Open 468: The Cannibals of Aifam - Game Over

[penguin_alien]

Hi all (and hi Buckwild!); I've gotten through reading the thread, and to address what others have asked of my slot: Always Mafia in #106 asking what SoraAdvent meant in #90: as far as I can tell he was trying to interpret njoseph's #49 and mixing up names? I don't know why SoraAdvent got all tetchy about putting someone at L-1; the only reasonable motivation I can think of is if he thought that someone would quickhammer, which seems less than problematic, as I think most people learn in newbie games not to quickhammer if you don't want to paste a giant 'LYNCH ME NOW' sign on your forehead.

That being said, as much as some of njoseph's postings give me a headache, I'm getting a town vibe from him. Same with Buckwild despite his oversharing in negating njoseph's target value if that was njoseph's intention.

theaceofspades started reading scummy to me from his first post, where he voted someone for being annoying. At post #107, which means he should have had more to go on than that. Plus it seems like a copout to put down a vote for VI reasons. Then he has no opinions other than two unsubstantiated town reads and (presumably) his vote as a scum read? And then he says he doesn't like to lynch town but will when they're a liability? What on earth is he thinking here that can be justified from a townie-perspective? If he thinks njoseph is a townie, he shouldn't want to string him up unless he fakeclaims as town or something asinine like that. Which I don't see happening on Day One. There's a difference between voting someone for being an oddball and being a scummy oddball. Then he flips in his latest post to saying njoseph is town, backpedaling as soon as njoseph votes for him. Like he doesn't think he has a good shot going head-to-head with njoseph.

I'm not tracking the argument against SafetyDance right now; I owe that a reread when it's not really late at night. TeChNoWC was being pro-town early on but hasn't done anything lately to make me put him as better than null. When I started reading the thread I thought Elscouta was scummy, but not so much now. I'm going back and forth on TheReverend and VoidedMafia and Always Mafia; none of them are town reads for me, but I feel like they're all scum-hunting earnestly.

JohnnyFarrar, I owe your most recent post (P-edit: now two most recent posts) a much closer reread, again when it's not so late, as I wasn't getting a read on you near the start of the game, but I suspect I should have a more defined opinion after working through your recent stuff. Which I think leaves Nobody Special, who hasn't been able to contribute much to this game, so I'm going to pass on putting anything down for him for now.

UNVOTE: TheReverend
VOTE: theaceofspades

I apologize for the gaps in this post; I'm out of time/energy to do any more tonight. I know there are a few people (*cough*understatement*cough*) who want more information from my slot; let me know if I've missed something you want addressed.

[penguin_alien]

I'm stlil sorting out my thoughts, but I don't like SafetyDance's representation of JohnnyFarrar's posting--there's a difference between pulling lots of relevant quotes and using a giant box quote to look like a post is more meaty than it is. That SafetyDance is ignoring this distinction is very shady to me, irrespective of other arguments made against him.

And then his defense of theaceofspades is just weird. From what I can tell of the time stamps, the extremes of theaceofspades' time zones would put his post between Thursday and Friday morning. Either way, that gives him time to respond to the votes against him either then or Monday during the day if he's in some time zone just west of the International Date Line. I don't care where he is (although I doubt it's what's apparently a Magic place, y/n?) and I'm not asking, but I am pointing out that there's no place where even giving him a 60 hour weekend negates his ability to defend himself. Prods are the providence of the mod of course, but his lack of defense isn't excused by V/LAs as far as I can tell.

If you think the votes against him are unreasonable, how about telling us why you think he's a bad vote instead of making excuses for his lack of response?

[penguin_alien]

My take on the SafetyDance argument is that with its roots in something fairly petty, it never grew much beyond that in terms of town or scum tells. You had Elscouta asking SafetyDance to elaborate on something, SafetyDance refuses, and Elscouta pries into it. The prying seems like a town thing to do, and while SafetyDance dragging out the whole thing isn't pro-town, I feel like scum would just acquiesce to move things along and keep the spotlight off. I'm not getting any strong suspects off the participants, but given that I think the argument is specious, the votes from other players on those two as a result, currently Nobody Special, Voidedmafia, and Always Mafia are worth noting to my way of thinking.

Nobody Special's happy to jump on without contributing any thoughts of his own. Voidedmafia's vote on SafetyDance reads as more town-motivated to me in #368 and #382. Always Mafia starts out in #254 saying that SafetyDance is being suspicious enough to merit a FOS, but 24 hours or so later, Always Mafia is thinking it's weird that Elscouta is still on that. If this is town-on-town as some people think (if push came to shove, I'd say it is) this is setting up entry points into the lynch of either of them on shaky grounds.

Skenvoy's scumhunting is welcome, but I don't think it negates the scumminess of the slot earlier.

Of the three people I was undecided on earlier, I'd put TheReverend as the towniest and Always Mafia as the scummiest with Voidedmafia somewhere in the middle, but even Always Mafia isn't sufficient to make me inclined to move my vote yet. Finally, JohnnyFarrar's analysis adds up to a weak town read for me.

[penguin_alien]

With Always Mafia's posts gathered up like that, the case does make sense. In rereading his ISO from the start, he seems to push minor questions and act like he had more on the table than he actually did in this vein. It's particulary apparent in his early 'questioning' of njoseph about something that doesn't seem likely to provide evidence for njoseph's alignment, and a lot of his posts feel like he's refusing to move on in his scumhunting until some minor point is resolved; not pro-town.

I'm still not willing to put Skenvoy down as town, but since we're two days out from deadline and there's no movement there, I'm willing to see what Always Mafia says when under increased pressure.

UNVOTE: Skenvoy
VOTE: Always Mafia

P-edit: I'll bite: njoseph, what's your argument for an Elscouta lynch?

[penguin_alien]

I hate the idea of compromise lynching, but given that with this set-up our only reliable way of getting bona fide info is via lynching (barring cross-kills) I agree with the sentiment that we need to settle on someone. By my count, Safety Dance and Always Mafia each have three votes. I obviously come into this with a bias, as my vote's already on Always Mafia, but I'd point out that the arguments against him don't veer into policy lynch territory (something that could get very dangerous very quickly in this format) and he's been absent for over three days. His last post asked The Reverend to make a case on him. The Reverend did so, and no response. Fishy much? Despite what people are holding against Safety Dance right now, he's active and engaged, whereas Always Mafia is being deadweight. Therefore I'd encourage others to vote for his lynch. Before this time tomorrow, ideally, since the phase will be over then...

[penguin_alien]

That's an incredibly scummy statement from SafetyDance. Like scum wanting to make sure that the town goes haring off after a trail left by their NK choice. I suppose we could follow that trail, but I'm much more interested in SafetyDance's certainty about the SK's activity. In fact, after that post I don't think I can possibly buy that SafetyDance isn't either a cannibal of some flavor or massively confused about how this set-up works, and after a full day phase of playing in the set-up, the latter seems highly unlikely. Plus, going back to havingfitz, a quick search of his ISO shows that he never pointed a finger at SafetyDance, nor did his predecessor, which would make him particularly eager to get us all running down the people havingfitz did discuss.

VOTE: SafetyDance

I'm not wild about JohnnyFarrar's distancing from the Always Mafia lynch. It seems overly strong to be coming from scum, given that Always Mafia flipped VT, but it's a whole lot of recrimination for something that no one vehemently objected to at the time.

[penguin_alien]

(quick correction: I count four votes on SafetyDance, and with 10 alive, it takes 6 to lynch, not 5)

[penguin_alien]

I'm really skeptical of letting SafetyDance ride out of this one. His question was phrased from the standpoint that the Mafia killed successfully and the SK did not. There are many explanations for why we had only one death last night, but not so much for why he would start out focusing on night results, especially in a game where we get less information about this than usual, when there was a lot of activity from the day before to consider, including the lynch of a townie. Regarding the idea of the dietician clearing him, if he can get us to string someone else up today and then end up with a higher volume of kills tonight, given that Mafia accounts for 2 of the 10 remaining players now, if we mislynch today and three kills happen at night, there's a (6/7) * (7/8) * (7/8) shot of the dietician not getting killed, which translates to about 65%, or somewhere around 1/3 chance someone takes out the dietician before he could share info from a night action. Not the worst odds, especially since there's no way for said dietician to be protected in this format aside from fortuitous roleblocks. Plus if SafetyDance is part of a Mafia team, once the dietician reveals himself he is a sitting duck for the other Mafia, even discounting the SK.

I agree than Nobody Special isn't coming off as very pro-town right now, and I also agree that with the holidays coming up we don't want to ambush anyone. But if Nobody Special doesn't stop looking so scummily opportunistic, I'd put him up there with SafetyDance as worth lynching.

[penguin_alien]

My apologies; I'm going to be V/LA through the Christmas holiday:

Mod: I will be V/LA for ~60 hours; thanks.

[penguin_alien]

I'm not convinced SafetyDance is on our side, but as njoseph pointed out, Skenvoy's been MIA for almost two weeks. Given that his slot was pretty darn scummy Day One, and he didn't do anything to make it look pro-town while he was here, I'm good to move my vote there.

VOTE: Skenvoy

[penguin_alien]

Fine, jeck is here participating, and I'm willing to see where his slot goes from here. Hopefully by now you've gone back to see where theaceofspades came off as very scummy, and Skenvoy didn't do much of anything to be pro-town. In my limited experience, replacing out is a pretty null tell, so that had nothing to do with why I voted for your slot, jeck. Particularly seeing as when I put down the vote, there was no call for a replacement yet.

So, UNVOTE: jeck

In looking over Elscouta's posts, I find it hard to believe that both he and SafetyDance are scum unless they're really good at setting up arguments against one another. But Elscouta's defense of SafetyDance is rather odd to me--he has SafetyDance as a weak scumread, claims he was only voting for pressure, but doesn't denounce SafetyDance's very odd statement about the SK not being active, instead citing it as evidence that SafetyDance couldn't be the SK, ignoring the idea that SafetyDance could be mafia-flavored scum.

That, combined with the fact that others who I believe to be town, namely TheReverend and njoseph, makes me willing to vote for him:

VOTE: Elscouta

I believe this is L-1.

[penguin_alien]

...so jeck, you think I'm scummy for being on the Always Mafia wagon and voting you? Have you gone back and looked at the case on your slot when theaceofspades was there and what Skenvoy did to 'enhance' its reputation? Tell me where my cases are flawed, because your case, i.e. that my vote has been on your slot and on Always Mafia's lynch, is not convincing. Not least because I'm not the only person that fits that description. But you're saying that if your professed top scum read flips town, you have a lynch on me lined up as your next scum read? No interest in reassessing at such a hypothetical point?

And you're now putting SafetyDance down as a town read--that, I would really like an explanation for. First you had him on your scum list, now he's an unqualified town read. Actually, I'd love some reads from you for anyone based on anything remotely visible. You keep listing people in read lists, but there's nothing persuasive aside from citing votes. At least support your town reads, as right now you're putting your highest town reads on someone who was barely here Day One (and whose slot ended the day with a vote on you) and the person who hammered the lynch you're quite happy to condemn.

[penguin_alien]

Right now I have town reads on JohnnyFarrar and njoseph. Not sure they're particularly well-justified, but in comparison with jeck, SafetyDance, and Nobody Special, they seem like the most likely town people.

I have no read on Nobody Special, which is less than awesome after all this time.

jeck's ISO makes it really hard for me to read him as pro-town, but he's throwing out so many weird statements (mostly all those percentages to 'demonstrate' how unlikely it is he's scum) that I vaguely wonder if I'm biased in my take on him due to not liking his logic or lack thereof. But then I look back at the slot over the course of the game, and consider jeck's obtuseness in refusing to support his reads with reasons and end up back at thinking he's scummy.

The main scummy action that stands out from SafetyDance was his questions revolving around havingfitz's dying Night One, and yes, I know, he says he was only asking questions, but they were questions based on assumptions that implied insider knowledge. His continued irritation over the course of the day at being called out for this doesn't feel scummy though, more like town who misspoke and can't decide if he's angrier at himself or everyone else for noticing. And claiming at L-2 unprompted as VT also doesn't come off as scum play, given that it doesn't help his side if he's Mafia (unless havingfitz was scum, making them a seemingly doomed team at that point) and calling out the SK doesn't track if he is the SK.

I feel like I might be tunneling here, but does anyone have anything that points to jeck being pro-town? From his posts, or Skenvoy's, or theaceofspades? Looking over the pages when he replaced in, I don't see anyone viewing him as a non-scummy read.

[penguin_alien]

Oh. My. God. I don't even know where to start on jeck's posts and the 'analysis' therein. It's all saying who he thinks is scum with zero reasons, who he thinks scum would think look towniest, and fake-throwing himself under the lynch bus. This whole, 'lynch me, see me flip, and then lynch who I say to' feels like a bluff to me, like if he's willing to be lynched, he must have good reads. And then he says, 'no, never mind, if you lynch me you'll lose.' And refers to it as a 'plan,' like it's a viable strategy that's been outlined to get clear results. Throwing out random odds, like 60/40 that TheReverend was scum with no support, reads like scum trying to be authoritative. And gee, who would have motive to get rid of TheReverend? Surely not the guy TheReverend called out as scum for various reasons in his last four posts? (that's jeck, for those of you playing along at home)

And then jeck calls out someone else's read on another player? And says SafetyDance isn't frameable, but he himself is? There's a difference between being scummy all game long (not a question of framing) and having a few scummy instances (frameable). I just cannot buy that a town player would be posting like this. I'm not wild about Nobody Special flying under the radar, but I'd rather go with the actively scummy player here.

VOTE: jeck

njoseph, the thing about imagining a scum team with TheReverend killing Malakittens is that if you look at Malakittens' analysis of TheReverend's play, yes, she finds him scummy, but he engages with her reads on him. He doesn't seem threatened in his responses. Maybe he was just confident scum, but I don't see Malakittens getting NK'd over her interactions with TheReverend.

[penguin_alien]

Your assumptions is so fcking stupid will never play with you again if aren't scum. You're only mad at me for accusing you.

...but never is such a long time!

Seriously, you say you're voting me because I was demonstrably wrong twice (in that the people I voted for flipped VT, not that you're citing my reasons for voting them) and making that your reason to have a scum read on me, yet the highest town read you seem to have is njoseph who was on the same wagons as I was. Then you say I'm mad at you for accusing me? Please show me where I'm angry. And you can point out my faulty assumptions while you're at it.

[penguin_alien]

SafetyDance: yes, I've been a proponent of the four lynch targets you cited. Regarding your wagon, you say you threw up the question quickly without thinking things through, and given your postings through claiming VT, I do believe that now. But when I read people's posts, I have to assume they've posted what they mean to post. And since the SK kill, if submitted, was the only kill guaranteed to go through on Night One due to the one-shot roleblocking immunity, that you were saying you had reason to think the SK didn't kill implied to me that you were stating that the Mafia were responsible for the NK on havingfitz. Which you'd only know if you were Mafia.

Regarding Always Mafia, he'd pulled a runner, asking for TheReverend to engage him and then disappearing. We had less than 24 hours to deadline, and the only other person with a potential wagon was you, and as I stated in #525, that was close to a policy lynch. No-lynching in general is a bad idea, but when you have the potential to lose a quarter of your field at night in one fell swoop with almost no one knowing their identities, it's even worse.

Elscouta, I do wish we'd waited to hear from him again pre-hammer given that he was apparently more limited access than totally gone. SafetyDance, you say he wasn't around to defend himself; he was posting sporadically, plus many of the arguments against him were ongoing. And he chose to stay in the game in the face of a long V/LA. I don't know if he could have convinced us he was town, given that two people were waiting to hammer him, but that's really useless speculation. I'll point out that I stand behind my reasons for my vote and those of others, plus our only known townie at that point (Always Mafia) had been voting for Elscouta in the face of his own lynch during much of Day One.

As for jeck-Skenvoy-theaceofspades, I do not have a town read on him and haven't for the entire game. Not much more to say at this point, given that the current occupant of the slot ignores my questions directed to him. He keeps trying to make the arguments against him into something personal or emotional, which just doesn't track. And the numbers...you want numbers? What it boils down to is that we have ten unknown slots in the game, living and dead. With three of the ten as scum, that's a 30% chance that any of them are scum. Since we know there's at least one scum still in play, the six of us alive have a minimum 16% chance of being scum if two scum are dead, which is less than the starting 30% and so can be ignored for working with worst-case scenarios. From there you can spin different stories: take two people at random, there's a 9% shot they're both scum (.3 * .3) and a 49% shot neither is (.7 * .7) leaving a 42% chance one and only one of the two is scum (also written as .3 * .7 * 2, with the 2 present because order doesn't matter). Without knowing if there are one, two, or three scum left (zero obviously being out because then we'd have won) any other percentages are pure BS, starting with biased assumptions and thus spinning out fallacious results.

WRT your vote count analysis, the nature of this set-up means that we could be totally screwed after this day phase, and we have two lynches to go on. Without flips on the 'past tipping point wagons' I find them less relevant. The lynches themselves, normally I'd point out that scum would typically avoid hopping on

all

the lynches they know aren't targeting one of their faction, but that's complicated here by multiple scum factions in play and the ever-present likelihood that people killed at night will be unflipped, making it admittedly safer to pile on.

What's the relevance of njoseph forgetting about the roleblocker? It's not the same thing as the scum-potential behind your question. I'm reading back through njoseph's posts at the time, and I'm not getting your point here. It seems that njoseph was speculating that both the Mafia and SK could have killed the same person, then noted that it could also be that there was a successful roleblock. Nothing that implied scum-sided knowledge.

I don't like the push on Nobody Special, maybe because it's partially coming from jeck, who seems like he's looking to string up anyone who isn't him, forget the reasons, pass the noose. I see where Nobody Special throwing around votes without engaging much otherwise is scummy, and I'd hate to lose the game to lurking scum. Still, I would feel more confident about it if it seemed like it was being put forward as more than an application of pressure.

njoseph, why the shift from thinking jeck is an acceptable lynch in #737 to thinking he's town in #804? I don't see any reasons in your posts in that time.

[penguin_alien]

...no lynching is not optimal, given that it transfers all power to any remaining scum factions in the game with the possible exception of a still-living vig who might shoot right. And we have a week-plus left to discuss. If we could be certain we were at MyLo and that no-lynching would leave us with more information at LyLo, it might be worth considering. As it stands, with the potential for three kills out there, we could be insuring that we don't win by passing on the chance to string up scum. And we only get information about those who die at night if there are cross-kills. Which reduces the value of using a no-lynch in combo with the subsequent night kills to thin the lynch pool.

Why the interest in no-lynching? Why not attempt to convince us that Nobody Special is the leading scum candidate, or show us what in your interactions with jeck makes you think he's town? Because aside from him coming around to vote for the person you think is scummiest, I don't see what he's done that's town.

[penguin_alien]

:headdesk: penguin_alien thinks that if you're town, you made a very bad play. If you're scum of either flavor, you probably set yourself up very nicely. So basically, what SafetyDance has been telling you for about two pages now. Aren't you glad you asked?

[penguin_alien]

I’ll be over here trying to get past the irony of you telling us not to vote too quickly, njoseph.

Done with that. Now please bear with me as I wall-post.

OK, there’s a bit of good news along with some not-so-great news.

Good news: I know we’re not in a Mafia-SK-townie situation because I’m the vig and I hit the SK night 2—the Malakittens-Buckwild slot. I apologize to whichever one of you is my fellow townie for not being a bit more obvtown this game, but given that I have a slight history of being NK’d by scum for seeming like a PR even when I’m a VT, I really didn’t want to run the risk of being targeted for the NK when I actually had a PR. When I replaced in, I’d just finished playing a game with Buckwild and he played very differently as town there (for the record I realize he doesn’t have an extensive record, but he was VT in our mutual game and a town PR in another; the change in his depth of posting and willingness to provide reads was noticeable here). Which made me suspicious of his slot, so I took a shot at it night 1. Obviously it didn’t turn up dead, and while I figured there was about a 10% shot it was because of the roleblocker, I figured it was more likely that I’d set off the SK’s one-shot bulletproofness, given that I had a non-random scummy read on the slot. So I aimed at Malakittens night 2 and learned that she was the SK. She conveniently had gone after Voidedmafia that night, and he was in her body list as a Mafia goon. Malakittens also had havingfitz on her list, but Voidedmafia had no kills.

So then we got to Day Three and I was hoping that we could string up the last Mafia to win—obviously that didn’t happen, but it did mean that we were going into night 3 with a maximum of two kills with the SK accounted for. At this point I could have no-killed, but that would have risked sending us into day 4 with four people, resulting in a mislynch taking us down to three and a possible Mafia win overnight (since I would have likely claimed at that point anyways and thus become the NK target of choice). Plus the possibility remained that all the other PRs had died/would die, which would mean that if I were the NK target, the last Mafia would get all my info and the town would know nothing. At least if I took a shot, I’d have an informed chance of hitting the last Mafia and in the event that I survived the night, the worst the town could do would be to draw if we had two distinct kills.

Here’s the not-so-great news: when I learned that Voidedmafia was Mafia and didn’t have anyone on his kill list, I figured either his partner made the night 1 kill and overlapped with the SK or he was blocked. Again, there was around a 10% shot of any random person being RB’d, and since the SK had found havingfitz worthy of a NK, it stood to reason that the Mafia did as well. Which would imply that Voidedmafia didn’t do the kill because he and his partner agreed that he (Voidedmafia) was the scummier of the two. Then he didn’t have TheReverend on his kill list either (the only body unaccounted for from my perspective on night 2, thus the Mafia kill), which further encouraged me to suspect that his partner might be someone clean enough to gamble on having perform the kill twice. Which left me looking at JohnnyFarrar as the only person who was less scummy than Voidedmafia of everyone still in play (keep in mind that as of day 1, njoseph had taken some heat for his opening play, SafetyDance had accumulated some small wagons, and Nobody Special had a very low post-count). ISOing him and Voidedmafia showed a lot of interaction without much content to it. By which I mean, quoting each other, asking for opinions from one another, etc., but not much in the way of reads or pressure. So I took my shot.

Unfortunately I was wrong and JohnnyFarrar wasn’t the last Mafia, hence our being here at the end of the game with one more Mafia to find (I don’t know if it can be called LyLo, since as long as I can take a shot at night, worst-case scenario is that we draw).

That brings me to figuring out which of you is Mafia. (next post, because even I’m getting tired of reading this wall)

[penguin_alien]

Until last day phase with njoseph’s quickhammer, I would have put my money on Nobody Special as scum if forced to pick between Nobody Special and njoseph. Now, last Mafia standing knew in day 3 that his partner was dead and that three kills had been made. If njoseph was Mafia and was willing to gamble that all three killers had survived night 2 and would kill in an optimal way, he could have figured he’d wake up day 4 with one other survivor who was a non-killing townie. That would involve a lot of luck, and even one instance of double-targeting would leave him in a lynchable spot on day 4 with a lot of suspicion on him for quickhammering. Plus he had to hope he would dodge a vig kill.

All of this seems like a lot for him to hope for, even taking into account the aspersions SafetyDance cast on his play during twilight last day phase. His quickhammer was bad play from a town perspective and I stand by that, but it was actually pretty bad scum play as well for a one-man Mafia. Then there’s the problem that Voidedmafia went after njoseph fairly hard on day 1, which is in turn mitigated by the fact that scum apparently have daytalk in this set-up that would allow them to plan out arguments and counter-arguments.

On to Nobody Special. He puts down a fuzzy town read on Voidedmafia, but there’s just generally not a lot to go on. I’d quote parts of his postings, but since it literally takes me less than 60 seconds to read his entire ISO, it really comes down to whether I think njoseph is scummier than the null read that is Nobody Special.

I’m leaning toward Nobody Special being Voidedmafia’s partner, but we have some time to figure things out.

[penguin_alien]

Sure.

I attempted to kill Buckwild-Malakittens night 1; no body
I attempted to kill Buckwild-Malakittens night 2; SK body
I attempted to kill JohnnyFarrar night 3; town body

[penguin_alien]

Tell you what, here's a partial freebie: JohnnyFarrar was a town PR--if I was scum looking for a fakeclaim to ride out this day phase or even get my choice of targets strung up, I could have snagged his role and dodged the inevitable 'scum dressed as vig' speculation. Obviously I can't prove this, but with 20/20 hindsight it explains why he was so apathetic about your quickhammer relative to his reaction to Elscouta's lynch at the end of last day phase, njoseph; probably trying to dodge a scum NK.

Unless anyone has something to claim, I'd like to hear why I should believe that one of you is town over the other beyond PoE from your respective points of view.

[penguin_alien]

Motivation for saying JohnnyFarrar is a PR when he's not: make scum hesistant to fakeclaim if they think I know of a PR where I don't? Although really, with three people left, I'd be looking pretty skeptically at any PR claims not made in the first post of this day phase, or at a stretch, in response to my claim, i.e. second batch of posts, given that town has no incentive to withhold information at this stage of the game. Which basically translates into 'if Nobody Special pulls out a claim as anything but VT, I will reserve the right to grill him over it.' I can't think of any motivation for me to lie about whether JohnnyFarrar was a PR, but if you can I'll certainly address it.

I'm not sure what you mean about what info I can claim in response to your question; hopefully the above paragraph is getting at what you mean; if not, please clarify.

Questions for you: if you're town, what was your thinking in quickhammering jeck in terms of how the town could win based on that move? I realize this was discussed ad nauseum in twilight last phase, but I didn't want to paint a target on my back by being overly involved at that time, and it's pretty much the only thing you've done all game that makes me question my strong town read on you.

And can you take a quick look over Nobody Special's ISO (it's not a hard read) and support your scum read on him? You did have a scum read on him yesterday before wagon-hopping, but as far as I can see, most of that was explained as a pressure vote.

I'm going to read over the triple ISO from Voidedmafia, njoseph, and Nobody Special, as I've been through the possible pairing combos individually.

[penguin_alien]

I'm actually around (for once) so I'll be watching for your comments on his ISO.

[penguin_alien]

On first read-through, the only thing I'd quibble with is in #498 when he talks about TheReverend saying he might not be here, he means 'live through the night' not 'be around for activity purposes.' More thoughts coming.

[penguin_alien]

Bottom line, I think we both agree that there is nothing outstandingly pro-town in Nobody Special's posts. Reading it different ways can make it feel more or less scummy, but it doesn't look good.

Yeah, no rush on voting, certainly; I do want to hear from Nobody Special before I feel comfortable deciding either way myself.

[penguin_alien]

Here's another question: what was the motivation for SafetyDance's being the Mafia's NK choice? Him being the Mafia kill makes it apparent that he wasn't Mafia himself. Even accounting for the fact that the Mafia could have been SK-hunting, SafetyDance called attention to the SK on Day 2 in a way that he wouldn't have if he was the SK, and he'd claimed VT on the same day, meaning that based on the tenet that town don't fakeclaim, he wasn't a PR. So why kill him?

Obvious answer is because SafetyDance was quite blatantly going to be looking to lynch njoseph the next day phase. But as I discussed earlier, njoseph quickhammering as Mafia only makes sense if he can guarantee being left with two people total in this day phase, with neither of them having the ability to play him to a draw. Which would mean that a presumed VT like SafetyDance would actually be his best shot at winning for his side.

So that leaves killing SafetyDance to set someone else up. Like...setting up his most plausible target for the next day?

njoseph, I've had a town read on you for the entire game. The only scummy thing you've done is the quickhammer, and I just don't think it makes sense from a scum perspective, i.e. knowing that one Mafia was dead, even less so with the Mafia kill last night going on the least threatening player left in the game from an endgaming perspective. If you're scum, you've earned the draw with your play, because you've fooled me, but I don't believe that's the case.

Nobody Special, I want to hear from you before making an absolute final decision.

(By the by, reading the triple ISO wasn't any more illuminating than reading the two double ISOs. So, yeah.)

[penguin_alien]

Mod, I anticipate being V/LA for ~60 hours. I'm not sure yet if it'll be total lack of access or just limited access; if it's the latter it shouldn't impact things and I'll rescind my V/LA.

Apologies for the inconvenience.

[penguin_alien]

...turns out I do have limited access via mobile device; please disregard my previous post, and I apologize for the uncertainty.

[penguin_alien]

I find it odd that Nobody Special isn't posting here when he is active elsewhere. Maybe it's honest forgetfulness, maybe not; either way I don't particularly care. He's been gone from here for > 72 hours, so I don't think I'm being overly pushy. I just want him to answer a) why I should believe he's town, and b) why I should go back on my persistent town read on njoseph.

[penguin_alien]

Prod dodge. At the risk of being all PSA about it, we're nearing the halfway point of the day. Nobody Special, at this point we're wasting major discussion time, and the only deliberate motivation to do so is if one is scum trying to run out the clock. I'll give it 48 hours past when you said you'd be posting, as that sends you well into prod territory.

[penguin_alien]

Nobody Special, I know you said you'd post more, but I'd like to hear what you find scummy about njoseph from before this day phase. And actually, your take on his quickhammer from last phase would be very helpful. I know I'm interpreting it one way, but I think you were the only one who never weighed in at all about it.

[penguin_alien]

I have to go with Nobody Special as the last scum here. Looking at TheReverend NK, that had to come from Mafia, and TheReverend would have had both of the Mafia in his sights during Day Two, which is the strongest motivation for making him the NK. Plus, like I said earlier, it just doesn't track that scum-njoseph would have NK'd SafetyDance, the most likely VT, when he should have been trying to make sure he took out a killer to maximize his chances of at least getting a draw.

VOTE: Nobody Special

[penguin_alien]

No, I think it's polite to let the mod do the final write-up and not spoil it for anyone who doesn't know what's going to happen (I know some dead QTs are spoiler-free), given all the effort she's put into the game. But I appreciate your asking!

[penguin_alien]

(Argh, sorry, didn't mean to sound sanctimonious; obviously YMMV on this point, and I know a lot of games have a lot of twilight discussion before the final flip.)

[penguin_alien]

Thanks, Voidedmafia and Malakittens!

Yeah, Malakittens, your play did not look SK at all. (have you ever been SK?) But Buckwild's did, if you look at his brief play in another game where his slot flipped scum (even though I went after his slot because I figured that there was a decent chance it being empty explained the lack of NK) (which if I'd been called on, I would have said I way lying about to keep the Mafia, who 'really' had his body, from using it for a fake-claim if it was a PR).

I felt a bit badly lying about your role; I'm accustomed to lying as scum about my own play, but this felt different. It was the only thing to claim safely though, since Dietician was possibly in Mafia hands and Roleblocker would have been riskier to claim actions for and leave the two-kill question out there. Not having the vig around Night One was a big problem, but at least it was countered by me and the Mafia double-targeting havingfitz, so neither party could safely claim Dietician.

njoseph, what was your rationale for NKing SafetyDance the last night? You knew he wasn't a town PR, since he claimed VT early, and since the SK was guaranteed a shot Night One, which had to go on the Dietician, if he was the SK, a) he could have claimed Dietician if backed into a corner, and b) he was unlikely to have used up his one-shot immunity, making your targeting of him fruitless. At that point, it was quite possible that of the other four people, there was a Roleblocker, SK, Vig, and VT, so why go for the VT?

I was surprised that Voidedmafia was scum with njoseph; I thought you two did a good job of interacting. I'd love to see the scum QT, and the dead QT if there is one.

In reading over the past games played of this set-up, it's partially an active town, but it's also partially a matter of hitting some anti-town faction early. There really weren't any serious wagons on any of the anti-town people after the Day One njoseph wagon.

Thanks to triangle123 for modding!

[penguin_alien]

Yeah, sorry, Nobody Special. I knew that whoever the last townie standing was had no shot of winning even if I got strung up. I was trying to pinpoint the last scum even though I figured it was highly unlikely I'd used my one-shot BP. It was possible, hence not quickhammering njoseph, but even if Mafia had wanted me to help with thinning the herd Night Two, they should have killed me Night Three for my larder if they could have. But obviously not everyone thinks alike, (I'm looking at you, jeck, who I don't get any way you slice your posts) so it remained in play. Like I said ^ it just didn't make sense for njoseph to kill the one person he should have known wasn't a PR, especially with the possibility of three NKs leaving him with a draw or loss at endgame.

[penguin_alien]

jeck, I meant that your arguments weren't very persuasive to me. They seemed to come from a point of view that one should analyze the game assuming everyone has an even shot of being scum, when the point of all the discussion is to narrow things down. And yes, you did correctly say I was scum, but a) you said the same about several people, having voted for the majority of not-you people on Day Three, and b) you can be the best scumhunter in the world, but it's to no avail if you can't convince anyone else. I think your mindset might have worked a bit better in a game with role reveals, as you would have had actual connections on which to base your speculation.

Voidedmafia, you had me bamboozled as well. I owe a lot to Malakittens' superior scumhunting ability, as I don't think you'd have been on my list of kills or lynches. It would have been interesting if you'd been around on Day Three to direct the kill at me. It would have bounced, and I'm not sure I'd have been in a position to weasel out of it, as it's likely JohnnyFarrar would have been alive to negate my option to claim RB.

havingfitz, here's my rationale for the NK on you: " Since this is the only NK I'll make during the game that's guaranteed to go through, let's try havingfitz for now. I may change this if I come up with something better, but I want to avoid overlapping with either the vig or the Mafia if possible, since I suspect time is not on my side as the SK." So yeah, the not overlapping thing didn't work out so wonderfully! Sorry to cut your time in the game so short after you were gracious enough to replace in.

[penguin_alien]

That is pretty close, SafetyDance, although I think you don't consider a double-targeting of havingfitz. What do you mean by drawing JohnnyFarrar out with an RB claim?

(could I see the dead QT link, BTW? I'm curious about the real-time reactions to the goings-on)

p-edit: Thanks, SafetyDance!

[penguin_alien]

Thanks for the link. I wasn't 100% certain that my 1-shot BP hadn't been used Night One, so I was going for the most likely scum at LyLo. I was wrong because njoseph's NK made no sense to me, but I wasn't trolling. I did figure it was unlikely, as if scum had shot me Night One and had it bounce, they should have hit me Nights Two or Three to get access to the information in my larder, especially since that would have meant that as of Night Three, the only body they'd have had would be VT TheReverend . But I'd seen another game where it was an SK-Mafia draw because one side voted hastily with the BP used up and didn't want that to happen to me.