NY 174: Oldy Mafia 2 (Game Over)

[LoudmouthLee]

Generally, I look at D1 voting two different ways, I look for opportunistic scum who takes advantage of the early wagons (So far, the early wagons include Tigris, MafiaSSK, Seol, Myself and, most recently, Zorblag (Far/Nat)).

What sort of advantage do you think scum get off the early wagons? Both in general, and in particular in this game?

From my experience, any time a mafia member can take heat and push it on someone else, they will do so. Sometimes, people throw shit against the wall just to see what sticks. Do you believe, Shanba, for any reason, any player should have been on three major wagons already? It's either sheeping or hiding, and either way, it's not pro-town.

[Shanba]

Generally, I look at D1 voting two different ways, I look for opportunistic scum who takes advantage of the early wagons (So far, the early wagons include Tigris, MafiaSSK, Seol, Myself and, most recently, Zorblag (Far/Nat)).

What sort of advantage do you think scum get off the early wagons? Both in general, and in particular in this game?

From my experience, any time a mafia member can take heat and push it on someone else, they will do so. Sometimes, people throw shit against the wall just to see what sticks. Do you believe, Shanba, for any reason, any player should have been on three major wagons already? It's either sheeping or hiding, and either way, it's not pro-town.

I mean,

I

wouldn't be, but I'm not sure it's 100% a given that no one would. I tend to feel that it doesn't really count as hiding when you do something that people tend to think is scummy generally, like lurking, cause you know that if you lurk you're eventually going to get flak for it so it has to be a worse strategy as scum than actually contributing. Similarly, blatant and forthright wagoning... idk.

But anyway, you may have a point. Casting my mind back to space monkeys mafia 1 which I guess could be considered a bit of an experiment into how scum behave on early days, there was a ton of silly wagoning.

[Save The Dragons]

[*]UT has been on 3 of the major bandwagons, the most out of any player (tied with StD)

Unvote, Vote: Zorblag

I'm number 1!

If you would call the MafiaSSK wagon the VI wagon, the player who was on the most wagons AND the VI wagon was StD. I'm still okay with EITHER of them.

It's easy to ignore the fact I was on MafiaSSK before it was wagon-worthy if you ignore the fact that I was on MafiaSSK before it was wagon worthy. If you want to get technical, I was the second vote, but since I have not yet received that real magic mail-order crystal ball I purchased (6 easy payments of $19.95!) it would be remiss to suggest that I was oppurtunistic. But since you seem to ignore the fact that I was on MafiaSSK before it was wagon-worthy, I don't know why I didn't just save my wrists the hundred or so words closer they now are to metacarpal tunnel syndrome.

I do actually agree with you that the Nat wagon was an easy way to pile on votes, but I also think chamber's right and if the scum were expecting a lynch from that they're fooling themselves.

----

Zorblag is town.

Since he was observing the game as town, all he has to do is dump his suspicions and it looks like he's made a big contribution. If he's scum, it takes 5 minutes to edit if he's nailed his scum partners, and that's even if he wants to. He certainly doesn't have to.

Since he included his replacee in his assessment, it is clear to me he made these notes with a town mindset (before he replaced). Now he has a pro-town artifact that may or may not be damning to scum.

His barf post, while an interesting read, does little to tell us about his alignment. I suppose if he were scum he could have not posted it, but I don't really see a reason not to.

----

Not really. When someone has a meta of making short, declarative statements about who is town or scum without explaining, it can actually make them easier to read; you just have to look at the timing of the statements and figure out why they're making them at those moments and what they're trying to do. The key is to not try to look at the posts in isolation; it's to look at them in context.

Since scum know who the town are, doesn't it make it easier to say XXXXX is town when you're scum?

If we're just going to get into a theory-based argument where we end up having a differing of opinions I'm willing to shut up about this, but see my above comment about DGB.

I find myself disagreeing with much of what Yos says this game. This is a little upsetting.

I do too. This reminds me of something I was stewing on before the Great Tiger Attack of 2014...

I'm getting some weird vibes off of Undo's posting so far this game. Kind of wishy-washy. Kisses up to everyone in first post, votes DGB "as homage". ? Says MafiaSSK's post #45 " doesn't look right", but then hedges that read, and doesn't vote. Takes off random vote on DGB without voting anyone else. Then later votes SSK.

fos:Undo

Posting and voting pattern so far looks overly cautious.

While I completely agree with the last sentence, the more I read into the argument between them, the less I like it.

In general, your play thus far looked overly cautious for day 1, like you were trying extra hard to stay on good terms with everyone. If there's any point at all to random voting, it's to try to create pressure or get something moving early in the game, but you placed your random vote in such a way as to make sure it didn't create any pressure, and the you dropped it without explaining why and without voting anyone else, at a time when no one else was voting DGB.

Dropping a random vote without explaining why is suspicious? This entire section seems like a stretch.

You seemed to imply that you thought SSK was suspicious, but would rather vote for nobody then vote for him

You are referring to my post 115, where I

never

implied I thought SSK was suspicious. When I said "it didn't look right to me", I was saying I didn't agree with his theory -- his theory didn't look right to me -- but that defending one controversial theory about RVS was not enough for me to find him scummy.

Point goes to undo.

you then voted for him eventually, but you seemed hesitant to do so, and joined the wagon fairly late. (In fact, i would say that SSK actually looked less scummy when you voted him then he did when you declined to do so)

Just to make it clear, in your view, CES saying "I agree with CTD that chamber's alignment is fairly obvious at this point" right after CTD's posts (and even though CTD didn't make it clear he thought chamber was obvscum) is a

discreet way

of showing agreement to a scum partner.

I'm not sure what to think about MafiaSSK, but I think the whole magic CTD-CES connection made him look worse.

----

I also really don't like anything about this:

7.)

I need both of you to trust me. Right now, okay? Please just work with me here, and I promise I will explain everything later, okay?

FoS: Albert B. Rampage

. May switch my vote soon.

1.)

Why did you feel the need to telegraph a potential vote change?

I originally had switched my vote while writing my post, but as I pared it down I downgraded to a FoS. Albert B. Rampage's post was so outrageously out of place that I could see myself just switching my vote the next morning even without more content being added.

Given Albert B. Rampage was apparently just quoting something, the FoS is retracted.

I don't follow why this wasn't just a vote, considering with nothing new changing you were willing to vote. If you wanted to keep pressure on MafiaSSK, why would you switch (with no new content), and if you didn't, why wouldn't you?

I'll admit it was a silly thing for ABR to say. But it was said in a rapidfire of weird posts (that I didn't get the reference to either). If you think he was faking breadcrumbing a power role, for instance, it seems like a weird way to go about it, especially when there was only a little pressure his way.

----

The way I see it, bandwagoning is the only way we can lynch scum. With 12 votes to lynch, I need to agree with 11 other people. With several scum out there, if I elect to vote for people I think are more likely to be scum, that gives me, in my opinion, a better chance of lynching the scum.

I plan on jumping on bandwagons this game, not on random people, but on people I find suspicious.

So here's my list of people as of this moment.

Would vote
4) Untrod Tripod
6) DrippingGoofball
8) undo
11) Petroleumjelly
14) LoudmouthLee
20) Yosarian2
21) Seol

Might vote
2) Porochaz
3) CrashtextDummie
5) MrBuddyLee
12) Cogito Ergo Sum
13) MafiaSSK
16) Green Crayons
15) Albert B. Rampage
17) Zorblag (replacing Natirasha, who replaced farside22)
22) Tigris

Won't vote
1) Chamber
7) Shanba
9) Sotty7
10) Glork
18) VitaminR

Vote: PJ

If later in the day we all decide to lynch LML, please, please, please don't be surprised if I jump on that wagon hardcore.

[Yosarian2]

Sweet, game is back up.

Let me

unvote

my lurker vote, and re-read quickly.

[Yosarian2]

[*]One of my favorite things to do is to find the village idiot and hunt scum off of the wagon. That used to be a really easy way to find scum. Also, when you have an outspoken "foot in mouth player" (such as myself and DGB), we become mafia fodder as well.

Ugh. This one makes me cringe, especially since I remember LML as being especally hard to lynch most of the time. Is he really using the "I'm a village idiot so scum like to target me" defense here? His posts have felt off to me for much of the game, and this just feels like a scummy defense.

The biggest problem I have with his play so far, though, is that there's very little real scumhunting. Most of his posts seem to be him making excuses for not doing much proper scumhunting yet, which really bothers me, and feels both out of character and scummy. His attempts to have it both ways with Tigras still bothers me, but it wouldn't bother me so much if he was also scumhunting. The only other real scumhunting he did was his STD vote, but that also feels pretty weak to me; he doesn't really explain it, and he doesn't press it, or try to put pressure on STD, or try to get STD to answer any questions or anything.

VitimanR feels less suspicious to me now. Still wouldn't mind an Undo wagon.

For now,

vote:loudmouthlee

[Yosarian2]

Since scum know who the town are, doesn't it make it easier to say XXXXX is town when you're scum?

Not really. The timing is everything.

Several times this game, DGB declared someone town just at at moment where I felt the same way. She's getting a lot of the same gut reads that I'm getting, and that's hard to fake as scum. Also, you can tell a lot about motivation based on timing; I don't see a scum wanting to declare SSK as town on page 5 where she did, for example.

I donno, maybe it's just because I've played with her so many times, but this feels like town-DGB play, specifically.

Also, frankly, declaring this many people town as scum is likely to screw you over in the long run. It's not a good scum strategy to have as many town reads as she does, because you'll probably have to go back on some of them eventually in order to get enough lynches to win.

It's like the old rule for reading Internet Stranger's alignment. People thought he was unreadable because he never made arguents, but I actually felt that that made it a lot *easier* to read him; just look at who he's trying to lycnh, where, and figure out why, and you know his alignment.

Dropping a random vote without explaining why is suspicious? This entire section seems like a stretch.

Maybe it's more a theory dispute then anything, but random votes are there both to generate pressure and because it's theoretically better to lynch someone at random then to lynch no one at all; you don't drop them for no reason, you drop it if you have somewhere better to put your vote, or maybe if you think the person you're voting for looks town.

That was more a minor point, in an overall pattern I've see in Undo's posting of excessive caution, of a reluctance to pick fights with anyone who might fight back, and a certain hesitancy. It's only a moderate scum tell, because I don't know Undo's playstyle, but in general that is behavior I expect to see more often in scum then in town.

[Yosarian2]

Oh, for the record, STD is town. So far, he's picked a fight with Seol, LML, me, and PJ, who are 4 people that are all absurdly good at getting people lynched, all in the first 13 pages of day 1, without any obvious benefit to him from picking all those fights. So either he's righteous town cloaked in the paladin-like armor of righteousness, or he's gone completely suicidal. No way a scum pretending to scumhunt would stick their neck out that far.

He even attacked me for attacking Undo for the same thing he attacked Undo for earlier this game, which is so completely inconsistent it must be a town tell.

[Tigris]

So, don't like doing this; however, going to request replacement.

On Friday, I found out that I will be without internet access for 5-6 weeks starting early July. I knew I would have partial access for 2 weeks at the end of July/start of August, but 3-4 weeks in another locale were added on. Also, I will have less time/energy due to the MRI results/treatments, so it would not be fair to others to remain, especially since I already haven't been able to devote as much time as I would have liked.

My apologies. Hope that everyone has fun.

[undo]

Limited access until Monday, but I will try to post something substantive on the weekend.

[Porochaz]

You keep calling Nat the VI wagon this game, but he wasn't. Nat was never going to get lynched for those votes, they were just forcing him to participate or replace out. The VI wagon this game has been an is on MafiaSSK.

I have kinda forgotten what has happened in this game, so I am due yet another reread, however I don't believe this is very fair, in that, personally at least, I am not voting him for VI reasons. I think the points I had against him were legitimate, albeit weak, ones. I do, and still wonder whether my initial reasoning was due to Seol's post just before it. I do find the latter half of 173, with the over-analysis, particularly the last paragraph.

Im 90% sure I've played with SSK before but not for a long time...

[Patrick]

Votecount

LoudmouthLee (3) -- VitaminR, Green Crayons, Yosarian2
Tigris (2) -- MrBuddyLee, Zorblag
MafiaSSK (5) -- petroleumjelly, Seol, Porochaz, CrashTextDummie, undo
Seol (5) -- Sotty7, Shanba, Cogito Ergo Sum, chamber, Glork
Untrod Tripod (1) -- LoudmouthLee
Cogito Ergo Sum (1) -- MafiaSSK
petroleumjelly (2) -- Albert B. Rampage, Save the Dragons
Zorblag (2) -- DrippingGoofball, Untrod Tripod

Not voting: Tigris
22 alive, 12 to lynch.

Seeking a replacement for Tigris.

[Sotty7]

Oh, for the record, STD is town. So far, he's picked a fight with Seol, LML, me, and PJ, who are 4 people that are all absurdly good at getting people lynched, all in the first 13 pages of day 1, without any obvious benefit to him from picking all those fights. So either he's righteous town cloaked in the paladin-like armor of righteousness, or he's gone completely suicidal. No way a scum pretending to scumhunt would stick their neck out that far.

What's the difference between STD and VitR?

I was completely fine with Zor's entrance into the game until I read STD's reasoning for voting him and the pretty excellent point of including his own slot in his run down. Not quite willing to condemn Zor for it, but also not willing to put him directly in the town pile like I was going to.

LML's push on the wagon hopping just rubs me the wrong way completely, but I'm starting to think that it is just a playstyle difference with just how committed to it he is. I think if you're looking at wagoning you have to include reasoning otherwise you're only getting half the picture. The UT vote adds up considering, but I'm still not 100% buying it, just seems weak to me.

I should probably take a read though again now we're back to get my footing and figure out if Seol is still where I want my vote.

[Yosarian2]

What's the difference between STD and VitR?

Quite a few things. I did just mention, though, that I'm less suspicious of VitR then I was several pages ago, and yeah, I suppose it's for a similar reason, although to a lesser extent.

LML's push on the wagon hopping just rubs me the wrong way completely, but I'm starting to think that it is just a playstyle difference with just how committed to it he is. I think if you're looking at wagoning you have to include reasoning otherwise you're only getting half the picture. The UT vote adds up considering, but I'm still not 100% buying it, just seems weak to me.

I don't really get his UT vote, either. It also bugs me that both of LML's suspects (STD and UT) are people who were attacking him.

LML Calling UT's Nat vote "opportunistic" is also a huge stretch. It was extremely unlikely that Nat was going to actually get lynched; it was much more likely that he would either respond to pressure and start posting again (probably by lashing out at me for voting him) or else replace out. In order to actually get lurker lynched around here, you *really* have to try. And, in any case, pressuring Nat at that point seems to obviously be a pro-town act.

[DrippingGoofball]

LML is town.

[Green Crayons]

Apparently the forum has been live for longer than I was able to access it (tried earlier today, even, and no luck).

Anyways, I am posting to post. I will catch up tomorrow, most likely.

[DrippingGoofball]

You keep calling Nat the VI wagon this game, but he wasn't. Nat was never going to get lynched for those votes, they were just forcing him to participate or replace out. The VI wagon this game has been an is on MafiaSSK.

Very true.

[DrippingGoofball]

Generally, I look at D1 voting two different ways, I look for opportunistic scum who takes advantage of the early wagons (So far, the early wagons include Tigris, MafiaSSK, Seol, Myself and, most recently, Zorblag (Far/Nat)).

What sort of advantage do you think scum get off the early wagons? Both in general, and in particular in this game?

Impatience. Getting a wagon going that's not on a team mate.

[DrippingGoofball]

Since he was observing the game as town, all he has to do is dump his suspicions and it looks like he's made a big contribution. If he's scum, it takes 5 minutes to edit if he's nailed his scum partners, and that's even if he wants to. He certainly doesn't have to.

Since he included his replacee in his assessment, it is clear to me he made these notes with a town mindset (before he replaced). Now he has a pro-town artifact that may or may not be damning to scum.

Ummm, also true, will reconsider.

[Save The Dragons]

Also, frankly, declaring this many people town as scum is likely to screw you over in the long run. It's not a good scum strategy to have as many town reads as she does, because you'll probably have to go back on some of them eventually in order to get enough lynches to win.

If in her next post she decides that Zorblarg is now scum without sufficient explanation I would be miffed. If on Day 5 she decides that Zorblarg or anyone else she's declared to be town as scum, I don't really see it as damning.

Time will tell.

Maybe it's more a theory dispute then anything, but random votes are there both to generate pressure

Douchy question: do they really?
Better question: have they in this game?

and because it's theoretically better to lynch someone at random then to lynch no one at all;

Do random votes often/ever lead to a lynch?

you don't drop them for no reason, you drop it if you have somewhere better to put your vote, or maybe if you think the person you're voting for looks town.

I was about to bark at you some more, but I assume that you are suggesting that not voting anyone is scummier than unvoting a random vote.

What's the difference between STD and VitR?

One's a disease and one's medicine?

I was completely fine with Zor's entrance into the game until I read STD's reasoning for voting him and the pretty excellent point of including his own slot in his run down. Not quite willing to condemn Zor for it, but also not willing to put him directly in the town pile like I was going to.

For full disclosure, I was voting him as a joke to jump onto yet another bandwagon. I think Zor's post is not very telling of his alignment and I am concerned about people who saw the wall of text and read it as town. For fuller disclosurer, CES's post helped me come to that conclusion (but since CES's post is public record I fail to see why others wouldn't).

My vote is on PJ.

[DrippingGoofball]

TOWNIES

DrippingGoofball
Chamber
Glork
Albert B. Rampage
LoudmouthLee
Yosarian2
CrashtextDummie
MafiaSSK
Save the Dragons

SEEM OK SO FAR

VitaminR
Green Crayons
Petroleumjelly
Shanba
MrBuddyLee

MYSTERIES

Zorblag (replacing Natirasha, who replaced farside22)
Cogito Ergo Sum

BAD FEELINGS

Untrod Tripod (not town perspective)
undo (asking too many useless questions)
Tigris (RL excuses & self meta)
Seol (lack of scumhunting engagement)
Sotty7 (looking for reasons to findi players scummy)

MEAN'OLE SCUMBAGGOS

Porochaz

[DrippingGoofball]

I feel cruel but

VOTE: Porochaz

Sorry mate

The game is the game

[LoudmouthLee]

Let's jump back in, shall we? Here is a screenshot of my excel file. I said before (and stand by what I said) that D1 is much more about "Vote Reads" rather than "Tell Reads", in my opinion. I have always played this way, and will continue to do so. #rideordie

Generally, I look at D1 voting two different ways, I look for opportunistic scum who takes advantage of the early wagons (So far, the early wagons include Tigris, MafiaSSK, Seol, Myself and, most recently, Zorblag (Far/Nat)).

I also love to pick scum off of village idiot (VI) wagons. The biggest VI wagon out there was Nat. I've never had the opportunity (dare I say, pleasure?) to play with him before, and I probably never will again. He was, however, an easy target to gain momentum on.

Unvote: StD, but IGMEOY

Vote: UT

Rationale:
[*]UT has been on 3 of the major bandwagons, the most out of any player (tied with StD)
[*]UT was also on the Nat wagon which looked incredibly opportunistic at the time.

@Yos: did you just skim or completely miss this post and the subsequent discussion?

[Yosarian2]

[quote="In post 393, Save The Dragons"
Douchy question: do they really?
Better question: have they in this game?

...

Do random votes often/ever lead to a lynch?[/quote]

(shrug) Not very often. About the most you can say for the various strategic/theoretical reasons for random voting is that they're slightly more likely to accomplish something then making a first post with no content at all would be.

I just have a pet peeve with people who think there's a "random vote phase" where you vote people for no reason and then you drop the vote later for no reason. If you're going to random vote, you should have a theory/strategy reason for why you're doing it, it shouldn't just be because it's what the cool kids do. And any reason you may have for random vote, quietly unvoting later for no reason, without voting anyone else, at a time when no one else is voting the person you're voting for, makes it completely pointless.

But, like I said in the beginning, that's all just theory. I mostly just mentioned it because it fit the overall pattern of caution and hesitancy.

I was about to bark at you some more, but I assume that you are suggesting that not voting anyone is scummier than unvoting a random vote.

Basically. When you get rid of your random vote, it should generally be because there's someone else you'd rather vote for, or because you have some other concrete reason.

[Yosarian2]

[quote="In post 393, Save The Dragons"
Douchy question: do they really?
Better question: have they in this game?

...

Do random votes often/ever lead to a lynch?[/quote]

(shrug) Not very often. About the most you can say for the various strategic/theoretical reasons for random voting is that they're slightly more likely to accomplish something then making a first post with no content at all would be.

I just have a pet peeve with people who think there's a "random vote phase" where you vote people for no reason and then you drop the vote later for no reason. If you're going to random vote, you should have a theory/strategy reason for why you're doing it, it shouldn't just be because it's what the cool kids do. And any reason you may have for random vote, quietly unvoting later for no reason, without voting anyone else, at a time when no one else is voting the person you're voting for, makes it completely pointless.

But, like I said in the beginning, that's all just theory. I mostly just mentioned it because it fit the overall pattern of caution and hesitancy.

I was about to bark at you some more, but I assume that you are suggesting that not voting anyone is scummier than unvoting a random vote.

Basically. When you get rid of your random vote, it should generally be because there's someone else you'd rather vote for, or because you have some other concrete reason.

[LoudmouthLee]

Oh, for the record, STD is town. So far, he's picked a fight with Seol, LML, me, and PJ, who are 4 people that are all absurdly good at getting people lynched, all in the first 13 pages of day 1, without any obvious benefit to him from picking all those fights. So either he's righteous town cloaked in the paladin-like armor of righteousness, or he's gone completely suicidal. No way a scum pretending to scumhunt would stick their neck out that far.

He even attacked me for attacking Undo for the same thing he attacked Undo for earlier this game, which is so completely inconsistent it must be a town tell.

Oh! That's cool, Yos! Find an inconsistency and call it protown? That's the weirdest thing you may have ever said.