Open 566: Murder on the Oriental Express (Game Over)

[ChannelDelibird]

Mod: I don't need any extra time. Please don't add any.

I read the thread this afternoon when I noticed that there was a replacement request out. I can get more into all of my thoughts tomorrow (just about to go to bed right now) but will be plenty active before deadline and, crucially, Belisarius needs to be a world of dead.

VOTE: Belisarius, Lynch-1, claim and then die.

As I say, much fuller reads coming tomorrow but, in the meantime, my chief scumreads are Belisarius, Amy and acryon. I would also be willing to elect TobyLoby to actual, real-life political office and/or build statues thereto, such is the distance by which she is the towniest town around.

[ChannelDelibird]

Seriously this is scummy shit.

Nope. If you like, I can provide multiple examples of me declining deadline extensions (including upon replacing in) as town but - here's the funny part - not enough time to do it Today, I suspect.

If it's the fact that I've come in and immediately voted for Belisarius that bothers you, consider this: five people were voting for Belisarius when I arrived. They can't all be scum. You may not agree, but it is not at all unusual that somebody entering the game would also reach their conclusion.

Next: Why I reached that conclusion (and the others)!

[ChannelDelibird]

So let's talk about Belisarius.

In my experience, scum like to find something righteous to do; it helps them feel like they can point out that they were doing something "important" even if they weren't doing anything

useful

. The way that Belisarius makes a pronouncement of his vote here - without actually explaining why farside's behaviour is more likely to come from scum than town - suggests scum.

As early as page 8, his activity levels are a huge problem - and it undermines hugely the righteous belief that he portrayed as being part of his farside vote. This essentially never improves from that early point.

If Beli is scum, then that lack of activity will be something of which he's very much aware whenever he hangs around the thread. You can see that kind of nervous energy in this string of hurried double-posts, where it feels like he's just doubling down on his zaniness under pressure.

This Skelda vote is pretty bad, too. It lets Beli show that he's reading the thread but he doesn't talk at all about why he's swayed and utterly depersonalises his contribution to the mislynch.

His first post of Day 2 reads like someone who planned out his angle of attack in a QT overnight. While nightkill analysis is more useful than people realise, scum often expect people to draw stronger conclusions from kills than they normally do (this is the guilt talking). This reads very much like someone who thought that his scumteam's kill of Dry was clever and assumes that it would immediately lead suspicion to a 'good' player.

Everything else is just Belisarius making noise. There's no pro-town interest in stopping his lynch, only a hope that his projected disinterest will give some wagoners second thoughts. His only efforts to find scum come from blankly applying buzzword scumtells - I say 'tells', it's actually just one: 'white knighting' - to a couple of people who are not serious lynch candidates. So even if he gets a couple of people paranoid enough to back down from lynching him, they won't follow his non-cases onto CKD or farside and will instead contribute to a more hotly debated lynch - thereby once again reducing Belisarius's involvement in the town's decisions, allowing him to take the moral high ground if we mislynch again.

This is textbook scum. I've been this player, a long time ago. I've seen a lot of players display the exact same attitude. It's easier to play this game than to risk engaging and have to manufacture scumreads. It's massively more pro-scum than pro-town. He needs to be murdered.

[ChannelDelibird]

I also promised you some reads on other people so I'll talk about some of those here. I'm not going to go into extensive detail on these right away, though, as we are imminently facing a Belisarius lynch and then a (probable) nightkill, which could easily shake things up again. The above post should make it clear enough that I'm not pulling these reads out of nowhere so simply rest assured that I can and will talk more about why these reads are what they are Tomorrow if required.

Scumreads

acryon

- have been back and forth on this but acryon has now been playing both sides of every argument too strongly and for too long for me to be able to townread him. Seems happiest playing "devil's advocate" when we already have three such advocates anyway. Best case scenario, his obsession with mildness is badly damaging the town

Amy

- started badly with a self-vote and has not been impressive since. All the more concerning that everyone was so keen to say how town she looked - the phrase "universal townread" has been bandied about, dangerously - and so allow her to slip into not actually doing very much for the town. More than one moment where it looks like she already knows people's alignments, next to no contribution when it mattered in the back half of day 1, voting Belisarius Today but barely looking as if she cares about it and happy to let conversation be dominated by a competing Chaos wagon rather than refocus onto the vote that she supposedly regrets not being around to push through Yesterday. To say nothing of the ridiculous hoops she's jumped through today to base her Beli vote on an elaborate triple scumread before we even have any flips. Yes, this is the condensed version of this read. We will be revisiting this in a big way on Day 3

Townreads

Scrambles

- fairly town, mostly coming from Mr Blonde but, while Scrambles hasn't excited me at all, he hasn't undermined that leftover cred and gets points for standing firm on Belisarius for a long time.

farside22

- fought for her Hiraki read early as much as she needed to do make her point/defend herself but didn't overplay it, as scum might have done. I don't agree with a lot of what she says but has got genuine belief

CKD

- slight town, handled the pursuit of his Skelda wagon well

NakedJogger

- town enough for now, willing to be divergent but not damagingly so

Riddleton

- the slightest of townreads; I thought Ranon was OK while he was briefly here

RoyalApe

- eroded slightly by general inactivity Today but, while I had a scumping or two on Day 1, was on the whole very impressed by Ape's effort and critical thinking

TobyLoby

- just ridiculously obviously town. Became clear very early and then, while I was reading, I'd keep having a thought like "I don't understand why nobody's saying anything about Amy" and then Toby would suggest a wagon on Amy, and her evaluation of acryon recently has again been excellent

On the fence

Titus

- fuck knows. Very likely town if Amy is scum but we'll get a better picture Tomorrow when Titus properly settles in

[ChannelDelibird]

Lynch away.

[ChannelDelibird]

No worries. For future reference I always make effort to capitalise Tomorrow and Yesterday if I mean them in the sense of Day 1, Day 2.

I don't think the hammer is particularly scummy.

[ChannelDelibird]

@Channel: Why do you think Jogger voted you?

I think I could guess but I'd rather wait until Jogger answers the question first. Would like the answer to be in his own words.

Titus hammer isn't exactly scummy, since it was coming anyway. At the moment, it feels more misguided town to me, but I still don't get why he was so insistent on not actually giving his thoughts until other discussed, but then just naked hammered...

Again, can see reasons why Titus might do that but might as well see what she says about it - and, y'know, find out what the flip is, because that could have a bearing on what the hammer means for Titus.

[ChannelDelibird]

VOTE: Amy

More specifics tomorrow but definitely one of the most plausible Belisarius buddies plus the stuff I mentioned in passing Yesterday.

[ChannelDelibird]

Probably not going to have the time today to put up the full version of the reasons behind my Amy vote and would prefer that judgement largely be withheld until I can elucidate on Yesterday's bullet-points. Tomorrow will be busy as well (parental visit) but hopefully have time to do it then; Thursday if not.

In the meantime - yes, Titus, farside is obvtown. I also think that CKD is a reasonably unlikely Belibuddy and is not a good vote Today.

acryon - how do you reconcile suddenly deciding that my predecessor was a 'likely buddy' for Belisarius with your remarkthat my entry to the game (including huge case on Belisarius) was "super town"?

[ChannelDelibird]

Of course I will happily answer questions when I have time to do so, Riddleton; no intention of leaving the CKD read without backing it up. Just would rather get the read out there first and get you doing something more useful with your vote and then follow up with why when I am able to do so - want to get a post up collating everything I think we can draw from the Beli flip.

[ChannelDelibird]

Not wanting to draw conclusions from Belisarius after his scumflip is anti-town, full stop. Scum always tell us things, whether they mean to or not, and "slippery" players don't get lynched for blatantly not giving a shit about the town. Dead scum are the best resource at our disposal outside of role results.

[ChannelDelibird]

Personal principle - I always self hammer. Just putting that out there.

I am sitting here, slack-jawed, trying to comprehend any possible reason why you would have developed such a ridiculous personal tic, and coming up blank. Maybe, maybe, it's situationally relevant. As a blanket policy, it's playing against your wincon as

any

wincon and is against almost every mod's ruleset.

I'l address the rest when I have time but, I'm sorry, I have to objectively point out that this is

THE WORST THING

and you need to really, really rethink it.

[ChannelDelibird]

Man, I wish I'd made myself write up the full version of the Amy case during the night. This is a conversation that should be less fragmented than it currently is so I do apologise for you not having the properly elucidated points to which to respond. I really can't promise that it'll come before Thursday, though.

What I can definitely mention in the interim, though, is that self-votes are scummy. Here's everything you could ever need to know about why, and why I want it brought up in particular when so many people were widely townreading you in those early stages of the Day.

[ChannelDelibird]

I am inclined to explicitly call it scummy rather than anti-town because it benefits scum more than town but I am willing to concede that I may fall on the harsher side of that thin wall of wording in this case in part because others were using it as a reason for Amy to be town, which it was not. It is a pet peeve of mine. "RVS" is not an excuse; it is a denial of information.

[ChannelDelibird]

OK, let's get into details about why I think Amy is probably scum. This is the expanded version of my notes from time of replace in; I'll go over Amy's latest contributions next.

--

This post is oddly over-explainy for a non-newbie game, which leads me to suspect that Amy is more interested in presenting a squeaky-clean image than is normal for town.

Here Amy frames Belisarius's prime purpose as gaining "towncred", which doesn't sit right with me. If Belisarius is town, then his main purpose is to lynch scum, not to gain towncred. If Belisarius's purpose was to gain towncred for himself rather necessarily than get his target lynched, then that would be indicative of scum - but, although Amy is voting for Belisarius already, she's not addressing him like scum here. Town finding further proof of a scumread like this say to everyone else "hey, look, this guy's trying in vain to gain towncred!", not "this isn't the way to gain towncred, man". This reads like an awkward interaction between buddies, where Amy is leaving room for Belisarius to buck up his ideas.

This is an example of what I previously referred to as Amy appearing to already know people's alignments. It's an extremely spurious reason to townread somebody and feels much more like Amy trying to ingratiate herself with the town than it does like a really considered read.

I also think it's telling that absolutely nobody engages with this Toby post. It's a post that goes against the grain of most people's last stated Amy reads at the time, but nobody points out how random or strange it is? I think scum would be happier to just leave that alone and hope it goes away rather than either explicitly throw down a read or attempt to somehow act like they know why Toby is saying it.

So Amy comes in at the start of Day 2, all high and mighty about how it's a travesty that Skelda got lynched over Belisarius, it should have gone through, can't believe you didn't listen to me etc etc etc. But where was she to push it through? There were over three days between Amy's last post of Day 1 and the lynch scene. Worse than that, the last time that you could even generously say that Amy actively pushed to promote a Belisarius lynch was this - POST 99. Everybody gets busy sometimes, something which I certainly appreciate given my record, but I'm just not seeing the conviction in getting it done that Amy would have us believe was there all along.

This is the start of an absurd angle of attack that also bothers me about Amy. It is not at all healthy to be so absolute about lining up scumlynches before a single one of those reads has flipped, when god knows what happens in between Days to affect how you go. Scum are more likely to see the longer picture for lynches because they know that they have to get a certain amount of town players lynched before them in order to win.

Here's Amy not saying anything. I don't buy it when Amy says that she's happy for the discussion to be dominated by the Chaos wagon instead, because it's inconsistent with the tone of her post at the start of the Day decrying our failure to get Belisarius the day before and demanding that we put it right that day. It's yet another sign that Amy doesn't believe in the Belisarius lynch anywhere near as much as she would have us believe and is, IMO, a sign that you should be extremely wary when people encourage you to believe that I could be one of Belisarius's buddies.

[ChannelDelibird]

To briefly back up this point here...

Here Amy frames Belisarius's prime purpose as gaining "towncred", which doesn't sit right with me. If Belisarius is town, then his main purpose is to lynch scum, not to gain towncred. If Belisarius's purpose was to gain towncred for himself rather necessarily than get his target lynched, then that would be indicative of scum - but, although Amy is voting for Belisarius already, she's not addressing him like scum here. Town finding further proof of a scumread like this say to everyone else "hey, look, this guy's trying in vain to gain towncred!", not "this isn't the way to gain towncred, man". This reads like an awkward interaction between buddies, where Amy is leaving room for Belisarius to buck up his ideas.

... the fact that Amy accuses Belisarius of trying to gain towncred as scum betrays the fact that she believes that gaining towncred is one of the chief roles of scum. I think that helps explain why Amy eased off after a busy opening, because she had indeed become widely townread and was coasting on it.

[ChannelDelibird]

This is a great point from acryon which also points towards Amy being a Belibuddy.

The fact that Beli mentioned the rule of 3 on Amy's 543 is very interesting, especially reading back over it now. It's also interesting that he mentioned the rule of three, and then rather than voting the one person who is definitely scum in his scenario (Amy), he went for the 50/50 (in his spot) of CKD/Chaos. The fact that he didn't push for Amy in that situation is certainly suspicious.

[ChannelDelibird]

Is your conclusion that CKD is an unlikely Belibuddy, because of Beli's post condemning him? Personally, I don't understand that and if I was at L-1 as scum, I would condemn one of my partners to be 'lynched' for WiFOM purposes. It's also fairly standard for scum to always read one of their partners as scum 90% of the time.

Actually, the main post that makes me think that CKD is an unlikely Belisarius buddy is this one. If scum projecting disinterest is going to lazily sheep a mislynch vote, I think it's much more likely that they would do so with a vote instigated by a town player. It helps open up a potential backlash against CKD when Skelda comes up town.

[ChannelDelibird]

A quick question though, Do you think Beli would be the kind of scum to vote their teammate, or say that his teammate should be lynched at L-1?

I don't see any reason why not. At the very least, it's actually quite a rare scum who's not prepared to vote for a buddy at some point.

[ChannelDelibird]

OK, so Amy's first post Today is an odd one to read.

Personal principle - I always self hammer. Just putting that out there.

Amy later says that this part came about because she lost her head. But what I don't get is how that follows. What pro-town impulse, when combined with anger, leads to someone blurting out a 'personal principle' that we're now told isn't actually a personal principle? And what was it meant to achieve other than to maybe guilt someone out of voting for her? This just doesn't seem like a natural reaction at all, particularly given what we've been told about it after the fact.

Kudos to both Beli and one of CDB's posts for instantly making everyone vote for me. I'm not even going to bother right now because clearly I'm getting lynched. Yes I'm giving up, yes it's bad, but I completely lose it when people vote me when I'm town. WIFOM alert, but as scum I tend to actually play to my wincon in these situations and try to get the wagon off me.

Examples, please!

[ChannelDelibird]

complete disappearance

- lmao, in the nicest way possible fuck off with the complete disappearance. I didn't get prodded D1, so complete disappearance my ass.

Given the time between your last post of the Day and the end of the Day, "I didn't get prodded" is only really arguing the semantics.

Okay, right, let's try something rational.
First of all, let's take a look at the 'evidence' against me based off Belisarius's posts. Beli clearly knew he was going down at some point soon. That was certain. And he decided to bring people down with him. And I was the person he primarily wanted to do that to. So yes, I'm just pointing out that at some point Beli gave up on being mafia via survival and decided to drag people down with him. That was obvious, so don't play dumb.

This is not a fair representation of Belisarius's end-of-Day play. He went after CKD harder than he did you, no "primarily" about it.

[ChannelDelibird]

I'd also like to point out that it seems very odd that someone would "completely lose it" when people vote them as town. Multiple townies are usually mislynched every game. Does it suck? Yes, but it happens every game. It seems odd to have such a reaction to something that happens

all the time

.

Agreed, and it's an especially overblown reaction if Amy - as she claims - saw something like it coming as a result of Belisarius's end-of-Day play.

[ChannelDelibird]

The self vote was RVS and from the context one can see that. I don't like that bit, and I don't see why town would mention that.

RVS is a myth. Its use as an excuse benefits only scum. Scum's first vote can be extremely instructive because, unlike town players, they face a binary choice: do they vote for a buddy from the start or do they not? This means that it's really helpful to see who votes for whom right at the start of the game, and a self-vote then denies us that scumhunting tool. However, in this case, I happily admit that this is practically not as useful a scumtell as I would like due to widespread town ignorance on the issue; I included it because it's relevant in reminding people that off-handedly reading it as town is dangerous and might cause them to reconsider your Day 1 play as a result.

People's keenness to call me town wasn't something I can really affect, although I'm happy that some people read me correctly. I don't like the term 'universal townread' either, and I'm not claiming to be oh-so-town.

I agree, and I did not say that you could affect it or were proclaiming yourself super-town. My point is that, in being so widely townread despite what I saw as not-particularly-shiny behaviour all told, I suspect that scum were happy to promote such an opinion, which only benefits them if you are scum.

Although maybe my posting volume at RVS was a mistake, as people made the assumption that that was my normal posting volume. This right now is more like what I'd say is my posting volume. I didn't have much to do at the start of the game, but I'm a student, therefore at some point I got a bigger workload and my activity levels lapsed.

I certainly don't know enough about you to call bullshit on this. I can only weigh it against both the relationship between you and Beli and the other reads from the rest of your posts (even potentially ignoring lack of contribution towards the end of Day 1) and come to the conclusion that you're still more likely scum than town.

I wanted to push the vote, but I hope you'll agree that there wasn't much more I could say at that point, and constantly repeating myself would get obnoxious.

Town don't have to care about image; pushing points already made is important - if people haven't put enough stock into a good argument then either the argument hasn't been made properly and needs to be reiterated more clearly or it's being intentionally surpressed and therefore is something that bears repeating precisely because some people would rather that it were not. People who are more interested in the image projected by their posts than they are in seeing through a righteous lynch are more likely to be scum than town.

CKD has been slowly reducing in scumminess, although I'm not happy with that. I think I'm less inclined to scumread people who contribute a lot of non-fluff. But I'm still aware of the associative tell (or at least that's kind of how I interpreted it) and with Beli flipping scum, I'm going to point out that that's still out there.

OK, so you say your read on CKD has been wavered by the effort that he's putting into the game and getting content out there. How have my posts since replacing Chaos affected your overall view of my slot, if at all?

[ChannelDelibird]

Jesus, I'm sorry. I'm usually all about brevity and I fucking hate reading walls posted by other people. I think this would have been a more manageable read if I'd had time to get my full argument down at the start of the Day, so sorry for not being as organised there as I should have been.

[ChannelDelibird]

Amy, I apologise if I've stopped you from having fun in this game - please be assured that this is the last thing that I would want to do. I haven't at any point sought to personally offend you or argue against you for anything personal; my arguments (whether or not you see them as valid) are only related to your actions in this thread and how I feel they are likely to reflect on your alignment.

As I've said, I appreciate that my most recent sequence of posts is perhaps obnoxiously long, but this is a game of mafia, in which your actions are going to be subject to scrutiny. You say I'm "picking on you" and it absolutely isn't meant to be that at all; this is just me attempting to find scum and explain to people why I've come to those conclusions. If there is something specific that I've done that you feel has crossed a line in that regard, please let me know what it is and I shall be careful not to do it again - I really can't stress enough how much I don't want to be somebody who is taking the fun out of this game. Hell, I am totally willing to admit that I could be wrong about you (I'm wrong plenty often) but, for as long as I think your being scum is the most likely explanation for things that are happening in this thread, I will be arguing for your lynch.

[ChannelDelibird]

and while you are here playing "nice" CD...answer my question in regards to your case.

Don't worry, I did see them while I was previewing that post above. I am technically on shift right now and wouldn't have responded immediately if I hadn't thought it important to say the above quickly and clearly. It is quiet, though, so I should be able to get to them soon.

[ChannelDelibird]

Amy, could you please respond to 1009 in some way; I am hesitant to say much more until we have some sort of understanding on the subject.

[ChannelDelibird]

OK, well then I definitely don't understand why I'm being called names and I'd appreciate it if you took a little more time to think about your posts if that's going to be a regular thing.

[ChannelDelibird]

where does Amy indicate she knows alignments? I looked at that post...it isnt anything more than any one else did. Why that whole day was full of people saying such and such looks town.

I'm not really sure how to put it more clearly than I did in the post you quoted. The post that Amy townread did not stick out to me at all when I first read it and I didn't see why anybody would feel happy to draw any kind of alignment-related conclusions from it.

Think about it like this: When I'm scum, I always feel pressure to figure out who I'm going to target for a mislynch. It's hard for me to find town-looking angles of attack on players I know to be town because I always know that their posts are coming from a town mindset. It leaves me likely to townread most of the town apart from one or two mislynch targets and my own buddies. It's that perspective that I see as the most likely explanation for Amy suddenly townreading Snuggly for that post, because Amy doesn't explain why she thinks the post is more likely to come from town so I have no insight into her thought process other than the strange conclusion.

ummm, so snuggly/titus has not flipped, by saying that Amy knows alignments and here is proof, you are saying that Snuggly must be town. How do YOU know that Snuggly is town? IF Snuggly flips scum, then this point in your Amy case doesnt make any sense whats so ever. Care to explain?

This isn't me knowing that Titus is town, this is me now supposing that Titus is probably town because the explanation that makes most sense to me of Amy's post is that she's scum who knows Titus's alignment. Yes, it involves having a read on Titus as a result, but that very much comes from recognising what looks to me like a scum mindset from Amy.

Also lets say she was all high and mighty??...is that scummy? She was one of the first 2 people on the Bel wagon day 2...She had plenty of time to come off of it.

Being high and mighty about a scumlynch isn't scummy in a vacuum; my argument is that, given how little Amy seemed to actually push a Bel wagon, it felt unearned from her, like someone who would know that they should expect to gain some towncred when Bel eventually dies because they already know that Bel is scum.

[ChannelDelibird]

I will have another look at Amy's latest responses shortly, although my first impression is that it's a little "he said, she said" for it being useful for me to quote-wall all of it. A lot of her defences boil down to "that's just how I felt at the time so you're wrong" so mostly people are just going to have to judge which of us presents a more plausible explanation.

But I do want to get into some other reads a little bit. I'm pretty sure I have a massive blind-spot for players who get emotional, and I'm trying to parse out exactly what I'm feeling about the tone of Amy's latest posts - she seems somewhat emotionally inconsistent to me within short spaces of time but I can't really get a handle on whether or not that's because she's deliberately trying to use an emotional tone as a weapon or if it's a genuine reaction that I'm struggling to understand properly when it's put in text form.

In the meantime, I don't think acryon is scum with Amy. He's visibly taken my point from the end of Yesterday about being terminally mild to heart, but that might make sense for him as scum if I'm wrong about Amy. I wouldn't buy his approach Today if it were both of them, though.

[ChannelDelibird]

I take it that you disagree with wording/behavioural tells then? I saw (and still see) that (being a bit more open/wild) as town. If you want a comparison, then if snuggly's response to that was something involving an apology or something along those lines then I'd have scumread him.

Just because I don't see anything clear in your one post doesn't mean I "disagree with wording/behavioural tells". Behaviour is, of course, fundamentally what we're all doing here in some way. It's the fact that you didn't go into it at all beyond "I don't think scum would do this"; you didn't actually say what the tell was, just that it was a tell. So I'm still left wondering how you could possibly have reached a conclusion from the post in question.

Okay, imagine you were in my situation back then. What other reasons would you have provided for a Beli lynch? Or would you go the EpicMafia way and said 'lynch Beli' until people went with it? If you can propose an alternative solution to my situation then I'll take this bit seriously.

There's an in-between. You don't have to provide 'other reasons' just because it's been a while, but you can clearly and concisely restate the case, point out things about alternative cases that you don't like as much and compare to the Beli case to show why it's better, and generally badger a bit. All you had in that post, though, was a convoluted theory about three players being tied together despite none of them having yet flipped scum to give credence to the connections. It's at exactly this point, by the way, that you should have made the explanation that you've since made about you being busy towards the end of Day 1. Town should be very conscious of missing the deadline during a mislynch.

Having doubts at the moment, as I usually do in this situation, but my vote stays. Still think Belisarius points to Amy as a likely buddy and too many inconsistencies here that I can't quite reconcile from the perspective of Amy being town.

[ChannelDelibird]

I sort of see where Titus is coming from with the scrambles vote but it doesn't really excite me in any way and I don't completely buy into the original premise (that Belisarius was trying to chainsaw-defend scrambles with his initial farside vote; the odd crusading nature of that vote and the length for which he stuck to it make it much more likely that it was just Beli's chosen survival tactic for himself, IMO).

But it does bother me that there is not really a lot of discussion about possible alternatives to Amy so Titus is probably town for being the only person actually working on something proactively.

[ChannelDelibird]

I did provide reasons, though admittedly kind of naff. But I did not, in any way, make it completely reasonless. 'In this way' was explanatory enough in that post, and other people stated more in depth reasons, ergo making me going in-depth unnecessary. I don't need to write all my mental processes down, and I never have reads entirely based on gut.

"I don't think scum would do this" is a reason, but not one that actually has any depth. Someone who didn't get anything out of the original post is not going to understand it any better after reading that reason. You don't have to write down all your mental processes; you do need to back up your statements.

And if I apologised for my absence towards the end of day one then you'd have argued that I was 'overexplaining things' and 'trying my hardest to seem 'overly townish''.

No, that's bollocks and you have no reason to believe such.

I find your idea of Belisarius' flip pointing to me intriguing but very misguided. For quite a long time Beli was aware of the fact that he definitely wouldn't make it through the next few days. And like most scum at that point, he opted to take someone down with him.

You're not actually paying attention to the parts of the case that I feel best connect you and Belisarius - such as this, which deals with an exchange long before Belisarius's fate was sealed, and this which I think looks like an awkward buddy interaction as explained here.

I don't doubt that he could tell that his lynch was coming, but you're acting as if you're the only person with whom he interacted. He also pushed hard on CKD and farside right 'til the end and you could also argue that his interaction with my case also count as him attempting to raise questions over my alignment (indeed, I'd be interested to see what you think of a post like this given that you apparently believe that we are buddies. Is Beli "too experienced" to call a buddy his "top townread"?).

The fact that Belisarius is capable of one thing does not guarantee that he did one thing, and I also think that you are vastly overestimating the extent to which scum plan out webs of WIFOM to trigger in the event of their deaths.

[ChannelDelibird]

UNVOTE: Amy

Nonetheless, going to rethink. I want people to propose alternatives; even if I'm right, Belisarius had two buddies.

[ChannelDelibird]

I haven't read the longer posts on this page thoroughly yet but I'm now reasonably sure that acryon is my preferred lynch.

PEDIT: Increasingly sure.

[ChannelDelibird]

I haven't read the longer posts on this page thoroughly yet but I'm now reasonably sure that acryon is my preferred lynch.

PEDIT: Increasingly sure.

This strikes me as very odd. You certainly didn't have time to actually read the post I made, but somehow just that I made it increases your confidence of me being the best lynch. This pings.

I read the short post after it in preview, not the long one in full (though I scanned a couple of the points made therein). My post was one which I decided to make on my walk home about an hour ago; you just happened to be posting in the meantime.

[ChannelDelibird]

CKD, you're not reading my case properly. A huge part of my point was exactly that Amy was barely pushing the Belisarius case apart from here, which made the views claimed in that post incongruous with what I could read elsewhere.

[ChannelDelibird]

I also would join a Farside wagon too (sorry dear, people who say you and CD are scum keep dying)

You do realise that one of the people who said farside was scum was Belisarius, right? Do you think that his early push on farside, which was all about latching onto a wording issue as a quasi-policy lynch, is the sort of thing that buddies do? I absolutely don't. That's the sort of thing I try to push on a townie as scum in order to get a relatively blameless mislynch ("well, we all agreed the wording was definitely wrong...").

[ChannelDelibird]

That's a pretty null statement, GC.

Farside is pretty much the last person to start immediately after lynching scum!Belisarius, and I think that's reasonably obvious (particularly if CKD wants to talk about things that should be clear to people who have a lot of experience with this game).

[ChannelDelibird]

what case was she pushing more?

what case(s) has she really pushed all game?

Again, you are not understanding my point. My point is not that she was pushing other cases harder, it is that I did not think that a town player who believed in the Belisarius case as much as she claimed to be doing in such posts would have made such little effort to actually push the Beliarius wagon as she did.

I also want to point out that, if you are reading the thread properly, you will realise that right now I am merely defending the case that I made at the time, rather than using this post as an opportunity to further push for an Amy lynch. Right now I am starting to agree with Titus's concerns that the Amy wagon looks like one that scum are happy to see pushed, and I'm feeling like my attempts to push it have been doing more harm than good. I just want to be clear that I'm responding to your vote in order to make clear my thought processes at the time rather than revive the Amy wagon.

Do you think she was just trying to buy town creds buy voting Bel Day 2? Why not sit back and see if another wagon came along before voting?

I think that scum's preferred scenario is to look consistent (easy to defend) but achieve little. Amy voting Bel at the start of Day 2, given the context, and not doing much about it after that fulfilled those criteria.

NJ, just voted and did say much of anything else, NJ was town.

And if I'd had a problem with inconsistences in 'said and done' from NJ, I would have mentioned it.

So you really think/thought Amy is scum based "hugely" on that?

Yeah, I thought it was a pretty compelling point and I still think it fits a profile of Amy as a Belisarius buddy. That's just being mitigated now by an overall picture of the game's relationship to the Amy wagon.

[ChannelDelibird]

@CDB:

I don't understand what you're trying to say. (Not trying to be a dick, I really just don't understand.)

I may have misunderstood your post as well; I took the "counterpoint" thing to be you highlighting that farside post as a suggestion that it fits the profile of her as a Belisarius buddy. I was disagreeing with that interpretation. The paragraph below was a more general statement towards anyone currently suspicious of farside.

[ChannelDelibird]

you talking about the day 1 vote? what does that have to do with what I just posted? actually though...now you mention this.. I need to check something....

Well, you were suggesting that farside is scummy because people who have been nightkilled scumread her (I actually haven't checked what Dry-fit and NJ's takes on farside were since their deaths). My argument there was that that's not a compelling reason to believe that farside suspicion is why they were killed when Belisarius's Day 1 vote makes a much stronger case to support the notion that farside is not his buddy. It's good that you're questioning the nightkills, but both nightkills look much more like PR-hunting attempts to me than attempts to squash suspicion on certain players. Your mentioning to me in the Amy-related post above that NJ didn't say much of anything very loudly is also another reason why it doesn't seem like he was killed to keep him quiet - he was already quiet.

[ChannelDelibird]

I'm not a newbie either but I'm open about that fact on my Wiki. I don't understand why town-Amy would hide that fact, unless either a) she is scum; or b) she's just a rather educated newbie, as Titus claims.

I suppose that's why I initially voted for Amy, alongside CDB's case.

If Amy

were

lying about being new, I could see

c) Amy is a secret alt who does not want to be known to be such

as a plausible explanation - in fact, honestly, that was my read of her when I first started going through this thread. But I think scenario b) is also plausible. I just don't really see this as a line of inquiry that's likely to tell us much about her alignment.

[ChannelDelibird]

scrambles

: What do you think of acryon?

[ChannelDelibird]

scrambles

: What do you think of acryon?

I like acryon. What's wrong with him?

I'm just getting around to writing up my current thoughts on him in the middle of this explosion of posts. I was curious to hear your thoughts; preferably in a little more detail than that.

[ChannelDelibird]

Just sorting that acryon post at the moment but, for the sake of my sanity as I try to figure out this mess,

Amy

, I would appreciate it if you could respond to this:

Kudos to both Beli and one of CDB's posts for instantly making everyone vote for me. I'm not even going to bother right now because clearly I'm getting lynched. Yes I'm giving up, yes it's bad, but I completely lose it when people vote me when I'm town. WIFOM alert, but as scum I tend to actually play to my wincon in these situations and try to get the wagon off me.

Examples, please!

[ChannelDelibird]

OK. This is why I'm coming around to an acryon vote. CKD, consider this as a start to answering your question about 'who are the scum who wanted an Amy wagon to succeed?' in post 1147.

---

acryon spent the first couple of days straddling the fence

hard

. Since I called him out on it, he's shown that he does have teeth. While that's a good thing if he's town, I'm feeling uneasy again. He was one of the first ones to encourage me about the Amy case and has been one of its strongest supporters since I started advocating for her lynch. So I'm worried that he's getting involved because he thinks that I wouldn't complain about him finding his conviction during a mislynch if I was the one driving that mislynch along with him. You do have to wonder where this acryon was for the first two Days now that he's much more up for the fight here. Honestly, I usually find that indecisive town stay indecisive, even when called on it.

---

I'm going back over his iso now to look at his relationship with Beli and go over more specific issues with his more recent posts:

Supports Belisarius's flimsy farside crusade in the early days before Belisarius makes himself unsupportable and then gets noncommittal about it when the farside vote "doesn't give us what we'd have wanted out of it". It's a bit awkward.

In his defence, though, this needs a little reconciling if acryon is a Belibuddy; if he voted for Skelda it probably would have sealed the mislynch earlier. And he gives the Belivote some conviction at the start of Day 2 - if this is a bus, then it's a pretty good one.

Mainly the thing that is pushing me towards a vote for acryon beyond general paranoia around his relationship to the Amy wagon is his push on Titus at the moment. Posts like this and this don't feel like posts that are seriously considering whether or not Titus is approaching this game from a town or scum mindset, they're just dismissive because of their format. The sarcasm isn't great here. It's prematurely dismissive and the way he says "do you have anything concrete to bring to the town" like he's the elected governor of the Town Relevance Commission deciding what is and what isn't admissible really rubs me up the wrong way.

And then there's this, which is just ... man, it's just ridiculously overrighteous. "What kind of person calls somebody town for no reason?" It's like it's meant to be read by a hammy Shakespearean actor. There are, like, loads of people who do that as town.

His Titus case is all about her image, cookie-cutter statements that sound worthy ('no town would ever post a read without immediately backing it up; that would be [gasp]

anti-town

!') but aren't actually applied to how actual players approach the game of mafia. CKD, if you think abandoning the Amy wagon is scummy from me, I think it's worse that acryon has found this thing to latch onto while not saying anything about the fact that he's left the Amy wagon to push it. At least I'm talking through my relationship to the Amy wagon; acryon hasn't mentioned whether or not he thinks that Titus and Amy are buddies together. He hasn't said anything about Amy's alignment during this despite the fact that Amy is one of the players whom Titus has been calling town, which is supposedly behaviour that bugs him.

---

VOTE: acryon

[ChannelDelibird]

Sorry, Amy, I think you've misunderstood what I was asking for. You mentioned that you have a history of responding a certain way as scum ("I actually try to play for my wincon in these situations rather than getting mad a town") and I'd like for you to point me to some examples of your history that back up that statement.

[ChannelDelibird]

Scrambles, who are your scumreads? Seems like you ave a lot.

[ChannelDelibird]

There are, like, loads of people who do that as town.

Not as much as she has.

Wrong.

Again, I never said there was an absolute rule, but it has always been about the

pattern

. Scum are never defined by one anti-town action, but patterns instead.

I have absolutely no reason to believe that Titus is more likely to display this pattern of behaviour as scum than town.

[ChannelDelibird]

Scrambles, I ask because this is the most recent post of yours that I can find on an iso-scan declaring your list of scumreads (though acknowledging that you've since moved me to null-pending); let me know if I'm missing one. But now you're accusing Riddleton of "deliberately distorting content". So is Riddleton on your scumlist now? What does that mean for Titus and CKD?

[ChannelDelibird]

Feel free to point me to any player in this game who has posted as many naked town-reads as she has.

A sample size of 'in this game' means nothing; you're saying that no town player goes around playing like that. If true, that would be a universal thing, and I'm saying that I see loads of players on this site with similar approaches - including Titus.

[ChannelDelibird]

Everything is within the context of a game; you can't try to exclude that. In the game we are in, no one has done it nearly as much as her, and given the rest of her posting history, her numerous naked reads are especially bad.

'Within the context of this game'

does not matter

. You are alleging that no town player would do this; that is an argument pertaining to a player's overall approach to participation in a game, which means that it is necessarily a universal argument, that could be applied in any given game, not just this one. 'She's doing Thing X more so than everyone else in this game'

is not the same

as 'She's more likely to do Thing X as scum than town'.

[ChannelDelibird]

@CDB: Let's flip the script then. Why do you think she is town?

My argument is not that she's town, it's that you are not presenting a single good reason why she is more likely to be scum than town. I am arguing that the things that she is doing that you are calling scummy are in fact pretty damn null.

However, separately to that, I am leaning town on Titus mainly because I actually think it's relatively easy to figure out the thought processes behind her stated reads if you actually consider them. I've also already mentioned that, if Amy were to flip scum, I would think it more likely that Titus would be town in that scenario, though that's beside the current point.

[ChannelDelibird]

@CDB:

OK. This is why I'm coming around to an acryon vote. CKD, consider this as a start to answering your question about 'who are the scum who wanted an Amy wagon to succeed?' in post 1147.

Eh? Only CDB, farside, and Riddle were on the Amy-wagon (per Post 1036).

Huh. I'd actually not realised that acryon had never voted for Amy. I had simply assumed that from posts like this and this that he must have been, as well as reactions like this and this to Amy's emotional blowup.

[ChannelDelibird]

Scrambles, I ask because this is the most recent post of yours that I can find on an iso-scan declaring your list of scumreads (though acknowledging that you've since moved me to null-pending); let me know if I'm missing one. But now you're accusing Riddleton of "deliberately distorting content". So is

Riddleton on your scumlist now?

What does that mean for Titus and CKD?

Yeah that was only four hours ago. Someone doesn't just switch slots over one post.

So you think he was "deliberately distorting content" but is not scummy?

[ChannelDelibird]

So you think he was "deliberately distorting content" but is not scummy?

Did I say that?

http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 9#p6278039

[ChannelDelibird]

MOD: Could we have a prod on TobyLoby, please?

[ChannelDelibird]

Grats, you know how to link posts.
Again, did I say that?

This is a really annoying shtick to be using here. You clearly implied that he was doing so, so if it was a joke could you please just fucking say as much and let me drop one of the many lines of inquiry that I am currently trying to juggle coherently?

[ChannelDelibird]

Stop saying "overall approach." Her naked reads this game have nothing to do with an approach; the vast majority of her posting is fluffy reads without reason. That's not an approach; that's scum trying to appear active and involved, but ultimately offering nothing.

You can't pick and choose wording on this: If Titus is posting a lot of reads without immediately going into the reasons behind them in this game, then that is her approach to this town, be it from town or scum.

CDB - Are you trying to tell me that posting without actual substance with such repetition like Titus has isn't a scum-tell on any level?

I don't think the substance is particularly hard to find but, for the sake of argument: Yes, I don't think that Titus's approach to posting votes and reads in this game is something that she is more likely to do as scum than town.

Really? Go ahead and explain some of those for me then.

A small handful of those about which you have complained:

"Conftown" a clear exaggeration (if you're seriously arguing that she used it 100% literally then you really need to step back and consider what you're doing) based on an obvious hypothesis that scum!CDB would not have backed down from the Amy vote at that point. I'm not endorsing such a view, I'm simply saying that it's pretty obvious from the most basic reading of subtext that that is the meaning here.

Declares farside is town. First opportunity to do so since Beliarius flipped scum, a flip which really obviously implies that farside is town, as I've already said. While I would have said as much, I am not surprised to see someone simply state the read and move on.

Declares scumreads on scrambles and acryon. Failure to go into why suggests that she wants to see if they sweat about it (if she's town and they're scum then they are more likely to get antsy about it). You can see from posts like this that Titus is interested in your reaction to her calling you scum.

And another point, completely separate to this aspect of your Titus case, is the fact that there's no reason to see Titus's hammer on Belisarius as scum trying to shut down Toby talking if Toby didn't die overnight.

---

acryon, please take a deep breath and consider this: Unless I am scum (and your posts previous to this argument of ours, as well as this, imply that you do not think that I am), then I do not have a reason to lie to you when I tell you that this sort of behaviour strikes me as within reasonable expectations for both Titus as an individual and for a not-insignificant portion of players generally on mafiascum. I have played with Titus before.

If you are town, then it is worth your while to seriously consider that I may know what I am talking about here.

[ChannelDelibird]

Edit for clarity:

then that is her approach to this

game

, be it from town or scum.

[ChannelDelibird]

But I think it's also worthwhile for you to consider the fact that you could be wrong. I am considering everything you're saying; it would be stupid not to. But I'm also not convinced yet. At this point, I still think she is scum.

I've literally said that I could be wrong*, it's just that you're not presenting anything that stands out to me as any kind of real reason to think her scummy beyond generic complaints about her approach, which I think is pretty untenable for reasons stated, and your continued defence of it with nonsensical arguments like this perplex me to the extent that I think it more likely that you are scum than that you are open-minded town.

*My argument is that you are attacking behaviour which is not alignment-indicative, rather than that you are attacking behaviour which is strictly more likely to come from town than scum.

[ChannelDelibird]

Also, given the length of the argument that acryon and I are having about the specifics of his Titus case, I just want to restate the below parts of my initial vote post so that they do not get lost.

Spoiler:

Originally posted here. I have snipped out the part of my objection to his Titus case that has been most discussed recently.

acryon spent the first couple of days straddling the fence

hard

. Since I called him out on it, he's shown that he does have teeth. While that's a good thing if he's town, I'm feeling uneasy again. He was one of the first ones to encourage me about the Amy case and has been one of its strongest supporters since I started advocating for her lynch. So I'm worried that he's getting involved because he thinks that I wouldn't complain about him finding his conviction during a mislynch if I was the one driving that mislynch along with him. You do have to wonder where this acryon was for the first two Days now that he's much more up for the fight here. Honestly, I usually find that indecisive town stay indecisive, even when called on it.

Supports Belisarius's flimsy farside crusade in the early days before Belisarius makes himself unsupportable and then gets noncommittal about it when the farside vote "doesn't give us what we'd have wanted out of it". It's a bit awkward.

In his defence, though, this needs a little reconciling if acryon is a Belibuddy; if he voted for Skelda it probably would have sealed the mislynch earlier. And he gives the Belivote some conviction at the start of Day 2 - if this is a bus, then it's a pretty good one.

Mainly the thing that is pushing me towards a vote for acryon beyond general paranoia around his relationship to the Amy wagon is his push on Titus at the moment. Posts like this and this don't feel like posts that are seriously considering whether or not Titus is approaching this game from a town or scum mindset, they're just dismissive because of their format. The sarcasm isn't great here. It's prematurely dismissive and the way he says "do you have anything concrete to bring to the town" like he's the elected governor of the Town Relevance Commission deciding what is and what isn't admissible really rubs me up the wrong way.

And then there's this, which is just ... man, it's just ridiculously overrighteous. "What kind of person calls somebody town for no reason?" It's like it's meant to be read by a hammy Shakespearean actor. There are, like, loads of people who do that as town.

CKD, if you think abandoning the Amy wagon is scummy from me, I think it's worse that acryon has found this thing to latch onto while not saying anything about the fact that he's left the Amy wagon to push it. At least I'm talking through my relationship to the Amy wagon; acryon hasn't mentioned whether or not he thinks that Titus and Amy are buddies together. He hasn't said anything about Amy's alignment during this despite the fact that Amy is one of the players whom Titus has been calling town, which is supposedly behaviour that bugs him.

acryon, you quoted the first part of this GC post and responded to it, but not the second paragraph. Both he and I have now asked questions about your relationship to the Amy wagon (mine quoted in the spoiler here). Please could you answer them?

[ChannelDelibird]

Semantic objection granted.

I don't believe it's a case of liking your argument or not, I believe that I have explained objectively why said argument is invalid.

[ChannelDelibird]

I don't believe it's a case of liking your argument or not, I believe that I have explained objectively why said argument is invalid.

Invalid based on your experience with mafia/Titus.

No, not the anecdotal part of it. I'm talking about this post right here.

You argued that, on the context of this game, Titus doing what she was doing to a greater extent than anyone else in this game made her scummy. It is this argument that I believe has been explicitly debunked in the linked post.

Jesus, this game is so tiring. And it's really the worst possible time for Toby, who is pretty much at the top of my town list, to have not posted anywhere on site for five days.

[ChannelDelibird]

As for CDB, who replaced into the slot, I think his case on Amy was uninspiring. The fact that he walked away from that case, even though he failed to justify

why

he was backing away (I noted this back in Post 1087) does not look good. It's a town thing to say "hey, I'm not sure about my case, I recognize that it's not perfect, etc." CDB, on the other hand, backed away from his AFF case in Post 1046 even though he appeared to be still all about his AFF suspicions in Post 1045, and his justification for the unvote was simply because he wanted to hear alternatives (which doesn't require an unvote). Feels too manufactured.

Apologies for not making this clearer but, as I believe that I already alluded to while CKD was questioning me a couple of pages ago, a lot of my recent posting re: Amy has been as much about clarifying my thought process and showing that I'm not just pulling something out of my arse as it has been about mining every possible reason why Amy might be scum.

I'm someone who gets caught up in an argument and will keep going and going until my point is completely understood and am prone to falling into the trap of starting out making an argument about a person to convince other people to think as I do but ending up arguing at that person as if they can be convinced that I am right and they are scum (which, obviously, neither alignment would do, but that doesn't stop it being a natural impulse). You link post 1045 there but in that post, that's just me arguing because I need to argue, because the point hasn't been conceded, because I'm not being understood. Post 1046 is all about the fact that I'm realising that I may have lost sight of what I actually wanted to achieve, because in 1045 the things that I'm quoting from Amy aren't themselves more likely to come from scum than town.

And while that was happening I was becoming aware of the fact that my pushing of the Amy wagon had rather become the only thing happening at that point in the Day, something on which I've touched in my discussions of acryon last night. Amy's continued willingness to put up a fight to me, even if I was unsatisfied with what she was saying, was getting me paranoid, and if nothing else was being pushed then I became concerned that this was in fact a wagon that scum were happy to let me drive to completion. This is why I said that I wanted people to suggest alternatives; I wanted to force such scum to push something else, if that was indeed what was happening.

As for my current position on Amy, so that I'm clear about it: I'm currently conflicted. I still believe in much of what I said about her as good reasons to find a player scummy, but her continuing reaction to it has been so bizarre that I am finding it hard to get a read on her as a person, and that sort of thing creates room for mistakes. That, coupled with the feeling that I was being encouraged to push her lynch with nothing else happening, starts suggesting to me that I might have mistakenly opened up an avenue for a mislynch, and for now I am willing to give that reading of the game as a whole more credence than I am my reading of a player who is clearly somewhat alien to me. So I guess that, for now, I am operating under the assumption that she is probably town.

[ChannelDelibird]

I haven't got time to make or fully read a big post at the moment (at work) but I can already tell you that I won't be going into detail on my predecessor. I do not have anything that he left over for me to read of his thoughts and I cannot speak to how he thinks. All you would get from me is an attempt to read a player whose alignment I already know and in whose being defended I have a vested interest. You're going to have to make your own conclusions about the two of us though, for what it's worth, I can confirm that our slot is town.

[ChannelDelibird]

Yeah, I'm all for paying proper attention to predecessors and obviously I'm aware that Chaos is widely seen as having incriminated himself so you should certainly keep his actions in mind. Such is the burden of the replacement.

[ChannelDelibird]

Gonna look to sit down and make some decisions this evening. People whom I'm pretty sure that I don't want to lynch Today are farside, CKD, Titus, GC, Amy and Toby so that does helpfully narrow things down but I need to have a better look at the case on scrambles.

[ChannelDelibird]

Well, right now, it's you, that's why my vote is on you - but yes that is the main question I intend to answer when I do that whole sit-down thing that I literally just said that I would do (and if it's not obvious by now from my previous posts in this game that I would attempt to answer that question before moving towards a lynch then I dunno, man).

Riddleton is more of someone that I just haven't had much of a significant read on at any point during this game yet and so have not written him off as a townread whom I don't want to lynch. So I'll have to take a closer look at him.

[ChannelDelibird]

Titus has been in my focus a little more than Riddleton because of first the thing in my Amy case involving her slot and then my issues with your case on her. Didn't get much from Riddleton on my initial read-through and have been mostly focusing on other people since then. Maybe I'll end up concluding that he is, in fact, clearly town.

[ChannelDelibird]

Hope you get a good break, farside!

Mod: Could we get a deadline extension please, given farside's V/LA and the replacement hunt for Toby?

I wouldn't normally ask for one but I don't really want my top two townreads unable to vote in the run-up to deadline.

Currently 'working on' sorting out my views on the three I haven't sorted yet in as much as I keep getting distracted by stuff.

[ChannelDelibird]

acryon, I'm just going over stuff at the moment but, if you've considered at all the interactions between Titus and Belisarius as part of your case, I can't find it in your iso. Do you have anything which you feel points to them as likely buddies specifically?

[ChannelDelibird]

acryon in brief:

Non-committal in the extreme on Days 1 and 2, picked up when I pointed out as much - his greater investment in Doing Something has resulted in vocal support (but no actual vote) on Amy wagon and now the Titus wagon.

That Titus wagon is built on fundamentally flawed reasoning - it's along the same lines as Beli's vote on farside from way back in as much as it's proclaiming "behaviour X is not good for the town! Righteously, I thee vote!", which is a kind of case that scum prefer because it can be portrayed as objectively helpful even if not successful - and does not consider her relationship to the flipped scum in any visible way.

Those are the main things. To that I would add this: I don't really understand how we got from "Amy is my biggest scum-read" BEFORE her massive blow-up in reaction to her wagon, which acryon found scummier than most, to the point now where he is "not confident enough" on her alignment to consider a vote for her, given that acryon had not substantively discussed Amy for around 200 posts in between. His whole conduct around that Amy wagon, supporting it with everything apart from an oddly missing vote to completely failing to address it during its crumble, is scummy.

Conclusion: Scum.

---

Scrambles:

First things first, I'm properly reading over GC's case in 1060 for the first time and I have a lot of time for the way it's put together. I don't agree with everything in it (some of the Blonde c) parts, for instance) but it asks a lot of questions worth asking. The Beli connections look pretty good for both players to have occupied the slot. As of the end of the post, I am sold.

Scrambles's response to it isn't great. First he does exactly the thing that Beli did after I replaced in and voted for him, which is compliment the case "even though it's wrong". Then he just defuses it without explaining himself and complains that he wasn't asked direct questions, as if that somehow makes it impossible for him to engage.

Conclusion: Scum.

---

Riddleton's basically fine; not bothering here Today. Ordinarily I'd go into detail but I'd rather go to bed.

Either one of the two is a good lynch for me Today, and we may not need that deadline extension after all. This game seems a lot clearer than it did a few hours ago.

UNVOTE: acryon
VOTE: Scrambles

[ChannelDelibird]

acryon/Scrambles

[ChannelDelibird]

Going to be busy for a day or so. Some access but no long posts.

[ChannelDelibird]

Gut reaction is that I find scrambles's above interesting and pause-worthy but not exonerating. Will expand later tonight if I get work done promptly or tomorrow if not.

[ChannelDelibird]

Kalimar, I strongly disagree that weighing "the cost-benefit of a double bus on Day 1" is an actual thought process that occurs to scum during play. In my experience, "what is the best way for me to look town" is always the trumping instinct.

Anyway, I promised something for yesterday and didn't deliver. Apologies; I let myself waste the whole day. Not really that switched on for the game today either, I must confess, but going to have a look over Scrambles's stuff again and offer a more complete explanation of my reaction to it.

There's a very strong chance that I'll be without access at deadline so today might be my last chance to get a big contribution in before the lynch so I'll be as thorough as I can.

[ChannelDelibird]

I would maybe be willing to cede some ground if scum in this game had daytalk but, according to the sample PMs, they don't - so I'm going to go with the clear conclusion from years of both playing as and watching scum.

[ChannelDelibird]

I think being in constant contact with scum partners would be more likely to promote strategic monitoring of how closely each other's votes are linked. All I can tell you is that, when I'm scum with no daytalk, I'm just trying to make sure that my vote is plausibly where it would be as town - and, if I were town, I wouldn't be paying a blind bit of attention to how my partners are voting. Sometimes you just gotta vote your partner to stay blended in. That's my thought process and it's one for which I've searched in others to a good degree of scumhunting success.

I won't go on about it any more - it's anecdotal evidence on both sides, to be sure, but your interest is a little more vested here than mine so it feels pretty unproductive. People can probably make up their own minds.

[ChannelDelibird]

Ugh. OK. Scrambles's stuff is a bit of a mess because of the presentation (though I completely understand the need to rush, it's kind of hard to parse in its haste and disconnection from the posts to which it is responding). Let me know if I've missed details - not that this is supposed to be particularly long.

These are the main things I got from it:

-Scrambles's self-analysis regarding how he gets lynches done, things like "it's not about who says what, it's about who has the conviction to move on it", is consistent with things he's said before and I wouldn't be at all surprised if it genuinely is how he sees things. His explanation of his relationship with Belisarius, which GC rightly points out looks suspect, boils down to this sort of thing. But this philosophy is inherently blustery and difficult to read because it's pretty impossible to hold such views to account - and it isn't something that would be harder to keep up as scum than town because, as Scrambles admits, it's so arbitrary. So the fact that he's probably telling the truth about this philosophy doesn't make his actions in this game more likely to come from town than scum.

-Scrambles still doesn't seem to understand what Titus (and others, but Titus particularly) have been meaning when they ask about his other site and previous experience. He seems to have taken personally people's confusion over his statements of experience because things that are implicit for him are not obvious to us (primarily, he doesn't seem to have grasped that people could genuinely have believed that he meant 'I've only finished one game before' when he said 'I just finished a game' when his meaning was 'I just finished a game [but I have played several before it]'). This frustration is not in any way scummy; it's completely natural to unconsciously assume that people are inferring the same things as you. His reaction to it is genuine, but not alignment-related, and I would be wary of anyone focusing on that rather than more relevant things like his relationship to Belisarius. With Titus specifically, he seems to have taken her enquiries about exactly where he was playing as her suggesting that she would be thoroughly meta-ing him, whereas I was inclined to read that as her making sure that he could actually back up his unintentionally confusing statements regarding experience. That it's part of a scumread from him on her is something that I actually understand and have a slight town-read from in a vacuum, though I certainly don't disbelieve that scum would see a 'genuine' inconsistency from a town player and look to push it.

I've already posted it

Oh, and this post was directed at the one directly above it, wherein CDB asked for my scumreads and said "seem's like you have a lot".
Yet if someone was actually scumhunting me, shouldn't they know that I only have two? What kind of scumhunting is that, to point out such a meta-tell that isn't even based in fact. It's not. It's simply moving with momentum. It's fake.

This is a change from when you previously thought that I was "just confused about it". When did you change your mind on my motivations here, and why?

---

Overall, I remain unmoved by Scrambles's response. I don't think the effort is more likely to come from town than scum, nor do I particularly buy that the whole 'I was sort of hoping I'd just been lynched' is alignment-indicative either (clearly there are style differences between him and most of the rest of us in this game and I think they would manifest in pretty much the same way regardless of role). I think GC paints a pretty clear picture of a scum player who didn't quite know how to handle his partner and nothing that Scrambles has said in reply truly challenges that as the most likely explanation for what we've seen; being merely plausible isn't enough for that.

I really want to hear why GC in particular was led to unvote, but a word from farside on why she felt it looks more likely town than scum would be welcome as well. Honestly, assuming you give Scrambles enough credit to at least make the effort as scum, I'm not exactly sure what you would have expected to see done differently in some of those posts.

[ChannelDelibird]

V/LA: Friday evening (BST) through to Sunday.

With that in mind, and the fact that I'm on a couple of votes and being mentioned by a couple more people as plausible backup should we not end up lynching Scrambles Today, I'm going to have a think throughout this evening and make sure that any stray opinions are down on record and would simply ask that they not be forgotten if I'm not here for Day 4.

[ChannelDelibird]

Thing No.1 (i.e. the only one that really springs to mind right now but, who knows, there might be more later): @CKD

CKD, as I've said before, I think it's very good that you're looking at nightkills but I want to state again my strong belief that you have drawn the wrong conclusion. I don't think that the main thing implied by the kills is that scum are trying to silence people who suspect farside.

That is not impossible, but I think the fact that farside was the target of Belisarius's supposedly righteous vote early in this game is a strong point in favour of her not being a buddy, thereby making such a nightkill reasoning less likely.

You are ignoring what seems to me the most important part of the nightkill analysis - that Dry-Fit flipped Jailkeeper. I actually do intend to have a look at his suspicions now that I'm writing this but the fact remains that the scum picked out a power role on Night 1. It could have been a good catch or it could have just been a lucky guess from scum following the template of 'kill someone suspected by few people and, if they're quiet-ish, maybe they're a PR'.

But the fact that they found a PR on Night 1

strongly

suggests to me that NakedJogger was killed because he fit a similar pattern (kinda quiet, not much suspicion). Given that NJ wasn't putting an awful lot of pressure on anyone in thread (suspected farside? sure, but not pushing on it that hard compared to others' cases), it seems obvious to me that scum were applying a previously successful formula for killing power roles to their nightkill.

[ChannelDelibird]

1 & 2) Sure. But in literally my last post I noted that this was something I wanted to say so that it was there in case of my dying (in which case I would flip town and this concern would no longer exist). I am willing to accept that you may not take this as seriously as I think is necessary while I am alive.

3) You're missing the point. The point isn't that the scum were brilliant PR hunters on Night 1! It's that once they got proof of what one PR in this game looked like, it stands to reason that they would be attracted to the idea of killing someone with similar traits in the hopes that they would get lucky a second time.

[ChannelDelibird]

I honestly don't see how anyone could have interpreted 962 from scrambles as "I've only finished one game", but that's not my main point.

Not at all? Seriously? All I can say to that is "pfft".

I looked at that game, and scrambles did talk more than once about his history on other sites including phrases like "I've just played enough to know [x]" and when he came up with the name of Titus' hydra in this game, Titus just completely ignored that part of the conversation. Doesn't seem odd that in that game, Titus/her hydra seemed to have no problem with his claims of playing many times, but in this game, she all of a sudden cares?

In fairness, said Scrambles post did happen just before the thread exploded into a clusterfuck and I can understand it getting a bit lost, but I do think that this is interesting and would like to hear Titus talk about it a bit more or point to where it was addressed previously if I missed it.

Here's a question right back at you, using your own phrasing: Honestly, assuming you gives scrambles enough credit to at least make the effort as town, I'm not exactly sure what you would have expected to see done differently in some of those posts.

Nothing, particularly, and that's exactly my point. All that's there is the effort, which is null, and the fact that he probably believes in his approach to the game, which is null.

[ChannelDelibird]

Thing No.2

Should I die, still think acryon, my original vote of the pair, should be the bigger priority to get next.

[ChannelDelibird]

Hmm. Originally the first paragraph of my post re: Scrambles was two which I attempted to cut down for brevity's sake. Seems like I might have oversimplified and lost something in the process.

I think that a lot of Scrambles's defence is based on waving things away as his playstyle. In the case of his mysteriously changing opinion of Belisarius, I feel that you originally presented that as a pretty good case implying that Scrambles didn't know how best to react to his scumpartner - that being the best explanation of the changes of reasoning behind reads, the strange distribution of posts relating to Belisarius, etc. Scrambles has since replied that his reads changed because of "vibes", basically, and while I think that's probably what he'd say as town, based on what we've seen, it's also what scum who didn't have a better explanation would say. Just because his reaction here is null, that doesn't make the original behaviour less suspicious, especially when we can't take what he's saying now about it and apply that to evidence of how he was thinking at the time - not just because there wasn't much (he was away) but because, when your response to anything is "the vibes did it in between", there's just nothing to compare.

What do you think of the fact that I pointed out a new mysterious change of interpretation from him, regarding my questioning of his Riddleton read?

PEDIT: That point from Riddleton there only makes it more likely that we've got a "this is how I am, just go with it" defence from Scrambles because there's not a lot else that he can say in the circumstances.

[ChannelDelibird]

Or maybe I don't disagree, because I'm not actually sure what you're saying with the "this is how I am" comment. But I'm explaining why I think Riddle's observation is important for me.

Yeah, I think I could have expressed this better (the perils of quick reactions in PEDIT). My point is that it makes it more likely that all the "this is how I am" stuff is just what he thinks is the most likely thing to get suspicion off him, even though I think we're agreed that it's at least built on some likely truths about how he plays generally.

[ChannelDelibird]

Re: 1452, it's possible that I've confused what are supposed to be two points as one, but they really feel like part of the same thing, because 1228 is Scrambles's last word on my questioning there and seems to accept that I'm confused about the state of his scumreads rather than having been simply asking as a means to look like like I'm scumhunting rather than actually trying, as he implies in 1381. It seems extremely difficult to separate those two aspects of my line of enquiry and, if they

were

meant to be separate, why didn't Scrambles object more at the time? Hard not to think that he puts it that way now because I'm one of his counterwagons.

[ChannelDelibird]

Scrambles, you can assume that posts you've made since other people's points were made will be read; 1458 is pretty much spam. Sorry but pet peeve, especially when there are multiquotes involved. Just makes the game more annoying to read.

[ChannelDelibird]

This got weird. All I'm really interested in saying is that this PR thing isn't one of the things about Scrambles that makes him look scummy. Players with this viewpoint exist. They are wrong (and I'd be happy to get into why - well, just a little - after the game) but they exist, and getting sidetracked by this is a bad idea. It's an extension of the playstyle thing, and that part is pretty null.

His Belisarius connections are more relevant. His change in stance on me is more relevant (and this post does not answer it in a way that makes any sense to me; I can barely see it actually addressing the crux of the issue). Scrambles, as of post 1228, either you felt that I was trying to gang up on you ("A") or you felt that I was genuinely confused and trying to understand you ("B"). At the time, you said that it was B. As of post 1381 and 1465, you are claiming that it was, in fact, A. I repeat: When did your interpretation change, and why?

[ChannelDelibird]

Goddammit. Something about this game is not right. If acryon and Scrambles are the scum, then they're sitting here through all this with both votes parked on Titus and getting zero fucking traction on her lynch. Seriously. It's obviously not happening. Meanwhile, I am a much more plausible peripheral lynch. Both Scrambles and acryon are in positions where they could have made a move right now and probably would have if the scum's chosen wagon wasn't getting anywhere.

I think there's a good chance that I'm wrong about one of them (probably not both but baby steps, I guess). And if I have to choose a preferred lynch out of the pair of them, I think acryon is the likelier to flip scum and potentially offers a treasure trove of information towards better breaking this game open if we get a scum flip from him.

I really want to follow farside onto the acryon vote but I won't do it unless I can count on it being a useful vote while I'm V/LA at deadline. Amy has expressed suspicion of acryon but I have no idea if she'll ever move off her vote on me, despite not having reevaluated it for ages (and can I just say that it bugs me that she hasn't done that in a game this confusing and clusterfucky; even if she came to the same conclusions in the end, I've already had to stop and reconsider things just as I'm doing now a bunch of times in this game. Yes, when it comes to questioning my townreads you can bet I'm getting paranoid about her again while once again her contributions are back to the very fringe of the game). If you're amenable to an acryon vote, Amy, please let me know. That goes for anyone on the fence, too.

I doubt that I'm going to have time to write anything long again between now and my departure but I'll post what bits I can between now and then.

[ChannelDelibird]

This game gives me headaches. A flip is desperately needed but I definitely don't have time to figure all this shit out before deadline. In the circumstances, my vote is probably going to be staying on Scrambles, even though acryon's is the alignment that I most desperately want to know.

[ChannelDelibird]

Well, I'd be lying if I said I was confident by the time I left things Yesterday that Scrambles would flip scum but it does helpfully reassure me that I'm not being a complete idiot. That said, if the worst comes to the worst we do at least have time for anyone who can't get over Chaos to get it out of your systems. Rather not, though.

Need to look over Belisarius and Scrambles again but the flips don't make me

not

want to start with a thorough look at acryon again, even bearing in mind my crisis of confidence Yesterday.

[ChannelDelibird]

Phoneposting

You definitely didn't look anywhere near hard enough, farside

http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 0#p6305080 here is me getting paranoid end of Yesterday for the same reason you brought up just now - scrambles and acyron both sitting on that dead-end Titus vote rather than push me as a more viable alternative.

[ChannelDelibird]

Back from trip. Am going through Day 1 to pick out all interactions involving flipped scum to see what we can glean. Might take longer than I have time to read&post this evening but up tomorrow if not.

[ChannelDelibird]

Mod: v/la till Tuesday 10/28

If I told you the number of times I have attacked a scum player just to see them lurk like a fiend while people fought or lurk in general in hopes someone else would do something scummy I think I would be physically ill to my stomach at how often it occurs.

You're better than this, GC.

[ChannelDelibird]

I've mismanaged my day a little bit and had it mismanaged for me somewhat so I haven't had time to read the last page in any kind of detail, but I'm not going to be touching either farside or GC Today as two of the players with the strongest indicators of not being buddies to flipped scum (to Belisarius and scrambles, respectively). And there's nothing y'all can do about it, so there.

That Day 1 reread

will

be finished tomorrow.

[ChannelDelibird]

OK. I reread Day 1 and looked at interactions between and involving flipped scum (reason I went for Day 1 is because it's the time when scum have to feel their way into the game the most; I typically find it a particularly instructive Day to examine in most games).

One thing to get out of the way is that there is

no interaction

between

Riddleton

's slot (Astinus -> Ranon) and either of the flipped scum. Though the activity and replacement is part of it, this gives me a townlean on Riddleton as, if he were scum, one of his buddies would likely have been sufficiently conscious of his absence to at least mention that he needed to post more or similar.

Spoiler: Amy

Interaction rates match Amy's activity level - fairly frequent at the start of the Day, almost nonexistent in the latter half of it as she posts less. Scum are happy to leave her alone while nobody scumreads her.

Amy's first non-self vote is a vote on Mr Blonde made without explanation, to which Blonde responds: "Shall we dance?" Amy never explains why she voted Blonde, and Blonde never pushes it beyond his original question. Could definitely be a scumbuddy interaction.

Amy asks Belisarius to tone down the sarcasm (he soon refuses) and votes him a minute later for using tone to put others down and being on an 'easy' farside wagon. Amy pushes that again in 97 but, as I talked about on Day 3, doesn't do anything about it for the rest of Day 1, though her vote at least stays in place. Townpoints for Amy for identifying the shitness of Belisarius's approach and vote, an extra point for sticking to her guns, minus points for not pushing it harder, comes out as null-to-slight-town. (I'm still not wild about that part where she talks about Belisarius not getting any towncred for it but that's not so much of an interaction issue)

Mr Blonde tries to get some reads-swapping going with Amy and asks if she has any scumreads other than Belisarius (she says Chaos). Nothing revealing either way, really.

The only other relevant interaction for the rest of Day 1 is scrambles coming in and immediately townreading Amy for her very early play, which is probably a point in Amy's favour (scum are slightly more likely to make such a quick pronouncement about a town player for credibility purposes).

Overall:

Some good and some bad. Certainly not enough to rule out Amy as a plausible buddy.

Spoiler: Titus

Snuggly votes Blonde for "false bravado", something for which Blonde belittles Snuggly hard, which begins a pattern of patronising and buddying (part two) on Blonde's part that lasts until he is replaced. He criticises Snuggly for the vagueness of his "something makes me think he's mafia" even though Snuggly said what that something is in the following post. Then you have this post from Snuggly where it's like he's looking up at Blonde while he's analysing him, which I think looks like a very unlikely tone to strike for a buddy.

Belisarius and scrambles both ignore the Titus slot.

Overall:

Titus is not a scumbuddy.

Spoiler: farside

Most of this is obvious so I'll be brief. Belisarius pushing farside for faux-righteous bullshit (y'know, part of the reason why we lynched him) is still a super-unlikely thing to do to a scumbuddy because the attraction of attacking somebody for a reason like that is because it's a way to make a mislynch look legitimate. That push is near-enough the only actual contribution that Belisarius makes to the game.

But hey, he wasn't even the first to push it. Blonde pushes a proto-version of the same case just before Belisarius does and he continues to leave himself a lot of wiggle-room in his treatment of farside, giving himself outs for saying how he could sort of see where she's coming from if town while still continuing to find new ways to poke and prod her and justify a vote there.

The

only

thing on Day 1 that makes farside look plausible as a buddy is her inclusion in Blonde's list of five null-scum reads, three of which are confirmed town and one of which I know to be town (Chaos). Ordinarily I would subscribe to the theory that scum would include a scumbuddy in such a list but I don't think that is anywhere near enough to contradict the obviousness of the interactions listed above.

Overall:

DON'T BE RIDICULOUS. Farside is clearly town.

Spoiler: acryon

acryon backs up Blonde early in the day but doesn't address Belisarius in a large-ish post concerning the whole Day up to that point. Blonde lists him as a top townread. acryon uses Blonde's vote for Chaos as the catalyst for acryon to join the wagon as well. Before Blonde is replaced, their whole interaction is cooperative and mutually townreading, without much in the way of directly addressing each other. Definitely plausible buddies.

After scrambles replaces Blonde, acryon engages him here purely on a theoretical level, which is less of a risk than more specific reads-based issues. The pair don't have any further direct interactions of note.

With Belisarius, acryon backs him up early on re: the farside bullshit. Looks reluctant when he feels like he has to vote Beli to get a lynch going. But correctly calls out Belisarius on probably lurking the thread rather than simply being unavailable, which is a minor townping. When push came to shove, voted Skelda over Belisarius.

When posting a reads list on the majority of players, has Belisarius as scum and scrambles as null - the classic position that scum often get into with their buddies.

Overall:

Not a slam dunk but definitely plausible as a buddy.

Spoiler: GC

Not much here, although RoyalApe posts a silly vote on Blonde that I don't think makes much sense as a buddy interaction as it draws attention to itself through its sheer inanity. A RoyalApe who was buddies with Blonde would be more likely to just say something generic about catching up, I think.

Blonde has a bland response to it, and RoyalApe later townreads Blonde. Nothing interesting here.

Overall:

Slightly less likely to be a buddy but, as we know, the most telling arguments against GC being a scrambles buddy are from Day 3.

Spoiler: CKD

I'm not a huge fan of cerberus calling Belisarius kind-of scummy but saying that "scum don't like to break silence like that" in an argument not unlike 'too scummy to be scum', as he declares a scumread but wants other votes pursued instead. Definitely a plausible buddy interaction.

Blonde kind of softballs cerberus on the Toby thing here but it's a slight ping, at most.

In the period after his initial replace-in, there's very little comment from CKD on either Belisarius or scrambles. His first interaction with them is here, where he has a go at scrambles for voting Beli over Chaos. It's fairly strong for a buddy interaction, really, especially as he continues to push it, though the fact that he defends Belisarius at the same time is maybe interesting. If CKD is the buddy, then he's putting his interactions with both partners in the spotlight more than I'd expect, but pushing one and defending the other isn't an unusual dynamic in that regard. Scrambles accuses him of "bullying", which I'm honestly not sure how to read so am going to call null.

Overall:

Some pings both ways, plausible but I'm not really convinced either way.

I'm pretty happy to call Riddleton town so I'm left with Amy, acryon and CKD as plausible buddies. I think I'd prefer acryon to go first and we can figure out the rest of the order later if we have to.

VOTE: acryon

[ChannelDelibird]

I will try to contain my shock.

First things first, there is only one scum left in the game. Therefore it is literally impossible for you to be so simultaneously convinced that both Titus and I are scum. If you believe in your Titus case as strongly as you claim to do, then it does not make sense for you to be so sure that I am scum. Meanwhile, if you were town, on Lynch-2 with at least one player having expressed an interest on lynching you as one of our three remaining shots to nail the last scum, this would be the

last

time that you would want to abandon your Titus case. Given that there's a good chance that you'll die soon, the strongest advocate for your Titus case would die with you. This is when you have to continue to push it, not go in hard on another player. There's a pro-scum reason to do that (give impression of pro-town conviction by being active in trying to find the last scum, actually try to lynch player who might be more likely to gain traction than Titus) but not a pro-town one (abandon top scum suspect to allow everyone to continue to write her off as town).

-CDB then comes in looking town by voting Beli right off the bat, and provides a case to back it up.

I apologise.

-Post initial reads including scrambles as town. Here is an interesting piece. One of his primary reasons for town-reading scrambles is that he has kept firm on Beli for so long. Now this wouldn’t be suspicious if this read had come

after

the flip, because of course scrambles would get town-points for being firm on someone for so long that then flipped scum. But at this point, he hadn’t, so why is CDB giving him town-cred for it before the rest of us knew Beli’s alignment?

While I'll happily note that "compliments Scrambles for being so steadfast on Beli vote" is something for which I would probably suspect me too if I were looking for buddy interactions, it is important to point out that Belisarius's alignment was FUCKING OBVIOUS. Seriously, that was one of the easier votes I've had to make in a long time.

-In 1101, after not saying a word about me for a long time, he is now “increasingly sure” that I am scum. I already called out how this was odd right after he posted it, and it still strikes me so. To me, this transition from Amy to me was CDB hedging and planning for the future. He knew he had generated a decent bit of traction on an Amy-scum wagon, but wanted to make sure he had a future wagon set up as well, so he switches to me.

This is not an accurate representation of that post. It's obvious from my PEDIT that I was coming in to say that I was "reasonably sure" that you were my preferred lynch and then I explained here what about that ninjapost of yours made me bump up my suspicion in PEDIT.

My suspicion on you was not new at that point. I brought it up as soon as I replaced in, at exactly the same time that I first mentioned what bothered me about Amy. If I had been nefariously planning to set up a future wagon on you as well as Amy, then I had no need to switch to you at that point because I would already have had the necessary groundwork laid. And, given that the tone of my switch to you was "I am really creeped out by his relationship to the Amy wagon", I can't be pushing both of you at the same time because that suspicion is based on the notion that Amy is town.

-He proceeds to never mention me again until 1140

Post where I say acryon is my preferred lynch: #1101, 4.59pm on Tuesday (I'll generously give you the extra 15 minutes from #1101 rather than #1104)
Post #1140: 6.52pm on Tuesday
Elapsed time: 1 hour, 53 minutes
Time in between: Thread explodes, I'm caught up responding to CKD, GC and Riddleton about my Amy case
Time of full post on why I'm voting acryon: 7.30pm

Conclusion: Your insinuation that I was hiding from you or whatever this quote is meant to imply is unfair at best, disingenuous and wilfully manipulative at worst.

where he asks

scrambles

what he thinks of me. This seems like a great opportunity to distance himself from scrambles by having scrambles disagree with him.

How am I supposed to know whether or not scrambles would disagree with me? It's a completely open-ended question. You think we spent the night colluding to create an idea whereupon I would push Amy strongly, then get cold feet and turn towards acryon instead, so that I could randomly give him an opportunity to disagree with me to distance ourselves from each other when either of us at some point gets lynched? Bearing in mind that YOU THINK TITUS IS THE SCUM, why is that a more likely explanation than "I was trying to develop my read on scrambles"?

I think anyone that is town should look hard at my case on Titus and try to say that it would come from scum. I gain no benefit as scum by continuing to push on an unpopular case that is clearly not gaining traction. I think CDB is a much better player as town than to really think that my Titus-case was coming from scum.

Your case only became "an unpopular case that is clearly not gaining traction" after you made it and threw what you had at it. At the time, you weren't deliberately making an unpopular case (or at least I assume that your intention is not to explicitly confess to striving for apparently well-meaning irrelevance, though feel free to save us some time).

And, once again, I'll point out that I actually gave you some of the benefit of the doubt about that case - consider my appeal to you here. If all you had done was make that Titus case, I might not have voted for you. But the uneasiness on it didn't go well with my other stated reasons, especially when you refused to back down on it despite what I still believe are really strong points that flat-out contradicted your premises.

-1207 has CDB responding to GC pointing out that I never actually voted for Amy, which was another part of his argument. Nevertheless he accepts his wrongness, but his vote still remains on me. Good thing no one pressed the issue.

I will grant that I didn't spell this out as clearly as I thought I had, so let's do so now: this post in which I accept that you did not vote for Amy, just cheered on the wagon from the sidelines a lot, might have contained an unvote if I thought that the latter was a less suspicious activity than the former. In fact, it really only deepened my feeling that I was being egged on because it made your relationship to the Amy wagon weirder.

1327 shows CDB turning on scrambles when it is clear the town had begun to turn on scrambles. He gets in at #3 on the wagon, a perfect spot for scum.

A town player genuinely trying to figure out my alignment with interactions like this should be weighing it against a post like this in which I am practically begging for an excuse to get off the scrambles wagon. How does that fit into your 'trying to hop on for towncred' narrative?

[ChannelDelibird]

First things first, there is only one scum left in the game. Therefore it is literally impossible for you to be so simultaneously convinced that both Titus and I are scum. If you believe in your Titus case as strongly as you claim to do, then it does not make sense for you to be so sure that I am scum. Meanwhile, if you were town, on Lynch-2 with at least one player having expressed an interest on lynching you as one of our three remaining shots to nail the last scum, this would be the

last

time that you would want to abandon your Titus case. Given that there's a good chance that you'll die soon, the strongest advocate for your Titus case would die with you. This is when you have to continue to push it, not go in hard on another player. There's a pro-scum reason to do that (give impression of pro-town conviction by being active in trying to find the last scum, actually try to lynch player who might be more likely to gain traction than Titus) but not a pro-town one (abandon top scum suspect to allow everyone to continue to write her off as town).

I mean, picture the scene: We lynch you, you flip town. Next day, who do you think the town would need more help to lynch: I, who have been a semi-permanent contender for the chop thanks to various people's suspicions of Chaos, or Titus, who was pushed exclusively Yesterday by you and a dead scumbag? You have really betrayed your priorities here, and it's not to ensure that we lynch scum. It's to make a last-chance push to get the wagon off you.

[ChannelDelibird]

Filtering out parts of the above post to which I could only respond "lol OK".

Obviously no one is condemning anyone for acting town, but in the context of this game, you came in at a very convenient spot that allowed you avoid controversy and look really town.

So it's scummy to

replace in

? OK. What was I supposed to do, wait until the game went to night and then PM Baezu? Or claim not to notice that Belisarius was scum? Seriously, what's the alternative? I cannot believe that you think this is in any way something that makes me more likely to be scum than town (null, maybe, at worst).

I'll concede that it was unfair, and I didn't realize it was such a short actual time in between them.

So how does that affect your read? How important was this to your case? Any evidence that you're actually thinking critically about this?

I already explained the Titus situation above. In terms of scrambles, just a couple hours before your question he

said

he thought I was probably town. It doesn't take a genius to recognize what the answer to that question of yours was going to be, and what kind of effect it would create.

As pointed out here, I came into the game that evening skim-reading and wanting to talk about acryon. I hadn't been paying much attention to scrambles as I did skim through (he wasn't a player I was currently scumreading) so I missed the relevant post. I could have gone back to check what his most recent statement on you was but, given that I was busy with the aforementioned bunch of shit exploding in the thread, I found it quicker and easier to just ask him directly about it. Is "I was trying to set up an opportunity to disagree with scrambles (for a hypothetical benefit that isn't actually obvious to me anyway)" really a more likely explanation than "I didn't currently know what he thought of you and wanted to talk about you rather than continue to retread the Amy stuff with CKD et al"?

I knew I was making a case that may seem like a stretch to a lot of people, and when I have made similar cases in the past in other games, they similarly didn't gain traction. So I had an idea that it may be unpopular, but I believed in it all the same.

You've not responded to my pointing out that I gave you some of the benefit of the doubt on that case. Only responding to parts of things that people ask is becoming a habit, not just in this post but in the whole game.

You should know that weird != scummy.

And you should know that weird != not scummy. Weird = not with an immediately obvious explanation. Weird = mysterious. Something needing to be solved. Finding something weird is not the point at which one unvotes.

I'm sorry but that post is just another example that looks like a scum-team cooked it up in a lab to gain town-cred. It fits it perfectly.

Then why didn't you say as much in your case just now?

Also, I didn't want to have to do this now, as I'm obviously dying tonight now, but I think we are getting too far off, I'm

town doc

.

Not unvoting until we get a counterclaim, if there is one.

I am not the doc.

[ChannelDelibird]

EBWOP

So how does that affect your read? How important was this to your case?

Any evidence that you're actually thinking critically about this?

I meant to remove the bolding before posting; don't think it's completely appropriate.

[ChannelDelibird]

lol, scum claiming doc is autodeath at this point in the game, so unvote UNTIL there is a counterclaim


You're not helping yourself look good in this interaction with acryon, CDB.

Fair point, I suppose. UNVOTE: acryon Just getting carried away with my top scum suspect making a ridiculous case on me.

[ChannelDelibird]

Then why didn't you say as much in your case just now?

Did I need to? Some things are better left for you to explain. If I explain my views on every single thing you have done, you have time to prepare a perfect answer for all of them.

I'm sorry, this just doesn't make any sense. I'm not likely to explain something that nobody mentions. If you thought a post was good evidence making me more likely to be scum than town, you should have included it in what was clearly supposed to be a pretty exhaustive list of the reasons why I might be scum.

If you actually are the doctor then, just... man. I really, really, really, really, really don't understand how you have ended up believing all the things that you claim to have believed in this game.

[ChannelDelibird]

As to where I go next, assuming there's no counterclaim (God, please, somebody counterclaim), it's kind of a toss-up between CKD and Amy, as I've previously indicated. I won't be voting for Titus, farside, Riddleton or GC. I'm not particularly enthused enough to really have a priority of one over the other but I guess CKD would probably be the first port of call.

[ChannelDelibird]

Titus, acryon has claimed doctor.

[ChannelDelibird]

Doctor plus Jailkeep really? OP circle. Just no.

the fuck? This is an open setup! Are you doubting that we have a doctor?

[ChannelDelibird]

Well, someone might still counterclaim, true, but I don't expect them to. It would be a suicidal play for acryon to fakeclaim doc because we have too many lynches left not to expose him if he is lying.

So unvote him and figure out what the next move is.

[ChannelDelibird]

They should CC. It is an open setup. Only one scum left. A CC is autowin for town. So just do it already.

THEREFORE SCUM WOULD NOT FAKECLAIM DOCTOR

THEREFORE ACRYON IS TOWN

THEREFORE UNVOTE

Confirmation bias can only extend so far.

[ChannelDelibird]

Look, I was in that position yesterday. I empathise with you that acryon is hard to believe as town. But it is downright anti-town for you to continue to push acryon as scum in this situation. If he has been a gigantic idiot, then

we will find out soon enough

, but the pro-town thing to do is to assume that he is telling the truth and work towards finding the real scum.

[ChannelDelibird]

Any situation by which acryon lies about being the doctor would end Today with his lynch. You are being ridiculous.

[ChannelDelibird]

VOTE: CKD

I think this is a very slightly better place to start than Amy, although Amy's continual lack of activity does rub me up the wrong way. I definitely won't be voting for either farside or Titus Today so that farside wagon needs to stop being a thing.

Limited Access: Friday 31st to Monday 3rd

. I won't be completely absent but I will be very busy. I'll be keeping up as best as I can, though.

[ChannelDelibird]

Better place to start as in a lynch? Because we still have 5 days left. How about we talk through some things?

Well, sure, although I'm not exactly saying "I guess now we lynch CKD with no further discussion whatsoever". However,

a) as I just pointed out, I'm going to have limited access for a few days so want to be sure that my vote is out there and that a wagon can be built on it while I'm busy
b) I'm not open to lynching farside or Titus, or indeed either of the other two people who currently have votes
c) With only one scum left and this many players alive, we don't have to debate everything completely into the ground anyway

[ChannelDelibird]

But it's not like my CKD vote, for instance, has come out of a vacuum. I'm not the only one to have made posts narrowing down the people for whom I'm willing to vote. You were at the top of a lot of them; now people are moving one down the list.

[ChannelDelibird]

The thing about GC being town from Day 3 is the obvious clarity between the two; I don't believe that GC is a Scrambles buddy based on the extent to which he torpedoed Scrambles into a star Yesterday.

[ChannelDelibird]

But said post Today pointed out that GC had reasons for being town based on Day 3. I don't understand what the confusion is.

[ChannelDelibird]

That post does not exist in a vacuum! It's a single piece of analysis that I did to help separate out suspects from what I already had. I'm sure that I've said previously to that post why I think GC is town, and I acknowledged within it that there are reasons outside of that one post why GC is town. I explained why the GC slot's Day 1 was not the reason why he is town because I feel it's important to acknowledge that my conclusion about his alignment wasn't drawn from that one Day. But I do feel he is town for reasons previously stated.

CKD does not have those big, shiny redeeming features elsewhere which is why I didn't qualify my statements about him with something about why Day X helps to exonerates him. Within that one post of mine, the distinction is fairly clear but, if you've paid attention to my whole game, it's blindingly obvious.

[ChannelDelibird]

I don't disagree that I've got less than I would like, but process of elimination is powerful at this point. I think there are

very strong

reasons for the following to not be scum: you, farside, Titus, Riddleton, GC. That leaves me with only two viable possibilities: CKD and Amy. If I had time, I could probably go back through some old games and show you examples of me employing PoE like this as town, but I just don't right now.

Given the gamestate, given the strength of townreads elsewhere, I am happy enough that 'not obviously town, has a couple of things against him' is a good enough reason to vote CKD here. I could point out things like him being emphatically wrong throughout key phases of this game, or the fact that he's played up that wrongness very strongly, but I think that it might be confirmation-biasy of me to do so. I don't want to go searching through all of his posts for any shred of evidence that might support a theory of him being scum because one has to be led by the evidence, not the conclusion. The evidence so far tells me that a lot of people who aren't CKD are town.

[ChannelDelibird]

Ok, I actually like this post a lot more than the other ones, and I agree with your thought process here. What do you make of CKD's post just before mine?

Not sure, but not especially surprised. He has maintained this idea of him being dangerously wrong about everything for a while. What he actually offers by way of just-before-I-go evidence will be more telling either way, I suspect.

[ChannelDelibird]

Yo, I'm back from V/LA. Gotta skim over a few things to catch up.

[ChannelDelibird]

No Lynch? Seriously? No. We need to narrow down candidates or it's not going to get any easier to decide on a lynch. The more flips we get, the more light we can shed on everything that came before.

I've only skimmed over the last couple of pages as I catch up from stuff but I'm pretty much of the opinion that we should be able to reach a consensus candidate based on everyone's reads at this point.

CKD and Amy remain the only two players for whom I am willing to vote Today.

[ChannelDelibird]

UNVOTE: CKD
VOTE: Amy

[ChannelDelibird]

I think scum wants me to get to lylo. i really do. it will be a slam dunk win then.

keeping vote on CDB.

Sure, that must have been why I tried to get you lynched Today while also making it clear that I want you and Amy to be the next to die in no particular order, leaving precisely none of you at LyLo. I've switched to Amy because people who I think are town like acryon and GC are insistent on thinking that you are town so your wagon seems less likely to go through at the moment.

[ChannelDelibird]

But I could not be clearer on the fact that I don't want you to be in LyLo, because I want to lynch you before that happens. I mean, you could argue that that would be what I were angling for Tomorrow if we lynched Amy Today, she flipped town, then even with acryon dead in the morning I tried to lynch somebody other than you, but that's not a thing that is currently applicable.

[ChannelDelibird]

CKD, give me some fucking credit, I have said repeatedly Today that you and Amy are the only remaining people whom I want to see lynched and that I don't have much preference as to which order we do it in.

And here's the thing: Whichever order we do it in, neither of you would be at a hypothetical LyLo!

Take off your confirmation-bias goggles and actually read what I have fucking said.

[ChannelDelibird]

@CDB Why would you switch your vote from someone with 3 votes on your to-lynch list to someone with 1 vote on that list? Doesn't that just risk one of the two not getting lynched if someone like me were to switch to farside?

Fuck's sake. Seriously? This makes no sense if not from scum?

I thought that my thought process was pretty obvious from the timing of the post but I'll be clear (and yes, I can tell that I'm perhaps unreasonably cranky while writing this post but I'm not going to wait until I'm in a better mood):

1. I actually don't much care which of CKD and Amy gets lynched first for the following reasons:
a) We have one scum left and several Days in which to get them dead
b) My main scumreads are dead and the other one is now confirmed town
c) I have arrived at the conclusion that scum is within CKD and Amy not through that pair's extreme scumminess but through everyone else's extreme not-partnered-with-the-dead-scum nature.

2. When I embarked on V/LA, CKD had three votes. When I came back four days later, he still had three votes and people I trust, including the only confirmed town player in the game, are either stalling on CKD or actively against touching him with a barge-pole Today.

3. Therefore, rather than let the town continue to stagnate and possibly end up lynching somebody whom I either strongly believe to be town (e.g. farside) or know to be town (me), I immediately responded to acryon once again making clear his stance on CKD by switching my vote to Amy, the other player whom I believe has a pretty similar chance of flipping scum as CKD.

4. Other people have also expressed a strong or fringe interest in lynching Amy so I suspected that we might actually get some traction on it instead of a CKD wagon that has been firmly stalled.

I mean, come on, I JUST GOT DONE saying that we should be pooling lynch pools and find a candidate on whom we can all compromise. The Amy vote is my attempt at doing something.

BUT, IN CASE IT COULD BE ANY CLEARER THAN IT ALREADY IS, I AM ALSO WILLING AND ABLE TO MOVE BACK TO CKD WITH PLENTY OF TIME BEFORE DEADLINE TO ENSURE THAT WE DO NOT NO LYNCH, AS I HAD ALSO JUST MADE A POINT THAT NO LYNCH WOULD BE A SHITTY IDEA.

Seriously, what do people think is my play here? 'Muahahaha he secretly doesn't want CKD to be mislynched yet because he wants to mislynch him in LyLo but somehow plans to also survive that long without actually following through on the CKD suspicion that he is promoting because apparently having been a constant background pick for an alternative lynch ever since Chaos was in this slot is a sure-fire way for scum to skate through unnoticed'?

acryon, if you vote for farside, I'm probably going back to CKD. But you certainly seem more amenable to voting Amy right now than you are to CKD, so this is me trying to work with you while you're still alive.

[ChannelDelibird]

He may just dodge

Come on. At what point in the game has it looked like I would try to just fucking lurk this out if I were scum? Get real. This town, and you in particular, are stuck between giving me too much credit as scum (bussing my buddies on consecutive Days while occupying a slot with constant suspicion from my predecessor) and not nearly enough (this bullshit). It's really annoying and, what's more, it should make you question whether or not you're actually accusing me of something coherent.

[ChannelDelibird]

Fuck. I didn't realise exactly how close deadline was. I thought we had about 24 hours more. I'm mocking up a quick count of where the votes are right now and will move back to CKD if necessary

[ChannelDelibird]

Unofficial vote count:

Amy Farrah Fowler: (2) Farside22, CDB
ChannelDelibird: (2) Curiouskarmadog , acryon
Farside22: (2) Amy Farrah Fowler, Green Crayons
Curiouskarmadog : (2) Titus, Riddleton

Not Voting:

With 8 alive, it takes 5 to lynch.

Fuck. OK, so acryon can't change his vote now. I've got to be in bed by not too long. I guess I can't count on a three-vote swing in the time left as much as I can a two-vote but the main objective of the Amy switch (getting at least acryon to join me) is no longer so much of a going concern.

UNVOTE: Amy
VOTE: CKD

APATHETIC PROCESS OF ELIMINATION '14

[ChannelDelibird]

CDB why are you not reading the game?

I've been away on V/LA for four days and had time only to skim the thread - both occasionally while away and then in the time since I've been back, a period during which I've also had normal stuff to do as well as three other games with which to catch up. The mod does not post very frequently. I got the wrong impression of exactly how soon the deadline was.

[ChannelDelibird]

JESUS CHRIST CKD

I AM NOT SAYING, NOR HAVE I EVER SAID, THAT I STRONGLY BELIEVE THAT YOU ARE LYING SCUM

I JUST THINK YOU'RE IN A POOL OF TWO PEOPLE WHO COULD BE, WITH NO PARTICULAR FEELING OF ONE BEING SCUMMIER THAN THE OTHER

IT'S PROBABLY 50% WHETHER OR NOT YOU'RE TOWN OR SCUM

THEREFORE IF YOU'RE TOWN, TAKING OFF YOUR CONFIRMATION-BIAS GOGGLES WOULD BE HELPFUL ADVICE

I DON'T THINK IT'S PARTICULARLY ALIGNMENT-INDICATIVE THAT YOU HAVEN'T BUT IT SURE WOULD HAVE BEEN GREAT IF YOU HAD

THIS IS FUCKING OBVIOUS

Pedit: Riddleton, the deadline will hit in under three-and-a-half hours.

[ChannelDelibird]

I really can't make it simpler than this, CKD.

Especially

if I thought I had more time than I did, why wouldn't I want somebody who I could still quite plausibly see as town to show signs of reconsidering and making sure that they were on the right track? How many times do I have to explain that the choice between you and Amy is essentially arbitrary to me before you accept that I'm not protraying you as Beelzebub incarnate?

[ChannelDelibird]

Could you explain this a bit further, considering the most-votes-absent-majority rule?

Forgive the stupidity but it's late and I don't know what you mean.

[ChannelDelibird]

So long as CKD has the most votes, even if it's only three, then he's the lynch for today.

Why switch to Amy? You don't need acryon's or my vote to have CKD lynched.

Because it turns out I didn't properly read the rules and expected what I have come to know as the standard practice (no majority at deadline = no lynch).

[ChannelDelibird]

I've told you that I've had to skim things.

[ChannelDelibird]

I'm going to bed in a few minutes. Still willing to move vote to Amy if more would prefer that but, honestly, I think the time for CKD to reconsider his vote on me was before it would count as a last-minute attempt to not get lynched.

[ChannelDelibird]

Ah, fuck, CKD's right, I owe him enough credit as a player that he'd be voting for somebody right now if he were scum.

UNVOTE: CKD
VOTE: Amy

GC: Yup. I do not recall that discussion and I've just skimmed the first couple of pages of Today to see if I saw any such discussion and did not. I've been less thorough in some of my reading Today because of the low pressure of the current game state and my confidence in other reads (so I've seen conclusions of long posts and not engaged with them much beyond that because the conclusions are dumb, e.g. farside case). My engagement for the Day has been in the Day 1 reread, then the acryon stuff, which put me off as stated before when he claimed.

[ChannelDelibird]

If it is Amy, I'm going to be so annoyed for letting myself be talked out of it before.

[ChannelDelibird]

Anyway, goodnight. Hope we win.

[ChannelDelibird]

Well, I've forgotten pretty much everything about this game, but at least I can go over some things fresh. Will review shortly.

[ChannelDelibird]

Titus, feel free to call me a complete moron, but have you actually shown any of your VCA work in-thread? If so, could you link me? If not, could you show your working with some reasons, please?

[ChannelDelibird]

After we backed away from the precipice of lynching you Yesterday, this whole 'what-if-I'm-at-LyLo' complex is fucking tiresome. Yes, for the love of God, please start scumhunting again. That's what will actually help the town.

[ChannelDelibird]

Sorry, I know I'm very behind on making a meaningful contribution Today. Ever since acryon claimed, I've not had much to latch onto in this game and the big arguments at the moment are just making me annoyed rather than intrigued. I'm going to be busy tomorrow but this game will be my first priority when I'm back, starting by rereading the scum lynches to look for buddies.

[ChannelDelibird]

Looking over things tonight. I'll have a vote at the end of it.

[ChannelDelibird]

My internet picked a great time to start going slowly so this is a little sluggish. Up to end of page 93, gonna post this then get up to date, post stuff about that, then go back to look at scum lynches.

In the meantime:

CKD, I am starting to get really fucking irritated with your self-voting. If you're town, it's really fucking irresponsible. "Herp derp we mustn't lynch me at LyLo" is just such weak bullshit. Look how far you've got in this game without yet being lynched. Stop feeling so sorry for yourself and accept that you're not a nailed-on lynch, and actually vote for someone who could be scum from your perspective. This is the sort of behaviour that stops towns from capitalising on those back-to-back scum lynches for which we worked so hard. If you're scum, it's merely aggravating. If you're on my team then it's utterly infuriating.

[ChannelDelibird]

Well, two main things I picked up from the few pages since my last post: CKD looks townier (which, as above, only makes me angry) and I'm on board to consider GC's case on farside in a way that I wasn't before.

I'll start with CKD, as it's brief. This post, I think, is more likely to come from town than scum, someone who genuinely wants to figure out the game, even though I think that, as evidence, it's laughably, inadmissably bad.

GC asks me to consider farside as a buddy here, says as part of it that farside didn't have much towncred because she hard-defended Belisarius. However, I'm pretty sure that by then she was already widely townread as a result of Belisarius's interactions with her (and I'm sure that I'm not the only one who thought that at the time), so I'm not really sure how true that assertion is. I'll grant you, though, that it's kind of a limp justification for her scrambles vote but I also think that a town player who just really wanted to lynch acryon first would probably be entitled to a certain unenthusiasm. But, y'know, it's got me wondering.

This vote from farside is the first time in ages that I've really had a scumping from her. Coming, as it does, just after CKD votes GC and backing up, as it does, his terrible reasoning, it's kind of terrifying, because there's just enough of a GC backlash murmuring around that it looks awfully optimistic.

And then we have this. I'd been wondering as I came in and out of the thread to dodge posts and then catch up over the last few days what sort of reaction people would have to my absences. I had a vague theory that, in a game this dense, scum would prefer to duck out of a pages-long, wally argument by pointing out 'hey this guy's lurking' and farside kind of fits this - but it's just bizarre that she uses pointing it out as an excuse to attack GC, which is just WTF? As GC points out, hardly anyone has made a big deal of my absences Today, but only he's scummy for it?

As of right now, as far as I can tell the votes are 3-1-1 for CKD, GC and Riddleton, in that order, but I might be wrong. As it stands, I'd be happier getting onto a 2 with GC on farside than vote for any of those, but I want to do some of that rereading around the scum lynches before I commit.

[ChannelDelibird]

Uuuugggghhh internet so slow. I've got work in the morning and this just isn't moving quickly enough for me to reach any conclusions tonight. Gonna have to leave it for tomorrow. Don't lynch anyone until I'm done, especially not if it's yourself.

[ChannelDelibird]

Holy shit, CKD, you

do not

get to pull that shit and then go "well, scum never do it in my experience so I'm definitely town".

Reading those scumlynches again now.

[ChannelDelibird]

Actually, interrupting my reread to do some VCA. I want something visual right about now. Breaking this up into two parts to make sure I don't go over mafiascum's character limit.

Using blue for myself so that y'all can look at this without having to assume me as town.

Spoiler: Vote Counts Days 1 through 3

Mr_Blonde

: (2) Farside22,

Amy Farrah Fowler

NakedJogger:

(2)

NakedJogger

,

Chaoslord54

Astinus: (2) Astinus, Snugglyduckling
Farside22: (1)

Dry-fit

Amy Farrah Fowler:

(1)

TobyLoby

Not Voting:

acryon

,

Mr_Blonde

,

Belisarius

, cerberus48,

Skelda

, RoyalApe

Mr_Blonde

: (3) Farside22, Snugglyduckling, RoyalApe
Farside22: (3)

Dry-fit

,

Belisarius

,

Chaoslord54

TobyLoby

: (2) cerberus48,

NakedJogger

acryon

: (1)

TobyLoby

Astinus: (1) Astinus

Belisarius

: (1)

Amy Farrah Fowler

Not Voting:

acryon

,

Mr_Blonde

,

Skelda

Interesting. At this point, from my POV, there's a 60% chance that the remaining scum was voting for their buddy here. I'll go back and look at those votes shortly, though I remember from my previous reread of Day 1 that RoyalApe's vote would have been an unnecessarily awkward one for a buddy.

Chaoslord54

: (3)

Dry-fit

,

Mr_Blonde

,

acryon

Belisarius

: (2)

Amy Farrah Fowler, Skelda

acryon

: (2)

TobyLoby

, Snugglyduckling

TobyLoby

: (1) Farside22

Mr_Blonde

: (1) RoyalApe
Farside22: (2)

Belisarius

,

Chaoslord54

Not Voting: cerberus48, Astinus,

NakedJogger

Chaoslord54

: (4)

Dry-fit

,

Mr_Blonde

,

acryon

, Snugglyduckling

Belisarius

: (2)

Amy Farrah Fowler, Skelda
Farside22

: (2)

Chaoslord54

,

Belisarius

TobyLoby

: (1) Farside22

Mr_Blonde

: (1) RoyalApe

acryon

: (1)

TobyLoby

Not Voting: cerberus48, Astinus,

NakedJogger

Chaoslord54

: (4)

Dry-fit

,

Mr_Blonde

,

acryon

, Snugglyduckling
Farside22: (2)

Chaoslord54

,

Belisarius

TobyLoby

: (1) Farside22

Mr_Blonde

: (1) RoyalApe

acryon

: (1)

TobyLoby

Belisarius

: (1)

Amy Farrah Fowler

Not Voting: cerberus48, Astinus,

NakedJogger, Skelda

Chaoslord54

: (4)

Dry-fit

,

Mr_Blonde

,

acryon

, Snugglyduckling
Farside22: (2)

Chaoslord54

,

Belisarius

acryon

: (2)

TobyLoby

, Ranon
RoyalApe: (2)

NakedJogger, Skelda

TobyLoby

: (1) Farside22

Belisarius

: (1)

Amy Farrah Fowler

Not Voting: cerberus48, RoyalApe

Chaoslord54

: (2)

Dry-fit

, Snugglyduckling

TobyLoby

: (2) Farside22,

acryon

Farside22: (2)

Chaoslord54

,

Belisarius

RoyalApe: (2)

NakedJogger, Skelda

acryon

: (2)

TobyLoby

, Ranon

Belisarius

: (1)

Amy Farrah Fowler

Not Voting: cerberus48, RoyalApe,

scrambles

Chaoslord54

: (3)

Dry-fit

, Snugglyduckling, Farside22
RoyalApe: (2)

NakedJogger, Skelda

acryon

: (2)

TobyLoby

, Ranon
Farside22: (2)

Chaoslord54

,

Belisarius

TobyLoby

: (1)

acryon

Belisarius

: (1)

Amy Farrah Fowler

Not Voting: RoyalApe,

scrambles

, Curiouskarmadog

Chaoslord54

: (3)

Dry-fit

, Snugglyduckling, Farside22

acryon

: (2)

TobyLoby

, Ranon
Farside22: (2)

Belisarius

,

NakedJogger

TobyLoby

: (1)

acryon

Belisarius

: (1)

Amy Farrah Fowler

RoyalApe: (1)

Skelda

Skelda

: (1) Curiouskarmadog

Not Voting: RoyalApe,

scrambles

,

chaoslord54

Chaoslord54

: (3)

Dry-fit

, Snugglyduckling, Farside22

Skelda

: (3) Curiouskarmadog , RoyalApe,

Belisarius

TobyLoby

: (2)

acryon, Skelda

acryon

: (2)

TobyLoby

, Ranon

Belisarius

: (2)

Amy Farrah Fowler, NakedJogger

Not Voting:

scrambles

,

Chaoslord54

Chaoslord54

: (3)

Dry-fit

, Snugglyduckling, Farside22

Skelda

: (3) Curiouskarmadog , RoyalApe,

Belisarius

Belisarius

: (3)

Amy Farrah Fowler, NakedJogger

,

scrambles

acryon

: (2)

TobyLoby

, Ranon

TobyLoby

: (1)

Skelda

Not Voting:

Chaoslord54

,

acryon

OK, around here looks like it should be pretty important. Scrambles buses to make it three major competing wagons, with a very strong chance that the remaining scum is on one of those wagons. If it's Titus or farside, one is on each major wagon. If it's CKD or GC, there are two scum on Skelda. If it's Riddleton, then his next vote is going to be pretty important.

Belisarius

: (4)

Amy Farrah Fowler

,

NakedJogger

,

scrambles

,

Skelda

Skelda

: (4) Curiouskarmadog , RoyalApe,

Belisarius

,

TobyLoby

Chaoslord54

: (3)

Dry-fit

, Snugglyduckling, Farside22

acryon

: (1) Ranon

Not Voting:

Chaoslord54

,

acryon

No movement from Riddleton yet (assume Ranon was inactive at this time but will go back to check) but we know that there aren't two scum on the Belisarius wagon. In an ideal world, the best position for a third scum here is probably not on the Skelda wagon in order to come in after this and push the lynch one way or the other.

Belisarius

: (5)

Amy Farrah Fowler

,

NakedJogger

,

scrambles

,

Skelda

,

acryon

Skelda

: (4) Curiouskarmadog , RoyalApe,

Belisarius

,

Dry-fit

Chaoslord54

: (2) Snugglyduckling, Farside22

acryon

: (1) Ranon

Not Voting:

Chaoslord54

,

TobyLoby

If I were scum in this position, I'd be all about bussing the shit out of Belisarius. At least CKD, though, is in a position here where he pretty much can't do that naturally, IIRC.

Skelda

: (7) Curiouskarmadog , RoyalApe,

Belisarius

,

Dry-fit

,

Chaoslord54

,

acryon

,

TobyLoby

Belisarius

: (4)

Amy Farrah Fowler, NakedJogger

,

scrambles

,

Skelda

Chaoslord54

: (2) Snugglyduckling, Farside22

acryon

: (1) Ranon

Not Voting:

At this point, it looks worst for Titus, farside and Riddleton, whose failure to get on board the Belisarius wagon forced town's hand on Skelda. Need to cross-reference activity to see who, if anybody, that excuses. Feels like farside, at least, should have been more productive than just sitting on the chaos wagon.

Skelda

: (8) Curiouskarmadog , RoyalApe,

Belisarius

,

Dry-fit

,

Chaoslord54

,

acryon

,

TobyLoby

, Farside22

Belisarius

: (4)

Amy Farrah Fowler, NakedJogger

,

scrambles

,

Skelda

Chaoslord54

: (1) Snugglyduckling

acryon

: (1) Ranon

Not Voting:

Might go back and reread CKD's starting of this wagon but my overall impression of the Skelda lynch as read through these vote counts is that it mostly feels like one that scum let town do to themselves. Given that Belisarius was on board mainly out of self-protection, as he was the competing wagon, town did the heavy lifting on turning it from a minor wagon into a lynching one. Skelda didn't seem like the sort of player into whom scum pile for a D1 mislynch; he was a fairly neutral sort of presence without a major footprint on the game (at least, that's what I recall from my past reads) and that's the kind of player that scum prefer to have around later in the game. Slight town points for CKD and GC, probably, re: this lynch.

Belisarius

: (2)

Amy Farrah Fowler, acryon

Curiouskarmadog : (1)

Belisarius

Chaoslord54

: (1) Farside22
Farside22: (1)

NakedJogger

Not Voting:

scrambles

, Curiouskarmadog , Snugglyduckling,

Chaoslord54

, Ranon, RoyalApe,

TobyLoby

Belisarius

: (2)

Amy Farrah Fowler, acryon

Chaoslord54

: (2) Farside22, Curiouskarmadog
Farside22: (1)

NakedJogger

Amy Farrah Fowler

: (1)

Chaoslord54

Curiouskarmadog : (1)

Belisarius

Not Voting:

scrambles

, Snugglyduckling, Ranon, RoyalApe,

TobyLoby

Belisarius

: (4)

Amy Farrah Fowler, acryon, TobyLoby

,

scrambles

Chaoslord54

: (2) Farside22, Curiouskarmadog
Farside22: (1)

NakedJogger

Curiouskarmadog : (1)

Belisarius

Not Voting: Snugglyduckling, Ranon, RoyalApe,

Chaoslord54

Belisarius

: (3)

Amy Farrah Fowler, acryon

,

scrambles

Chaoslord54

: (2) Farside22, Curiouskarmadog
Farside22: (1)

NakedJogger

Curiouskarmadog : (1)

Belisarius

Not Voting: Snugglyduckling, Ranon, RoyalApe,

Chaoslord54

,

TobyLoby

Belisarius

: (4)

Amy Farrah Fowler, acryon

,

scrambles

, Riddleton

Chaoslord54

: (2) Farside22, Curiouskarmadog
Farside22: (1)

NakedJogger

Curiouskarmadog : (1)

Belisarius

Not Voting: Snugglyduckling, RoyalApe,

Chaoslord54

,

TobyLoby

Belisarius

: (4)

Amy Farrah Fowler, acryon

,

scrambles

, Riddleton

Chaoslord54

: (2) Farside22, Curiouskarmadog
RoyalApe: (1)

NakedJogger

Curiouskarmadog : (1)

Belisarius

Not Voting: Titus, RoyalApe,

Chaoslord54

,

TobyLoby

It's around this point that I start wondering why scum haven't got any kind of alternative wagon out there. Belisarius isn't going to vote for himself and scrambles is already bussing. They may already see Belisarius as a lost cause; frankly I'm wondering about Riddleton's vote straight after replacing in. Need to reread that.

Belisarius

: (5)

Amy Farrah Fowler, acryon

,

scrambles

, Riddleton,

TobyLoby

Chaoslord54

: (3) Farside22, Curiouskarmadog , Titus
RoyalApe: (1)

NakedJogger

Curiouskarmadog : (1)

Belisarius

Not Voting: RoyalApe,

Chaoslord54

Mind you, chances increasing that someone who knew that I was town was voting for me at this point.

Belisarius

: (6)

Amy Farrah Fowler, acryon

,

scrambles

, Riddleton,

TobyLoby

,

ChannelDelibird

ChannelDelibird

: (3) Farside22, Curiouskarmadog , Titus
RoyalApe: (1)

NakedJogger

Curiouskarmadog : (1)

Belisarius

Not Voting: RoyalApe

Belisarius

: (7)

Amy Farrah Fowler, acryon

,

scrambles

, Riddleton,

TobyLoby

,

ChannelDelibird

, Titus

ChannelDelibird

: (3) Farside22, Curiouskarmadog ,

NakedJogger

Curiouskarmadog : (1)

Belisarius

Not Voting: RoyalApe

Overall: Hmm. Definitely, definitely feel like, in comparison to the scrambles lynch, Belisarius was very much the one where scum wanting a bit of bus credit had more of an open goal. Need to reread Titus's discussion of Belisarius considering that she initially voted for me, but my own experience of being scum tells me that the instinct is to be on board with this one, so this lynch, I think, paints Riddleton and Titus in the worst light.

Amy Farrah Fowler

: (3)

ChannelDelibird

, Farside22, Riddleton

scrambles

: (1) Titus

ChannelDelibird

: (1)

Amy Farrah Fowler

Not Voting:

acryon

,

scrambles

, Curiouskarmadog , RoyalApe,

TobyLoby

Some townpoints for Titus for opening Day 3 with a scrambles vote. Also struck by thinking that wasn't farside quite pro-Amy before? Need to reread how she reacted to my initial pressure on her.

Amy Farrah Fowler

: (3)

ChannelDelibird

, Farside22, Riddleton

scrambles

: (1) Titus

ChannelDelibird

: (1)

Amy Farrah Fowler

Not Voting:

acryon

,

scrambles

, Curiouskarmadog , RoyalApe,

TobyLoby

scrambles

: (2) Titus, Green Crayons

Amy Farrah Fowler

: (1) Riddleton

ChannelDelibird

: (1)

Amy Farrah Fowler

Not Voting:

acryon

,

scrambles

, Curiouskarmadog ,

TobyLoby

,

ChannelDelibird

, Farside22

For how long Riddleton holds onto this Amy vote might be interesting.

scrambles

: (2) Titus, Green Crayons

ChannelDelibird

: (2)

Amy Farrah Fowler

, Curiouskarmadog
Titus: (1)

acryon

acryon

: (1)

ChannelDelibird

Curiouskarmadog : (1) Riddleton

Not Voting:

scrambles

,

TobyLoby

, Farside22

...not especially. Might have to reread closer to the fact.

scrambles

: (2) Titus, Green Crayons

ChannelDelibird

: (2)

Amy Farrah Fowler

, Curiouskarmadog
Titus: (1)

acryon

acryon

: (1)

ChannelDelibird

Curiouskarmadog : (1) Riddleton

Not Voting:

scrambles

,

TobyLoby

, Farside22

scrambles

: (3) Titus,

ChannelDelibird

, Riddleton
Titus: (2)

acryon

,

scrambles

ChannelDelibird

: (2)

Amy Farrah Fowler

, Curiouskarmadog

Not Voting:

TobyLoby

, Farside22, Green Crayons

Well, we know that scrambles is happy enough to bus as he did so quite liberally with Belisarius, but do I buy him as scum making his last buddy his counterwagon, while said buddy leads a wagon on him? I'm not sure that I do. Preliminary townpoints for Titus.

scrambles

: (3) Titus,

ChannelDelibird

, Riddleton
Titus: (2)

acryon

,

scrambles

ChannelDelibird

: (2)

Amy Farrah Fowler

, Curiouskarmadog

Not Voting:

Kalimar

, Farside22, Green Crayons

scrambles

: (4) Titus, Riddleton,

ChannelDelibird

, Green Crayons
Titus: (2)

acryon

,

scrambles

ChannelDelibird

: (2)

Amy Farrah Fowler

, Curiouskarmadog

Not Voting:

Kalimar

, Farside22

This presumably around the time that GC made a big ol' case on scrambles, although I should check that. It's pretty hard to see past that as a reason to townread GC, but obviously I can't put it completely past him. After all, GC's slot didn't get to have any of the credit for the Belisarius lynch so he might have more motivation to bus than most.

scrambles

: (3) Titus, Riddleton,

ChannelDelibird

acryon

: (2) Farside22,

Amy Farrah Fowler

ChannelDelibird

: (2) Curiouskarmadog , Green Crayons
Titus: (1)

acryon

Not Voting:

Kalimar

,

scrambles

Huh. Forgot that scrambles got off the Titus wagon. Add that to the list of things that I need to look at more closely.

scrambles

: (4) Titus, Riddleton,

ChannelDelibird

, Green Crayons

ChannelDelibird

: (3) Curiouskarmadog ,

Kalimar

,

Amy Farrah Fowler

Titus: (2)

acryon

,

scrambles

acryon

: (1) Farside22

Not Voting:

scrambles

: (6) Titus, Riddleton,

ChannelDelibird

, Green Crayons, Farside22,

Kalimar

Titus: (2)

acryon

,

scrambles

ChannelDelibird

: (2) Curiouskarmadog ,

Amy Farrah Fowler

Not Voting:

Hmm. So it's very likely that scum bussed scrambles at some point. This is more frustrating to analyse with most of our known town not on the lynch but, again, farside's move over needs to be examined. Given GC's vote on me at one point, it feels like he and farside are the crucial swing votes but this probably just needs an old-fashioned reread for the most info.

[ChannelDelibird]

Spoiler: Vote Counts Day 4

acryon

: (2) Farside22, Titus
Curiouskarmadog : (2) Riddleton, Green Crayons

Not Voting:

acryon

, Curiouskarmadog ,

ChannelDelibird

,

Amy Farrah Fowler

acryon

: (2) Farside22, Titus
Curiouskarmadog : (2) Riddleton, Green Crayons

Not Voting:

acryon

, Curiouskarmadog ,

ChannelDelibird

,

Amy Farrah Fowler

acryon

: (3) Farside22, Titus,

ChannelDelibird

Farside22: (2)

Amy Farrah Fowler

, Green Crayons

Not Voting:

acryon

, Curiouskarmadog , Riddleton

Farside22: (2)

Amy Farrah Fowler

, Green Crayons

acryon

: (1) Titus

ChannelDelibird

: (1)

acryon

Not Voting: Curiouskarmadog , Riddleton,

ChannelDelibird

, Farside22

Titus staying on acryon even after his claim, I think, makes her likely town. I experienced that very same instinct and I think that it would be difficult for scum to fake even my level of investment in that case, let alone to an even further extent. At this point there's enough that I'm willing to rule out voting for Titus.

Curiouskarmadog : (3) Titus,

ChannelDelibird

, Riddleton

ChannelDelibird

: (2) Curiouskarmadog ,

acryon

Farside22: (2)

Amy Farrah Fowler

, Green Crayons

Amy Farrah Fowler

: (1) Farside22

Not Voting:

Curiouskarmadog : (3) Titus,

ChannelDelibird

, Riddleton

ChannelDelibird

: (2) Curiouskarmadog ,

acryon

Farside22: (2)

Amy Farrah Fowler

, Green Crayons

Amy Farrah Fowler

: (1) Farside22

Not Voting:

Amy Farrah Fowler

: (3) Farside22, Green Crayons,

ChannelDelibird

Curiouskarmadog : (2) Titus, Riddleton
Farside22: (1)

Amy Farrah Fowler

ChannelDelibird

: (1)

acryon

Not Voting: Curiouskarmadog

Mod Notes:
Since no lynch was actually reached, the person with majority of votes is lynched. Amy Farrah Fowler has been lynched.

Ooh, I'd forgotten that we essentially no-lynched Amy. Need to check how farside first got on this one as I more or less remember GC's switch and, being as it was mostly the same as mine, I'm reasonably happy with it. Without having reread Yesterday since it happened, feel like Amy is definitely one of the people whom a last remaining scum out of eight players would want to try to lynch in order to force the win. That doesn't look great for farside.

What I got out of that overall (for now, at least):

Strongly read Titus as town.

Not a lot from CKD that made me want to go back and check if he was being sneaky. General impression is that he was individualistic to the point of avoiding having a serious say in wagons and that sounds like behaviour more likely to come from town than scum to me. Read town.

GC raised the next fewest issues for me, though there's maybe a few things I should go over. Extraneously from the VCA, I also think that he expresses his ideas and thought processes much more clearly than farside does, and that makes me understand his side better in argumenst like theirs. I don't want that to influence me unduly but, as with his scrambles case on Day 3, I'm inclined to think that clarity of thought is more likely to come from town than scum.

A couple of things from Riddleton on Day 2 in particular that I want to look into. Townread not as solid as it used to be.

Most questions are about farside, though, really. Again, will definitely be rereading around those things but, combined with the stuff I raised last night, this is starting to feel like something I want to explore. I definitely want the farside-v-GC argument to go the fuck away because it's obnoxiously loud and long, and right now I'm definitely inclined to want farside gone first.

VOTE: farside

[ChannelDelibird]

Oh, FFS, I really didn't want a page break there.

[ChannelDelibird]

In the meantime, just going over some more recent stuff and picking out random bits to which to respond.

If, hypothetically, you had knowledge that scrambles easily broke under pressure as he did in D3

...why would he know that? GC, have you played with scrambles-scum before?

[ChannelDelibird]

Someone wake me when GC explains his town read day 4 to scum read day 5, other then him pointing to riddles post.
Because I already showed he had me and cbd prior to CKD today.

Boggles my mind that you would expect people to be so solid and unflinching in their reads in a game that has dragged on so confusingly with absolutely zero consensus. We couldn't even agree to properly lynch our lynch Yesterday, ferchrisssakes.

[ChannelDelibird]

Yeah, I'm pretty happy with my vote at this point. The actual reread will, again, be tomorrow but as of now my preference order is farside > Riddleton > GC > CKD > Titus.

[ChannelDelibird]

Eh, alright, CKD. I'll indulge you and do it, although I don't really know what I expect to find from it. I'm frankly more concerned about not having a picture of the end of the Day to analyse how the final wagon happened than I am about showing where confirmed scum and town voted, but both are a problem.

In order to get at least a semblance of narrowing-down, I'm going to colour in a different blue Titus and CKD, whom I think are the most likely town.

Spoiler: Day 5 Vote Counts

Curiouskarmadog

: (2) Riddleton,

Curiouskarmadog

Riddleton: (1)

Titus

Titus

: (1) Farside22
Farside22: (1) Green Crayons

Not Voting:

ChannelDelibird

Curiouskarmadog

: (2) Riddleton, Green Crayons
Riddleton: (1)

Titus

Titus

: (1) Farside22
Green Crayons: (1)

Curiouskarmadog

Not Voting:

ChannelDelibird

Curiouskarmadog

: (2) Riddleton, Green Crayons
Riddleton: (1)

Titus

Titus

: (1) Farside22
Green Crayons: (1)

Curiouskarmadog

Not Voting:

ChannelDelibird

Green Crayons: (2)

Curiouskarmadog

, Farside22

Curiouskarmadog

: (2) Riddleton, Green Crayons
Riddleton: (1)

Titus

Not Voting:

ChannelDelibird

Curiouskarmadog

: (3) Riddleton, Green Crayons,

Curiouskarmadog

Riddleton: (1)

Titus

Green Crayons: (1) Farside22

Not Voting:

ChannelDelibird

So farside and Titus both have an opportunity to hammer CKD. Titus doesn't because he's not a viable lynch for her. Should refresh myself on farside's stance but certainly my impression over the last couple of pages is that voting you when the opportunity arrives is not something that she could do naturally, especially if she'd just moved to join you on the GC wagon. So I don't think that a failure to hammer is at all exonerating.

Farside22: (2) Green Crayons,

ChannelDelibird

Green Crayons: (2) Farside22, Riddleton

Curiouskarmadog

: (1)

Curiouskarmadog

Riddleton: (1)

Titus

Not Voting:

Eh, main thing I got from this is to review farside's Titus vote at the start of Today to see what her reasons were. Might be that a theory of mine about how the scum in this game would think can be applied to it. Hang on...

[ChannelDelibird]

Hypothesis: After losing their second buddy, scum had some idea of most likely mislynch targets to narrow down the numbers from 8-1 town-scum to 1-1. Assuming that the doctor never successfully protected, scum had to budget for needing three mislynches and four nightkills to save the game (as town likely no-lynches on either Day 5 or 6 if they haven't already won by that point).

As of scrambles's flip, I think the most likely mislynch targets were probably among the group (Amy, acryon, CKD). Maybe I'd be in there as well but not sure. Anyway - when I've been scum in this position, my instinct has been to push quite hard to get the easier lynches out of the way quickly, so I'm inclined to think that the scum in this game is more likely to push to lynch one of them pretty early on in Day 4.

A nightkill on Kalimar came first, though, and I do want to look into that a bit. Toby was widely townread so would have been a tough sell as a mislynch but I figured I'd better check Kalimar's reads in his brief time in this game to see if there was a particularly good reason for any player to want him dead sooner rather than later.

So: Kalimar doubted that either acryon or Amy would make a plausible partner for scrambles. He somewhat favoured a lynch on me as of here and had some paranoia of Titus and farside. And that's basically it (his highest suspect, Amy, would have pretty much disappeared after scrambles's flip). So, if the scum was *not* doc-hunting with this shot, killing Kalimar would somewhat benefit a) a scum who wanted to pursue an acryon or Amy lynch on Day 4 and/or b) scum!Titus or scum!farside. However, I mostly agree with GC here that the main motivation in the nightkill was to get rid of one of the least viable mislynch targets.

Early on Day 4, Riddleton votes CKD but fairly strongly speaks out against the possibility of acryon being scum. If he's scum, that's a way to make things difficult for yourself but I suppose that I wouldn't rule out Riddleton doing that. farside, meanwhile, gets stuck on in acryon. GC leans away from suspicion on me, seems happy enough to ignore acryon but leaves his options pretty open for revisiting him later, and lists Amy and CKD in his three people on whom to focus. Of the three, farside is marginally the best fit for the theory, but nothing clear-cut yet.

GC then gets townpoints for finding reasonably solid reasons for townreading both acryon and Amy, as well as continuing to back up a growing townread on me. If he's scum, CKD is the easiest mislynch for which he's positioning himself at this point. Not impossible, but doing it the hard way.

Riddleton then unvotes CKD after a nonspecific reread and backs away from the vote. Again, if he's scum, he's making this tough. He's certainly not in a position to career from this into an acryon vote.

Honestly, around page 71, I'm rereading much of GC's case on farside for the first time (yes, we've finally hit the game that actually drove me to read wallposts) and I'm liking a lot of it. He does end up with a list of remaining lynch candidates that reads Amy, acryon, CKD, farside, so that's a little bit of a problem given the above theory, but farside is at the head of it and he's approaching that vote with the same rigour as his excellent scrambles case. I'm just... I'm just not really feeling GC as scum. It's so hard to engage with that as a serious possibility given his consistent, thorough, effective approach to this game.

tl;dr

Of the remaining people whom I think have a chance of being scum, farside again looks the worst based on her start to Day 4 and I really can't see myself voting for GC any time soon either. Honestly, this game feels a lot easier once I stopped taking it as gospel that Beli's early vote on farside was an immutable towntell for her.

[ChannelDelibird]

First big post from farside after acryon's claim blew apart her preferred lynch:

Didn't get the time I needed yesterday.

I thought about this game last night and the players.

Town:
GC: I think is town. The push on scrambles and back and forth I can not see coming from scum
Riddle: Pretty much the same as GC
Acryon: Claimed doc

Leaning Town
CBD: I know what I said about chaos but bird came in and analysis the game and I felt myself agree with many of the things he said from the start.

Not sure/paranoid:

Titus - I know the girl voted for scrambles and beli but I had that paranoid moment because how little I see from her as far as reasons. The idea of bussing and just floating buy did enter my thoughts last night.

Ckd: -All I recalled from ckd was skelda. I don't know if he responded to why he thought chaos(cbd) with how the interaction was during day 1 and 2 when I pushed the case on chaos. I know scum bus but that hard and that much just don't make sense. I haven't really read today, but most of the time has been just asking questions and not much else.

AFF - Early on good then just not involved. She pushed the case on beli for pretty meh reasoning and just kept the vote there. Day 2, was the, this should happen and voted Beli, with the pressure on beli yesterday from others, this seems more like the best play for scum to make. Also once the pressure was off Amy day 3 after the beli lynch she was non response and non interaction with Scrambles. I have seen no opinion from her after the lynches on scum and has just coasted by the game.

Vote: Amy

Will have more Saturday

Funny how the possibility of Titus trying to float by on towncred for bussing two buddies only now occurs to her. Titus also happens to be a player whom newly conftown acryon has expressed openness towards lynching.

[ChannelDelibird]

I am still rereading Day 4, as should be obvious from my last post. I'm just explaining that in all of my various rereads I keep finding things that I like about GC's play.

[ChannelDelibird]

Also, hang on, WHAT? GC townreading Amy? That's not a thing that I mention in the above large post, because it's not a thing that happened. As evidenced in both that post and in this from GC's that I've just reached in my read, Amy was part of his viable lynch pool. I even made a point of commenting on that above.

[ChannelDelibird]

Mod:

If you get a chance to fix that broken link my last post, I'd appreciate it.

fixed

Anyway, just checking in to say that I think GC's switch to Amy over CKD at deadline Yesterday was perfectly fine.

PEDIT: Well, I suck at remembering things I just wrote. I am going to double-check the shift there, because I think there is a difference between how he presented the two reads (one was a line about something for which she got townpoints, one was a list of people who should and shouldn't be considered as more-or-less cleared)

[ChannelDelibird]

Y'know, I had a big(ger) post prepped linking to every single substantive mention of Amy by GC on Day 4, but I think these are the crucial ones that need to be judged if we're evaluating whether or not his stance on Amy shifted unnaturally or opportunistically.

This reasonable enough point that gives Amy some credit is the only thing to which he points as a reason to outright townread her on Day 4. He later talks a bit about how her interactions with scrambles specifically don't look much like a buddy, but it's worded more null than this.

That reason there fits one of the criteria that merited inclusion in this post, where he posits Riddleton, CDB, Titus and himself as people who should be generally accepted as town.

(1) Played against a scum win condition.
(a) THEORY: Scum won't bus both of their scum partners back-to-back so that they are last alive, this early in the game.
(b) THEORY IN PLAY: Voted to lynch Beli-scum D2 and scrambles-scum D3.

This is what that criterion was, and Amy's behaviour highlighted in the first link fits it.

I think it's a mistake not to acknowledge that he made such a point

when he talks about Amy later on down in this post but do I think it's indicative of a nefarious desire to keep her open as a mislynch? No. I actually think it shows consistency in his approach to his 'these four people are conftown' post. Because, aside from himself, nobody to whom he applies this 'wouldn't bus both buddies' towntell has that as the

only

reason why they're on the list. For every (1), there is a (2). Amy doesn't have that - and you'll recall that he didn't have another strong point earlier in the Day that he was also overlooking. Instead, he had the perfectly legitimate concern that Amy was no longer as strong a presence in the game as she should have been. He presents that as the reason why she's not on the list and, reading between the lines of the rest of his post, I think it's clear that he's trying to say that it's in spite of the aforementioned townping.

With that in mind, everything that comes afterwards makes sense. He says Amy's not conftown but that there are multiple people whom he'd prefer to lynch here, which is consistent with the above. He reminds farside that he has as much of a problem with Amy's inactivity as he does with farside's here. Here he finds himself having to choose between Amy, farside, CKD and CDB, where he finds the latter two town and acknowledges that maintaining a vote on farside would not get her or someone whom he suspects more than Amy to be lynched, so he votes for Amy.

It's consistent. It's all consistent. I think GC is guilty of not making #1797 as completely crystal clear as he could have done, but I don't think that was done with a scummy intent behind it. I don't think that it is a valid reason to suspect him.

[ChannelDelibird]

farside needs to hang Today. I don't believe that she believes this nonsense.

[ChannelDelibird]

You need to read my links and tell me why I'm wrong.

I've read the game. A lot. GC's behaviour is not unnatural. It is reflective of a difficult game in which reads are constantly being questioned and in which we have had to compromise ever since the scrambles lynch. You are holding him to a higher standard than several other players for no good reason.

[ChannelDelibird]

That's not meant to say that scum is definitely in that pair but I do think that, if neither are scum, we need their really loud conflict to no longer be an issue because it would continue both to distract them and to make the thread more obnoxious for the rest of us to read. It helps that I think that farside is now the likeliest scum - partially because her participation in the argument does not stand up as genuine scumhunting - but, if I were a player unsure about who looks scummiest, I would want to lynch the scummiest of the two.

[ChannelDelibird]

CDB

, so was your lynch order in a later post ("Farside > Riddle > GC > CKD > Titus") a typo considering you think the likely final scum is in the GC vs farside interactions?

That's not what I just said. I think farside is likely the final scum. I think GC is probably town, though less certain of that than I am of Titus and CKD. The order was not a typo.

[ChannelDelibird]

We've already been over the fact that I've skimmed some of the longer posts at times and missed things being discussed (the no-majority-necessary-to-lynch-at-deadline rule, for example). That's the kind of issue that I'm getting at with arguments like this.

Now please also bear in mind the fact that I since

have

been poring over said argument in the process of reevaluating both farside and GC. But I've always been fairly upfront (in this game and in others) about the fact that I find excessively long posts a pain in the arse and will sometimes not read them, at least initially.

Also I don't really know how you got that I was saying that both of them were town in that post because it is one of several around that time which pointed out that I was increasingly suspecting farside.

[ChannelDelibird]

Sure, but I don't really understand where your problem is. For a long time I thought both of them were town and so I found their argument merely an annoyance (and, as others picked up on, it distracted me from noticing some of the things discussed in their posts, like the deadline rules). I've always wanted it to go away. Before it was because I thought they were both town. Now it's because I think farside is scum.

[ChannelDelibird]

We definitely need Titus back. I hate deadline extensions as a rule but, given the gamestate, it seems important that we either hear from her before deadline or get a replacement.

I

reeeeeally

don't think that the "know for a fact" thing is alignment-indicative.

[ChannelDelibird]

I won't be moving before deadline.

[ChannelDelibird]

Riddleton; Yesterday is proof that we will only get a No Lynch if we ask for one.

[ChannelDelibird]

I agree, but here we are. I think lynching GC over farside would be a bad idea; I'm surprised that you don't.

[ChannelDelibird]

(not conveniently ignoring your question, just realised I was late for work. will respond shortly but, spoilers, it's going to be pointing you to some links from my iso)

[ChannelDelibird]

Summary of points made Today, Riddleton:

GC raised few issues for me when I did my VCA. I think said VCA looks much worse for farside and slightly worse for you than it does for him.

I don't think GC's approach to Day 4 really matches what scum would need to do.

Farside's accusations on him are baseless.

I also think that GC has been one of the people in this thread with the clearest thought processes and the best cases on flipped scum (Scrambles, when we weren't at all zeroing in on him with any strength). I think scum would be delighted to see him lynched.

[ChannelDelibird]

Yeah, presume we're back to where we were before you voted. Please do that again, without the unvote. I'm going to be really annoyed if we mislynch GC.

[ChannelDelibird]

Why did you ask me to summarise my GC viewpoint if you were going to ignore it? I don't necessarily expect you to change your mind (though you should) but, like, manners, dude.

[ChannelDelibird]

Had it not been made obvious enough over the last couple of days?

[ChannelDelibird]

Aha. Of course, now that farside is the lynch leader, I'm less excited about having more days. But thank you, mod!

Mod:

Could you prod Titus, please, if you haven't already?

done

[ChannelDelibird]

Yeah, pretty sure we need a new Titus.

[ChannelDelibird]

flerp.

[ChannelDelibird]

Thank you for replacing in, Ironwood! I think it's quite important that you vote for farside.

[ChannelDelibird]

I really, really don't have anything to add until Ironwood is caught up, and perhaps not even then.

[ChannelDelibird]

Given Riddleton's read on farside, the hypothesis seems reasonable enough. Not sure whether considering it so seriously is a tell either way, but the idea itself pretty much tallies with the general reads on Ironwood/me. Might be different now depending on what Ironwood says, though.

[ChannelDelibird]

I'm not sure it'd be that much more dangerous for said hypothetical GCscum or CKDscum to be 1v1-ing Riddleton in LyLo than it would for them to nightkill him to avoid such an eventuality. I haven't given it a great deal of thought, though.

[ChannelDelibird]

if he

really

felt like I or GC was scum, then he would not believe this.

I don't really know why this follows, unless your argument is that he should be confident of being nightkilled if that is the case.

[ChannelDelibird]

Will you have finished your read before you vote?

[ChannelDelibird]

Well, that's the first time I've read 1783, Riddleton. I guess you must have made it deliberately (and self-consciously) long to put me off reading it.

It's nonsense. Note that GC's post

did

convince me on scrambles rather than anything scrambles was posting at the time when I got off my arse and read, and every player expects their posts to be read so the idea that he intended for it not to be noticed doesn't tally up with how people actually think when playing this game.

[ChannelDelibird]

I disagree with all of it, though point 1) is the worst.

[ChannelDelibird]

VOTE: No Lynch

Reminder if necessary: It's farside.

[ChannelDelibird]

Fuck's sake, Riddleton. I almost had a heart attack.

Hooray! I'm really pleased we pulled this one out. I had a lot of fun playing this game with you all! Pretty much everyone played a very good game, I thought.