Newbie 1691 - Game Over

[KickAssAndGiggle]

And so another hunt begins!

VOTE: Aatami

Because typing that double A will get annoying. This vote may or may not be changed on receipt of a post saying you will not be offended if I accidentally call you Atami repeatedly.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

1. What do you feel is the job of the Town in our scenario?

To come up with increasingly hilarious reasons to randomly vote for someone! But eventually, someone will get put to L-2 (that's the symbol for 2 votes away from lynch for any genuine first time players) and they will start feeling the pressure to respond seriously, moving us out of RVS and into the game proper.

2. What are some strategies you think scum are likely to use?

There's no move scum won't try.

(Statement shamelessly stolen from Drixx, a fine player. I recommend all Newbies stick around to play a game with him, he often participates in Newbie games as an IC like Aeronaut)

3. If you had to guess who is scum based on these first few posts, who would you guess? It's ok if you don't have a lot of basis, even if it's just gut-feelings!

Interestingly, I made my RVS post without reading the thread, but now I HAVE, the only thing that pings me is this from Aatami:

1. the town needs to get moving. idk exactly how but

weve entered a sort of stagnation period because there rvs has ended

but nothing has really happened because it was so short

RVS hasn't ended and the game hasn't stagnated. Is this an alignment indicative misrepresentation, or just impatience?

[KickAssAndGiggle]

If you're gonna shorten my name, please make it KAAG.

There really is no such thing as too perfect either! The very thought of a typo wakes me up at night in a cold sweat!

[KickAssAndGiggle]

I wouldn't say there is an etiquette particularly, as long as it's clear. In your position, I'd have posted it like this:

Spoiler: My Posting Style

@KAAG:

VOTE: Aatami

Because typing that double A will get annoying. This vote may or may not be changed on receipt of a post saying you will not be offended if I accidentally call you Atami repeatedly.

for now i will not be offended but we'll see how often these typos happen....... lmao

3. If you had to guess who is scum based on these first few posts, who would you guess? It's ok if you don't have a lot of basis, even if it's just gut-feelings!

Interestingly, I made my RVS post without reading the thread, but now I HAVE, the only thing that pings me is this from Aatami:

1. the town needs to get moving. idk exactly how but weve entered a sort of stagnation period because there rvs has ended but nothing has really happened because it was so short



RVS hasn't ended and the game hasn't stagnated. Is this an alignment indicative misrepresentation, or just impatience?

I was just impatient. Looking back obviously rvs hadnt ended because some ppl havent even talked yet and I was trying to procrastinate on some homework and you probably know how that goes.

But there's no right or wrong.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Mod will post a vote count every two days at least, generally. If for some reason it hasn't happened, you can ask, such as:

@Mod: VC please.

(Always good to bold message to Mod, they don't necessarily read every line of every post)

Oh, and:

UNVOTE: Aatami
VOTE: heyboxgaminig

For no posts yet as SE.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Yes, in Newbie games, a "game day" is two weeks, and a Night is two days.

Other games in other queues run at different speeds, depending on the Mod. But this is standard for Newbie games.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

I invite you to look at my completed games:

Newbie 1675 (was town, town won)
Open 623 (was town, town lost)
Open 626 (was town, town won)

And compare. (Note: in 626, I did post very drunk on a few occasions, should be easy to spot).

As far as being a brand new player goes, no, definitely not. I played my first game in 2003 on the America's Army forum, and this is somewhere around my 20th game.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

There's a lot of debate about something that is not alignment indicative!

I'm 34, I write a lot of emails to managers at work, and I sometimes use that skillset in forum posts.

You should wait until I make a drunk post! It'll blow your mind...

[KickAssAndGiggle]

I don't want to be argumentative, I really don't, but:

I've noticed town seems to post more from their heart

I'm a hard-headed man of facts and figures. It's head, head, head. To "post from the heart" implies an emotional investment in a forum game, which you won't see from me. I will play to win, hard, but with no heart, all head.

And that will be the same as both alignments. Frankly, if town post more from their hearts, and you can detect that, wouldn't that make the game rather easy?

The question is, what is the scum motivation for that post? If it is literally just the tone/effort/style, it's not a case. To make it a case, I'd want to know

why

that tone benefits scum over town.

I'm not reading anything into Aeronaut mentioning it: he is drawing Newbie attention to what they should be doing, with the first example he had. Actually, if anything, I give him slight town-cred for it. It's just that the example wasn't great. Hardly surprising: even now 2 of 9 players haven't posted.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

I've always preferred RVS to RQS (that's Random Vote Stage vs Random Question Stage for anyone who's new and didn't read the IC post in full). However, in this game, the three questions Aeronaut posted have led to me having a read already, and I find it very rare to get that with RVS by page 3. I may need to reconsider my opinion on that.

Decent town lean on SummerInWonderland. I'm either playing with Meryl Streep or she is in her first game, and everything about her posts coming from a first-game-player says town to me.

I have fractional leans on a couple of others, but I'll let them fully form before expanding.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth, but for me:

I'm trying to use my head but at the same time

trying to sound organical.

This is suspicious. You have to "try" to sound how you wish to come across?

[KickAssAndGiggle]

I am refraining from posting a read list until the replace and Heybox get involved. I don't want to find myself "married to my early reads" (especially scum reads) and conf!biasing myself. Not a criticism of those who do though, more a criticism of my own tendency to get too fixated on my own logic.

SummerInWonderland,

We do have to apply pressure, and as we don't know who technically "needs" pressure (i.e. who are the scum!), no problem with selecting on tenuous reasons, especially in the first 5 pages. Without pressure, peeps will make cases (often weak in the early phase) on others but not answer about themselves.

It's called "Reaction Testing": make a weak case and see how they react. Emotional? Calm? Reasonable? Irrational?

Of course, the tricky part is interpreting the result...hence the game.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

KAAG - Can you give your reads? I like the discussion you're generating too but I'd like to see a more concrete result.

Well, I did say the following:

I am refraining from posting a read list until the replace and Heybox get involved. I don't want to find myself "married to my early reads" (especially scum reads) and conf!biasing myself. Not a criticism of those who do though, more a criticism of my own tendency to get too fixated on my own logic.

But OK, I'll expand a little as it's a Newbie game:

SummerInWonderland:

leaning firmly to town. Her reason for voting Aeronaut simply strengthens that belief.

Aeronaut:

leaning somewhat to town. He is scumhunting, but scum do that too. However, he is also encouraging others to scumhunt, without using his IC colors. That's usually a good sign: you often see scum pretend to be town, but less-often do they try and unite a town-bloc.

UpTooLate:

Null with a whiff of town. I take on board Aeronaut's opinion on her tone sounding natural (which is reasonable) but I'll do her the courtesy of assuming she is quite capable of maintaining tone as either alignment. The "whiff of town" comes from her assessment of Ryu's recent postings rather than anything that came before it.

Aatami:

Null with a whiff of town. If you get caught "reaching" (making a case/statement that is hard to back up), best thing for town to do is to hold your hands up and apologise, and that's what he did after I said his "stagnating" comment was untrue. Scum (or Newbie scum at least) don't like backing down, they think it's suspicious, but defending bad statements is worse.

Yawning Angel:

Null. I feel like he/she voted UpTooLate because my advice to get out of RVS/RQS was to push someone to L-2 to start them feeling like they need to respond, and he/she/they only read page 1 of the thread. I guess I pick up on that because I'm the one who posted the advice: I can see the point they (Yawning Angel) were making when responding, but they phrased themselves so poorly that I can understand why others didn't understand.

NOTE:

YawningAngel, I recommend going into your profile and selecting the correct pronoun for yourself (He/She/It/They). We don't know how to indirectly address you.

Firelord/Replacement:

Null. Nothing to analyze.

HeyBoxGaming:

Null. Nothing to analyze.

Ryu Ogami:

Slight scum lean. There's a number of things not to like about some of his posts, but I must stress that it could simply be "first-timer" issues. I'm really not a fan of this:

let's just say I almost got banned from a forum because I misunderstood a post... and sincerely I don't blame them, it was that bad the situation I got into

I'm interested in sorting you in

this game

, I don't see how that helps. Appeal To Emotion (abbreviated to AtE sometimes) is often a scum play.

...

There is a style of presenting reads used by some players, where you bracket players together. I'll present mine in that style (I do quite like it) and you can choose to use it or not (plenty of good players do and plenty don't: your call). I like to include myself because I am confirmed town to me.

{KAAG}
{SummerInWonderland}
{Aeronaut}
{UpTooLate, Aatami}
{YawningAngel, Firelord, HeyBoxGaming} -- NULL LINE
{Ryu Ogami}

Note to self:

do not sheep these reads KAAG.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

heybox,

Are you an alt? I'm asking because I checked your meta, and all your games are from Newbie queue, but you're in an SE slot.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Hi mhsmith0,

All your predecessor did was ask questions about the game mechanics, so I for one am Null on your slot. Looking forward to your thoughts.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

{post}107{/post}

(Replace squiggly brackets with square brackets)

107

[KickAssAndGiggle]

In post 98, KickAssAndGiggle wrote:

SummerInWonderland: leaning firmly to town. Her reason for voting Aeronaut simply strengthens that belief.


Can you elaborate on this? I'm actually having trouble understanding her reasoning for voting me, and I'm wondering why that makes her more town to you, if i'm also your townread.

It's not that I think you are scum, it is because her reasons are so "newbie":

I don't like how you abandoned on that idea so fast. You are the experienced player here and you have already missed one thing by saying other people were throwing shade without comittment. But the thing is you agreed with me that it was a good point but backed off because you said other people were doing it. Now you say no other people were doing it but you still aren't voting Aatami. I don't understand this part because you think hes scum because he is in your list. Why is he number 2?

You also forgot to say something about Ryu when he really has not made a real post about game content only some stuff that didn't really make sense. I don't understand what you could be seeing as so good in him when he hasn't really contributed or is him not contributing much the good thing about him??? Just now you didn't really say why he was town either can you explain that? vote aeronaut This whole situation with you missing stuff and not being consistent feels really sketchy!!

Orange: What you said was perfectly reasonable (about others throwing shade) but because you didn't go into specifics (completely unnecessary IMHO) she feels you are ignoring her case. Now, why would scum get into a confrontation over that? Conclusion: she's newb!town.

Yellow: She isn't buying into your "tone" argument for town vs scum. Of course, an inexperienced player would likely say that, but again, is this something for scum to bring up and get attention thrown on her? Can't see it.

I'm already prepared to stick my neck out and say she's town.

If I had a concern with you Aeronaut, it's that you are town-reading UpTooLate. I barely see anything about her postings to read from, so if it's all done on her tone, are you saying she's incapable of faking this as scum? I'm not saying she is scum, I'm asking for something more than just a "natural" (which is subjective) tone.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Regarding post 103 by

heyboxgaminig

,

I was voting you for RVS reasons...I'm keeping my vote on you for serious reasons now:

Your analysis of Aeronaut is ridiculous. I'm glad he went into depth, because I can't really be bothered to take it seriously.

You find Aatami "worrying", but with one sentence on Ryu, suddenly Ryu + Aeronaut is your gut scum-team?

It feels like you are buddying up to me.

And no analysis of SummerInWonderland, despite the fact she has posted enough to have a read? What about UpTooLate?

Bad entrance.

{KAAG}
{SummerInWonderland}
{Aeronaut}
{UpTooLate, Aatami}
{YawningAngel, mhsmith0} -- NULL LINE
{Ryu Ogami, HeyBoxGaming}

[KickAssAndGiggle]

KickAssAndGiggle I am just trying to go for things I understand. I don't really understand everything that is going on with Yawning and Ryu, so I just went with what I felt was strongest.

I totally get that, and it makes you my strongest town read.

However, just to reiterate for the record, I also think Aeronaut is probably town too. But Town vs Town scraps happen all the time, and are not necessarily unhelpful.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Can I ask you why Aeronaut is town? to me he's null, I really don't understand. With your help maybe I could get a new perspective?

Well, I did give my reason on page 4, but I'll restate it in detail:

You often see scum do some "fake" scum-hunting, but I get the feeling from reading Aeronaut (especially on pages 2 and 3) that he is encouraging

others

to scum hunt. It is in town's interest to go as a flock, to form a "town bloc" of 4-5 players who all agree each other are town, to make it very hard for scum to push mislynches. And I feel Aeronaut is trying to form that town bloc. Scum would much rather not have that happen!

I understand the temptation to make scum reads, but on the whole, on D1 we are looking for the "least towny" rather than the "most scummy". We may mislynch, it happens plenty, but on D2, we will hopefully have 4 players all town-reading each other, and then our life gets easier. Which is why I don't see him not going into great depth on Aatami as suspicious: even if there was a whiff of suspicion, it wasn't enough to be pushing hard at that stage.

You can be wrong, and still be town. You can fail to answer a question, and still be town. You can ignore a case someone else thinks is strong, and still be town. In his (Aeronaut's) overall post-motivation, I see town. I see nothing scum-motivated.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

For comparison, I can easily see scum motivation in heyboxgaminigs post 103. I go into why in post 118.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

To put it another way: maybe in a newbie game you can get town read because "she's just being a newbie" (see 62, 115, possibly others), but it's not something that you can lean on forever, and it's not something that will help you improve. EARN your town read. Make yourself so obviously town that the scum know they can't mislynch you. I'll say in advance that I'm going to be reluctant to town read you or anyone else due to "newbie mistakes". I would expect that a cynical veteran scum partner can coach a newbie scum in how to make "town slips" that the board will mistakenly town read. Maybe that's fine for a day one town read (those should rarely be strong anyway), but I don't think it's pro-town and I don't want to encourage or enable it.

Do you think I'm wrong about her, or are you just cautioning me to be careful? It is one of my sicknesses in Mafia: forming early town-reads that I end up refusing to reconsider through the game. I'm working on it.

(Having said that, I still think she's town! )

I like your entrance mhsmith0.

{KAAG}
{SummerInWonderland}
{Aeronaut, mhsmith0}
{UpTooLate, Aatami}
{YawningAngel} -- NULL LINE
{Ryu Ogami, HeyBoxGaming}

[KickAssAndGiggle]

KAAG, what did you mean in 34 when you said there was a lot of debate over something not alignemnt indicative? Did you mean about the tone of your opening post?

Yep. It was indicative of me wanting to be a little jokey in RVS before we got into the game seriously.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

OK mhsmith0, I did see your post earlier, but I held off, hoping UTL, Ryu, YA or HBG would participate first. Alas, no.

UTL is pretty Null to me. Your case is visible but weak:

1) I don't like the seemingly widespread town reading of this slot. A lot of it feels weak. Being nice and polite is not alignment indicative. Seeming helpful is not AI. Couching criticisms in "I want to help" is not AI. etc. This isn't a good reason for a vote, but it IS a good reason to dig into this slot a lot more to see if good reasons for votes exist.

Not part of a case I can see.

2) The more I think about it, the more I REALLY don't like item #1 on 39. Essentially, she's advocating for a really easy way for scum to find PR's. This strikes me as an anti-town suggestion along with providing free advice to scum.

I don't agree. It is a general unwritten rule that the towniest scum-hunter is often the main PR. By encouraging VTs to be involved, while advising PRs not to lurk, the advice is: if we're all acting like PRs, finding them is harder.

3) Page 2: I don't love Aero's take on a single KAAG post being "too perfect" (I could maybe see this logic for a consistent tendency, but a single relatively short post? Really?). But UTL basically seems to be sheeping the point (though she eventually develops it a bit more). An original bad argument I dislike but can live with. But a sheeped bad argument? Blech.

Agreed. Total sheep. But in my experience, sheeping normally comes from unsure town, not scum.

4) On a related note, Aero read through the provided KAAG games (or at least said he did) and pulled the vote based on that. UTL just dumped the vote without comment when the opportunity to vote YA came up. Nothing at all about KAAG being any less suspicious there or elsewhere, no real development of a KAAG opinion at all. At least not until suddenly KAAG is a town read at 69??? Really??? Talk about a non-transparent shift of opinion. I literally see NOTHING in terms of why the KAAG opinion changed in between the vote and that post.

Vote changing happens all the time in the first 5 pages. I'd put little weight on it.

5) 68 More sheeping of Aero (the KAAG commentary part didn't bother me, but the YA part did). The further development of the vote felt weak. Like the whole thing was a +1 for Aero plus a OMGUS vote.

No argument on the facts, agreed. But scum-motivation? Don't see it.

6) 69 EVEN MORE sheeping of Aero, with some minor cosmetic tweaks.

See 5.

7) I'm not sure the best way to express this, but I have a general sense that she's mainly just trying to find a sketchy-looking newbie to park a vote at, as opposed to genuinely trying to solve the mystery. I don't like this. Aero has been pushing others (was first on KAAG, pushed against HBG), and you're basically stuck on pushing the newbies. It's easy to find something that looks scummy enough to get a vote among the newbies, and it's a great way to keep out of the crossfire.

YA has an "interesting" tone. I don't dislike UTL keeping her vote on him to keep him on his toes.

...

The facts you've seen exist, I just don't see scum motivation in them. However, she is Null due to not having much firmly-town motivation in there either.

However, please compare UTL to HeyBoxGaminig's post 103. That is a post with scum motivation seeping through it. (I appreciate you touched on this).

...

So, in your second post:

3) I was sincere but incorrect. Great, you've identified a town-town fight. You can either try and put a stop to it because it's unproductive, or you can try and use it as an opportunity to read other people. Who is cheering it on insincerely? Who seems way too over-confident that this is a town-town fight and is trying to buy board cred by being the good guy? etc.

This is the scenario closest, but it's Town vs Null. Carry on, get UTL to bring the content!

...

I'm gonna nullify my "whiff of town" reads, due to the lack of recent content from them. Also, mhsmith0 moves up, for scum-hunting and encouraging newbies to scum-hunt:

{KAAG}
{SummerInWonderland, mhsmith0}
{Aeronaut}
{YawningAngel, UpTooLate, Aatami} -- NULL LINE
{Ryu Ogami, HeyBoxGaming}

...

I may address some of your other points in due course, but this'll do for now.

PEdit: Ninja'd!!! Sod it, not editing.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

SIW,

Some absolute basics (and mhsmith0, I guess this is my take on D1 scum-hunting you asked for):

1) Scum can't have "real" reads. How can you have a "read" when you KNOW who everyone is? So if you see reads based on made-up reasons, or flimsy reasons (often called reaching), it might be suspicious.

2) All scum teams are different, but often on D1, they will "distance" each other. See if you can spot people who really don't want to interact. (Often, you can spot this in D1 postings when you get to D3/D4 easier than seeing it as D1 occurs)

3) On the whole, scum don't care "who" gets lynched on D1, as long as it's not them. Of course, there are ways of doing this and ways of doing this: you might spot something here, or you might not. See who votes the "easy" wagon, see if they join the wagon for flimsy reasons.

4) Because of #1, scum sometimes seem to look "active" without actually providing much information/help to town. Lots of posts that are not actually game related can be suspicious. And when I say "game related", sometimes it's more that they go on and on about the mechanics of THE game of Mafia rather than helping in THIS game of Mafia.

I can't tell you who to suspect, or which posts you should care about. That's for you to decide. But on D1, those are some of the things I try to use.

And remember not to get too tied-up about mislynching. In a perfect world, we find a scummer on D1, but if we do mislynch, then on D2, we can go back and read D1 again, knowing that everything <dead_player> said was definitely said as town. Their reads/thoughts take on greater impetus in death, as their death proves they were town when they made them.

Games are won or lost on D2 and D3. The info posted on D1 should be re-read on those days: things seem clearer then.

Also, remember that you can help town by being "obviously town". Be frank, honest at all times and straightforward. If 4 other townies all agree you are town, and you are town, our chances of hitting scum goes from 2/9 to 1/4. Even if you struggle to scumhunt, being obv!town is helpful.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

It's not the vote that is awful, it is the reads above it. I was doing you the courtesy of assuming you could see it for yourself.

If you prefer, I actually have already summarized it myself in post 118, so I will politely decline to repeat myself, but will provide a handy link!

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Addendum: I don't think he is "obvious scum", I think so far his motivation is least town. A definite distinction.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Obvious scum means, to me, obvious. I get the impression you would prefer it for me to say I am 100% sure. I cannot, because I am not.

In a perfect world, least towny == most scummy, but I find that often does not hold true on D1. Bad players can be very "non-towny" but turn out to in-fact be town.

But OK, I will go into depth as to what I would see as scum motivation in 103:

(Note the tongue in cheek style is for my own amusement, I hope the point is clear enough)

...

Sees Aeronaut buddying UTL (which happened, we both agree I think)
"Wow, heaven! Such a nice easy case to begin with."

Sees the RQS questions by Aero.
"How can I paint these in a bad light. <nonsense><rambling><reaching>"

Sees Aero's vote on KAAG.
"LOL gut read LOL how feeble <reach>"

Sees some posts by Aero it's hard to argue with.
"Better throw the odd agree in here, for credibility."

Sees Aero vote Ryu with "I want to do this".
"Pull him up on this post, ignore that the discussion came in the previous 10. Misrep's never get called on this site in Newbie games."

OK...better find someone else, oooh look Aatami made a statement, KAAG called him on it.
"You are suspicious, for the same reason KAAG said (even though he accepted your defense)"

Oh look, he made a read list!
"You want to trust our IC? I will assume you are suspicious here even though you are a newbie and its obviously newbie take that newbie!!!"

OK, great, my two scum targets are setup...better pick a town buddy. Oh, look at that handsome, manly dude called KAAG? See how he easily deflected the case on his opening post. He's the guy.
"Good call KAAG. I agree KAAG. Good call, nice spot on the scum slip. Your reads are so good."

Excellent...done...oh whoops, people are reading Ryu as scum?!? Argh. Better slip something in.
"No real substance.

My gut says he's scum though.

Because...baaaaa. Never mind the irony that my suspicions on Aero involve HIS gut either! Irony for the win."

Right, what about UTL, SIW? Nah, they're just too obv!town to bother mentioning. I've picked my buddy. Let's pretend this is a 4 man game!!!

Oooh, who did I say was most scummy? Oh I remember. Votes on Aero.

...

And breathe.

Seems like a possible scum motivation to me!

[KickAssAndGiggle]

If this game was faster, and the deadline was approaching, I would want us to lynch HBG. Of everyone he is, in my opinion, the best shot at being scum.

This would NOT be a policy lynch: it would be a balance of probabilities, scum indicative lynch.

A random lynch is 2/9 to hit scum. Right now, I'd give 4/9 if we went for HBG.

I hope I'm understanding you, if not, restate and I'll try again.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

No, I don't.

What percentage of the time, in your experience of 9-man setups, does town mislynch?

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Really, that question should read:

"What percentage of the time, in your experience of 9-man setups, does town mislynch

on DAY 1?

"

[KickAssAndGiggle]

You know what meta is right? It's when you look over someone's already completed games, and see a pattern.

I did this (you're an analytical man, so the proof is in post 102.

HBG has a habit of going AWOL from games for 2 days. Click his profile, view his past posts (note:

you cannot discuss ONGOING games in other threads

, but finished ones you can).

So...

Why would he post such a flagrantly suspicious post and then just leave?

He posted a flagrantly suspicious post, and then acted completely to type.

I want you to get inside his head and tell me why his overall approach makes sense from a scum perspective

Using the same method as above, you will be able to come to a conclusion on his skill-level. I have done so. I stand by my assertion.

...

I feel now that I have been as clear as I can be. I invite you now to tell me I'm wrong and, if so, why. You have all the evidence, his post, Aeronaut's rebuttal earlier, my summaries.

If I am wrong, explain why UTL is right. You've focused on my alternative case but haven't mentioned my rejection of yours on UTL?

[KickAssAndGiggle]

http://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Sheeping

I've been playing Mafia for 13 years or so. Back in the day, people would say:

"Scum always sheep."

After a while, scum said:

"We better not sheep, we'll look like scum."

Then more people started to play, with wildly different skill levels. And some of them sheeped as town due to being unsure.

After a while, scum said:

"We can sheep again, because loads of town do it too."

So...who knows? My experience says its more often an unsure towny, but of course, it's possible from scum too. But when it's essentially WIFOM, it doesn't make a case stronger, IMHO.

But, to be clear,

IMHO

. If you think your case is strong, stick with it. I'm Null on that slot.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

OK, now that I like! I will do so.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Just pointing out, there are 9 days until deadline, no hurry.

I will get to reading UTL's other Newbie games later this evening.

Regarding Ryu...he's in the "less towny" section of my reads. If deadline was approaching, I'd vote Ryu to avoid a no-lynch...but I'd be arguing for HBG instead.

Additionally, I like the tone of YA's more recent posts compared to his earlier ones.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

I want to caution us (and I'm equally guilty, another of my foibles) to be careful of focusing on people simply because they are responding.

Currently, Ryu, HeyBox and Aeronaut ( ) are all past the prod deadline. Ryu is in fact past the replace deadline.

Mod, prods and any other appropriate action please.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

mhs,

I have read her Newbie games, yes (played with AI, RC, Karnage, Persivul etc.) On the whole, she sounds the same here as there.

HBG is still my preferred lynch. Now, I

have

already said this today: I do hope you are reading everyone else's posts between writing your walls...

Just pointing out, there are 9 days until deadline, no hurry.

Yes and no. No hurry to push someone to L-1 much less hammer. But I think the sooner we start to start to clarify where the board is on people, the better.

Agreed. However, UTL, Aeronaut and I have committed to read lists...you have not. Can I ask for one please? For example, here is mine (note that UTL moves up due to me liking her rebuttal of your case):

{KAAG}
{SummerInWonderland, mhsmith0}
{Aeronaut, UpTooLate}
{YawningAngel, Aatami} -- NULL LINE
{Ryu Ogami, HeyBoxGaming}

[KickAssAndGiggle]

mhs,

I think the issue comes due to the fact that I barely said anything about UTL's tone in this thread: your case was based a lot more on the sheeping of Aeronaut, vote switching in the early game and a (IMO) misreading of her answer on PR behavior. Only at the final minutes of our little exchange on Friday was tone brought into it. And I said I would check. I did.

Note: the one reference to UTL's tone I

did

make was to say she sounded "natural", in post 98, before you subbed in:

I take on board Aeronaut's opinion on her tone sounding natural (which is reasonable) but I'll do her the courtesy of assuming she is quite capable of maintaining tone as either alignment.

To summarise, you say:

if you believe in looking at a player's meta at all, that just SCREAMS "she's a different player in this game than she was in her last two newbie games as town".

And to that I say:

"Wong. You are using confirmation bias on your weak case."

...

I have observations on your play, that I'll happily share after the game, all constructive. However, there is one aspect of it that is, in my view, hurting town right now, so I'll give it here. You said:

This is how you create a productive town environment where scum have little room to hide

By posting wall-after-wall, and insisting loudly for everyone to answer

your points

over and over again on every little observation you make, you are making it

exceptionally easy

for scum to hide. Do you not see that? Your posts scream "Look at me me me me me!" Well, we will...and the scum will slip by.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

@kaag: One thing that's been bugging me a bit has been

In post 156, KickAssAndGiggle wrote:
Addendum: I don't think he is "obvious scum", I think so far his motivation is least town. A definite distinction.



Vs

In post 122, KickAssAndGiggle wrote:
For comparison, I can easily see scum motivation in heyboxgaminigs post 103. I go into why in post 118.



Is his motivation scum or town? We went around a bit on this one, but I don't know that it ever really got resolved. This feels like a meaningful contradiction... Or am I just mis reading you in an important way?

I think it's just semantics over the word "obvious" really.

Right now in the Mafia Discussion forum, there is a thread on scum-slips. For instance, there is the example of a scummer who wrote out a long post in his scum topic, complete with {post} tags. He copied it into the main thread...and of course the {post} tags led back to the scum private forum. Instant giveaway.

Now THAT'S obvious. (And funny!)

Regarding HBG's post:

- I can see no town motivation. It's two weak cases, a buddy up, and a scum-read afterthought.
- I can imagine scum motivation (I outlined why already)

However, I don't think it makes him "obvious" scum. I wouldn't bet my house on it. But I would say that he is currently my best bet at scum.

I'm rarely certain on D1, I don't think anyone is. Eventually, you have to make a "balance of probabilities" decision. A lack of town motivation can sometimes just be due to poor play. As I've said, in a perfect world, Least Towny == Most Scummy, and yet sometimes it doesn't go that way.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Yes your questioning is unclear, either that or your missing my replies.

Regarding HBG's post:

- I can see no town motivation. It's two weak cases, a buddy up, and a scum-read afterthought.
- I can imagine scum motivation (I outlined why already)

However, I don't think it makes him "obvious" scum. I wouldn't bet my house on it. But I would say that he is currently my best bet at scum.

I'm rarely certain on D1, I don't think anyone is. Eventually, you have to make a "balance of probabilities" decision. A lack of town motivation can sometimes just be due to poor play. As I've said, in a perfect world, Least Towny == Most Scummy, and yet sometimes it doesn't go that way.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

I don't really know how to answer you in a different way. I'll try once more, and that's your lot.

1) I can see no town motivation.
2) I think so far his motivation is least town. A definite distinction.

How do these two things tie together?

In

everyone else

I can undoubtedly see some town motivation. Of course, someone is faking it, but I can see it. So everyone else > 0.

Him = 0.

So...

I think so far his motivation is least town.

Tada!

You forgot secret option 6 in your list:

6) I, mhsmith0, am failing to grasp that not everyone wants to debate semantics over word choice ENDLESSLY, and I also fail to realize that the phrases someone uses to make their cases are rarely alignment indicative.

I have a question: when are you going to take the advice to STOP tunneling the people who actually respond to you, and start looking at those who are truly suspicious?

[KickAssAndGiggle]

I'm outed scum on D1...because I don't choose to engage in extensive debate with someone who uses the "False Dilemma" fallacy. Interesting theory.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma

You are town, it is obvious. But you are town who is scum-leaning-or-more on 5 players, for reasons that all of which would be treated as comical outside of the Newbie queue. In a game with 2 scum.

Town wins by forming a town-bloc, not by finding reasons to scum-read that aren't there. This is common knowledge...for all your walls, there is a distinct lack of understanding of the basic principles of town-play.

My read list stays the same.

{KAAG}
{SummerInWonderland, mhsmith0}
{Aeronaut, UpTooLate}
{YawningAngel, Aatami} -- NULL LINE
{Ryu Ogami, HeyBoxGaming}

SIW, with respect, if you said "The Sky is green", I would discredit you. Even if you posted wall-after-wall about it. mhs is town, but he's wrong...not just in outcome but methodology.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

@KAAG: you're outed scum on day one... because you lied. On something of important substance (your voting rationale).

Simply, no. HBG's post contained zero town motivation. Other than saying "Hello", it is his only post, making 100% of his content having no town-motivation.

I am voting HBG for having 0% town motivation. Which is the point I have made in various ways to you, but for some reason unless something is phrased exactly as you like, you don't understand/accept (delete as you prefer) it.

I have said, in this thread, on the record that "Least Towny does not always equal Most Scummy". Is your problem really that you don't understand what I mean by THIS?

PS That said, I'm always open to a good line of reasoning, especially if I can learn from it. What are these principles of town play that I'm failing to understand?

Let's say I'm town. And you are town. And SIW is town. And Aeronaut is town. (Note: chosen hypothetically) And we ALL AGREE that the others are town. That is a town-bloc. The town-bloc will not vote for each other, because they agree they are all town. It then becomes impossible for scum to push an easy mislynch. In effect, scum have to push the "least towny" town, or bus each other.

Once a town block consists of 5 players, the game is essentially won. (In a 9 player setup)

Any method of forming reads that ends up with 5 scum-leans on 8 players is inherently barmy. Posting "funny" pictures hardly changes the fact that your last read-list is flawed as a concept, let alone as an outcome!

...

BTW, THIS is a false dilemma:

Seriously, KAAG, there are a LOT of answers you could have given to this, including:
1) Sorry, I made a mistake. Not sure what I was thinking.
2) I got mixed up between him and some other player ___
3) I know that I'm saying scum motivation, but I want to at least try to see things his way and give him credit before I hear back, and I was just not communicating it clearly.
4) My head says scum, but my gut is wondering if it's town.
5) I may have over-reached in my case, and now I'm a lot less sure.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Ah...OK.

I hope you won't be offended if I LOL.

I think everyone who's ever played a few games has examples of this. I'm currently in a game (so I can't talk details) where I did similar, hopefully it ends before this one and I'll share my mistake with you.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

If there is someone in my "burgeoning" town bloc I am less sure on, it is UTL.

I'm finding it hard to see motivation one-way or another in her posts.

Aero, why is UTL town? Is it purely on her tone?

[KickAssAndGiggle]

I would like UTL to confirm.

She said:

It is different this game from my last.

I looked at the Newbie games you linked, which were not her last game. I know she mentioned "stupid fight with a Newbie", but Newbie's don't have to start in the Newbie queue.

So at the moment I'm not sure if this is just a case of crossed-wires or if I really need to reconsider/re-check.

Mod: surely prods + replacements are needed again?

Being dealt with. Been having issues loading the site.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Yay, I have content to read that wasn't provided solely by one player.

Ircher:

your slot has made precisely one post with content before disappearing. The one post was horrible. Please get involved.

GreenNope:

your slot is Null to me. Please get involved.

I need some time to consider UTL and YA's content.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

There is so much to comment on, I'm trying hard to find a way without making a wall.

Regarding SIW in post 234

There's been a lot of picking at individual sentences here. What I see here is an earnest Newbie who is a strong town-read.

There's been comments from myself, mhsmith and UTL about how scum "look for easy mislynches". Everything from SIW makes me think she is looking for the "right" lynch.

To any doubters, I say this: playing like this as scum, there is no way she gets through D2/D3. So in the highly unlikely chance that she IS scum, she's an easy catch later in the game because she will have to crystallise her reads. It is inconceivable she could do that as scum without giving herself away when we re-read her D1 play.

tl;dr: she's probably town, if she's scum, she'll be an easy catch on D2/D3.

Regarding Eggman missing SIW off his read-list

I don't like attributing to scum what can easily be put down to Newbiness. That slot is already suspicious IMO, but this does not increase my suspicion.

Reagrding Eggman asking why you don't claim/fakeclaim cop on D1

There's a fairly common piece of meta on this site: "Lynch all liars". For every time that fails. there's 10 times it's sensible. As you are conf!town to you (or should be ), taking a course that gets a conf!town lynched is not a D1 play.

If the claim is real, you just put a bullseye on your head.

So mhsmith is correct: don't claim a PR on D1 unless you are at L-1 and have been given notice that someone intends to hammer you.

Regarding YawningAngel

I kinda like post 282. I like it when someone puts reads that are contrary:

mhsmith0: Posts way too much. Has challenged weak players to justify themselves and posted a lot of stuff that seeks to avoid clear town misplays. Efforts are somewhat hampered by an apparent lack of specific scum-hunting, but he's started now. He sounds like he's eaten the entire wiki, but meta aside I don't find anything dubious in his plays. No clear player allies, and a likely NK target. Not worth lynching for now as we can always challenge him later should he continue to come up with nonspecific advice and he's done plenty to justify his existence on day one.

This is an example: whether or not mhsmith has been good/bad town on D1, I do think he is obv!town. Would be easy for scum to just "play along" and NK mhsmith.

Similar point on his read of SIW too.

There is though his read on me:

KickassAndGiggle: Generally solid input, seems to share my reservations about speculation. Lots of output and willingness to back up what he has to say when challenged. Has advanced theories on scum and stuck to them. Suspicious interplay with UpTooLate, advanced more in her section. Does not appear to have initiated any contact with players, plausible NK target. No plausible lynch motive thus far save for questioning how far under the radar he's flown.

Perhaps he needs to use the Activity Overview link at the bottom right of the thread? I am the second highest poster...hardly flying under the radar.

On the whole, I like the post...but it is simply a read-list. Scumhunting involves asking questions, analysing

motivation

more than just words. I would like this slot to involve itself more. Of the "quieter" slots, YA has been loudest, but now we have replacements we could use more...

Not enough for me to move him into my town-bloc.

On UpTooLate

I'm struggling now UTL, for a number of reasons:

1) I read the game with Karnage/RC etc and found little real difference in your tone (to the point the issue was raised in this thread). As far as I was concerned, the matter was closed. But then you contradict this and say:

It is different this game from my last. My last game, day 1, I decided to try a more aggressive approach, picked a stupid fight with a newbie trying to push him a little since he said he had nothing to contribute, and I think I may have discouraged him a bit. I don't feel great about how I handled that, and I'm using a new approach this time around. So, yes, there is a difference in tone, you can take it for what you'd like.

Followed by a "clarification":

Ok, I'm here. Also, I didn't see which posts you linked earlier, I should probably do that, but that's not the tone I was talking about? I thought you were meaning my overall approach to the game. I'm going to be different in different games based on playerlists, gamestate, etc. Think of me as a mirror. I tend to reflect the personalities I'm dealing with. This game has had more of a "serious" vibe than my last newbie, so my posting has reflected that

Why are you defending a case like that? Are you worried that you sound different? It was marginal if anything as far as I can tell. And one could say that you ARE now having a little bit of a fight with YA and SIW too. So I'm not sure it's even true.

The defence is FAR more suspicious than the original case.

2) Hmmmm... (you can imagine my eyebrow at half mast when I say that):

There's a wagon on Aero? And no, my vote is not leaving you, in fact I'd like you to be lynched with fire by the end of the day.

Post 284:

lynch YA with fire.

wut. How do you "know" anything?

VOTE: SummerInWonderland

(P.s. he wasn't on the right track)

Post 287:

Votes SIW.

Are you really scum-reading SIW? This is how I read what she posted (post 286):

"I was town reading mhsmith and KAAG. mhsmith made a case on KAAG. I didn't like how KAAG defended it at first. Then we realise mhsmith misread 'least town' as 'AT LEAST town'. I now read them both as town but am not sure about mhsmith's reads"

And you misread that so badly you vote her?

After wanting to lynch YA with fire?

Are you postulating a YA/SIW scum team? Or are you just all over the place?

UNVOTE: Ircher
VOTE: UpTooLate

[KickAssAndGiggle]

PPS /ninja'd. I guess there's even more to think about with UTL. As far as the YA post, skimming KAAG post I don't see anything changing my mind on 282's awfulness. The key part is the vote and why. And it just screams insincerity.

My possible scum pool is currently at three people: it can't really hold someone else. If Ircher/Eggman improve, there will be space.

It (post 282) certainly wasn't enough to move him from Null. However, I don't town read the Eggman slot as I believe you still do, so maybe I don't feel so strongly on the vote.

What do you think of the UTL turnaround from post 284 to post 287?

(I'm not cherry picking your post: it's up to YA to answer your questions to him).

[KickAssAndGiggle]

All purely technical:

"bus" is when scum makes a case of scum. From "throws his partner under the bus".

"Wagon" is what you are referring to. The wagon on Eggman. From the word Bandwagon.

"Vote whip" is a very cool term! But "Pressure Vote" is the normal term here. However, I for one would support "Vote whip" taking over!

[KickAssAndGiggle]

SIW is obv!town. So is mhsmith0.

(I am now 100% sure on mhsmith0: he's just spent an entire paragraph calling UTL...UTC. Scum doesn't make mistakes like that...too careful)

Aero, UTL is scumming up the thread. Please tell me why I'm wrong, or my vote is no longer up for grabs. At this moment, I'd lynch her in a heartbeat.

mhsmith0, when you made a case on UTL, I was skeptical. Since you made it, she has become scummier and scummier. Why have you changed your mind when the evidence is getting stronger?!? I don't mind that you think YA is scummier...but you are wavering on the person who says "lynch YA with fire" but then votes SIW three posts later?

{KAAG}
{SummerInWonderland, mhsmith0}
{Aeronaut}
{YawningAngel, GreenNope} -- NULL LINE
{Eggman, Ircher}
{UpTooLate} -- lynch this with a nuke

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Let me put my thoughts on the Ryu/Eggman slot down (and my apologies Eggman but most of this is about Ryu):

25
Defends an RVS vote as a joke. Why? No need.

72
Reiterates his defense of an RVS vote.

81
Practically apologizes for his posting style, uses a little AtE (Appeal to Emotion)

86
More explaining his style, more AtE

90
Admits to not just posting from the head (i.e. constructing his posts). Town can post organically simply by being town.

92
Another apology, this for "messing up" (no reason given really)

Conclusion:

This slot will attract votes. Cases built on voting for this slot are weak. Ryu/Eggman may or may not be scum, but the fact that they attracted votes to L-2 is no surprise to me.

Still, I think Aeronaut's vote on mhsmith0 is odd indeed. I will think on it.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Post 361 is a glowing example of how to catch-up. Kudos to you Ircher.

I kinda agree with your reads, apart from UTL. It's more what happened after mhsmith0's case on her that has hurt my read there. I don't just think her tunnel on SIW is wrong, I think it's opportunistic.

I agree with enough of your catch-up and reads to forget my scum-lean on your predecessor, certainly.

...

However, Aeronaut's vote on mhsmith0 is beyond puzzling...I don't agree with mhs on Eggman either (see post 353), but to think that because he's (arguably) incorrect here, all the other REAMS of towny sounding content from him should be ignored is strange.

Aeronaut says "UTL is 'Town For Today'"...but mhs is scum? This is frankly ridiculous when you compare their postings.

I don't think Aero is scum (although my confidence is shaken), and I don't think he's a fool. I

speculate

that he is white-knighting her because they are friends. It's the only thing I can see that fits these facts:

- Aero is town
- UTL is acting scummily
- Aero says "Town for Today" on UTL
- Aero votes obv!town mhsmith0

Aeronaut, please rebut me here. I want a UTL lynch today at this stage and I need to understand why this should not occur.

...

mhsmith0, I am tempted to move YA up to fence!town, because I like his recent responses, and I have no issue with voting for Eggman. Has anything changed for you on YA or are you still thinking he is scum?

...

{KAAG}
{SummerInWonderland, mhsmith0}
{Aeronaut, YawningAngel}
{Ircher, GreenNope} -- NULL LINE
{Eggman}
{UpTooLate}

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Eggman,

If you are really a VT, you've just hurt town claiming on D1. Instead of looking for PRs in a set of 7, they will be looking in a set of 6.

You'd have been better off requesting replacement if you're not up for the fight.

There will possibly/probably (depending on whether we find scum on D1) come a time when we are in MYLO or LYLO. For newbies:

MYLO = Mislynch And Lose: if town mislynches, we lose, but town could decide to no lynch, which will put us into LYLO after a night kill
LYLO = Lynch Or Lose: we MUST lynch correctly or scum wins

I don't see how we can allow you to get into that situation with that attitude...and because you've claimed VT, if you ARE town, scum won't kill you.

If you won't try, you essentially become a policy lynch, either today or tomorrow. So I do kindly request that you try.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

UTL's date for V/LA is way past the deadline. Of course, she may just have set a random date in the future due to not knowing when she'll be back. I do hope the emergency is nothing too serious UTL. However, from our POV, there's no evidence she'll be back before deadline.

Aeronaut is past the prod deadline for the 3rd time, which is normally a force-replace.

I consider this problematic to the game-state:

- UTL is my top scum-pick, and she is not here to defend herself. At this point, I'm not voting elsewhere. I would

consider

voting Eggman in the last 24 hours before the deadline just to avoid a no-lynch, but I'd urge others to join me on UTL. SIW has summed up a lot of the case on this page, I have made my thoughts clear in post 300.

- Aeronaut's last action was to cast an inexplicable vote on mhsmith0, who in my opinion is obv!town, and has not been back to elaborate or answer questions on it.

Additionally, GreenNope has made one post since replacing, and that post was essentially "Hello". His slot is broadly Null to everyone, due to zero content. Technically he is not quite at the prod deadline, but there is no sign of life.

I'm finding myself getting glued to my reads simply due to lack of content that will change them. What I am going to do is move Aeronaut out of my town-bloc for now because A) his defense of UTL and current vote are "iffy" and B) I suspect I will have someone else to read come tomorrow.

{KAAG}
{SummerInWonderland, mhsmith0}
{YawningAngel}
{Ircher, GreenNope, Aeronaut} -- NULL LINE
{Eggman}
{UpTooLate}

Ideally, I would like the people voting/suspecting YA to make a case that does NOT involve the fact that he is voting for Eggman. Votes there are justifiable and don't make a genuine case.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Every post has an ISO link next to the Post # and date.

Means "Isolation". Shows the posts by just that user.

At the bottom of page is a dropdown labelled

Display posts by user

. If you use that and click the + link, you can ISO two players at once.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Hi Radja, thanks for replacing.

It looks like you've done a thorough catch-up, and therefore you know that I was scum-reading your slot. I have some observations:

1) The fact that mhsmith and myself are town doesn't help my read of your slot, as it's a widely held opinion.

2) One of your points on me:

-analysis of UTL case was great too.

Thank you! But then, I assume you agree your slot has a case to answer?

3) I don't agree at all with this on Aeronaut:

-reaction to the UTL case is good

What reaction do you mean? The bit when his assessment is based on UTL's "tone", or the bit where UTL was "Town for Today"? Or something else? Frankly, I lost my town read on Aero due to his reaction to the UTL case.

4) SIW warrants just two bullet-points to be town I see. You haven't addressed her case on your slot at all. Was SIW wrong or was UTL scummy?

5) HBG was horrible. Ircher's catch-up was beautiful. Not sure why it makes him town though: his reads essentially lined up with the "low-hanging fruit", just like yours do.

6) Regarding YA, I think he's prob!town, mainly due to post 368. That's a town defense if ever I heard one.

7) Can you clarify this:

Ryu Ogami - Eggman

-Ryu's early jump on the YawningAngel wagon looks terrible.
-Eggman claims Aatami "reads towny", but lists him as a scumread
-Asks some questions about game mechanics, but no content

-VT claim looks pretty genuine, but was not necessary at all.

I'm going to vote Eggman here. I'm not at all sold on either of my scumreads, but considering he already claimed VT, it makes more sense to go for him today. I don't really see the point in getting someone else to claim. I think Eggman-YawningAngel are unlikely to be scum together though, because of the way Ryu jumped the YA wagon early-game.

I want to understand this: you think Eggman's VT claim is genuine, but you want to policy-lynch him? Or am I missing something about your vote?

I am trying to be cautious, as Aero was (IMHO) white-knighting UTL so my doubts on him are likely to be fixed by his replace, and GreenNope has given me no data, so my reads are iffy. But...I still kinda scum read you.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

The setup for newbie games is Matrix6, which is listed by mod in one of the early posts. But I'm feeling kind so I'll summarize here:

6 possible setups, A, B, C, 1, 2, 3. Which setup we're in is randomized: neither scum nor town can know exactly which on D1, but scum and town PRs can narrow it down.

A
Town: Jailkeeper, Bulletproof, 5 VTs
Scum: Roleblocker, Goon

B
Town: Cop, 6 VTs
Scum: 2 Goons

C
Town: Doctor, Tracker, 5 VTs
Scum: 2 Goons

1
Town: Jailkeeper, 6VTs
Scum: 2 Goons

2
Town: Doctor, Cop, 5 VTs
Scum: Roleblocker, Goon

3
Town: Bulletproof, Tracker, 5 VTs
Scum: 2 Goons

[KickAssAndGiggle]

The

MAJOR

issue right now is the GreenNope slot.

The time is here where we ought to have a wagon and a counter wagon, as mhsmith0 says in 444 (I might not concur on which two but concept is right).

But we have a slot that is absolutely Null. Even though I think the UTL/Radja slot is quite possibly scum, I don't want to commit while this GreenNope slot is sitting there utterly unclear.

Of the slots we have, I could maybe live with an Egg lynch. I'm not sure he's scum, but I think a flip of either color will help to sort YA + Radja and practically confirm mhsmith if he flips town.

However, settling on a compromise lynch with this big Null sitting there is highly unsatisfying.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Defending a slot is one thing.

Defending a slot and voting for someone else based significantly for their voting for your defended slot...well, maybe you are a scum God but I just don't see it. No disrespect intended. There are much easier ways for scum to get through D1, and saying "I was right about X on D1" on D2 doesn't tend to get as much town-cred as it seems it would, in my experience.

Perhaps "confirm" was too strong: an Egg town flip would solidify you even further as town, if you prefer. And an Egg scum flip would make YA a much stronger town read for me at least and help me to reconsider Radja.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Regarding point 5: what did I see as a scum slip?

[KickAssAndGiggle]

OK, but I didn't call that a scum slip...

[KickAssAndGiggle]

The

MAJOR

issue right now is the GreenNope slot.

The time is here where we ought to have a wagon and a counter wagon, as mhsmith0 says in 444 (I might not concur on which two but concept is right).

But we have a slot that is absolutely Null. Even though I think the UTL/Radja slot is quite possibly scum, I don't want to commit while this GreenNope slot is sitting there utterly unclear.

Of the slots we have, I could maybe live with an Egg lynch. I'm not sure he's scum, but I think a flip of either color will help to sort YA + Radja and practically confirm mhsmith if he flips town.

However, settling on a compromise lynch with this big Null sitting there is highly unsatisfying.

I think lynching a nullslot will not give us any information and if he flips town, we'll have nothing to work with on day 2. You said early in day 1 you liked using your head. If that's true, you should be able to see this.

I didn't say I wanted to lynch the null slot though, did I, I said I wanted it to not BE a null slot before compromising.

You've either misread badly or are deliberately misrepresenting my words. Hopefully it's the former.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

I will hammer before deadline!

Note: i am hyper-active: this will give 24 hours at least.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

I'd so prefer Radja.

But you + YA are not on board.

So...anything better than no lynch.

If mod extends deadline due to Aero or GreenNope -> Shannon replace, my 24-hour intent will be void. To be clear: only if MOD extends, not player request.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Hi Thor,

I didn't notice the extension until you just mentioned it. (Well, you mentioned 3 days...it was 1 day when I last saw.)

Still, that's moot as you LOL'Hammered anyway. Guess we'll see on the flip-side. (I made a funny!)

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Yes, you can talk while thread is still unlocked, even the player getting lynched.

It's called "Twilight".

[KickAssAndGiggle]

So Eggman's a goner, hey? Unless a doctor steps in to save him, or he's bulletproof,

Neither of those save you from a lynch. Only from scum night-kills.

Is it pro- or anti-town to openly try to work out which type of roles are in the game we're playing?

The 6 possible setups are listed in one of the first 2-3 posts in the thread. I wouldn't speculate on D1, for sure. On D2, usually a PR who can prove a guilty will reveal so, but if they can't prove guilty, it's

usually

D3 when it comes out. Note that this is very general guidance and situational.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Um...I literally thought Eggman was hammered. I am an idiot. Yeah, there have been replaces, but that's no excuse. I am officially dumb!

Catching up now.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

OK, just two questions aimed at me, both by Thor:

So with 2 extra days you would have made a push on Radja?

I have tried pushing Radja!

Ircher said:

Fyi, I'm supporting only an Egg or an Aero lynch today.

mhsmith0 has said:

UTL/Radja: Stuff has bugged me here at times (duh). I owe the SIW/UTL fight another read focusing on UTL, but it so far has pinged my gut as a plausible town-town fight. Radja seems willing to actually push and maybe own the Egg wagon; I'm not sold on that one, but the fact that someone is actually willing to stick their neck out and actually own it makes me feel better that it's not just going to be our lazy default day one mislynch. I'm willing to entertain a case against him, but this slot is slowly moving its way up my list.

Aeronaut said:

Here's my take on UTL; she's what I like to call "Town for Today".

YA:

I think Eggman, while arguably a weak lynch, is still our best shot. The case for Radja, while better examined tomorrow, is still more compelling than the case for SIW.

Eggman: inactive.
GreenNope: inactive. Shannon replaced: voted for my joint-strongest town-read due to argument with UTL (now Radja).

Only SIW is with me.

Please appreciate that days have passed with just SIW, mhsmith0 and myself contributing significantly. I'm not pushing and pushing a wagon that is being ignored forever: I'm not a masochist. With less choice tomorrow, it will be easier to push (assuming I live, but if I don't, hopefully town will at least consider my reads).

...

Why - what makes the case on him good when you appeared otherwise okay with just rolling over and lynching Eggman?

SIW has quoted my thoughts, but briefly:

1) Defended why her "tone" sounded different to other Newbie games, including admitting she got into a fight with a Newbie in them and wanted to do "better"
2) Then said "not tone, more style", as if she realised that defending a tone-difference isn't towny
3) Then got into a fight with a Newbie (YA) (see #1)
4) Then got into another fight with a Newbie (SIW) (see #1)
5) Then wants to lynch YA with fire...
6) ...three posts later, misreads, bizarrely, a SIW post and claimed she "scum-slipped" (laughable) and votes SIW
7) "Fakes" a temper tantrum because mhsmith0 suggested to mod that her V/LA time was too long, and replaced
8) Radja's read list just a parrot of the "widely held" positions, including Eggman/YA being bottom. I personally feel YA is town, due to certain "frustrated" responses to mhsmith0 that I read as genuine.

That's my case. It's not rock-solid, but I see no better case on anyone else.

...

I'll now find points to comment on other than questions that came my way.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

YOU ARE AN IDIOT!!

I want a new IC who won't lolhammer people!

Would you like to fake any other emotions as long as I'm here?
Ircher is now also an acceptable lynch in my mind.

Why? That's no case. I've called people idiots before (not in Newbies myself...but it happens) and there's no emotion behind it. Choosing CAPS is just style, not AI.

You've seemed rather logical in most posts, I like it...but not this one. (Note: I don't think you're an idiot! But wrong here.)

Chief suspects right now are Shannon and Thor.

The Thor case - Fake lolhammer, suspicious predecessor (which I summed up earlier), Association with Shannon, and trying to find scum motivation in a reaction to a fake lolhammer.

Shannon - Association with Thor, misrepping me in order to try to get me mislynched

Ircher, I'd like to hear more on this case. Obviously shannon has replaced an utterly null slot. Can you expand that case with quotes, examples etc?

I had Aero @ unclear when he flaked. Early on I felt he was towny, but there was deterioration with his dismissal of points on UTL, and his strange vote on mhsmith0. So far, Thor hasn't helped or hurt my read: still unclear.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Ahh, OK, post 544.

I'd say that I have no evidence either way. I have no particular reason to scum read Ircher, and "fake" would only make sense if he was scum, so right now, I'm Null on it.

Here are my current reads, from the entire thread as I see it (I use the "Ranger" brackets style...I know some moan about it but I like it myself):

{KAAG}
{SummerInWonderland, mhsmith0}
{YawningAngel}
{Ircher, shannon, Thor665, Eggman} -- NULL LINE
{Radja}

I won't pretend I didn't have Eggman lower in my last list, but that was before the "I'm VT, and helpless" post. It's more likely to come from town than scum, but by no means certain, not if scum are two first-timers.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Have you seen scum do this before?

Yes, Newbie 1675.

Would you do it?

No. No surrender as either side! I have a zero prod record! (though this is only 3 months and 5 games, so not that special)

[KickAssAndGiggle]

YA, Ircher, mhsmith0, Thor, Eggman,

Please join the Radja wagon.

The case has been outlined in the following posts:

517, where SIW combines both her and my arguments to that point into one convenient quote wall
566, where I summarize my case in bullet-point form

If not, please acknowledge that you did read the case, and explain which player you'd prefer to lynch and why.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

IF

you flip town I will certainly look at Eggman, as you have made a case on him and have him at the bottom of your read list. To me, that looks like the "low hanging fruit", but I would be inclined to look into any case a confirmed towny makes. I've found over the years that the #1 reason town loses is ignoring the reads of dead townies on the next day, and I make it a habit not to do so.

I'd also check shannon closely, because her vote was on SIW but moved to you, based, it seems, on the same argument between SIW and UTL. One might be inclined to think she had no intention of pushing SIW but voted an obv!town for the cred.

Now,

IF

you flip scum, I would be looking at Thor due to Aero's sustained defense of the slot earlier. I may also reconsider mhsmith0, who started a case on UTL but then backed off just when I thought the case strengthened.

I appreciate you cannot defend UTL, but you replacing does not change the color of your role PM. When you replace, you take the hand you're dealt.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Lowell: made himself look like scum, replaces
UTL: made herself look like scum, replaces

Tada? No two situations are identical, granted, but there is a site-rule about tactical replacing, and there wouldn't be one if it didn't happen. I'm not guaranteeing she did, I'm saying it's one piece of circumstantial evidence to add to the other pieces of circumstantial evidence. By itself, not much, altogether, a pattern emerges. There were 8 points in the case...the case stands perfectly well with the other 7. I would have strongly preferred her NOT to have replaced, because then there's no argument about Radja not being able to defend the case. So if you disagree, fine, let's wipe that one off. I see you are voting Radja so I'm happy as a pig in the proverbial!

I'd say that I have no evidence either way.

It's a value call - the evidence is what he posted, and how he reacted afterwards. Does that look honest or fake to you? It has to look one way or the other, it's like asking whether it is more dark or bright in a room. You have all the information you need because you can see the room (or can't, if it's really dark, I suppose)

I don't see it that way at all. You are right, it's either genuine or fake. He says genuine, you say fake. I am unsure.

It's like a room that's either dark or bright...when I am OUTSIDE the room.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Also:

Radja is at L-1 after Thor's vote.

(At least, I'm 99% sure he is...would be embarrassing to be wrong on vote-counts AGAIN!)

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Lowell made a serious town-read on someone for an RVS comment, got called on it (not just by me) and then left, asking the Mod to give his SE slot to a newbie. And he

WAS

indeed scum.

I will happily debate you on this if you desire, but it seems as if it's a side-track. Will continued debate help you sort me?

Uh-huh...made up points to fake increase a case don't make me happy about a case though.

It's an 8-point case to me, if you call it 7, that's up to you.

None of us are outside the room.

Yes, I am. I'm not sure if his reaction is fake or genuine, and either way, I'm not sure it makes him scummy and I don't think it makes a case. You'd prefer me to lie and say I do?

[KickAssAndGiggle]

I was drawing parallels between 1675 and UTL's replace out. From the last two pages.

One point of my case on UTL was her reaction to you seemed fake, and she was looking for an excuse to replace.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Yes, it would, because as currently stands I feel you're shoveling it with both hands at me, and that makes me think you're scum.

I don't understand your point here.

If you think I was wrong in 1675, that's fine. A quite acceptable POV; in fact, the players in the game were split too. But you only need to read the last page after the win to see I genuinely believed so.

So, you say Ircher was fake, and a viable lynch due to it, I disagree. I say UTL was faking outrage, and used her fake outrage as an excuse to bail, you disagree.

I don't feel these are AI points myself.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Twilight is until Mod locks thread.

Mod will do that as soon as he sees the lynch.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Would have been better to state intent and ask for a claim, for sure.

However, this is a Newbie game: there is no need for any of the following:

Idiot
Jerk
Stupid
Ugly

C'mon, it's a learner's game. Attack the play, not the player.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Alice In Wonderland is my 2nd favorite Disney film behind Sword In The Stone.

Keep those GIFs coming!

[KickAssAndGiggle]

If Radja really is VT, why did so many of us peg him for scum? Did we collectively focus to much on the weirdness of the UTL incarnation? If it *wasn't* based on UTL, what was it? Who was doing the pushing?

Oh no doubt there: SIW and me pushed it originally, however, you did join the wagon willingly too.

Not all scum claim honestly after the lynch, so let's wait until the proof though. You can grill me tomorrow if we're wrong.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

The hammer was a reckless hammer but it wasn't a LOLHammer.

Post 615 is fairly detailed for a hammer post.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

I'm getting the sinking feeling that you are about to flip town...

If you do, I will make a point to investigate your list in that order.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Regarding Vote Analysis:

Very straightforward here.

Hammer fell in #614

SIW (1st), post 239 (Hammer - 375)
KAAG (2nd), post 300 (Hammer - 314)
shannon (3rd), post 582 (Hammer - 32)
Thor (4th), post 593 (Hammer - 21)
YA (5th), post 614 (Hammer - 0)

The absolute first thing to do is either decide or (ideally) prove if YA is lying about not understanding the "standard" twilight mechanic. I have played a couple of games on other sites (Conquer Club forum specifically) with fixed deadlines (i.e. only if someone has majority at a certain time does lynch occur). However, A) that's a rare setup and B) this does not seem to be YA's case: he knew it was a hammer, but he seems to suggest he thought twilight would extend all the way to the deadline:

I don't see a problem with Radja posting his final reads and assessments. If he's town, he'll do it anyway as it still plays to his wincon. If he's scum, I highly doubt there's going to be anything valuable in it. We have two days of twilight to discuss matters.

Ircher posted the following:

Just noticed this:

When a player is hammered, the game enters twilight. Most mods let you post during twilight; however, you should not count on a long twilight period as twilight ends as soon as the mod is able to get back to the thread. Twilight does NOT extend to the deadline.

However, that is not in the "Game Rules" as posted by our Mod in the first 3 posts, nor is it listed in the "Master Rules" that is linked to from those posts. (If I'm wrong, please correct me: I double-checked but can be dumb). What Ircher posted is an accurate description of the rules, but I don't see it listed here. This is YA's first game on site (checked by looking at his Post History in his profile) so we have no evidence that he knew it from elsewhere.

Unless I have missed this rule stated, I don't see that we can prove it. So it comes down to what we believe. And if we believe he's

lying

, this should be a very quick day: he would be 99% confirmed scum. (Town doesn't lie to town)

My thoughts:

It's such a crazy defence, that it's probably not a lie. There's obviously some WIFOM here, but on balance of probabilities, that's my opinion.

I am very interested in hearing the opinion of mhsmith0 and SIW. (Because those 2 were my top town reads on D1): if they both disagree, I will certainly think again.

However, if he's telling the truth, he could still be scum: it means he didn't realise just how suspicious it would look.

(Posting now because I don't want to make this too big of a wall, I have more to add later. Please give opinions on YA's truthfulness in meantime)

[KickAssAndGiggle]

(I'm halfway through a wall post on the voting analysis, because my first attempt got sidetracked into discussing the hammer. But Ircher raises some points I'll respond to first.)

VOTE: KAAG

Let's start here:

What's your thoughts in terms of the kills?

Radja's lynch was highly unfortunate, but I am not going to pretend that I don't stand by the analysis I made on D1. I cannot get my head around UpTooLate's play in the last dozen posts she made as she was a towny. If you look at my read lists as they shift through D1, I had her at fence-town for quite a while, but then she imploded. Radja just didn't do enough to fix it for me.

Now the Thor NK is interesting. There are generic possibilities:

- Thor has 28,000 posts (ish) on this forum. In Mafia, experience is no

guarantee

of skill but there is obvious correlation. Any scum team might have considered him a threat. I don't necessarily buy your "he was very likely going to be today's lynch" argument myself: a dead towny's reads should be respected but I'd have needed to see a lot more scumminess to join the wagon. Let's say I was NK'd instead, or mhsmith0, and you guys HAD lynched Thor (mislynched), you'd be taking Eggman into LYLO, which is worrisome as he barely makes any reads. So I'd have been super cautious myself.

- Thor was scum-hunting without complacency, and openly admitted to not having read the early days. Any town-cred built up was irrelevant to him, meaning mhsmith0, SIW and KAAG (me!) could all have a motive as we were, I suggest, widely town-read. A good scum-hunter gets better as the game goes on as the % of players who are scum left in the game goes up.

- Thor shook up a quiet, lurky game. Inaction benefits scum more than town, and he was making action.


And there are non-generic possibilities. Thor leant scum on you (Ircher) and YA. But you were his preferred lynch:

I've read the Utl case and it primarily consists of SJW/Utl, but there is evid. of Conf. Bias in the case, which weakens it s value. I prefer an Egg lynch, or even possubly a Thor lynch.

You're currently voting Shannon.

Are you scum forgetting your fake pushes, or are you trying to compromise off Shannon for some reason?

Unvote: Yawning Angel
Vote: Radja

Also still good with an Ircher lynch.

hey thor!
I am just wondering why are you voting Radja now?
I put my case out there for you a while ago and KAGG did a bit after that too.
You were questioning others throughout that.
so yea basically why now?

I am voting Radja because I don't scumread Yawning Angels as much and, for some weird reason, there is zero support for the idea of lynching Ircher.

Hopefully it will become clearer which reason is more likely as the day continues.

...

what is your opinion of Radja's final readlist?

Well...it's wrong at the very bottom, we know that now. I was surprised to see you above SIW, more because of how towny I perceived her to be than anything on you. I'm also somewhat surprised at the position of Eggman, because as you'll see when I finish my Vote Count Wall (tm) , he was Radja's top scum pick for a good old while.

If we were looking to start investigating based on the deceased town reads, I'd say we look at:

{YA, Ircher, Shannon, Eggman, SIW}

(In no particular order)

I suspect you will protest, but one issue we have is that Thor did not really provide town reads (which is why mhsmith0 that I feel they are at least as important as scum reads). I think he leant briefly town on shannon in one post and that was it. So the only town reads we have are Radja's.

...

(A warning to town: While Too Townie to be Town is a fallacious argument, one must also know that it is quite possible for scum to become the "town leaders". KAAG seems like a skilled player, and while there's no evidence to back up that's the case here, it's something to be cautious of.)

No argument with the fact at face-value: I've seen people do exactly this. But it is pure WIFOM: if I AM town and I AM skilled (I offer no opinion on that!) then it is in town's best interest. If I AM scum, it wouldn't be, of course. But the act of me doing so tells you nothing.

...

PEDIT

Yes, shannon, you should definitely look at me. However there are some things that I think you do slightly misrepresent:

When I asked how we made such a big mistake he deflected blame by saying 'you joined willingly too', which I thought was weird. Yes, I joined willingly, but I think an appropriate answer would have been that factors A, B, and C convinced him, and a towny thing to do would be to push the rest of us for explanations too.

I presented an 8 point list in the thread, going into full reasoning on my decision. I did not re-post it when replying to you, but it's easy to find: post 565.

I took a look at KAAG's ISO and since 430 it's been a little light on scum hunting. There are lots of posts about game mechanics, and about how he would see other people if certain things happened, or rehashing old stuff (c.f. 448, 565). He has been committed to the Radja vote for ages but I can't see meaningful attempts to find the second scum. Then it's KAAG who in 682 decides to take control of the next scum hunt by saying he will look at Radja's votes in order. Radja's scummiest vote is for Thor, who gets NKed.

Trying to find associates without a flip is a hard and dangerous game. Regarding Radja...I had that sinking feeling he was going to flip town, and dead townies want their reads taken account of. I'm sure you will in this game and any futures games too. I am happy to follow the lead of someone who makes a good case on somebody, I don't have to lead. All you get is grief when you're wrong!!!

KAAG has asked Summer and MH for their reads (706), because he says they're the strongest towns. If this is correct, it means the townies according to KAAG are himself, Summer, MH, Radja (proven VT), Thor (proven VT), Egg (claimed VT) and the scum are some combination of myself, YA, Ircher.

Not Eggman, no. His claim is Null to me. As above, neither Radja nor Thor seemed as blown away by town!SIW as me, so I'm prepared to re-look. Only myself and mhsmith0 are in my personal "clear as glass" category. YMMV.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Sorry shannon, I missed something (in your Ircher spoiler) and it's important:

Thor has never expressed a belief in Ircher as scum (in fact Thor's choices were all popular targets, Radja, Egg, YA), so I'm finding it difficult to believe that Ircher had motivation to NK Thor. Ircher I think is townish.

This is completely the opposite of the truth, isn't it? I quoted the relevant portions above.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

I missed that one! But, no, I don't think he's joking: I can't even understand how you think that? Read the exchange between them from that post on: there's no hint of joke in it!

There are 3 quotes from Thor in my post 718. I feel they are very clear that his preferred lynch is Ircher.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Post 547

It was genuine; I forgot Shannon was on the wagon & switched votes.

And, in your blinding rage that obligated you to immediately call me an idiot - you had no need to, y'know, clarify you were wrong once it was pointed out that it wasn't a hammer?

Nah man, that looks super fake - or weirdly rude.
I'm taking it as fake.
Why do you think it should read as honest? You don't think that looks weird on your part?

Post 552

What are your reads and why?

You scum, for reasons stated.
Ircher, scum, for reasons stated.
Egg town, for reasons stated.
Shannon, slight town, for reasons stated.

When it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...it's a duck. Thor scum read Ircher. I'm now really quite suspicious of you. Radja was too.

FOS: shannon

[KickAssAndGiggle]

It will be if I'm wrong! But for the moment it's just FOS.

Do you still think your statement:

Thor has never expressed a belief in Ircher as scum (in fact Thor's choices were all popular targets, Radja, Egg, YA), so I'm finding it difficult to believe that Ircher had motivation to NK Thor. Ircher I think is townish.

Is an accurate one?

[KickAssAndGiggle]

I'm a Brit, so I understand "taking this piss" as a phrase! (PEDIT: Aha! )

However, it's utterly nonsense. I mean utterly. There is not a single post by Thor that comes across as a joke. Not one.

Thor has never expressed a belief in

Ircher

as scum (in fact Thor's choices were all popular targets, Radja,

Egg

, YA), so I'm finding it difficult to believe that Ircher had motivation to NK Thor. Ircher I think is townish.

What are your reads and why?

You scum, for reasons stated.

Ircher

, scum, for reasons stated.

Egg

town, for reasons stated.
Shannon, slight town, for reasons stated.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

EBWOP: I may understand "taking the piss"...not sure what I meant by "taking this piss" LOL

[KickAssAndGiggle]

With all that said, I don't like KAAG's FoS on shannon in retaliation. Town have very little to fear under pressure, especially if they've been contributing, and KAAG doesn't provide much substance to back this up

At face value, I'd agree here, but I have two votes on me, one from Ircher with no reason given other than "fear the town leader" WIFOM, and one from somebody who though Thor's 7 or 8 posts all suspecting Ircher were all dry, droll and funny. This being the same person who called him a work beginning with "j" that rhymes with "work" on D1.

At first I thought it was just a "I skimmed the thread and didn't see Thor's posts about Ircher" issue...but now I've quoted it all and she still doesn't see it.

So yes, probably wise to allow mhsmith0, Eggman and SIW to weigh in: if they think Thor was joking, at least I can imagine some non-suspicious reason to say "thor didn't scum read Ircher". However, I though Thor was both serious and feisty.

PEdit: indeed. I'm not saying he didn't have some character in his language, but the content was all business.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

EBWOP: This being the same person who called him a

word

beginning with "j" that rhymes with "work" on D1.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

OK YA, just keep your hands off the hammer!

ALSO HI guys!

Every time someone says HI in caps, I pretty much have to say "HI DR NICK". It's a sickness!

[KickAssAndGiggle]

I brought up a couple of times that while the UTL case had the most objective evidence to support it, the way the evidence could also have been interpreted made me felt the case wasn't strong enough for a D1 lynch. Did you ever consider the TvT possibility between UTL and SIW? As far as Radja goes, I can understand why he didn't really change your mind. As far as fence town goes --> Scum, that is true.

(This is the one you meant me to reply to, right?)

When I first voted her, after the:

"Lynch YA with fire"

...three posts later

"Die SIW"

bit, I was not married to the vote. But then, posts:

311, 314, 322, 325, 330

happened. I will summarise:

"SIW is backpedalling!!!"
"SIW is backpedalling!!!"
"SIW is backpedalling!!!"
"SIW is backpedalling!!!"
"SIW IS F****** SCUMMY!!!"

At this point...I became married to it. It's one of those calls you feel great about when you're right and poop about when wrong, especially as it got a replacement who'd caught up mislynched.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

PPS @KAAG: I was also thinking a fuller vote analysis, not just who was on the final wagon. It's unfortunate that this site apparently doesn't have that as some kind of automatic feature.

I'm working on it!!! The England vs Germany game is on, so will be later tonight. I got sidetracked into whether YA was lying about the hammer reason (twilight going on until deadline). Do you have an opinion? If he WAS lying, he's almost certain scum, but if he really thought that twilight went on, it's WIFOM: newb!town vs newb!scum.

(I'll respond to some other posts after the match too)

[KickAssAndGiggle]

shannon,

Please ask me as many direct questions as you desire. The post where you voted me (post 715) contained

none

. It did contain:

1) A statement that Thor did not scum read Ircher. Nobody agrees with you (opinion from Ircher himself is especially telling in this regard)

2) A misrepresentation on my case on UTL/Radja: not only did I accept joint responsibility for the UTL/Radja case, but I posted 8 observations on said case in thread and provided a post link.

3) A misrepresentation that I think Eggman is town. I moved him from scum-lean to Null. My pool of suspicion is 5 players, not 3 as you stated, and this was made clear in post 718

In addition, your further refusal to accept that you are obviously wrong about Thor -> Ircher considering that I gave you the quotes (so "I didn't see it" is no argument) is hugely suspicious.

So if you are "hugely suspicious", why aren't I voting you? Be careful with this question, but if you can find a good answer, you should then know why you are looking in the wrong direction.

...

Eggman

You gotta start posting some reads, man. Don't worry about being wrong: I led the wagon on D1 and was wrong. Don't worry if you think the reasons for your reads are weak, or just "gut" either. Let me show you mine:

{mhsmith0} -- is obv!town
{SummerInWonderland} -- is fence!town, however I respect that dead townies were not as sure as I was
{shannon} -- gut says town because...well, it does
{Ircher, YawningAngel, Eggman} -- UNCLEAR LINE

[KickAssAndGiggle]

This pinged me. Who are you referring to here?

Our more experienced players have been prepared to write off some things as 'noob town', including the VT claim, asking for replacement, and the hammer.

Because I didn't do any of those things. I think Thor did the VT claim. I said UTL asking to replace was more likely scum than town; in fact, that was the entire basis of the argument Thor and I had where the "shovelling" phrase was used! And I was very clear: if YA

is lying

about his reasons for quick-hammering, then he's conf!scum. In fact, I seem to be the only person who has actually made this point.

Everyone seems to be off on a tangent doing their own thing, when the first point of order today ought to be:

I don't see a problem with Radja posting his final reads and assessments. If he's town, he'll do it anyway as it still plays to his wincon. If he's scum, I highly doubt there's going to be anything valuable in it.

We have two days of twilight to discuss matters.

Is this post by YA the truth, or is it a lie? Because if we think it's a lie, then we have a strong candidate for a lynch for today. If we think it's the truth, we carry on hunting.

I said "It's such a crazy defence, that it's probably not a lie.". Lean = TRUTH
mhsmith0 said "At the time, I thought he was lying for sure. I still lean that way, but it's not 100%." Lean = LIE

We don't need YA's opinion (sorry ) but it would be nice to get the other 4 views on this critical fact.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

KAAG, why are you so keen to state that mhsmith is definitely town? I agree that he's been productive, but ultimately there's a strong scum motive to throw a lot out and look like you're leading the town charge as well. The only potential pitfall is having to defend still being alive a couple of days in if one does this, but given that there was no obvious motive for the kill last night, I'm not sure seemingly very pro-town players (I guess that means SIW and mhsmith at this point) really have a case to answer in that regard.

It's a strange question: "why am I keen to town read someone who is obv!town"?

I have a long list of reasons as to why mhsmith0 is firm!town. Has he buddied anybody? Nope. Has he been scum-hunting? Yep. When he's been wrong, has he held his hands up? Yep. Does he sound transparent? Yep. Did Radja have him as his top town-read? Yep. Has he been very cautious about lynches? Yep. Do his reasons for voting when he votes ring "honest"? Yep. Have I seen any scum-motivation in him? Nope.

I mean, are you suggesting we shouldn't narrow down our scum-pool by making town reads?

Do you think, from my POV, anyone is more deserving of a town-read? Great, if so, tell me who and why!

I reluctantly agree with KAAG's point about policy lynching me if you don't believe my claims regarding the hammer. You'd be insane to go into lylo with me alive if you're not pretty sure I'm telling the truth, and I'd rather we got a mislynch on me out of the way now when it doesn't cost us the game.

I would still like to see Eggman dead, but I guess that point has been made by now. Hope you enjoyed the game KAAG, I certainly did

Now, here is the issue: I thought you were "probably" telling the truth, but your last sentence here is puzzling.

The reason I think you were probably telling the truth is that anyone who DID KNOW that twilight is variable and ends as soon as mod closes thread would simply never dream about using that lie...it's so crazy that I kinda have to think you misunderstood. Note: I consider it to be your "fault", I don't think Thor was unclear, but skim-reading the thread is not inherently scummy. I have to ask myself: if you are scum and it was a blatant lie, what the hell was your partner doing?

It seems to me that there is no doubt that everyone else here knew how it works, with the possible exception of Eggman. And yet all D1 you were pretty keen on killing Eggman and now here you are too. I kinda find it hard to believe you two are the scum team.

But...what do you mean when you say "hope you enjoyed the game KAAG?" Are you mocking me because I'm wrong on you and you were lying? Are you confessing? Are you saying I'm scummy and you aren't (even though you want Eggman over me, it seems)? Are you just 'giving up'?

Perhaps you think you've been clear...but I don't get it at all, so if I'm being dumb (always possible ), please enlighten me.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

shannon,

I posted a really rough guide to scum-hunting for SIW in post 153. There is more to it than that, but it's a good start for a first game. I played my first game in 2003, when I was 21, and I was

awful

. Every time I disagreed with someone, they were scum. Over the course of a 4 week game, you'll end up disagreeing with everyone at some point...they can't all be scum!

KAAG if you think I'm wrong and Ircher thinks I'm wrong, then I've completely misunderstood the Thor>Ircher situation. And the UTL/Summer one before it. (And I was unintentionally rude in my assessment of Summer). And probably my reading of KAAG. At risk of sounding like Ryu, I have Aspergers and it's often really difficult for me to grasp people's motivations. I was hoping not to need to mention if during this game but it's started to become obvious that something's up and I'd rather let you know what that is than have you think I'm scummy.

I see, and it's no problem as far as I'm concerned. I would suggest (and 'tis merely a suggestion) that you take every comment at face-value by default. If in doubt ask. "KAAG, when you said 'Radja is scum' in post 111, were you being serious?" A) taking everything at face-value eliminates any chance of WIFOMing yourself (scum are going to try WIFOMing you, you don't want to do it to yourself too!), and B) asking follow-up questions looks towny (a good thing whether you are town or scum).

Of course, that is a little difficult to do after the guy is dead...but it's more advice for next time.

PEdit:

YA's post needs more than a PEdit reply, getting to it.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Regarding enjoying the game, I meant in the sense of "two world wars and one world cup". Sorry if I wasn't clear, I'm in the addled state of mind that can only be achieved by spending an evening at the local 'spoons. You dummy

I'll take this bit first...

LOL. Oops...so I WAS being dumb.

As a die-hard Spurs fan, imagine my delight:

Kane scores
Dier scores
Alli "man-of-the-match"

I was so happy when the 3rd goal went in my neighbours complained.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

YA,

@KAAG I don't think obv!town is a thing. So long as you can engineer a mislynch, doing all this stuff you identify as "towny" is fine for scum. You don't need a buddy if people think you're obv!town, you can safely own your mistakes if that gets you town cred, etc. None of these things win the town the game, they're just conducive to it if everybody does them. But looking like you're doing them as scum is fine too.

This is like deja vu: I've had this conversation with mhsmith0 already.

The best strategy for Town is to identify a town-bloc, that all agree the others are town. Now, admittedly, in a 9-player game, this is harder than say in a 21 person game, because the bloc has to form quite rapidly. It is better for the bloc to form slowly and organically, but there is not the time for that with just 9 slots.

So far as I'm concerned, the only salient information comes from concrete actions. Everything else is potentially just theatre.

So you say our chances of finding scum on D1 (unless they miserably slip up) is no better than rolling a 9-sided dice? I disagree: I know it didn't come off this game, but in 2 of my last 3 completed games, I had at least one scum pegged on D1. How can that be if only concrete actions matter?

The fact of the matter is that there was a mislynch yesterday, and who was and wasn't on the wagon should be what determines one's reads. Notably,

the Eggman wagon was stopped

. So far as I'm concerned, Eggman is scummy as hell and his buddy probably had to pull out all the stops to get Radja lynched instead yesterday.

Nope, what happened is both SIW and KAAG (me) read UTL as scum from an early stage. I would say it was Thor who stopped the wagon, and then KAAG (mainly) drove the wagon on UTL/Radja. KAAG drove the wagon because he was confident in his read. Now, from YOUR point-of-view, that makes ME Eggman's scum buddy, but as I know my PM has a green-font, I know your theory is incorrect.

I know I'm not his scumbuddy and I know Thor wasn't his scumbuddy, so that leaves you, SIW and shannon. I'm equivocal about which one of you three is responsible, but the fact remains we were taken off Eggman and into a mislynch and I think one of the scum was on the mislynch.

OK, so following your logic: Ircher AND mhsmith0 are basically clear to you? You're sure on Eggman, but you think scum was on the wagon: hence Ircher + mhsmith0 are towny. You have a town-bloc!

Have you considered the possibility that NEITHER scum was on the wagon? There was (and always is on D1) at least three town on the wagon. One of the best scum players I've ever seen says "just let town rip itself apart". I've seen with my own two eyes lynches with all-town on them. Have you not?

If you're town, you should see what I'm seeing and believe that one of shannon and SIW is Eggman's scumbuddy. That's what I think the reads position should be. Happily, we don't need to decide which of you, SIW and shannon to lynch toady because Eggman the scummy scummer is still alive.

I refer you to the possibility that no scum was on the wagon. I also refer you to your hammer, which is still up for debate as far as I'm concerned!

VOTE: Eggman

thinking about the fact that he was at L-1 with hammer intent and was somehow saved despite no substantive contribution makes me even surer of his scuminness that I already was.

Is there anything to this case, other than his inactivity (which is sucky but not necessarily scummy) and that he survived D1?

PEdit: if there's something in shannon's post to respond to, I'll do so in my next post.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

I categorically disagree. The best strategy is to accept that anyone is potentially scum and figure out how likely you think that is to be the case for a given person. Some actions (e.g. successfully finding two scum in larger games) make you very likely to be town, but nothing short of being confirmed town by a flipped cop is truly exculpatory. By all means trust SIW and mhsmith more and give their opinions more weight (I do!), but don't ignore the possibility that they're just playing scum very well, especially if later events suggest that. Similarly, don't wholly discount anyone's views, just trust probable scum less.

That's exactly what obv!town and fence!town means...it's not as if I'll have a heart-attack if I'm wrong but you have to narrow it down!

If you will never give someone a strong town-read, you're going to spend a lot of time investigating people for no reason. Of course...on D1 you pretty much tunneled Eggman, until you hammered Radja. So maybe you won't...but you should if you want a "better than 50-50" win rate!

Good luck or bad scum play. The only facts are votes, PR outcomes, and NKs. People who incriminate themselves in other ways are just smurfing up. I accept that human beings are pretty flawed liars and scum might smurf up often, but the fact remains that in an ideal (or rather, perfectly-playing) world scum should give no indicators towards their scuminness save a minimal implication in mislynches (hence my interest in Day 1's wagons).

Noooo. NOOOOOOOOO. You think I just got lucky in Newbie 1675 when I had both scum nailed on D1? Sir...I reject this out-of-hand!

(Seriously...I think almost no serious player would agree you're right here)

My hammer is indeed questionable, but as you've pointed out there ain't shit I can say. You can of course suspect me deeply and treat my views as very low-value information, which might well be the correct play. Obviously, I would prefer that you don't.

I am reserving my right to wait on this situation until later in D2.

If Eggman flips town then I think it's highly probable no scum were on the wagon (why bother and implicate themselves?) but I am very confident (P >= 0.8) that he's scum so I haven't worried about this much. If (when) he flips scum I'm going to assume that his partner made the highest expected-value play and tried to keep him in the game. Obviously my implicit assumption that scum will play towards their win-con at all points is prone to subversion, but it suits me fine if I can engineer scum into doing this. Other, more suspicious, townies will probably call me out if I err too far by assuming this in any case. For now, I think the Eggman case and then the KAAG/SIW/shannon case following it are compelling.

1) You are fine with assuming scum will play to their win-condition: it's a site rule that they do.
2) The Eggman case is, as mhsmith0 says, no better than "policy lynch" level right now.

(Having said that...having town!Eggman in LYLO would be a real problem, UNLESS he comes in and starts contributing...)

No, I think he's just so worthless as a player and looked so likely to cop a lynch yesterday that I find it utterly implausible that he's survived without someone going to bat for him. You pushed Radja pretty hard, so my starting point is you, but I don't think you're much more likely than SIW or shannon to be his benefactor (let's say P ~ 0.4 for you and P ~ 0.3 for the other two).

If we were to lynch Eggman (who was the "easy" lynch D1 and you have pushed on D1 AND started pushing on D2), and he flips town, I will come to understand why UTL said "lynch YA with fire"!

At the moment I am inclined to vote between Yawning Angel and Eggman. I will hold off for now, in the hope that Eggman comes in and towns up the place.

...

Ircher is my "wildcard suspect"

Ircher

Eggman or Yawning Angel? Not asking you to narrow your lynches to just two, but if I had a gun to your head, which would you pick?

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Hello, I am back again! And probably won't pop up again 'till several hours/pages have passed.
First off, who was on the Radja lynch? SiW, KAAG, Shannon, Thor, YA.
After reviewing Shannon's posts, I don't see anything super obviously scummy. I'm leaning town on her.

Eggman's Read List: Thor Was Nightkilled, Oh No Edition

Strong Town: Smith, KAAG, Me

Weak Town: SiW, Shannon, Ircher

Low Neutral: YA

If we had to lynch someone today, I would vote YA, Ircher, or SiW. While Shannon is ranked lower in my mind, she puts a lot of thought into her posting, and I don't think I've seen any big slips. Ircher has an aggressive playstyle and has been a proponent of lynching me, and to be honest I would probably put in an OMGUS against him. I would be most hesitant to vote SiW, because while I do think she's the towniest of the Weak Town slot, others have said their cases against her.
I propose that we lynch me on Day 3, because like others have said I don't believe I'd be reliable enough to take into LYLO.
But for now, I'll VOTE: Ircher.

Hi Eggman,

Thanks for the read-list. I have questions:

1) Do you understand that D3 will be LYLO if we lynch wrong today?

2) Why is YA at the bottom of your list, but your vote is on Ircher? Do you agree that might make mislynching more likely, if we don't vote our lowest read?

3) Why are you town-reading mhsmith0 and myself?

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Apologies for my inactivity today, was in another game that was in LYLO (now finished).

Catching up.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Ah guys, I'm making a wall post and you keep adding to the thread!

Seriously, it's coming.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

When I left this thread, I was torn between YA and Eggman.

My pool of 5:

{SIW, shannon, Ircher, YA, Eggman}

had gone to 3:

SIW drops out because I still feel she is very towny, despite reconsidering after the flips
shannon dropped out because my gut says she is towny. I wish I could articulate on shannon...but it really is just gut.

Which left me 3, and my thoughts were that both YA + Eggman were more likely than Ircher. I was almost certainly going to vote Eggman today, until I saw mhsmith and SIW on Ircher.

So before I even ask "does the Ircher case have legs?", my lynch-pool for today was {Ircher, YA, Eggman}. While looking for associates pre-flip rarely works, I strongly doubt an Eggman/YA team (not because they're both newcomers but becase YA has attacked Eggman consistently)

So POE gives me a prima-facie reason to say maybe. So let's look.

...

"5. Or, how about 1) The Egg lynch basically died cuz of Thor 2) Deadline was quickly approaching and I didn't have a lot to say about Shannon that would make a good case 3) I was 99% certain Radja/Utl was town. So, basically, I wouldn't conclude anything except I absolutely did not support the Radja wagon. Yes, I saw him as scum. But no, I no longer saw him as D1 lynch because of Thor's fake hammer."

Is an an absolute atrocity of a defense, and now I have to dig into if you're a VI or just flagrantly bs'ing. If we were in a non hammer board, my vote would be on you right now. As it is, you need to work HARD to avoid being d2 lynch.

Ps if you were certain utl/rad was town WHY THE HELL didn't you fight hard against it? WHY THE HELL didn't you fight for the egg lynch?

Ircher said on D1:

Eh, the UTL case is decent, but I also see a lot of conf. bias in the case which significantly weakens it. I'd rather anakyze that nextt day phase.

I've read the Utl case and it primarily consists of SJW/Utl, but there is evid. of Conf. Bias in the case, which weakens it s value. I prefer an Egg lynch, or even possubly a Thor lynch.

He did indeed say that he preferred Eggman, but it is obviously hard to accept the 99% value on the UTL/Radja scenario, given the first quote. A "decent" case is not 99% likely to be wrong.

...

Why did Ircher move from Eggman to shannon on D1:

I just quoted a case on Scum Egg yet you ignore it........
VOTE: Shannon

Thor's slight townread and your entrances make me suspicious of both of you.

Chief suspects right now are Shannon and Thor.

The Thor case - Fake lolhammer, suspicious predecessor (which I summed up earlier), Association with Shannon, and trying to find scum motivation in a reaction to a fake lolhammer.

Shannon - Association with Thor, misrepping me in order to try to get me mislynched

Associations pre-flip...Ircher should know better. Misrepping by a Newbie? Not a strong case. I wll quote two opinions on this vote from D1:

I just quoted a case on Scum Egg yet you ignore it........
VOTE: Shannon

Thor's slight townread and your entrances make me suspicious of both of you.

That makes no sense on multiple levels.

@Ircher I am pretty sure my UTL/Radja case is better than both of those
Shannon and thor are not on scum radar right now. A lot about shannons post I dont like- especially her case against me but that just seems extremely mislead.

I agree with Thor/SIW.

...

There is discussion of meta, and some discussion of whether checking his meta is "worth it" when he has no scum games.

The answer, for me, is Yes. You can use it to establish whether he is being "different" here to how he was in a town game.

What it will do is rule out scum-tells that aren't there, but it won't establish his aligment. For what it's worth, I suspect this is how Ircher plays, and I'm not thinking either the general tone of his posts or effort he's putting forth is alignment indicative.

...

YA has defended Ircher. Ircher had this to say on that:

YA's defense of me makes him likely towm. While he could be trying to buddy me, that would really look bad on him later if I were mislynched as my defense tbh is not spectacular (but do note that it is plausible & reasonable). It isn't just a random townread/not scum read either. He has given his jystification for what he has said, and is willing to argue it, even if he is wrong.

I am interested in @Kaag and @Shannon's take. I would like @Egg opinion too.

First, YA defending you like this would be suicide if you're the scum team. At least one of you is probably town.

But my problem is this: while looking for associates pre-flip is tough...do you see an Eggman/YA team?

I suppose you have an advantage as shannon is in your lynch-pool...but she's not in mine, it's {Ircher, YA, Eggman}. And there is my issue: you feature in both likely combinations:

On D1, you moved off Eggman
I appreciate you are voting him now, but at this stage, I'd be bussing him if I were scum too.
YA has been on Eggman consistently, you flip-flopped to Thor/shannon

...

Last point: my "dead" towny theory.

Radja had Thor as his top scum-read. This was wrong. He also had shannon second place scum. I don't agree with that either.

Thor had YA + Ircher, and by the end, preferred Ircher:

I am voting Radja because I don't scumread Yawning Angels as much and, for some weird reason, there is zero support for the idea of lynching Ircher.

(Thor's last read before hammer dropped)

The question is, was Thor's read credible? It was based on his perception of Ircher's response to the "Fake!hammer" being faked anger. When Ircher said it was real, Thor disagreed.

At the time, I was ambivalent: I can't tell if it was fake or real.

My suggestion is that anyone who wants Ircher, goes back and reads post 538 and the 20 - 30 posts following it. If you conclude his anger was faked, you probably have an extra reason, if it WASN'T faked, Ircher gains credibility. Me? Unsure.

...

Conclusion: case is present but only medium strength. A lot of my thoughts are colored somewhat by POE.

However, I do note the fact that Ircher and YA are both voting Eggman. So 2 of my scum bracket are voting the third.

I think either of them could be bussing him...

Making a case on Eggman is tricky: lurking, read list but does not want to vote "most scummy" on the list...what else is there? I've seen scum play like this but it's hard to form a case. Problem is the LYLO situation if we don't get rid.

YA...I thought he was fence!town on D1...it's only really the quick-hammer that hurt it, and if it was really a misunderstanding, it shouldn't really hurt my read.

I would probably vote Ircher, if mhsmith0, SIW and shannon all agree.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

(If I missed key evidence/arguments, let me know, sorry I couldn't keep up with the flow yesterday)

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Um, that post is full of "hmmm..."

1) Why would I have myself in my scum-bracket? At any time I can go into my messages, look at my PM and check the color. The rest of you can have me in your brackets, but I can't (unless I'm color-blind or mad...I'm neither!)

2) Regarding the "saner" choices of SIW + shannon:

My pool of 5:

{SIW, shannon, Ircher, YA, Eggman}

had gone to 3:

SIW drops out because I still feel she is very towny, despite reconsidering after the flips
shannon dropped out because my gut says she is towny. I wish I could articulate on shannon...but it really is just gut.

If I'm wrong, make the case, don't tell ME to make the case! If you think you HAVE made a case, point me to it.

3) Once you make a case on SIW/shannon, I'll consider YA/shannon, YA/SIW. Of course, whether I pick the one you WANT me to is up for question...

It's a three line, one paragraph post...and yet I feel my voting finger getting itchy. I need to think about your motivation for a bit.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Arbitrarily? OK, so who am I wrong about? Which town-read of mine should actually be in the lynch-pool?

shannon?

[KickAssAndGiggle]

If your lynch pool is "everyone but mhsmith0", how on earth do you think you'll make a credible case on someone?

Or are you so convinced by Ircher that he's not in your lynch pool too?

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Eggman,

Are you still happy with your vote on Ircher? Or is YA scummier? If you think he is, don't think he can't be lynched, vote him instead.

Do you think shannon is suspicious? What about SIW? Or me?

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Let me just check the Eggman case:

- He is lurking, barely posting
- When he does post, it's either 1 sentence, or three one line answers to questions
- Didn't post a read list until asked and it was essentially just the "common" positions
- The wagon was derailed on D1, by extension putting those on the UTL/Radja wagon in jeopardy

Correct?

PEdit: shannon, there's no answer he can give that isn't anti-town: if he is cop, he's dead tonight, if not, the pool of possibilities for scum to hit goes down. I didn't read it as a claim or even a crumb myself.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Let me just check the Eggman case:

- He is lurking, barely posting
- When he does post, it's either 1 sentence, or three one line answers to questions
- Didn't post a read list until asked and it was essentially just the "common" positions
- The wagon was derailed on D1, by extension putting those on the UTL/Radja wagon in jeopardy

Correct?

PEdit: shannon, there's no answer he can give that isn't anti-town: if he is cop, he's dead tonight, if not, the pool of possibilities for scum to hit goes down. I didn't read it as a claim or even a crumb myself.

Point four is indeed salient, points 2 and 3 are just restating the fact that he's lurking to my mind. I think lurking is sufficient justification for a lynch on its own.

OK, well I'm not totally sure that 1, 2, 3 are synonyms but it's your case:

1) He is lurking, barely posting
2) The wagon was derailed on D1, by extension putting those on the UTL/Radja wagon in jeopardy

So that's the case?

So on D1, when point 2 did not exist, your case was?

1) He is lurking.

So your case is essentially a policy lynch, right?

(I wish he hadn't just posted a one sentence post on the last page: typing this has taken me 4 minutes, counting getting the quote...

Eggman, you can't find 4 minutes?

)

[KickAssAndGiggle]

The Ircher case does seem somewhat stronger than the Eggman case.

However, a question: what do we do after the claim? Yeah, it's all well and good thinking he'll claim a PR and get either countered or no-countered...but if he claims VT? You following through? Because if he IS VT then it's LYLO and yet a VT claim is worthless for stopping a lynch.

The case needs to be strong enough to follow through unless he claims an un-countered PR... because if you are going to believe a VT claim, all you do is narrow down options for scum to find the PR(s).

I'd prefer grilling him more, myself.

...

I don't like that YA seems keen to lynch Eggman on policy so early. I can tolerate a policy lynch in some situations, but there is enough time to deadline when I'd still prefer us to cajole him into posting more so we can make a real case (of either alignment) on him.

When you combine it with the hammer on D1, I think it's just impatience, but it's unhelpful, IMHO.

Eggman

Please up your activity. You're making this impossible for town, and if you are scum, you're not getting through to endgame like this. No matter what your alignment, this level of inactivity is game-losing.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

I don't want to answer about my post claim intentions before he claims. I don't see the positive from providing that answer. I feel like you should know this, KAAG.

Here's my problem: you are demanding he claim, without even a serious intent-to-hammer.

Is this the same mhsmith0 that said this:

2) Role Claims:

NO ONE ROLE CLAIM AT THIS TIME.

That includes roles that can explicitly confirm scum (cop and tracker). We may need to get a role claim later in the day, but that should NOT be our urgent priority.

So with a full 10 days to go, it's now urgent? Why? Because you've made a case? You are rushing things and yet pretending you aren't by not actually casting a vote...

Other than him claiming a PR that gets countered, what's the good outcome for town? Explain.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

If there is

serious intent

to hammer, then there is less of an issue. I have to admit, I didn't read it as such:

PPS I'm sufficiently nervous about ANOTHER quick hammer to not make the vote official, but I'm feeling pretty strong here. There are two votes on Ircher, and my "vote" on Ircher.

If we have a fourth, then it's time for Ircher to role claim or die.

"Role claim or die". That's not intent to hammer. Intent to hammer = role claim something helpful to town or die. There's no surviving Intent To Hammer other than claiming a PR and not getting countered. If he claims VT and you back off...it just helps scum.

Even with a serious intent, a significant issue here, nothing to do with Ircher or your case, is that the Eggman slot is sitting there, null as null can be (actually rather suspect)...it behooves us to be patient. IMHO.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

My view is:

Ircher should NOT claim

We keep the pressure on Ircher to defend the case.

We cajole Eggman to get involved, or we hope for a replacement.

We take our time.

I will support an Ircher lynch closer to the deadline, if nothing significant changes.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Ircher,

Hopefully your catch-up will address all this, but for me, I'd like to know:

1) Why was the case on UTL/Radja "decent" on D1, but then he was 99% town on D2?

5. Or, how about 1) The Egg lynch basically died cuz of Thor 2) Deadline was quickly approaching and I didn't have a lot to say about Shannon that would make a good case 3)

I was 99% certain Radja/Utl was town.

So, basically, I wouldn't conclude anything except I absolutely did not support the Radja wagon. Yes, I saw him as scum. But no, I no longer saw him as D1 lynch because of Thor's fake hammer.

2) You said to mhsmith0 that you left the wagon because Thor derailed it, but then correct yourself and accept that going from L-1 to L-2 was in fact you. You then defended your switch to Thor/shannon with:

This is a fair point. Okay, so a bit of an expansion on my switch to Shannon : 1) I already thought the wagon was derailed by Thor (yes, tech I did kill it) 2) Shannon's replace in struck me as scummy 3) I was being lazy and didn't feel like making cases. I'm better at reading town and PoEing scum

Can you understand why it looks scummy? In fairness, anyone can defend themselves with "lazy"...

3) Do you feel Thor dying on N1 looks bad? Why do you think he was killed? Do you think, that by being lazy, you could seriously have lynched him today, with his post output?

4) Why did you make a lynch pool with your name in it? Isn't mislynching a confirmed townie bad for town?

PEdit:

OK mhsmith0, thank you. I agree. Ircher, please defend your slot and make a case on your preferred lynch in the timeframe. PEdit2: I think another 48 hours is the fair compromise, so at that point I will agree with mhsmith0.

Eggman

We're getting frantic here...please make your next post either a proper case on somebody, or a series of questions to help you form one. We can't even help you get better when you won't post.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

The Ircher case is stronger than the Eggman case.

I asked YA about his Eggman case, and, I quote:

Let me just check the Eggman case:

- He is lurking, barely posting
- When he does post, it's either 1 sentence, or three one line answers to questions
- Didn't post a read list until asked and it was essentially just the "common" positions
- The wagon was derailed on D1, by extension putting those on the UTL/Radja wagon in jeopardy

Correct?

PEdit: shannon, there's no answer he can give that isn't anti-town: if he is cop, he's dead tonight, if not, the pool of possibilities for scum to hit goes down. I didn't read it as a claim or even a crumb myself.

Point four is indeed salient, points 2 and 3 are just restating the fact that he's lurking to my mind. I think lurking is sufficient justification for a lynch on its own.

OK, well I'm not totally sure that 1, 2, 3 are synonyms but it's your case:

1) He is lurking, barely posting
2) The wagon was derailed on D1, by extension putting those on the UTL/Radja wagon in jeopardy

So that's the case?

So on D1, when point 2 did not exist, your case was?

1) He is lurking.

So your case is essentially a policy lynch, right?

(I wish he hadn't just posted a one sentence post on the last page: typing this has taken me 4 minutes, counting getting the quote...

Eggman, you can't find 4 minutes?

)

I don't believe YA disputes that is his case. (Correct me YA if wrong).

Now, I will policy lynch a lurker if I have to, but it's never a strong case.

PEdit: hi Eggman,

mhsmith0 has made a "proper" case on Ircher:

Post 760 part one
Post 798 part two
Some extras on page 33 of the thread

We don't need that length, but ideally some points that refer back to behaviors or motivations.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Your post Eggman, is a good start. But you should not be in your own lynch pool: you are confirmed town to you, right? Why should we lynch a confirmed town?

I like the questions to Ircher.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

The fact that mhsmith, Shannon, and KAAG underrate policy lynches is not a persuasive argument so far as I'm concerned.

Now, I will policy lynch a lurker if I have to, but it's never a strong case.

Ask me again if no improvement in 4 days: I'd rather give him a chance to get involved.

Your post Eggman, is a good start. But you should not be in your own lynch pool: you are confirmed town to you, right? Why should we lynch a confirmed town?

I like the questions to Ircher.

Have you ever considered actual logical reasons why he may do that?

Including yourself in a lynchpool is not a scumtell. Claiming mafia is not a scumtell. Self voting is not really a scumtell, but it is frowned upon. See the pattern?

In Eggman's case, I'd say I'm 99% certain the answer is inexperience. I am simply trying to help him, I made no comment on his motivation.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

@Ircher:

I didn't...I made it clear I didn't support it at the speed it was going, but at the same time, I do think 48 hours is enough time to make a case/defend.

I will read your quote wall and see if it helps from my POV.

@Eggman:

Two schools of thought here Eggman:

"I haven't been useful, so even though I'm town, I don't oppose being lynched"

"I haven't been very useful, but as I'm town, I will work to not get lynched"

I'd prefer the second, please.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

That's just it, I think that inviting a lynch (for the good of the town, because he hasn't done much) could actually save Egg here. We are all asking for more posts so we can make a good decision, and if we don't get that, I think we might go Ircher anyway.

If we do go for egg and he is scum, mafia haven't lost much (since egg has not done much to pin suspicion on others, and his lynch seems inevitable). Ircher I think would still be a suspect, which works for scum if ircher is town.

Say for example Kaag is scum, a really towny looking player. he can watch egg self destruct, nk someone towny like mh, ircher would still be a good scum suspect D3, and failing that, YA. So although lynching a town would be better for an egg+ scum team this turn, egg's loss is not a huge deal if the other scum is a really towny looking player.

Note: I don't mean to say I suspect kaag, only that if egg is scum and his buddy is town looking, it's not a huge deal for scum if egg gets lynched

On mobile, sorry for typos and formatting

I can see Eggman's partner bussing him, but I doubt that person would feel it is "not a huge deal". The repercussions for scum if we lynch town or scum today is still pretty big: the difference between winning with one further mislynch vs needing two mislynches. That's two sets of votes to get in, two night's to dodge investigation, two sets of arguments to make.

You stated that you would lend your vote to Ircher's lynch. Is he your preferred lynch, or would you prefer Eggman (assuming no further movement from either slot)?

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Shannon, I would say that you should vote for whoever you honestly believe is scum. Letting Egg hang around until LYLO is problematic in a lot of ways, but if you're convinced Ircher is scum (and that Egg is not), then you need to be voting Ircher. If you're pretty undecided (or think they're about equally likely to be scum) then you're probably better off going with the policy lynch of Egg.

I personally lean towards Egg being town who simply isn't doing a great job as opposed to this being an intentional scum strategy (and for the record, if he IS scum, and his scum buddy is either SE, and Egg was pushed into lurking as a scum strategy, I'm going to have words in the post-game with his partner, for what I think are obvious reasons).

At any rate, I DO think that Ircher is scum, and I think that he provided us with a solidly alignment-indicative moment with his D1 shannon vote. So that's where I am, barring a non CC'd role claim or a legitimately convincing defense of his own slot or a legitimately convincing attack of another slot. And there's less than 48 hours to go.

At this stage, no doubt the lynch has to be between {Egg, Ircher}. Not only are they the two wagons but they're cross-voting each other, and nobody is pushing a case on anyone else. If they're

both

alive tomorrow, our chance of winning will be a coin-flip.

Ircher,

I asked you 4 questions in 930. I do not believe you have answered them directly, and I think they are important. Could you? (If you think you have and I've missed the answers, please point them out).

I read your quote wall, and some of the quotes do indeed comprise why there is a case on you. I didn't see anything to make me more or less inclined: case is still valid but not watertight.

Eggman

In your last post, you promised

I'll try to go into more detail and make a case later

28 hours have passed, and there is a 48 hour "intent-to-hammer" on another player, when you are the counter-wagon. A cornerstone of town-play is to lynch the right person, and your apparent inability to dedicate 20 minutes a day to the game is making that hard. Two people are calling you scum, at least one thinks you're "lazy town". I'll be frank: I haven't got a clue on you, and it's annoying at this stage.

I'm sorry to bang on about it, but you are

making

me have to bang on about it.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

9. Readlist at end of D1 by Egg in 697. I will come back to this, but the interesting part i I'm a townread.

10. By 787, Egg provides an updated readlist with me as Weak Town and.... votes me??? - Now, look at #9 again. There is no mention of me by Egg at all between the posts, but I'm suddenly deserving a vote? No, that doesn't cut it for me; when making that drastic of change of read, you need an actual reason, even if it is gut or PoE (neither of which you specify; you simply say Shannon is ranked lower (but interestingly enough have YA on the bottom tier), omgus me, and say I have an aggressive playstyle (not at all, it's analytical)) - Omgus in this case is very weak, weaker imo than gut. And what you said does not seem to match up with what you do. We can also add in the town lose attitude (we should lynch Ircher D2 then me D3 which is a town loss if you are town), we can safely conclude - Very Scum Indicative

This is the issue with hiding stuff in Spoiler Tags: I miss things.

These are both good points. Eggman's content is not only brief and fleeting, it does look opportunistic at times.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

yea that is totally understandable!
but we need to try to find the motive behind actions.
what is the motive? why is the buddy okay with this? and so on.
I think these are important questions to be asking.
we don't have to be looking for a particular scum buddy BUT if he is scum we know he has one.
since you are pushing this case I want to know what you think about it! so possible motive, scumbuddy ect?

My guess for a buddy is in {mhsmith, shannon} tbh.

Mhsmith has the possible assoc. for pushing my lynch which Egg is the counterwagon to. I highly doubt that the scumteam is YA/Egg. And SIW doesn't really fit in all, but I gotta keep an eye there. KAAG I still extremely townread & just don't see scum there.

I know you were just answering a question here, so I read nothing into this, but I still don't know about looking for buddies pre-flip.

One thing I will suggest is that Eggman is the sort of partner I would bus mercilessly as scum, so I'm not discounting anybody, even those who've pushed him hard.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

If you mean in general, then he's 3rd in my lynch pool: {Ircher/Eggman, YA}. He was second, but with the case presented on Ircher that mhsmith0 and yourself seem to agree with (I'm ignoring Eggman's vote as he's the counter-wagon), if one of Eggman/Ircher doesn't go today, this is all going to play out again tomorrow, which will be unproductive.

If you mean as an associate: ANYONE could/would consider bussing Eggman, IMHO. Nobody is excluded.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

YA, if you leap off Ircher and hammer, I will consider that a full-blown scum claim if Ircher flips town. Seriously, it'll be the shortest D3 in history.

I'm counting on, and fully expect, mhsmith0 to honor the original time-frame. By my reckoning there's still 16 hours, in hope of Eggman posting or a good claim.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

EBWOP:

"YA, if you leap off

Eggman

and hammer"

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Of the six other players in the game, 5 have post counts over 100 and the other has 86.

Eggman has 18.

So who knows if he's even looking at the scum topic (if he's scum)? Let alone reading it or interacting. So I exclude nobody.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

You say lynching Ircher is a terrible idea, and yet when I go back through your ISO I see vague statements like:

Thus I'm putting the probability that Ircher is scum at ~0.25 (less a bit for Eggman not being certainly scum, plus a little for the even distribution in that case, I can't be arsed to math it out because I'm not being that precise). Neither you nor mhsmith has made a constructive case that alters my view of that, so that's where my ballparking of the probability sits. I'm not going to sit here and let you lynch one of the people in a four-way tie

(Post 848 for full context)

So you give Ircher a 25% chance of being scum (I'm assuming you think Eggman is > 90%, given the "less a bit" part), when there are FIVE (not four) other players in the tie (excluding yourself and Eggman). Or is someone other than Ircher/you beyond reproach?

Despite the case on Ircher not being watertight, it's far from non-existent. So if you want to prevent this lynch, I would suggest you form an equally strong case on at least one of the following players:

{KAAG, mhsmith0, shannon, SIW}

If you can't/won't, then A) your 25% marker seems odd, and B) yeah...we get you don't like lurkers, but that case is objectively weaker.

However, I am somewhat limited here by the fact that it's not MY intent-to-hammer on the table...but I should be utterly clear that I am not opposed to mhsmith0's position: his case is the strongest on offer, and I've seen weaker cases find scum, many times. The best presented case gets the lynch, and this case on Ircher is the best presented case, IMHO.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Ah, EpicMafia. Epic is to Mafia what a child's tricycle is to a bike.

Everything relies on the PRs, and all the popular setups have PRs for everyone. More luck than skill. Last time I played there, flavor of the month was a 9-player, 3xOracle, 1xGunsmith, 1xLighthouse keeper setup. How much more luck based do you want!

"LOL scum is naked" = often the only comment on D2, am I right?

Forum mafia requires much more effort, but winning is so much more rewarding. However, on a per-day basis, it only takes as much time as, say, 2 typical EM games.

There is no RVS on Epicmafia; as far as I know it's unique to this website.

RVS only applies to the first 4 - 5 pages of D1: Random Voting Stage. There's nothing random about the votes today: it is established that the town consensus is that either Ircher or you are getting lynched today.

I see you are still logged in: hoping for a follow up post.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Oracle = reveals one players role AFTER they (the oracle) dies. Oracle can pick new person each night.

Lighthouse keeper: when dies, all chat next day does not contain user name.

(I assume you know gunsmith)

So trust me, it's luck: oracle picks scum, scum picks oracle, GG D2 town wins. Oracle picks oracle, scum picks oracle, GG D2 scum wins. (Ish)

I mean, there ARE fair setups on EM but hardly anyone plays them.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

I'd be supportive of that, because I was expecting a follow up from Eggman that has not materialized. I have no idea what the strike-through in his post was for.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

How is it a lose situ for town? If you're a PR, at least we force scum to kill you, we can try lynching a scum.

If you're a VT, we know we're not shooting ourselves in the foot. Townies get lynched and still win if town wins.

Refusing to claim when intent to hammer is hanging is anti-town. If you stand by this:

You can hammer me now as I am prob. not going to contrib anymore

Then I don't see why smith need to give you 24 hours. No point waiting for nothing.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Your last read list:

Likely Town

(85%-97% Confidence)
KAAG (95%) - Fair, unbiased, open, and actively participating and being good town. (Vague, but basically it).
Mhsmith (88%) - Similar to KAAG, but I do have a qualm with the initial speed he was advocating my lynch for. Overall, working this game out.

Leaning Town

(60%-84% Confidence)
SIW (80%) - Newb town; with Utl/Radja town, the TvT assoc. strengthens here.
YA (65%) - His defense of me seems natural and not opportunistic. His hammer yesterday seemed to be a newb mistake that is the result of misunderstanding how things work, making it null. More on his def: YA/Ircher was scumteam, then his defense of me would basically be suicide. If it was Egg/YA, he'd get called out for trying to bus Egg and would benefit more from trying to lynch me for the association becomes weaker. So, likely newbtown here who miswords some stuff, etc.

Null

(0% - 30% Confidence; No/Very Weak Read)

Neutral

(31%-59% Confidence; Mixed Read)

Leaning Scum

(60%-75% Confidence)
Shannon (-63%) - PoE amongst other things. Gut says scum, though I haven't looked through the ISO.

Likely Scum

(76%-100% Confidence)
Egg(-82%) - I outline the reasons why in my "The case against lurkers...." spoilered post. Yes, its cuz of lurking, but lurking isn't policy material, it can be scum indicative, so pls don't discount this as an invalid reason.

Still good?

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Well, smith ninja'd me, so I'll leave it to him.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Ircher, I'm giving you the credit that you knew that claiming VT meant your head was going in the noose.

I am surprised smith has given 24 more hours after the claim. Now its been claimed, any action but hammering is good for scum: either Ircher is scum and you let him off, or he's not and the PR pool is reduced.

Going back to matrix6, if you were actually VT that means that {Smith, KAAG, Shannon, SiW} would be the pool for mafiosi and PRs.

What about YA? Why is he not in either pool?

Still, I'm not sure I can go to bed with this unhammered.

I will think and post again in one hour.

(Bold added in PEdit)

PEdit: no, not useless: your death, if you are town, is not useless. Half the 9 player games I've played are won on D3. None of our PRs have claimed. If you're town, we still have a decent chance. Of course, if you're scum, nice try.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

If we lynch you, how does your claim change scum's chances of hitting a PR?

[KickAssAndGiggle]

But that's not happening...it's a question of when.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

If you (YA) hammer it, I will death-tunnel you tomorrow, even if that means Eggman's going to 3-way-LYLO. It may be inevitable but you don't defend his ass and then hammer. Not if you want a better than 1% chance of living tomorrow. If Eggman is your #1 scum, don't even dream of compromising.

I've decided: I will let smith hammer it when he's ready. I bet no information is forthcoming, but I've been wrong before. Let's see.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Would you prefer me to hammer?

I consider it to be your + smith's case: shannon is along for the ride. Myself: I'm struggling to pick between Ircher (case is there) or Eggman (reasonable policy lynch)

Want it over now? You got 30 mins to tell me.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

It's only smith and me not voting: Ircher won't vote himself as either alignment (only if PR has a guilty on him is that sensible) and YA has defended Ircher.

I feel its inevitable, but its not my case. I don't feel like letting smith make a case but not be on the wagon.

I just don't see what else we will get.

PEdit: if I hammer, will you explain tomorrow? Because in my opinion, 'tis risky for no benefit. What if one of the newbies gets cold feet?

PEdit2: I'm on the wine But I know inevitability when I see it!

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Oooh you tease.

It's your hammer: I just hope the extra day is worth it.

(Nice turnaround: I was slowing this lynch down two days ago...but now we have a claim + final reads...)

[KickAssAndGiggle]

My favorite comedy!!!

Black Knight is epic.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Are you looking at my pint?

[KickAssAndGiggle]

I just googled "angry drunk man", seemed the best result.

I worked with a really funny guy at my first "proper job", about 14 years ago now, who noticed that there would always be one obnoxious drunk in every pub who was guaranteed to say both the following in one night:

"Are you looking at my bird?"

"Did you spill my pint?"

He thought it would save him time to just go:

"Are you looking at my pint?"

I laughed my ass off and it's stuck with me ever since!

[KickAssAndGiggle]

VOTE: Ircher

Notes:

1) In terms of letting the deadline slip, there were a few things I was interested in seeing:

A) Would there be any kind of meaningful rescue effort of Ircher?
B) Would YA hammer? And if so, what reasons would he offer?
C) Would Ircher actually say or do anything that might either create a last second town read or (much likelier) implicate his scum-buddy?
D) Would anyone else say or do anything that made a meaningful alignment impact?

Overall, a lot of players have kind of lived in the null space this game (and KAAG's seemingly wishy-washy day 2 has put him back into that group as well), and an extended climax at least had the potential to give us something interesting. Instead it really didn't. Alas.


2) In terms of reads, presuming Ircher is scum (and his lack of interesting posting after it was clear he's doomed only strengthens my read), the only person who I flat-out can't read as his scum-buddy is Summer. HBG was absentee, and Ircher wasn't really all that involved, which means that if Summer was scum-buddy, she was flying solo most of the time, including (IIRC) her fight with UTL. If she was able to look THAT town as newb scum without any help, especially in that moment... then she completely deserves the win. As for the others, I'll re-evaluate on D3.

Quoting this because I need to respond to it in depth tomorrow. But I'll say on thing in response to point 2 now: scum never deserves to win until they've won. If Ircher flips town, I'll be resetting everyone to Null. SIW has been in on the ground-floor of both lynches: if Ircher does flip scum then A-OK but if not, we'd be mad not to at least look.

And again,

Do not vote in LyLo. Scum can take the opportunity to possibly hammer during that time. Vote only at concensus (deadline).

Echoing for truth. Sorry Ircher (I assume you're flipping town now).

[KickAssAndGiggle]

@KAAG Now you understand what I mean to an extent about my mislynch rep.

It sucks getting pushed to claim as a VT because how do you survive it? I'm going to have to be fair to smith/SIW here though: I saw enough in the case to not try and stop it. I'm afraid it was the interaction with Thor and the shannon vote on D1 that made it credible for me.

Now I'm sure you're flipping town, that Eggman post where he put YA bottom but voted you seems horrible.

In case I die tonight, the person I'd most like to see lynched at this point is Eggman. There's surely scum on the D2 wagon, and his vote was yuck.

No point in a full read-list: everyone is Null now other than him.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

I'd need to re-read...one things for sure, we're not going to find many associations with that slot: 1071 posts in this thread and Eggman's made just 23 of them.

Super sketchy opinions:

YA: has pushed him like a beast all game, normally I'd say over-the-top for bussing in a Newbie but who knows what scum topic looks like? Not ruling him out.
SIW: has come across very towny, but hasn't even seemed to consider lynching Eggman at all. Not ruling her out.
You: the same as SIW, although you I think said he looked like "newb town". Not ruling you out.
shannon: also said he's more likely newb town, gave the VT claim as a reason to vote Ircher instead. Not ruling her out.

So...yes, in short, too early.

Ircher, if you're still around, do you still like this post?

yea that is totally understandable!
but we need to try to find the motive behind actions.
what is the motive? why is the buddy okay with this? and so on.
I think these are important questions to be asking.
we don't have to be looking for a particular scum buddy BUT if he is scum we know he has one.
since you are pushing this case I want to know what you think about it! so possible motive, scumbuddy ect?

My guess for a buddy is in {mhsmith, shannon} tbh.

Mhsmith has the possible assoc. for pushing my lynch which Egg is the counterwagon to. I highly doubt that the scumteam is YA/Egg. And SIW doesn't really fit in all, but I gotta keep an eye there. KAAG I still extremely townread & just don't see scum there.

PEdit: aha, thanks Ircher.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

So, role claim in this order:

Egg
Shannon
YA
SIW
mhsmith0
KAAG

Role claims in Ircher's order, as he was conf!town:

Eggman
YA
SIW
mhsmith0
KAAG

Eggman, are you sticking to VT claim? (And yes, you do need to restate it today please, in case you were gambiting)

Do not claim out of order please.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Ahhhh, you three are having a love-in, but at least one of you is a naughty scummer.

34, computer programmer.

I can't wait up any longer, hopefully when I get back tomorrow Eggman will have claimed (in a perfect world all 4 of you will have...hint hint).

Pedit: I re-read everyone's ISO over the weekend, apart from yours smith (because it looked like a novel!) so I already have my thoughts. But I'll wait for Eggman.

PEdit2: Java makes me cry. I hate Java...HATE it. C# for the win!

[KickAssAndGiggle]

I am a VT.

So SummerInWonderland is conf!town.

Egg (VT)
YA (VT)
SIW (Doc)
mhsmith0 (VT)
KAAG (VT)

Objectively possible scum teams:

Eggman + KAAG
Eggman + YA
Eggman + mhsmith0
YA + KAAG
YA + mhsmith0
KAAG + mhsmith0

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Well that changes my perspective!
Now then, we can't have four VTs, so... raise your hand if you're lying?

Scumteams I think are possible

YA + KAAG (this is the one my gut is telling me)
Smith + KAAG (this feels like the 'backup' even if we don't have that- I don't feel as strongly about this team but we should consider that it exists. Is "Too Townie to Be Town" an acceptable argument?)
I really don't feel like the team is YA and Smith.

(Quote modified to remove spoiler)


If KAAG is scum, why didn't scum!KAAG counter claim doctor?


1) On Day 1, Eggman left SIW (doc) off of his read list

2) On Day 2, SIW (doc) didn't show much interest in killing Eggman

3) SIW (doc) has been involved in both mislynches, everyone else just 50%

4) Eggman's posts early today (that he really shouldn't have made as either alignment) had KAAG green and SIW (doc) yellow in the first, but then SIW (doc) is likely VT, smith likely BP and KAAG/YA likely scum team.


If I was scum, I would have counter claimed Doc and used the 4 prongs above to form a strong case for an Eggman/SIW scum-team. But...I claimed my role PM. Because I'm town.

This town has had the habit of doing things "right" but not neccessarily understanding

WHY

they're doing it. So why did we claim in the order that we did (least suspect to most suspect in the eyes of our most recent mislynch)?

So scum couldn't pull this very trick!

Because smith ALSO claimed after SIW, the same applies, but slightly less strongly as there was still me to come. However, if we (smith + KAAG) were a team, we'd have pre-arranged it. The only reason it applies slightly less strongly is because he has to consider that SIW is gambiting and that town!KAAG is actually going to claim doctor. (If KAAG was scum and SIW and smith both claimed Doc, the lynch would be between those two, and scum!KAAG wouldn't go making it three docs! )

There's another point too: if KAAG/YA is the team, why would scum!KAAG have allowed YA to hammer Radja like that on D1? And why would scum!KAAG be the only one who repeatedly pointed out on D2 that if we thought YA was lying, he was conf!scum?

KAAG was scum in Newbie 1864, and lost his partner on D2. KAAG had to slide through 3 mislynches against players like Copper and Dierfire. But in this game, scum!KAAG allowed his partner to quick hammer on D1, and didn't claim doc when it's the right scum move? Is that credible?

...

The scum team is:

90% Eggman/YA
5% Eggman/smith
5% YA/smith

Just using a straightforward POE. Of course this is the advantage of town blocs ( ), I don't think for even a second smith is scum due to D1/D2.

There are losses I can stomach as town and losses that annoy me. Note that you

should

be annoyed at losing: this game started on March 7th and it's now April 4th. Essentially a full month's effort has gone in.

I can stomach losing to smith if he's played an absolute blinder. I won't be "happy" but I'll cope.
I cannot stomach losing to Eggman/YA

The only thing that is up for debate for me is the order in which we lynch them. I prefer Eggman first because A) I suspect Ircher is spectating and it will satisfy him to be proven right, and B) lurking should not be a tactic that allows you to get to the final day to spread WIFOM around.

I am utterly unsurprised by the way that Eggman has YA bottom of his read lists, nor will I be surprised when YA tunnels Eggman. This team cant get a perfect win now, and the only way they even have a 1% chance in the three-way LYLO tomorrow is to go for each other today to salvage enough cred for some WIFOM.

Intention To Lynch: Eggman

...

Spoiler: Addendum - the actual case on Eggman...LOOOONG with quotes

Damn it, I thought Ircher was the better lynch for that day. Sorry!

With that said, I

FoS YawningAngel

.
He's consistently been at the bottom of my reads (if for no better reason than gut), and he was my #2 pick yesterday. Since I started the mislynch, I'm gonna try and get this one right.
Also, I claim VT. I'm gonna do something after this post.

Eggman's Read List: MYLO edition

Smith: Because we all townread you because you seemed the most towny. But, while writing this post, I realized; why are we taking Smith for granted? (Don't lynch him though, I still say YA)
KAAG: I still feel that with his efforts to be the town leader that he's someone I can put my trust in (although mislynch happened.)

SiW: She's been here the entire game and has given a town-like feeling from her posts. From what Shannon said, we might rank her lower because she did that defense thing. IDK, I'm not really sure.

YA: Rivalry! Eh, more like one side poking holes in the other while the other doesn't do anything, but I consider it a rivalry nontheless. I believe he's the scummiest player remaining, and so I FOS him (voting would let the mafiosos hammer real quick, if he wasn't a mafioso).

Eggman:

KAAG is town. Smith is feasible suspect.

17 minutes later

Alright. Here's my thing.

By Matrix6, we can conclude that:
A: there is a Doctor in this game, or
B: there is a BP in this game. Since there has not been a night without an NK in this game, I will conclude that our remaining PR is the Bulletproof. We can also confirm that there's no Hooker.

2 Mafiosos, 1 Tracker, 1 BP/Doc, 3 VTs.
UTL, Ircher, Thor, and I are the VTs. That leaves one VT remaining.

Who among us is most likely to be the BP? I'm gonna say Smith.
He's been a strong town presence since he's came in, and he hasn't been afraid of being NK'ed. Seems to me that's how a BP would play the game, since they have more protection than the rest of us.
That leaves {KAAG, SiW, YA} in the pool of Mafiosi and VT.
My guess is: SiW is the last VT, and the scumteam is YA and KAAG.

SiW has taken this game easier than the rest of us, and I think that her green PM would be the reason why. I mean, that's how I would do it, and thinking inside the other person's head usually works!
KAAG, I'm taking with the Smith thing I said in my last post: just because a player is widely townread, it doesn't mean that you can take it for granted. Shannon said that her readlist was her intuition, but upside-down: if that's the case, she thought he was the scummiest. I don't think it's uncommon for one mafioso to gain trust by the town and/or a leadership position, while the other does their own thing. Plus, it would mean the scumteam is one experienced player and one newbie.
Well, that's my take of it.

Eggman:

smith is BP, KAAG is scum. Also, we get to see that Eggman is NOT newb!scum or newb!town: he knows hooker is Jailkeeper, so he's definitely been around Mafia a while.


Ircher pointed out quite clearly how opportunistic Eggman's reads are on D2:

1. In 13, Ryu asks what happens when 3 different alignments remain. -

Very strange question to ask, especially when the possibility does not exist, but nonetheless, nothing meaningful can be made of it. -

Null Indicative

2. In 25 and 72, Ryu emphasizes the fact that the UTL vote was a joke -

The only way I can say this is scummy is if I knew what prior experience Ryu had concerning forum mafia. Ryu made an RVS vote, yet then proceeds to emphasize it was RVS for strange reaons. If he had prior experience, I could definitely say that is scum indicative due to the fact he is trying to disassociate himself from the hammer. If this is his first time though, then it makes more sense, though then the question arises about emphasizing it twice. That however is answerable, as Ryu later explains he is a poor communicator. If I give Ryu the benefit of the doubt, then that means I can also take the trying to fit in part as null. -

Null-Town Indicative

(Considering the evidence, I don't think he has forum mafia experience, and if that is the case, then everything else about the posts concerning this make perfect sense.)

3. 74 - Ryu also puts an FoS on YA saying it's simply gut -

Except this part. Again, I have to weigh in the poor communicator aspect. Someone needs to remind me what the VC was at the time. If the VC was less than 3, this is

Null-Scum Indicative

; else, it is

Null-Town Indicative

. This one needs to be kept in mind though it tells little by itself.

4. 92, Ryu states he has played EpicMafia as mafioso before -

Whoops, scratch that earlier conclusion (2) and replace that with -

Scum Indicative

as I am sure there is RVS on EpicMafia.

5. Ryu End Result ===> Neutral (-45%)

6. Egg gives read list in 224 -

Nothing alignment indicative here. There are a lot of "effort" reads, but I tend to make such an association a lot too. The only thing weird is the Aero read which is based on Aero being the IC, but I don't think it's a tell in and out of itself. -

Null-Indicative

7. In 275, Egg randomly brings up fake cop and asks why is it frowned upon. -

Another "noise" question that is completely irrelevent to the conversation on hand.... This is a bit of a stretch, but is how I perceive it -

Null-Scum Indicative

8. 371 - Egg does 1) VT claim 2) State he's useless 3) Unvotes YA, his only scumread........ -

This post is by far the worse post this slot has made. The VT claim & useless comment is akin to giving up - bad start. But, the worst part is the unvote of YA, his main and only scumread, with no reason other than "I'm, uh, not feeling it anymore" - Seems VERY opportunistic in nature (isn't this about when the YA wagon began to die?) and the utter lack of confidence he expresses in his unvote makes me think he isn't really committed to it; in fact, this post gives townie points to YA since Egg opportunistically got off the YA wagon with a half reason that isn't even confident! -

Very Scum-Indicative

7. 383 - Egg is asking others about the UTL slot, etc. -

Not sure what to label this as; really, I can go either way. Scum -- Doesn't want to take an active stance & wants to avoid any blame for a possible mislynch. Town -- Confused townie who isn't good at mafia. Oh well, I guess I have to go with -

Null-Indicative

8. More newbie questions in 384 and 429 -

Really hard to tell; genuine, or is it a false newbie facade to try to cover up his lack of content? I haven't really like the amount of effort so far, so I'm leaning toward the latter:

Null-Scum Indicative

9. Readlist at end of D1 by Egg in 697. I will come back to this, but the interesting part i I'm a townread.

10. By 787, Egg provides an updated readlist with me as Weak Town and.... votes me??? -

Now, look at #9 again. There is no mention of me by Egg at all between the posts, but I'm suddenly deserving a vote? No, that doesn't cut it for me; when making that drastic of change of read, you need an actual reason, even if it is gut or PoE (neither of which you specify; you simply say Shannon is ranked lower (but interestingly enough have YA on the bottom tier), omgus me, and say I have an aggressive playstyle (not at all, it's analytical)) - Omgus in this case is very weak, weaker imo than gut. And what you said does not seem to match up with what you do. We can also add in the town lose attitude (we should lynch Ircher D2 then me D3 which is a town loss if you are town), we can safely conclude -

Very Scum Indicative

11. Asks me some decent questions in 935, but now I'm in the bottom rung..... -

This time, Egg is being more consistent with doing what he says, so I must -

Town Indicative

12.

Combine that with the lurking and defeatist attitude and what I perceive as not trying -

Null-Scum Indicative

That still leaves me with a strong scumread on Egg AND, it is a huge improvement over my earlier case and is imo lynchworthy.

(Quote also modified to remove spoiler)

But the absolute kicker is:

Hello, I am back again! And probably won't pop up again 'till several hours/pages have passed.
First off, who was on the Radja lynch? SiW, KAAG, Shannon, Thor, YA.
After reviewing Shannon's posts, I don't see anything super obviously scummy. I'm leaning town on her.

Eggman's Read List: Thor Was Nightkilled, Oh No Edition

Strong Town: Smith, KAAG, Me

Weak Town: SiW, Shannon, Ircher

Low Neutral: YA

If we had to lynch someone today, I would vote YA, Ircher, or SiW. While Shannon is ranked lower in my mind, she puts a lot of thought into her posting, and I don't think I've seen any big slips. Ircher has an aggressive playstyle and has been a proponent of lynching me, and to be honest I would probably put in an OMGUS against him. I would be most hesitant to vote SiW, because while I do think she's the towniest of the Weak Town slot, others have said their cases against her.
I propose that we lynch me on Day 3, because like others have said I don't believe I'd be reliable enough to take into LYLO.
But for now, I'll VOTE: Ircher.

It speaks for itself, this one. YA, his partner, bottom, but votes Ircher.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Because

SIW is conf!town
smith is obv!town
Eggman is obv!scum
I am conf!town to myself

Feel free to put your own % on smith's obv!towniness. Feel free to put your own % on me claiming VT when doc is the only sensible claim if I'm scum. But those are my figures.

Like I said POE (Process of Elimination)

Also:

I'm nulling my Shannon read, so quite frankly, YA, Shannon, or even SIW could be Eggs partner. KAAG & smith might be too, but I find it less likely.

shannon is dead and SIW is confirmed, so Ircher says you are most likely too. And my reading of Ircher over the weekend made me wish we'd listened to him on other matters.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Feel free to put your own % on smith's obv!towniness. Feel free to put your own % on me claiming VT when doc is the only sensible claim if I'm scum. But those are my figures.

You wouldn't claim doc if you thought you'd lose against me- which very well could have happened.

I have a busy day but I will post tonight expanding on this and what has been going on.

Claiming doc is the obvious scum play there vs anyone. I'd have had to back myself to win the argument, certainly, but would have done. Of course, I might have been wrong, but that perfectly plausible possibility (alliteration makes me happy!) wouldn't stop it being the right play.

Wait, why would you counter claim Doc? I see absolutely no benefit in doing so, since you would just be saying "hey, if we lynch a maf kill me next".

EBWOP: I really don't get it. Would we lynch in Doc CC's? Is it just to try and claim town?

If we had two docs in 5-way-LYLO, of course we would lynch between them. You first post is...just silly: it's LYLO! If we lynched wrong, it would be GG scum wins, if we lynched right, only the fake doc's hypothetical partner would be in the 3-way LYLO.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

I can see three reasons why you are asking me to make a case on you better than PoE:

1) You think I am color-blind and cannot read my role PM (or am simply lying)
2) You think I am wrong on mhsmith0
3) You think SIW is not confirmed as doc due to no counter

So my case is that you're wrong, you're wrong and you're wrong. And if you were town, you wouldn't be asking for a case on you to begin with.

How about you make a case on smith? Or even a case on me that isn't OMGUS?

There are two ways to scum-hunt:

1) Find the scum
2) Find the town: what remains is the scum

Option 2 is my preferred method.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

at least one of you and mhsmith is scum

And your reasoning is? Why aren't you scum?

(Take your time...it'll come)

[KickAssAndGiggle]

So trying not to look like scum isn't what scum does?

And saying you hammering Radja makes you look not scum is...an interesting POV.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

How have you furthered our win condition exactly? If you had made a case on Eggman better than "He lurks", maybe he'd have been lynched. But you didn't really want that on D1/D2...NOW you do to give yourself a chance in a 3-way LYLO.

Ircher made it clear: Egg scummiest, KAAG towniest, most likely Egg partner YA (once shannon/SIW ruled out). He made me claim last because otherwise the fake doc/BP (had we had one) claim was a thing.

Even now you're not committing: I say YOU'RE scum, you say "it's either KAAG or smith". Leaving your options open. Trying to avoid being accountable.

PEdit: VT

[KickAssAndGiggle]

I'm "leaving my options open" because I don't have perfect information. Will I pick one at some point? Yeah, I'm gonna have to. Am I gonna do it right now? No, I'm going to try and tell everyone the facts as I see them and hope that we'll make a better decision as a group if we share information efficiently. It would hardly be constructive to pick whichever of you I'm most suspicious of and then issue a hellbent denial of the possibility that the other might be scum, potentially discouraging other people from making what might be a great case on that person.

Your making the mistake of failing to realize that all the evidence is already there, on D1 and D2. You think some grand case is going to materialize on D3 in LYLO? I have re-read (apart from smith on D1) and have seen it.

I made the best case there was to make when it was useful, and it's spectacularly disingenuous to blame me for other people not following through on it. Or are you seriously saying that I could/should have pushed Eggman even harder than I did?

Your case on Eggman wouldn't have got Al Capone lynched...

You're blaming me for my interventions not working out, but the fact that is that I have picked two major stances (Egg = scum and Ircher = town), stuck to them, argued forcefully for them, and been essentially vindicated in them. I don't see how you can spin things out as it being my fault that you (and it was largely you, KAAG) refused to listen to them.

This is patently untrue: I engaged you and encouraged you to make a better case. smith said Eggman was probably bad/lazy/newb town (can't remember exactly which) and both he and SIW just wouldn't look past Ircher. By being the only one who engaged, it becomes "largely me"? Nice try.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

KAAG, can you link me to your most recent two town games, and your most recent two scum games? I plan to skim those to see if I can see some parallels.

@all: ignoring my turbo game (18 min. days), which I don't think is relevant, I have two completed games, one as town, one as scum.

Town: http://www.playdiplomacy.com/forum/view ... 14&t=52035 (scum was Harb and UDC, 3P was Keirador, result was a scum sweep - this was also my very first forum mafia game)
Scum: http://www.mafiauniverse.com/forums/thr ... alad-Mafia (scum was me, Crunkus and Calvary, result was a town win on the very last day)

Feel free to look through those if you think it's helpful. If YA or Egg has off-site completed games for me to look at, I will try and do so.

I can't link you 2 scum games because I've only had one scum game on-site (last time I was scum off-site was years ago):

http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=65304
Note: replaced in late on D1

Town games:

http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=64821
First game on site, was tracker and carried town to glorious victory! Note Calvary was in this game but flaked out

http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=64977
Replaced in D2, town lost to immense scum performance from Viva

[KickAssAndGiggle]

I played in some hosted on forums.heroesofnewerth.com in the 'Forum Games' section under the same nickname, but it was five years ago and I'm having trouble digging them up. Someone who's good with the search utility on there might have better luck.

https://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/arch ... 15636.html
Pretty sure you were scum here (non-normal faction names)

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showt ... -Deception
Scum again

https://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/arch ... 80169.html
3rd party

I'm afraid they are the only 3 I could find, using this in google:

Code: Select all

mafia YawningAngel site:forums.heroesofnewerth.com

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Claiming doc is the obvious scum play there vs anyone. I'd have had to back myself to win the argument, certainly, but would have done. Of course, I might have been wrong, but that perfectly plausible possibility (alliteration makes me happy!) wouldn't stop it being the right play.

okay so back to this point.
so you think it would be in scum's best interest to CC. I don't.
If you are scum you would have to argue against me- why would I know that CC is a good idea? (if I was scum with lurking Eggman) and also I would have to claim doc first before (because of Irchers order) if you were trying to argue that I was scum you would have to work around that I had a 50/50 chance of guessing the role. Scum didn't know whether there was a doc or BP. That seems pretty risky.
Also one of your points against me would be that Eggman forgot me in his reads! I am pretty sure earlier when UTL used that against me you said it wasn't a very strong point. It could be lazy newbieness.

Two VT vs Two scum-VT makes more sense.

I mean I could see it working better if for example YA and you claimed doc because you are far more town read than he is- you could probably have won that but since I am the doc I doubt it was in the best interests for scum to counter claim, especially if its you who is the logical, head over heart player also by your last game we can tell you clearly play a great scum game. People could easily expect a play like that from you idk if they would think I would try to pull something like that off.

You seem to be looking for reasons why I'm wrong, when there are more reasons why I'm right:

1) In every combination with a Tracker, there is another PR: BP or Doc
2) I claimed last, because Ircher said I was towniest (the fact that I was claiming last is crucial here)
3) When I came to claim, it was VT, VT, Doc, VT
4) I town-read you since about page 6, and with no counter claim unless I was Doc, you were obviously truthful
5) If I was scum, I'd have claimed the same PR as you. If you claimed BP, I'd have claimed BP. But you claimed Doc.

Now, obviously I DO think Eggman was just mistaken when he left you off his list. But if I was scum, I'd have lied through my teeth about it!

One fact is certainly true: you may well have out-argued me. But the right play is the right play: scum!KAAG would have made this play, 100% of the time.

To be clear: I don't underestimate you at all. Your incredulity at my saying I would make this play seems to be based on "Nobody would believe newby SIW would fake-claim". But you have told us that you're involved with hiplop, an experienced player on this site. I'm sure he's not assisting directly with this game, but he could be giving you general guidance. Plus...you could just be naturally good. You played doc well (towny but not so aggressive that you scared scum into NK'ing you, only issue is you didn't protect shannon even though you thought she might be PR) so why should we not think you know what you're doing at this stage? No reason. Exactly.

...

I have been highly consistent with my approach: I identify the town, then PoE the scum:

You are confirmed town.
I have read smith as town since three pages after he replaced.
I know I'm town.

There are only 2 players left.

Eggman: twice now has posted a read list, then done the opposite:

D2 - YA bottom, votes Ircher
D3 - KAAG town, SIW Null (before claim), next post KAAG scum, SIW VT

Ircher pointed out this on D2, I quoted it in 1123

YA: won't commit to reads. We're past 1,000 posts, but he can't tell who's more likely scum out of me and smith? Smith said it on D1 (it's a good word and I will be borrowing it): he isn't

ACCOUNTABLE

.

Additionally: Radja's

first

read-list had YA as scum. YA is the lowest who's still alive on Radja's

final

read-list. Thor had YA second to Ircher. Ircher had YA as Eggman's most likely partner (out of living).

...

The case on Eggman is rock-solid if you ask me: smith said he thought Eggman was a PR, well, maybe if he was, that would have given him a reason to play like he did...but he ain't.

Let us not ignore Ircher here: we did on D2 and it cost us.

The case on YA is mainly PoE, but PoE works. It is also based on dead-towny info.

On the offchance that smith is pwning my face here (yes I've given away my gaming heritage here ), we should kill off Eggman and get to 3-way-LYLO. Because you are clear, regrettably you will be NK'd tonight (not in scum's interest to have a clear in 3-way LYLO if they can help it), and then YA/smith/KAAG will have a bun fight. But at least we won't be giving away a perfect game to scum.

Still Intending To Lynch: Eggman

[KickAssAndGiggle]

This is all bluster KAAG. The fact of the matter here is that I'm trying to choose between two seemingly pro-town players without much of a basis for doing so, and uncertainty on my part is a perfectly reasonable response. Neither you nor smith has claimed a PR. Neither you nor smith has done anything outrageously scummy. You've both been on one mislynch wagon but would likely have hammered the other given the chance. The only thing that I have to go on, in fact, is that you're currently trying to pin a donkey-tail on me through egregious bullshit.

Ah, bluster: the word to use when you can't/won't actually engage. Although thank you for admitting I haven't done anything scummy. Y'know, like quick-hammering on D1 and then going "Oh woe is me, I didn't know, bad IC".

If you were being honest in this process, you'd be engaging in the same mental process as I am - realising that you don't have any solid information on smith or me whatsoever and that it's pretty much a toss-up

Ah, so we're back to the old "you can't read town" argument. Garbage.

You're trying to construct some BS case on me so that if this game ends up in 3-way LyLo as it very well may you're still odds-on to win it. What I mean to say is that you're the scummiest scummy scum who ever scummed scummily in scumtown.

Bonus points would have been awarded for Sir Scumly, 4th Earl of Scummington. You gotta get creative.

I've absolutely made myself accountable - I've given very definite thoughts on who I thought the scum team was (earlier Egg + x, now Egg + you) and I've stepped up to the plate when I thought a lynch needed pushing through or stopping (Day 1 hammer on Radja, Day 2 defence of Ircher).

If I'm scum with Egg, what happened to "Neither you nor smith has done anything outrageously scummy"??? OMGUS, right?

Now let's take a look at your record, which as best I can see contains a lot of umming and ahhing and, ironically, a total absence of that accountability you claim to love so much. On Day 1 you took a popular wagon, sat on it, and watched it roll rather than bus your buddy.

Completely untrue, just re-read D1. I joined UTL second, and once Thor entered, it was me who pushed the wagon, well over SIW. Of course it was wrong, but to say I was on a popular wagon and watched it is the sort of nonsense only a scum would say (or someone who hasn't re-read). Either way, you're wrong. Wrong wrong wrong wrong, wrong wrong wrong wrong. (Read that to the tune of Big Ben's chimes)

On Day 2, despite apparently thinking Ircher was the lynch, you sat on the sidelines wringing your hands rahter than getting them dirty. The fact of the matter is that you have said and done very little this game - I grant that you've done a fantastic job of seeming involved, but now that the chips are down would you kindly indicate to the viewers at home what you've actually accomplished this past two days?

What I've accomplished:

Correctly read my PM.
Read SIW as town since early D1
Read smith as town since mid D1
Identified scum-team by PoE
Won the game for town, if they choose to listen to Radja, Thor, Ircher, KAAG

It is fun watching you flailing though. So please keep it up.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

WRT kills:

Thor: scum read YA and Ircher. It wasn't Ircher...

shannon:

I pinned Shannon as cop after she was very suspicious of what she saw as me soft-claiming cop on day 2. Obviously, a tracker can do the same thing as there's no setup with both roles, though this didn't occur to me. I presume that scum figured out the same, thereby explaining her being NK'd yesterday.

We need more sophistication than this?

[KickAssAndGiggle]

I've never played in a game before where people had trouble with that concept.

btw, on a side note, I think you tend to lean towards emphasizing the benefits of getting town reads right, while I tend to mentally emphasize the detriments of getting them wrong. That and after one game where literally no one was town reading each other or giving each other any reason to do so (other than a probably mechanical clear of the scummiest-looking player in the game), I basically have no experience in intuitively knowing how to town read others.

Then again, the whole reason I'm here is to learn. So hopefully I'll start to develop that sense a bit.

I had no need to push this very well-known concept in those games: nobody doubted it.

I'm utterly surprised you think I pushed town-blocs in the scum game I gave you? I was by myself come D2...I had to lynch towny after towny, balls-to-the-wall style, three days running? I also tunneled the cop on D2 . So respectfully, my defense is: you are mistaken. I hard read Aqua/Postie as town, that was strategic. But look at my interactions with chilledtea on D3/D4: you'll see it's not true.

If you haven't looked, I think the scum PT of that game will help guide you (I was verbose even when on my own):

http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=90&t=65305

(I've also tried looking for the superb article by Pirate Mollie on the subject, now she is a TOP player. I struggled but will look again after work).

[KickAssAndGiggle]

This isn't the post I was referring to, but it is the same player making the same point:

@ op - personally i feel like you can have the best reads in the world but they don't mean dick if you are incapable of working worth your townreads. I feel like town wins as a team and loses as a team and I feel like sometimes so many pple lose sight of this cos they wanna be DAH #1 TOP SCUMHUNTER OF ALL TIME.

another important skill that I feel like gets overlooked is differentiating between town flail and scum flail. <---- I feel like this is the most important town skill to have.

on scumhunting tho I guess I can say this: try to engage your scumreads in a way that gets other players to see what YOU see. pple are much more likely to wagon some1 if they feel that they have come to their conclusion on their own.

also the whole purpose of scumhunting is to et pple to reveal what they don't want to. sometimes direct assault doesn't always work (KURIBO BEING THE EXCEPTION) so try other ways like joking, flirting, doing things that disarms them so that they will let down their guard. it makes the game more fun IMO.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

I made a case on Eggman, but A) I put it in a spoiler and B) it was near the bottom of the page.

So, I'm going to...

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Bump this...

[KickAssAndGiggle]

So I can repost out of spoilers to page top.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Damn it, I thought Ircher was the better lynch for that day. Sorry!

With that said, I

FoS YawningAngel

.
He's consistently been at the bottom of my reads (if for no better reason than gut), and he was my #2 pick yesterday. Since I started the mislynch, I'm gonna try and get this one right.
Also, I claim VT. I'm gonna do something after this post.

Eggman's Read List: MYLO edition

Smith: Because we all townread you because you seemed the most towny. But, while writing this post, I realized; why are we taking Smith for granted? (Don't lynch him though, I still say YA)
KAAG: I still feel that with his efforts to be the town leader that he's someone I can put my trust in (although mislynch happened.)

SiW: She's been here the entire game and has given a town-like feeling from her posts. From what Shannon said, we might rank her lower because she did that defense thing. IDK, I'm not really sure.

YA: Rivalry! Eh, more like one side poking holes in the other while the other doesn't do anything, but I consider it a rivalry nontheless. I believe he's the scummiest player remaining, and so I FOS him (voting would let the mafiosos hammer real quick, if he wasn't a mafioso).

Eggman:

KAAG is town. Smith is feasible suspect.

17 minutes later

Alright. Here's my thing.

By Matrix6, we can conclude that:
A: there is a Doctor in this game, or
B: there is a BP in this game. Since there has not been a night without an NK in this game, I will conclude that our remaining PR is the Bulletproof. We can also confirm that there's no Hooker.

2 Mafiosos, 1 Tracker, 1 BP/Doc, 3 VTs.
UTL, Ircher, Thor, and I are the VTs. That leaves one VT remaining.

Who among us is most likely to be the BP? I'm gonna say Smith.
He's been a strong town presence since he's came in, and he hasn't been afraid of being NK'ed. Seems to me that's how a BP would play the game, since they have more protection than the rest of us.
That leaves {KAAG, SiW, YA} in the pool of Mafiosi and VT.
My guess is: SiW is the last VT, and the scumteam is YA and KAAG.

SiW has taken this game easier than the rest of us, and I think that her green PM would be the reason why. I mean, that's how I would do it, and thinking inside the other person's head usually works!
KAAG, I'm taking with the Smith thing I said in my last post: just because a player is widely townread, it doesn't mean that you can take it for granted. Shannon said that her readlist was her intuition, but upside-down: if that's the case, she thought he was the scummiest. I don't think it's uncommon for one mafioso to gain trust by the town and/or a leadership position, while the other does their own thing. Plus, it would mean the scumteam is one experienced player and one newbie.
Well, that's my take of it.

Eggman:

smith is BP, KAAG is scum. Also, we get to see that Eggman is NOT newb!scum or newb!town: he knows hooker is Jailkeeper, so he's definitely been around Mafia a while.


Ircher pointed out quite clearly how opportunistic Eggman's reads are on D2:

1. In 13, Ryu asks what happens when 3 different alignments remain. -

Very strange question to ask, especially when the possibility does not exist, but nonetheless, nothing meaningful can be made of it. -

Null Indicative

2. In 25 and 72, Ryu emphasizes the fact that the UTL vote was a joke -

The only way I can say this is scummy is if I knew what prior experience Ryu had concerning forum mafia. Ryu made an RVS vote, yet then proceeds to emphasize it was RVS for strange reaons. If he had prior experience, I could definitely say that is scum indicative due to the fact he is trying to disassociate himself from the hammer. If this is his first time though, then it makes more sense, though then the question arises about emphasizing it twice. That however is answerable, as Ryu later explains he is a poor communicator. If I give Ryu the benefit of the doubt, then that means I can also take the trying to fit in part as null. -

Null-Town Indicative

(Considering the evidence, I don't think he has forum mafia experience, and if that is the case, then everything else about the posts concerning this make perfect sense.)

3. 74 - Ryu also puts an FoS on YA saying it's simply gut -

Except this part. Again, I have to weigh in the poor communicator aspect. Someone needs to remind me what the VC was at the time. If the VC was less than 3, this is

Null-Scum Indicative

; else, it is

Null-Town Indicative

. This one needs to be kept in mind though it tells little by itself.

4. 92, Ryu states he has played EpicMafia as mafioso before -

Whoops, scratch that earlier conclusion (2) and replace that with -

Scum Indicative

as I am sure there is RVS on EpicMafia.

5. Ryu End Result ===> Neutral (-45%)

6. Egg gives read list in 224 -

Nothing alignment indicative here. There are a lot of "effort" reads, but I tend to make such an association a lot too. The only thing weird is the Aero read which is based on Aero being the IC, but I don't think it's a tell in and out of itself. -

Null-Indicative

7. In 275, Egg randomly brings up fake cop and asks why is it frowned upon. -

Another "noise" question that is completely irrelevent to the conversation on hand.... This is a bit of a stretch, but is how I perceive it -

Null-Scum Indicative

8. 371 - Egg does 1) VT claim 2) State he's useless 3) Unvotes YA, his only scumread........ -

This post is by far the worse post this slot has made. The VT claim & useless comment is akin to giving up - bad start. But, the worst part is the unvote of YA, his main and only scumread, with no reason other than "I'm, uh, not feeling it anymore" - Seems VERY opportunistic in nature (isn't this about when the YA wagon began to die?) and the utter lack of confidence he expresses in his unvote makes me think he isn't really committed to it; in fact, this post gives townie points to YA since Egg opportunistically got off the YA wagon with a half reason that isn't even confident! -

Very Scum-Indicative

7. 383 - Egg is asking others about the UTL slot, etc. -

Not sure what to label this as; really, I can go either way. Scum -- Doesn't want to take an active stance & wants to avoid any blame for a possible mislynch. Town -- Confused townie who isn't good at mafia. Oh well, I guess I have to go with -

Null-Indicative

8. More newbie questions in 384 and 429 -

Really hard to tell; genuine, or is it a false newbie facade to try to cover up his lack of content? I haven't really like the amount of effort so far, so I'm leaning toward the latter:

Null-Scum Indicative

9. Readlist at end of D1 by Egg in 697. I will come back to this, but the interesting part i I'm a townread.

10. By 787, Egg provides an updated readlist with me as Weak Town and.... votes me??? -

Now, look at #9 again. There is no mention of me by Egg at all between the posts, but I'm suddenly deserving a vote? No, that doesn't cut it for me; when making that drastic of change of read, you need an actual reason, even if it is gut or PoE (neither of which you specify; you simply say Shannon is ranked lower (but interestingly enough have YA on the bottom tier), omgus me, and say I have an aggressive playstyle (not at all, it's analytical)) - Omgus in this case is very weak, weaker imo than gut. And what you said does not seem to match up with what you do. We can also add in the town lose attitude (we should lynch Ircher D2 then me D3 which is a town loss if you are town), we can safely conclude -

Very Scum Indicative

11. Asks me some decent questions in 935, but now I'm in the bottom rung..... -

This time, Egg is being more consistent with doing what he says, so I must -

Town Indicative

12.

Combine that with the lurking and defeatist attitude and what I perceive as not trying -

Null-Scum Indicative

That still leaves me with a strong scumread on Egg AND, it is a huge improvement over my earlier case and is imo lynchworthy.

(Quote also modified to remove spoiler)

But the absolute kicker is:

Hello, I am back again! And probably won't pop up again 'till several hours/pages have passed.
First off, who was on the Radja lynch? SiW, KAAG, Shannon, Thor, YA.
After reviewing Shannon's posts, I don't see anything super obviously scummy. I'm leaning town on her.

Eggman's Read List: Thor Was Nightkilled, Oh No Edition

Strong Town: Smith, KAAG, Me

Weak Town: SiW, Shannon, Ircher

Low Neutral: YA

If we had to lynch someone today, I would vote YA, Ircher, or SiW. While Shannon is ranked lower in my mind, she puts a lot of thought into her posting, and I don't think I've seen any big slips. Ircher has an aggressive playstyle and has been a proponent of lynching me, and to be honest I would probably put in an OMGUS against him. I would be most hesitant to vote SiW, because while I do think she's the towniest of the Weak Town slot, others have said their cases against her.
I propose that we lynch me on Day 3, because like others have said I don't believe I'd be reliable enough to take into LYLO.
But for now, I'll VOTE: Ircher.

It speaks for itself, this one. YA, his partner, bottom, but votes Ircher.

...

I'd be happy to listen to opinions on it?

[KickAssAndGiggle]

I am utterly unsurprised by the way that Eggman has YA bottom of his read lists, nor will I be surprised when YA tunnels Eggman.

I believe in you KAAG!

Your opinion is noted.

Discussion stopping in the middle of MYLO is never good! That said, I'm not sure what to say at the moment, so! Please find something!

I don't suspect much new evidence is likely to just appear in LYLO. The time is here to re-read D1/D2 and make your mind up.

Prefered lynch: Eggman
Will lynch: YA

Ready to vote when everyone else is. I feel confident I could vote either and not lose, because neither will get hammered, but will respect the agreement.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Take as long as you need, I'll check in once a day.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

I'm not trying to rush anyone, we have 12 or so days, use as much as you need. I'll check in to answer if there are questions for me.

I re-read over the weekend. When I re-read Ircher on D2, knowing Thor vs Ircher was TvT, Ircher made perfect sense. Which is why I'm ready nice and quick.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

If you can win this today YA by getting ANYONE lynched except Eggman/you after you bussed him all D1/D2, I will seriously respect your scum skills.

I'm curious as to how you think you will do this with a case that so far is OMGUS. I made over 100 posts on D1/D2, go make a case. Your case making skills on Egg on D2 were D minus: must try harder, but perhaps you've improved? Not that I think you really wanted an Egg lynch then.

And, for the record, you want to aim these posts at smith/SIW. No point arguing with those you read as scum now is there?

Feel free to read Ircher too. I'll happily provide a few more choice quotes if it will help?

[KickAssAndGiggle]

You used a lotta words to make a feeble case.

I'll split it into 4 broad sections for ease of reading:


1) KAAG was defensive early.

Rebuttal: Nope. Swing and a miss. You are also using a tactic I have used in the past, referring to posts and not putting in {post} tags, meaning everyone has to trawl back to disprove you. I approve, but it's scummy. Don't kid a kidder.


2) KAAG town-reading SIW is buddying

Rebuttal: I remember you saying:

So far as I'm concerned, the only salient information comes from concrete actions. Everything else is potentially just theatre.

Which is, of course, nonsense. I challenge you to find one person with 5+ games on this site to agree with you.

In YA's world, a solid town-read on a solid-town player is Buddying. So, as SIW town reads smith, in your eyes she is buddying him? Honestly, this is all that needs to be said on this "point".

Also interesting here, in light of that quote from D2, is this read-list from YA on D1: post 282. Found some "non-concrete" reasons there didn't you? One of us is consistent, one of us changes their opinion to suit.


3) KAAG voting UTL was opportunistic and done to save Eggman

Rebuttal: Garbage. I invite a re-read of posts 280 to post 350 to anyone who agrees for a second.

And this is from the read-list linked to above:

She's been supportive of Aeronaut beyond the lengths I'd be willing to go to to defend a town player, even one as strongly town-reading as aeronaut. She's also later put emphasis on how she shouldn't be relied upon to scum hunt, which just screams scum to me, trying to head off a frequent accusation in advance. Finally, turned pretty hard on SIW at the end of the read.Some minor towncred for questioning me effectively, but overall this is a strong scumread for me. She's had interactions with people, some of which seemed one sided and some of them not, but which all have the apparent overall goal of building trust in UpTooLate as a person. Given the lack of serious scumhunting, UpTooLate gets a major lynch motive and low NK chance from me. As an additional plus, lynching UTL would give us valuable insights into the people she's chosen to try and buddy up to.

So not THAT opportunistic then...only now, am I right?


4) KAAG's post telling Eggman not to claim and how he'd be a policy lynch makes him my partner.

Rebuttal: LOOOOOOOOOOOOL. Read at face value, it simply doesn't support your case. You have to read that thinking KAAG is scum to think it has weight, so how can it prop up that hypothesis?

...

Now a few general points that don't fit neatly:

In #83 we see him not yet commit to any reads, even loose ones. This is a trend.

A trend? How about

IN THE VERY NEXT POST I MAKE???

LOLWUT!!!111!!11!omgeleventyeleven11!!!

Thus, the only scum in this pool is Eggman, whom we know KAAG will later choose to ignore in favour of an Ircher lynch.

Oh really?

When I left this thread, I was torn between YA and Eggman.

My pool of 5:

{SIW, shannon, Ircher, YA, Eggman}

had gone to 3:

SIW drops out because I still feel she is very towny, despite reconsidering after the flips
shannon dropped out because my gut says she is towny. I wish I could articulate on shannon...but it really is just gut.

Which left me 3, and my thoughts were that both YA + Eggman were more likely than Ircher. I was almost certainly going to vote Eggman today, until I saw mhsmith and SIW on Ircher.[/b]

Kthxbye.

the emperor is in fact Lord Scummy Scummington Esq., First Baron Scumly, Duke of the Scum

At last you got creative! Shame you hid it in the middle of a fake case though. I guess that pulls you up from an F: detention, to an E minus: see me.

Although I'm done typing for now, I also ask mhsmith and SIW to weigh very seriously KAAG's PoE argument for me being scum, which I find deeply flawed, and his claim that my case against Eggman is a "D-", and to judge them both in light of that. If you still aren't convinced but think there might be something to this, I'll analyse his D2 later.

What is flawed about saying "5 players - 3 town = 2 scum"?

Am I wrong on SIW? Am I wrong on smith? No? Well...tada?

...

I'll make a "real" case on you later. Well, actually, Ircher will, mainly.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Also, I don't like KAAG's overly sarcastic tone in this latest post of his
Gut feeling

YA's a fellow Brit, he can take it. In all seriousness...what I posted ain't nothing compared to what happens out of Newbies. I am preparing you!

Who do you think the scum-team is Eggman?

I think its Eggman + YA, is that a reasonable theory?

YA

1) Nope, not doing that either, just to you. Your "loads of examples" is interesting: I'd suggest that not one of your posts cited is an example.

2) Your case is weak, but you've found the scum. So you used PoE. Interesting. We'll get to that.

3) I committed, you flip-flopped. I'm sure in your head that makes you townier...hang on!

4) Nope, to read that post as scummy you would need to already feel I was scum, and therefore I repeat: the post does not support the hypothesis.

Two further points:

I literally gave post numbers, it's not as if I was trying to obscure anything. I'm not an expert on how this forum works, I didn't know of that feature.

You surely read my ISO though to make the case. Did I not explain how to do this for smith just a few posts before I explained ISO to you?

Finally, and for the last time, You can only make the PoE argument if you can prove to us that you are town. Do that and I'll vote myself and save you the trouble, 'cos it ain't gonna happen.

Because your case is so weak, PoE is all you have on me. The difference is I call a duck a duck, you pretend it's a swan.

PS: I came on to apologise, I don't have time tonight to compile a YA case, but will tomorrow.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Just briefly YA:

Also, I don't like KAAG's overly sarcastic tone in this latest post of his
Gut feeling

Is Eggman bussing me here?

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Well at least you left the door open for yourself I guess.

I don't consider myself scummy at all, but even if someone was to disagree, the idea that KAAG/Egg scumteam would say "oh yeah, 3-way LYLO should be Eggman/YA/smith" is pretty inconceivable, right?

As a side note to all, if you consider my increased aggression on D3 as anything but town, you are mistaken. The maths is not on our side now: 40% chance of hitting scum today, 33% chance tomorrow at pure odds, and we need to hit both with no mistakes. This game has gone on for a full month. So damn right I'm more aggressive: I'm not investing a full month to watch us chuck away a win because:

1) We ignore Radja/Thor/Ircher, who all had YA lowest of all currently living players
2) We accept cases from YA that state facts and then cite posts that in no way support them
3) We allow the lurkiest scum ever to get to the final day, so he can WIFOM his way out because he hasn't posted enough to make a watertight case (although my case on him @ pagetop is hardly bad)

[KickAssAndGiggle]

EBWOP: SIW is clear, so it's 50% today, 33% tomorrow, oops. Still mathematically unfavorable.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Clearly we just disagree on 2. Are you northern, by any chance?

Hemel Hempstead born and bred.

So, nope.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Anyway, unless you convince me that mhsmith is scum I'm hardly going to believe anything but KAAG/Eggman the dream.

Isn't PoE great?

[KickAssAndGiggle]

1) Eggman is nailed on scum, case made (actually restated) on previous page-top. Because there is PoE involved on YA, he is fractionally more likely town than Eggman, with negative correlation to my doubt on you. I put my doubt on you at about 10%, so I'd say I'm 90% sure on YA. In Mafia terms, 90/10 is not something I'm prepared to WIFOM myself over.


2) None. What plausible signs of teamplay have you seen from Eggman, period? He posts short, fractured opinions and barely engages anyone. Only 4 of his posts even have a quote. He's not engaging with town or scum, because he's not engaging with anyone.


3) First, made a concerted attempt to slow the Ircher wagon. Not an attempt that involved making one-line plaintive posts like "Is there anything I can do to convince you" like YA: I called you out for rushing it, because intent-to-vote is just as strong as a vote, especially after shannon voted and said she'd be AFK for a few days. I could have supported it wholeheartedly as scum, because everyone who's a town-read would have been equally wrong. I don't see why I'd have risked an argument if scum. Evidence:

Spoiler: Evidence

I don't want to answer about my post claim intentions before he claims. I don't see the positive from providing that answer. I feel like you should know this, KAAG.

Here's my problem: you are demanding he claim, without even a serious intent-to-hammer.

Is this the same mhsmith0 that said this:

2) Role Claims:

NO ONE ROLE CLAIM AT THIS TIME.

That includes roles that can explicitly confirm scum (cop and tracker). We may need to get a role claim later in the day, but that should NOT be our urgent priority.

So with a full 10 days to go, it's now urgent? Why? Because you've made a case? You are rushing things and yet pretending you aren't by not actually casting a vote...

Other than him claiming a PR that gets countered, what's the good outcome for town? Explain.

Right now I have intent to hammer. wrt how I would respond to a claim of VT or PR, I am choosing NOT to draw him a roadmap as to what the best course of action for him to take if he's scum is.

That doesn't mean he needs to claim right this second. 24 hours is fine.

PS After one quick hammer in this game, I'm being cautious about a second. I feel like the reasons for this are obvious.

As far as "You are rushing things and yet pretending you aren't by not actually casting a vote.." I'd like you to explain that one a bit more, because I'm struggling to see where you're trying to go with it. I think Ircher is scum, I see no good reason to stand around doing nothing for the next week, and yet I'm cautious about giving someone an easy opportunity to hammer. You may well disagree with how I'm approaching this, but I fail to see an inherent contradiction.

Edit: oh, I (think I) see your point. I'm "rushing" because I see him as scum. As far as role claims go, that's clearly meant for the general board; I wanted to make sure that people NOT under heavy suspicion didn't feel the need to claim ahead of time. Obviously people under heavy suspicion are different.

If there is

serious intent

to hammer, then there is less of an issue. I have to admit, I didn't read it as such:

PPS I'm sufficiently nervous about ANOTHER quick hammer to not make the vote official, but I'm feeling pretty strong here. There are two votes on Ircher, and my "vote" on Ircher.

If we have a fourth, then it's time for Ircher to role claim or die.

"Role claim or die". That's not intent to hammer. Intent to hammer = role claim something helpful to town or die. There's no surviving Intent To Hammer other than claiming a PR and not getting countered. If he claims VT and you back off...it just helps scum.

Even with a serious intent, a significant issue here, nothing to do with Ircher or your case, is that the Eggman slot is sitting there, null as null can be (actually rather suspect)...it behooves us to be patient. IMHO.

My view is:

Ircher should NOT claim

We keep the pressure on Ircher to defend the case.

We cajole Eggman to get involved, or we hope for a replacement.

We take our time.

I will support an Ircher lynch closer to the deadline, if nothing significant changes.

Second, I got to claim last, and I claimed VT. I gave you the link to my last scum PT, and you'd have seen me preparing my fake claim. SIW is right: scum!KAAG might not have won the battle, but it's the battle scum!KAAG would have fought. I feel very strongly that Ircher wanted me to claim last for a good reason, because he knew I was town, and nobody dissented from following his order.

Third, I am not reconsidering my town reads just due to LYLO. My case on YA hinges on you being town.

(Again, if you read my scum game I posted, check out D4. D1: Dierfire is obv!town. D2: Dierfire is obv!town. D3: Dierfire is obv!town. D4: OMG I'VE BEEN SO STUPID DIERFIRE IS OBV!SCUM!!! And...won.)

Fourth, I could have cruised through D1/D2 as scum on a quarter of the posts I made. Effort is not alignment indicative...but at the same time, scum!KAAG clearly made a ton of unneccessary work for himself. There is WIFOM here...I hesitate to even add it as a reason, but I will.


4) I will refer you to 2 + 3 here. On the whole, it is hard to place anyone in a team with Eggman. I do note that YA bussed him, and yet, especially on D2, he bussed him without a case. At no point in YA's ISO do I see a concerted effort to lynch ANYONE. I was wrong on UTL/Radja but I at least committed.

...

You essentially are asking us to defend rather than attack, which is fine. I will add one more point though: I have consistently town read you from D1. YA has been reluctant to commit to any reads that weren't based on "concrete actions", until D3 when in his words:

You've picked up on something else I said earlier, which is that I don't value non-concrete evidence.

Frankly, you're right.

However, since I happen to be in a minority of one in this opinion, and because my knowledge of who the scum are (being able to see my own role PM) isn't verifiable for everyone else, I've had to descend from my ivory tower and wade into the melee. While I don't think that mhsmith and SIW can do much better than tossing a coin between us in this scenario, I happen to know that

if I don't convince them you're scum then I don't win the game

, so that's exactly what I'm gonna do.

He changes his mind when it suits him. It suits him to make an OMGUS case on me. And that suits him because SIW (the clear) reads you as town. He thinks SIW is more likely to vote me today than you, so his die is cast. Both Eggman and YA have changed their tunes today (Eggman had me as town and you suspicious, until 17 minutes later when he realized that wouldn't wash.) And the wording of his final sentence is interesting: I don't win the game. Not TOWN doesn't win the game. Not WE don't win the game. He chose I.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Thanks for letting us know. Could you see your way to answering smith's questions first.

I'm not sure if it's utterly neccessary, but usually people put it in bold: "Mod: V/LA til Saturday" so mod knows not to replace. (V/LA = Vacation/Limited Access)

[KickAssAndGiggle]

mafioso!YA tunneling me from the very start (bussing?) would probably not be a very good move for Mafia, since they would be left with just YA (meaning this wouldn't be MYLO).
(About the Also, I forgot I hadn't posted this post before. Sorry. I'm very tired.)

Bussing works best when done early and done hard: Mafia 101.

Bussing also works best when the tunneling occurs without much of a case.

Facts are correct (YA tunneled you, for sure), but the conclusion though is wrong. The whole point of bussing is to get town-cred: you don't get cred without a flip.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

@KAAG: Do you think that YA was seriously trying to get Egg killed for town cred, or just parking a case on his slot?

No, he wasn't trying to get him killed. He was vote #2 on Eggman on D1, and I suggest that YA's contribution to Radja/Ircher pushing Eggman to L-1 was zilch.

On D2, I pushed him for a case, and all I got is:

1) He lurks
2) The UTL/Radja wagon pushers are suspect by extension (which isn't even a case and Ircher/shannon derailed the wagon: Ircher wasn't even voting Radja by days end)

I mean, he's CALLING it bussing now, but that don't make it so. I was merely pointing out that Eggman's defense against an Eggman/YA team is anti-theory.

PEdit: there's

practically guaranteed at least one scum

in {YA/Eggman} after that. Totally rules out a KAAG/smith team. (YA can see we're both on to quickhammer, so unless he accepts game throwing, that team is confirmed clear)

It's a shame Eggman isn't about, we could ask him to cross-vote: if he refuses it's a scum-claim, if he does, we could decide who first at leisure.

I find the timing of the vote very suspect: Eggman is on recently (which is quite rare), then the vote comes in. Scum thread discussion?

[KickAssAndGiggle]

I really have no idea.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

That said, I don't wanna die! So, I'm putting up this vote.

AtE

Not really, I just react badly to having my integrity questioned.

AtE

Appealing to emotion is the last act of a desperate man.

("I don't care if it's the third act of Henry The V, we're leaving!" - Blazing Saddles)

[KickAssAndGiggle]

I appreciate that was @Smith, but from pure theory, cross-voting here is sensible, so yes:

IF YOU ARE TOWN, YA voting you but you not getting hammered after both Smith/KAAG have logged in (SIW = clear) proves to you 100% that YA is scum. If your PM is green, you are now voting for conf!scum. Voting conf!scum when you're town is never bad.

IF YOU ARE SCUM, failing to cross-vote should make town suspect you are trying to make it hard for us to pick the 3-way LYLO tomorrow. Refusing to cross-vote on a request from the clear (SIW) would be essentially a scum claim (a towny would defy the only clear in LYLO why?), which would give the (hypothetical) Eggman/YA team away. You've pre-empted the request.


Essentially and objectively:

At least one of Eggman/YA is scum
It could be just one, or it could be both


Smith/KAAG no longer a possible scum team, so objectively left is:

KAAG/YA
KAAG/Eggman
Smith/YA
Smith/Eggman
YA/Eggman


(I hope you appreciate how objective I was above! )

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Currently Smith is still my strongest town read. so I am heavily looking at KAGG, Egg, YA and the combos of those people. BUT smith isn't ruled out.

SIW is the "King Maker" here, as she is confirmed clear. Smith and I have info on her she doesn't have on us (that she is definitely town). So she is the one who can't use PoE to narrow it down. Not only that but she won't be in the 3-way because as a clear, it's obviously unfavorable for scum to have her in LYLO. Unless she wants to vote me, I will vote as she chooses.

We have nothing to do here until SIW returns. (Unless you want to hear some terrible jokes? What do you call a one-eyed dinosaur? Doyouthinkhesawus. What do you call a one-eyed dinosaur's dog? Doyouthinkhesawus Rex.)

[KickAssAndGiggle]

No worries, your exams are clearly a higher priority than a forum game. Good luck with them!

[KickAssAndGiggle]

I am composing a rebuttal, because Eggman/YA won't do it for me! Give me another 20 minutes.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

(Numbered list matches smith's in post 1233, I'll address YA/Eggman after. On the plus side, I now know you (smith) are town, and that YA/Eggman is the scum team. You'd have just gone along with me on whichever wasn't your partner.)

Regrettably, as we have a better chance of winning if we don't lynch me (i.e. we won't just lose instantly), I will have to point out the lack of strength in every point you've made (because unfortunately there is...in every one). It is not meant to be personal.


1) I don't consider any of these points meaningful. Reading people on D1 due to the comments they make and language they use is absolute standard meta here. And

me attacking UTL wasn't to buddy SIW: it was to attack UTL

, who was scumming the thread up. She (UTL) could have made that case against you and I'd have voted her for it. In fact, it was FAR more her choosing to defend her tone difference which I found ridiculously defensive, and the rapid flip-flopping between YA/SIW . And Summer was obviously dripping with towny goodness...so town!reading her is scummy why?

On the whole, I consider the entirety of point 1 irrelevant to a scum case. I find it surprising that any of the linked posts make up a case. Defending it a any harder than that seems meaningless.


2)

Egg was nowhere near dying:

You were voting Aero/Thor, and refused to vote Eggman point-blank
SIW/KAAG were on Radja/UTL and clearly not budging
Aeronaut/Thor was on you and town-reading Egg
Egg was hardly going to lynch himself.

Radja was on him for reasons that you yourself said were "policy lynch"
YA was saying "Oh he's scum" but that isn't a push by any definition
shannon was only on him because her predecessor was
Ircher pushed him to L-1, but announced a 24 hour wait

shannon voted SIW 5 hours later.

So, no. Eggman was

NOT

that close to dying, that is a false impression. Although it would have been better if he had...

There's a lot of words in point 2...but other than this, it's total WIFOM (was YA pissy at day end, or was it an act about his scum buddy?) and theory talk about trackers. Again, I can't defend it because there is little to defend: it's just not really a case.


3) Thor refused to look at my point, and called it BS.

My point was that I had seen tactical replacing before, and I pointed him to the game.

I told him it was on the last page. On the last page, I said "I tracked pignash because Lowell replaced". In the thread, I was more detailed. And at no point did Thor call me scum: he postulated YA/Ircher. He also postulated shannon as town. As I remember, everyone else was Null. Every towny died with me as a town-read (3) or null (1). Fact.

On the whole, do you think point 3 adds to or subtracts from your case overall? I consider it to be the worst part: you actively discard strong data that doesn't fit your hypothesis, which means you formed your hypothesis before collecting the data. It feels like trying to be the scum-hunter rather than winning with your team. And it's going to end badly.

Edit after reading SIW's post:

This (Thor and my argument about whether scum can be caught based on tactical replacing) seems to be a major point of contention, so I will link the thread myself:

http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=64821

And here are some posts I feel support that I was right and Thor was lazy:

http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 2#p7533212
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 0#p7536120

(By the way, that is post 70, and I already have the scum team nailed! Just saying.)

http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 0#p7542900
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 5#p7572745
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 2#p7588932
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 1#p7621541


4) Meta-diving. Oh. Open 623 was White Flag and I replaced in on D2, against some of the toughest players on the site: Titus, RadiantCowbells (Viva is his alt), Karnage, Cerberus. Comparing that to a newbie game where all 4 players left with me are in their first on-site game is exactly why meta-diving needs to be done with care. Yes, my "default" position is to consider them to be more experienced, and able to fake it. No, in Newbie games, I tend not to.

Is that not completely sensible? Why not?

And as to the scum game (N1684)...if you squint, you can always find similarities. Have you ALSO looked at the swathe of differences? I feel you didn't start with an open-mind and just confirmation biased yourself into this conclusion.


5) Thor entered the game and said "I'm not re-reading". By day's end, he was scum reading YA/Ircher. Any and all towny behaviour before he entered meant nothing to him, and he was an "aggressive questioner" type of player, so I can see why any scum team would want him gone. And YA is right about one thing: shannon softed Cop/Tracker. Twice. I suspect scum-team must have been 100% sure it was either Goon/Goon/Cop (so no protection) or that YOU (smith) were BP (I thought you were on D1, but you don't discuss PRs as town).

There is objectively nothing here that supports a case on me over YA/Eggman. He was scum-reading YA: I suspect YA said "It's Thor" and Eggman said "OK" (because there's only one boss of that team...)


6) It's not just about me though: scum!KAAG has a partner. This is a play with the following characteristics:

6-1) A 50/50 between scum!KAAG and a genuine clear, in LYLO. You say we would prob lynch KAAG over SIW: both Ircher and Eggman had me higher on their lists, YA didn't give reads other than Eggman scum, smith town. You might have SIW higher, but that's nothing by itself. If the scum team is YA/KAAG, all I need is Eggman, if its KAAG/Eggman, all I need is YA. YA's case on me is OMGUS: at day's start, who knows? In Eggman's first read list, I was higher than SIW.

6-2) If I'm scum, I have a partner, and me claiming doc gives them a nice easy day. No discussion. I can self-hammer even. So in the 3-way LYLO, my partner has an easier time.

6-3) The critical part here is that it is SITUATIONAL. I HAVE to be claiming last to make it work (I was) and I have to have players who town-read me higher than the real doc (it looks like I did).

So, no, it's not dumb. It *may* not be the "only" play, but it's what I'd have done. I pointed you to the scum topic in 1684...did you not see me planning the same play there? It's not like I knew at the time I'd be defending this case is it?


7) You have a case of selective reading going on.

Ahhhh, you three are having a love-in, but at least one of you is a naughty scummer.

34, computer programmer.

I can't wait up any longer, hopefully when I get back tomorrow Eggman will have claimed (in a perfect world all 4 of you will have...hint hint).

Pedit: I re-read everyone's ISO over the weekend, apart from yours smith (because it looked like a novel!) so I already have my thoughts. But I'll wait for Eggman.

(Bold added)

I've already done what you did (OK I skimmed your D1, but I read the rest). So my reads are based on a re-read just like yours. But my case on Eggman stacks up, and is made from quotes, with short statements.


You haven't said this, but I will: this feels a bit like shannon's "could there really be two newbie scum" case. Trust me, the random number generator didn't care at all when it handed out the roles.

And it's exactly why it was a poor choice to bring Eggman into LYLO: it's much easier to make a case on someone who has posted more. More to pick on. More niggles. I mean, point 1 is all about niggles.

On Eggman/YA

Was Eggman even voting at the end of D1? No. Did YA hammer? Yes. A lynch with only one scum on the wagon, great. But it's crude: everyone should have been voting but Eggman was not. He claims VT: a VT's only weapon is their vote. He chose not to use his "only" weapon? Or did he have another weapon (his night-kill)?

And yes, I wasn't voting at the end of D2, but I was about to after asking Ircher for his final reads and getting them. Only smith saying:

Ircher, I'll give you the 24 hours you requested, although at this point it's mainly just an extended twilight due to the possibility that you might be town having a terrible game, since given your VT claim, unless you have a HELL of a case on someone else, the lynch isn't moving.

Stopped me:

Well, smith ninja'd me, so I'll leave it to him.

That post started life as the hammer!

Of course, Eggman DID vote on D1:

Alright, so here are my first feelings.
Smith - I've got a gut feeling that he's town. I trust him.
YA - like someone said before, it looks like he isn't very much talking about this game as opposed to mafia games overall? Leaning mafioso.
Aeronaut - IC. As a leader role I feel inclined to believe that he's town, even though I know he might not be. He puts in a lot of work.
UTL - Seems like she wants to help out the newbies? Leaning town.

I'll also add that wall after wall like this can be daunting to some people (both new and old players), and that's not going to help to get the others involved.

Also this.
KAAG - He, too, puts in a lot of work. Also leaning town.
Aatami - I want to see more of you. Your posts read towny but you haven't been around for a bit?
Heybox - Hey! Why haven't you been around more? I really don't have that much to look at.

Smith, Aeronaut, Eggman

UTL, KAAG

Aatami

YA, Heybox

Going off of this, I'm gonna VOTE: YawningAngel.

Then...4 posts later:

UNVOTE: YawningAngel
I'm, uh, not feeling it any more.

Although I will note that it seems to me he's getting more aggresive with every post.

I admit that I'm useless. Sorry, Ryu, hope I didn't let you down.
I haven't been scumhunting because I honestly don't have any reads.
I'm a Vanilla Townie, which may have been some logic to why I haven't been putting in the effort.
I'm not gonna vote for myself, as that's the first rule of Towniness, so somebody vote me I guess. I'm sorry. I don't want to swap out and put anyone else in this situation, whether they're new to Mafia or super experienced.

You know how I read the bit I bolded? Trouble in the scum-thread.


Has Eggman posted read lists where he had YA bottom but voted Ircher? Yes:

Hello, I am back again! And probably won't pop up again 'till several hours/pages have passed.
First off, who was on the Radja lynch? SiW, KAAG, Shannon, Thor, YA.
After reviewing Shannon's posts, I don't see anything super obviously scummy. I'm leaning town on her.

Eggman's Read List: Thor Was Nightkilled, Oh No Edition

Strong Town: Smith, KAAG, Me

Weak Town: SiW, Shannon, Ircher

Low Neutral: YA

If we had to lynch someone today, I would vote YA, Ircher, or SiW. While Shannon is ranked lower in my mind, she puts a lot of thought into her posting, and I don't think I've seen any big slips. Ircher has an aggressive playstyle and has been a proponent of lynching me, and to be honest I would probably put in an OMGUS against him. I would be most hesitant to vote SiW, because while I do think she's the towniest of the Weak Town slot, others have said their cases against her.
I propose that we lynch me on Day 3, because like others have said I don't believe I'd be reliable enough to take into LYLO.
But for now, I'll VOTE: Ircher.

Following on from his D1 activity...this is highly suspect.


Did Eggman change his reads in the space of 2 posts today? Yep:

Damn it, I thought Ircher was the better lynch for that day. Sorry!

With that said, I

FoS YawningAngel

.
He's consistently been at the bottom of my reads (if for no better reason than gut), and he was my #2 pick yesterday. Since I started the mislynch, I'm gonna try and get this one right.
Also, I claim VT. I'm gonna do something after this post.

Eggman's Read List: MYLO edition

Smith: Because we all townread you because you seemed the most towny. But, while writing this post, I realized; why are we taking Smith for granted? (Don't lynch him though, I still say YA)
KAAG: I still feel that with his efforts to be the town leader that he's someone I can put my trust in (although mislynch happened.)

SiW: She's been here the entire game and has given a town-like feeling from her posts. From what Shannon said, we might rank her lower because she did that defense thing. IDK, I'm not really sure.

YA: Rivalry! Eh, more like one side poking holes in the other while the other doesn't do anything, but I consider it a rivalry nontheless. I believe he's the scummiest player remaining, and so I FOS him (voting would let the mafiosos hammer real quick, if he wasn't a mafioso).

(And I ask, does his comment on YA read as genuine to you?)

Alright. Here's my thing.

By Matrix6, we can conclude that:
A: there is a Doctor in this game, or
B: there is a BP in this game. Since there has not been a night without an NK in this game, I will conclude that our remaining PR is the Bulletproof. We can also confirm that there's no Hooker.

2 Mafiosos, 1 Tracker, 1 BP/Doc, 3 VTs.
UTL, Ircher, Thor, and I are the VTs. That leaves one VT remaining.

Who among us is most likely to be the BP? I'm gonna say Smith.
He's been a strong town presence since he's came in, and he hasn't been afraid of being NK'ed. Seems to me that's how a BP would play the game, since they have more protection than the rest of us.
That leaves {KAAG, SiW, YA} in the pool of Mafiosi and VT.
My guess is: SiW is the last VT, and the scumteam is YA and KAAG.

SiW has taken this game easier than the rest of us, and I think that her green PM would be the reason why. I mean, that's how I would do it, and thinking inside the other person's head usually works!
KAAG, I'm taking with the Smith thing I said in my last post: just because a player is widely townread, it doesn't mean that you can take it for granted. Shannon said that her readlist was her intuition, but upside-down: if that's the case, she thought he was the scummiest. I don't think it's uncommon for one mafioso to gain trust by the town and/or a leadership position, while the other does their own thing. Plus, it would mean the scumteam is one experienced player and one newbie.
Well, that's my take of it.

Did YA really try and stop the Ircher lynch on D2? Nope:

Is there anything I can say to convince you a) of my good intentions or b) that lynching Ircher is a terrible idea?

I don't see how we're profiting by this. If we're going to do it, get on with it

If you feel that strongly about it, hammer and own the decision. If you don't feel that strongly about it, wait until my deadline is up. Cheer-leading someone else to do something you yourself don't want to do and be held accountable for is poor form.

I don't want to do it because it's a bad idea, and I'm not going to hammer a lynch I don't in any way favour just to save time. I just find this slightly excruciating to watch

I don't think I missed anything. Hardly the sort of defense someone who *really* wanted Eggman lynched would mount.


Was Eggman really close to dying D1? Nope. So there was no real risk to bussing: it's not as if YA didn't leap off exactly when it suited him!

Do we know what is going on in the scum-topic? I've seen scumteams fall out due to activity issues before (not onsite though ).

Did Eggman miss SIW off a D1 read-list? Yes. Could it be a newb mistake? Maybe.

Did he ALSO miss YA off a D2 read-list?

I've tried to put together a case, but I'm not sure what to say or what to quote that hasn't been quoted by someone else already. So, here's some stuff I don't think anyone has harped on yet.

Also it takes me a while to write this stuff because I'm not good at it

I actually do a lot of wagon hopping for fairly small reasons... It's just something I do, I temd to vote the one who has mostly recently and consistently given me scumvibes.

This feels like a fishy excuse to try and get out of the heat of that question in particular.

Hence my warning earlier, but that warning is more relevent tomorrow; we should be lynching in the following pool today:

{Shannon, Ircher, Egg, YA} in no particular order. Doubting our townreads isn't going to help us at all for today.

794, this was right before SiW voted Ircher. Why do you have yourself in your own lynch pool? Do you think you're scummy? Are you the mafia? Were you subtly encouraging SiW, Smith, and KAAG?

Fine, I claim VT.

Its lose cuz if I don't get lynched, scum aren't nking me & will prob. be able to deduce who's the pr at this point.

...You do know, VT claims are pretty much worthless 'cuz both mafiosi can claim the exact same thing

(says the guy whose only defense was claiming VT... let's move off of that)

.Going back to matrix6,

if you were actually VT that means that {Smith, KAAG, Shannon, SiW} would be the pool for mafiosi and PRs.

To do it once, maybe a mistake. To do it twice? These lists are FAKE. I called him on it but he did not reply:

Going back to matrix6, if you were actually VT that means that {Smith, KAAG, Shannon, SiW} would be the pool for mafiosi and PRs.

What about YA? Why is he not in either pool?

Then there's the odd strike-throughs (multiple), the appeals to emotion (usually scum), the "oh I'm such a newbie (but I know what a hooker is...and I play on EpicMafia)" stuff. Stuff that you kinda know isn't enough on its own, but just sprinkle it on top like chocolate flakes!

It is harder to make a case on Eggman than KAAG (if you reach ) due to him making it hard, but read what I've put: a HIGHER percentage of his actions are scummy. There's less content in TOTAL but so much more actual scum. It's hard to find any town motivation at all frankly.


Finally, let me address why they are voting each other. Simple. Because I am being

ACCOUNTABLE

and not changing my mind on smith. Why wouldn't I muddy the water and say "I nulled my town-reads and here's why <insert_spurious_reasons> smith is scum"? Again, I only need ONE person if I have a scum-partner to agree, I wouldn't need smith/SIW if I could get YA/Eggman. But I haven't done so, because I am NOT scum, and I re-read and found smith is clearly town.

I have refused to consider smith as anything but town, despite him not being clear. SIW is clear, and she is ALSO being

ACCOUNTABLE

and not changing her mind on smith.

It leaves them nowhere to hide. They either have to convince you that I am scum (although it seems you came to that conclusion yourselves ) or vote each other and hope for credit in the 3-way.


This is the longest post I have ever made on a forum, ever! That's how serious I am about us winning this.

[KickAssAndGiggle]

Prodge

[KickAssAndGiggle]

All my rage.

Oh no I'm still here! But on vacation, which is why I haven't spoken as much.

The 24 hour Prod timer expired before this post, which is nothing more than a prod dodge.

Eggman is being replaced.

Writing was on the wall there. Maybe his replacement can save you YA...