Mini 542 - Game Over

[Hypatia]

Yeah, give us the sordid gossip.

[Hypatia]

Vote: Jennar

for the rest of the rats of NIMH.

Ah, childhood memories.

[Hypatia]

Okay, I will also

Vote: Spurgistan

but let's hear something from him soon, because this puts him at four.

[Hypatia]

Okay, I will also Vote: Spurgistan but let's hear something from him soon...

That's a weird thing to say. What's he supposed to answer?

Ideally, something like "I'm here, here's why you shouldn't vote me, this logic is flawed, etc.": a defense (even though I'll admit it's hard to defend against a first day pressure because they're not based on a lot). Bandwagons do reveal important roles, but they also give scum a huge opportunity to trip up.

And since he was a few votes away from being lynched, I wanted to call attention to it, so that others wouldn't pile on and get him really close, and so that he could get a chance to say anything he was going to say.

[Hypatia]

1) What "flawed logic" (or equivalent) was there for him to address? You say "not based on a lot" but what arguments were there against Spurg? You seem to be trying to construe this as a serious wagon.

2) That bolded sentence - could you explain what you mean?

In the forums where I have played before, town has relied on bandwagons, and on bandwagoning basically everyone, waiting for someone to trip up. A good playstyle? Well, it's different from the playstyle current on this forum.

It's a day one wagon. It's not a serious wagon, unless he somehow does something incredibly scummy, or the town decides he is worth lynching; then it goes from a non-serious wagon to a serious one.

3) Why did you not want the wagon to reach close to a lynch?

Lynching randomly is very bad (*shock*) but wagoning randomly is very good.

Put one and three in your post beside each other. Let them speak to one another. What could they each teach each other?

Has he completely tripped our scumdars yet? Do you want to see him accidentally hammered by a townie, or "accidentally" by a scum? I want to pressure him for information, not lynch him.

Okay. I'm done talking about this for now, since our conversation is basic mafia-playing principles hashed out in excruciating detail. Anndd... have we gotten any information about Spurg? Nope.

...

Also, I am heading to the frozen North, land of slow dialup, from tomorrow until the 27th. I will attempt to check in once in a while, but my access is very likely to be limited. Happy scumming!

[Hypatia]

One and three either cannot coexist or they answer the question of each other.

[quote=vollkan]
1) What "flawed logic" (or equivalent) was there for him to address? You say "not based on a lot" but what arguments were there against Spurg? You seem to be trying to construe this as a serious wagon. [/quote]

[quote=vollkan]3) Why did you not want the wagon to reach close to a lynch?[/quote]

ONE: I was saying that this is a day one page 3 wagon, THERE IS NO LOGIC to it yet. I have explained about how day one wagons don't start off as serious but may BECOME serious, DEPENDENT UPON (among other things) how the bandwagoned player reacts; what s/he says; who jumps in or brings up other information.

THREE: If it's a "serious wagon" (and I assume it by "serious" you mean "it could lynch a player"), AND it's a DAY ONE PAGE THREE WAGON, who in their right mind would want to put someone dangerously close to a lynch from that wagon? What I was saying was, "I will take this bandwagon further. I want everyone to note that the vote count is getting up there so it doesn't put us at risk of doing something stupid." Perhaps we differ in what constitutes "dangerously close to a lynch". I wouldn't say three away is dangerously close, but another vote or two would have put him in a danger zone.

If by "serious" you mean--what exactly do you specifically mean by serious, anyway? Perhaps we can come to a better understanding then.

....

Oh, and about #2. Do I really have to say that:

RESOLVED: Bandwagons are a major way of getting information on the first day

IN THAT: Scum can get caught in them and do something stupid or counterclaimable; and they also get people talking about the particular bandwagon.

SOME MAY SAY: "Oh no! There is a drawback, we may out a power role!"

BUT I COUNTER: "That is a risk we should take; it is a day start so we have no other info; persons rarely have incentive to give up information unless they are pressured."


And at the risk of being juvenile, you started the "bandwagon" anyway. Please, illuminate your purpose in doing so.

[Hypatia]

Yellowtext is annoying. It seems that we agree on the purpose of bandwagons (information gathering); so now you know why I didn't want that wagon to creep up into the danger zone.

It is not a "risk we should take". If anybody put the wagon to the point of soliciting a claim, they would be pretty much of obvscum. The correct response would (I am talking very broadly here) be to insist that the wagonee does not claim, and to instead lynch the wagoner.

That assumes that we know the wagon is on an innocent. In Day One we cannot know that without something like masons. So in order to turn around and lynch the wagoner, something must happen for the wagonee to grow a little halo. I've read dozens of games on this site and have seen COUNTLESS versions of the "Hey, X is at -2. Claim, X, or we will lynch you." X claims, town evaluates X's claim based on its probability and X's previous behavior. Either X is lynched, or the wagon moves elsewhere.

Now I'm not going to say any more in this line of conversation, because we are both up in the clouds of "How to Play Mafia In General" instead of "Let's Play This Particular Game Now." And we are both dominating the conversation; we should be hearing from everyone.

[Hypatia]

Ythill was correct in that I should have

Unvote

d a while ago, esp. since I'm leaving for the airport.

[Hypatia]

This worries me slightly, only because of the bolded part. Could this have been a scum trying to tell other scum to not trip over the wagon on Spurg? Maybe, maybe not. I'd like to hear Hypatia's response to this.

Great guns, I responded to this earlier. The answer to your question is "No." I think bandwagons are a good way of getting information because once they get going people have to defend themselves, and a scum is more likely to trip up defending themself than when they're just posting normally.

I really hope I am done responding to this. I know I have made some people suspicious of me; but they can watch me play and make their own judgments without us rehashing the past few pages over and over; because I think I've explained myself as well as I'm able.

[Hypatia]

PS. I'm not really ticked off at Dean or other people who want to ask me questions; the questions have all been coming from just a few people and I'm sure others will have stuff they want to ask me about. I just hope it will be about something besides my page 2-3 because all I can really do is reiterate the same things I've been saying.

[Hypatia]

I'm back, and I'll be doing a more thorough reread later today.

[Hypatia]

Sigh... Lurky McLurkerson reporting back for duty. I really don't see anything to comment on in the past few pages. The discussion about other games has sort of ended, and I'm glad of it because I think it would have just gone off into a semantics argument again. I'd be up for bandwagoning Mr. Pres if only for OMGUS, but it's impossible to get any information out of lurkers.

[Hypatia]

You are quite right.

Votecount up to Post 150

Death's Door (1) - spurgistan
Mills (1) - KradDrol
Mr. President (1) - Ythill
Hypatia (1) - Mr. President
Mookeh (1) - Jennar

Not Voting (7) - Dean Harper, Death's Door, Hypatia, klebian, Mills, Mookeh, vollkan

7 to lynch.

As for an extension, I'll think about it. I'll need some more posting to warrant it.

[Hypatia]

I third the request for an extension.

[Hypatia]

I am unwilling to lynch myself (obviously), vollkan, or DD simply because my gut says they are town. Hypatia would also be in this catergory if not for her justification of claim fishing. That said, I wouldn't mind letting her live long enough to get a real read on her.

I'm probably going to regret bringing this argument up again, but...

Okay. I always thought "claim fishing" was a specific scummy tactic used to weasel information out of power roles when it's detrimental to the town. Like, "Are you a power role? Tell us more how your role works i.e., how you can be blocked or neutralized or killed."

Now IIRC I was saying that we need to get information out of players, and sometimes a player who is being bandwagoned may claim a (real) power role and then detrimental information is out. I did say that sometimes this (information leak) is unavoidable, and sometimes the benefits outweigh the risks. But I never implied that power-info leak is an unmitigated good!

There are two main ways of defending oneself against a lynch: a behavior defense and a claim. It's best if one can say "No, my behavior was not scummy, I will explain and justify my behavior." But I've found in a lot of games people expect claims, and often won't debandwagon without one. And towards the end of the game everyone is expected to have a claim out there. (People differ over when all the claims should be out.) My playing experience is from a different forum where a lot of work is done based on claims and votes in the first few days, which is definitely a less sophisticated strategy than here.

In conclusion, I rather resent this statement of Ythill's because it implies that I want town-harming information out in the open.

That is not my intention. I want *useful* information out, and y'all know that whoever we decide to lynch is going to provide a claim as all or part of their defense (in the VERY few games I've read here where people refused to claim they were overwhelmingly lynched). In fact their claim will have to form a large part of their defense since we have had a lot of theory discussion but not much action.

I also feel that the suspicions of me as scum seem to rest an awful lot on my statements of mafia theory, which may be inapplicable or downright wrong, but don't mean I'm scum.

I've also been in the position of having to defend

my theories and statements

more than

my actions

, since it's Day 1 and we have only preliminary votes. And when we have to attack and defend based on discussion of theory, we get pages and pages of theory discussion. And I cringe to bring up theory again, but it seems like the only way to defend oneself against Ythill's statement.

[Hypatia]

I move we start a bandwagon on Spurgistan.

Vote: Spurgistan

[Hypatia]

Points.

1. I think the consensus is against a no-lynch.
2. The deadline is coming up.
3. I think Spurg is a decent candidate for this bandwagon. If others have a different candidate, they should of course let us know.
4. I would like the bandwagon to go quickly, so that Spurg has time to defend and claim, and we have time before the deadline to consider
A. whether Spurg is the lynch for the day
B. and if Spurg is not the lynch for the day, to pick another lynch candidate.

[Hypatia]

I would like the bandwagon to go quickly, so that Spurg has time to defend and claim...

Ythill raises his eyebrow inquisitively @ Hypatia.

Hypatia, realizing that many people will not defend or claim until they are at -2 or -1, would like any bandwagon to get to that point quickly, so that the bandwagonee has time to claim and defend and the town has time to evaluate the claim and defense, and if necessary pick another person. The closer it gets to the deadline, the more likely it is that someone dies stupidly.

By "go", Hypatia did not mean "I would like the bandwagon to pile up votes and lynch a person before they could say anything."

Hypatia realizes that in games without deadlines, or in games that are not 6 days from deadline, rapidly-moving bandwagons are thought indicative of scum looking for an easy lynch, and probably are.

Hypatia thinks that we are at a point where the wagoning-to-defense and-claim stage should go quickly, but that a quick wagon is in the town's interest for the abovementioned reasons.

In the future, Hypatia will consider making exhaustively long and detailed posts with every logical step and jump explicitly stated, so that she does not have to repeat and explain three times for every original post.

I am also glad that people are talking again.

Re: vollkan missing the deadline extension: I myself had to go back and re-figure the deadline.

[Hypatia]

@ Hypatia: I got a chuckle out of you continuing my 3rd person silliness. However, even in your defense post you still seem awfully intent on the claim thing and that's the only thing I'm calling you out on. Maybe you're just wording things oddly but it sounds like you're expecting/encouraging claims whereas the majority of us are vanilla and shouldn't false claim to avoid lynch.

Vanilla is a claim. I would

never

want anyone to false claim, and I don't like that you're insinuating I'm wanting false claims. Where do you get, "I want townies to lie!" out of my wanting claims?

As vollkan pointed out and I've said before, everyone bandwagoned is going to claim before they are lynched, and everyone bandwagoned who does not want to be lynched is going to put a claim in to bolster their defense.

[Hypatia]

I have been convinced that spurgistan is not the best choice for today, and I will reread posts to pick someone with actual content to go off of.

Unvote

[Hypatia]

What the * Mills? I am not today's lynch. I am still going over my notes in this game trying to find a suitable scum candidate, which is hard in a game with so high a talk : action ratio. You are pretty high on my list to begin with, please don't tempt me to go OMGUS.

IGMEOY: Mills

And re Ythill 271: Please do not make assumptions about me, even in favor of my innocence, based on so scummy a player as Mills. Judge me on my own actions. Quite frankly I doubt he'd pull off setting me up.

I think a bit of "following" from everyone is going to happen here anyway, since consensus is how wagons and lynches happen.

--The preceding was written when I was looking at Page 11, I see Mills has asked to be replaced. This ticks me off no end since replacements seem to get a happyfuntime pass against lynching for a while. But I'm still up for voting Mills.--

So now I officially put my

IGMEOY: Mill's replacement

.

I know I'm playing strangely. I have specific reasons for this, especially the wanting of claims. And quite frankly the way I can play this game best is to play in the manner I have been (although I hope in the next few days there'll be more offense and less defense). I realize you all find this slightly-to-very scummy, but that's the way I'm going to play. I have considered all the drawbacks of my plan--and there are some major drawbacks--but I know that the benefits outweigh them.

[Hypatia]

Are you saying that

you are interested in getting claims

but for pro-town reasons? Or are you saying that your strategy somehow makes it seem as if you want claims though you actually do not? Or, of course, are you saying something completely different that went over my head?

In general-meta-mafia terms, I do like claims. They warm my little heart. I realize their drawbacks, of course.

In this particular game, if I am alive and my plan works out, there will come a time when I will ask certain people for claims. I will not be doing it without good reason, and I will only do it if I'm certain it will net us at least one scum. This plan also keeps certain power roles safe; they will never be asked to claim. That's all I'm going to say for now, since any more information of how it works allows scum to work around it.

Of course my plan is only a small part of how I'm going to play, and I'm not going to hinge everything on it, even though I'd like to keep things in place for it. Especially in the next days when we have more information, I will be scumhunting based on votes, actions, and post content. It's hard for me to get reads on unfamiliar players on the first day.

I'm also going to

Vote: Mills

[Hypatia]

All right. Right now I am willing to lynch Mills. However, we all need to realize that if we go for Mills it probably won't be a typical defend-consider-lynch or move on situation. What do the rest of you think?

[Hypatia]

WHY do people do crap like this? Aagh.

Reread coming up, with my suspicions on everyone alive, later today.

[Hypatia]

Excuse my lack of posting, and the disjointedness of my notes. I readthrough to Page 7 on the weekend, then there was a death in the family and I took it up from Page 7 today, so the notes are rough.

MY THOUGHTS ON THE LIVING PLAYERS:

Death's Door: Good logic 99. Liking him more and more as the early pages go on, in that he posts stuff and it's not actively scummy. But then he drops out. He must post more. My read: Inconclusive due to lack of posting.

Jennar: Lurky. Large post 201 justifies his lack of posting, but does not bring in this game as it's played now. Bit of this-game analysis in 239. If there was scum on the Mills wagon (see below for my take on that) he'd be my guess, but that's just a very light gut-suspicion. My read: I don't like him, but lack of posting makes this inconclusive.

Klebian: Finally posts content at 188. "Actually [Hypatia] makes a really strange 2nd paragraph in 36, saying that she voted spurg to point out that he was close to being lynched... " WTF? I would argue that I voted AND pointed out, not voted TO point out--a player would have to be seriously bad to do such a thing. Otherwise quite quiet. My read: Don't like the weird anti-logic of 188 (not just because it's directed at me) but the lack of posting makes it inconclusive.

Mookeh: Props to Mookeh for supportin' me around page 4. (By "support" I think that Mookeh realized what I was trying to say and how I was trying to play and considered it different, not scummy.) In 190 Mookeh says will give reasons why Jennar is asking scummy, but doesn't deliver. Mills didn't like Mookeh, but with the way Mills was playing is that really worth consideration? Still Mill's dislike happened when the group's interactions with Mills were logical and civilized. My read: Not enough posts for me to draw a conclusion.

Mr. President: My read: Should be replaced. Nuff said.

Spurgistan: Our unknown quantity. Where the heck did he go? Posts almost nothing relevant to game. Mini-Spurg-Wagon, The Sequel also fizzles out. Yeah, Wagons I and II were not solidly-founded, but that's because we have very little coming out of spurg, and this needs to change. 288 is a decent post and gives his explanation of his vote on DH... My read: The spurg-discussion has been swirling AROUND spurg, instead of ABOUT him. We need to talk ABOUT him, since he makes me a bit nervous if only by association.

Vollkan: Aggressiveness is actually a great way to play if you're scum, because you can jump on *anything*. Again, a great way to defend against a spurgwagon, if he's a spurg scumbuddy. Not saying this pegs him as scum, but the means are definitely there there. Also, Page 10 he gives solid logic for claiming at L-1, as I thought my early "Claims are gonna happen!" posts. My read: I haven't found anything that pings the scumdar loudly, but I'll be watching him. He makes me nervous, and his playstyle makes me nervous.

Ythill: He was making me nervous earlier, especially around the Mills lynch. Rereading his posts from a new perspective I get good vibes, well-reasoned arguments, even where he argues with me. I've found nothing that, to me, specifically pegs him as scum. If he IS scum, he's hiding extremely well, and I doubt he would slip up enough to provide us with a smoking gun. My read: A weirdo, but clean for now.

MY THOUGHTS ABOUT/AROUND THE DEAD:

Krad: I take the speculation regarding Krad's fate into consideration from all angles, even though I dislike having such speculation out there. Post 227 says he's on to Mills, as I read it.

Dean Harper: Not much to say.

The Mills lynch:

All will join me in hating on Mill's playstyle and his screwing everything up from an after-analysis point of view.

The question on a townie lynch is always "were there scum on the wagon?" But I don't think we'll get a lot of info from this at this point simply since there were excellent reasons for townies to vote Mills, and some smart scumplayer may have been sitting it out simply because they would have *known* Mills was town, the town would provide the lynch anyway, and they would have an alibi in not voting Mills. Same with attacking/defending. Later on, the information of who voted on this wagon may prove useful to us.

On the wagon, DH and Krad are proved town. I am town. If I had to pick one player to be scum-who-hopped-on-the-easy-wagon, it would probably be Jennar, but that's just a light instinct.

At Ythill's questions above: Today is not the day for my strategy. My strategy will continue as long as it can because it gets more valuable the longer it goes. If I die, smart remaining townies will be able to put all the pieces together. In certain LYLO situations, the strategy can only help us.

My read on vollkan has changed only slightly from D1 to D2, in that he freaks me out more as I read over it. But again, this is because I *see the possibilities* of what his playstyle can do and what his hammering of Mills could have been; but I don't want to make my own paranoid story that will influence my future perceptions. As I said before, I'm keeping a close eye on him.

[Hypatia]

Gah. Looking over the post again I realize how much of it is just jotting in Excel stuff and there seem to be weird leaps in logic. In the Mookeh paragraph "asking scummy" should be "acting scummy".

[Hypatia]

*kicks the game*

How did we wind up with so many utter lurkers?

[Hypatia]

Essentially my read on him should have been "lack of posting makes me nervous" but I thought everyone could figure that out without my "formal read" at the end.

The Question-of-Spurgistan makes me nervous because, since he posts little and the first wagon around him was about getting "reactions" (that is, about everyone else except Spurg), he is essentially immune from criticism. He makes me nervous because he is rather a void, and voids at this stage in the game make me nervous. He's gotten sort of a free pass from scrutiny.

He makes me nervous "by association" because if he is scum, then a great way to distance is to vote or start a bandwagon, a great way to keep him from getting lynched without "defending" him is to say the bandwagon's groundless, a great way to deflect attention away from him is to deflect it on people on the wagon.

Now I'm not saying that *someone is actually doing that*, but I see it as a possibility. However I'm also trying not to fall prey to paranoid confirmation bias. A lot of this stuff makes me suspicious but right now I'm not grasping why.

I also think that Spurg just "sticks out more as a lurker" because there was talk *about* him in a way that there wasn't talk about the other lurkers.

[Hypatia]

Absolutely. Mills' blow-up stemmed from his inability to argue quickly when he was cornered with a unclaimable power role and a looming lynch. Nothing about his play discredits his intuitive or cognitive abilities and, as you pointed out, he wasn't under extreme pressure when he gave us the Mookeh read.

Parts of Mills' case against Mookeh were very valid. Now we have the advantage of knowing that the case grew from honest suspicions. Mookeh certainly should be a topic of discussion even though he wasn't on Mills' wagon.

I agree with Ythill here.

At the very least, we know that Mills' case on Mookeh was genuine. I reviewed it yesterday and there was some legitimacy to Mills' arguments, though it was not a damning case any means.

I would also like to hear more from Mookeh. I look forward to the replacements happening in, because unless we want to start lynching on the tiniest suspicions, our hands are tied about a lot of people right now.

Votecount up to Post 350

Not Voting (9) - Death's Door, Hypatia, Jennar, klebian, Mookeh, Mr. President, spurgistan, vollkan, Ythill

5 to lynch.

[Hypatia]

On this point we are in almost complete agreement. I say "almost" because I would add a few points to what you’ve said. Primarily: Dean’s death embroils me in a manner similar to (if less telling than) the way Krad’s death embroils you. Secondarily: because of the possibility of suspicion-building motives against you and I and our own public suspicions, a Krad death serves as a defensive move from Jennar-scum and a Dean death does the same for Hypatia-scum. Not claiming they are scum here, just discussing possibilities.

Enlighten me, please, as to how Dean's death would defend me? I always assumed that Dean's death came from the Mafia as he was a very innocent-sounding player, and that Krad would have been an SK or a particularly hot-fingered vig who'd been listening to Vollkan too much.

[Hypatia]

Certainly not. But I think that we have started from such very different positions that I doubt we'll agree.

My claim is that you said you voted to point out he was near being lynched, you say that you voted and pointed out he was close to being lynched.

Going over what we've said, I just think we won't get anywhere arguing over it. I reiterate that "voting to point out someone is close to being lynched"--("X is close to a lynch! No one will believe it when I say it unless I make X even *closer*!--better put on another vote, after all it's the

only way to point out that he's close

!") is such a ridiculous way to play; I know I am not that ridiculous. I voted AND pointed out in the same post. If I wanted to just point out where he was in terms of votes (and I know people disagree with me about what constitutes "close to a lynch) I could well have done that without a vote.

I know my motivations for that post and that vote; you may think my motivations are different from what I know they are, but I don't see how to argue this without going back and forth and saying "Yes you did!" "No I didn't!" over and over.

[Hypatia]

Look all you want, Mr. Vollkan. I will be going over your stuff and posting my analysis of you, even though I wish there were more than the three of us doing all these posts.

[Hypatia]

PBP of vollkan upcoming when my hangover mist clears.

1. Generally I would agree with this. I would also not raise eyebrows at people claiming on L-2, to escape an "accidental hammering." Nor would I think it odd if there was a mass roleclaim in the last day or two days of a game, so that more sense can be made of the night scenes.

2. There was only one wagon. It was spurg's. People wagon hop all the time, I just thought that the first wagon of the game was happening sooner than usual. I suppose I meant he was to defend against the wagon; how he could do that I have no idea.

3. The new attention focused on players who had enough posted for me to make a considered judgement on whether they were scummy or not.

4. They are both true. I come from a site that does use claims differently. I do have a plan involving claims. I thought of this plan when I was comparing the difference in playstyle between this forum and my other forum. My plan is overwhelmingly beneficial.

5. Pushing the only momentum-wagon farther before the deadline. With the way Mills had begun to play (and later did) there was a compelling case for his lynch. The next few posts bore me out. Petulancy, then self voting? It sounded like a scum player trying to take his ball and go home. Of course when I read Mills' blowup now I obviously read it as a frustrated townie. But *townies can't play like that* no matter how frustrated they get--it's like joking about being scum, it just sows confusion and makes people ticked off at you. Whenever I see stuff like that happening, my scumdar starts screaming.

6. With the way he was playing I wouldn't have believed him. We were also running out of time. Would a claim have made that much difference? Or would it have been the classic "Scum claims doc Day One, Real Doc rightly stays hidden, there is no lynch--or a much less considered lynch--and that scum is still alive the next day until we get fed up with them"?

Votecount up to Post 400

Not Voting (9) - Hypatia, Jennar, Justin Playfair, killa seven, klebian, Mookeh, thinktank, vollkan, Ythill

5 to lynch.

[Hypatia]

Y'all are not going to be lynching me today. I'm doing my promised vollkan-analysis now; then I will address what Ythill has said so far. He's welcome to bring his case against me any time.

[Hypatia]

Vollkan's Posts So Far

Lots of this will be focusing on his interactions with people other than me, since I'm sick of defending against a Page 2 comment about Spurgwagon One.

3 - Random vote for Krad

6 - Offers his meta-playstyle: "I am ultra-aggressive towards lurkers, and to people who don't post things if I demand it (I will tolerate intentional secrecy). And if I get stuck in inquiries I may resort to traps. " {From what I can see, no one's been particularly aggressive towards lurkers in this game. To me it's felt like a triangular firing squad of me, vollkan, and Ythill.}

24-N/A

29 - Puts the 3rd vote on Spurg with "Let's get a wagon rolling".

37 - Asks me what I, precisely, wanted Spurg to address. Asks Ythill why a wagon is scummy. Asks Mills why he left the wagon, and why Mills called Death's vote scummy, and why was Death's vote "even worthy of comment?"

38 - Specifically questions me about my Spurgcomment and asks "Why did you not want the wagon to reach close to a lynch?" {Old ground. Not retreading.}

40 - Responding to Mills: "The point of a random wagon (such as the one I began) is not to move towards a lynch; it is to generate reactions from people." Says that wagoning randomly is good. To Mills: "You immediately assumed that the wagon was for the purposes of lynching and jumped off asap. What does that mean? It could mean one of many things: such as (but not restricted to) that you have no idea of how random wagons work, or that you are scum who was fearful of being associated with a wagon which you perceived to be getting into dangerous territory. "

{So basically, the two explanations he gives are that Mills is ignorant, or scum. Of course, there are other explanations: perhaps Mills was a townie who got nervous about the wagon and jumped off, not wanting to lynch Spurg (since according to vollkan, Mills assumed it was a lynching wagon). But vollkan does not list those. I'm believing now that an integral part of vollkan's "interrogation" is just actively pissing people off, perhaps in hopes that they'll trip up. He seems to start from the premise that everyone is scummy. I know it ticks me off to hear "Such and such a thing you've done is explainable in *this* way, because you're scum." It certainly seemed to for Mills. But my emotional reaction to his playstyle does not mean it's a bad playstyle, just annoying.}

42 - Vollkan's "I was just trying to get a reaction!" explanation for Mills. He says re his earlier remark: "I was not inferring ANYTHING." I find this disingenuous. If he is so careful about picking apart other's posts, he must realize that whenever Player A gives explanations for Player B's behavior which point to, or consist of, Player B being scum, Player A has at least planted the idea in the audience's minds that Player B may be scum for the given reasons. (And sometimes Player A is correct and gets a successful lynch on Player B.) The inference has been made; it's just not necessarily a very serious one; but it's still there. (Of course Vollkan may have been using "infer" to mean a logical deduction.)

We need to consider that Vollkan's "interrogations" do not take place in a closed room with just him and his subject; we all read them, so they have two effects. One is the information that Vollkan finds out for himself, personally. The other is the ideas it gives everyone who is watching him question others.

Let's do a play-by-play on Vollkan V. Mirth, posts 34-43, focusing on Mirth's stated feeling about Death's Door.

Mirth 34: "I didn't like Death's Door's vote for spurgistan. Not because it was a second vote (because at some point on the first day, someone will have to make a second vote inevitably) but just because I didn't like really like the tone of the OMGUS. It seemed like he wanted to chuck out an OMGUS but then pass it off as if he was merely 'randomly' voting due to occurences in some other game."
Vollkan 37: Why is DD scummy?
Mirth 39: I had a feeling his vote wasn't random. (Reiterates previous reasons.)
Vollkan 40: "So...casting an OMGUS "random" vote is a scumtell?"
Mirth 41: (Gives examples.) I personally feel it's scummy based on the "general tone and structure of the post."
Vollkan 42: I don't get why it's scummy. "What nefarious purposes can you possibly construe..."
Mirth 43: "I'm not explaining a fourth time. You've obviously missed the point on both issues. "

So, basically: "Why?" "A feeling." "I don't believe you." "I said a feeling." "I don't get it." "It's my feeling." The whole point of this is to get Mills to reiterate, over and over, that it's a feeling. HOW can people get evidence for or against a feeling in someone's gut? Mills gave reasons for the feeling. Ythill said this was not enough and kept asking for more. Now 1 of 2 things can happen here:

1. The interogatee, having stated all their reasons, can only reiterate. Pointless. Unless of course the point is just to get Mills to say over and over again, "It's a feeling" so that his post about Death's Door is set up to look, in all our eyes, completely base and ungrounded.

2. The story changes. In Mafia-on-a-Platter-Land the story changes so obviously that scum slips up. However, in most cases the interogatee will attempt to come up with more reasons in an effort to get Vollkan off their back. This does not reward concise posting, or a thought-out-post that addresses many possible objections. This generally makes the interogatee look bad, but it also looks bad to disengage and refuse to answer vollkan's questions. Again, it's more like throwing spitballs against various targets and hoping that eventually one will stick.

Of course, I don't want to suggest that we can't question each other. I just really wish that questions would change. If one is repeating the same question over and over (which I think Vollkan was basically doing) one should expect to get the same answer. If Vollkan had tried different tacks or angles, something more might've come of the questioning. Here, this was not the case, and it really makes me wonder why he does it.

The rest of Page Two, and I think my conversation with Vollkan there, is as I said meta-gaming and theoretical mafia playing. Frankly I should not have engaged him.

Oh sweet heaven, it's not page three yet and this post is huge. So I'll put it up now and do more tomorrow.

[Hypatia]

Ugh. Sorry, I've been ill, I'll be doing more work here. I'm glad to see Jennar back and participating.

[Hypatia]

All right. Abandoning the intense word-by-word of Vollkan because really, no one should have to read it and everyone gets a general idea.

My proposition: There are approximately 3 mafia and probably a SK. (This post won't do much toward finding a SK.) I expect that one (less likely, two) of the mafia is a (somewhat) regular posting player, and the rest can be found amongst the lurkers.

I agree with someone's earlier observation that vollkan's normal playstyle is an excellent way to go about a SK's business. But right now I don't have major ideas about finding a SK, so my question is the likelihood of Vollkan being mafia. Let's see the patterns in his relations with other players. Now Vollkan has apparantly built a reputation on being an aggressive inquisitor so our main question is:

Who does Vollkan attack?

Me

, page 2. I am the first major questionee of the game. I know I am town. Many of you are on the fence about whether I'm town or not, but if I were scumbuddies with vollkan he would not have kept up about the spurg vote to the level he did.

Mills

, also page 2. I've gone over this one before. Mills is proved town. He also hammers Mills, but I don't blame him for that. His attacks on Mills follow basically the same pattern as those on me. I would argue that (before Mills went haywire) those attacks had even less basis than those on me, since there were many other players expressing disquiet over my Spurg remark than there were over Mills' stated "feeling" about Death's Door. Also around Page 10 he begins a less fiery attack, starting again about the Death's Door post. He seems unwilling to buy Ythill's case for Mills' lynch until the blowup. However he takes me to task for putting an IGMEOY at Mills instead of voting Mills (and I'm so pissed off that I let that influence me.) While he hammers Mills after the blowup, he offers three justifications and two 'I don't really think he's scum':

He's claimed godfather now. For meta reasons, that demands lynching. I agreed with most of the arguments, but you know where I thought you were being a little heavy-handed.

Mills' claim has now forced this course of action: Unvote, Vote: Mills . If you are not scum, I am going to be furious.

To me, this seems like excellent play from the point of a scum who knew Mills was innocent (because he was not mafia) and wanted to have his cake (the lynch) and eat it too (the "I knew so much better!")

Who else is attacked?

KradDrol

Minor jump-on on Page 4. In 91 he believes Krad has a "contrived case" against Mills. On Page 9, (205), a typically aggressive attack which continues on 10. Krad is proved town.

Jennar

on Page 7, in his typical style. (He engages with Jennar on Page 4, but it's not at all an attack.) Plus a theory disagreement on 233. Page 11 he says Jennar is in his "top 2" of suspicion with Krad (265). I have no idea on Jennar's alignment.

He does not attack:

Death's Door (now Justin)

(even though Death's Door is a lurker now, he posted @57.) He replies to Death's Door's voiced dislikes about his playstyle by saying it's how he always plays.

Dean Harper

(proved town.) He smacks Dean for not posting on 237 and tells him to shape up. Dean does not really have anything attackable.

Ythill

. Not that Ythill has done a lot of scumminess. Is he unwilling to take on Ythill? Can he find nothing to nitpick? Generally they seem to have similar trains of thoughts, but Vollkan's a lot more subdued around Ythill than he is around others. He responds to Ythill's questions reasonably and doesn't counterattack. He has a minor nitpick on Ythill's Mills case (274). He has questions in a PBP on 16, but not as aggressive as his others, so Ythill should be between "attacks" and "does not attack." (I have a pretty solid town read on Ythill, but I could be very wrong. If there *do* turn out to be two scum amongst the reasonably active posters, there's nothing separating Vollkan and Ythill.)

Spurg

I have said before that if Spurg is scum (and we don't have enough to make a judgement), derailing the wagon by attacking its passengers would be an excellent defense strategy from a scumbuddy vollkan.

Klebian

.

Mr. President (now killa)

(not that there's much to attack besides the obvious.) Doesn't like how he gets a "free pass" for today but says the Prez has a reasonable excuse for lurking. (I lean towards scum on Mr. President, but that's only a gut feeling.) I might actually put Pres on the "slight defending" part of the scale, but that's just my feeling.

He defends:

Mookeh

, slightly, on 5 (112, more in 114). But then in 116 he says he was confused and didn't mean to defend Mookeh, but (Dean?) instead. Later it's: "My misunderstanding was that I thought Mookeh was defending {Mills}. " I don't have much of a read on Mookeh, but I agree with Mills' points about Mookeh's scumminess.

Now to reiterate. Vollkan has a reputation for aggressiveness. Town Vollkan will attack where he scents weakness and scumminess. Scum Vollkan will do the same, but will focus his aggression on townies and go much easier on his scumbuddies. SK Vollkan will attack indiscriminately.

This analysis is hampered by the large amount of lurking players, and by our lack of dead scum. Still, Vollkan's major attacks (the kind that don't let up and go on for pages) have focused on 3 townies (me, Mills, KradDrol) and Jennar, whose alignment I am unsure of. He has left the lurkers alone, even though almost all lurkers have a post where they make assertions and suggestions.

As I began this post my top suspects for the active mafia player were Vollkan and Jennar. I would support a lynch on either; and if Vollkan is lynched and comes up town, then I support a consequential lynch on Jennar. A dead Jennar revealed as town would, similarly, be strong evidence in favor of lynching Vollkan.

As I've said before, Vollkan's playing style makes him extremely dangerous as scum, so I am leaning towards a vote for him. A review of Jennar's posts does not give me patterns as strong as Vollkan's do. However there is not a lot in Jennar's favor in the posts.

I would like to hear the opinions of others. To get something started I will

Vote: Vollkan
FOS: Jennar

However I am open to convincing to switch my vote and my FOS around.

[Hypatia]

Why do include the discussion I had with you on p2 under a section about attacks? We had a disagreement and a debate. That isn't an attack.

We can disagree about whether or not it's an attack. What I was saying was, if we were scumbuddies together our exchange would not have gone on like it did because you would not have wanted to cast suspicion on me.

Frankly, hypatia, I don't much see any case behind what you havve said. You've examined my conduct towards everyone and haven't pointed out anything that is actually scummy (though you have given a few conspiracies).

Frankly your entire playstyle seems scummy to me. But since I said "seems" I decided that I could either continue on in the way I'd done your first two pages, or I could try a different tack to see what connections (or anti-connections, in this case) I could draw between you and other players so far. In the case of your death and the reveal of your role, this is good information to have out there.

As I've said before, I'm working on assumptions about the makeup of the scum and my assumptions could be very very wrong. However, I think that in the set containing Vollkan and Jennar, one of them is scum. And finding out the alignment of either gives us, I think, information about the likelihood of other players being mafia.

[Hypatia]

Justin Playfair's entire post above is QFT.

And I keep this playstyle regardless of alignment. It's a nulltell.

The aggressiveness, yes. But the people you focus it on is information. Why are there people whom you leave alone, especially since you go on about "getting reactions" from people? In that case, wouldn't it be best to attack everyone, even on the tiniest of stuff, to see their reactions? Why don't you jump on Ythill? You were very cool towards the Mills lynch at the beginning, why no attack about that?

By your own admission, you are basing your suspicions off "assumptions" (which would explain the aforementioned lack of a case). Moreover, you're still trying to justify everything by reference to information-value.

*Everything* by reference to information value?

Information-value

is the valuability of your lynch in determining your alignment and helping us figure out the pattern so far.

Information

is what I've pointed out already.

Are we going to have a lynch today where another player melts down and makes it impossible to keep them alive? If there was anything incredibly scummy from Day 2 we would have been talking about it. So, since I believe that information-value should rarely be the *only* consideration for a lynch but can be a tipping factor, I'd like to lynch you.

[Hypatia]

Indeed. I think we need to start going after lurkers.

[Hypatia]

Hypatia,

Which lurkers, precisely?

Specifically, right now, rogueben, klebian, and thinktank. The lurkers that have posted very little in content and are impossible to get reads on. I have the nasty impression that the past few days have been a triangular firing squad while the mafia posts nothing and laughs. At this early point, I will support lurker wagoning to draw any of them out more.

I am quite happy that you are participating, and I also look forward to hearing more from killaseven.

[Hypatia]

Well, you'd better be sorry, because now I've lost many of the benefits and gained all of the drawbacks. Go back and read my obvious breadcrumbs.

I'm obviously a power role.

I'm a power role who wants claims. What kind of power role wants claims?

Why do you think there were two cops in this game? To cause confusion on several levels.

Why have I been playing scummily? Because smart scum will keep me alive then as a a smoke screen. As long as I didn't get lynched, that's fine, because what I needed was time to get several night's worth of results and pair them up. I expected the game to have one cop and perhaps a vigilante (well, I was wrong about the cop, but the deaths of Mills and Krad then seemed very helpful to me). So when I got two people with guns, I would have them both claim, and there was a good chance one of them would claim a role like doc or vanilla or something. Then I would have caught them in a lie. Sure it might have outed the cop, but it would have been a one-for-one scum.

So now I'm forced to work in the open. Watch as the scum I finger say, "Noo! I'm actually a third cop! a vigilante! and now you've outed me, damn you!" All I can say is whether someone has a gun or not. My "no" makes people a confirmed innocent and a likely target. My "yes" either outs a town power role and tells the scum exactly where to kill, or it allows a scum to wiggle under the claim of being a vig and cast suspicion at me.

Ythill, for what it's worth, does not have a gun. I thought he would at least have figured out what I was doing. I was even unlucky enough to check him twice (I wanted to check vollkan last night, but I screwed up the reply button and said "Ythill" again; but since we've found out about vollkan anyway, it doesn't matter much). Of course, I don't know if there's godfather immunity for gunsmiths, which is why I've been unsuspicious of Ythill but not backing him all the way.

[Hypatia]

Where did I ever claim I was a miller? I am not a miller (that I know of), I am a gunsmith.

Please, again, give me a little credit for being not entirely stupid. It's conceivable that I could be fakeclaiming. It's even conceivable that I could have made up a fakeclaim before the game began and then breadcrumbed that fakeclaim all through the game. Now scum can fakeclaim cop, because they know who's scum and not scum, and SKs are often immune anyway. They can fakeclaim doc, because docs don't broadcast their protections. They can fakeclaim vig because they know about certain nightkills. But claiming gunsmith is INCREDIBLY STUPID because scum know that their buddies have guns, but don't know the identities of cops, vigilantes, etc. Therefore their claim is very easy to disprove.

Please explain this “reply button” error in detail. How was it that you had a reply window open with my name in it without it being in a block quote? If you sent an unedited block quote of your previous investigation, wouldn’t the mod have caught the error? If it was a button error, you should have noticed immediately when you hit it; why wouldn’t you simply PM the mod about the error? Even if you didn’t, wouldn’t Chaos Omega have questioned you when he got a repeat night action?

I opened my previous Night One message and typed vollkan's name in place of Ythill and sent it off to Chaos Omega. He didn't question me because the next thing I new I was getting a reply from Night Two saying "Ythill does not have a gun." I thought that the mod made a mistake, but when I checked my sentbox it said I'd sent a message telling him to check Ythill. So it was my mistake, and I don't think it's the mod's job to give second chances. In any case I would have been investigating either of Vollkan or Jennar (notice my vote on one and FOS on the other?) and their deaths told me what I wanted to know anyway.

I am really frustrated with this game. Either Ythill has been playing masterfully as a godfather-without-gun, or the entire game has been a townie circular firing squad with the scum lurking and only coming out at night to kill.

Votecount up to Post 475

Hypatia (1) - Ythill

Not Voting (6) - Hypatia, Justin Playfair, killa seven, klebian, Mookeh, thinktank

4 to lynch.

[Hypatia]

Your response is to ignore the case I’ve brought up and jump out of the closet with your claim. But why would a miller not scumhunt? Why would she push for lurker lynches when we have perfectly good information to go on? Why would she tread water for three weeks and then start an aggressive attack against a wordy townie two days before deadline?

Scumhunt: because I was confused about who would be scum, confused about playstyles, and because I got lazy with my night action.

Lurker lynches: The three major posters were Ythill, myself, and vollkan. Vollkan is dead, I know I'm town and Ythill doesn't have a gun, therefore the remaining scum must be in the lurkers.

Tread water: I had a death in my family and then I was sick.

Yeah, I know this gig. Justin can attest to that. But it is equally important, when playing this way, to leave a trail of information by defending yourself well, just in case you are mislynched. You have not.

Also, tainting oneself is useless once things reach LYLO because it leaves us with the possibility of a “smokescreen” claiming to avoid the noose and, with a counter-claim, a very tense situation for town. Yet you said that your plan would help us through LYLO. Explain something to me, what good is a miller’s information to a town that doesn’t trust her? It’s good if her alignment is revealed, but that can’t happen without losing once we reach LYLO. So how, exactly, were you going to help town with your plan?

Either I die early, or I die late. If I died quickly, I had put obvious breadcrumbs in my posts. If I died slowly, I got more information. I was thinking about LYLO because I wanted to stay under the radar for as long as possible, and if I survived to LYLO I hoped to have two positive-gun results which could have netted us a scum.

Your response here didn’t explain how the two are consistent with each other. Please explain, in detail, how claims were different at your old site and how thinking about those differences lead to your “plan”. Also, please explain why you treat your play as obvious local miller strategy (in your last post) even though you claim to have come up with it, revelation style, while pondering the differences between this forum and another.

Claims were different at my old site in that people would claim spontaneously without being wagoned, with about a third of people claiming on Day One, half claiming Day Two and the rest claiming on Day Three and being thought suspicious. I can't answer the "miller strategy" because I never implied or thought I was a miller, so I'm not exactly sure what you're talking about. I claimed to get my plan from "comparing differences between sites" because I needed to sound like I had a spreadsheet style, logic, process-of-elimination plan instead of sounding like I had a night investigation.

[Hypatia]

Personally, I do not consider Justin or klebian to be lurkers. Nor do I consider a content-based lynch of a light-content player to be a lurker lynch. As our definitions seem different here, this point of disagreement might be a function of our different vocabularies.

I agree with your first statement, which is why I said I would support a specific lurker lynch on the other three. Justin, particularly, is not a lurker now (though he replaced one), and klebian is not really lurking but was not posting a lot of content either. And I think you're implying that Justin or Klebian could be scum, which I also agree with.

I don't know that we *have* a lot of content to get lynches on the lurkers and pseudo-lurkers, but maybe a reread will bring something up. In any case, what I want to emphasize is that we can't ignore the lurkers, and if they don't come out and play I want to see them considered for lynches because I really feel there's scum sliding completely under the radar in there. And also, because a mislynch of a posting townie hurts the town more than a mislynch of a non-posting townie, since discussion lags.

[Hypatia]

But Hypatia, why not just point out that you had made this statement clearly instead of referring to it obliquely with this

Well, since it was apparantly "so obvious" that I'd been breadcrumbing my gunsmith role, I didn't think it necessary. You found it. Ythill says he knew all along.

In this particular case the “plan” is so haphazard as to be of far more utility to scum than town. Worse, it doesn’t give any more reason for Hypatia’s ravening hunger for claims on day one. Her plan clearly calls for demanding claims only after she has managed to find something in her night investigations. It also demands not only that Hypatia survive deep into the game but that she prove remarkably apt at finding players with guns:

My "ravening hunger for claims?" Please. The only claim I was talking about Day One was one from spurg which never happened. And then I got into a complicated discussion about theory and my personal playstyle; and I said I *liked* claims. Did I ever demand a claim from anyone? It was only because I was unused to this style of claiming, and because I mentioned Spurg claiming, that everyone jumped on me. Then, in a miscalculation, I pulled out the "I have a plan!" thing to try to end the discussion, which apparently made me only more suspicious.

You have to realize that my "plan" is, although hard to execute flawlessly, the most responsible way of going about being a gunsmith. I don't want to out gunless people, I want to be vary careful about outing people with guns in case they are cops or vigs, but since I probably won't survive until endgame I breadcrumbed.

[Hypatia]

@ Hypatia: You have obviously lied. Explain why and deliver the result of your second investigation if you have one.

I don't remember exactly what I did, I know I was doing it quickly and I did something shortcut-y. But both my Night 1 and Night 2 messages in my sentbox said to check Ythill, so I must have had some sort of brainfart. There is no second investigation.

First, are you now saying that you didn’t have a secret plan? That you made it up only as a defense against those questioning you?

I see the "plan of being a gunsmith" vs. "My secret plan" is unclear, so here's a timeline and some more explanation, with clearer terms hopefully.

1. At the beginning of the game, I find out I'm a gunsmith.
2. I make my "gunsmith plan" which is to get investigations and get claims from two positive-gun people at a time. This is before the game really starts in earnest.
3. I get jumped on for talking about claims. I say, "I have a secret plan!" to shut people up. I want the "secret plan" to sound like I have a spreadsheet, logical-deduction plan involving claims, so that it doesn't sound like I've got a night action.
4. So the "secret spreadsheet plan" didn't exist. But I was trying to work with my "gunsmith plan", which I did try to keep somewhat secret.

I've played stupidly in this game, I know.

[Hypatia]

@Hypatia. Do you think it is good to make hypothetical arguments? (eg IF X is scum then ...)

I assume you're talking about my vollkan vs. Jennar post. At the time I felt vollkanI and Jennar to be equally likely as scum, and that *one* of them had to be and would preclude the other from being so. (And as it turned out I was right.) These were kind of the same hypothetical arguments that people are now making about Jennar's connections; they just seemed a lot more hypothetical at the time, I think, because we had *no* dead scum to go off of.

Right now my vote for "Most Likely Scum" is Justin, and if only for the "she's ravenous for claims!" thing. I know I'm town, but let's face it, I was also a very easy lynch earlier this gameday from my earlier behavior--the way to get me lynched would be to hammer my behavior over my claim--Justin just went a little too far. I feel like the string of quotes where I talk about claims are a cheap attempt to make me look bad. Now that I've come out, the town is not convinced of my innocence, but the scum are convinced of my dangerousness.

Of the remaining players:

Ythill is town.

killa seven, I buy the arguments that have been made about their scumminess.

klebian, Rogueben, who knows.

VollkanII I'm getting a townie read on if only because he says he believes me. I think scum would be trying pretty hard to get me lynched, and it's too late in the game to try to set me up when they could just NK me.

[Hypatia]

Okay,

Vote: Justin

. However I've considered this and there's no way he can claim a vigilante, so I don't know what would happen to out the second killer (whether that person is vig or SK).

[Hypatia]

I've considered this and there's no way he can claim a vigilante, so I don't know what would happen to out the second killer

Are you speaking of a timing issue with DD's disappearance and a NK? I hadn't considered this point and it is a good one. However, because of what happened with Mills, I'm a little hesitant to make preemptive assumptions about claims.

That, plus the kills of last night. If he was a town vigilante it is much more likely that he would have killed vollkan than Jennar, since vollkan was the one he brought the case against. But the vig/SK second killer must have killed Jennar.

[Hypatia]

Sorry. I'm still thinking that Justin is the best lynch for today and I don't have much new to bring against him, so next I plan to spend my time going over the other posters.

[Hypatia]

If Hypatia dies tonight you do no worse than you would if she was lynched today.

Because if I got mislynched today, scum gets to kill another townie tonight, netting them two townies... whereas if we lynch someone else today (ie you) there's a good chance of us getting scum and losing one townie tonight... so the second is "no worse" than the first because it is, in fact, better.... actually true.

There is no logic at all in me attacking Hypatia after her claim if I’m scum. If anything she would be of more value alive.

Assuming I out the second killer (whoever that may be) to you, or assuming you go after one of my confirmed innocents to destabilize the town? The problem is you know I'm town. My information can be used by both sides, but you can't act on any information I give out without confirming my townieness, you can't kill me without proving I'm town, and you can't leave me alive without the possibility that I hit one of you.

The problem is I'm most useful/least harmful to scum while the second killer is around. Once that person is dead or outed the scum have no safeclaim and no incentive for me alive.

[Hypatia]

My completely unofficial votecount:

Justin Playfair (2)

Rogueben
Hypatia

Hypatia (2)

Ythill
Justin

Killa Seven (1)

klebian

My vote's going to stay on Justin for now. He is my top suspect right now.

Then in order of most-to-least-possibly scum off the top of my head (without a reread right now, so I might post a new list later:)

killa seven / klebian (roughly equal)
rogueben
vollkanII
Ythill / Myself (known town)

The question of whether we have an SK complicates this and I'll keep this in mind as my reread; right now the list is for members in a scumgroup.

[Hypatia]

I'm going to finish my reread today at work; I'll be online this morning and I'll hammer k7 if necessary to keep us from no-lynch.

[Hypatia]

Okay. I'm in the middle of my reread, but I don't have a bad feeling about this:

Unvote

Vote: Killa Seven

[Hypatia]

Yeah, well, I know who I investigated. I can give that information at any time.

The question regarding the mafia roleblocker is whether it screwed up my investigation of Ythill Night One. I don't think it did, though, because I would have gotten an inconclusive result instead of an innocent.

[Hypatia]

Actually, I don't want to wait, because my post-it-note math shows we've won the game unless there were 4 scum.

Justin Playfair does not have a gun. (Sorry about the whole trying-to-lynch-you thing.)

That means the scum is either vollkan2 or Rogueben.

We have a 50-50 chance to kill the remaining scum today. If we get it right, we win; if we get it wrong we go to night, scum kills one of us and the remaining two townies lynch the remaining scum.

Votecount up to Post 600

Not Voting (5) - Hypatia, Justin Playfair, Rogueben, vollkan II, Ythill

3 to lynch.

[Hypatia]

I second Ythill's plan.

I don't *think* a godfather would have investigation immunity to a gunsmith. All of the kills so far are guns. If we had an SK who knifed or chainsawed, that would be different, but in this setup I think it's very unlikely.

As to proof of my alignment, my defenses would become incredibly WIFOM-y, so all I can do is point to the setup of this game as we know it.

Off to analyze vollII and Rogueben.

[Hypatia]

Analysis forthcoming, but could someone tell me what MotR means? Is it Middle-of-the-Road?

[Hypatia]

Sorry. I started a new job yesterday, and analysis is forthcoming, but right now I have much less time than I used to since I can't play at work for now.

[Hypatia]

Okay. I agree with Ythill that Rogueben seems like a better shot than vollkan does.

The reason I was less suspicious of vollkanII earlier (and why I didn't investigate him last night) was because I got the idea that he was the vig. Obviously I was wrong about that.

I was doing a long spreadsheet of voting patterns to see what I could get, but other than Rogueben's (very slightly suspicious) vote left on Justin and no vote on k7, there's not much. VollkanII had a vote on k7, which is a little bit in his favor, especially with the small size of the game now.

The question is, would vollkan have bussed k7? It's conceivable that k7 was not a lot of help as a scumbuddy, but the numbers now are getting down to the wire. Still, scum that bussed k7 would have to count on getting two mislynches, where killing me confirms my claim, Justin, and Ythill, and leaving me alive allows me to find them. So I think the vote on k7 is a great point in vollII's favor.

I'm willing to lynch Rogueben.

[Hypatia]

Bah. Sorry about the rhetoric and right-angle argument of that post; I was thinking out loud in it and didn't stop to put it together properly; but it should still be readable.

[Hypatia]

I agree Ben is probably the play.

[Hypatia]

Still here. Still favor lynching Rogueben over lynching Vollkan.

[Hypatia]

Vote: Rogueben

Not much more to say.

[Hypatia]

Hooray!

Second my thanks to Chaos for his cool setup.

Would I have been able to find a gun on Rogueben?

[Hypatia]

I *told* y'all I investigated Ythill twice.