Mini 1520: Neighborhood Mafia - Game over!

[Landmind]

Season's greetings, pals!

Can you sign your posts or something so we know who each head is?

Also who are the 2 heads?

That's the hydra of Goodmorning and Bulbazak, Jake. It's nice having you on board!

And speaking of Goodmorning and Bulbazak -- thanks go out first to Bulbazak, for his role in reviewing the setup and in the hydra 'Goodnight', as well as for his future role as a

secrets piñata

. VOTE: Goodnight. Live long and prosper, and deliver the

secrets of the setup

post haste -- you know what motivated it, you know what the great ideas at the center of it are, and now you get the chance to share that wonderful knowledge and let the whole world bloom.

I guess I'm just excited to play with you all -- so excited I can hardly speak! But what everybody here is probably really excited about is playing with someone with MafiaSSK's stellar lurking record and antitown playstyle -- god, just thinking about it gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling all over my lower intestine. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Who can say if he's going to be the guy he's always been?

Spooky mechanical questions for Thad have gone out via PM, but because some ambiguities are better to air out in public, because some of you have probably already thought of them, and because these are the kind of pressing questions whose answers are likely to be the foundations of our collective strategy, you can see them here:

• 1. Are roles issued on a per-night or per-neighbor-per-night basis? (Can the stump assign multiple roles per night if they're to different people?)
  2. Do nexii redirect strongmen? What happens if one is targeted?
  3. Can we refer to the treestump as a pumpkin?

Finally, I'd just like to let the pumpkin know in advance what it's probably realized already -- that speculating about who roles and invitations go out to will inevitably let our Sicilian buddies know what kind of super powers they need to deploy. They're nearly guaranteed to be watching the topic like hawks: there's no such thing as a PR tell or rolefishing, every one of their powers is situation-dependent, and, quite frankly, they get a lot of them, so they'll be willing to leap at chances. Six nights worth of them. So if it's at all possible, don't let in-thread discussion be the ultimate barometer for what decisions you make, and be daring-- the Icarus to our Daedalus, and to our kindly godfather's Helios. Because otherwise we're all dead.

Happy Halloween!

[Landmind]

An ill wind rattles across the rooftops -- a creeping menace looms.

Landmind's a hydra, right?

I am a vacant body subject to the whispered dictates of two endlessly-circling ravens which shall remain nameless. They don't sign their posts and write everything collectively. Woo-oo-oo………

Nice to play with me? Buddying noted

Last I heard it, Mafia was all about finding new ways to turn strangers into friends and also bemused strangers. Have we been playing the same game?

Thad deserves a couple thanks for the great answers he gave -- great in this case meaning that they fit the questions asked -- and for moderation overall. Have a nice evening, pals, and let's all strive to have meaningful social contact in our daily lives!

[Landmind]

And I'm a large celestial body generating energy through nuclear fusion. Wearing shades. What's your point?

I am a (still very spooky) hydra with two anonymous (unknowable) heads (shrouded in darkness). Both heads (creepily) write posts collectively, so there's no reason (only skin-crawling madness) to sign them (in blood).

sunman is badman

[Landmind]

Thad has unveiled the rope and votesheet; I return to the surface world.

VOTE: Goodnight I know that being unhelpful is lots of fun (and don't get me wrong. Despite all appearances, it certainly is something I've dabbled in from time to time) but I really do care about you, and in addition to that, I care about the game -- and, well, in addition to that, I care about winning the game. The game that we're going to lose if you don't reveal the

secrets of the setup

!

I know, there are rules: there are laws, codes, diagrams, and scenic placemats that you have to follow, and curious quotas you have to meet -- pits you have to fill, bodies you have to unearth. I've been there, done that, done all those things. I've

seen

what Big Government brings about. But there's simply no other way -- you

must

divulge the secrets! For the good of house, home, town, and country (particularly town, which I'm assuming you

are

a member of, aren't you?) you are

compelled

to divulge them.

Do you realize how slanty defiance makes me get?

There's one other comment I'd like to make.

At the same time we're also all kind of counting on you to not fuck things up.

Vote: Landmind

Voting without explanation, context, or even explicit indication of intent? What would your parents think? Also, there's a reason I'm badgering you and not DGB, who did the same thing. I'll give you three guesses what!

Last thing, I promise: a note to the rest of you. Don't take my mercy as an excuse not to fear me. Landmind out, up, and away!

[Landmind]

Morning, pals. I thought posting like that was hilarious and figured some of you guys might think so too, but apparently it came across as really devious, bad-faith play. I'll cut a little bullshit for you folks because you don't deserve to play with a guy who makes you feel that way.

Goodnight -- I don't think and never thought you were a cheater. Let me make this clear upfront: I think every player in this game is a good person. What I meant by 'secrets' is that you had the chance to discuss the setup with Thad, and he probably brought up specific edgecases and situations where he was worried the balance had slipped -- things like that, where his analysis was probably deeper than mine, and where you might have picked insights up osmotically. I've analyzed the setup -- I've written two pages of notes on the setup, actually, but I think it's very likely there are things you know or have considered that I haven't. That's why I wanted your help.

Moving past apologies: yes, Alduskkel is scum, but MafiaSSK's case is mostly predicated on things that are null for most players. So here's why Alduskkel is really scum.

You can probably tell I've been playfully baiting him the whole game: In another game (Mafiastuck), another player (torgonitoh) acted weirder than me for an entire game and Alduskkel played nothing like he's playing now. That seemed really unusual to me so I decided to keep doing it.

I was planning to make a giant meta-expose as soon as I got Goodnight's attention/cooperation but I was ambiguous so that went to shit and it took way longer than I expected to actually get to Alduskkel. So I'll do it now: this really doesn't look anything like his townmeta when dealing with weird people.

First of all --

Not to mention that an actual lynch based upon tic usage would be really stupid.

-- this is him saying that policy-lynching people for annoying quirks and tics like the one I'm doing now is bullshit (although this was in reference to another player). I mean, clearly he was annoyed. (exact words: "The shit is this?", "Does anyone actually think that torgonitoh's posts are worth a damn?") He openly slammed the guy, who was about as hard to read as I am (with much less content) pretty much every time he mentioned him, but made a real effort not to lose his shit because he didn't think it would be productive.

As far as tunneling goes? Fun fact: the phrase 'torg', including quotes and ignoring the postgame, appeared five times in Alduskkel's iso. So, obviously, as town, he has a clear tendency to completely obsess over the people who irritate him to the point where it's barely possible for him to play the game. He might even mention me six!

That doesn't even get into how he tends to err on the side of verbose as far as describing his reads. He wasn't really a 'lynch first, ask questions later' type the last time I saw him, and the way he waffled over his reads seemed borderline scummy. Really, listen to this:

Sowing the seeds of doubt? Fine by me. Brood's claim is definitely one that needs to be kept a close eye on, considering how shifty Brood was in the claiming process and his overall behavior. I don't suppose you think he's confirmed town? He seems town at the moment (see: Zdenek), but I would not call him confirmed.

Just iso'd Fate. Still not sure about his alignment. AV's pickup on the Sanjay read is good, but why the hell would Fate-scum defend AV, Maenara, and malpascp?

For my part I'm kind of torn here. Brood isn't super scummy, but he's definitely not town reading based on his own play. Even more problematic is that Brood dying to scum if he's town might be extremely detrimental, so lynching him now to avoid his NK might be valid. OTOH, I'm more inclined to believe his claim and obviously I don't care much to lynch town.

Kinda seeing Brood and Phill as opportunistic scum at a cursory glance to their isos. But I don't really want to get onto either wagon until I have the time to at least skim their isos and some other players who might deserve suspicion, like DGB, Naco, Zdenek, ActionDan (didn't like his interrogation of AVox, although I was townreading AD earlier), maybe even Zeta (seemed town earlier, but his recent posts are dropping off to null for me).

He really liked leaving open the possibility of targeting another player in the future instead of sticking like shit on toiletpaper to one guy whose playstyle made him eminently lynchable. We are staring at a man who

dwells

in the domain of unanswered questions and the future potential for inaction.

Bearing all that in mind, an open question to the rest of the round -- why do you think Alduskkel is losing his shit at a player he has trouble reading and who personally annoys him, despite not being a tunneler and ordinarily ignoring players who piss him off?

Well, gee. I dunno.

Unvote

. VOTE: Alduskkel

Hey, one last thought. 1baldeagle1, why's DGB scum? Also, don't you know she usually responds the same way to vote pressure as either faction?

A humbled Landmind returns to the skies.

[Landmind]

Yeah, for the most part I like to not go on both the offensive and the defensive at the same time. It just doesn't really work for me.

SSK, stop being so scummy while my hands are full with Alduskkel. Everybody who deserves it will get their turn.

So I have to play like my 2012 self, AND you get to judge that I'm scum because in 3 pages I haven't played as such? What evidence do you even have that I tunnel more as scum, as opposed to me just changing my playstyle since then -- alternatively, I could be acting differently because it's RVS. Or because you are/were more annoying than torgonitoh.

Well, yeah, or you could have been replaced by a UFO or devoured by your Mafia-starved stunt double. But just listing contingencies doesn't get us any closer to the truth, so why don't you tell me which one is true? That's getting into trust-tell territory, but you can't seriously say "maybe my meta's not like that" and not throw us some kind of bone. I guess I get a bad (read: scummy) gutfeeling from the lack of forthcomingness here, but I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt so don't take it to heart.

Also, you can't play the "RVS doesn't matter" card ("you get to judge that I'm scum because in 3 pages" "I could be acting differently because it's RVS") point when you previously called SSK out for saying the same thing. ("Because I'm so worried about looking bad on page 4. Yup. That's me." "Hiding behind sarcasm, are we?")

While Ald chews on that, here's a non-meta reason he's scummy --

So I'm focusing on Landmind -- what makes that different from anyone else focusing on one person? In other words, what makes what I'm doing tunneling?

Is tunneling scummy or just anti-town? Because townies are known to tunnel.

He's saying "I'm not doing antitown things" and "hey, even if I were to start doing antitown things, I wouldn't necessarily be scummy" at the same time. So what the underlying meaning here is is that he expects to get caught doing antitown things and he already wants to throw down a shovel for when he needs to dig himself out of that particular well.

Actually, in general, the last few pages have been all about that distinction, and I have a feeling that's going to be a recurring theme for a while now.

[Landmind]

Jake, I tried to save you for later but the waiting got to me. This is your 'straighten up and fly right' post. You've been getting gradually more irrational and it's making me feel nauseated. And I'm a pair of birds that eat carrion.

Alright, so you accused notscience of looking for an excuse not to hunt scum ("I believe this 'town hunting' is a ploy to absolve yourself from scum hunting, just like you did last game.") but this is after you've claimed to be fundamentally unable to scumhunt and after it's become really obvious that you're just voting notscience because you've got a massive grudge. So you're not scumhunting.

Really, I feel about the same way you do about lynching ungodly awful players -- however, I don't think turning it into a massive production where everyone gets an excuse to post things that aren't helpful is really great for anyone (not to mention that policy wagons are really dry from an analytical standpoint). That's what vigs are for and the lack of certainty that a vig will do what you want isn't an excuse to make a whole day less fruitful and less shiny than it was before.

You're also posting in favor of lynching an antitown player for being antitown because some stupid antitown player was responsible for your loss in the game your grudge came from in the first place. The reason you lost that game is because you lynched an antitown player instead of a scum player -- in other words, your solution is the same as what initially created the perceived problem!

You also said SSK seemed antitown but also that you liked him (#142 and #146). That was pretty interesting.

Do I really need to tell you why I'm a little hot under the collar about your new playstyle?

[Landmind]

You'd probably be more intimidating if I had some reason to believe you were right about some of the things you've said, but when I talk to you I just feel like I'm trying to choke a cloud of hot gas with oven mitts.

The shock value of angryposting diminishes over time, and antagonistic play is unfun for both factions. I feel like you'd have a better time if you cooled off.

[Landmind]

I'd feel great about voting for what the stump should assign if it weren't for that the scumteam's abilities only exist to counter ours. We shouldn't vote, although the stump should still take an active role in the game.

Notscience is nulltown, but if I explain why then he'll start doing the thing that makes me feel that way on purpose. He's not a great asset to the team, though.

Goodnight's apparent tunneling of me makes me feel like tunneling Alduskkel less -- you can't pick one wagon until you've tasted them all, after all. Is it just me or is Goodnightpost #108 pretty interesting as a response to #107? That is, the way it doesn't really follow the previous posts at all, and it's a sudden switch from a theoretical Ald/SSK scumteam to an Aldscum-afraid-of-SSKtown theory. It bothered me earlier and it's bothering me a lot more now that I give it a second look -- I don't like people who can't keep their conspiracy theories straight.

DGB should post more. Also, PrivateI sure uses the word 'town' a lot.

[Landmind]

Goodnight: Which of the current major wagons do you think are scum-motivated or led? (Which are town?)

As far as Ald and SSK go, the quickposting that stacked on four pages in two days makes my reads feel soft and dated, so I feel like I can either double down on Ald and tunnel when I'm not really feeling it or I can pursue other reads. I've got a noncommittal scumread on Ald and I get bad gutfeelings from SSK's play. He's chronic lynchbait, though, which means that if he's getting lynched, it needs to be without too much spectacle after folks have already run up a few other players. If everybody doesn't get the chance to argue and take a stand, the next day feels like starting over with one fewer scumbag, which I'm not cool with. The only way I see him not getting lynched today is if someone plays even more badly, so you've got nothing much to worry about.

UNVOTE

. VOTE: Espeonage. I wasn't feeling it for Sanhora but I'm feeling it for Esp. He doesn't seem genuine at all, even in his casebuilding, and Eagle's seeming lack of reaction to his vote makes me feel a little funny. #267/#268 (where he buddies Mac for no real reason other than effective spirit of "I don't want you to keep voting for me") and #262 (where he hugs the stump and buddies it using a grandiose explanation of theory) don't look like townplay. Whenever someone calls him scum his heart skips in a way that's pretty telling. In fact, he'll probably do it again in response to me.

He probably also pulls his supposed statistics out of thin air, but that's a minor point.

PrivateI's #253 says I'm insubstantial, which is a blow to my ego because it puts me in the same club as Dolittle and other players who never post anything but unaccompanied lists of their reads. Baldeagle's jump on PrivateI is weird, but it's not as weird as the way PrivateI moved his vote because of 'mod error', or as weird as the way Jake spontaneously stopped threatening and insulting people for telling him not to tunnel and instead -- well, just stopped tunneling. Substitute 'weird' for a 'soft scum read' pejorative because that's how it makes me feel.

Happy Halloween!

[Landmind]

Hey, NS. That read list is almost right, except I'd switch it around to be Esp > BE > PI > Jake. PI's scumminess depends a little on BE's flip.

Ald, the reason SSK's lynch is inevitable is because he's chronic lynchbait. He's playing badly enough that he's eventually going to say something so scummy that we'll have no choice other than to lynch him. That doesn't really have any bearing on his alignment, of course. His saving grace right now is probably that he's not posting, so the folks wagoning him -- like you, for instance -- are moving to slightly livelier prey even though they're bearing their suspicions in mind.

I'm glad Esp thinks my case is good by the way. It's a headscratcher but I'll take it. Also, it looks like Baldeagle really wants Alduskkel to be his friend, judging by his reads and the last few posts he made. He'd make an interesting flip but I'm sticking with Esp for now.

[Landmind]

Hey Alduskkel, this post is mostly for you.

I don't think I can read SSK accurately because of his lynchbait status and I'm not going to pretend I can, but I think he's mildly scummy at this point and his high early-game activity doesn't match his meta. I'm a little unsure about my read because he's been lurking and people don't usually don't hold their reads on lurkers very accurately.

I wouldn't be surprised if Dolittle was scum at this point, but I don't get that impression on him right now. He seems to troll the folks wagoning him occasionally while SSK seems pretty forced a lot of the time.

Both Eagle and Esp expressed approval of SSK's wagon over Dolittle's and I don't like either of them very much (Esp seemed pretty noncommittal about it too, which would characterize a lot of his play this game, and I already talked about how I wouldn't mind seeing Eagle's flip). Either a Dolittle or SSK scumflip would give me pretty strong associative feelings towards the both of them, and they're players I'd like to know more about.

Actually, VOTE: MafiaSSK for stated reasons. A Dolittle scumflip would tell me more but he doesn't give me enough gutfeeling right now. Also, I don't like #489.

[Landmind]

Just making clear: associatively speaking I want an SSK scumflip or a Dolittle scumflip. Those would basically decide my casebuilding on Eagle and heavily influence it on Esp. Other scumflips would be good but those are the ones that confirm my suspicions. Aside from that, most of today I've been compensating for a pretty strong gutread on SSK even though I know he's susceptible to being read too strongly. He's basically the giant jiggly magnet to my scumcompass.

Let's see. Nobody on DGB's wagon has been able to sell it and it's patently ridiculous. This is textbook DGB townplay. On the plus side I don't really see her being lynched today without shenanigans. I guess aside from DGB nobody on that wagon gives me great feelings.

Esp really wants to be liked and seems to spend a lot of his time being quietly desperate. Now that I've mentioned this he'll probably lap it up and say 'fair point' as if that annuls it. For yet another instance of this, check out #509, where he buddies the stump that's actively not trusting him by saying it has good reads. This is a tick he seems to have and it's pretty hysterical.

Eagle, just so you know, I'm going to be pissed off at you if Dolittle ever has the opportunity to flip scum. There will be gnashing of teeth, and probably voting involved too. Also, why are you still voting PrivateI?

[Landmind]

First meeting between heads in three or four days was today: 30 minutes of casual tech support turned into 5 hours of agonizing hardware repair and no progress was made. It's past midnight and I didn't have time to put together a post. Thanks for your patience.

[Landmind]

Yeah, I've really let this game slide far too much. I hadn't noticed the prod request though -- I was behind on the topic. 'Two weeks' is excessive though, given that there was a really long nightphase and holidays in there. My hydrameeting was actually about the time of DGB's hammer (a couple hours after), and I didn't notice she had until it was too late.

It was still far too little posting and none of you folks deserve that, though. I hadn't actually noticed the prodrequest though because I was behind on the thread.

Goodnight -- Since when was DGB more aggressive and forceful about pushing her reads as town? Last I checked play that looks like that falls far more into her scum meta. I'm still willing to excuse a lot of her play even post-hammer as 'weird DGB play' -- before you claim she was going out of her way to escape that wagon, remember that she basically started that wagon for the purpose of making a political statement. It's harder to call it evasive when you remember the hole she was caught in was a hole that *she* dug, and I'd need to see a pretty effective description of how her play is beyond ordinary wacky DGBplay to really start voting for her.

Also, I'm not genuine? For the most part I've been pointing out specific people and providing specific postnumbers of things that make me feel bad: the reason I haven't been directly quoting is because I don't want to textwall any more than I already do. Would it help if I got really anal about picking out every thing that bothered me? I guess the other problem is that SSK was in the game and he alternated between posting things that made me feel like he was scum and not posting at all, even though I know he has a habit of playing that way as town. His playstyle is a hell of a lot to compensate for and I was trying really hard.

Nice going, Esp, with borrowing the 'lynchbait' jargon. Actually, let me go into a little bit more detail about what I mean with 'trying really hard to be liked,' for the benefit of the rest of you (particularly Goodnight, whose accusation hurt my feelings).

Hey cabdffery, case it isn't obvious, this is Espe-scum wanting you to invite him into your neighborhood so he can spread secrets about you with his bffs

Hi Mac

hey, I'm pretty sure both people in that hydra can read me better than you can.

in reference to a hydra that was

not reading him as town

, to try and convince it he was a good guy and a nice guy

long quote from notscience here, basically NS accusing Esp of being scum and attempting to falsely discredit an earlier claim

I am townreading you. I'm also townreading Jake, I still disagree with pretty everything he has ever posted.

@morph: Because you are both good players who have seen my play before.

"come on I like you even though you think I'm scum and also morph you're a smart guy you know how pro-town I am"

It's actually a pretty rational case. I am trying to be steadily aggressive and he talks about motivation from a scum POV, which is good hunting.

"oh landmind the way you call me scum is so rational (let's make out)"

And now let's look at how he talks to/about people who aren't actively calling him scum.

Because she is just as good a scum candidate at this point and carries the additional value of being severely toxic to town's operation if she is town. At worst it's a policy lynch. At best we lynch scum and have a wealth of information.

And there's the avoidance, and the self vote. And don't give me that self voting is null. It is a scum action because it takes information away from town. Especially when done by someone of DGB's stature.

Now this guy, he can eat some rope for the terrible posting for the sake of posting. And makes an opportunistic vote (In the sense that wiki says it means scum so people might come with) on a vote that was not opportunistic, which frankly tells me that bald really doesn't want to be seen, only heard. A stance scum very much need.

What's that? Pragmatism? Strong language? *Not* melting into total butter? (His DGB case isn't great by the way but let's not go into that right now.) By the way, Esp, no, you're not being 'steadily aggressive'. You're being aggressive to people who aren't currently accusing you of things, and otherwise acting like a total pushover. It's almost as if you have no idea how to offload accusations when they turn out to be accurate!

Let's see, another note on the previous night. I have no idea why Mac was killed, especially since his only suspect who didn't already flip town was Notscience (possible honorable mention for Eagle). Any guesses? Actually, stump, just confirm for me: Mac wasn't the vigkill, right? Don't name any neighbors.

A few more words for the stump. My scumteam is Esp, Eagle, and PrivateI: Esp for reasons I've already mentioned, Eagle and PrivateI for reasons I've mentioned D1 (seriously weird jump Eagle made on PrivateI, Eagle trying to be friends with Alduskkel a la Esp, PrivateI's move to SSK post-FOS). The strong read here is Esp.

[Landmind]

Morph: I'd actually forgotten about the jestery godfather. If DGB is the godfather and she's trying to get killed this early, though, she's wasting her reset - it would have had no gameplay effect if she died D1 and unless the scumteam made a massive play N1 it would have no effect now. Why would she introduce suspicion for herself D1 to time her death for after she actually does something?

Don't get me wrong. I think she'd play a pretty strong godfather but so far I don't think we have very much basis to actually suspect her. Right now I feel like if I actually suspected her of being the godfather, it'd be pointless paranoia because I know she's good enough at scumplay to fool me some of the time.

By the way, DGB: 'corporate meetings'. Lifting the curtain of hydra abstraction for a second: that's pretty much how I'm running this show. We meet over IRC (online chat) or in real life and hash everything out in GoogleDocs to post it. If one's not there we don't make a post. We've got 42 pages of notes on the game right now because we decided to massively overplan our play (we haven't used most of them since mid-D1) and we're currently pending mod-approval to post a screenshot of one of them to prove it. This is to prevent typical hydra bullshit like high-speed read oscillation and 'no the other head is the scummy one' posts, and it comes at the cost that our post rate is limited. And sometimes I start the meeting by trying to fix the other head's keyboard and it takes five hours and then I have to go to bed instead of writing anything useful. Do you want a photo of the upfucked keyboard?

Esp: I wallpost when I haven't posted for a while because it's better than not posting for a while and then posting like dolittle. I, the talkative head, write like this because I never learned to write any other way. (quiet!head: NO SERIOUSLY HE TYPES LIKE THIS ALL THE TIME) Apparently the way I started posting was a pain in the ass to read (I thought it wasn't) -- I stopped, and as far as I can tell I am writing like a normal person now. I don't think most of the people who are accusing me of being deliberately incomprehensible are actually reading my posts any more. (Mention this if you see it: "Banana!") Evidently my diction was not a problem for you, Esp, until you found out that aggressively brown-nosing people doesn't make them let you off the hook. (PrivateI has yet to learn this lesson.)

Let's stop talking hydra bullshit for right now. Is there anything I wrote that was *not* true? Or is today's order of the day 'the series of short paragraphs punctuated by occasional quotes is too hard to follow, his argument is deception and lies. my scrollbar is worn out'? What happened to 'pretty rational case' and 'I want to wash your feet Landmind'?

Something else is bugging me. Folks who think one of PrivateI and Eagle is scummy and not the other need to give both a good look or tell me what I'm missing, because there's something funny about how that works. I'd especially like PrivateI and Eagle to tell me how each of them is not scummy the same way the other one is, especially since each seems to think the other's a mob member.

[Landmind]

Oh, one other thing, Esp. You think I'm posting verbosely to avoid being cased by ISO when the whole case against me is "he's posting too verbosely!"?

Think about that for a second. There's a reason I'm "Landmind" and not "Y-Combinator".

[Landmind]

Spontaneouspost incoming.

"YOU DID THAT THING YOU SAID YOU WERE DOING. LET ME MAKE MASSIVE LEAPS OF LOGIC AS I FAIL TO INDICATE WHY I HAVE A READ I DON'T HAVE."

[Landmind]

The things we forget: VOTE: Espeonage.

Hey DGB -- I bet if we did a wordcount I'd easily top out most of the other posters. And if time is measured in terms of pain and human suffering, I've easily dedicated an eternity to this game.

I agree about unsubstantiated 'in real life' excuses, which is why, unlike most of the hydras that attempt to pull that sort of shit, I've offered photos to back up about half of my hydra bullshit. Here's one now! (Notesdoc -- meta section, before learning my alignment. No confirmable material)



Less spontaneous post, in response to the thing Esp posted about why he thinks I'm scum: I do 1 and 2 because my heads don't always have the same stances and it's better than shitty posts where we have to reconcile two fundamentally different sets of reads into a single stance in front of everyone. So we do it out-of-game. Yes, I do 3: the whole point of the post was to establish that I construct posts beforehand, so yes, your case is correct inasmuch as I actually do that, but it's incorrect in that your reasoning for why this is pro-scum is literally "DGB said you're lying about the reasons for your inactivity" -- i.e., piggybacking on the case of another player who already doesn't like me without a firm understanding of the case's basis.

4 assumes that I knew the entire game my posts are unreadable (they're not and if they are I didn't -- I'm entertaining the stance because even though I seriously can't fathom the basis for it, people have proposed it). 5 is a basic misunderstanding of what the post said: the keyboard has nothing to do with the lack of posting at any time except that one occasion, where I posted the next day instead of the current one. You are misrepresenting me by claiming that I've used the keyboard as an excuse on any other occasion, and that I didn't immediately follow up on the promise I made the way I've followed up on every promise I've made this game.

Oh, by the way, what's the AtE? I scanned my post a couple times and I have no idea where I actually made one. Do you find recursion an emotional subject? What feelings does the phrase "S S K (S (K (S S (S (S S K))))" stir up in you?

I reiterate -- why didn't literally any of these things bother you until I accused you of buddying reactively? These, especially 3 and 4, are things I've been doing the whole game since switching posting style, and certainly the whole time you've been here. It's

really convenient

that they've started bugging you now that I've suggested you pull a case out of your ass instead of licking further boots, and didn't bug you at any time before.

I'm not just rhetoricing at you, by the way. I really want a response: preferably one that actually gets at my questions and isn't just blustering.

[Landmind]

fucked up the combinator: it's S S K (S (K (S S (S (S S K)))) K). Sorry about that.

[Landmind]

Those observing that those notes could have been written from a town or a scum perspective have successfully missed the point. I posted notes that were written before the game -- before receiving a rolePM -- because I felt a little uncomfortable posting notes taken during the game the same way I feel uncomfortable about the prospect of posting modcommunications in-thread (even when it's not explicitly disallowed), and really just wanted to confirm that I'd written notes during the game. But in for a penny, in for a pound, I guess. These are from mid-D1, and feature us writing up our interpretation of a quick interchange and us describing the case that Goodnight tried to draw up. There should be more meat on these bones.



I haven't evaluated the links yet, Goodnight. My DGBmeta's a little dated so I'll try to ease up a little bit on using it for now. Do you have pro-scum motivation for any of her most recent play? The selfhammer might have seemed self-preservationist to me if she didn't have a history of flipping out at L-1 and if she hadn't started the wagon herself.

Jake, I like you better as a friend than as an enemy but the 'step it up ambiguously or I'll do bad things to you' attitude is super skeevy in the light of how you haven't been reading my posts and on several occasions have demonstrated that you don't really care what I have to say.

DGB, notscience and Esp: Current meta is pretty anti-NK analysis, but I'm looking for a specific answer here so bear with me. Why was Mac nightkilled? (Other amateur sleuths are also welcome to respond)

[Landmind]

er, not 'selfhammer' but 'quickhammer' -- a self-preservationist selfhammer would have been far more interesting

[Landmind]

#809 - So your argument is 'you probably faked them anyway: also the fake notes make you look like scum'? You can't have your cake and eat it too: either they're fake and crafted behind the scenes to make me look good, or they're real and damning. Also, to put it really simply, that's a shallow-as-fuck analysis of the notes posted. It ignores basically every 'why would they do that?' as idle speculation that comes without any implicit step of 'and maybe they're scum for it?', while simultaneously assuming, despite a dearth of textual evidence, that every instance of 'why do they have that read?' has a next step of 'because if I'm not careful, they might find out that it's true!'

Let me just be explicit here. At that point I (green-text) thought Goodnight was bullshitting their reads and either tunneling to exaggerate legitimate feelings or trying to be devious and pressure Alduskkel into making a decision he wouldn't have otherwise made. I didn't thnk Goodnight was onto anything clever or accurate in particular (although at this point I think Night's Ald read is genuine and I have hesitant-town on them) and thought their play seemed very forced. I was

contemplating a case

with those notes.

If you deny that I'm writing the notes from that stance, then there's a problem with your reading comprehension: every green comment implies that I'm ticked off by the weird play and determining whether I should casebuild around it. If you think I'm making the analysis I described but I'm only doing it so I can make false cases against town members, then you're blatantly tunneling, because that's an interpretation that can only be justified to people who already have strong scumreads against me. Right now I actually think you're bullshitting to save your hide, but if you're town you're doing one of the above. As far as I can tell, there are no other possible interpretations of the notes I posted.

Your other post is really interesting. Really, really interesting. I'm going to wait until the other folks I poked have commented first, though, before I go into that, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone like Ald beat me to the punch in describing how interesting it is.

[Landmind]

what

[Landmind]

Yeah, DGB and Notsci are pretty excused for now. I was hoping one of them would overstate Mac's competence or otherwise have feelings about him that look really radically different from what anyone else would say, and based on past play with DGB I figured she'd be most likely to do that. It was kind of a long shot, but it paid off differently from how I expected.

Basically, #809/#810 is a case of blatant daytalk. Esp tabbed over to the quicktopic and poked his buddies to see if they could come up with a good story for the kill: they replied quicker than he expected so he made his response immediately. That's why he indicated there would be a break of indefinite length -- because he thought there would be one, even though it actually turned out to be really short. That's also the reason he came to a moon-logic answer (thanks for pointing that out, Ald) nearly instantly with no speculation. I actually thought it looked rehearsed initially, but 'prompted by QTdiscussion' explains more than that and has the same implications.

Even if you don't believe it was daytalk, can you seriously imagine anyone not involved with the kill coming up with an answer like that?

[Landmind]

This is hysterical, and just my posting this is going to make Esp flip out even more.

[Landmind]

By the way Esp, you're doing it again with the sucking up to people who think you're scum thing.

[Landmind]

Jake, thirty-second Esp case summary coming your way.

Esp buddied every player who called him scum and when I pointed out he was doing that he flipped out and tried to pull out the "you wouldn't believe a... scumbag, would you?" defense to make people throw out my case. When that didn't work he became increasingly belligerent, started freaking out, and took obvious daytalk breaks between posts. At some point he gave himself a fake V/LA flag for no reason. Q.E.D.: he's mafia.

Goodnight: Just pointing out that DGB's play isn't her usual doesn't answer my question. Do you have a specific

motivation

for her weirdplay D1? And didn't her D1play "stand out to you"? Also, if you really want anyone to think Esp is town, respond to the accusations I made in the note to Jake, because at the moment, that's the wall of evidence standing between your position and the way the rest of the world sees things right now.

By the way, the daytalk break: anyone want to talk about the daytalk break? What happened there was really weird, especially if you watched it unfold in realtime, and I'm pretty sure what I wrote is about the simplest explanation for it.

[Landmind]

Jake - He didn't say what I quoted (it was a paraphrase) but this is from #809, his response to one of my big caseposts. Every response to my case from him has been orthogonal beating-around-the-bush about how scummy and afraid for my life I am. (I'm neither.)

I'll get to the question in a sec. I would like to point out that 1 no one cares about your notes because easily faked and 2 seeing as you did post notes those look like scum notes with the whole who thinks were scum and no who IS scum.

Everyone in Esp, PrivateI, and Eagle is playing like pondscum, but I don't feel like PrivateI and Eagle are all that likely to be scum together.

[Landmind]

Goodnight's posting isn't making them look great right now. (It's not really about Ald.)

[Landmind]

[Landmind]

Mazel tov, goys and schlemiels!

Ald's intropost was really stinky and Eagle's interrogation of him smells like dead fish too. It really looks like Eagle's trying to find an excuse to not vote Ald: also, his push on PrivateI doesn't look like a bus and would be very poorly timed if it was. So I don't think it is one, at least for now.

I think Ald's overstating the level of support for his lynch, which is odd for his playstyle, but it's difficult for me to say. Also, I think his "it is advantageous for the scum to say they think I'm scum" defense is at least one of hollow/arrogant/desperate the way he's presented it now.

He seems a lot more surprised by DGB's death than the Mac NK, and if you ask me the Mac NK was a lot harder to explain. Right now he reads like he was

actually

surprised by something this time around (hence the congratulating-the-doctor vibe NS pointed out): which to me suggests that we had a nexus and it messed with the kill. It doesn't help that his first thought is 'any words, Morph?'

Notsci, if I had to pick a scumteam it would be Eagle and Ald: Eagle for lasting stink, Ald for new stink, and possibly Goodnight as a late addition that's a lot closer to null than the other two.

Oy gevalt, and a happy Festival of Lights to all of you!

[Landmind]

Alduskkel I have more words at you.

Remember how everyone said they thought I was scum D2, but they took a break from really acting on their paranoia because goddammit I was right? (actual factual correctness notwithstanding) You have active suspicion from just a couple of people (an alternating Goodnight head and me) and low-level paranoia from everyone else who's mentioned you: that's what I mean by overstatement. There's a considerable difference from where you are now and the threshold of impending lynch, and what I'm really seeing is a player who doesn't characteristically respond to pressure responding to pressure with what reads like concern wrapped up as speculation.

One other thing. I'll spell this out: you wrote "If you think about who's probably scum then it makes sense for people to suddenly start suspecting me; I'm a good candidate for the final mislynch." The only applicable reasons I can see that scum would lead a wagon on a specific non-PR in MyLo are that a) they think he's easy to lynch or b) they think he's hard to fool. You're not easy to lynch: you're moderately abrasive and pretty capable in defending yourself, so unless every other lynchable player is scum reason A doesn't apply. So, B: do you think you're unusually hard to mislead or something? In terms of quality of reads or ability to play the game, you don't seem exceptional enough not to get fooled: there's no possible way you could be an unfoolable Cassandra type here given that you were on both of the wagons that hit town.

[Landmind]

I'm wishing right now that Morph and Goodnight would move the game along so I can have a little confirmation for my speculation.

It's nice that they've acknowledged how slow they're being but it'd be nicer if they actually stopped doing that to boot.

[Landmind]

Notsci, you're wrong.

Here's why I said nexus: I expected a conf-inno or a conf-guilty -- probably a conf-guilty because it's really hard to confirm someone innocent in this setup. The possibilities were watcher, tracker, and nexus. There's no single super-obvtown player so watcher seemed unlikely, and I was the most common scumread so I figured I'd be the one to get tracked, which wouldn't confirm anything, because I'm town and therefore don't do anything at night.

There's also the matter that Ald's play aligned with an incoming nexus for the reasons that both you and I observed in-thread (you having actually played it). I don't think it was all that unreasonable to expect, even though Ald went out of his way to try to make it sound like a weird, distant possibility. There's, I'll repeat, no reason for him to be this much more confused about this kill than about the Mac kill -- it's blatantly obvious how strange it is and when I point this out, he instadismisses the possibility of a nexus with no justification.

Why would I even mention nexus as scum? There's already enough general suspicion on him that I wouldn't have needed bizarre only-scum-would-know-for-certain details to try and turn the game on its ear in his direction. I'm in a far harder position now when I know there are at least two players in this game who would not vote scum!Ald ever, no matter what. (For the record, he's intentionally playing dumb.)

By the way, I've made a whole lot of really specific conspiracy theories this game and literally every one has gone unconfirmed or disproven. (This has been a minor blow to my ego.) Remember when I accused Esp of daytalk and he turned out to be town? It's almost as if I have a tendency to float whatever comes to mind to see if it sticks -- and it's almost as if a playstyle like that eventually leads to being totally dead-on at least periodically.

One other thing. Why would I scumread Goodnight if I knew the slot was going to be confirmed by the nexus reveal? If I shot it, I'd know from the point of the Christmas post that he was town, about to be confirmed, and that someone had his interests at heart.

[Landmind]

Let me clarify something from the abve post.

If I were scum, all I would need is the support of

one townie

and I could mislynch Alduskkel. How much of my secret scum-knowledge do you think I'd have to leverage to convince

one townie

I was right -- and, given that I'd know what morph's surprise was going to be, how sure are you that I'd feel compelled to do it before it happened?

If I were scum it would not be hard to win right now.

[Landmind]

Pretty much everyone who thought Eagle was scum before needs to give #1043 a look and tell me it's not scummy.

I'm a little frustrated because I'm basically not being acknowledged at this point by anyone except Ald, who's scum.

I am like 80% sure that Mastin is in the hydra and Mastin's scum game, as I recall it, is not very good, so I'm not going to second guess myself with "too scummy to be scum on this one."

http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 5#p5473545
the wisest sage on the mafiascum