New York 116 - Prozacs Large Normal - Who won?

[Zorblag]

Good day everyone. I'll be replacing SensFan. It looks like I know a few of the people in the thread and I look forward to getting to know the rest of you. You're welcome to call me Zorblag, Zorb, Zor, Z or Troll. If you're interested in how I play, my previous games are all listed on my Wiki Page. Some of the links for the older games are broken as of the move to the new boards but the recent game links are working fine (the rest should be in the archives somewhere but I haven't bothered tracking everything down as I think the links are supposed to get a universal fix eventually.) If you'd like to know more about me outside the games you can check out my GTKAS Thread. If you've got any questions that the two of those don't answer feel free to ask. I'm not technically an IC this game but you're welcome to treat me as a resource for how things go on Mafia Scum.

So I'd like to start with some rules of thumb that I use for the F11 setup but which should still be mostly applicable here. Most of you are aware of these but for those that are relatively new and might not be I think they're helpful. There's a Mafia Discussion thread about them here if you'd like to see what other experienced players had to say about them (as well as a couple other things that might be worth looking at.)

Here are some rules of thumb that I like a lot for the current newbie setup. There are no absolute rules in mafia and others might disagree about some of them (and I'm happy to discuss them so long as we don't detract from the game itself by doing it) but I'm a fairly traditional/conservative player and find these to be useful.

1. Townies without power roles should not lie about their role except in very specific situations (which are unlikely to come up in newbie games.) Lying to save yourself from a lynch as a vanilla townie is much more likely to hurt the town than to help in the long run.

2. Townies without power roles should generally not claim to be vanilla townies. This makes it easier for the scum to figure out who the power roles are if there are any. Assuming that townies are following rule 1 they should avoid making claims other than simply being a pro-town role unless there is some strategy that the Town is using (e.g. massclaim at LyLo) or they are about to be lynched anyhow and keeping their non-power role status no longer makes it easier for the scum to find power roles.

3. If you suspect someone else of having a power role you shouldn't out them. Support them if you see a way to do it that doesn't out them and watch carefully to see if there are reasons to reassess your belief. Leave the claim of the power role to them unless you think that they will be lynched while they are away and wouldn't be able to make the claim them self.

4. If you do have a power role you should keep it hidden for now. Do not let yourself get lynched without revealing it but there is no reason to advertise it at the start in the setups that we could be in. If the scum know who have the power roles now they have the power to lynch or role block powers during the night and negate their usefulness.

5. If you're town, don't self hammer. This kills a pro town role and hurts the town's chances in the long run. It's much better to try to defend yourself or at the very least force the other players to place the last vote. There are exceptions when a deadline is involved but in general don't think that you're doing the town any favors by self hammering.

If any of those are unclear please do ask about them.

Beyond that I'll wait for the game to start.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

VOTE: AGar for being the first person, alphabetically by user name not to have posted since day one started.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@Stef, that vote is not bold and it's not Anon.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

Sorry, Mighty Orbots is my hydra account. Reposting for Isolation purposes.

UNVOTE: AGar
VOTE: Anon for being the first person alphabetically not to have posted since day one started.

@Stef, if you're going for an arbitrary vote why not double up the arbitrary vote that's already down?

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

For what it's worth, I've not been offended at all by people's description of my posting. I'm pretty aware that opinions vary widely about my style. If people think that I'm a long-winded blow-hard who's short on content but long on words and irritating to read it's not going to bother me any. I disagree for the most part and it won't make me change my style but they're welcome to have their opinions.

My experience with Mr.Sandman is pretty limited but reading through the thread just now it was concerning that he had picked up his prod and not responded. I think he's a bit likely to hang back as scum. Seeing that he's posted (with pretty good content) is reassuring on that front.

I agree that it's bizarre that mothrax's stance in Post 82 was that if he was going to vote it would be for AGar but then he votes for diginova in Post 87 with neither of the two of them posting between. That's probably worth getting an explanation about.

Thus far diginova's play looks fine to me. He's responding to attacks but he's doing more than just defending; he's also still probing which is the correct reaction.

I'd like a bit more from Charlie and Wraith than we're getting from their posts thus far but it's still early so I'll see what develops on that front.

@CCARaven4, why not vote someone else when you unvoted?

UNVOTE: Anon
VOTE: mothrax

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

Hmm, a claim already. It's suboptimal. We need to establish from here on out that it's not time to claim until someone's actually ready to hammer. That means that everyone else needs to agree not to hammer before claims. If anyone is going to have trouble with that speak up now.

As for the claim itself it doesn't seem like a great one to fake so it's probably true. If he stays alive then there's a decent chance that he'll interact with someone in a way that would be noticed via either the roleblock or the protection. The role doesn't guarantee alignment (both doctors and roleblockers can easily be either scum or town and that role is really just a combination of the two) but like I said before I think his play was mostly fine earlier. He has turtled a bit more in response to added pressure and the claim isn't well timed but I still don't think he's particularly scummy.

@AGar, by probing I meant that he was still doing scum hunting as well as attempting to defend himself. Do you disagree that he was doing that at the start?

@Wraith, town shouldn't lie about their roles in the F11 setup. I don't know if I'd quite call my stance in that setup policy lynching but it'd be close. I think that in a normal setup like this it almost never benefits the town to lie about roles (which is why I left it in my rules of thumb) but with closed setups everything needs to gain a bit more flexibility. It's still be a huge strike against someone if they lied about their role and didn't have a

really

solid reason to justify it later. It's not something that should be done on a whim.

And, having answered that question, what I don't understand is why you chose to ask it, as though the game needed something to happen, right after someone claimed at L-2. You don't seem to have mentioned the claim at all there. I don't care for that lack of a reaction to what's the most significant thing to happen yet this game.

@Toogeloo and mothrax, I take it that diginova's claim doesn't change your feelings about him significantly. You're both leaving your votes on him without mentioning it.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@AGar, why would a scum jailkeeper be bastardish? It sort of implies that there should be more than one killing faction but so does a scum doctor and I don't think that anyone would consider that bastardish. It's got the same sorts of powers in scum hands as it does in town hands; it can protect a partner while stopping them from acting (which might be a big deal if scum can't use individual powers and the group kill the same night) or it can block someone who might or might not have a power role while also protecting them from a kill. Both uses have downsides just like both ways to try to use it as town do. I'd call it a pretty alignment neutral role offhand.

@Anon, the play in the other game by Charlie is pretty striking in comparison. Have you looked at other games he's played or are these the only two?

@Charlie, would you say your play here is different from your play in Left 4 Dead? I suppose I'll let you come up with your content past that as you've just said that it would be coming.

@Fugitive, is your vote still on Mothrax because it was a convenient wagon to join? Other than that I see you claim OMGUS on him (which I don't overly agree with) and complaints about a few other players. It's hard to see who and what you're actually finding scummy at this point and I don't care for that.

@tubby216, I count 6 posts from you. They include 3 cases of you saying that you need to catch up or will have something coming shortly, one random vote, one post where you say that your vote was random but you're liking it (no further reasoning given) and one explanation of what VI meant (theory talk and weak at that.)

I call active lurking. Feel free to demonstrate your ability to provide useful content to make my coming vote look foolish.

@Wraith, why set up to be able to go after someone who lies about their role? You don't need to establish a Lynch all Liars general attitude to justify that being worth a vote on your part. Even if it's not worth a policy lynch in some people's eyes it should be obviously scummy to anyone barring mitigating circumstances.

UNVOTE: Mothrax
VOTE: tubby216

tubby216 is active lurking and it should stop now. My reason for voting Mothrax was good enough at the time but he's participating and I can live with his answers for now. Charlie is somewhat tempting but he's got some spotlight already and I'll see what he has to say for content in the next short while.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

Re: Policy lynches and when to do them. If someone really is a policy lynch because of their play across games (in which case we can expect not to get any read or helpful play from them) there are probably better ways to deal with them than a day one lynch. Vigilante shots and investigations spring directly to mind. If those options aren't available the it's better to lynch them sooner rather than later but in this game there's no reason to expect that we'll have to resort to that at this point.

If we're talking about a policy lynch based on an in game action (Lynch all Liars if we think that's a policy lynch, for example) there's less reason to hold back day one.

As of now I'm not interested in lynching someone because of how I expect them to play regardless of alignment. I'd rather lynch the player who's acting scummiest.

@Benmage, tubby216 is active lurking. If you think that voting him for that is the start of a policy lynch at least it's something scummy he's doing this game rather than just based on his expected play from here on out like you're proposing for Lowell. I claim there is a difference.

@Charlie, I've got experience with Mr.Sandman playing a low impact, below the radar game as scum in Newbie Game 935. If he's doing the same thing here I've got more reason to suspect him for it than I would an average player.

There's no reason at all for us to claim before someone's ready to hammer in this game. This is true across almost all setups, newbie or not. That people will have different opinions doesn't make it any better for someone to hammer before a claim; if someone does then they get huge scum points from me as we've had enough conversation about it by now to make it clear that it's unacceptable. That there are more potentially conflicting voices is no excuse for making poor plays.

Unless you think that there shouldn't be scum doctors or town roleblockers in this setup (and both roles are perfectly well suited to both alignments) there's no reason to think that a jailkeeper should have to be a particular alignment here. I'm not sure why people would make that assumption. This was supposed to be a normal game for newbies to learn how to interact with roles and claims initially as you point out; that doesn't mean that roles would have been associated with alignments. I don't particularly think that diginova is a scum jailkeeper just now (if I did I'd be voting for him) but there's no reason to assume that any jailkeepers in the game would have to be town.

@Toogeloo, Lowell might have less posts than tubby216 but at least his votes and unvotes give us some information. Overall, there's more to work with from Lowell than there is from tubby 216 at this time. Lowell's most recent post is garbage but I'm sure that you've noticed that tubby216's most recent post was yet another chance for him to say that he'll give us content later rather than anything useful.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

I had life come up for a bit there. I'll catch up and post my thoughts later this morning (PDT). Sorry about that absence.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

So here are some issues that I have with what's happening right now:

tubby216 responded to pressure by getting in here and posting some thoughts on players. That was good. After that he seems to have been under no pressure and he's gone back to not posting anything at all.

diginova seems to have essentially disappeared since he made his claim and the pressure left him. He's given some excuses (which are plausible enough) but then promised content and failed to deliver. I don't like that.

Charlie did get the post he promised in when pressured but has largely lapsed since then (mind you, he's better than the first two here; I don't plan to push him but I'd like to see more of him making cases.)

Most of the attention at this point seems to be focused on players who are actively posting. While they could be scum it also means that we're largely ignoring the players who aren't doing anything in the game. Players who post are more likely to look scummy than those who don't regardless of their alignment. Players who aren't posting don't make any slips; if we're mostly looking at them then we allow scum (who have every reason to play under the radar) to get away with no connections in the early game which makes them that much harder to catch in the end game.

Having said that, it is time to start consolidating votes. I'm going to give others a day to join me on a tubby216 wagon if they'd like and if they don't I'll be picking out whichever of the top three wagons looks scummiest to move to. I'd like a vote count to figure out who that entails and that should be coming soon.

@tubby216, I don't have any trouble with you being wary of me (or anyone else) because you think that they're competent so long as you don't start calling for a lynch solely on the grounds that someone could be misleading the town if they're scum.

@Wraith, how likely do you think Lowell and fugitive would be to mimic each other's actions if both were scum? I realize that you picked Lowell to vote for but it'd be pretty surprising to me if both Lowell and Tazaro (replacing fugitive) were scum based on the arguments you were making.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

To start with, I'm still not unhappy with my tubby216 vote. He hasn't done anything since I was on last that makes me think he's any more likely to be town. At this point his lynch doesn't look like it will happen today so I'll be moving my vote.

There's a fair amount (for day one) that I don't like about Wraith's play. The reaction to the diginova claim (trying to establish lynch all liars rather than giving a reaction to the claim itself) and the whole sequence of moves and posts leading up to his current vote (which he says aren't any good) would be prime examples.

Mod, do we know if scum can daytalk this game? Based on Post 11 I assume they cannot but the rules don't seem to indicate one way or the other.

His recent attitude taken on it's own would seem to indicate unskilled town or skilled scum on it's own. If scum can daytalk then that makes him more likely to be scum from that alone. There probably is information to be had in his wagon and although he's not ideal I don't think he's a bad lynch at all today.

Between Stef and Benmage I'd prefer a Stef lynch to a Benmage lynch. Benmage's push for a policy lynch on Lowell does seem to be what I expect from him pretty much regardless of alignment, his responses to my questions feel genuine enough (even if I don't agree with them) and I don't mind his play in general. It feels like he's getting flak for positions that I think he'd take as town. Stef on the other hand has an attitude I don't love towards Wraith and forgave tubby216 much more easily for a couple quick posts.

I'd definitely take a tubby216 lynch before either of them (or the Wraith lynch) but, as I said, that doesn't seem to be happening just now.

UNVOTE: tubby216
VOTE: Wraith

I believe that should be L-1. Before any claims happen someone should say they're willing to hammer. If no one is or if people unvote then we should not have a claim here.

@Oso, do you think that Benmage is assuming that Lowell is town? If he is then you've got a point. If not then I don't see it.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

VOTE: tubby216

He still needs to do something. The vote for Wraith doesn't make him look any better at all.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

So this is the entirety of what tubby216 had to say about Wraith before putting him at L-2 yesterday:

vote:Wraith

The vote on Charlie today comes with slightly more comment about him previous, but not much. In Post 247 tubby216 questions why CCARaven4 jumps on the Charlie wagon (no follow up) and in Post 662 he doesn't like the way Charlie has reacted to the pressure of a wagon.

I really want to see what tubby216 thinks the case on Charlie is.

I also really want to see something other than excuses for not posting content, lashing out at people who call him on not posting content, complaining about getting votes for lurking and late wagon votes without anything in the way of reasons to back them up from tubby216.

He's active lurking and a number of people are trying to excuse it. It's scummy play and really has no town motivation at all.

Beyond that, Charlie shouldn't have claimed. A vanilla townie claim shouldn't stop anyone from getting lynched at this stage of the game and should be made unless someone is ready to hammer. If Charlie is town there's no reason at all to help the scum narrow in on power roles if he doesn't end up getting lynched. It's also true that his wagon went from zero votes to six votes in a ridiculously short amount of time. I'd be pretty surprised if there weren't some scum on it at this point no matter what his alignment is. He hasn't done anything particularly useful today but his overall play is still better than tubby216's.

I don't like how mothrax is saying he was attacked for voting the people he was suspicious about given the number of people attacking him between his previous vote and unvote. He is right that it is his job to vote for the people that he suspects. It's not his job to act as though he's been maligned when someone objects to being suspected.

@mothrax, do you think that ToonFighter and Toogeloo would be likely to be scum together if they're both doing the same things and appear to be buddying eachother? Also, only person who seemed to be giving you trouble with your vote and FoS when you removed it was Toogeloo and vaguely AGar. Why would one of your suspects complaining about your vote be a reason to remove it?

Also, to be clear, I'm not voting for pressure. I'm voting for the people I find most suspicious at the time I cast the vote (or in the case of Wraith, the person that I needed to vote for to make sure a lynch happened when the person I was most suspicious of clearly wasn't going to be lynched.) If a player does something under pressure that makes me change my mind about them I'll change my vote but pressure isn't the point of the vote.

@AGar, why a null read on active lurking? What would tubby216 have to do (keeping in mind that he's not doing anything other than jumping on the end of opportunistic wagons) to give you a scum read rather than a null read? This is especially an issue given you're telling Mothrax to scum hunt or we'll lynch him.

@Toogeloo, why on Earth do you think that claims help the town? Power roles make themselves targets by claiming and vanilla townies narrow down targets for the scum. Unless there's a mass claim of some sort, we're really ready to lynch someone or someone thinks that they have information that will help the town and chooses to claim on their own we shouldn't be looking for claims in a game like this. Have you got other games to point to where you've said that?

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@petroleumjelly, I disagree that roleblocker is a scummier sounding claim than jailkeeper as neither one is particularly tied to scum or town as an alignment (I've certainly seen plenty of town roleblockers in closed games; jailkeeper is more rare.) When I say that role doesn't garuntee alignment I mean that if even if we had a mod confirmed role cop on someone with jailkeeper (or doctor, or roleblocker, etc) we wouldn't know their alignment. Certainly scum can't fake a claim that makes them town. They can make a true claim of role though in the hopes that town will let them live.

In any case, jailkeeper is a poor fake claim because there are so many elements of it that can be confirmed by other power roles. Oso is probably a jailkeeper.

@Oso, I don't really want you to claim your actions just now for at least one reason that I'd rather not go into. If you feel it would be helpful it's your call to make though.

@Toogeloo, the style of play that you're describing is a valid way to play mafia but it's not particularly the style you're likely to find here. It looks like in some ways you're starting with the town power roles as your means of catching scum and using their presence as a drive for actions in the game. The problem with the approach that you're proposing is that if town are claiming (power role or otherwise) it's making it easier for scum to kill them off and thus eliminate the type of game that you're trying to set up. Sure you can potentially catch scum in traps if they fake claim but that's not particularly any better than simply lynching them when they make the claim in the first place. The claims should be made for the purposes of information, not to stop lynches.

If town power roles have information they think is worth sharing then they should share it. For a cop that's probably not a single innocent investigation at this stage in the game; confirming a single innocent on day two isn't all that valuable and from then out out they're pretty unlikely to be able to do any more investigating (assuming competent mafia but depending a bit on the setup.) There is some danger that they'll get killed without revealing it but, so long as the town in general isn't claiming there's not a huge danger of the scum finding them if they're not playing like a cop. The more claims we have the more likely an information role is to want to claim early and largely negate their ability to gather more information (because the risk of losing it goes up.) With less claims we're more likely to get more information in the long run out of such roles even if there is a slightly greater risk of getting no information at all.

I'm all for playing for a high information game; getting early claims isn't the only way to go about that and in fact I believe that it's a less efficient approach than having people claim to share their information before they get lynched, if we're ready for a mass claim or if they think they have information that is worth revealing a power role to share.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

I'll be V/LA for the weekend but the good news is that the summer quarter has just ended and after Scumstorm I'll have much more time for mafia.

@petroleumjelly, you seem to think that I'm saying that we should treat any claim as true until it's verified. That's not the case at all. My point is that jailkeeper in particular is a poor fake claim to make. It's more than just a roleblocker with some thrills and it's got at least as many ways to get caught in lies if someone fakes it as any other claim that springs to mind. In addition to blocking the target it also stops the anyone else from targeting it's target. That means that any investigative roles that happened to target the target should fail. If it's ever tracked the target has to live. Anyone it targets has to have their abilities blocked. As an early claim it's really not a good one for faking at all; if you're going to fake something similar doctor or roleblocker would be a much better choice. Given all that I'm comfortable saying that Oso is probably a jailkeeper. If he is a jailkeeper it doesn't mean he's town though I'm pretty happy with his play since he replaced in so independently I think there's a fair chance he is.

You're also welcome to think that roleblocker is an inherently scummy role. We're going to disagree there though it probably won't be an issue unless someone claims roleblocker. Roleblockers, doctors and jailkeepers are all roles that can easily be given to either scum or town. Roleblocker might not help town as much in most situations but that doesn't mean that it's a worse role for the mod to give town. That would depend on what's happening in terms of balance for the rest of the roles they're working with.

I find it hard to believe that you say you can't fathom a case where a claim about who Oso jailkept last night could be harmful to the town especially given that you listed information about potential blocked kills on your reasons for him to claim. If Oso jailkept a town killing role we actively don't want it publicly known who it was as that gives mafia useful information (he could also have jailkept a vig's target but if a vig attempted a kill and it failed they should have a decent guess as to the reason at this point.) The dangers in waiting till tomorrow to claim really aren't that great (there's just not much chance we'd lose any vital information), waiting gives us a chance to see what the kills are like tomorrow and if Oso is scum then having to claim two actions at once is just as likely to catch him in a lie as claiming them one at a time.

I'll take a closer look at Tazaro on Monday but I want to know how you plan to deal with tubby216. You don't seem to have mentioned him at all until explicitly asked about him and apparently you're just going with the I can't read lurkers line. Given your experience I would think that you'd know the dangers of ignoring players who aren't playing the game enough to give reads. It's an excellent scum tactic and hurts the town in the long run regardless of alignment.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

Hmm, it appears that I haven't been replaced. I am now back from dealing with a couple issues so let me get caught up with what's happening in the game. I see that tubby216 appears to be at L-1 from the last couple posts. He had been my top choice for a lynch so I probably think that's a good thing but I'll have to see if he's actually done anything since I was here last.

While I'm getting caught up are there any questions anyone asked that I hadn't answered? Have we had a mass claim that I need to take part in?

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

So it looks like tubby216 isn't any worse a lynch now than he was when I was here last. I'm perfectly willing to hammer him at this time so it's time for him to claim.

That Oso's jailkeeper role doesn't work the way that I had thought it did does weaken my argument that it's a poor scum fake claim slightly but I still hold it to be true. It's made even more likely now that we know that he jailkept AGar night one and that he ended up being a serial killer. That and lack of second kills nights 2 and 3 make it very likely that he's telling the truth (jailkeeper is probably the easiest role out there to stop kills of any sort with.) I've got no trouble with how he used his actions and I'm pretty sure that I would have targeted one of the claimed masons once they revealed. It's curious that Toogeloo protested that but so be it.

At this point I think it does make sense to accept that Toogeloo and Toon Fighter are masons. It's a hugely risky claim for scum to make as they pretty much have to be two (town based on the setup) masons or two scum. If they were scum then either of them dying would out the other so it's not worth the risk, especially as Toogeloo didn't have to claim when he did.

That leaves mothrax, Mr.Sandman, Stef and Tazaro. I'm working through them in isolation but I'm not going to get a chance to post them all tonight so I'll get that out tomorrow.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

I'm holding off on the lynch at this point as it looks like we're interested in making sure that people have shared their thoughts on the state of the game (something I'm fine with at this time) and we're in no danger of running into a deadline. Now that there's been a claim I've got no problem with someone hammering (despite the question I'll ask tubby 216 in a bit) but I'd suggest that if anyone really doesn't want the lynch to happen yet an unvote to make it impossible would be prudent.

re: mothrax. Now that AGar has flipped SK I'm less concerned with his initial vote moving early in day one than I had been previously. It's still not great but at least I know that he wasn't protecting a scum buddy. His early interactions with Benmage are curious and there is almost no acknowledgment of Benmage in the game as we progress which isn't great. I don't care for his interactions with our claimed power roles (both the reaction to the diginova claim and the fact that he had linked Toogeloo and Toon Fighter and was pushing that as a reason for them to be scummy when there's no reason to think that a scum team would link themselves in an obvious way but rather a reason to think that they wouldn't.) I also don't care for how he's pushed the idea that I'm voting tubby216 for pressure when that's not the reason I'm casting votes; it's a misrepresentation that comes up multiple times in his posts.

re: Mr.Sandman. Mr.Sandman seems not to have been under any serious pressure this game as far as I can tell which is probably telling in terms of the game that's been played rather than Mr.Sandman's play in particular. Having said that, based on my limited experience with him it does look a lot more like Mr.Sandman is scum hunting this game than it did in the game where I knew he was scum.

re: Stef. I do agree with those who've said that he's backed off tubby216 too easily a couple times in the past. The interactions with Benmage Day One are fairly antagonistic but I don't think that there's much of a push for others to follow his vote in that direction and then there's really no follow up on it on future days. I agree with his stance that Lowell's claim wasn't particularly good (based on how he was treating his role) but I'm not sure why he would say he wanted to wait for more reactions and then hammer as quickly as he did. In all I think that there's less cohesion in opinion and more following trends in Stef's posts than I would expect from town.

re: Tazaro. Tazaro's been active this game to a much greater extent than anyone else on this list. We've got many short posts from him but they do have questions that I find interesting and to a lesser extent opinions which are useful for forming reads. I do see some back and forth with Benmage which doesn't culminate in any votes for him (and I can't see any huge reason that Tazaro would have been committed to the Charlie vote that he was on at the time) but there was a fair amount of attention to almost everyone who was posting. Tazaro seems to be at least as willing to question Oso's role as anyone and has brought up him being alive more than anyone else I can think of offhand. He also doesn't seem to be interested in assuming that the masons are probably town at this point based on what he's said which I don't think is great.

I guess that at this point of the four I'd say that my suspicions go, in order, mothrax, Stef, Tazaro, Mr.Sandman.

@Tazaro, how likely do you think Toogeloo and Toon Fighter are to be masons? I'm not quite sure if I know who your top guesses for scum are at this point despite all you've said, could you clear that up for me?

@Toogeloo, I think that tubby216's voting behavior (especially the first couple days) isn't just anti-town but rather closer to scummy. The lack of activity and useful content I'll take as anti-town I suppose but it's not just anti-town behavior that makes me think he's our best choice for a lynch. Beyond that, there's actually an argument that could be made for not talking about suspicions too much today if we think we know what the lynch is going to be. If the day's conclusion is already determined then further talk gives scum more chance to figure out what they want to do with night actions (as an example, in general if there's going to be a no lynch for strategic purposes on a given day it's best to simply do that immediately without further conversation so that the scum don't get extra information on what the town is thinking before making their decision on a night kill.) In this case I don't think it's that much of an issue (which should be clear as I just shared my thoughts) given the claimed power roles out there but it's something worth taking into consideration when something like this shows up in the future.

@tubby216, at this point could you do me a favor and give a couple sentences about everyone left in the game and the biggest reasons you think we should be worried about them? If anyone isn't worth writing it about then simply noting that is fine. You've been here all game so I assume that you've got opinions on the remaining player base at this point. If you're telling the truth then it'll get your thoughts out there in a more coherent way than they've been out there all game. If you're scum then it doesn't matter what you say and I don't mind making you do extra work that will simply be disregarded.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@tubby216, I'm not looking for a list here, I'm looking for insights you have about people that the rest of us might be missing.

@Tazaro, simply saying that the mason claims could be fake doesn't answer my question. How likely do you think Toogeloo and Toon Fighter are to be lying about the claim at this point? They're not in your top two or three but do you think that the possibility is a one in three or four sort of thing or a one in thirty or forty sort of thing. In theory I agree that they could be scum faking but if they are they're going with a risky, unforced plan and I just don't think that it fits with the play that I'm seeing from Toogeloo here in particular.

You referenced a game which lead you to mistrust claims at some point. I think you're taking it further than it would be reasonable to as town here but could you link it so that I can take a look at exactly what happened?

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@mothrax, out of curiosity, what was the case you think that I presented about tubby216 recently? You said that and your own re-read have left you willing to hammer but I don't think that I've said anything recently that I hadn't said earlier.

@Tazaro, OK, I've looked over the game you linked. I thought that you were trying to justify suspicion of claims based on someone making a claim that fooled you in the past but I see that diddin was in fact telling the truth with his claim. To some degree I don't mind your suspicion of him there (it was a bit of an odd role, neighbor jailkeeper) but the circumstances surrounding his claim are very similar to the circumstances here in that it just didn't make much sense for him to be lying about what he did (and low and behold, he wasn't.) In that game he claimed an easily verifiable role (in that case when when he was at L-1.) That's the appropriate thing for town to do and not a good move for scum to fake (when doctor would have been so much easier as a fake claim in that situation.) In this game we've got a pair of claimed masons who have been noticeably acting as a team since day one really. I know that you picked up the connection and others did as well. Further they claimed in what was largely a no pressure situation. For them to be scum they'd have to have been either planning this from the start or just be really bad at hiding connections between them (and I can't think of a single instance of scum being that obvious with their connections in all the games of mafia that I've played.)

If you're going to take anything away from the other game that you're citing it should be that when a claim doesn't make sense for scum it's not a good idea to think that it's likely to be scum making it. Instead you're citing your past behavior to excuse bad judgment calls now. I've got no problem with you keeping the option that the mason claims are fake in mind but I do have a problem with you saying that it's not far-fetched and is SQUARELY (emphasis yours) in the realm of possibility. For the mason claims to be fake as we see them risks linking a large portion of the scum team together needlessly. If scum had any reason to think that there might be another killing role in the game when the claim was made (and in a game this size they'd by default have a reason as well as possibly knowing that they had a kill blocked by Oso at some point) we should have further reduced chances of a fake claim here. It feels like you're going out of your way to justify keeping suspicion on players who should not at this time be worth mentioning at all which just reeks of trying to discredit probably town power roles for no good reason. If this were LyLo then it might be worth bringing up as something to be concerned about but right now there's no good reason to make a point of saying that you're not interested in calling anyone probably town.

The fact that tubby216 seems to be going in the same direction certainly doesn't make me feel any better about him but at this point I do not see good town motivation for your actions.

@everyone, my plan at this point is to hammer tubby216 tomorrow unless someone gives me a good reason not to. I largely have a set of opinions I'm comfortable with about the players in the game and at this point I think that everyone else should be more settled than I am given how much I've missed. I should be about tomorrow afternoon (PDT) to do it; if you don't want that to happen then give me a reason not to by then.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

Yeah, it doesn't look as though anyone has anything else vital to say before the day ends and nothing in his recent behavior is giving my any reason to doubt this is the right lynch.

VOTE: tubby216

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

At this point if there are three scum left (and I don't have a good reason to think that shouldn't be the case given the roles we've seen) we're now in LyLo. It's almost certainly time for a mass claim and that should happen before any other conversation so that we don't give the scum any more access to our expectations than they already have when they're making their claims. I propose a quick vote for who to claim first (no actual votes at this point; if we are in LyLo no one should be voting until they're ready to end the day) and then we popcorn through everyone past that. Claims should be your role and any actions you've done up till now in the game. Discussion of the claims should wait until the process is done unless someone has role/action information that someone must be scum in which case we should stop the claim process and resolve that.

If anyone doesn't want to do this then I'll ask you to give your reasons and we can talk about that right quick. Assuming no one objects my preference would be for mothrax to claim first.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@Tazaro, we can potentially talk about buddies in a bit but right now, if we think that we can lose if we make a bad choice for the lynch, the first thing that we want to do is get all the information we can on the table. Once we've hit the stage where we have to make the right choice we want to be as informed as possible. The reason that we don't want to talk about anything else while we're doing that is that it doesn't help members of the town in any way if they're just going to be sharing the information that they have whereas the scum, who will be faking their information, are helped by other talk.

Do you object to a mass claim at this point? If not, who would you like to have claim first?

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@Toogeloo, if we're going to mass claim we should do it before discussion. Discussion at this point only helps scum determine what claims they want to make whereas town don't have to worry about such things, we just tell the truth.

What advantage for town do you think there is to be gained through discussion before a claim at this point? Unless you don't think that the mass claim should happen I don't see where you're coming from.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@Toogeloo, I support people giving thought to who they'd like to claim first but even knowing what the current suspicions look like help the scum figure out what to do in terms of claim (and who to ask to claim next.) At this point everyone should be able to look at the game that's happened on it's own and come up with their first choice without talking about it. Information control is useful here just like it is throughout the game. The scum start with an information advantage over the town (they know who scum is and the town doesn't.) Once the game starts the town should both be looking for scum tells and trying to determine who is and isn't scum as well as trying to control the flow of information in a way that benefits the town. There are certainly times when it's useful for town to reveal information (before being lynched, when we're doing a mass claim) because then the information needs to be shared so that it won't be lost. Most of the time sharing information does more to add to the mafia's pool of information than it does the town and it should not be shared.

It's pretty clear at this point that you don't agree with me about when the proper times to reveal information occur. Your entire mindset of putting together unnecessary claims over the course of the game so that the town can piece together the puzzle and figure out who scum is makes that obvious. I'm pretty sure that you're town at this point so I think this is just a difference in approaches to the game but that doesn't make me think that you're any more correct than I would otherwise.

I strongly object to sharing information outside the claim at this time. The potential advantage in claim order that we could gain does not offset the detriment accrued by giving scum insight to our current suspicions. I strongly encourage you to drop this conversation until after a mass claim has taken place.

*edit before post* I am not demanding that mothrax claim first and you should know that's a blatant misrepresentation of what I've said. I've said that he's my preference for a first claim. Whoever the town thinks is most suspicious at this time should go first; for me that means that I'd like mothrax to claim before anyone else.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

The popcorn mass claim does have the person claiming decide who will claim next, yes. It's a reasonably fast way to get an order figured out that doesn't give scum an easy way to manipulate it so that they can go last. Listing an order like the one that Mr.Sandman has is more than I'd like to see at this time (and I assume less than Toogeloo would) but I can certainly live with it.

At this point it would be useful to hear who Toon Fighter, Toogeloo and Stef would like to have claim first. Actually, mothrax's opinion there would probably be worthwhile as well. Tazaro should also probably give his preference rather than simply saying that if mothrax is willing it might as well be him.

Stef not being about might make the process as a whole less convenient. At this point I suppose that if we do go with a mass claim (which I very much think we should) I support Stef claiming the next time that he's about just so that it happens in a more timely manner (rather than waiting till his spot comes up in a popcorn system) assuming that he's not going to be replaced.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

Two scum deaths but, yeah, Toogeloo is right about the town attitude contributing to the state of the game thus far. In this case I can't claim that I've done anything to avert that given my lackluster performance but even so I'm not ready to hand this game to scum just yet. Our best bet is to make the best choices we can from here on out working with the assume that if we get anything wrong then it's game over. Everyone should be making decisions based on the best information that we've got. Right now I think that means the mass claim without any other conversation but once that's done (or we reach a point in it where it doesn't make sense to continue it) everyone with a town should be trying hard both to figure out who scum is as well as trying to avoid being a mislynch. Scum should clearly just claim scum to make our lives easier. The play of those who've been lynched hasn't done us any favors up till now but that doesn't mean that the rest of us have to give up and accept an avoidable loss.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

I am a Vanilla Townie.

At this point I know that I'm not interested in lynching either of the claimed masons (who I think are very likely to be telling the truth) and like I said earlier, Mr.Sandman's play does not feel like the play I saw from him as scum in a previous game. I'd like him to post more but I don't think that he's a good lynch.

On the plus side, if I'm right about those and we're in LyLo then I don't need to be too right about anything else as the other three players should all be scum. Even if we're not in LyLo it's effectively the same position (with a potential mistake being thrown into the process.) Clearly I need to look over everyone again (including those I think should be town) but I'm feeling somewhat more comfortable at this point than I normally would be all things considered.

@mothrax, you didn't get a chance to answer before but I'm still interested in hearing an answer; going back to Post 1067, what was it that you saw in my case on tubby216 which was a factor in changing your mind?

@Tazaro, with Oso gone one of your top two suspects from yesterday is now gone. Why start the day with a focus on Mr.Sandman rather than Stef, the other of the two?

@Stef, how caught up with the game are you at this point? What is your take on the mason claims?

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@Toon Fighter, well, I'd been hoping for another claim today along the lines of the cop claim that Toogeloo said he was worried about because after having a town tracker, body guard, jailkeeper and mason pair I didn't really expect the town to have any more power (given site meta) and there would have been a pretty good reasons to suspect any claims that got made for the first time today. Were I scum I almost certainly would have claimed vanilla townie here just because of that. I'd guess that the scum were able to figure that out as well (or something similar.)

Toogeloo was right when he said that the claim probably wasn't going to do us any good but we still had to make the attempt just in case scum played the claim poorly or on the off chance that there really was more information out there to be taken into account when deciding on a lynch.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@Toogeloo, at this point in the game I need to address this a bit more directly and defensively than I would otherwise because, as you say, we almost certainly can't afford to make a mistake here. Out of curiosity, do you think that my game here has been significantly different from my town games? I have been less present in this game that I should have but that's not at all unique to my scum games. Actually, I was replaced or mod-killed in all my other non-hydra games that are going on recently because this game included a rough stretch for me in terms of finding the time and energy to play; I've got no excuse beyond RL but I will claim that it's not alignment related. I was fully expecting to have been replaced in this game as well (clearly I should have been given the time I was away) but when I got back on my game feet it turned out I hadn't so I'm trying to make the best of the situation that we're in here. I'm not going to apologize for putting in an effort now when I wasn't able to earlier though it will be frustrating if that ends up leading to my lynch and a loss.

I'm doing my best at this point to make sure that we make the plays that maximize our chances of winning in terms of narrowing down the choices we need to look at. To the extent that I've been about that's been one of the things that I've been trying to do all game. I assume that when you say I've been off the grid it's not because I've not had opinions about the game (I claim that I have even though I wasn't pushing them particularly hard which I don't usually do in any case; I'm more interested in seeing the decisions that others make than I am in having people follow my lead.)

As far as your scum reads beyond me go, have you taken a look at Mr.Sandman's play as scum? It feels to me like he's making more of an effort to find scum this game than he did in Newbie Game 935 even if he's not posting more (though that was a concern of mine at the start of the game.) I'm not going to argue with your read on Stef but I wonder if you've got any reason at this point to think that either mothrax or Tazaro should be town beyond some sort of process of elimination.

I appreciate that you're taking the time to actually play this game especially as you almost have to be town at this point; you're certainly right that the entire town needs to be doing that now. You're wrong about your suspicions of me but as long as we can talk and try to sort this out it doesn't need to be the end of the world (well, or a game loss in this case.)

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@Mr.Sandman, we've now confirmed three pro-town power roles but I largely don't disagree with anything you're saying. I've been busy rather than trying to exploit the pace of the game here (if I were trying to exploit it here I could pretty easily hang back and let the game develop without my interference at this point; we probably need to get all of the rest of the lynches right and I suspect that as scum I could lie low and let the town beat itself.)

You're not sure about Tazaro now but I can't tell what it is that you think makes him potentially town based on what you've just written. What is it that I'm not seeing there?

@Toogeloo, I'm not going to ask you to use my failure to be replaced as a point for me. It'd be convenient if you did and there's some chance that it's why I'm still in the game but but it wouldn't be good modding on his part and it's not a compelling argument. On the other hand I am going to ask you not to use my current activity against me. We want players who are trying to figure out who's scum participating now. I have the opportunity to participate now in a way that I didn't earlier and I have no desire to have that hurt the town.

As far as Mr.Sandman goes, I have trouble blaming him for going along with any of the lynches we've had the past couple days. None of them have been particularly poor on the surface and quite frankly the lynchees have done nothing to help the town out in terms of their attitudes. Do take a look at how he reacted to a late game situation in the newbie game that I linked and let me know if you think I'm wrong about his whole attitude here being different. I don't think that he's scum.

@Tazaro, Stef is a he. Who are your top suspects right now and why? Is there anyone that you think is probably town at this point?

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@Tazaro, when did you decide that you should drop your suspicion of the masons? As of yesterday you weren't interested in taking them off your list at all. Also, if your top suspects are Stef and Mr.Sandman then why was it you wanted mothrax to claim first? Is current activity level the only reason your using for your suspicions at this point? Based on your reason for suspecting Stef and Mr.Sandman more than others it looks to me like it is but I think that there's a fair amount more to look at.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@Tazaro, is there any reason that you didn't think of taking a look at Toogeloo's posts yesterday when you were trying to figure out his alignment and were just arguing that scum could make a fake mason claim as a tactic? It doesn't seem as though there's any reason for today to be the first day to do that if you're trying to figure out who was most likely to be scum leading up to now.

Also, still, is there anything other than current participation that you're using to judge scumminess? I'll site Toon Fighter (and essentially all of our mislynches up till now) as reasons to think that participation doesn't imply town. There is a correlation and prior to LyLo I think it's worth pursuing (see about half of what I had to say about tubby216 for examples if you'd like) but now we need to make sure we're getting this right. I'm not at all convinced that that's a major concern for you right now.

@mothrax, I wonder if you could point to my summary that you found helpful. Offhand I'm not sure what you've got in mind that would have cleared things up. My concern here is that you've constructed false and convenient reasons to stop objecting to a mislynch yesterday. I'd also like to hear more of what you think of everyone beyond Tazaro today. Toogeloo's call for a least scummy candidate from you (and the rest of us) should be a good place to start.

@Mr.Sandman, that wasn't quite what I was trying to ask there. I guess maybe I should phrase it as what has Tazaro done that keeps him off your list of probably scum that mothrax and Stef haven't done? You're classifications clearly put the later two in a scummier category and I'm trying to understand the distinction as I don't see any praise for Tazaro in your thoughts about him.

@Stef, if you're going to try to take credit for pushing a Benmage lynch on day one (when it didn't happen and I'm not sure how close it ever got) why shouldn't we question your lack of any push in that direction that I can think of on subsequent days? You also seem to have more town leaning reads at this point than I think there should be town in the game which is a bit unexpected. Do you have any links to LyLo type situations you've been in where that's been the case previously?

@Toogeloo, my best guess for town beyond the masons and myself is Mr.Sandman. His play might be light but I do like it overall and it feels different to me than the scum play that I've seen from him.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@Tazaro, oh yeah, one more thing, based no what was said in the game thread in a popcorn claim both Toogeloo and I seem to think that it's best to have the people most likely to be scum claim first. Do you agree with that and why or why not?

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

So now that everyone but Stef (and myself prior to this post) is either on the Tazaro wagon already or has posted without hammering I believe the only way that Tazaro could be town is if either there are only two scum left or the masons are actually scum (on their own or with either mothrax or Stef.) I suppose the first is still within the realm of possibility but I still highly doubt the second. It's much more likely that Tazaro is scum than either of those (and actually he could be scum in either of those two cases as well.)

At this point I'm ready to hammer whenever everyone has had a chance to post anything they'd like to. To some degree as I'm relatively certain we're going to be lynching Tazaro and I think we will be hitting scum less talk is theoretically better than more, but I'd like the masons in particular to have a chance to say anything they'd like to share before the day ends.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

Yeah, actually with a bit of though it's clear that the best move assuming that Toogeloo and Toon Fighter aren't scum is to kill now with only what I'll say in this post as far as conversation goes. If they are scum then congratulations, they've played masterfully and town is going to lose soon anyhow so there's really no reason to hold off.

@Toogeloo and Toon Fighter, assuming this post doesn't lose the game do make sure that either of you can share everything that the other would have said about the state of the game up till now come tomorrow. Hopefully I understand the state of the game at this point as well as I think I do but you two play out all the scenarios there are left (there aren't that many) and make sure that either of you can give us your conclusions. I'm sure you'd essentially do that anyhow but don't have a quite night on your end.

VOTE: Tazaro

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@Toogeloo, please believe me when I say that nothing you have to say about that sort of thing helps the town if you say it at this point (I know we have different ideas about information control but I think you should be able to figure out why I hold this view at this time.) If you're worried about not being able to say something tomorrow then make sure that Toon Fighter knows it and will say it for you. I realize that you're not saying anything with that last post that you haven't essentially said before but I still claim it's better not to talk about it until tomorrow at the earliest.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

So Toogeloo's death isn't particularly surprising. The reason that I didn't want him to talk about the inevitability of it towards the end is that I think it was almost certainly the right move for the scum to make but the scum night kills don't seem to have been particularly ideal throughout the game. I had some hope that scum would avoid killing masons one more time and take me out (given that I seemed to be the non-mason who was least suspect in the eyes of the non-masons and I've had scum decide to take me out in other places when it wasn't really to their benefit.) The less encouragment scum got to make the right move the better.

At this point I am as certain as I can be in a game like this that Toon Fighter is town. I still think that Mr.Sandman is town based on his play this game compared to the scum game that I've seen. I can still see plenty of reasons to suspect both mothrax and Stef.

Tazaro flipping Godfather with no cop in the game means that there's a decent chance that he was night kill immune. The only difference that makes at this point is that when we're looking at who was killed on various nights it makes it less likely that Oso blocked a kill on a given night in that AGar could have lost his kill night two by targetting Tazaro. It slightly raises the chances that all the kills (other than Benmage) have been made by the mafia in particular.

At this point I would like to hear what Toon Fighter had to share about what was said in the quick topic (which should be clear based on what I said at the end of the day yesterday) and what Stef has to say to open the day.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

Looking back at Stef's interactions with the known mafia I see a pattern of attacks that don't bring any real pressure on them followed by no pressure on them after the day you make the attack. With Benmage the attack came day one and with Tazaro it was day three. In both cases you were pretty happy voting for them at the time but then never made any sort of move to go back to it after the day ended. It looks a lot like distancing to me. I think that I'd noted the Benmage part of that previously, now we've got a second member of the mafia to look at and I see the same pattern.

mothrax never seems to have put any particular pressure on Benmage but he did interact more with Tazaro. Day two he went on a Tazaro kick for a while and voted him but then, apparently his vote had done what he wanted it to in Post 892 and although he makes mention of Tazaro as someone he suspect from time to time after that there's no move towards lynching him until end of the day yesterday when it was getting to be fairly clear that Tazaro was the lynch.

At this point if there are two scum at least one of the two of them has to be scum from my perspective (which isn't surprising at all as they're also my top two suspects.) I guess one big question to ask would be do we think that if they're scum together that mothrax would cast the first vote for Stef. If they are both scum then it certainly behooves them to try to get anyone else lynched and while they'd only need one misvote and mothrax doesn't seem to be trying to do that despite the fact that it looks like there should be some potential openings to try for. Stef not posting makes it harder to figure out the likelihood but I'm not particularly convinced that mothrax is the sort of player who would go for the bus here if he was left simply to his own devices which is troublesome.

I'll take a look at Mr.Sandman's interactions with both Benmage and Tazaro as well as mothrax and Stef this afternoon. If Stef and mothrax aren't a scum team then he has to be the one that I'm misreading here. If that's then it matters a fair amount more which of Stef or mothrax we lynch today. At this point I'd pick Stef over mothrax but I'd like to get my overall read settled a bit before I do anything more.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

Yeah, looking at Mr.Sandman's play it seems that if he's scum with either mothrax or Flameaxe that he's consistently been doing a fair amount of work distancing. Further he typically seemed a bit more eager to push a mothrax lynch than a Stef lynch which wouldn't be the ideal move to make if he were scum with mothrax. As the only reason for me not to vote for Flameaxe at this point would be concern about a mothrax/Mr.Sandman scum team I think I'm just fine ending the day. That's especially true as Mr.Sandman can at this point hammer any time he wants for the win if it turns out that I'm wrong now (well, or there's just one scum left in which case we've got a cushion to work with anyhow.) Based on the lack of a follow up after his first post, Flameaxe apparently didn't have anything he wanted to add. I'll give Mr.Sandman the rest of the day to say something if he'd like (or he can hammer) but at this point I plan on hammering this evening (PST.)

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

VOTE: Flameaxe

Best case (and unlikely) scenario that's a win. If we're unlucky (i.e. my reads are bad) it's a loss and I'll apologize shortly (though that means that Mr.Sandman could have ended it anytime after Toon Fighter's vote.) Anything in between means that there's a tomorrow and we'll deal with it then.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

So normally at this point in the game it would be time to be asking why I'm still alive with the remaining players and expect to be able to get a good idea for scum motive based on that. Unfortunately the last night kills being the remaining town power roles (especially the known town mason last night) makes that more difficult as the scum's choices would be more limited and suspicions need to take more of a backseat.

Flameaxe flipping doctor means that I'm more confused about the godfather role (although we don't seem to have a cop I don't expect the mafia to have both a kill-immune player and a doctor) than I was before but I think it just makes it more likely that AGar had a kill blocked night two as a means of accounting for the lack of a second kill then.

If mothrax is mafia then he was willing to go for the hard early bus yesterday. As I said at the time I don't really think that I'd expect that to be his natural play. I've had some experience with Stef since this game started (he was in my Troll mafia game for a bit and we talked some when he replaced out and then we talked some about his setup for an on-going game in which I've just taken over for him as backup mod.) I think he'd be capable of asking for the bus but I don't know that I'd expect him to given my fairly limited knowledge.

Mr.Sandman has been much less present than I would like during the past couple days though based on his previous comments and though it doesn't look like he would have objected in any way to the Stef lynch, it would have been nice to see if he would have pushed any harder for mothrax being considered at the time.

In terms of overall play there's more to dislike about mothrax and I do have meta reasons for thinking Mr.Sandman is more likely to be town but I'm having trouble with a mothrax as scum scenario just based on the strength of that bus yesterday unless it would have been absolutely necessary. I'd like to hear opinions from the other two but I'll give this some thought on my own regardless coupled with one more read through of each of them to see if there's anything I think I'm missing.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

VOTE: Mr.Sandman

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

No, I deserve a slow painful death for disappearing for the middle of this game. I apologize. Thanks to the rest of the mafia for carrying on in my absence and setting us up in the position we needed to win. Thanks Porochaz for the modding!

If none of the scum mind I'll post the quick topic sometime tomorrow probably.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

I largely agree with Toogeloo here. Scum largely won in spite of itself (Stef and I didn't pull our weight for much of the game I don't think) and the town was hurt a lot by what seemed to be some indifferent play.

Now that the game is over there's a better chance I'll be believed when I say that I do think that Toogeloo's claiming ideas are a bit worse for the town than a more conservative strategy (scum had pretty full information about what the power roles we needed to worry about were fairly early and were able to make more informed kills based on that) but at least he was clearly there putting in an effort for most of the game.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@Charlie, I guess you should keep in mind that in this game I wasn't much of a presence for the first 3 days or so and then the last three nights the scum kills were largely dictated by the remaining town power roles. I think I would have said about the same things at the start of the game were I town (I believe everything that I said about the theory and I would have been pushing for the tubby216 lynch from about the time I got to it here) so I'm not particularly convinced that were I town the scum would have been all that likely to kill me.

You're also probably overrating my strength at the game; it's an easy sort of thing to overrate or underrate.

@petroleumjelly, it's probably worth noting that the only kill the serial killer got in this game was one on a mafia member (all the kills the mafia submitted went through and I don't know for sure but I suspect that AGar targeted Tazaro night two and was blocked by the mafia doctor.) Not outing and lynching him with Oso's information on day two probably put the town in a better position in this game (if it weren't for the cross-kill mafia might well have escaped with no deaths.) If he'd have been a vig that certainly would have been the case.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh