to be true.
"Town is significantly less likely than scum to ISO themselves and look at their own posts" --> Indisputable fact.
"Scum wants to look like town." --> Indisputable fact.
"Scum has significant motivation to FAKE having less information than scum would actually have, because it makes them look town." --> Valid conclusion based on the above fact.
"Therefore, scum is more likely than town to pull two posts that make them look like they have less info than scum out of nowhere without the posts being brought up by someone else, BECAUSE town is unlikely to remember/look for the posts and scum has motivation to." --> Valid conclusion based on all the above points.

The anecdote was not the entire case. It just supported the fact that newbies perform gambits.

Yeah, you dug up evidence. You dug up evidence FROM YOUR OWN POSTS. As such I have no reason to believe it because you easily could have done that to look town as scum. Your argument of "I can't be scum because scum wouldn't post this: '-snip-'" is WIFOM. If that's your argument, then I pose the following question: "Why wouldn't scum do EXACTLY that if it makes them look town?"

The posts occurred 350 posts ago and scum are more likely to recall their own posting and stuff than town. They would be especially likely to recall something they purposefully inserted into the game. The fact that you remembered to point back to them is suspect when they haven't been brought up in the last 350 posts.

That's my case. Try refuting it without a straw man.

[Rob14]

1. Need evidence.
2. Town are the investigators, they have just as much need to remember posts as Scum do.
3. I...Isoed myself to find the post number, unless you think I'm supposed to remember which # my post was, which would be a contradiction of point 2.
4. Too-town argument.
5. The razor, you know the one.
6. False conclusion based off weak premises, some of which you have used to debunk your argument against me.

I didn't even have to try that hard to refute this ROB13.

1. I provided evidence. I've done it. Newbies everywhere have done it. I would assert that newbies are more likely than veterans to gambit because they are less likely to analyze the risks. Either way, I'm entirely confident that when the other experienced players in the game get in here, they will back me up that newbies perform gambits, even if they don't agree with the case as a whole.

2. Town have no motivation to investigate THEMSELVES. Did town-you entertain the possibility that you were scum and therefore you needed to investigate yourself? Didn't think so.

3. I'm saying that town-you would be unlikely to remember that post at all. Scum-you would be far more likely to remember a deliberate gambit than town-you would be to remember getting something wrong 350 posts ago.

4. No. I'm analyzing scum motivations, which is the single best way to catch scum. I would argue it's the only way. I'm not saying you're scum because you look town. That's a straw man as well.

5. Again, this is just analyzing scum motivations. There is literally no valid way to argue against this particular point. It's factually true that scum have motivation to fake something that makes them look town. And I do not believe that Ockham's Razor applies here at all.

6. Your analysis of the premises was bad and blatantly wrong. Also, show me where I contradicted myself with my defense and my pressure on you. It didn't happen. Gonna need to back up that statement.

P-edit: Flailing remembrance is a funny remembrance, referring to the "unvote me now" post. To all the other newbies in the game, this is why you always pressure everyone. Remembrance skirted by this game without a single vote. He brought up this point a while back, which is a large part of why I took another look at him and voted him to apply some pressure. Scum can easily make it through the game without doing anything suspicious if no-one bothers to try to pressure them.

[Rob14]

As a side note, where did Insanity go?

@MOD - Prod insanity please.

[Rob14]

Re: Remembrance's #929

1. Again, the anecdote is just something I gave out. I do that often as both alignments. It is not, nor has it ever been, the main argument.

2. I'm not using the Amished tell. Personally, I think it's kind of crap.

3. I'm not trying to refute anything, though. You are. You took my argument and ignored it in favor of refuting a different argument that is weaker. You're the one twisting things around, my friend.

4. 7of7. The only game I've ever lost on-site as either alignment was a town game where I was NK'd the first day. This argument is irrelevant.

5. But here's the thing. As I've stated, town wouldn't ISO themselves to look for some random posts that make them look town. That's not how town works. I've never seen town do that - ever. You pointed to "evidence" in how you developed a town read on yourself, basically. Town doesn't need to develop a read on themself. They already know they're town. They don't care if the look 100% town. They care about finding scum. Now, scum, on the other hand, very much pays attention to reads on them. They're trying to project as town so they care to look back at their posts and say "well, if I was in the shoes of the town, would I look like scum?" They try to make sure the answer to that is no. The fact that you pulled this evidence out of your ISO heavily suggests you already knew it was there (something you actually admitted to, since you said you only pulled the post number). This heavily suggests you put it their purposefully with the purpose of looking town because town-you would have no reason for you to remember and point out a post 350 posts ago where you flubbed up on your knowledge of the game. That's not something town would remember. Town doesn't read what they write and go "Hey! That makes me look town! Better remember that for later!" That's scum thinking. What I just did (and have been doing for the most part) is repeating my case on you because you keep going "OH NO I DIDNT" without actually refuting anything I've said. I'm done doing that. If you over a real defense, I'll respond to it. If you just go "SHUT UP IM NOT SCUM", then I'm no longer going to respond. I've got better things to do.

6. Okay? Your sixth point originally was just that you don't like my conclusion because you don't like my process of getting there, so I basically just reasserted that my points were valid and therefore my conclusion was valid. I don't know what more you expected in response.

Re:#933 - I already commented on you saying this, but I'll do it again. This argument from you was and remains a STRAW MAN. You looking back to get a post # isn't scummy. You paying extra attention to how you look and whether you're posting like town in order to remember that there was a post # to grab is scummy.

Re: #942 - I always assume in newbie games that the dead are still watching and can therefore still learn things from the game. The SEs and IC are essentially here to teach newbies how to play, so I try to point out things like this when I can no matter what the point in the game is.

Re: #946 - This is what I'm saying, basically (and I've said this in the past many times, so, you know...maybe start reading?)

1. Town has no reason to analyze their own posts for how town they look and remember which ones make them look good.
2. Remembrance analyzed his one post for how town he looked and remembered which one made him look good 350 posts later.
3. Ergo, Remembrance's actions are not town-motivated.
4. Ergo, Remembrance is not likely to be town.

[Rob14]

When reading your own posts over again, which I fully believe you that you did, were you analyzing them for whether or not they looked like town?

[Rob14]

That's not really what I asked. Asking yourself if you came off annoying is w/e and noticing that you fucked up some words is also w/e.

Basically, when you were writing #527 and #529, which is when you would have been reading them over and editing like you'd said, were you analyzing whether or not the posts would make you look like town? Did you basically say to yourself, "These posts look so town." or something to that effect?

[Rob14]

I realized its implication.

What implication was that?

[Rob14]

Hmm. Both Rem and insanity replaced out after coming under a little bit of pressure.

@ProHawk - Is that a scum tell or a noob tell? You probably have considerably more experience with newbie games than I do.

[Rob14]

The only thing I watch for is the Amished tell afterwards.

Um, why did you mention this right as replacements were incoming? Telling the replacements what you'll be looking for from their play seems counter-intuitive.

[Rob14]

The following post has no bearing on the game itself, but I feel the need to complicate the statement that ProHawk just made in case any newbies are still watching.

The vast majority of gambits are anti-town or, at best, high-risk high-reward. A gambit with the best intentions and a chance to easily out scum can go horribly wrong quickly and lead to terrible consequences, probably including the mislynch of the town member who performed the gambit and possibly the outing of town PRs (depending on the gambit).

Don't perform gambits until you're sure you know what you're doing and you have enough experience to fully explore and consider the potential consequences of your actions. It's not a good idea to rush head-first into a gambit because of a potential pay-off.

[Rob14]

^ The above post is doubly true if you're in a closed game, by the way, because you don't have the knowledge of the setup that would normally be required to fully analyze the risks inherent in a gambit you're considering performing.

[Rob14]

I maintain that I would make a great IC if I had the patience to wait out the queue. If the newbie queue is ever runs out of ICs, I will come to the rescue. Until then, I'll just replace into newbie games and pretend to be one.

[Rob14]

Meta is a weak tell, you should get over it Mr_Ree

No, it isn't. It's great.

Oh wait, I kept reading and Ree explained to you in detail why you are horribly wrong. Just go read that again.

Also, look at past newbie games I've played (after my one as a newbie, of course). I think there's one or two there. It's in my wiki. I always try to be helpful to newbies. I do it as town because more intelligent newbies makes for a stronger town. I do it as scum because it can manipulate town in a certain direction and make me look town. I also do it as both alignments to try to improve the newbies so that the quality of play on the site stays high. It's a null tell for me.

Ree ignoring PH's point about his contradiction does not look good to me at all. There's seemingly no support for a Remembrance lynch and Elmo may clear up any confusion about that slot, so I'll go back to my other scum-read:

Vote: Ree

L-1 iirc

[Rob14]

NS is invariably scum when he lurks heavily. Boom goes the dynamite.

(don't mod kill me please)

[Rob14]

I'll explain more about meta post-game, by the way, unless the validity of it comes into play here. I think the reason you think it's weak is because you're using/analyzing it wrong.

[Rob14]

What gambit?

[Rob14]

I would go with Rem/Elmo and Insanity/Rach probably. Insanity/Rach is more PoE than anything and he (similar to Rem/Elmo) has not gotten nearly enough pressure.

The more I think about Kuro the more I realize he is playing a lot like how I remember him as town, so I don't think he's likely scum. A lot of people have thrown his name around but not given a lot of reasoning. Anyone care to remedy that?

[Rob14]

If the consensus is me, then so be it. I'm not going to be ati town and go quietly though.

But you're totally okay with trying to get other people to do that in the form of 1v1s. Okay, seems legit.

[Rob14]

So why set up 1v1s if you don't expect anyone to follow them and won't follow them yourself? It's a show of doing something that scum wouldn't want to do without actually doing it. It's fairly transparently scum-motivated I think.

[Rob14]

Should we still Lynch Hawk if I flip town?

And herein lies the problem. Ignoring the fact that you assume away the whole "Ree is scum" thing, we reach this brick wall where you ask if we should still lynch Hark if you flip town. This suggests that there was once a time where we should have done this. That's not the case. Trying to 1v1 someone ever is anti-town because you can never be sure you're right, it encourages town to ignore info in the next day to quicklynch your 1v1 partner, and it gives extra info to scum. There's no reason to ever 1v1 someone.

Either way, this has been argued extensively and so I'm going to stop harping on it now.

Also, kuror nailed it in his last post. I was going to post more-or-less the same thing before I read his post. Ree is throwing around OMGUS with a slice of "1v1 me! If you're town, why not 1v1? FIGHT ME BRO" despite the fact that 1v1 is literally never the correct answer to anything.

[Rob14]

But that's not a 1v1, now is it? Putting focus on your scum-read is as simple as, when you've been lynched, saying "guys, I really think X is scum because of A, B, and C. once you know my alignment and know my argument is town-motivated, take a look. seriously. it'll pay off." Only fools don't consider the arguments of the deceased - they're the only arguments other than your own that you KNOW are town motivated.

Instead, you made a big show of trying to have someone officially agree to a 1v1 - not just one particular person, but anyone really - and, to be blunt, I think you did it because you thought town would believe scum wouldn't try to put themselves in a situation where their lynch becomes inevitable. If you thought your lynch was ALREADY inevitable, then that's the appropriate play to make as scum - you basically try to gambit your way out of a bad situation to be in as scum by pretending you're totally okay with the situation.

To sum up my argument:

Your stated goals don't necessitate the actions you took to reach those goals. The theatrics of your trying to find some random schmuck to 1v1 with were just that - theatrics. They read fake to me and I think they're scum-motivated because town can accomplish your stated goals in much easier and pro-town ways.

[Rob14]

In order, because I'm not going to put in the effort to dig through the quotes within quotes within quotes nonsense.

1. That doesn't address at all the fact that you have no motivation for saying what you did as town.

2. You cannot prove that Shaboo didn't post and then exit out of the window thinking no-one else had posted. YES, it redirects to your post. What does that matter? Do you expect everyone to scroll up after every post they make to check for posts above there's? It was obviously an honest mistake because Shaboo's posts where he said things to the effect of "So...now we just check people out and wait for someone to do something scummy?" clearly show that he had not read the thread. Why would scum make an elaborate ruse and post unrelated nonsense as if they had only read page 1 in order to later say "Oops! I didn't know how the site works"? How does that "gambit" benefit scum? These are all questions you never answered, which is why I think you were reaching with your cell phone stuff.

3. Nice dodging of this point. You never bothered to address my main accusation against you - that you

weren't

working any nulls and had shown no evidence of ever having done so.

4. You voted him and stayed on the wagon for a period of time when you thought that the wagon was opportunistic based on the reasons for voting him. Yes, you hopped off the wagon on this post. But you had been willing to hop on a (in your own words) opportunistic wagon earlier. That's what I took issue with.

5. The majority of the stuff you posted about up until #191 was about the cell phone. Fact.

#82 is moving a vote. I wouldn't call it scum-hunting.
#98 is not scum-hunting.
#114 points out a weakness in Bo's plays without pressuring him at all. The lack of pressure suggests you're not scum-hunting.
#181 was a crappy post attacking an ObvTown player because he was attacking a wagon that you yourself later stated largely developed for bad reasons. So a wagon that you thought was bad was being questioned by ProHawk, so you attack ProHawk. Yeah, seems legit.

6. You asked a leading question, which is by definition a question that can only be answered in a way that incriminated. If that's not "trying to get someone to say something scummy", I don't know what is.

7. Fair enough.

8. Again, it doesn't look genuine at all to me. It looks about as genuine as someone commenting at the beginning of a kill-less night: "Cool! No kills! Go town!"

9. Oops, my bad. It was a 7for7, not 7of7: http://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=7for7

You're basically telling me you purposefully run up a wagon on yourself (i.e. purposefully act scummy to get a wagon on you) in order to find scum. This is policy lynch worthy in all games for me. If you claim to be doing that, then there is no way to say ANYTHING you did was scummy, because you could just say "Oh, I did that intentionally to run up a wagon on myself. It's how I scum-hunt." This would make it impossible to tell if you're scum or not. Using that excuse for acting scummy will always get you a vote from me no matter what.

10. You told someone that they shouldn't be attacking you for your thought process because they agreed with your conclusion. That's scummy. The conclusion honestly doesn't matter at all and you should never be best buddies with someone in game because they have the same conclusion as you. You have to look for a town thought process (also known as town motivation) vs. scum thought process/motivation. The fact that you suggested at all that someone should not be looking at your thought process if they share your conclusion, which you absolutely did do in #401, is so so scummy.

11. Rationale AFTER you voted for him and AFTER someone called you out on a rationale-less vote. Yeah, I'm totally going to buy that.

12. Your #582 doesn't erase your #542. Your #542 said that you didn't like your reads, so you'd go with the majority. You tried to hold yourself unaccountable for your vote and place it in the hands of the majority. That's anti-town.

[Rob14]

Possible V/LA until power is restored if no-one is as big as they say it's going to be.

[Rob14]

1. My motivation for helping newbies is to improve the quality of play on site. I've already fully addressed this in a past post and said that I have motivation to help newbies as both town and scum. I'm not at all saying that me helping newbies learn the game makes me town. If anyone thinks it does, then they need to return to Mafia 101. Either way, these two things are not similar. You're questioning my motivation to help newbies. I'm questioning your motivation to stroke the egos of the newbies by saying you're going to treat them all as if they're very familiar with the game based on no real evidence of that. Huge, huge difference.

2. I can't prove that he wasn't lying, just like I can't prove that there isn't an invisible flying unicorn to my right at this moment. If you're going to harp on his phone for pages of the game, though, you have to prove he WAS lying. You simply can't do that. It's not even possible. And lol @ me "conceding" the point. I never said it didn't redirect. I think that's no evidence that someone new to the site noticed it redirected him to a new page and that he scrolled up after it redirected him to the bottom of the page where his post was. You're assuming in your argument multiple things. First, that he stuck around in the browser after hitting post. Second, that he scrolled up the page (and frankly, I never do this). Third, that he read the posts when he scrolled up (which I wouldn't do if I thought nothing new had been posted and that I had already read it all). That's crazy reaching. Speaking of conceding, though - you did concede that your argument was reaching, which is all I originally said about it, so...I guess we're done here?

3. Show me posts prior to post #141 where you were "working nulls". If you already did it, then I don't see it - your attempt to respond in-quote was almost impossible to read because I could hardly tell what you were trying to quote and what I originally quoted myself.

4. You skipped this point like a boss.

5. #82 was "Cub is scummy...it's gut...let's vote him". You didn't give any clear reason in that post other than a bastardized recounting of the Cub/Insanity interaction, which didn't accurately analyze what happened. Another 7for7 as well.

#98 you didn't even give a reason why Shaboo was scum. Yeah, totally good scum-hunting here. And I maintain that the cell phone thing was probably the stupidest reason for a vote I've ever seen on-site.

Skipping the rest because you have no good response....check. Also, you're analyzing my predecessor's scum-hunting (or lackthereof, in this case) instead of analyzing mine because I have been scum-hunting and you can't account for that in your argument. That's cool, though, because it makes it even easier for me to show other people why you're scum. You yourself said early in the game that people attacking Shaboo for his lurking/lack of content were being opportunistic. Guess what you're doing here...

6. You asked a leading question. Leading questions are scummy. --> FACT

7. I'm literally answering your bits of red text in order. You can't follow along with that?

8. I'll leave this up to the court of public opinion, but someone saying "oh no, my town read hasn't posted in a while. oh please do come back, Turtle!" doesn't sound genuine.

9. lol...so in every game you "let" yourself get a wagon, but you aren't doing anything scummy to get it there? Do you not see the flaw in that playstyle? You have to do something scummy to gain a wagon.

10. Uh...ok, let me back up a few points here. Remember when you sarcastically said "OH NO I NEVER LEARNED HOW TO SCUM HUNT"? I think you actually hit the nail on the head, based on this post. Do you seriously believe this?

The reads (conclusions) that players develop don't matter in terms of their alignment. Scum vote scum. It's called bussing. Town vote town. It's called mislynching. What matters, and what you use to scum-hunt, is the thought process behind the voting. If someone clearly details why they think someone is scummy and their reasoning makes sense and seems genuine, then they're likely town even if they got it wrong and mislynched. If someone half-asses reasoning for thinking someone is scummy and the reasoning doesn't seem like they're genuinely trying to find scum, then they're likely scum even if they "got it right" by lynching scum. The thought process is literally the only thing that matters. You have to evaluate the motivations behind the actions that people are doing, not the actions themselves. That's how you scumhunt.

11. Except you didn't present the rationale before you voted, so...

12. The transparent lack of scum-hunting is scummy, yes.

[Rob14]

Though it is true that scum rarely bus on D 1, it does happen. I have seen it happen. Not usually in a Newbie game, But Voided, Gunny, and I bussed the heck out of Gunny on D 1 in an Open Game (Less Pressure). I have been hard bussed in a few games by my scum partner as well, especially by Techno in a Newbie game, let me see if I can find the number. Was another one where I replaced in for NS.

I bussed Breakfast pretty hard in the Newbie game we were both in as well.

[Rob14]

What exactly have you done lately Hawk?

It sounded more like a horrible attempt to misrepresent me that was completely shot down than a great find. I guess you didn't investigate it yourself.

P-edit : from multiple newbie towntells, effort in scumhunting, an early townread from his predecessor and my defense coming from the Turtle/Rem/Elmo slot. It's more likely Rob/Kuror0 but leave the option open for insanity. If I'm wrong the nightkill will be coming from RachMarie but if you do end up lynching me today, one PR should target Rob and the other should target Kuror0.

Could you elaborate on the town-tells from Insanity? The more I think about that slot, the less I like it. I'm toying with the idea of a Ree/Insanity team.

[Rob14]

Thinking about teams is generally a bad idea until somebody flips. There'll be time to discuss associative tells tomorrow when we get a positive scum flip. For now it tends to be distracting to town to discuss conjectures.

I entirely agree and I make a point of keeping my scum-reads independent of one another until post-flip. When I say a Ree/Insanity team is possible, it's not because I think they've given associative tells. There are some there, but I haven't brought them up nor are they influencing my reads at the moment - they're just jotted down in my notes for the future. I think that Insanity and Ree are both scummy in their own rights, Ree much more so than Insanity.

[Rob14]

I'm not scum, so...

I believe Zepher's claim, so I've got to imagine this is a gambit of some type in the hopes of catching scum.

[Rob14]

I'm not scum, so this is the only possible explanation.

Vote: Zepher

Keep in mind this is MyLo. Scum-Zepher, if he pushes through a lynch during this day, wins.

[Rob14]

Vote: Rob13

[Rob14]

Grr, broke my undefeated scum record.

[Rob14]

Remembrance - there's something about your playstyle that I think you should change. I'd love to get other's opinions on this as well, but...

Whenever you feel you're close to a lynch or a breakthrough as town, you get extremely goofy. You make silly proposals, joke around a lot, etc. It comes off as very over-confident and overly sure of yourself. This came off, at least to me, a tad scummy. I had planned to eventually attack you with it if you made it with me to LyLo. I highly recommend that, even when you're leading a wagon, stay serious, focus on the game, and just worry about getting the lynch through. If you must, brag in end-game. Doing it before then is premature and will probably get you some attention once you head outside the newbie section of the site.

[Rob14]

Rach should have immediately voted me after Zepher gave his result. Other than that, there wasn't much I could do. We picked the wrong person to deliver the kill Night 2.

[Rob14]

EBWOP: we, not I

[Rob14]

Why did I start the Cat wagon? Because Cat was someone who I could tell would become ObvTown very quickly. He was ObvTown early. He fucked up in the middle. While the fuck up was still fresh in everyone's minds, I needed to get him lynched.

[Rob14]

That's the funny part though. I just read the scum QT. Between the quickhammer and my reads, I was probably the worst possible lynch for you two.

Had you kept defending me like insanity, I probably would have thought Rob/Kuror0. Your suspicion + Insanity's earlier vote on me made me look twice.

I wanted to push through your lynch and I wanted insanity to stay the fuck away from it, but Rach came in and decided to hop on (and with a quick-hammer, no less). Insanity's replace-out as soon as someone suggested a me/him team really ticked me off, to be honest, because this game was still winnable at that point.

Anyway, I think that if Insanity had stayed in the game and kept arguing against a Ree lynch, then I could have pushed that lynch through, I would have been lynched next, followed by Kuror for the win. I did some intense posturing to make Kuror look like my ObvPartner when I flipped. I was pushing through the Ree lynch with the goal of being lynched myself but using that to win the game in 3p LyLo, basically.

[Rob14]

Rob13 didn't see it coming so it worked, but town didn't understand your play early in the day and it lead to some of us to suspect you.

lolno

Ree didn't set a trap. He acted weird, bringing easy pressure, and then tried to say that anyone pressuring him was scummy. That's bad logic, because if Ree acts scummy, then BOTH town and scum will pressure him (as occurred in this game). I didn't lose this game because of Ree. I lost this game because of the jailkeep/investigation and replacements. I'm not saying I definitely would have won if those things didn't happen - far from it. But I certainly would have had a good chance to.

[Rob14]

No, he does mean me. He didn't realize what I did though. By fos'ing hawk and Rob, they both reacted as scum would and tried to turn the table on me. Early day 2, I hadn't voted yet and said something along the lines of "I'll give you a hint Rem, it's Hawk and/or Rob."

When I returned from my Vla, I was at L-1, scum was on my wagon (both in fact) and I had enough PoE to make the call. Thfore, you fell into my trap. Had you not voted me, I would have been stuck with a lot fewer reads and no clue where to go next. Look at insanity. I defended him because he defended me.

Don't downplay my efforts. I did call the team correctly by the end of the day. Both calls stemmed from votes on me. Exactly how I said I always play.

You called the team correctly because of a mistaken quickhammer, you realize, right? Bad luck on our part.

As for "turning the tables" on you, look at my early posts. I decided I was going to push you after Cat in Day 1 when I re-read the game and you looked awful. Stating that my vote and push on you was a reaction to something you did Day 2 is patently false. Further, I would have pushed you as town as well. You looked scummy in Day 1, hands down.