Mini 630: Council of Eville: Game Ovah!

[sthar8]

Howdy all! I've been following the game already, but I'll need a reread before I give you anything concrete. I intend to post tonight or tomorrow, but I may be delayed as long as Saturday. I'll try to be a little more intelligent in my posts than my predecessor and I hope not to be as annoying

[sthar8]

Hint: the answer is, "something really funny"

Still rereading, but I've decided that I'll be doing individual analysis posts (like forbiddanlight, but without the giant spammy recap post before it)

[sthar8]

PLEASE

do not add any more votes to Rage until I've had a chance to catch up to the flow of the game. I'm sorry to keep you guys waiting like this, but I'd think you'd be glad to know my Day 1 opinions, at least so you have something from me to look at on later days.

[sthar8]

I'd prefer he not even get to L-1 until we're sure we're ready, especially given his recent comments.

[sthar8]

FOS: forbiddanlight

How could it possibly be protown to cut the day short with promised analysis on the way? At least let me go on record with my opinions, even if you don't care what they are (maybe because you already know what Rage's alignment is?). I'm not asking you to delay very long, and the odds are Rage will still be the lynch after I say what I want to say. I'm 1/6 of the way done, and you wont have to wait more than 24 hours, I promise.

[sthar8]

OK, guys, I've only got SC and veerus left to analyze, but I'm going to put that off until later today since I should probably get

some

sleep tonight.

[sthar8]

Alright guys, here it is, player by player:

alvinz95: I don't think your vote on Rage was scummy. In fact, I felt that you were basically saying, "He's not in any real danger, so there's no need to move my vote yet," which was true. Unfortunately, your defense against the minor points against you amounted to "that's not important right now because someone else is scummier," followed by, "you're scummy for not dropping this when I said to." When you just tell players that they shouldn't be looking at something, they wonder what you're trying to hide. This coupled with your rather random L-2 townie claim makes me wonder if you are panicky scum. After you were apparently certain about your own lynch, you attempted to set up what could be mislynches for tomorrow, another mark against you. I have to say that your refusal to defend yourself after that point does not paint the picture of unhelpful townie that Skillit seems to see, but rather scum who doesn't want to give the town any more info, and might want to scare some votes off his wagon. This tactic looks like it worked, since the town has moved on to other targets, but IGMEOY.

cerebus3: You seem to be a voice of reason in this game. Asking for support and evidence, and not buying into the false dilemma that some other players seem to have fallen into at various points. Not very heavy on the analysis, and I was disturbed by the comment about relying on forbiddan's summary. Your levelheadedness may be a result of logical examination, or a prior knowledge of the alignments of the parties in our major debate. Nothing too scummy so far, but nothing to really clear you either.

Dean Harper: Scummy as all hell. Faking a dayvig ability not once, but twice!

forbiddanlight: High noise to signal ratio. I'm surprised no one took serious issue with your first random vote other than the mod. You didn't really take a stance on SC's actions, and made absolutely sure to present positives on both sides almost every time you mentioned the subject. Then you posted your summaries. These really bothered me, because instead of winnowing out the points that were relevant to your opinions and arguments, you left all the garbage in. Then, when you analysed the players, you didn't really give any concrete support or examples. To me, this says that you expected the other players to sift through the preceding post and try to seperate the evidence from the trash. Requiring this kind of effort from the other players, combined with the high wordcount of your summaries and your abundance of empty posts, makes me think you may want to appear active without putting any work into it, and without risking your image. I've already explained what I didn't like about your last few posts, and you haven't really alleviated that concern. Nothing definitive yet, though you are in the top half of my scumlist. I'd like to see a higher ratio of posts from you in the future that say things other than "I'm not posting right now."

GhostWriter: Post more please. You don't seem to think anyone is scummy, and I wonder why. It's not like there's nothing to analyze in this game.

Goatrevolt: I'm having a hard time reconciling your play regarding SC and everyone else. Despite noting that you don't really have a read on him, you seem willing to forgive SC's every mistake, while questioning others on small, seeming inconsistancies in their posts. You seem content to let SC float along on the strength of your reasoning, rather than contributing significantly to the discussion. You seem prone to chronic miscommunication as well, which renders a significant amount of your debate useless. I agree with most of your reasoning, with a few rather curious exceptions.

Jshark: You need to post more, please. You seem to do a lot of agreeing, but you back that up with a bit of analysis of your own. I really need to point out that your thoughts "too scummy to be true" and "scummy actions don't necessarily make him scum" are horribly, fatally flawed and that accepting them as general principles is exceptionally damaging to the game.

Megatheory: The only real content you've added is your case on Skillit, about half of which is garbage. However, the other half is based on some very interesting observations, so I'm not sure what to think about you. You've been very vague about your suspicion of Rage. Would you mind stating exactly why you are voting for him? On an irrelevant note, you should probably look up the meaning of the word "emphasis."

Rage: You've had an awful lot of "I agree" so far, which makes me nervous. Then you've got a post that reads as an announcement that you don't want to be part of a wagon on alvinz if the other members of the wagon are suspicious of alvinz. This is mind-blowingly deep, nonsensical, or misunderstood. Please clarify. Finally, your recent play is exceptionally scummy. Asking for more votes is either pandering to the paranoia of the players in order to get votes off your wagon (a Jester defense, if you will) which is very advantageous to scum, or you are town making a very bad mistake. I hope it's not the latter, because I've heard that fairytale before, and I already know how it ends. Announcing that you're not going to defend yourself is not likely to make anyone view you as more pro-town, by the way.

Skillit: Your earliest posts are very strongly reasoned, though your use of emphasis is a little distracting. You do understand that the more frequently you bold or underline something, the less important it will seem, right? In your first post after your summary, however you wind up on a very scummy tangent. Despite the fact that you are replying to a false dilemma, for some reason you feel the need to set up a strawman horse laugh relating to the (irrelevant) philosophical implications of inductive reasoning. I strongly doubt that more than three people posting in this thread know who David Hume was, and a grounding in philosophical history is not a prerequisite to effective mafia play. I am reasonable sure that you knew this already, and by your pedantic tone and the odd change in diction exhibited by this post, I can solidly conclude that your sophistry was intentional. If you are scum, the most likely purpose to this is to establish an argumentum ad verecundiam through intimidation. If you are town, I can reasonably interpret this to mean that you are seldom challenged on your logic and that you were slightly offended by the flawed attempt to do so, and that this is your preferred method of retaliation for the perceived affront. If that is the case, please keep your showboating out of the thread, as it is immature, confusing, and detrimental to the town. This attitude bleeds into your next few posts, tainting your reasoning. You then began to finally take a solid position on the alvinz wagon. Even though I understood the reasoning behind your vote, there are a few who didn't get it, and you have not yet clarified, which may be generating some of the suspicion on you. For my part, I'm suspicious of the amount of fence-sitting you have done in this game. You spend an awful lot of time qualifying your statements, which could be scum who doesn't want to be held responsible for the lynch of a townie. If you are town, apply some of that reasoning we saw earlier to a case, then stick to your guns. If you are logical in your arguments, you shouldn't need to worry about getting it wrong.

sthar8: OBVscum. I mean, seriously. This guy hopes to be less annoying than Gimbo, then asks for time to post his thoughts before the day is cut short? The nerve! Let's lynch him right now!

StrangerCoug: Well, lets start at the beginning. The first independantly scummy action from you was your modkill fishing. Several people have commented that they see no potential scum advantage to such an activity, but to my eyes it is blatantly obvious. As scum, getting a townie modkilled serves your win condition admirably. You would have one less townie to contend with, be one step closer to LYLO, and have a plausible and defensible position that could absolve you of all blame. "Tattling," as it has been called, represents significant advantage for scum, and almost none for town. It's rather ironic and a bit hypocritical that your first OMGUS, on Skillit, was ostensibly based on his weak reasoning, which is the part of his case on you that you completely ignored. You then went on an OMGUS-spree that, on the surface, decreed what is and is not acceptable basis for suspicion. This is especially scummy because you were attacked early on for agreeing without giving reasons, and your OMGUS does the exact same thing. By the way, you are correct in thinking that OMGUS excludes situations in which the second case is legitimate, but the votes on you made sense, and your reactions were unreasoned, so they were definitely OMGUS. You continually buddy yourself up to goat without generating any content of your own. Your "defense" has consisted of disregarding attacks against you, then acknowledging that your play is terrible. How is this supposed to clear you, exactly? Acting like scum as town in other games says nothing about your alignment in this one. If anything, your meta should make us more suspicious of you, since you've proven that you will be hard to read, and that your actions don't always align with your motivations. You seem to take some kind of perverse pride in playing poorly, which says to me that you are not trying as hard as you can. This needs to stop

right now

because it is distracting the town from important issues. You will either step up your play, or you will die. No more nonexistant reasoning, no more leeching off other people's arguments. The word "because" needs to become your new best friend. If you are a townie, a lack of tolerance for bad play will force you to improve, and at the very least we'll get an idea of your true capabilities as a player, and a better read on your motives. If you are scum, requiring reasoning from you will make any pushes you make more obvious, and you will die soon anyway. I understand that I'm being rather harsh here, but we need actual contribution from everybody to win the game. I'm willing to suspend my suspicions of you for a short time, provided that you can commit to an attempt to make your thought processes more transparent.

veerus: Your case against Rage is weak on a few points, but his reaction is starting to validate it. I am concerned about two points of yours. The first was the false dilemma that Skillit reacted to so strongly, as it shows an odd lack of reasoning that doesn't mesh well with your examination of Rage. The second is your implication that SC's buddying to goat would somehow imply that goat was scum. If SC were looking for an easy case to follow, why would he want to leech off his scumparter?

I need to digest this a bit before I'm ready to vote, but I'll say now that my top four are Rage, StrangerCoug, Forbiddanlight, and Alvinz, with Skillit a close number five. I think SC, Alvinz and Skillit have the potential to be townies who have made some serious mistakes, so I'd like a little more time to observe before pursuing them. Rage and Forbiddan are more likely to be scum, but I'm not sure which I prefer for today's lynch yet.

[sthar8]

Cerebus3: I'm sure you'll live. The formatting issues are a result of 1.the quantity of material analyzed, and 2. the hurried nature of the project. Now that all my observations about the early game ared on the board, you can expect my posts to shrink a little.

Goatrevolt: Miscommunication is an error of facts, not reasoning. Valid logic can spring from incorrect premises. In addition, I didn't mean to imply that you were at fault for said misunderstandings, only that you seem to be involved in quite a few of them.

For example, I believe your initial debate with alvinz was founded on a misinterpreted post. He then misused the word "downplay," which caused you to misunderstand that post. You also both missed each other on teh argument concerning SC's scumminess. You asserted that you weren't basing your opinions on alvinz methods, he took this to mean that you ignore scumtells. SC mistook your joke LAL post as serious, and Skillit misunderstood the post where you asked him to make his opinions known.

I'd say you've involved in more than your share of miscommunications this game

The amount of scumminess I pointed out is directly related to the amount of scumminess in this game. I tried to point out which behaviors I took as scumtells and which were simply logical errors or mistakes. I even listed my suspects at the end, so that you could see concretely which cases I thought had more merit. I assure you that this post was unique in that I was trying to get 13 pages worth of observation on the table in one post.

Forbiddan:

We can't trust your summary

. I've seen no proof that you are either objective or cleared.

Also, if you'd like, I can do a full PBPA on you and show

exactly

how much of your posting has been irrelevant fluff. I fail to see how my post can be considered as such, given that only four lines were not direct analysis or the results of that analysis. Or are you saying that my points are irrelevant or flawed? If that is the case, please point out how so I can rebut you or correct myself.

Everyone: I have committed a grave sin. In my haste to get my analysis up and posted, I neglected to include the proper amount of evidence and samples, even though I criticized FL for the same. I apologize, and I'd be happy to answer any questions about my post to prove that each point is based on evidence.

[sthar8]

veerus:

If he wasn't going to follow the vote "hopping" on Rage, he would've unvoted instead of insisting that his vote on Rage will stay.

This quote suggests that the only protown reaction to real votes added to your joke is to unvote the joke. This is false. Given that Rage was in no danger at the time, it is not unreasonable for alvinz to simply leave his vote on Rage, even if he doesn't agree with the wagon. He would have plenty of time. Some players like to always have their vote on someone. Since a vote is the strongest power a townie has, they reason that it should be utilized as much as possible. These players will leave their random vote until they find someone scummy to move it to while everyone else unvotes. Essentially, he could be saying "SC, your vote was scummy, but I'm not going to let it influence where my vote sits."

Also, given Styro's apparent lack of logical reasoning, the goat/SC thing makes sense. I hadn't thought about that.

Forbiddanlight:

I'll get started on the PBPA right away.

It may seem that I'm accusing everyone because, other than remarking on the strength of each player's reasoning, I omitted most of the town tells. I did this in order to avoid pointing out possible PRs or other good targets to scum.

StrangerCoug:

Good Post. Keep it up.

To understand Noise to Signal, think of a radio, or a telephone with a bad connection. You hear two distinct things: atmospheric static, and the radio signal that you want to listen to. If the static is stronger than the music, you have a high noise to signal. In mafia, as a game of discussion, we can expect a certain amount of useless chatter or BS. There's nothing wrong with this, until the useless info (noise) begins to drown out the important info (signal). FL is correct that this seems to be a very popular expression, but I think the analogy is apt and clever.

My issue with FL's random vote is that it violates the intent of the random voting stage. Random voting serves two purposes. First, it breaks the ice and starts some silly conversation, letting everyone get to know each other's playstyles a little. Second, and more important, random voting provides an opportunity for town to examine the reasons behind the random votes to determine possible alignment or give a baseline for behavioral analyses. If there seems to be a reason for the vote that is not given, that may be an indication of scum. You can also measure reactions to early joke wagons, like the one we saw on Skillit this game. If he had panicked, we might add that as a scumtell to his case. People who vote truly randomly (with dice) or people who don't random vote (by voting the mod or refusing to vote) rob the town of the information gained in the random voting stage.

I hate obvscum as well, except when used in jest.

Your reaction to the wagon on you was to OMGUS each player on the wagon, and to decree to them what they are allowed to find suspicious. Every vote on your wagon was legitimate, because (true) OMGUS is a strong scumtell. Since scum have a lot more to lose when lynched than town do, it is reasonable to expect that poorly played scum will react

exactly

as you did to the same situation. Instead of panicking and OMGUSsing, you should have rationally explained how the initial suspicions on you were weak or insufficient.

The best way to defend yourself against accusation is to explain your thought processesto the other players in a rational manner. Giving us insight into your motivation helps us to interpret your actions, and if you seem genuine, suspicion on you will decrease. Of course, we are all tuned to pick out lies or irrational behavior, and catching you doing that will increase suspicion.

Your meta outside this game has no effect on what role PM you received. This makes meta, especially a self-aware meta, unreliable at best against any intelligent player, as they can easily manipulate it. In your case, your meta is consistantly hard to read, and there is no strong distinction between scumplay and townplay (I assume from the reports of others. I'm not going to waste my time looking up a meta that several people have already failed to find useful info in). This makes your previous games largely irrelevant to the current one, and invalidates any defense based on a meta read.

I would agree that you need to calm down a bit when confronted. Your scumminess could be the result of emotional reactions to logical questions. It appears to me that you get upset when accused, because from your point of view there is no way the accusations can be valid. What you are forgetting is that we do not have the same information as you, and we cannot independantly verify anything regarding your role PM (yet) or your state of mind. The best way to remedy this is to keep your cool and act logically and rationally, so that we will reach the same logical conclusions as you, which will help us understand where you are coming from.

Note that this kind of panic is very easy to fake as scum. I'm watching you very carefully for any signs that you are anything but genuine. If I discover any, your chance to improve will be over and you will get my vote, as well as a campaign to get you lynched.

(

cerebus3:

does the bolding help?)

[sthar8]

Just posting to say I'm still here, will elaborate on my views next time I'm sober but not hungover. I will post my PBPA of FL, since I finished it a few days ago. Note that it deals almost exclusively with the amount of game related content in her posts, and I used a superficial standard to judge what amounts to "content." I did not check the reasoning to be sure that it seemed genuine, though there are a few comments from me, noting points I felt were curious. Again, I have nothing against noise, unless it distracts from the game or constitutes a significant portion of one player's posts.

[sthar8]

OK, here is my PBPA of Forbiddanlight

0: first random vote. Non-interactive and not arbitrary. Noise

1: second random vote. Signal, or as signal as you can get in the random phase.

2: demonstrates understanding of random vs arbitrary votes. Acknowledges that the random phase may be over. Signal

3: edit to 2. Says she buys Rage's stupid tactics. Signal

4: FOS SC. Says she would vote if not for the four votes already on. Why? Is L-2 significantly more dangerous than L-3 at this point? Signal

5: Agrees that SC is scummy, disagrees that people should be voting him. Makes no sense to me. Seems like scum that doesn't want to be identified with a weak lynch. Signal

6: "will vote sometime tomorrow or tonight." Noise

7: Saturday plans cancelled. Noise

8: "maybe I should vote." Noise

9: SC is scummy, but has bad meta. Part of a pattern of fence sitting on SC. Vote alvinz for dismissive defense and panicking. Signal

10: "that claim was lame." Noise

11: claim wasn't dramatic enough. FL says alvinz's wagon is better explained than SC's. I don't see why. 50% Noise, 50% Signal

12: SC meta. Signal

13: Arguments against alvinz. Mostly solid, but the defense of SC involed is very weak. Signal

14: edit to 13. "I only vote when I think someone is scum" Disconnect with the threat of a vote on SC followed by significant defense of him. Signal

15: asks alvinz to defend himself. Signal

16: "I played poorly in my first game" Possibly buddying to SC, although I'm not sure why anyone would need to do that. Noise

17: "somebody suspect me so I don't have to scumhunt" Noise

18: "like goat said, that's annoying" Noise

19: alvinz might be scum, or goat might be really good scum. No evidence, equivocal position. The only value to this post is that it vaguely answers a question. 90% Noise

20: "I mean reactionary instead of overdefensive" Signal

21: announces meta search on alvinz. Says it will wait because she'll be busy. Unvotes. Signal, mostly.

22: responding to a question. Reiterates intent to meta alvinz. Signal.

23: answers a question directed at veerus. I'm not sure why. Signal

24: announces intent to do a reread and analysis. Reiterates intent to meta alvinz

again

. Even useful info becomes noise if you repeat it often enough. Noise

25: finished meta. No result. (I'm not surprised, because meta is very difficult to read unless you were in the game) Announces intent to finish the summary. 50% signal, 50% noise.

26: not done with the summary yet. Noise

27: not done with the summary yet. Skillits posts are too long. Would be more likely to not read them if there were more content (?). Noise

28: not motivated. Summary will be up soon. Noise

29: hurray for being noticed. Not done with the summary yet. 90% noise, 10% signal since the post was a response to others wondering about when the summary would be done.

30: summary not done yet. Could post goat and alvinz analysis. Noise

31: summary of alvinz and goat. Signal

32: analysis of alvinz and goat. Signal

33: explains that goat looks very townie, with no evidence. 90% Signal

34: summary not done yet. Should be up soon. Noticed Skillit's V/LA. Noise

35: done summarizing Skillit. Summary up soon. Noise

36: summary. Signal

37: comments briefly on SC's horrible statement about "too townie." Gives analysis. Signal

38: explains infrequent and short posts with "not much to comment on, I agree with most of what has been said" Noise.

39: responds to Gimbo being an idiot. The shift in focus from alvinz to Skillit is understandable, but your explanation for it was garbage. "I was totally planning on that" doesn't cut it when you had announced pre-summary that your vote would probably go to alvinz. Stupid accusations need not be met with scummy defenses. Signal

40: edit to 39. Points out that Gimbo is, in fact, being stupid. Signal

41: more reaction to Gimbo. Nothing scummy in this one, although I think I have made my opinions on SC known. Signal

42: explains 40 to someone wihtout a brain. Note that all of these posts to Gimbo would be noise if addressed to anyone else. Signal

43: calls cerebus out for his "going along with FL post." Very good post. Signal

44: reiterates the points in 43, notes that she could have biased her summaries. 80% Noise, 20% Signal

45: announces LA, calls alvinz on using SC's tactics. Signal

46: FOS Rage for scummy behavior, but doesn't vote because Skillit is scummier. Signal

47: was Gimbo Gimbo? Says she will lynch Rage if more people like that wagon. 50% Noise, 50% Signal

48: edit to 47 confirming Gimbo-ness. Noise

49: Gimbo was still Gimbo. Noise (part of a Noise conversation, but that changes nothing)

50: explains that quicklynch on Day 1 is very unlikely. Suspects that if Rage is town, scum are already on the wagon. Signal

51: Would vote, but wanted to hammer. 50% Noise, 50% Signal

52: objects to my classification of her summary posts as "spammy." Reasoning is fair, but ironic since her main comment about Skillit has been "tl;dr." Signal

53: promises not to vote Rage until she can hammer. Noise

54: wants to hammer Rage. Says we'll get no claim, and Rage is "stretching the day by confusing us." Signal

55: still wants to hammer Rage. She's willing to wait until my analysis is posted. 50% Noise, 50% Signal

56: Rage's defense sucked, she still wants to hammer. Noise

57: not going to hammer until my analysis is done. Signal

This is all the posts I took into account for my analysis.

58: repsonds to my analysis by describing how useful her summary could be to someone like cerberus (which is

not

the defense you gave earlier, which was much better). Says the noise argument is crap, and she is suspicious of me. Signal

59: asks for this PBPA to help understand the argument. She admits her reply was a little bit OMGUS, and says it's due to RL stress (I understand, no problem!). Signal

60: discusses the use of town tells in analysis. Signal

61: waiting for my PBPA before the hammer. Noise, in my opinion, but it could be interpreted as Signal.

62: says PBPA means "Point by Point Analysis." I meant it as "Post by Post Analysis," but there's really no difference. Signal

63: questions why there might be suspicion on her. Signal

64: says to have fun looking at her actions. Noise

65: debates whether a quick wagon is worse than a slow one. Signal

66: discounts the suggestion that SC should not be viewed as a newer player. Signal

67: Hammers. Signal

68: defends the hammer. Noise

[sthar8]

Goat: I would, of course, like to know what makes you suspect me, so that I can clarify any misunderstanding as to my intentions.

Mega: Whether FL had "reserved" the hammer or not is irrelevant. It is still her responsibility to make sure the town was ready to end the day (which we were clearly not) before hammering. SC had a reasonable expectation of pro-town behavior from FL which was not met, thus he is mainly absolved of guilt in this matter, unless he is her scumparter. Saying that he is the actual hammer is basically saying that anyone can do whatever scummy and anti-town thing that pops into their head, and so long as they announce it beforehand, they can't be held accountable.

The FL vs. Skillit thing is pretty hilarious to me. Veerus nailed the essence of the argument pretty solidly. I will note that the hypocrisy of FL's accusations does not improve her image to me.

FL: Before my analysis, you had a 3:4 Noise:Signal ratio, and Noise posts made up 44% of your posts. In addition, this is only examining topical relevance to the game, not the extent of your reasoning or the validity of your arguments, both areas in which I would expect to find additional noise. How does almost half of your content being irrelevant seem "fairly good" to you? And how can you justify attacking others on similar reasoning?

As for your comments regarding a meta on Skillit, I just had a brief discussion with SC not too long ago about the dangers of meta. In addition, Skillit's post history proves that this is his second game here, so any "evidence" that you might find in his other posts is not significant for the purposes of determining a pattern, since he hasn't had time to demonstrate a consistant playstyle.

You also seem to be taking the whole issue of your hammer rather cavalierly, possibly because only SC has expressed any real suspicion of it. This worries me, because it shows that you might not understand how serious of a mistake the hammer really was, or you might be attempting to downplay the issue or pass the blame off. We had posts yet promised, and not everyone had chipped in on the Rage issue. If we hadn't been very lucky, scum could have used the opportunity to eliminate someone with something important to say. You had expressed earlier that you believe that the timing of votes is a key factor in determining how justified a vote is. The hammer is the one time I really agree with this sentiment. For reference, your hammer came about 13 minutes after SC's vote. How did you expect anyone to be able to unvote, if they weren't ready for the hammer? Why did you feel that you had the right to choose when to cut off discussion? Today you say things like "most of you are chickens," like there had been some kind of disagreement as to whether Rage's lynch was the correct one. This is a straw man argument, since no one had expressed any thoughts to that effect, and Rage was clearly playing poorly enough to gather a majority of votes. I cannot think of

one

plausible anti-town consequence from delaying the hammer. Its pretty clear that it would be an advantageous move for scum to quicklynch a townie and cut off all discussion, especially if they thought they had a defensible position for the next day.

Yes, I hammered. Um...am I supposed to deny that or something?

No, you're supposed to explain it, preferably with something other than an admission of fault and an appeal to ridicule.

I'm still suspicious of Skillit, because he seems to still be focused on a semantic debate with FL rather than any real scumhunting. FL did start the discussion, however, so he might just be preoccupied with defending himself, making this a null tell. Its worth mentioning that such a heated argument based on such a weak case could be an example of two scum distancing.

[sthar8]

Sure wasn't clear to me. I saw the votes piling on and everyone was done with Rage

Right. The open questions to Rage, coupled with the hotly raging debate on Skillit and the promised post from me

screamed

that there was nothing more to be gained from that day.

Love that little sneakiness. Already decided I'm scum?

Not yet, but we're getting close since many of your actions just don't make sense unless you're scum.

Once again with the "Oh, she's scum"

Note the "could." If I were sure, or even confident of it at this point, don't you think you'd have my vote? As I said, we are getting there. Not answering my questions, and pointing out all the spots where I consider you as scum as though they were some kind of subliminal mind control is certainly not helping your case.

I said I'd hammer. I figured it was obvious I meant first chance I got so that someone else wouldn't take it.

So being able to hammer was so important that you weren't willing to see if anyone else was ready to end the day? I'm not buying what you're selling.

This is a bullshit argument. If Rage had been scum no one would be giving me shit today about it

This is a bullshit argument that is based on irrelevant speculation. (see what I did there?) In fact, I

would

be attacking you, just with accusations of bussing instead of quicklynching.

It isn't over half my posts anymore, now is it? I've been sending off signal for quite awhile. Get unstuck from that point.

So what? You stopped doing something after I called it scummy? That doesn't say anything about your alignment, and all it proves is that you can read. You don't get to pick some arbitrary point and announce that "Only posts made after this can be used as evidence against me."

So...what's the issue again? If you say the town was ready to lynch rage here...yet claim in another part of this post the town wasn't...which are you with?

"Going to lynch player X" and, "Ready to end the day" are not synonymous. Further discussion after consensus cannot hurt the town, while ending all the non-Rage topics then giving them a few days to lose heat and urgency, then bringing up new discussion based on the new information can. And while it looked like the town was ready to lynch Rage, he could have come in with some backbreaking argument against his lynch. We'll never know, now.

As megatheory said, my vote was all but on rage. I just wanted to hammer for once. SC pushed it.

How about answering the question instead of playing "pass the blame." I've already demonstrated that I'm not going with the "SC for scapegoat" campaign.

Suppose you could argue that. But I stand by I promised the hammer and delivered, and that if rage HAD been scum you wouldn't be giving me shit today. As someone put it best, HAMMERING IS NOT A SCUM TELL

You missed the point completely. The point is not that you hammered. The point is that you hammered at a time when it would be advantageous for scum to do so, with no real explanation. Your defense on this point has consisted of pointing the finger elsewhere and downplaying the severity of the potential consequences. The whole "because I felt like it" argument sounds like scum that doesn't think she needs a real defense.

So, I ask you, sthar. Was the town ready to end the day or not?

No, it most certainly wasn't. The reaction to your hammer bears this observation out, and your mention that my analysis on you would have to wait implies that you were aware of the immediate consequences of your actions.

And can you really say SC is scot free when indeed I promised a hammer?

Of this, I can. He had reason to believe that you would at least

pretend

to do what was best for the town, and there was no logical, pro-town reason for your actions, therefore he couldn't forsee them.

Maybe I should have specified I was going to do it when I got the chance in case someone else decided they wanted to take it. Most of the people who have played with me before should realize I'm impulsive. I realize many of you haven't, so I guess it wasn't obvious what I was going to do. Either way, I stand by my hammer, and my vote.

So rather than risk someone else hammering before you got a chance to, you decided to risk the possibility that someone with important info to give us would be NK'd? As I've said before, meta is very weak evidence, as it is easy to manipulate and hide behind.

As I have said, I'm very close to voting you at this point. The one doubt I have is that goat seems very protown and logical and also convinced of your innocence. Therefore, I will withhold my vote until goat presents the reasoning behind his comment that your hammer is an argument for your towniness. From goat's previous posts, I have a strong hope that it won't be a WIFOM defense or a variation of the "too scummy" argument.

My suspects at the moment are: FL, Skillit, Ghostwriter, in that order. GW needs some serious posting, as he seems rather content to sit back and watch arguments without taking a side so far.

[sthar8]

EBWOP: OOH crossposting. I will respond to these last two in an hour or so.

[sthar8]

What question?

Why did you feel that you had the right to choose when to cut off discussion?

That question.

K, so, the town was ready to lynch rage, but not to end the day...yeeah.

My question is what do you expect to learn by having people waon you? Are you suggesting that if you act scummy only scum will wagon you? How do you differentiate between town/scum on your wagon?

What the hell? You ask people to vote you, I'm not comfortable with doing so and decide to FoS you instead, and you call me opportunistic? I don't follow your logic.

Seriously? Why rush it? I wasn't ready to end the day.

Denying the town information like you did is scummy.

Then there was the open discussion between Mega and Skillit, and Rage's discussion of SC. That's 6/12 players who were not ready for the day to end, even though three of them were voting Rage.

Point out the "severity of the consequences" oh wise one

Ad Lapidem through sarcasm, but since you asked so nicely, you cut off any important info Rage may have wanted to give us (like who he suspected), and opened the potential for a scumkill which would deprive us of something important (for example, Skillit-scum could have NK'd Mega to cut off the conversation they were having, or you-scum could have NK'd me to prevent the posting of my PBPA, or panicky GW-scum could have killed Mega for being suspicious of him). The apparent stroke of luck we've had in no way diminishes the risk.

And what's the scum reason?

Its pretty clear that it would be an advantageous move for scum to quicklynch a townie and cut off all discussion, especially if they thought they had a defensible position for the next day.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! If anything "important" were up, it would have come up already. It also didn't come up today. I think this is your weakest point.

Not if it were discovered in Mega's reread. Or my PBPA. Or Rage's answers. And the fact that nothing earthshattering has come up today doesn't mean we haven't heard anything important, or that the risk didn't exist.

Nyeh, your case revolves around my hammering too quickly, and some obscure standard of signal to noise.

Horse Laugh. Yes, those are major points against you, but I don't think my standard of Signal to noise is obscure or unreasonable

I'm here to play a game.

Really!?! Association fallacy and appeal to emotion.

If I add noise, sowwy.

Horse Laugh, appeal to emotion.

So, if all you have is that hammer, I don't think you'll get to stick. I don't really have much defense of the action either. Sowwy again.

Ad Lapidem, Horse Laugh

Impasse.

Untrue.

I'll discuss it as long as you like, but I'm sticking to my guns.

Good thing I don't need you to admit to anything (you'd be pretty dumb scum to admit to the things I'm accusing you of). All I need to do is show the town how I see your actions, and let them decide which side they are on. Whether you "stick to your guns" or not is basically irrelevant.

This whole last paragraph is fallacy after fallacy attacking my position, but providing no defense for yourself. Your post downplays my accusations (weren't you suspicious of someone for this earlier?) and ignores some of the main points brought against you.

In addition, my case on you is not limited to the scummy hammer or the irrelevant noise. I can also cite your hypocritical patterns of suspicion, your stated disinterest in scumhunting early on, your dismissal of valid points for weak reasons, your scapegoating of SC, or your buddying behaviors.

SC: You did say something to that effect, then cerebus disagreed with you, and FL defended your position a little. See this post.

Everybody: I feel like the debate between FL and me is drowning out other topics of conversation. I'd value more opinions on FL's actions, but I don't want to get tunnel vision and miss something else. Please point out to me anything you think I may have missed, or let me know if you have any questions for me. Particularly I'd like to hear from goat, Jshark, mega, and GW.

[sthar8]

A Horse Laugh is an attempt to make someone's argument appear ridiculous, and Argumentum Ad Lapidem is when an argument is dismissed, but no reasoning is given.

[sthar8]

EBWOP: I suppose I should say that they are both logical fallacies

[sthar8]

Either way, I don't think that is suggestive of Forbiddan being scum. I'd actually argue that it's the opposite.

The one doubt I have is that goat seems very protown and logical and also convinced of your innocence. Therefore, I will withhold my vote until goat presents the reasoning behind his comment that your hammer is an argument for your towniness. From goat's previous posts, I have a strong hope that it won't be a WIFOM defense or a variation of the "too scummy" argument.

When I started the debate, I was not convinced of anything, but FL's responses and refusal to mount a logical defense has vaulted her from "possible scum" to "probable scum." Now, I'm waiting for goat's argument, because the only ways I can think of to make the argument he says he'd make are "too scummy" or WIFOM, and I don't think he'd use those. If he's got something I don't, it means I missed something. Whatever I missed could be big enough to discredit the hammer argument and outbalance something else, reducing my suspicions of FL to the same level as my suspicions of Skillit, meriting an FOS rather than a vote. In short, I think there's a possibility that I'm completely wrong and I'd like to explore it before I commit myself to the wagon, especially given how yesterday ended.

I was very close to voting her anyway after the reactions in that last post, but I had announced my intent to wait already and I didn't want to go back on it so soon.

[sthar8]

Ok, goat. Reasons are solid, but I don't think they really apply.

1. You'll notice that we went about two pages with only SC really challenging her hammer. Everyone else seemed to buy the "Well, I said I'd do it" defense, which she clearly had planned out yesterday. I don't think it implausible that scum would try something so overt, especially if they had a ready defense that they could point to. Most of the real suspicion on FL has come after SC and I pushed the case and everybody got to see how poor her reactions were. This is also an indicator to me that she didn't plan any defense past that first line, meaning that she didn't anticipate any real trouble, and that she thought we would all buy the defense. If you were scum, and you didn't think you would get any heat from hammering a townie, wouldn't you go for it?

2. I'm reluctant to rely on meta, for reasons I've already brought up.

In short, I don't think your points in FL's favor outweigh those against her.

Vote: forbiddanlight

[sthar8]

EBWOP: That's 3 votes, by my count, putting you at L-3.

[sthar8]

FL: You may be busy defending yourself

now

, but during the first two pages of the day you had enough time to continue your attacks on Skillit, despite the inconsistency veerus pointed out.

Everyone: Ghostwriter had picked up his prod as of around 20 hours ago. This means to me that he does remember the game, but for some reason he hasn't posted even a note to say he's still interested. If he doesn't post soon, we should consider pressuring him until he either picks up his game or gets replaced. If he continues to lurk in plain sight by picking up prods and failing to contribute, I may become comfortable with his lynch, provided that we exhaust our mod optons first. Obviously, I still think FL would be a stronger lynch, but we can't encourage GW's apparent behavior.

[sthar8]

FL: There is a solid difference between deflecting and scumhunting while under suspicion. The contrast between the two boils down to reasoning. For example, trying to cast suspicion on Skillit with "we should focus on him instead of me because I know he's scum" is deflecting, while saying "I believe Skillit is scum because X, Y, and Z" where X, Y , and Z are logical arguments is scumhunting. If you use your scumhunting as an argument that we shouldn't examine your actions because someone else is scummier, then you will catch heat for it. My view is that it is better for a suspect to continue scumhunting while defending, because even if we wind up lynching you, your stated suspicions give us useful information for the next day. I can't make any promises, because I don't know how you are going to present your arguments, but I can assure you that

any

form of scumhunting is going to be less suspicious than none, and that regardless of your alignment or my perception of you, any actual arguments yuo present will be "of worth."

I notice that I missed some questions you had for me, I'll have another post later today.

[sthar8]

I would urge no one to respond to FL's case on Skillit before he does. I'd like to see his reactions and defenses before anyone else provides him with an easy out.

[sthar8]

That's more policy than any kind of reaction. It's always best to let a player repsond first to anything that concerns them, so that you can be sure that their reactions are theirs alone, and not something "given" them by someone else, like mega's defense of you that you found so convenient.

[sthar8]

Sorry guys, I'm back. Between social engagements, work, and a malfunctioning laptop, it looks like I've missed about four pages in three days.

Bridges: Welcome! I look forward to hearing your opinions on the game so far. I think the main suspicion of your role was due to GW's lurking, so keep a good activity constant and you should be fine.

As for Forbiddan,

So far we've gotten:

Oh, to be fair, and this will be OMGUSy as hell, and likely not paid heed...look at goat closely when you get a chance. He's feeling more like his scummy meta than his townie. The way the case feels, really. I mean, I can't really explain it...just...keep an eye on him, please.

I don't know about you, you could just be pushing the lynch, but my gut says much as I would love to have you lynched, and see you flip scum, you aren't the play.

One, how do you know that skillit is scum? Two, this looks a lot like an appeal to authority to me.

Intuition. I know I'm right because I'm right.

Plus a vote on Cerb. So you find goat, skillit, cerb, me, and maybe alvinz scummy? I think that means we're in LYLO.

Show me these "hypocritical suspcions" Cause I SURE as fuck don't see them. Stated disinterest in scumhunting though? Show me this. Buddying behavior my ass. Basically ANYONE who agrees with anyone could be said to be buddying by your implied definition.

I'm not going to go into the hypocrisy of your suspicions, since others have addressed the issue and I don't want to beat a dead horse. As for the disinterest in scumhunting,

I'm still around. Having a little trouble getting into it. Can someone build a case on me to shoot down so I feel like I'm being loved?

was pretty clear to me. And your buddying is not the same as all the "I agree"s we've been seeing (although I always take a second look at those). In your case, it's more that you seem to agree with anyone who isn't suspicious of you, and be suspicious of anyone who doesn't agree with you. The best example, even though it hadn't happened when I made that remark, is your behavior with goat. He went from "probable town" to "likely scum" in three days, and the only thing that changed as far as I can see is his newfound suspicion of you.

As for your self-vote, I think it best that we keep you off L-1 unless your vote is already on the wagon until we're ready for you to die (read: our lurkers and replacements have checked in). You've already admitted your intent to self-hammer if allowed to, and I think that we should avoid giving you the chance.

Also, I chuckled when I went to look for a quote and found this:

Well, I could be calling for my lynch. At least I'm not that fargone :p

[sthar8]

You may have a case, but don't be fucktarded and misrepresent me.

OK. First, you need to take a step back and relax. This is a game with no practical consequences. No need to be so emotionally invested.

Now, all I did was list the people that you have expressed suspicions of today. I understand that you have retracted your case against cerb (though I'm not sold on the motive behind that) and I cede that I may have misread the comment on me. But I also left out the comments you made toward veerus and SC suggesting that they are town playing poorly, because you have one scummy piece of evidence against them and can't find any more. Everyone who has come under attack by you save alvinz has something in common: expressed suspicions of you.

Hey, dude, are you thinking ok? Because if my vote is on me, and I'm at L-1, I don't think removing my vote and revoting myself would work. And I only said I MIGHT self hammer to piss everyone off. Please stick to facts.

Excuse me for taking your threats as serious, but I'm not going to take any risks by attempting to predict your behavior. And I'm thinking fine, thank you. Would you like to read that again, with some emphasis added?

I think it best that we keep you off L-1

unless your vote is already on the wagon

until we're ready for you to die

Wow, that was like page 6 when NOTHING WAS FUCKING HAPPENING! That's not a proof

It sure is evidence, though. And do you know what we do when we need to move the game along and nothing is happening? We scumhunt! Unless, of course, you already knew who the scum were.

Very good use of quotes out of order...but such misrepresentation is scummy. It might not make you scum, because I think you are just trying to push for more momentum on this wagon, but as I said, stick to facts, not fantasies by switching the order of quotes in a decietful way.

Since it apparantly matters to you, the reason the quotes are out of order is because I wrote that post during a workday and only had limited time to hunt down the remarks I remembered. The order they are presented in is the order in which I found them. When I was done, I wasn't exactly sure what order they went in, so I just presented them as I had them. Regardless, since they all say essentially the same thing, I don't see how the order in which they are presented constitutes misrepresentation and deceit, or is even relevant.

As for the SC/FL team idea, I could see it as possible, though I'd need more evidence on SC to consider it plausible. In the game I just finished (yay completed game!!) scum did something very similar after I presented a case on one of their members at the end of day 1.

Bridges: When you get to my entrance into the game, you'll understand that I will do my best to prevent any lynches until you're caught up. It's the least we can do for a replacement.

[sthar8]

Unvote

I'm waiting for BB to catch up, then I'll be ready for FL's lynch.

Mega: While I agree that we need to know who else everyone is suspicious of, I hesitate to build a solid case that might fall like a house of cards with the new information we gain at the beginning of tomorrow.

That said, alvinz is looking a little suspicious, as his reasoning is nonexistant and his posting style doesn't quite match yesterday's. I don't want to commit to anything regarding him without the insight that the lynch will give us on his list of suspicions, but he's definitely on my radar and elaboration from him would be welcome.

I'm also still looking at Skillit, although the case against him isn't very strong.

[sthar8]

Wait, SC, why did you unvote? I'm just keeping her off L-1 so that B&B can have a chance to catch up on the game.

Alvinz: are you back from your V/LA? Because I'd really like to hear some more from you.

Skillit: Who are you suspicious of at the moment? You seem to be content to verbally masturbate with FL rather than helping the town. And "sir" is a gender specific form of address, unless you're a Trekkie

Although it wouldn't be optimal, I'm willing to end the day without hearing from Jshark's replacement, because I didn't find Jshark to be particularly scummy. I read him as a new player who was a bit out of his depth with the level of analysis in this game.

[sthar8]

Oh ok. I thought you might be suggesting that we should lynch some as-yet-undetermined other person because FL is out of thread for three days.

[sthar8]

Sthar8 - that was very. . .graphic. Needlessly so really.

What?

Who am I suspicious of? Everyone

Scummy and unhelpful.

I still don’t like Alvinz because of yesterdays "tactics"

I'd like you to expand upon this. For clarity, could you summarize the points against alvinz from yesterday? And what do you think of his play today?

I understand that your word-search was a joke, but that kind of joke can be used to hide scum daychat. Please don't do that again.

Although, I did find Jesus:

W R E A D I N G F

J

B F X T E X N Y R

E

E G W A Y O U R I

S

Q E W K G B K H E

U

G R E N D S A B N

S

O M G S T F U F D K
D S D K F B U C A N

Veerus: I agree that it would be optimal to hear from Jshark's replacement, but I don't want to stall the game out and bore everybody just because the mod can't find one. I think that would be worse for the game, so I think we should consider moving on without him if a few days pass after BaB's catchup with no results.

alvinz:

1. Forbidden light is attacking everyone attacking him just like SC.
2. FL and SC are buddies, or otherwise FL/Goat or SC/Goat.
3. Goat is still scummy
4. FL deflects arguments and tries to pry off the attentionon him.

1. What conclusion should we draw from this? I'll also note that FL is doing this

after

we had a brief conversation about how bad it is.
2. Too early for anything definitive. I'm curious about your basis for the third pairing.
3. Support, please.
4. Yes, but not where it has been noted that she did. We have deflection at the beginning of the day when she went after Skillit instead of addressing the points against her, and we have deflection when she insists that SC is responsible for her actions. Each of her OMGUS's is partly deflection, but her cases on cerb and Skillit seemed like an attempt at legitimate scumhunting to me (although neither case is very strong).


At the moment, I'm suspicious of FL, skillit, and alvinz, with a residual amount of suspicion for BaB based on GW's actions and a little concern about cerebus for needing a prod.

MOD: Thank you for your efforts, and I think we all understand how hard it is to find a replacement. From my perspective, at least, you are doing a great job.

[sthar8]

Mega: I read it as saying "here's a plausible setup, so FL's slip might mean she's too sure about how many scum there are."

I'm not sure I understand why you think SC would be scum with FL. Could you please elaborate?

Same on the alvinz-town thing, because his play today is really making me suspicious of him.

I'd like to hear who BaB's other suspect is before we end the day.

Alvinz: We need some more support for your arguments. "Interacting with SC" can't be a scumtell in itself, otherwise you'd have to be pretty high on your own list.

I hope you're not looking for evidence to support a theory. That can lead to stretching and poor interpretation as you force everything to fit with your pet explanation. Better is to examine the evidence first, then find a theory that covers everything.

FOS: cerebus3

What are you doing? How about instead of whatever inspired those last two posts, you think about who you are suspicious of besides FL?


Skillit: Did you take offense at the use of the word "masturbate," or are you contending that your protracted debate with FL over posting styles was useful to the game? If the former, I apologize, and I didn't realize that anyone would find that offensive. If the latter, the discussion produced nothing and was based on irrelevant garbage. Frankly, it made me think that you and FL might be scumpartners. The recent push for her to improve her content strikes me as similarly useless. I find it clear that FL is rather committed to her playstyle at this point, and I can't think of anything short of confessions in other quarters that would convince me that she's not today's play.

As for your case on alvinz, 1 and 2 are worrying, and I've noticed that 4 is not limited to your questions. I get the impression that Alvinz seems to avoid answering any question that will not advance his SC case when answered.

[sthar8]

Mega:

And, alvinz brought up some interactions between them that look like they are partners.

Strongly disagree. I think much of alvinz's evidence is only indicative if viewed with the perspective that both of them must be scum. You do have a point with everything else, but I think it's more likely buddying between scum and town, though I'm not willing to speculate further without knowing FL's alignment, as that seems to be key to the argument.

Why do you suspect him?

His posting frequency doesn't seem to match up with yesterday's, even after eliminating the time when he's announced V/LA ahead of time. He rarely answers any questions put to him and he seems unwilling to explain his actions. He's very tunnel-visioned on a very few players, and his suspect list seems mainly to include those who have been suspicious of him and those connected to them. It seems like he's hunting for evidence to prove his theory rather than forming a theory from the evidence. None of this is particularly damning, but it does seem to me that his interests might not coincide with the town win.

Goat:

I generally find fishing to be a pretty weak tell as it is, because I've never really seen where scum do it more than town.

While I don't think BaB was intentionally rolefishing, scum have much more incentive to do so than any town except a doctor. There is no pro-town reason for most town players to be rolefishing.

Everybody: I agree with Mega that no-kill is very, very rarely the correct play for scum, and I agree with goat that I'm eager to hear BaB's suspicions.

[sthar8]

Mega, I don't want to defend SC before he gets the chance to, but I'll just say that I find alvinz's interpretations to be a little of a stretch. I've seen casual banter between scum and town before (more than once), and I think scum are more likely to want to distance from each other than to draw casual connections. FL's defense of SC could just as easily be an attempt to gain his trust by seeming to be an ally, or to connect herself to a townie that seemed to be going down.

FL: My other suspicions have little to do with your case, though I will have some new thoughts when you flip scum.

[sthar8]

Well, you've done nothing to convince me otherwise, despite numerous opportunities, so can you fault me for being optimistic about the lynch of someone who is unhelpful to the degree that you are?

[sthar8]

Still waiting for BaB, but as soon as his stuff is up and discussed I will support moving on. Current activity levels support the idea that we risk stalling out if we wait much longer on replacements.

[sthar8]

as to ignore is neither helpful nor my style

I'd like to point out that what you're discussing here is not an element of style, it is a content choice. I consider style to be mainly irrelevant when evaluating scumminess, with the significant exception of style changes that may indicate state of mind. Content choices, on the other hand, are fair game. For example, I don't consider your verbosity to be a tell either way, but failing to express your suspicions, which you have done for much of the game,

is

. Alvinz seems to like a quote-response posting style with a low commentary wordcount. This is not scummy. But when he refuses to answer questions put to him, and gives not even cursory support to his arguments, I start to look closer.

I disagree that it was useless.

Your record of success on your professed objectives supports my point. I believe, however, that you

may

not have seen how useless the gesture was at the time.

[sthar8]

WB rage. No more Slayer gambits, please.

BaB:

To understand Noise to Signal, think of a radio, or a telephone with a bad connection. You hear two distinct things: atmospheric static, and the radio signal that you want to listen to. If the static is stronger than the music, you have a high noise to signal. In mafia, as a game of discussion, we can expect a certain amount of useless chatter or BS. There's nothing wrong with this, until the useless info (noise) begins to drown out the important info (signal). FL is correct that this seems to be a very popular expression, but I think the analogy is apt and clever.

For example, Rage's post was almost entirely Noise: it contains no opinions, observations, alignment info, or any other game related material. Another example would be a corrective post addressing a typographical error. In my own posts, my comment to Skillit about finding Jesus was Noise. Note, I do not find this scummy in small doses, and background noise can actually help us keep perspective in a game, but a very large percentage of FL's posts before I pointed this out to her were entirely irrelevant to the game. A high Noise to Signal ratio indicates (at least, to me) that one wishes to be seen posting without actually contributing anything to the discussion.

I should also point out that what I've been accusing Skillit of recently is

not

a noise to signal issue. It's clear that his posts have been addressing game issues (at least most of the time). What I think he's been doing is contenting himself with small issues that have either been resolved or that bear little importance to the rest of the game.

It seems odd that almost half our players have expressed suspicion of goat recently, but I haven't given much thought to him as scum. I'm going to reexamine goat tomorrow; I'll update you all with my thoughts.

Everybody: As you probably all expected, I'm now looking for Rage's catchup post before I return my vote to FL. I will be willing to hammer if she is at L-1 and I feel that day's end is reasonable (no promised posts outstanding, etc) when my vote is ready. In addition to goat, I'm also going to take a good, hard look at cerberus, as he seems to have disappeared as soon as the conversation was no longer about him. I'm also going to try to compile all the points that alvinz still needs to respond to into one post, as that might increase the likelihood that he will indulge us.

[sthar8]

Sorry guys, but I'm just not seeing goat-scum right now. My earlier expressed opinions of his day 1 play stand. I don't like his reliance on meta, and the end of yesterday's alvinz wagon makes my skin crawl, but he seems to genuinely want to gain information for the town. I noticed that goat doesn't respond to posts that answer him, presumably unless he disagrees, but if that assumption is correct there is nothing anti-town about this behavior. The shifts in opinion seem honest to me, and they coincide with things like rereads that explain the sudden changes satisfactorily. I'm not going to clear him, but I just don't see him being very scummy.

I'd like to point out (again?) that meta analysis loses its already limited usefulness when the subject demonstrates an awareness of the trends indicated.

Cerberus has spent much of the game breaking down poor cases (which is good) but he doesn't seem to have done much scumhunting since early day 1. Couple this with his habit of disappearing whenever no one is specifically addressing him and it looks like we have someone who doesn't particularly want to do any analysis himself. I don't think his agreement with several wagons was scummy, but I do wish he'd at least note what part of each person's case he agrees with. We need a significant amount of participation from cerb tomorrow, or I predict a rapid rise on my scumlist.

alvinz:

Alvinz: are you back from your V/LA?

1. What conclusion should we draw from this?

That's it, forbiddanlight, I have ceased to understand you anymore.

Sounds like scumtalk.

Explain, because I really don't see how this is so. forbiddanlight is VERY hard to follow.

Ok, so, if I flip town, what will your theories be then?

and the ubiquitous

Do you have any more support for your arguments that you can share with us?

If there are any open questions to alvinz that I've missed, please point them out.

[sthar8]

Goat: You spent two posts talking yourself off of alvinz wagon, then turned around and vote Skillit for basically agreeing with what you had said before.

After

you had jumped on Skillit, you announced that you no longer wanted to be on the alvinz wagon. I understand that you were undergoing a process in your thinking, but your vote

was

a bit hypocritical, and it was the scummiest thing I've seen you do so far.

Alvinz:

When I claim I go full out scumhunting with no fear in my actions. Go with my gut. Thats why I have tunnel vision.

You know, I've been repeatedly expressing suspicion of you based on the disconnect between your day1 and day2 play. Why didn't you note this sooner Though I'm not sure how you think it's protown to stubbornly refuse to back up your suspicions.

Scum have no motivation to buddy with

each other

. Distancing and buddying are not even close to the same thing.

It is WAY too early to be voting for people because you think they might be FL's partner. I agree that she is something like 90% on the scumdar, but we need to confirm before we work on some tangential case. Going after potential partners before killing the scum before us would be sloppy and dangerous.

SC: You no longer think FL is the play today? You're willing to overlook that whole list of complaints you had about FL just because alvinz has been repeating your name like a broken record player? And from what you're saying it seems to me that you no longer think that FL is the play partly because nothing new has come up against her since she resolved herself to her own death, and we've been discussing other suspicions while waiting for replacements to catch up. How does this make her less scummy?

I don't expect much of anything from anybody this weekend, as it is a holiday in the US. I'm hoping Rage will get his catchup done sometime tonight, so that we have a chance to digest before we're ready to end the day, but it's not a big deal to me if he waits till Tuesday.

[sthar8]

Your major Day1 case against alvinz involved his uncooperative behavior in responding to your suspicions of him. You then demanded that Skillit take a stance on the wagon. Skillit spent two posts talking himself from "I see the case but I'm not convinced" to "I believe alvinz is scum" based on alvinz's more recent lack of cooperation. While he was doing this, you convinced yourself that the new tells meant that alvinz was playing poorly as town, not scum. As soon as Skillit votes for the wagon that you presumably wanted him on only a few posts earlier, you vote for him for being willing to risk the lynch even though there is a possibility of alvinz being town, even though he said in his previous post "That makes me think you are almost certainly scum" and explained why the behavior was anti-town. When he responds to your vote with "why would town do this?" you say, "why would scum do it?" Cerb then brought up a logical and relevant reason that scum would want to end the day prematurely, countering your only apparent point. You don't ever respond to this, and the next thing you say about your suspicion of skillit is almost three pages later, where you note that you are happy with your vote and feel that Skillit has a decent chance to be scum. You never provide support for this assertion, and shortly afterward you FOS then vote rage without even noting that you'd had a vote on Skillit. Do you see how similar this is to the suspicions that have been expressed of you? I'm not here to defend Skillit, and he has been called out for legitimately scummy behavior a few times in this game, but your vote on him was not one of those times. You did not support your arguments against him and you maintained your suspicion on a feeling until someone you felt was scummier came along. Most of your suspicions boiled down to the fact that Skillit expressed agreement with a position that you had held until he voted in support of you. If it weren't clear from your posts immediately preceding the incident that you were starting to think your case was too weak, I'd think this to be an entrapment strategy that was very, very, scummy.

[sthar8]

EBWOP: Stupid laptop mouse, I wasn't done yet.

This further bolsters my case as you technically asked SC your partner that you were going to vote me, and he agrees so you vote me.

I agree that this exchange was odd. I have to think that there is a chance that alvinz is right, and we are looking at scum daytalk here. However, if we are it is poorly masked, and I'd like to confirm FL's role through lynch before we act on any partner theories.

Just don't end the day without me, mmkay?

Ok.

SC: Did you and alvinz switch brains? I have an open question to you, and you've posted twice without addressing it.

[sthar8]

/hypocrisy.

It's good that you understand this. You just saved me from having to make a really big post.

That said, FL seems to be posting much more pro-town content than before. This isn't going to dissuade me from voting her, as twilight logic doesn't apply and there's a good chance that she's deperately doing anything she can to avoid being lynched today.

SC: To consider anything like that is anti-town. We'll know eventually if Alvinz was right, and you getting lynched wouldn't prove anything about alvinz's alignment.

Rage: Where's that post you promised? I don't care if it has the recent stuff, I just want your thoughts up till you joined the game.

[sthar8]

Sthar8, how did you analyze forbiddanlight's posts for your PBPA? Did you go into a view of all her posts and weed out the ones from other games?

At the bottom of the normal thread view is a bar beginning with "Display posts from previous:" If you use the second drop down, you can select a single player and view all posts that player has made in the game. When analyzing a particular player's posts, clicking the white "page" icon near the top of the post will take you to that post in the full thread, allowing you to see what the post number is and read the contextual discussion.

Rage, who do you find suspicious at the moment?

So, anyway, what happens if as the day goes on I consistently post pro town content? Are you just at the point where no matter what I do I get lynched? Why does this sound DANGEROUSLY close to policy? It isn't, I'm sure, but it's sure wrong. This game is not a black hole. There is no singularity of scumminess where you can say no matter what you do you are going to be lynched. To say so is being incredibly pig headed and liable to cause town loss.

Correcting your scumtells after they are pointed out doesn't make them less valid. If someone were to become scummier than you, I would certainly move my vote. At this point, though, a good number of the theories being discussed assume you to be scum, and we can't act on any of them until after you're dead. In addition, you've been scummy enough today that anything we get from you is tainted until we're sure about your alignment. You said it yourself, you've been scummy enough up to this point that if we were to leave you alive, you'd distract the town and create confusion. I can't think of a reason why we'd let you live one more day. Catching scum and letting them go is just... scummy.

So, as promised

Vote: forbiddanlight

THIS PUTS FL AT L-1. PLEASE BE SURE EVERYONE IS READY TO MOVE ON BEFORE HAMMERING

[sthar8]

Sorry guys, I'm halfway through a post responding to goat, but I've had a busy few days.

I'll try to get it up today, but I can't make any promises.

On a related note, if you see any headlines reading "Eastern Washington Man Sets Fire to Idiot Bureaucrats on College Campus," you can probably expect me not to post for awhile.

[sthar8]

Why can't you post some of your response now?

Because unlike a player analysis, when I say I'm halfway done with this post it means it's currently a mess of random quotes and extraneous code tags that I'm slowly organising into a coherent statement. It's not "I'm done responding to half of goat's post," it's "I'm halfway done responding to most of goat's post"

[sthar8]

Here's my thoughts on Goat's original case against me. I'll read his more recent stuff right now, and respond as soon as I'm done.

At this point I'm back to where I was early in the day. I think Sthar8 is scum, and my guess at scum buddies would be BaB and Veerus.

You didn't, however, ever provide support for

why

you felt this way earlier in the day. I'd still welcome the chance to respond to whatever that was.

Alvinz is the only person who has really pushed any theories about who is scum with Forbiddan. I mentioned possibilities, and BaB mentioned something about me fitting, but neither of us really pushed those at all. In other words, the only person pushing theories whatsoever about who is scum with Forbiddan is Alvinz.

The issue is that Sthar suspects Alvinz, so why is he buying into Alvinz's theories and using them as a way to justify forbiddan's lynch? That doesn't make any sense. He wants forbiddan dead so we can act on the theories of someone he finds scummy? Bad justification.

I'm certain that if forbiddan is scum, then SC is most likely scum with her.

While Goat and FL have been connected to an extreme extent, that doesn't mean anything until FL is lynched.

IF alvinz95 is a cop (unknown) AND you're town (unknown), then surely the supposed cop's guilty readings on you are false (unconfirmed).

Maybe not as many as I thought, but definitely not just alvinz. Just because no one but alvinz is repeatedly beating us about the face with their speculation doesn't mean that no one else needs the info. And I'm on the record about alvinz, saying:

I don't want to commit to anything regarding him without the insight that the lynch will give us on his list of suspicions

He's suspicious, but FL's lynch will go a long way toward showing us how suspicious his behavior really is.

This I also do not like. Here Sthar8 assumes Forbiddan is scum, while the previous parts of that paragraph have justifications for why her lynch is good and necessary even if she's town. That doesn't fit. Why would Sthar have to justify how her lynch is beneficial in the case she's town when by this statement here he's completely convinced she's scum?

I don't see any place that I'm

not

assuming FL is scum. I provided several reasons why her lynch would help us, then I reaffirmed that the most important reason is that I believe she is scum. I don't see anything wrong with this, nor do I think her lynch would be beneficial if she's town. It's just that, short of a cop claiming with an innocent, there's not much that will outweigh the pile of scumtells against her. Where do I justify lynching FL-townie?

I'm also not certain that FL is scum. I'm about 85% sure, but it is still possible that I'm wrong. I think 85% is enough that she should swing, however.

Finally, even if I

had

condoned FL-town's lynch,

you

are not justified in attacking me on that basis:

The issue is that I think it may simply be better for us to lynch Forbiddan anyway because it would bring some closure to this case.

This is quite amusing considering that this clearly states the viewpoint that you ostensibly attacked Skillit on yesterday. Unless you think we should find you scummy for this, I think your credibility on the topic is compromised. In short, you're falsely accusing me of violating a double standard.

His end result - I'm not very scummy.

His paragraph - Three things he doesn't like about my play and the statement that he doesn't want to clear me.

The issue: This is the second time Sthar has gone about pointing out scummy actions and focusing on scum tells even when he finds someone town. This fits perfectly from a scum mindset. Sthar8 wants to get townies lynched, and by clearing players and pointing out town tells he prevents that from happening. However, him pointing out scum tells on someone he thinks is townie provides two benefits to scum. 1. It allows him to get on the case if need should arise. 2. It gives others reasons to push my case even if he doesn't choose to himself. In other words, if he legitimately thinks I am a townie, then why is he pointing out actions that could fuel a push in my direction? That doesn't fit a townie mindset. A townie doesn't want to get another townie lynched, and thus is not going to point out things that would further that agenda.

You think I'm scummy because my analysis of your play found you to be more pro-town than not, but didn't clear you? A townie shouldn't be clearing players in the absence of a proven cop investigation or irrefutable logical proof.

Ever

. Clearing someone based on behavioral tells is just begging for a loss. Can you show me where this evidence is that I should have cleared you on?

Also, I've already stated that I think it is anti-town to list the reasons that someone is protown, as you are basically telling scum who they should kill, and it's possible to accidentally out power roles this way. It is always protown to point out scummy behavior, and it is anti-town to highlight townie behavior unless it is necessary to prevent the lynch of someone you think to be townie.

As for your "scum advantages,"
1. I sure would hop on your wagon if you started doing scummy things. Doing so would be admitting that I was wrong, but that's not a scumtell so far as I know.
2. If you read my post, I point out everything that I

could

see as suspicious, then

refute every point

. How is it helpful to scum to have points against you that have already been dismissed as irrelevant?

Finally, I don't like how Sthar is suspicious of almost everyone. He's suspicious of Forbiddan, but also Alvinz, and also StrangerCoug. Likewise he's suspicious of Cerebus, and has shown some weak suspicions of BaB. While he thinks I'm town he's shown that he's suspicious of me as well. He's suspicious of skillit. Many of those players do not fit as scum very well with each other, but Sthar has managed suspicion on both of them. The issue is that by maintaining suspicion on so many players he leaves himself open to push whomever he wishes. He can pick to side with StrangerCoug against Alvinz if he wishes, or he can pick to side with Alvinz against SC.

What? I'm not sure where you're getting this, as I've been listing my suspicions clearly every few posts to avoid any misunderstanding of my stances. Granted, I haven't done so for about 10 pages, but I didn't think I had been unclear in expressing myself since then.

I'm suspicious of FL, alvinz, and Skillit, in that order. That is the full and complete extent of my suspicions. I

was

very lightly suspicious of BaB, based on GW's actions, but BaB hasn't done anything that aligns with what I was thinking there. I am concerned about cerberus, and I hope his replacement can up his activity level so that I can get rid of the nagging feeling that cerb was trying to avoid attention, or give me some evidence that will expand it into more than a gut reaction.

I don't think I've expressed suspicion of SC since day1, and he hasn't done anything to make me rethink my evaluation there. I was willing to reexamine you when a number of others expressed that you were their suspect, but I concluded that there was very little merit to the case.

I have no idea why you think I'm particularly suspicious of everyone. No one is cleared yet, but I certainly have some suspects, as well as some players I'm not really worried about. I may not make townie-lists, but you haven't proven that I need to.

[sthar8]

That serves to reinforce my opinion that they are scum together, but that can be dealt with later after we see Sthar's alignment.

Weren't you just attacking me for this?

I see weak attacks on Forbiddan,

Want to back this assertion up with evidence, please? You didn't think the points against her were so weak a few pages ago. What changed?

I have brought up more new suspects than any other player in this game.

You've also attacked me for "being suspicious of too many people." It's protown when you do it but antitown when you (falsely) accuse me of doing it? Yet another double standard.

You're attacking me for something that

1. Is untrue
2. I'm the person who has exhibited the least signs of doing that thus far.

Taste of your own medicine?

3. "Now that there has been enough suspicion cast on some other people" Show me the suspicion cast on Sthar8. Then I will yield this point.

Straw man. If you were scum, you might have seen SC's abandonment of the FL wagon as a sign that town were open to other suspects. Giving us a new one would be a good way to decrease the chances that your partner is lynched. Veerus is attacking the motive behind your lack of conviction here, not suggesting that you are leeching off general suspicion of me.

To be clear, I don't think goat is scum. I attribute the unsupported and empty accusations against me to yet another instance of misunderstanding on his part, because it doesn't really make sense for scum to attack

me

when there are easier targets around, and not all of the easier targets can be scum with goat and FL. I find his dismissal of the

entire case

against FL based on a single comment of mine to be ridiculous, but I believe his motives are pro-town.

I am ready to end the day, but if it were my decision, I would try to give Rage some time to post his PBPA. I hope, however, that someone who is not yet voting for FL will monitor the situation and hammer before the deadline, regardless of whatever other empty threats she can conjure. A No Lynch at this point is very damaging to the town.

[sthar8]

Sthar's defense does boil down to "OMG, hypocrisy" and seems to ignore other points.

Umm, what? Only a couple of his points were based on hypocrisy, and I defended against them even while I was calling him out on them.

And it seems that when Goat stirred the pot the outcry for my lynch started up.

You mean that when goat and SC abandoned the lynch I thought we'd agreed upon, for poor reasons, I tried to talk them back onto it? Why is that surprising? We've caught scum, and there is no protown reason that you should get away.

Your reasoning here is that sthar8 was a mind reader? That sthar8 knew others had theories about who was scum with forbiddan, but nobody voiced them yet? He's just that good at reading people's minds?

Horse Laugh. With the number of people who had expressed theories about FL's partner, and having such theories myself, it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that the evidence is indicative of a trend. That's not actually what happened, but attacking that assumption as you have shows poor reasoning.

That mostly stemmed from your analysis of every player for the reasons I brought up against it before.

Which I had responded to, and you had not pursued further. Seriously, if you didn't like my answer, you need to make that clear. There's no way I can defend myself if I don't know what I need to defend against.

I mentioned BaB's as being not very meaningful because he wasn't pursuing it. At the moment, it's now the meat of his case against me, which does lend validity to your stance, although after the fact. I don't recall that post by megatheory, but it's valid in your defense. Veerus's post is completely irrelevant.

Why is it not meaningful that BaB's waiting for the evidence that I said he was waiting for? And veerus's post is entirely relevant. It's a summation of an argument between SC and alvinz that assumes a particular result from FL's lynch, making it a theory that needs the info from her lynch in order to develop.

What theories do you personally buy in to? If theories about who is scum with FL is part of the reason for your vote, then I'm curious as to which ones you find especially meaningful.

I don't and they're not. Without the solid information from the lynch, scumpartner theories are worthless, which is why I've kept

mine

out of thread. My vote is based entirely on the

pile of scumtells

that FL has cranked out this game. Everything else is bonus.

...but why mention that? You specifically saying "but I don't want to clear him" gives off the impression that you are not solid in your opinion. Whether or not it's true that you don't wish for me to be 100% cleared (which is true, naturally), mentioning that you don't want to clear me creates the idea that your read isn't strong.

Ding Ding Ding! We have a winner! When did I say my read on you was strong? And how is it scummy that it isn't? To my eyes, this looks like you're suspicious of me because I'm not sure enough of your alignment to outright defend you, even though I expressed my opinion that you are probably not scum.

I think it's also anti-town to list reasons you find a pro-town player's actions scummy though.

Why? Isn't it in the town's best interest to make sure that everyone has all of the information? If I were wrong about you, or anyone else, providing my thoughts on any anti-town play could allow someone else to point out the error in my thinking and help us catch scum. I would agree that it would be counterproductive to provide examples on someone that I'm sure enough about to defend, but there are only a few people matching that description in this game, and none of them are under serious attack currently.

My point is that if you were to hop on my wagon at a later point, even if it were for legitimate points, it doesn't reflect as poorly on you if your town read of me from earlier contained some points which allowed you to easily transition.

So I'm suspicious because you think I'm defending against something that isn't a scumtell? Why would changing my mind on you reflect poorly on me

at all

, if I provided solid reasoning to go with it?

Show me where you refute.

1. "I don't like his reliance on meta" is not a scumtell, it's just bad play. (in my opinion)
2. "the end of yesterday's alvinz wagon makes my skin crawl" corresponds to "The shifts in opinion seem honest to me, and they coincide with things like rereads that explain the sudden changes satisfactorily." This would be obvious to anyone who checked the context of the alvinz wagon.
3. "goat doesn't respond to posts that answer him, presumably unless he disagrees, but if that assumption is correct there is nothing anti-town about this behavior." I hope I don't have to point this one out

My issue was that you had so many suspects, but I didn't see any real town reads out of you

So you agree that I shouldn't announce town tells in thread, but not doing so makes me suspicious if I also express my own suspicions?

And since when is three suspects and one worry too much for a twelve person game?

My read is that you're playing the field, pushing as many players as possible, and leaving things open-ended to allow you to go wherever best suits you as scum.

As evidenced by my single-minded pursuit of FL today, right?

I don't think those theories should be pressed until after X's alignment is known, though.

At this point, though, a good number of the theories being discussed assume you to be scum, and we can't act on any of them until after you're dead.

But my desire for information that would allow us to evaluate these theories, because they are held in part by someone who I find suspicious, is scummy?

I feel her play has been pro-town as of late. Her suggestion that we lynch her so the town can move on to discussing other targets, thus expressing worry about the town losing track of scum by focusing solely on one target, speaks to me of a pro-town mindset.

This is horrifyingly flawed. The fact that we've pointed out FL's scumtells, and she subsequently stopped displaying them, only proves that she can read. Nothing she has done nullifies the huge amount of scummy behavior we've seen in any way. And the suggestion that her "giving up" is a town tell is laughable as well. In her situation, it would make sense for scum to emulate the behavior of alvinz from yesterday, as that made you drop your suspicions of him and saved him from a lynch. In addition, the "lynch me, it's best for the town" strategy is a good example of WIFOM, and could be used to scare votes off of her wagon, as we have already seen.

The difference here is that I've brought up a lot of suspects over the course of the thread, many of whom I don't suspect anymore, whereas my interpretation is that you currently have that many suspects

I'm no longer suspicious of BaB or SC, and I've never been suspicious of you. I see no difference in the situations, because your

interpretation

of my suspicions is a list of everyone I've suspected

all game

plus some random guesses that are only tangentially supported by a misinterpretation of my arguments.

The issue is that if I were scum looking to do this, I would have picked a target that was easier to accomplish it with.

I've already brought this up, but it has no bearing on the fact that your argument was a straw man. Had you expressed

this

sentiment, your objection would have been valid.

How about I explain that.

How about you let goat explain his own reasoning?

[sthar8]

How about I do what I want, when I want, since you are far from confirmed, and much less the boss of this town. Goat can explain his reasons for switching, but I figured I'd explain my inconsistencies since I'd like to think I'm the only one who knows what I'm thinking. Do any of you claim to be mind readers? Cause if that's the case I think you'd know I'm town as well. Will any psychics please come forward to clear me?

Yeah...didn't think so.

How about you cut the manipulative "victim" crap and ridiculous, immature, emotional hyperbole. It's not working. You've already made sure that we know that the best defense you can come up with is poor response to pressure. That explains very little of the behaviors you have been accused of, and nothing of the circumstances which outed you in the first place. There is no protown reason for this kind of behavior.

Ok, If I'm town, sthar, BaB, and alvinz are scum

If I'm scum, Goat and SC are my partners

Scummy as hell. Even if you were town, you've shown no evidence for any of those assumptions.
I like the buddying you've been doing with goat, now that he's less suspicious of you.
I also like how I'm now one of your chief suspects, with no evidence against me, now that you think you can get away with it without being called on OMGUS yet again.

Also, everybody should voice their suspicious on who may or may not be scum based on FL's alignment. The only reason not to would be to stall for time and wait until more people die. The only people who would want to do that are scum.

Or we could be avoiding distractions based on assumptions, especially since certain members of the town have shown themselves to be predisposed to such distractions.

Regardless, if FL is scum, I plan on looking at mega, Skillit, and alvinz
If she's town, I'll look at alvinz, SC, and cerb's replacement.

My scum list is mostly based of people who started pushing my lynch harder when goat started having different ideas

How is that scummy?

[sthar8]

Bad play. Her earlier play was scummy, yes, but my recent read is that she's been more pro-town, and combined with my outlook that sthar/you are scummy it makes me feel she is a mislynch. I'd say she's about 4th on my scum list right now, behind BaB->sthar->veerus, and the situation is such that I feel if FL is town then sthar->veerus are scum, and if FL is scum then my suspicion on sthar->veerus is lessened. Likewise, I feel if sthar->veerus is scum that FL is likely town.

You're willing to completely write off all the scummy things FL has done simply because she's shown some improvement since we've pointed out how anti-town she's been? And you don't see a problem with this?

Wrong. This is an example of Hasty Generalization. If 3 players express in the thread that they have a theory of who is scum with FL, it's a logical fallacy to assume that others have a theory as well. Furthermore, I cannot know that you have a theory of who is scum with FL because you didn't announce it as such.

I'm not going to argue this much further, because as I noted, it is entirely irrelevant. However, accusing me of hasty generalisation doesn't change the fact that your response was a horse laugh. Furthermore, my reasoning was

not

fallacious. Hasty generalisation is only applicable when there are an insufficient number of examples from which to induct a generalisation. In this case, had I been making such an induction, I would have had six examples out of the pool of eleven, a sample size greater than half of the whole. And whether or not you knew I had theories about FL's partners is immaterial to the point, in any case.

BaB's wasn't meaningful, because his original case on me wasn't based on FL's alignment (I'll get to that in a moment, when I address BaB). Veerus' quote still seems completely irrelevant to me. I can't see at all how that quote relates to FL, considering it looks like discussion over alvinz being a cop and what that means for SC.

Whoops, I just realized that I misread the context surrounding the veerus quote. I had thought they were discussing whether alvinz was a cop with a guilty on FL, probably because that would have made much more sense given the fact that alvinz has only expressed suspicion of SC as FL's partner today. Sorry

But how does that make BaB's theories not meaningful? He expressed a theory on who Fl's partner was, and later I made a comment about some people having theories about who FL's partner was. The validity of the theories is irrelevant, because the only way your attack on my statement makes sense is if I didn't know there were any theories besides alvinz' in the first place.

Here:

At this point, though, a good number of the theories being discussed assume you to be scum, and we can't act on any of them until after you're dead

That's additional justifcation for her lynch based on theories of who is scum with her.

Good job quote mining. What it actually is, is a point about the benefits we'll gain from lynching her, not the justification for doing so. The justification was the same as the

last

time I'd voted her, and I didn't think I needed to reiterate any of it because nothing had changed, and I'd been promising my vote nearly every post since I took it off her. I did summarize that, however, in the sentence that you ignored while looking for something to make me seem scummy:

Correcting your scumtells after they are pointed out doesn't make them less valid. If someone were to become scummier than you, I would certainly move my vote.

It's not scummy of you to have a less than strong read. Your manner of presenting your information was scummy though. I honestly don't see any problem with you saying "I'm not sure about goatrevolt" or anything along those lines. I do have an issue with you saying "verdict: town, but here are some scummy things he's done. I personally don't think they make him scum, but here they are anyway."

But you just attacked me with:

You specifically saying "but I don't want to clear him" gives off the impression that you are not solid in your opinion. Whether or not it's true that you don't wish for me to be 100% cleared (which is true, naturally), mentioning that you don't want to clear me creates the idea that your read isn't strong.

I'm not even sure what the attack is here, other than you think it's scummy that I chronicled my thought process in the post where I expressed doubt in the suspicions of you. I would think it would be worse if I had just said "I'm ignoring all suspicions of goat, I think he's probably town."

You seem to be arguing that it's anti-town to point out town tells on someone unless you are doing so to prevent their lynch. I agree.

Then why have you attacked me for not doing so?

You also seem to be insinuating that it's pro-town to point out any scum tells you see in the thread whatsoever of circumstances. I disagree, or at least disagree with the notion of scum tell in this sense. Scum tell is something that you consider makes someone else more likely to be scum. The purpose of pointing them out is to get players lynched who you think are scum. If you find me town, then my scum tells aren't really scum tells, because you don't think they suggest I'm scum. In that case, why point them out? There's no pro-town reason to do so. The argument "I'm just providing information to the town and maybe they can act on it" is exactly the same argument I'm calling you out on over and over again. You're providing information to the town that would allow them to pressure a player you have listed as townie. That is not a pro-town action, and completely fits scum mentality.

Fine, if you are going with that narrow definition of scumtell, then I'll define what I've been pointing out as suspicious behavior. Suspicious behavior, then, is behavior that, at first glance, doesn't quite fit with a pro-town attitude, or might hurt the town's chances of winning. Your "scumtells" incorporate intent of the finder into the definition, which would mislead you into thinking that everytime I point out anti-town play, I'm attempting to get someone lynched. This is absolutely ridiculous. If I were infallible, or completely sure of your alignment, then there would be no need for me to express my though process or outline my initial suspicions. But since I

could

be wrong, it is in the best interest of the town for me to be transparent with my thinking, so that if I make any glaring error I can be corrected. In that sense, yes, the method of my presentation does leave room for others to accuse you, but because in doing so they would need to correct errors in my assumptions that render my conclusions invalid anyway, I don't see how this is possibly anti-town.

If your entire point of reviewing my play was to say that you didn't think I was scum, then it's completely counterproductive for you to also in that same breath provide reasoning why others might find me scum. If you yourself do not think that it means I'm scum, then you don't think it's worthwhile information to pressure me on. Why give it to others and allow them to pressure me on that information then? You personally don't think it's indicative that I'm scum, so you obviously aren't going to act on it, right? Why allow others to do the same?

The

point

of the exercise was not to paint you as pro-town, it was to

review your play

then come to a conclusion about your alignment. It is always in the best interest of the town for any player to be forthcoming with their thought processes, so that any errors can be caught by the rest of the town. In addition, if thought processes are provided, the town can be at least a little more sure that the intent of the process was not anti-town.

For the exact same reasons that my change on FL is reflecting poorly on me right now. Earlier I provided reasons why I thought she was scum, and now I've changed my mind. I've come under a lot of pressure for that change. If I had previously been wishy-washy and been like "Well I think FL is scum, but here are some town tells and maybe you'll think she is town from them" then I could have been able to cite that and say that my read wasn't strong and that I now consider those town tells to override my idea that she was scum, etc. It wouldn't seem as much of a drastic change and would likely allow me to make a swap like this less noticeable.

I don't see how that makes you scummy, and I don't see how that would make me scummy. Why would I preemptively defend against something I don't consider to be a scumtell?

You didn't mention that in the post.

I didn't think I needed to. I've brought it up at least half a dozen times this game, and I thought I'd made it clear that I think reliance on meta is bad play.

That doesn't correspond at all, and it completely non-intuitive to connect, considering the first point was early in the paragraph and the 2nd point was later in the paragraph and is very seemingly unrelated. Also, my change of opinion on Alvinz/Skillit didn't have anything to do with a reread.

It is intuitive if you read and understand the context that I was discussing, which is something I assume that any reader of my posts should be doing. And the reread was an example for a different instance. The point is, I said "here's a place where goat changed his mind unexpectedly" then later said "the places where goat change his mind unexpectedly aren't scummy because of the circumstances surrounding them." Anyone who used that point against you would have to overcome my preexisting opinion on the idea, and I think my play shows exactly how vocal I would have been in arguing the point.

Three suspects and one worry is understating it. I listed 7 suspects that you had shown some suspicion of in somewhat of a recent time frame.

Try to base your assertions on fact, please. Your 7 suspects included my three actual suspects, one person I haven't been suspicious of since day 1, one person I've stated

not

having any suspicion of, and two people whose play concerned me, one of whom I haven't mentioned as suspicious in the last 12 pages.

Single minded pursuit of

lynching

FL. You've attacked and generated plenty of suspicion on other targets as well throughout the day which is what I find suspicious.

So I should do what alvinz has been doing and ignore anythign that doesn't get me closer to lynching my target? I don't think you should be criticising me for scumhunting, especially when you're using that as a point in your own defense.

For example: You think FL being scum makes Alvinz look better. You mentioned an 85% chance FL is scum. By that logic, you should feel that Alvinz is probably town, yet you have been pressuring him. I don't think it would be absurd to assume that you would be able to be on an Alvinz wagon, should things start to change towards lynching him instead. That's what I find scummy. You are completely open to pushes in plenty of directions.

First, that

is

an absurd assumption, given that my stated position on alvinz is that I don't want to push his case without the information gained from FL's lynch. Second, why would the correlation between FL's scumminess and alvinz' towninesss be 1:1? Third, I've been pressuring alvinz to make protown plays and stop doing stupid and scummy things, not because I'm ready to lynch him. Very similar to your first vote on him, in fact, though I'm not using my vote to add to the pressure.

You yourself claimed that this was not a reason for your vote. I'm assuming here you renege on that?

No, I acknowledge that I desire the information. The reasoning for my vote has nothing to do with this.

I think her mentality has been pro-town, mainly in that she seems interested in steering the town towards talking about productive things. Furthermore, my read that you are scum does play a role in my perception of her.

Which is enough to completely ignore all the scummy things she's done? Without any real evidence?

If I'm able to interpret that you're suspicious of those players, it's just as easy to see how you could get on their wagons without it being an issue. Again, the alvinz example I provided above is kind of the idea I'm talking about. I could seriously see you on almost any wagon today and it wouldn't be a stretch.

no, it just shows that your interpretation is based on irrelevant fantasy rather than fact. You ignoring my stated opinions has no bearing on what assumptions are reasonable based on my play.

I did express this sentiment.

Apologies. I meant to say. if you had expressed

only

that sentiment. Adding logical fallacies to your responses only weakens them.

[sthar8]

I'm assuming that "I'm a neutral" implies that he's literally of neutral alignment, and his followup "please don't modkill me" post would support that. Please correct me if I'm reading this wrong.

To be honest, I don't really think he's scum. I could see him as a neutral though.

If this is true, then he lied in his claim. I don't think post restrictions are usually "normal," so I doubt the mod would bar him from revealing his alignment. I could definitely see alvinz as a lyncher who thought town would most likely kill him if he claimed truthfully, though. Are lynchers "normal?"

If alvinz means "I'm just not going to help town win," then he's either playing poorly as town or setting up an explanation for further scummy behavior. I could go either way on this, but his appeals to emotion are certainly not helping his case.

Current suspects are FL, alvinz, skillit.

[sthar8]

I strongly feel that alvinz is the wrong play today, but any lynch is better than no lynch.

I will move my vote on Monday if he still has a majority.

[sthar8]

Do I really need to say who I think we should lynch at this point?

[sthar8]

Ugh.

I'd say I'm sorry about the FL wagon, but I'm really not. Her play was atrocious, and a majority of her actions made absolutely no sense as town.

I am surprised that no one noticed what looked to me like a modslip confirming her. I tried to post pointing it out, but by the time I got back to the thread, she'd been hammered.

I'm going to reread looking at SC and cerb, as promised.

My view on alvinz-town is that he's proven that he had no logical reason to harbor the views that he held, and therefore is basically useless for any practical purpose.

Goat: I believe it's your move on the vote reasoning. My last post on the matter was here.

Electra: Welcome, and have fun on the read.

[sthar8]

Do explain. Also, you noticed this but didn't point it out and then when you finally were going to she had already been hammered? Why would you not simply point it out immediately? I mean, with a deadline and all...

I had no access over the weekend. When I came back on Monday to see if I needed to move my vote to avoid no-lynch, FL had already been hammered. After I looked in on my other game, I came back to read the page (or so) that I'd missed. I noticed a comment from the mod that discussed FL replacing back in, the possibility of which might have confirmed her as town. When I tried to post this info, I found that the thread was locked.

I also don't buy the "ugh, sorry about FL" bit. If you truly thought she was scum, then why would you feel remorse about lynching her?

I said I'm

not

sorry, specifically

because

she had me convinced she was scum. I would have apologized, however, if it had been any action of mine that caused me to misinterpret the tells and peg her as scum, rather than horrible play on her part.

Sthar, you've played a solid game, I'll grant you that. But to me, it's fairly obvious you are scum. You're strong logically, but have kept the door open on pretty much anyone (including myself). To me that suggests you are scum, because you certainly have the capability to narrow it down and figure out town tells and find scum, but you haven't been doing so.

Did you miss all of yesterday? I can't believe that anyone would accuse me of failing to scumhunt.

Also, if either Sthar or Veerus gets lynched and is scum then I think the other is fairly clearly scum as well. They have pretty much ignored each other the entire extent of this game, except when Veerus stepped up to defend Sthar against my attack yesterday. BaB still strikes me as the most likely 3rd target here.

If you have a case on veerus or BaB that doesn't revolve around craplogic or gut feeling, I'd be happy to take a look at it.

but you also have to write people off as town

No, actually that is still bad play. I've already explained why, and you seemed to agree with me, so I don't know where you're getting this ridiculous idea from.

If Sthar is able to convince you that I'm town, then I'm no longer a possible mislynch. It's better for him as scum to say he thinks I'm town but toss on a bunch of suspicion and let the town do the dirty work for him.

What, in all my posts, has you so convinced that I'd support your lynch?

are a couple of things he's done that just make me positive he's scum.

A couple of things that you can't explain. How am I supposed to defend against this?

Point blank, the townies in this game have made more mistakes and played scummier than the scum.

So now I'm too townie to be town?

When I said I found FL town and pushed my case on Sthar instead, both Sthar and Veerus pushed to keep pressure on FL and get her lynched

Maybe because you gave absolutely no reason why we should ignore the mounds of scumtells she had given off? I find it incredibly frustrating that you, whose primary defense against the attacks on you was that they had no solid evidence or support, would try to push all of these opinions without backing them up.

Also, I feel that if there is a doctor or other role that prevented a kill that first night, they should claim and also claim the player they saved as it would confirm 2 players as pro-town and narrow down our search by a lot. What's the consensus on this?

I'm not sure. I need to run the numbers first, but it's very possible that claims are in order at this point. I'll get back to you on this.

The fact that there were no NK's night 1 but two NK's night 2 leads me to believe that Megatheory was a one-shot vigilante instead of a full vigilante, but that's just my thinking and I could be completely wrong.

This is not a conclusion we can draw, and it is in fact unsupported by the current evidence. I would guess that the mod would have announced such a restriction in the death-reveal. More likely is that Mega was unsure of his target N1, and so chose not to kill.

[sthar8]

I don't have a case on goat. That would be BaB.

[sthar8]

I'm defending myself against goat. I believe him to be misguided town. I'm pretty sure that BaB thinks goat is scum, though.

[sthar8]

SC, that's true unless you were protesting goat's vote being on you rather than me, I think

To be clear, I'm not suspicious of BaB, either. I meant that the person who was suspicious of goat was BaB.

BaB: Do mods normally factor possible night choices into determining LYLO? I wouldn't think so, specifically because such would be misleading to the town and could potentially affect gameplay. If our mod did not account for PR night choices, I think it would be a mistake for any doctor to claim, as we may be relying on his night choice in order to keep the game going. If this hypothetical doc were to claim and we were to mislynch, scum would have a clear target to make their NK effective. Finally, we can't really trust a doc protect to confirm someone unless we have a full massclaim. I just finished a game in which a missed kill was attributed to a doc protect rather than another role (BP townie, although RB or hider could do the same thing) and it almost cost the town the game.

If we do any claiming, I won't support it unless it's a full massclaim, because that's the only way to offset the extreme disadvantage to potentially losing any protective role we may have tonight.

Goat: I'd like to point out that you only mentioned veerus around six times in your posts before you voted me and announced that he's my scumbuddy. By comparison, I had mentioned him approximately seven times. What exactly are you accusing me of?

Scummiest and most inconsistent =/= scum.

If you don't use scummy behavior and inconsistancy to hunt scum, what do you use? Random guesses? That sure would explain a whole lot.

The way Megatheory handled the situation was pro-town.

This kind of necromancy is just annoying. Invoking a dead, confirmed town player who agreed with you is a fallacious appeal to emotion that has no place in a logical argument. I'm not sure what your definition of "protown" is in this situation, but I strongly suspect it might be "agrees with goat." In addition, mega's last two posts seem to suggest that he wasn't as solidly in your corner as you seem to be saying.

But yet it's scummy for me to voice concern over the FL lynch and observe conflicting tells to suggest she's town?

What tells? You basically announced in-thread " I feel like FL is protown, so I'm going to ignore all the scummy things she's done." When questioned for evidence, you continued to spout "feelings" and "impressions." How are we supposed to act on that kind of information? You gave us nothing that could have overidden FL's prior behavior, but you expected everyone to randomly trust you. I'll remind you that the earlier case against you was based on the same kind of "gut."

defend each other

Watch your implications, please. I don't think I've defended veerus at all, and in fact I don't think you've presented a case on veerus for anyone to defend against.

If we end up lynching town, the doctor has an extremely small chance of correctly saving someone anyway. Furthermore, perhaps the doctor can self-protect, etc.

I was under the impression that self-protecting docs are extremely overpowered and very rarely used.

[sthar8]

why not? this doesn't make sense.

Why not? I'm clarifying to SC that my comment meant that you were suspicious of goat, not that I was suspicious of you. I haven't presented a case on you, and I've been focused on people who I feel are scummier than you since your play started contradicting my observations about GW. Why wouldn't it make sense that you're not one of my top suspects?

veerus: So you want any cops, docs, or roleblockers we might have to claim? That's gotta be pretty close to a massclaim in this circumstance. What's the difference?

Finally, I think what the Town needs, in the interest of discussion, is for our top three suspects to claim. Therefore, I suggest everyone post, along with whatever else they haven't said already, who they want to role-claim and why.

I want Goatrevolt, Sthra8 and BridgesandBaloons, in that order, to role-claim because they have shown that they can put up cases against others, no matter how strong/weak, and I want to see if their role-claim could relate to anything a scum would say, in relation to their suspicions, or a townie living on the edge.

No. This is not an acceptable method of generating discussion. Random claims are more likely to out power roles for no gain than anything else. If we're going to massclaim, we should massclaim. Any partial claiming scheme gives the scum the information advantage, and that's a very bad idea.

FOS: Rage

Also, I don't buy the little story you spun about your list. Even if we assume that one or more of us are scum (which you've provided no support for) why would you think that the most vocal players in the game are more likely to make the stupid mistake of making a claim that is specifically at odds with their previously stated opinions? Maybe there's some

different

reason that you want the three of us to claim?

In case anyone has any misunderstanding of my opinion on the matter,

I categorically refuse to claim, unless said claim is part of a generally approved and properly executed massclaim, or unless someone can prove to me that my claim is essential to securing a town win.

Despite his end-of-day shenanigans yesterday, SC still seems genuine to me. I need more content from Electra before I'm ready to form an opinion on her(?), but she(?)'s one of my top suspects at the moment.

[sthar8]

So would you further restrict that plan to include only information that is useful? For example, if a RB blocked alvinz on N1, we wouldn't need him to claim, right?

[sthar8]

I can support this plan, since we probably don't lose a protective role, but we do gain important info.

[sthar8]

So we've got BaB, Goat, and SC for a true massclaim.

sthar8 and veerus for veerus' cop/RB claim plan

Rage for his top 3 suspects claim plan.

Skillit and Electra supporting no claim plan at the moment.

Since we have eight players, I'd like to get at least 5 on one idea before we execute.

I think veerus's plan gives us the greatest reward for the least amount of risk, but I don't really have a problem with massclaim either.

Whichever we choose, we're going to need a claim order. How do we want to do this? Suspicions, dice, popcorn, all work for me.

[sthar8]

It's good to see that our new player isn't above unsupported statements and false generalisation.

Even if we go with veerus's plan, I think that we should decide on a claim order. In that case, we'd just ask each person in turn if they are a cop or RB with information for the town.

If we can talk one more person into massclaim, I'll support, which will give us a majority.

Popcorn from SC sounds good.

[sthar8]

Why?

You provided no support, thus your statements are unsupported.

Scumminess is an attribute based on the motivations behind the actions, and I'm not ready to judge your motivations based on your one real post.

What in your reread convinced you that I'm dispostionally inclined to leap to conclusions without evidence?

[sthar8]

If goat's definition of popcorn matches mine, SC would pick the next person to claim. Then that person would pick the next, and so on.

[sthar8]

Just pointing out that scum has a tendency to fabricate evidence against their suspects, since their suspects are only very rarely scum.

Are you accusing me of failure to scumhunt, lurking, or both?

You still haven't answered my question.

I think you need to finish reading the thread.

[sthar8]

So we're go for massclaim?

My count makes it SC, goat, BaB, Electra, and I for, which is a majority.

I can see arguments for wanting scum to claim early and for wanting scum to claim late. I think that this particular town's needs are served better by a random claim order than a fixed one, and popcorn works out just as well as dice. The "popcorn-dice" suggestion is just silly, since there's no difference between that and straight dice other than unecessary effort, as far as I can see.

I support SC as initial pick for popcorn, as he has already claimed.

I'm ready to go as soon as we get a majority on claim order.

[sthar8]

We're stalling here a little.

By my count, we have goat, SC, veerus, Rage, Electra and me in favor of popcorn, and BaB and Skillit against. That's a majority, which means it's time to start.

Make your pick, SC.

[sthar8]

I'll be gone for most of the weekend starting early this afternoon. I may be able to check the thread late on Sunday, but I can't guarantee anything until noonish on Monday, Pacific time.

[sthar8]

I'm back

I believe veerus's claim, barring counterclaim or conflicting cop results.

[sthar8]

I'm the

Cop

No result night one, but I targeted FL.

Targeted Goat N2 to address the doubts I was having about his alignment. He is

Innocent

.

I believe veerus's claim because I was Rb'd N1, so I know there is a RB.

Looks like a standard cop/doc/vig game. Is goon/goon/RB balanced, or should we expect more scum power?

[sthar8]

I received no PM from Macavenger night 1. When day began without a result, I sent him a pm asking if he had received my choice, because I thought I might have screwed up the PM system. He confirmed that he had received it. He would not confirm or deny the existance of a roleblocker when I asked.

I chose to investigate goat because his manic focus on wanting to be called townie had me questioning my read of his alignment. After the lynch, I started to think that he may have defended FL not to prevent her lynch, which looked pretty inevitable when he swapped his vote, but to add credibility to an attack on me the next day when she turned up innocent. Since I had spent a good chunk of time explaining why I felt goat was town, I was afraid that goat-scum would be able to secure my mislynch for a scum win. It may not have been the optimal investigation, but this is the first time I've played cop, and my long-held plan to investigate alvinz was ruined when goat made his vig comment.

My top suspect at the moment is Electra, because of cerebus's late play and electra's unsupported attacks and jump on the obvious wagon at the start of today.

[sthar8]

Goat: I didn't think my role was a safe claim if today was LYLO. Honestly, a cop with one result and the possible presence of a RB isn't as helpful to the town as, say, a doctor, after he has claimed. Odds are that my power does nothing else useful for the rest of the game, unless we get really lucky. I felt that it was likely that town might ignore my claim. Veerus's claim substantiated my roleblocker and strengthened my position.

We need more participation from SC, Electra, and Skillit.

My suspects at the moment are Electra, Skillit, and possibly BaB (pending his explanation for his vote)

[sthar8]

Goat: It seems like you and I are thinking along the same lines regarding electra, but I don't understand why you think SC is the roleblocker. I was thinking that cerebus's play was much more consistent with an attempt to avoid attention and suspicion, so much so that I briefly thought that he might be the doctor yesterday.

Skillit: Who is your top suspect?

[sthar8]

Oh, right. Good point.

But why SC, specifically?

[sthar8]

I can grudgingly see the point to BaB's self-vote, but I think that the risk to such a gambit should be unacceptable to any town player. The gain, of course, is a reasonable assumption that BaB or SC is scum, but that's not particularly new or shocking information. The vote on SC proves that at least one of SC, BaB, Electra is scum, but we already knew that based on pure numbers.

BaB seems to be more and more erratic as this day progresses, but I don't really understand why. It looks a little like panicked scum, but goat's point about the three-man push on BaB makes me hesitate.

I'd like some more content from Rage.

[sthar8]

Mod: Thanks!

This is a big one, so I'm going to be busy for the next few days, as I've got to renew my driver's license, military ID, etc. I'm also going to be V/LA for the weekend, as I'm postponing festivites until then because of a big test tomorrow morning. I should still be posting at least until friday afternoon, but I wouldn't expect anything susbstantial.

I'd be much more comfortable with an electra lynch than SC. I didn't like cerberus's tendency to disappear whenever no one was paying attention to him, and I'm suspicious of the way electra entered the game. SC has seemed genuine to me since the beginning, and I'm having a hard time imagining him as scum.

[sthar8]

I'm back.

Could someone explain the case on SC to me? I understand that for some of you it's process of elimination, but you'll understand my reluctance to trust that. I don't see him doing anything that he hasn't been doing all game, and none of it seems that scummy to me. Maybe I'm suffering from confirmation bias, but he still seems genuine to me. I think it would really help to see the arguments from a viewpoint that doesn't assume he's scum just on the numbers.

[sthar8]

I'm still not sold on the SC scumminess theory, but Electra's logical argument is intriguing. I believe she is correct, and after I run the numbers myself to make sure, I will probably vote based on her argument.

[sthar8]

EBWOP: Whoops, nevermind. Rage has it right. The argument is based on an unsound premise: a false vote count.

[sthar8]

MOD:

I hate to do this again (not really, though, it's a vacation) but I'll be out of town from tonight until past the deadline. I cannot, in good conscience, vote for SC, so I'll

Vote: Electra

even though I'm apparently the only one who finds her suspicious.

For clarity, my suspect list right now is Electra, Skillit, BaB, Rage, SC, in that order.

[sthar8]

Electra: You've been my number one for much of the day. I'd definitely vote with a sound logical argument, though. When I realised that your argument is

not

sound based on the evidence available to the rest of us, you went back to number one.

veerus: I should be back during the night, so long as it doesn't last less than 24 hours. I hope to be able to account for the lynch when I make my final choice, but I've sent the mod a conditional selection in case I don't make it back in time.

I know my vote might seem odd, but I'm about 80% sure that SC is town, and I think BaB has been slightly less scummy than Electra or Skillit today. If this were early days, I'd vote to prevent a no lynch, but today we

lose

if we're wrong.

[sthar8]

Did Electra know we were scum?

[sthar8]

From my notes:

N1:
I had mega pegged as vig on N1, and we thought he might target skillit, thus the block. I also had "doc target" next to his name.

I figured that if cerb had a role, he'd be a cop, thus the kill.

FL had "tomorrow's lynch" next to her name.

N2:
cerberus was confirmed as not a threat, because he was not in game. We expected him to be modkilled.

veerus had "power" next to his name, but I wasn't sure what.

We discussed killing SC to screw with alvinz, but we decided that alvinz focused on town was more helpful than unpredictable alvinz.

Killed Mega because he was a vig.

N3:
Day three I started suspecting Electra of being scum.

From the PM I sent Skillit an hour ago:

So either Electra's lying, veerus is lying, or the mod screwed up, because we tried to kill cerb N1 and failed, but veerus didn't protect him and there's no claimed role that could have saved him.

I don't think veerus is lying.

If Electra's lying, then she's likely not a protown role. My best bet would be bulletproof SK who has chosen not to kill, or some kind of neutral.

There is no way yesterday was LYLO with the info that we have, unless Electra is some kind of mafia traitor, in which case we will win assuming our NK is not blocked. If day starts, then we need to make sure Electra dies, as that is the easiest way to win and it guarantees that she doesn't get a kill in if she can.

I'd almost suggest blocking her, just in case.

[sthar8]

veerus: with you, I was looking at the same reasoning behind my suspicion of cerb. Your analysis was solid and pro-town, you seemed to want to move the game forward, but you didn't really take a central role either. I think the clincher was when I was doing my initial analysis on replacing in and I accidentally labelled your section "Norinel" (who was a doc in my newbie game). I was watching you for cop or doc specific tells, and you didn't really drop any, but I was about 80% convinced that you weren't vanilla.

With mega, I had narrowed a list down to about five townies with potential power roles, then decided what role fit the best with their style of play. He was attracting too much attention to be a doc, he seemed too aggressive for a cop, and he wasn't really connected to any other townies (there was a point when I thought goat and SC might be masons). When I was analysing his play, I noticed that he was pursuing more leads than anyone else, and that he wasn't very focused on any cases. He seemed like he was pursuing everyone at once, and I found his discussion the most useful when determining who we should NK suspicions-wise. I realised that if I had been town I would have suspected him of sounding out NKs, then it occurred to me that he might actually be doing so. Finally, during the night I ran a worst-case scenario where I assumed everyone was a cop or vig and figured out who the worst possible problems could be. No one else fit the vig profile, and I felt Mega might have targeted skillit.

[sthar8]

ironic, if we had no-lynched it would have seriously helped us win the game. Once the cop wasn't killed, we would have probably guessed it was a fake-claim.

I doubt it. Why would scum kill the cop if they have a RB alive? it makes much more sense to kill the doc, since he could potentially stop a kill and lengthen the game. Once a cop is outed, scum can just continue to RB until the RB is lynched, then kill the cop that night to prevent an investigation.

I actually think that a good deal of the suspicion on me at the end was due to the weak cop claim. Before the claims I felt that Goat was having a hard time expressing his gut suspicion of me, especially after the way he came down on the suspicions of himself. I was ready to tear electra to pieces, and I knew that neither SC nor Skillit would vote me without significant evidence. I felt that I could keep veerus and rage on my side, and BaB was under significant suspicion himself. I knew I was taking a big risk with the fakeclaim, but I just couldn't pass up the opportunity, as I've never fakeclaimed before.

Also, no hard feelings, FL? Some of the things I said about you were entirely untrue and only meant to slander your image for the rest of the town.

[sthar8]

I like your self-vote rule, but you should probably put that in your initial ruleset. Also, the LYLO thing gave the town (and scum) too much info.

I'm really glad I was able to predict what you would do in the case that someone was RB'd, because I realized while formulating my claim that I could only plausibly claim one investigation, and investigating the person who died would have been scummier. I was also worried for a while that I might get caught out by flavor, since I never saw my original PM, but you handled that well also.

I really liked the setup. It was clever and surprising.