NY 174: Oldy Mafia 2 (Game Over)

[Yosarian2]

Er, those were supposed to be quotes, from MBL. Too much time on Reddit, heh.

[Green Crayons]

@Sotty:

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.

I've noticed you've retained a focus on Bookitty, who replaced Seol. I was curious to see what other players have caught your eye, and the reasons why for such suspicions (I assumed such observations would arise from a reread). Should I presume that you've done your reread and are comfortable with your Seol/Bookitty vote?

-----

- CTD has nudged slightly toward the town column. Was previously completely neutral.

- I look forward to Bookitty's responses to questions.

- I look forward to Kublai's further explanation of her first-impressions suspicions.

- I wish MafiaSSK didn't replace out because lame.

- Still happy with my LML vote. Found his four-point case (Post 451) against PJ flawed and unpersuasive. I'm curious how the other PJ-voters (

Albert, Vitamin, Bookitty

) feel about LML's four-point case.

[DrippingGoofball]

MafiaSSK is a town replace-out.

[Patrick]

Votecount

LoudmouthLee (3) -- Green Crayons, Yosarian2, petroleumjelly
Kublai Khan (1) -- MrBuddyLee
MafiaSSK (2) -- CrashTextDummie, undo
Bookitty (6) -- Sotty7, Shanba, Cogito Ergo Sum, chamber, Untrod Tripod, Save the Dragons
Cogito Ergo Sum (1) -- MafiaSSK
petroleumjelly (4) -- Albert B. Rampage, VitaminR, LoudmouthLee, Bookitty
Porochaz (2) -- DrippingGoofball, Zorblag
Yosarian2 (1) -- Glork

Not voting: Kublai Khan, Porochaz
22 alive, 12 to lynch.

[Patrick]

mathcam replaces MafiaSSK.

[Save The Dragons]

- I look forward to Bookitty's responses to questions.

[mathcam]

Hi everyone!

I'd like to begin by speculating about the existence of serial killers, lynchers and werewolves.

Also,

in keeping with old school traditions this day can't last for more than like 10 pages

Ha. Time to start reading.

[Untrod Tripod]

mathcaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam!!!!!

[Untrod Tripod]

Also,

in keeping with old school traditions this day can't last for more than like 10 pages


Ha. Time to start reading.

trust me I'm just as disappointed as you are

[LoudmouthLee]

I has fixed the work internet! I will catch up on this game and try to post tonight. Thank you for being patient!

[Bookitty]

Rather than try to pick out all the questions and answer them individually, I’m going to try to sum up things and then take questions if I missed them. I’m kind of doped up on pain meds, so this may be rambling. I’ll apologise for that upfront.

Yes, I’m nervous. I haven’t played for several years, I’m rusty and I am playing with people whose opinions I value. It’s an unnerving combination. I don’t want to make a fool of myself.

While I did read the game from the start (or nearly so) for entertainment, I had the same enforced week-long hiatus everyone else did. I didn’t reread it immediately upon returning because I was busy with other things and I knew there was a line already formed for replacements; I didn’t expect I would get in. There are 22 people in this game; I do not believe I’ve ever been in a game that large. I’m not alone in finding this game hard to figure out and hard to remember.

Okay, on to things that actually matter to someone besides me:

LML comes into the game with that stupid random vote thing. He says Glork is a town read (which Glork is for me too, but I took longer to get there), attacks Sotty7 for avoiding the two main wagons on Tigris and on MafiaSSK to vote Seol (me, now). It’s a weak attack, though, I don’t know if he means it. (I have no meta on LML that I recall.)

I don’t even understand the Glork wagon except that it’s tradition so I’m not going to try to analyze that.

Now, about those MafiaSSK and Tigris wagons, here’s where I start looking at PJ like I think he might have cooties. Tigris has a healthy bandwagon on her for saying she likes to be nonconformist (her wagon appears to be based on nothing more than that) and MafiaSSK tells her so. It’s stupid to me, but it’s not scummy of MafiaSSK that I can see. Tigris responds with this theory post and Chamber says, OMG I found scum! “Her words weren’t actually meaningfully responding to the context of the question.”

Okay, Post 52 is the first one that I actually saw from PJ. I am not going to say that it’s his first post but it’s the first one I noticed at all. I got really weird vibes from this: “Not happy asking these questions, as these are the kind of questions I grind newbies with just to get a better sense of how they play. But given that I have not played with Tigris, I'll give myself a pass.”

He’s already excusing himself for asking questions when no one has said it was scummy yet. That’s… weird to me. It doesn’t seem honest.

Okay, giant wall of questions for Tigris that seem vaguely to incriminate her. PJ says to me later he’s just doing it to get a sense of her playstyle. The first question might be that; the rest look really not. PJ then votes MafiaSSK for questioning Tigris and defending bandwagons. Wait… what?

So now I’m suspicious of PJ. And it’s not helped by people jumping on the MafiaSSK wagon (including Seol, so I’m not overlooking that).

We had Glork, MafiaSSK, Mr. Buddy Lee (and I have been confusing him with LML, I see that now, but I don’t think it matters given the very limited amount of posting I remember from MBL), Save the Dragons and Untrod Tripod on Tigris. I know LML is voting Tigris from RVS. He doesn’t say anything about it for a while though.

Then you have PJ, Seol, Porochaz and Green Crayons with votes on MafiaSSK and LML putting in the FoS.

PJ comes back in post 107 to explain his vote on MafiaSSK. He says this is an “over-the-top assertion”: (MafiaSSK to Tigris)” Because bandwagons are guaranteed information especially at high vote counts. You choosing to go after someone different has in fact more potential to gain less information...” More questions that look like scumhunting but are directed at what look to be random targets. The MafiaSSK question I sort of understand. Why does PJ care what MrBuddyLee thinks of Sotty7?

Looking at this now, I guess I can sort of see the “Socratic dialogue” thing. To me, though, that begs the question, why does he want to educate VitaminR? Does PJ think VR is scum? Town? It’s like he’s setting up all these different angles and he can just go to whichever one. His only stated suspicion is on MafiaSSK and I think it’s trumped up. I remember thinking it was weird on a first read and I still do.

At this point VitaminR was voting LML. I understand his reasoning here, though I think the people actually voting MafiaSSK were more odd. Untrod Tripod called VitaminR scum for this but he’s not voting for VitaminR so I don’t know if it’s rhetoric or if UT means it.

And not to leave out, a wagon is building on Seol. I think it’s because of that vote on MafiaSSK; anyway, Sotty7, Shanba and Cogito Ergo Sum are on my wagon. SavetheDragons votes for me too (well, Seol), which makes perfect sense if you look back to him voting Tigris and taking that side on the MafiaSSK debate. Seol’s on the other side and he doesn’t really justify his vote.

VitaminR starts attracting some votes, I don’t really get why. MafiaSSK expresses that he’s fine with the wagon on him, which I think is townie. Yosarian2 awards towncred to both GreenCrayons and chamber for their outstanding snarkiness. Meanwhile, LML is going after StD and dropping his … I don’t know why he was voting Tigris if not just laziness from RVS. I don’t think he ever indicated he thought she was scum up til this point in the game. But most of his post is to Albert, not StD. So I don’t get that either.

I’m going to continue this but it’s so huge that I just wanna post it now and go on to the next part. I realize it’s sort of unfocused but at the moment so am I and I just didn’t want to wait until I was all better to do what I promised I was going to do.

If I mixed up any facts, honestly, I'm not surprised. I think everything I said was right, but please feel free to correct me (or call me scummy or whatever) if I have anything wrong.

[Green Crayons]

Yosarian2 awards towncred to both GreenCrayons and chamber for their outstanding snarkiness.

If chamber doesn't outright hate me by the end of the game, I believe this game will be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

[Bookitty]

Is it okay if I continue this? It's really helpful to me in remembering all my reasons for why I thought things, so I'm going to do it anyway. But if you want me not to post these ungodly long blocks of text, I can stop whenever. I'm getting to the important stuff now, I think.

[Save The Dragons]

The thing I'm looking for will be in your next post(s).

I voted for MafiaSSK, not Tigris, so technically Seol and I weren't on opposite sides when I voted him.

[Cogito Ergo Sum]

He’s already excusing himself for asking questions when no one has said it was scummy yet. That’s… weird to me. It doesn’t seem honest.

That's not what he's excusing himself for.

Looking at this now, I guess I can sort of see the “Socratic dialogue” thing. To me, though, that begs the question, why does he want to educate VitaminR? Does PJ think VR is scum? Town? It’s like he’s setting up all these different angles and he can just go to whichever one. His only stated suspicion is on MafiaSSK and I think it’s trumped up. I remember thinking it was weird on a first read and I still do.

Why does he need to think either? And your predecessor spent most of his time going after MafiaSSK for most of the same reasons as PJ, so that seems like a really weird opinion for you to have as town.

[Cogito Ergo Sum]

Bookitty's stances on LoudmouthLee feel really arbitrary, especially in the context of some of the other things she said.

@CES

, can you elaborate upon this please?

Bookitty defending against PJ's attack on LmL by implying that the content provided by the VCA was inherently pro-town and appealing to the idea of scum coasting on minimal content and flying under the radar, doesn't mesh with his attack on PJ (he may not make the most posts but he makes up for that with thirteen bullet points in each) and the level of scrutiny for PJ's list of questions (there are always going to be questions you feel aren't worth asking, but you can still make much the same argument as for the vote count analysis that it is content that any one can take advantage of) is much higher than for the vote count analysis provided by LmL. He also seemed to very easily dismiss Seol's inactivity as just being overwhelmed even though it fits quite snugly into his own idea of scum coasting on minimal content.

[Bookitty]

Okay, Post 123 from Shanba makes me feel really good about Shanba. I never got the logic for Tigris’s wagon, but I never got the logic for MafiaSSK’s wagon either. It’s like everyone else is seeing as:

MafiaSSK is right! OMG the scumminess of not bandwagoning!
No, Tigris is right! Individuality is great!

And neither one of these is right to me. Bandwagoning is just bandwagoning, it’s null. Picking out someone else is also okay, ESPECIALLY when she did it, during RVS. Shanba calls out Glork. I don’t agree with Shanba’s suspicions of Yos, because I agreed with Yos. I thought that both bandwagons were dumb and it seemed like such a false dichotomy.

MafiaSSK’s Post 107 is mostly town to me. He’s answering that question from PJ that I commented on earlier. MafiaSSK comments that his vote on Tigris was really still in the RVS stage (and I agree, it really was). I can sort of see the logic in going after VitaminR for bravery that must be born out of scum knowledge, but I’ve seen the same sort of bravery from town. I think Yos’s case is weak and MafiaSSK is agreeing with it; I don’t think it’s scummy though. What’s interesting here is that MafiaSSK is attacking VitaminR for defending him for weak reasons. This is a strong towntell for SSK in my eyes. I think scum would skate on the good vibes.

CTD votes Chamber for that same thing I mentioned in my last post about “Hai guise I found the scumz!” about Tigris. I’m still keeping track of the dichotomy, and that puts CTD on the Tigris side. So it’s like this now:

Glork, SSK, Buddy Lee, UT, and Chamber on the Tigris wagon either with votes, scum accusations or by extension. You also have to add in Sotty7, Shanba and CES as on this side of the equation because they’re voting Seol for voting MafiaSSK. (I think I’m right about this.)

PJ. Seol, Porochaz, Green Crayons, StD, LML and CTD on the MafiaSSK wagon in the same way. I know not all of them are voting him, but there’s the same justification as in the last bit.

Okay, now CTD is voting MafiaSSK. I know Seol was doing that, but I don’t agree with it!

Chamber looks bad for Post 130. It’s like he’s about to approach an actual position on Tigris… omg, no, he’s turned around and is running off the field of play! I don’t have the meta read nor the firm conviction that he’s scum that CES and CTD do at this point though.

I agree with Sotty7 in Post 144. Not so much with StD in Post 150; this I really didn’t like:

“In my opinion, I felt that that

while erroneous

, the jumps onto Tigris were either justified by a pro-town motivation to tack onto someone who seemed suspicious, or did not give enough information for me to really read.”

Wait, did we see a Tigris flip? I don’t remember that. When did that happen?

MafiaSSK says that we can’t just dismiss the Glork wagon. O RLY? Ha, watch me! He makes a point about CES tunneling on Seol (I think that was explained later as “Seol is my RL buddy and I know he would react to me voting him if he were town” or something approaching that) and still pointing out that chamber’s alignment is obvious (obvscum, from context).

PJ goes after MafiaSSK for his rhetorical style. Asks UT about his preferences in what he likes to play.

Oh, someone asked me if I hated playing scum (I don’t remember who and my head is too fuzzy to go looking through the thread for it) – the answer is yeah, I don’t like playing scum. I prefer doing long analysis thingies and trying to pick out connections. It’s mostly something I’m better at after a few flips, though.

Wow, Seol says something I agree with! Though I think he’s wrong in the application: “I don't think this game has any "easy targets".” I like Seol’s questioning of MafiaSSK but I just still think SSK is town.

DrippingGoofball is playing to her town meta (IMO). Also, hi, DG!

Glork says something that I so agree with: “I'd like PJ to branch out and actually give scum/town opinions on people not named MafiaSSK. While I'm fine with the asking-questions thing (in part because it's consistent with what I'd expect him to do, and in part because I've behaved similarly this far), I'm anxious for follow-up.” I feel like PJ hasn’t given ANY opinions on what he’s derived from his questions.

MafiaSSK responds to PJ’s argument that SSK is confused/lying about the reason behind his vote. Then it gets into a huge discussion on the part of SSK about the incredible and delightful value of bandwagoning in RVS and how it delivers delicious fruit that is only healthy and good for town and never has that scummy aftertaste. Yum!

I do like SSK’s point about everything mattering and there not being a bright line where posting suddenly has meaning and merit.

Okay, I have to go for a little. I’ll have more tonight. Sorry this is so ungodly long but it’s just a lot of content to go through and to explain what were essentially ephemeral observations that I wish to god I had written down at the time instead of now.

[Save The Dragons]

I agree with Sotty7 in Post 144. Not so much with StD in Post 150; this I really didn’t like:

“In my opinion, I felt that that

while erroneous

, the jumps onto Tigris were either justified by a pro-town motivation to tack onto someone who seemed suspicious, or did not give enough information for me to really read.”

Wait, did we see a Tigris flip? I don’t remember that. When did that happen?

I believe the use of the term erroneous here is an opinion. It may not be clear since I used terms like "I felt" and "In my opinion", but in my opinion, I feel like that implies an opinion.

[Yosarian2]

Meanwhile, LML is going after StD and dropping his … I don’t know why he was voting Tigris if not just laziness from RVS. I don’t think he ever indicated he thought she was scum up til this point in the game.

For the record, LML indicated a couple of times that he was actually suspicious of Tigris

Tigris's 3rd vote "vote" seems to play on the old timer's emotions... it's a "tell" that we all know and have looked at before. Almost like trying to garner trust with the town. I like my vote where it is right now, and...

...I'm not a fan of any of the MafiaSSK votes on this page. Feels like a bunch of strong players going for an easy target. I especially don't like LML's #62, which nicely sets up a potential switch to the MafiaSSK wagon while maintaining a push on Tigris. Seems like something scum might do to make sure that two wagons keep momentum.

Am I not allowed to think two people seem scummy? If so, then I've been playing this game wrong for years.

Later, he implied that his vote on Tigras was merely a RVS vote:

I random voted Tigris via dice roll, and changed my vote to StD.

When I questioned him about it, he basically tried to have it both ways.

I know this may not make any sense, but my suspicion of Tigris would have not have warranted a vote at the time... but since my vote was already there, I kept it there. It would have warranted a FoS.

the whole exchange...made me uncomfortable. If he actually thought Tigris's initial posting was scummy, even if it was only slightly so, then it's weird for him to make basically excuses for keep his vote on Tigris like that. Is there really some line on page 5 where "X is scummy enough for a FOS, but you have to do Y to be scummy enough for a vote?

Honestly, if someone wasn't voting for anyone, and then FOS'd someone without voting, that early in the game, I would find that suspicious, but it sounds like that's exactally what he's claiming he would have done if not for the random dice roll. It's just weird.

[Bookitty]

He’s already excusing himself for asking questions when no one has said it was scummy yet. That’s… weird to me. It doesn’t seem honest.

That's not what he's excusing himself for.

Looking at this now, I guess I can sort of see the “Socratic dialogue” thing. To me, though, that begs the question, why does he want to educate VitaminR? Does PJ think VR is scum? Town? It’s like he’s setting up all these different angles and he can just go to whichever one. His only stated suspicion is on MafiaSSK and I think it’s trumped up. I remember thinking it was weird on a first read and I still do.

Why does he need to think either? And your predecessor spent most of his time going after MafiaSSK for most of the same reasons as PJ, so that seems like a really weird opinion for you to have as town.

Okay, I'm back. I think this is a serious question rather than rhetorical (sorry, my rhetoric meter is broken at the moment).

I'm not my predecessor. I don't know what he thought or why he thought it. If I did, I would tell you, but I have what you have, which is not a lot to go on. So asking me why Seol did this or that is pointless. Not a clue.

And I don't question people unless I have some sort of lean on them, and it's usually a scumlean. I was a philosophy major (yeah, point and laugh all you want) and I know the purpose of Socratic dialogues in the teaching environment. We're in the Mafia environment. What's the point of engaging in that sort of educational exercise just to reach some shared truth in this game? You have to have an angle, don't you, or a point you're trying to figure out about the other person? Otherwise why bother with it in THIS environment?

[Bookitty]

I agree with Sotty7 in Post 144. Not so much with StD in Post 150; this I really didn’t like:

“In my opinion, I felt that that

while erroneous

, the jumps onto Tigris were either justified by a pro-town motivation to tack onto someone who seemed suspicious, or did not give enough information for me to really read.”

Wait, did we see a Tigris flip? I don’t remember that. When did that happen?

I believe the use of the term erroneous here is an opinion. It may not be clear since I used terms like "I felt" and "In my opinion", but in my opinion, I feel like that implies an opinion.

Okay. You were on that bandwagon yourself. I may be getting bogged down in semantics, but the sentence you wrote would be properly punctuated thusly:

In my opinion, I felt that, while erroneous, the jumps onto Tigris were either justified... etc.

The sentence makes sense without the clause "while erroneous" so it's not clear that this part is in your opinion.

Why do you think the jumps on Tigris were erroneous, then?

[Porochaz]

As its almost one, Im not going to get back on the PBPA until I get some sleep (and possibly/after during work - depending on if they found my notes on the first five pages), however I do want to respond to yos

In that you were asking VitR to guess the reason why you were voting him. My memory of you would be to be fairly "to the point" with your suspicions.

So you're suspicious of me because I was stirring shit up and trying to create pressure and get reactions during a time when most of the rest of the town was still just random voting? That seems like a strange reaction on your part, especially for you to bring up now. Isn't trying to get reactions like what I was trying to do with vitR obviously helpful to the town at that stage of the game?

Firstly, its one point. I haven't developed a case on you, just something that interested me early on. I wasn't ever going to vote you for it, particularly when there is a number of people that are more interesting than you at the stage Im at. (like Sotty, Tigris, MSSK etc) Look the way I see it, it doesn't matter the way you format it to get the reactions however the way you did it, is not what I expect from you. The way you tried to get reactions is by making VitR make a case on himself? I'm not sure how that works?

The reason I bring it up now is because Im bringing everything up now. My gameplay works on getting a hook and digging in with it, I play better when that happens. This is what I am trying to do currently.

What interests me now, is you decided to make a thing out of it, more of a thing than I was ever going to make (unless you suddenly become uber scummy in the next 10 pages, which I doubt judging by the votecount) and you acknowledged it when I expected you to ignore it (which lets face it, most other players have). Which is all a lot more interesting to me than the initial point itself.

[Bookitty]

Okay, back to my game analysis. I'm not really sure where I was (I'm on a different computer). MafiaSSK posts about the Seol-CES love-hate relationship and draws a link between CES and CTD; I'm not seeing it. I do have a question:

@CrashTextDummie: Hey, when you said chamber's alignment was obvious, were you saying he was obvscum or obvtown? I read it as obvscum but chamber thinks you were awarding valuable towncred.

Sotty7 actually reiterates something I thought in Post 207. I feel like Green Crayons and Sotty7 are really on the same page but ascribing different importance to the words used. I'm guilty of this myself so I can only say that exchange sounds genuine. Yeah, I feel like Yosarian2 is town. (I may be repeating myself). I don't agree about VitaminR but I still think that post is "sacred" in that it makes me think Yos is town.

STD says that he disagrees with most of what MafiaSSK says but he still thinks he's legit. I agree with this (though that townread is less secure on this intensive reread, it's still there). We're still in the false dichotomy thing though, and I just hate it.

ABR's quoting of BB is so LOL. So is Glork's wat response

In Post 244, PJ is still pushing on VitaminR for a question that (I'm not looking it up, but I can find it if someone needs it) by his own accounting wouldn't make VR any friends in the game. I don't know why he wants to know who the weak players are in VR's opinion. He's also soft-defending his pursuit of SSK by saying it's similar to VR's "semi-serious" vote on DGB in the first two pages. He attacks Glork for framing the debate about MafiaSSK as a theory debate (which I think it REALLY was) and basically tells Glork that PJ's reads are none of his (or anyone's) business. That's so not town to me. Also doesn't get the ABR quote. (NOT A SCUMTELL though. Just funny.)

I like Undo's Post 246.

Shanba says he doesn't know what the Seol wagon was for. I think it was for that vote on Tigris, but I am not sure of this.

I don't know why in Post 257 Yos puts chamber as town. At a guess, meta? I agree Green Crayons and Glork feel town to me.

Okay, I HATE this: Post 279 VitaminR makes some really good points about LML and instead of saying anything relevant back, he says: "To be completely fair again, a LOT of people went alone with two weak wagons. Hell, some of the people you've quite ignored have actually BEEN on 3 or 4 wagons thus far. Why have they earned a pass from you?" To me that's deflection. That's scummy and I didn't notice it before or I forgot it. VitaminR and LML go back and forth and VitaminR wins that.

Meh, STD gets towncred from me for Post 285. This is irritating.

Despite my use of pain meds, I still have a headache that would kill a horse. I will pick this up tomorrow. Hopefully I'll be more coherent and less drugged up.

[Porochaz]

@Porochaz, is there any reason that I shouldn't think that you're spewing some superficial reaction to the game now that you've got some votes on you? I know that you're busy and have other things on your mind, but you've got enough experience at mafia that there's no way you should have expected a post by post analysis to give you a concerted read on players which is what you should really be interested in if you're town and trying to find scum. Right now I'm seeing effort to show effort, but I'm not seeing town who cares about the game.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

I explained this a bit in the yos post. I work best with a hook. I don't disagree that it might not be the best way to work, but when I am in a position where I am unable to get into the game for a variety of reasons, making notes by using a PBPA and then consolidating that by user, seems as good a way as any to try and at least be able to make a concious effort to try and start conversations off as a start (like, for instance the one with yos) and if I can find something or someone who is consistently scummy then I think it is a worthwhile activity. I want to be involved and I want to be able to make informed decisions which I don't think I currently can do.

I don't particularly care about your vote, I do think it's premature, without a fair basis but at the same time, all you have made me want to do is prove you wrong, your reason is for lack of content then later posting content for contents sake. I feel as Sotty says, damned if I do, damned if I don't here. I mean your votes fair if I don't do anything beyond post these notes or don't join in conversations afterwards. But I am not finished yet. I think it would be more foolish of me to try and give opinions on subjects I have no full knowledge of than trying to reground myself within this game.

[Albert B. Rampage]

Hey Bookitty!

- Still happy with my LML vote. Found his four-point case (Post 451) against PJ flawed and unpersuasive. I'm curious how the other PJ-voters (

Albert, Vitamin, Bookitty

) feel about LML's four-point case.

I agree with the gist of it.