Mini #70: Vanilla Extract- Game Over, man!

[Isaac]

Well, I hate the random voting stage, so i'm just gonna put a second vote on.....

Riven!

vote:riven

Chosen randomly from people who already have votes (myself excluded, obviously) because I want to get this game going.

[Isaac]

Yeah, Prizm, make with the role claim.

[Isaac]

I was asking for a role claim cause he had the appropriate number of votes, and to the best of my knowledge that's what you usually try to force out of people on the first day. But whatever, if you have a better idea than bandwagoning (something i'm never comfortable with) i'm all ears. As for the role wierdness, even though this is vanilla mafia, that is a mighty long list of occasionaly really wacky roles that Jere posted at the beginning of the thread, so a posting requirement wouldn't surprise me at all. But whatever, a posting requirement isn't in and of itself scummy. Blardy blar blar.

[Isaac]

Yeah, I'm so eager to lynch Prizm that I went to the extreme measures of voting for Riven and then saying that Prizm should make a role claim! Wow! Am I ever crafty.

Anyhow, if you'd all actually taken the equally extreme measure of reading my post, you'd have recalled that I said that in my experience when one is two votes from a lynch one makes a role claim. I've never seen it work out any other way on a day one. Besides, bandwagoning to get a roleclaim is what day ones are all about. I don't like it any more than anyone else, but let's face it: random kills are no good, and there's not enough information out there to actually build on anything. Sure, it usually leads to the same basic random kill, but there's always a good chance of getting mafia to screw up. At very least it gets info out there and gets the game proper started, after the nonsense that usually preceedes it with the random votings. So if i'm impatient to start talking substantively, sue me. Anyhow, if I seem unnecessarily sarcastic, you have my apologies, I'm very cranky and it's late now, and, (as I've said before and will no doubt say again) if anyone has a better idea than bandwagoning someone to get a role claim, i'm all ears. Otherwise, let's make with it.

[Isaac]

Although I do want to know why you wouldn't put your vote where your mouth was.

Simple as simplicity itself. I wasn't that interested in hearing you speak about anything until i noticed you were two votes from a hangin. I certainly wasn't going to put you one vote from hanging for no reason. You seem to be laboring under this misapprehension that I have something against you or that I want you to hang. I don't. I just wanted a role claim because in my experience that is what is proper on day one when one is two votes from a lynch. I didn't even realize that the reason you had a bandwagon on you was that you hadn't posted.

Anyhow, to other people:

Mathcam I dont' think is suspicous at all. As I've said before, having aposting requirement is not within itself a scummy thing. I don't even think he has a posting requirement though, it's not like he ever actually posted nonsense. He posted questions: if anything he posted more cogent posts than any of those silly random votes.

Morpheus I do think is suspicious. Second or thirdish is the prime time for scum to jump on a bandwagon. They can help force a vote on someone they know to be opposed to them, but it isn't so obvious because we pay attentino to who starts and ends bandwagons. He's been in that spot twice, the second time without any reason.

So i'm gonna go ahead and put vote two on Morpheus.

vote: Morpheus

[Isaac]

hey, everyone. Guess what! this thread contains lots of words! put into sentences! that even form entire paragraphs! Now I know that reading is hard and all, but if you'renot going to read this post, at least do me the courtesy of not voting for me. cheers!

Lemme tell y'all a story.

Once upon a time, Isaac (not his real name) sat down at his computer and noticed he had a PM. "Wow! I wonder who could have written me!" he said. It turned out to be JereIC! JereIC was writing to tell Isaac that he was a townie in Vanilla Extract Mafia. This made Isaac sad because he didn't want to be a townie. "A townie! They're nothing but cannon fodder, boring roles who sit around, lurk, and never do anything in the thread." So this made Isaac sad for a long while.

Then, one day, while playing Vanilla Extract mafia, Isaac was being very lazy re-reading the thread (as townies usually do, and unfortunately as Isaac himself is wont to do) and thought that Prizm had four votes. Not wanting to lurk, but not having the motivation to read the thread carefully, he posted "Make with the role claim, buddy." All of a sudden, Meme thought Isaac was scum! Then Isaac had an idea!

"I know!" Isaac said, "I know what I can do for the town as a townie!" It had finally struck Isaac what townies are good for: dying. "If I can be good about it, and try to draw out a lynch on myself for pretty baseless reasons, then I can help draw out who the scum are in the town!" There were downsides to this strategy, of course. No one was going to believe his role claim, for one and it would mean that he would be out of the game when the town inevitably lynched him. But he figured that his laziness had gotten him into this mess, the least he could to do make it back to the town would be to martyr himself.

So he continued with lame responses that were true, but were not likely to convince anyone. And he watched the thread. He saw Meme relentlessly pursue him when there were much scummier people around. He saw Coolbot vote him with no explanation and no other real substantive posts. He saw two other people who he doesn't really think are scummy follow along. And then he sat down and wrote this post.

~the end~

Alright, storytime's over. I'm a townie. I don't expect any of you to actually believe this, however. Already i hear the counterarguments "Any scum could claim townie, especially with the cop dead!" Therefore, I fully expect although don't WANT (hey Meme, expectation and desire are two different things! who knew?) to be lynched at the end of today. However, since I am a townie, I hope that before tomorrow the lot of y'all re-read the thread and pay special attention to how this bandwagon happened. Particularly how Meme (who i had thought was town) seemed hell-bent on running me into the ground over what was, after all, a mistake. Also how people jumped on and off the bandwagon, and who seems scummy from that. We've lost our cop, fellas, and so actually reading the thread closely and coming to our own conclusions is going to be the only way the town is going to come through this without a lot of good luck.

So that's about all I have to say. Happy trails!

~Isaac

[Isaac]

Therefore, I fully expect although don't WANT (hey Meme, expectation and desire are two different things! who knew?) to be lynched at the end of today. .

either we got scum or we fulfill your martyr desires.

See, now this is why I think Meme is scummy: she has repeatedly and purposefully misconstrued my posts. So it's time to play my favorite game: Reality Vs. Meme!

I ask for a role claim, then defend my asking: Meme says "he demands roleclaims! He is scum!"

I say "I have always had the first day experience of seeing people get bandwagoned/roleclaimed": Meme says "He wants to be bandwagoned!"

I say: "I don't want to be lynched": Meme says "He wants to be lynched!"

Ah, fun times.

Anyhoo, I said I believed you were town because I did. I thought you were merely an active townie who was grasping at straws to catch scum by attacking me over my asking for a role claim. But you just keep on at it, which means either you have convinced yourself beyond any shred of reality that I am scum and that you must lynch me, or you're scum yourself. Either way, it looks like you are trying to prey upon the laziness of the town by continually misrepresenting my statements in an attempt to make me out as scum.

Well, I can only hope that if the town does lynch me tonight they at least have the good sense to go after you tomorrow.

See you all when i get back from work,

~Isaac

[Isaac]

Ah well. I can see I don't really have much of a chance of surviving today. (note to the terminally stupid or scum: this doesn't mean I WANT to get lynched, it just means that I can see i don't have very good chances of surviving) So I'll do you all the favor of running down my list of scummy folks before I get going.

Meme : jesus christ. What the hell? I don't know exactly why she's got such a bug up her butt about me, but we'll just let it ride. For the record, after reading today's posts, I think that she's probably not scum again. That kind of massive fumble could only be the work of a townie. The kind of townie who would want to lynch another innocent townie, maybe, but a townie all the same.

Oh, and although I don't think this is scummy, particularly, has it struck anyone else in the town as peculiar that we're all rushing to lynch me based primarily on the arguments of someone who saw some sort of magical masonic relationship between Meme and myself? The one no one else saw? Yeah.....

Morpheus: Now, I'm not a betting man. (in fact, the only time i've been to vegas, I put $.05 in a slot, realized it was really stupid, then spent the rest of the trip in my room reading) However, I'd bet that Morpheus is scum. He posts "i agree!" posts, without explaining why he agrees. He posts regularly enough to keep himself off the lurker bandwagon, but he has so far contributed NOTHING to the discussion. Absolutely nothing. Even his reason for FOSing me he stole from No Idea.

Final reason? he thinks i've made such a mistake, thinks i'm acting suspicious (in what way that isn't just copy and pasted from someone else? gah, that would be new

information

) but he doesn't vote for me. Instead he FOSes me. Wow, good job there, guy. Way to point out to the town that I was acting suspicious, i'm sure it went over their heads before. So my take on it is that he knows as well as I do that I'm innocent, and so he doesn't want his vote to be the fifth when the day of reckoning comes around.

Riven: Same thing as Morpheus, only I'm less sure of it. Sure wouldn't bet on it, that's for sure. But again, seems to be adding little to the discussion, while posting just sporadically and jumping on every bandwagon that comes along.

Anyway, those are the only three I wanted to touch on for now. I just want to make your day tomorrow a little bit easier when I come up townie. Anyway, I hope to see you all in this space tomorrow...

~Isaac

[Isaac]

My apologies, gentle people. I misspoke in my above post. where I said...

Oh, and although I don't think this is scummy, particularly, has it struck anyone else in the town as peculiar that we're all rushing to lynch me based primarily on the arguments of someone who saw some sort of magical masonic relationship between Meme and myself? The one no one else saw? Yeah.....

I meant to say a magical masonic relationship between Prizm and myself. Obviously, i was referring to Meme. Good night.

[Isaac]

So here's the deal:

There are a bunch of reasons I spelled out what I was doing. Here's a couple of them off the top of my head.

1)I felt like there was enough scummy behavior beforehand in the thread to justify my doing so, even if we hadn't learned anything afterwards. (of course we did learn something about scum from my post, see reason #3)

2)If i hadn't explained it, I probably would have been lynched. If I just said I'm a townie, people would say "Yeah right!," lynch me, and then the town would have learned nothing particularly new.

3)I wanted to see how the scum would react. And the reaction period after my posts has been VERY informative. Morpheus has risen to the top of my scum list, and Meme has fallen, risen, and fallen again.

4)For the town to work, to a certain extent, the town needs to know about it. This is the weakest reason, as I suppose the town should be looking over the thread trying to figure out who the scum is from day one anyway, but I felt it important. Remember: this is a plan and an execution that came out of nowhere for me, I just figured I'd try it and see. And this leads to...

5)A reason for revealing and also my super secret reason behind the plan itself: I wanted to have fun and try a new thing. I know, imagine, having fun in a Mafia game. But being a townie is a thankless, often boring task as you all know, and I found myself in the position to try to make something of it. We can debate later if the plan itself is dumb or not (i still maintain that we coule probably find all the scum in the game if we read today's posts enough), but ultimately I wanted to try it and see if it would work. Best case scenario: we find some scum and I learn a new trick for Mafia. Worst case scenario: townie gets lynched day 1. As someone said earlier in the thread, no big deal. And at least as far as having fun goes, its been a success on that front. I've had more fun in this game than I have in a message board situation in quite a while.

So those are some reasons for my reveal, and the super secret reason behind my plan to draw out scum. For what it's worth, I still think it was successful in making day 1 more fun and for drawing out scum. But then again, i'm only certain of the first one.

Except for morpheus. Gah, that guy

reeks

of scum.

Oh, and one last thing...

Coolbot, I am honored that you so respect my intelligence. But let's not go crazy here.