NY136: The Death of ReaperCharlie (GAME OVER, Town win!)

[petroleumjelly]

As for my opinion on DemonHyrbid, slightly scummier than the average player within my pool of nine players. This for (i) behavior I don't think looks particularly Townish as a Neighbor, and (ii) the immediate resistance I got when I made a list of nine players I would be focusing on.

[MrBuddyLee]

what am I "making excuses" for, MrBuddyLee? Not voting for DemonHybrid?

"I suspect Yos more than DH" is the answer I was expecting from PJtown and didn't get. This was a weird justification for a vote:

As for why I am voting Yosarian2 over DemonHybrid, the only answer would be that Yosarian2 just did something that made me want to vote for him right now whereas DemonHybrid has not.

Acting like a single vote from a player who was replaced constitutes a "small wagon" seems like a pretty blatant manipulation of reality.

It's three days from deadline, which is generally a time when wagons coalesce rather than scatter, and I asked you why you voted for Yosarian instead of voting for the guy who you voted for a few days back, who happens to have a vote on him. What I'm trying to say here is that your suspicions of DemonHybrid seem really thin, and I asked for clarification.

[petroleumjelly]

The problem is I don't particularly suspect Yosarian2 "more" than DemonHybrid. I would be lying if I gave that as an answer, so maybe you should stop "expecting" answers. I'm still mostly in the process of actually trying to

get

better reads on players.

Additionally, I had already given into the eventual coalescing of votes in Post 823, after giving Parama time to actually read the game and deciding he didn't do a very good job of it. And then he went and requested replacement, and now we've been waiting on Bowser, and I've been V/LA for the last several days.

The

only

reasons I moved my vote this close to deadline was because Yosarian2 recently started (i) complaining about "being frustrated" despite the fact that he had no votes on him, and (ii) he tried to represent that I was "proven

logically

wrong" thereby causing me to "drop my case" on him. I was originally just going to FoS him (which is exactly what I did), but then I decided to look into him a bit more. And when I did, I decided he was scummy all over again (for his 100% reactive playstyle and complete lack of scumhunting), and it was enough for me to move my vote.

It would be pretty stupid for me to just randomly vote DemonHyrbid out of nowhere unless I had a compelling reason to do it. This is in stark contrast to my Yosarian2 vote, for which I have two compelling reasons

and

they concern recently developed issues.

And

it builds upon suspicion I already hold against him

I don't hold any actual hopes of getting Yosarian2 lynched today -- but votes are not always made for the sole purpose of lynches. Even still, yes: I am most certainly going to encourage people who are doing nothing with their vote (which obviously would not include those who are voting for Parama) to get moving. I fail to see how anything about this is in any way unnatural, weak, unjustified, or whatever your word du jour is.

[mastin2]

Yup, scum. So totally scum.

Despite that, I'd much rather lynch Parama. (Yes, I know Parama's been replaced, but he might as well have not been. That slot is still Parama to me.) Funnily enough, the deadline's on my birthday. As a birthday present to me, can we have that slot lynched?

Totally weak bussing.

Bowser's bleeding scumtells.

[killerjester]

Finally reached the end! Better make this quick, I have work in the morning. So this is CliffNotes of KJ's mind. Please ask questions, fasten your seatbelts, keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times, and I'll see what I can do

First and foremost, I was picking up on small scumtells from Parama on D1. Little things, such as tone, and voting habits. I saw lots of small attacks, and the general feel he didn't care for the game. Time and time again, he'd promise to catch-up, or re-read or whatever and then vanish off my radar while the rest of the discussion carried away from him. I really liked how MBL and PJ picked up on these things (or at least some notion) and voted him D1. As much as I hate buddying, I can't help but take mental notes every time I see a post and realize, "Yep, that is

exactly

how I interpreted that move." Since D1, Parama has only further convinced me on that scumread.

Basically, my vote is leaning heavily towards Bowser and at the moment I wouldn't be against a Bowser lynch today. That said, he did just replace. There's plenty I want to hear from him, and there's no reason to throw my vote on him to L-1 before he speaks for himself. Rest of the town, after Bowser recaps you can sure as hell expect me to place my vote.

Finally, before I catch some sleep I did promise to expand on my #925 if my opinion changed. And it did. I read up on the Mastin conftown, and there's no two ways about that. Also, I felt Iecerint was playing null/leaning scummy D1, but after 3 kills N1 and no CC to his Vig claim, he's undoubtedly town in my mind. So that's about it for now. 2am in the good ol' EST, I should be heading out.

[mastin2]

KJ replaced Sapo, right?

[Iecerint]

Ya

[mastin2]

Funnily enough, it looked that way from the way KJ posted.

As in, KJ's stance on the game seemed like that of a scumbuddy of Parama's.

[Meransiel]

Funnily enough, it looked that way from the way KJ posted.

As in, KJ's stance on the game seemed like that of a scumbuddy of Parama's.

I'm not so convinced about that, myself. There's nothing wrong with KJ's posts.

[Iecerint]

Could just be confirmation bias, but there do seem to be some disproportionate conditional clauses (cf. "As much as I hate buddying") that make me nervous.

It looks like Sapo also replaced out of another large game, and I guess her 3rd year medical school stuff starts next week.

I'm surprised she didn't at least say something, though.

[Meransiel]

Either way, I'm not advocating a KJ lynch today.

[mastin2]

Indeed. It's pretty much Parama's Slot-or-nobody today.

[Yosarian2]

That being said, you do realize that I am at one vote right now, and it's 3 days until deadline, right? If I was scum, I wouldn't be at all worried by the attacks against me right now.

1)My read on Parama is null, not scum[
2)With multiple people announcing that they find you suspicious? Yeah, you would be worried as scum.

Why would I be worried as scum? I've only got two people who've at all expressed suspicion of me, and only one vote.

As town, I'm worried because both of those people who are attacking me seems to be town, and influential town (one who seems completely illogically attacking me for no good reason, and who won't give a case no matter what I do; and the other is PJ, so he's automatically influential just based on his posting ability), which means at some point in the future the scum could add their support to that and make it a real wagon. Besides that, this is potentially a big distraction for the town in the long run, especially with a player like PJ mistakenly suspecting me; it's going to make it a lot harder for me to scumhunt, and is likely to generally make the rest of this game suck. But if I was scum, i wouldn't be at all worried about two people; either I'd kill them, or I'd ignore them. I wouldn't have to worry at all if I was scum; this is only a potential problem because I'm town and I think they're both town.

Having 3 days only limits my options, which means I'm going to have to unvote hrezs/CTD. Of the people who have a chance of getting lynched, you do look like a possibility.

What makes Parama scummier than DH, in your opinion?

I don't really see why DH is scummy, for the most part. He's made some weird posts, but he hasn't been nearly as anti-town as Parama.

[ToastyToast]

...More WIFOM...

[DemonHybrid]

Totally weak bussing.

You make a good point. Bowser, please explain your Yos2 suspicion.

[Shanba]

I dont know exactly why my posts bled town in oldy mafia and not in this game. If I had to guess, though, it would probably be a combination of me being super open and explaining all my thought process in and being really passionate about a couple of issues in that game. Regardless of my alignment, people say I'm looking town when I'm doing these things.

This game I've not been super involved in. I made a few bait posts - the attacks on saporovirus - that no one picked up on. I wanted saporovirus or at least someone to question me about those votes, but I got nothing. Instead, this was her response:

Yeah kinda thought it was a bad gambit. I had visions of him claiming townie, though, and me desperately trying to convince people that he was just dumb and not scum and I'm so glad that at the very least he appears to be confirmable. Lets lynch saporo now plzkthx.

Don't do that!

I feel like a townie would have picked me up on that and pushed me, at least to know my reasons - particularly given my relative inactivity the day before. Instead it looks like she's assessing the threat potential and seeing it near zero, just needs to fob it off rather than risk getting into a debate with me. I think this response was scummy.

I pressured iecerint for a wishy washy stance on saporovirus. He took ages to respond and basically only did so when saporo asked him. I'm not too willing to follow this thread up tbh.

When yos and pj got into their big catfight thing I honestly couldn't be bothered to check everything out and minutely assess each individual point. However, I found it super strange that Yos was saying things like

So, before you got onto this weird attack on me, your main suspects were apparently 2 of the neighbors. (Parama was also your main suspect at the end of day 1).

And yet, even though they're your main suspects, you're so worried about protecting whatever hypothetical power roles the neighbors might have that you think it's bad to want them to claim, even when a *TRACKER* implies he wants them to claim?

Really having trouble buying this, PJ.

Mostly because he was saying these things without followup. He was passively reacting to PJ's case, defending the accusations against him, then adding some little bits and pieces that amount to a "Pj this attack is scummy!" That stunk of misdirection. If yos honestly thought this was scummy, why wasn't he going on the offensive? I called him on it, and he posted without responding. Then when I pressed the issue again, he backed off. That sits really awkwardly with me - particularly as the backing off occurred after pj stopped going after him. It's a natural reaction to being attacked to see the guy attacking you as scummy, but the way yos2 went about it - his statements looked more like

threats

than accusations - makes me really suspicious.

Shanba, why didn't you say that earlier? It feels like you're last-minute white knighting him.

MBL specifically asked me about Parama at that time. It's not totally out of the blue, either - I was against the original semi-wagon that appeared on parama after he voted MoI.

Parama really looks like he just lost interest in the game. I dont think that's scummy or townie either way. The whole "I'm catching up" thing may be classic active lurking, but it's

not

what scum do when already under pressure, as Parama was. When you think you're getting lynched, like in parama's situation, you try and defuse it by giving them words - even if the words are not considered or consistent or whatever. Promises to catch up dont placate mobs.

I have a vaguely townies read on PJ. My only recent experience with his play is modding frogs mafia 2 where he acted as something of a wrecking ball, going after one unfortunate townie after another. In particular, the way he attacked yosarian, reconsidered and then attacked him again reminds me of the long one-sided aim monologues he would send me about his thoughts on various players, which were frequently punctuated by sudden bouts of doubt. I dunno though. I think if he were scum, it would be way easier to just follow through the parama wagon to a lynch. I never liked the mastin wagon, but pj voting him was completely expected - when PJ spots someone doing something stupid, his first thought it

never

"is this a gambit". He caught Mastin in a lie and he voted him. Completely typical PJ. The exasperated response on Mastin revealing what was going on was also typical.

MBL: When I'm scum, I try to play as similarly to when I'm town as possible. In general, I think my mood has more of an impact on my

style

of play than my alignment does. There are specifics - I'm less likely to pay close attention to detail as scum, my opinions are more likely to have out and out falsehoods in them (born of laziness), I'm more likely to lurk as scum and I'm more likely to complain about the game as scum. Essentially, I like playing scum less and am therefore less likely to get involved with the game.

Oldies had that terribly obvious day 1 mislynch which allowed me to get my dander up. More people responded to my baiting posts and allowed me to explain the thought processes.

Unvote vote Yosarian2

[Pine]

Catching up now. I apologize profusely for absenteeism. Tough time of year for me.

[Iecerint]

I pressured iecerint for a wishy washy stance on saporovirus. He took ages to respond and basically only did so when saporo asked him. I'm not too willing to follow this thread up tbh.

When was this? I think I pretty vocally thought saporovirus was town D1...

[killerjester]

Could just be confirmation bias, but there do seem to be some disproportionate conditional clauses (cf. "As much as I hate buddying") that make me nervous.

It looks like Sapo also replaced out of another large game, and I guess her 3rd year medical school stuff starts next week.

I'm surprised she didn't at least say something, though.

Replacing out is a null tell, not much I can say or do for sapo's position. I can tell you I'm town, if that helps you feel any better

[Iecerint]

Sapo and I are rl friends.

[killerjester]

Oh! Send my regards, in that case.

[Yosarian2]

Mostly because he was saying these things without followup. He was passively reacting to PJ's case, defending the accusations against him, then adding some little bits and pieces that amount to a "Pj this attack is scummy!" That stunk of misdirection. If yos honestly thought this was scummy, why wasn't he going on the offensive? I called him on it, and he posted without responding. Then when I pressed the issue again, he backed off. That sits really awkwardly with me - particularly as the backing off occurred after pj stopped going after him.

That's not really accurate. First I responded to PJ's attacks, and he basically stopped attacking me. Then, after he basically stopped attacking me, I thought about it (especially about how his weird "yos is fishing the neighbors" thing seemed to conflict with his "the neighbors are scum" thing), and I went on the offensive against PJ, because I realized that what he was saying didn't seem to fit with the rest of his beliefs (starting with that post you just quoted). I attacked him and asked questions for a while after that point. I've spent most of the rest of the day trying to get a read on PJ, and have gone back and forth on it a few times and we've seen new evidence. When you asked me, I had changed my mind and thought he was likely town, but then I came back around to thinking he was likely scum after I re-read the whole game and found some problems with his play. And then I actually changed my mind again, BECAUSE of the way PJ started attacking me again I changed my mind again and decided he was probably town after all, because I just don't think he would do that as scum (which is pretty much the opposite of what you're saying). Truth is, PJ's just damn hard to read.

[CrashTextDummie]

Finally caught up, apologies for the wait. These were tough 20 pages, a lot of my reads got turned on their heads. :/

--------------------------

Meransiel

is obviously off the table. He's no doubt he's a tracker and although I contemplated the possibility of a scum tracker, I don't find it likely at all. Most likely town. Strike one against my scum reads.

--------------------------

Aaaaaaaand I'm starting to get cold feet about

Yos2

as well. Points against him are him starting out today attacking both neighbors after spending the entirety of D1 hounding AGM with his crooked neighborhood argument. And his analysis post was weak as hell. He has

one

minor point against DH from early D1.

This is counterbalanced by the fact that he has defended himself well against the attacks brought against him, in my view. His explanations, much as I disagree with them, make sense and follow internal logic. His indignant tone upon being attacked strikes me as very typical of town-Yos, and I do agree with him that some of the attacks against him are under par (for example Mastin2's "weasel words" argument, or whatever he called it). And he has taken some stances that I doubt scum-Yos would take (his flipflopping on PJ in particular strikes me as counter-intuitive from a scum point of view). Lastly, the stirrings to get a wagon going on him these last couple of pages (Shanba's vote, to be precise, and to a lesser extent ToastyToast's attack) give me bad vibes.

All in all, I don't consider him a top suspect anymore. I was gonna drop him down to neutral, but writing this post has made me change my mind again. That analysis post of his was truly awful. Scummy.

------------------------------

At last, a read I still feel confident in.

DemonHybrid

is still scum. PJ was right on the money calling him skittish. After that, he had a dramatic drop in activity and now spends most of his energy quabbling with a confirmed innocent. His last post strikes me as very odd, considering he not so long ago unambiguously declared that playerslot town and Mastin's whole case against Parama bunk.

------------------------------

PJ

is a scumread I am not terribly sad to abandon. I got fairly strong town-vibes from his attacks against DH and Yos, as well as from the way he immediately jumped to strategic thinking once the three power-roles claimed. I liked the way he used his vote to poke at various players, which stood in stark contrast to what I perceived as tunneling on day 1. I'm not putting it past him to fool me, but he's well off the table for now.

------------------------------

Parama/Bowser is somewhat of a double-edged sword for me. Mastin's case against him has some merit, but is reaching in other areas. There was really only a small number of arguments I agreed with, but they are there. On the other hand, his posting on D2 reminded me a lot of how I felt back in my own flaking-days. Both his attitude and his posting of a half-finished analysis gave me out-of-it-town vibes. And I don't see anything particularly scummy in Bowser's posts so far.

I do like the make up of his wagon (two confirmed players, 3 of my strongest town-reads, plus Yos), it certainly doesn't feel scum-fueled. But the fact that the scum seemingly don't have any interest whatsoever to get a counterwagon going, plus the way sapporovirus danced on and off it (more on that later) gives me pause. Not a fan of this lynch.

-------------------------------

Saporovirus

pinged big-time on my scumdar on D2. Every single vote-hop on his part felt opportunistic. Behavior towards Parama particularly so. Seemingly no interest in getting reads on people, even when prompted (the height of his willingness to take a stance on Shanba was "not unreasonable"). Borderline lurking. This is pretty much textbook lazy-scum behavior.

-------------------------------

I have no reason to doubt that Icerint is town.

------------------------------

MBL remains a strong town-read. Posts like this or this fit the town-meta I have of him to a tee. Observant, inquisitive, level-headed. I'll buy a hat and eat it if he's scum.

-------------------------------

Shanba

is creeping up on my scumdar. His reaction to Mastin's fakeclaim felt off to me. When a town player blunders this obviously, scum are generally equally as likely to jump to their defense in hopes of looking good after the lynch than to vote opportunistically. I certainly didn't see any reason to be "fairly sure [Mastin] is town" at that point.

His openness to a lynch of my player-slot struck me as equally off, considering the last thing he had to say about hrezs was this. And lastly, I dislike his latest push against Yos. It doesn't feel like like honest suspicion to me, smells more like he's taking advantage of a perceived weakness in Yos' play. Scum candidate.

-------------------------------

I'm a bit short on suspects, which leads me to believe I am wrong about one of the following players:

Hydra

had a significant drop of activity on D2, and while I didn't notice anything objectionable, I didn't see him drop town-tells anymore either. I'm not terribly concerned, as my carry-over read is strong, but I'm allowing for the possibility that he's calculating scum.

earworm/Pine

- this was a a slight town-read on D1. So far, there have been

zero

contributions from this playerslot on D2. That's the kind of behavior that leads to disaster when left unchecked. Should definitely be pressured into posting content tomorrow, as it's either skating scum or a townie setting himself up to be mislynched down the line. I'm dropping them down to neutral.

ToastyToast

has been too passive for my taste. His (unappealing) vote is going no where, and he's not pushing it. His stance on Parama is confusing and opaque. And as mentioned, he's another reason I started doubting my Yos-read. Yes, there's the matter of the "townslip", which I will investigate once I'm done with this analysis. He remains neutral for the time being.

[CrashTextDummie]

tldr:

scum

:
DemonHybrid

leaning scum

:
killerjester
Shanba
Yos

neutral

:
Pine
ToastyToast

leaning town

:
Bowser
PJ
Hydra
MBL

confirmed town

:
Mastin
Meransiel
Icerint

Vote: DemonHybrid

[CrashTextDummie]

Couple of questions:

@ all neighbors

- what's going on in that quicktopic of yours?

@ ToastyToast

- what, if anything, does your role PM say about the alignment of your neighbors?

@ Shanba

- why did you express willingness to lynch my playerslot?

My contributions should be more frequent from here on out, except they won't be this weekend. I'm

V/LA from Friday until Sunday

. This means I will miss the deadline. I echo the calls for an extension, kind mod.