Mini 1333: Terror in the Parlour (Game Over)

[zoraster]

Good morning, friends

[zoraster]

but i want to be your friend?

[zoraster]

Go for it.

I wonder if the process of getting 5 games launched today has had anything to do with that...

But the better question is whether I think you cared much to actually evaluate any of that or if you're more interested in pseudo-scum hunting.

Regardless, I'll contribute when I have the time and focus to do so as a productive member.

And yes, this is an indication that I've been reading it and not posting. Because that is absolutely 100% true.

[zoraster]

I don't think vijay seems particularly scummy, Robbnva. Annoying as hell to read his posts, yes. But I don't see scum-intent there.

I have very mixed feelings on 133 (Code_X's post). On the one hand, the reactions don't seem that out of place. On the other, I can't help but feel like he's trying to hide in plain site. In other words, he offers a ton of text, a ton of reaction, but he's trying to do so in a way that goes mostly unnoticed other than giving a general impression that he's working hard, dammit. This is just a small piece of that, but putting his entire substantive post in a spoiler tag (including the vote, which you totally shouldn't do, Code_X) makes it seem like he's hoping people gloss over the whole thing.

Nikanor plays as very town to me.

@implosion: You say that WPME "town told" but I don't get that at all. I'm with ConfidAnon here. This seems like a lame "gain town points by pressuring and then being satisfied with an answer" kind of thing. I don't want implosion's lack of comment on this to mean we ignore it.

VOTE: implosion

[zoraster]

just got back from a wedding and too tipsy to post coherently. content promised tomorrow or you may make your choice of lynch or death by candy corn (that stuff is gross, guys).

From memory following along, Robbnv clear town, Nik doesn't seem as scummy as you guys are making out, but I'm undecided. Vijay...... jez. implosion and oso, code_x, and inspection from people.

[zoraster]

I'm convinced on Code_X. As I said before, Nikanor seems town to me. implosion's vote on that wagon worries me a little as I still read him mildly scummy, but I'll trust my read for now.

VOTE: Code_X

[zoraster]

okay. then why are you voting nikanor? Nik is scummier than imp? Why?

As I've said, I don't like implosion. I'd be happy to move over to him as I was before. I think he's staying off Nik's wagon because he doesn't want the attention when Nik flips town.

But maybe I'm wrong. Change my mind: why is nik really the scummiest player in the game?

[zoraster]

Number of votes you have = 1
Number of votes you need to lynch > 1

So bad or good or whatever I am, you still need someone else (even if it's not me) to come around to your way of thinking.

In any event, here's a hint: if you want someone to participate, you don't tell them to fuck off when they engage you. And you didn't somehow earn a right to be above questioning.

But let's take that a little further, actually. What's the point of your bluster? The self-righteousness is cute and all, but is it something that gets you closer to lynching scum, or is it something that you hope makes it unfathomable to think of you as scum? This is something worth analyzing as we go along, but for now implosion seems a better candidate if you can't see why Code_X's forced aw-shucks towniness is worth attention.

VOTE: implosion

[zoraster]

The same could be said of Zoraster - who has said he feels Nik feels pro-townish. Why exactly? Zora I find particularly aggressive but not in the same way I find Robb aggressive - it's not aggressive towards everyone if that makes sense. Plus he seemed convinced on me yet has switched to a wagon on Implosion which had less numbers.

I was convinced that you were the best place to put my vote -- the best person to lynch. That's different than being 100% convinced that you're scum. Still, the focused on "convinced," which is the second time you're brought it up, seems strange.

As for why is Nik town? He seems to be genuinely trying to find scum. Nothing I've read has made me believe otherwise.

And as for my jump to implosion... well, I thought he was scummy before. I think he's scummy now. I don't have to have just one love.

Shotty appears distant and somewhat cautious. Scummy as such. He's had Nik near the top of his suspects throughout the game yet seems concerned to vote.

I was kind of prepared to say that Code_X was going for lazy scum hunting here, going for easy targets and someone who hasn't posted much. But... he actually has a good point. Shotty has been somewhat inactive, but he's still posted. And each post is full of hands-off playing. I think he may be hoping to stay off the Nik lynch until it resolves either way before coming in so he doesn' thave to worry about being on the record. I hadn't taken particular notice of Shotty, but I am now.

---

Tierce, you're reading too much into WPME's "town tell." I don't disagree that he lacks the experience to make a concerted effort to town tell, but I just don't think the one you've described is strong enough to be determinative. Lean town if you want, but pigeonholing him into town for that at this point seems counterproductive.

[zoraster]

While implosion has a point -- Nik either needs to claim or we need to decide on someone else to run up ASAP -- I don't like the defeatist "oh your own head be it" thing. It smacks of inside knowledge for one thing. I think Nik's town and there are better options, but he hasn't shown himself to be conclusively town. So implosion's "well, we gotta do what we gotta do" strikes a nerve with me.

Still, there is a kernel of truth there. People either need to get off nik and move to someone else or nik needs to claim.

My preferences for lynch are in rough order:

CodeX
implosion
Shotty

Any are fine, but the first two are probably the better options until tomorrow.

[zoraster]

I'm not sure it pays to follow wagons based on people you trust or don't trust D1. We don't have any connections to work off of yet, and I think scum are almost as likely to support a scum lynch (especially if they think it won't actually go off) as they are a town lynch. I say follow your own scumdar on this one.

Unless you disagree with me. In which case, you're wrong.

Do I sense some hesitation from you on the Nikanor lynch, Robb? What's making you second guess yourself?

[zoraster]

I just wish I could iso more than 1 person at a time.

You can. See the plus sign next to the iso button? that'll add a second person. I think there's the option for adding a third as well, but I think i heard there were some bugs.

[zoraster]

[zoraster]

...why did i ever think vijay was town? Obviously an oversight on my part. Playing the VI card is super scummy. Not just anti-town. Scummy. Because while someone else might excuse your behavior as you being an idiot and anti-town, you trying to do so implies that you had knowledge of what you're doing is stupid and anti-town from the start. You're caught scum. A preemptive VT claim isn't going to save you now.

VOTE: vijay

[zoraster]

Fear not. that's desperate scum wiggling on the line.

This is ridiculously fake:

And I know I'm probably being lynched today so I'm going to claim. I am a VT. I was tempted to claim cop and have scum waste a NK on me, but seeing how my first attempt went down I won't bother.

"oh look at how town i am now for not fake claiming again! don't you feel bad for me?"

[zoraster]

I don't know if he is town (I'm starting to suspect he is. VERY BAD town). But I'm certain he isn't the best vote today. I'm in the middle of doing another post since we have given another three days and WMPE should be back before then to defend himself against the vote and case I'ma put on him.

[zoraster]

I see robb finally voted me, so my post is a little out of date, but I'll go ahead and post it anyway:

Zoraster needs to post info, and lots of it. I'm sure he'll paint himself into a corner and if he doesn't post anything, he will just be a viable lynch candidate also.

@ tierce, I mean that he is either going to post more and we can actually catch him in a few lies, or I will advocate lynching him for his lack of participating.

1. Having trouble figuring out whether you're terrible town or stupid scum. Because implying "when zoraster posts and shows himself to be scum" is idiotic. It's bullhonky weaseling. Either man up and vote me because you obviously think I'm scum or react when I actually say something scummy. You're obviously working backwards from your desired result here, and that's pretty damning.

Because let's be perfectly clear: just because you post a lot doesn't mean you're helping town. All this stuff is just so much distraction. And your implication that you can somehow catch me in a lie is absurd. I doubt you even have an idea how you'd do that, but you think it

sounds

good, so you say it. And that's a pretty good indication of scum.

2. I don't even begin to know what you mean by "info."

---

Vijay should 100% be the lynch today. This isn't the same situation before where I was okay with either Code or implosion's lynch. I still think there's a high probability of scum there, but it matters little because if we don't lynch Vijay we're making a large mistake.

Now that he's claimed VT, you need to actively explain why we SHOULDN'T lynch him today. His latest posts have been incredibly scummy, especially where he plays the VI card. He looks and feels caught scum. But let's say you're on the fence on him, 50/50 say rather than the 90/10 I am. You should STILL support this lynch with all your heart because not doing so is a detriment to the town because it helps scum.

If you BELIEVE vijay, fine. But you need to actually say so rather than just saying, "yeah, yeah. he could be scum, but this other guy is MORE probably scum." Because the guy has claimed VT now and is of little use even if he IS town, which is pretty darn unlikely. Because as town he reduces the pool of players that town has to shoot at to find a power role, he'll stick around, and then we'll STILL have to make a decision on him at some point in the future. We can't even use "well, he might be scum because he's still alive" because of COURSE he'll still be alive.

Frankly, the resistance to vijay's lynch is astounding. It's like watching a town self-destruct in front of my eyes.

[zoraster]

5. out of the blue he shows up and puts vijay at L-2, Vijay's wagon goes from 0 to L-2 in less than 24 hours, as much as it pains me to say this, vijay is not today's lynch. wagon speeds on scum usually don't happen like that. Gorcat and Zoraster get the most attention cause they were late voters.

Raise your hands if you think this is sincere. We're within a few days of the deadline, vijay posts a super scummy little mea culpa post that might as well be claiming scum, and then claims VT, and Robb wonders how exactly the wagon formed. NOT EVEN TO L-1.

And he seems startled that it could get to L-2. My goodness, it's almost like we've got to lynch someone today. LYNCHES SHOULD ONLY BE PAINFUL EXERCISES THAT END UP BEING FORCED BY A DEADLINE. Anything else is liable to give him the vapors.

Yeah right. Seems fake.

Mild bus then chainsaw defense when he sees an opportunity not to have to lynch his scummate is a definite possibility.

[zoraster]

i was aware of the mod post, yes. 72 hours is still close to the deadline. believe it or not, it's not ideal to be forced to lynch via deadline.

[zoraster]

It sure seems Zoraster is so concerned with the pending deadline in this game, he has obviously stepped up his activity, oh wait...

It's not my vote that needs moving.

I've made my point. Once you guys stop playing the annoying "we should only deadline lynch" thing, we can go ahead and lynch vijay.

Like not that I really understand the whole point of this post. But Nikanor has also claimed VT - where's the difference??

I actively believe Nik's claim, first of all. Second, the fact that two people have claimed VT only strengthens this.

Those trying to run up additional people are role fishing

They're doing so in an indirect way, but it has a similar effect. Robb, etc. have really advanced no argument that they

believe

vijay's claim to my knowledge. Instead they want to run an additional person up because why? I have no idea. I suspect it has to do in Robb's case with being unwilling to actually commit to a lynch without being forced by the deadline.

NOTHING HAS CHANGED

since Robb posted these:

You just confuse me. My reads will obviously have scum in them. So I'll be making cases anyway. derp. I just feel bad for not helping out with the game enough.

nobody asked you for your reads on everyone, you were supposed to make a case on who you thought was scum.

on top of it, ever since I outed you as scum early on, you have gone to basically be useless hoping to have the attention come off of you.

Dude I'm gonna rage if you are town vijay.

Yet mercy me if we lynch that guy. Heaven forbid if someone jumps on a wagon "quickly" without, i don't know, having some sort of 3 day conference at the Hyatt. Seriously. This is the reason Robb has for unvoting. He doesn't like how quickly the Code or vijay wagons formed.

--
Okay, fine. I'll make one last push because everyone seems intent on messing around on side wagons.

triangle, splitfarvle, nikanor, implosion, oso, codex and robbnva

:

Take a stand: state whether you believe that vijay is town. Or vote to lynch vijay. Those are the ONLY two pro-town actions you have.

Leaving him alive if you suspect him is the worst thing you could do. Because it means that a power role will have to waste their time on him or he'll be alive at lylo when we'll have to make the EXACT SAME decision on him with the EXACT SAME information we have RIGHT NOW. Seriously. Think about it. It gives vijay a perfect excuse to live until lylo. Because he can make the persuasive case that there's no way that scum would have killed him. Alternatively, maybe we use a cop or a vig that could have been MUCH better employed.

Let's use me as a counterexample. If I make it to lylo, other players are able to think about whether it makes sense that I'm still alive as town. That's information that can be vital in that situation.

If you want to advance the idea that vijay is TOWN, make it. You're wrong, but at least then you've put yourself on record. Because actively believing vijay is town is the

only

sensible reason not to lynch him today.

[zoraster]

It's not a false forced dichotomy. It is an actual dichotomy if you're playing pro-town.

And Robb, feel free to continue to insult me as much as you wish as long as we lynch vijay.

[zoraster]

I'm fairly certain I've made my opinion more than clear, but I'll repeat it, Zoraster: I think Vijay is scum, but my scum read on Nikanor is stronger. I also really don't see any reason why those are the only two options right now; could you please explain that? Because there are other viable options, the most prominent of these being a Nikanor lynch.

Well, okay. Actually, a nikanor lynch would fit in the same category. But I think he's town, so that's why I'm not particularly pushing that.

[zoraster]

wagon speed is something I have used before with some success. the slower building Nik wagon makes me feel he is more likely scum than a faster building vijay wagon.

Have you really? Or is it just yet another thing you that you throw out repeatedly because it sounds kinda good?

I'm taking a look through your past games:

From Newbie 1009

Wow that bandwagon formed pretty fast

Referencing a wagon that formed "fast" on Death the Kid, who flipped

Mafia Roleblocker

. Maybe it did happen and I'm just missing it, but from my brief search through your meta I didn't find anything that supports your statement. The onus is now on Robbnva to support his statement.

---
And it's interesting that Robbnva REPEATEDLY uses this "scummy people are on the wagon" technique to scum hunt and get off. Maybe he thinks scum don't wagon their own, especially when it comes to obvious scum and claimed players.

But wait! He doesn't actually believe that. Take a look here when he was a

town doctor

:

From NY-118

I know usually when I am mafia I don't want to vote on the town wagon, but I will make sure I vote on a mafia wagon.

@wicked, in my experience when a bandwagon is formed on a townie, the next day people start looking at who was on that bandwagon, what better way to avoid suspicion than to stay clear of it all together

In a game where we KNOW Robbnva was town, he makes an inconsistent statement with his ENTIRE APPROACH this game.

---
Something ELSE interesting I found in my search through Robb's meta. When he was a

Vanilla Townie

From Newbie 991

no I mean if the first bandwagon forms on day 1 and we get a VT to claim, you are better off just lynching the VT instead of everyone voting and starting another bandwagon, cause the next bandwagon you risk running up a power role. The odds are stacked against you to nail scum on day 1, it happens so rarely in my experience.

OH REALLY? Funny. That's not how you've acted in this game, going after me instead of either of the VT claims. And again, this is a game we KNOW he was town in expressing exactly the view he's acted contrary to here.

---

Meta can be a pretty weak way to make an argument when it's things like "oh, he lurks when he's scum" or "he tunnels only when he's town" but it's pretty good at trying to find out whether statements regarding approach are true or false. Because he's made quite a few statements in this game that contradict the views he's expressed in other games.

[zoraster]

guys, guys, guys. robbnva isn't the lynch today. i laid out exactly why he's ridiculous, doesn't really care about catching scum but rather looking good, may be scum,etc. but that STILL doesn't mean we lynch him. First of all, his claim is at least somewhat provable. 2 deaths tonight means he's either Vigilante or SK barring some third uncced vig. And the SK thing is actually to our advantage for a while. My point with all that way to dismiss the "i'm the only good player" card he keeps waving around so that we stop letting him hijack the game just because he's loud.

No. The lynch today should be vijay who is scum or at the very most unlikely worst he is anti-town VT. but he's town. Nik at least makes SENSE as a lynch, but he shouldn't be the lynch because he's likely town. Anyone else is not worth lynching today.

[zoraster]

sorry. mean to say "But nik is town." the "he" is ambiguous there.

[zoraster]

I'm at work and haven't had the chance to really read the past couple of pages, but if you don't view a trade of a town power role for a scum as ever being worth it, why CC a vigilante claim?

I'll trade most roles 1:1 for a scum, for what it's worth.

[zoraster]

fitz: why will scum have an easier "staying off" vijay's wagon than they would on Nik's? I really don't follow you there.

Also, do you REALLY read imp as scum, fitz? you state it sort of off-hand as the second lynch you'd support today even though you clearly think vijay is scum, but for all your effort in doing a read through (though your read through is thick in the opening posts and thin in the later ones, when it probably should be the opposite), you don't really address any point where you find implosion scummy.

[zoraster]

guilt by association? with whom?

[zoraster]

Who did you target last night, Robbnva?

[zoraster]

VOTE: Robbnva

Wrong answer.

No brainer.

[zoraster]

Listen, why in the WORLD would a townie CC a vig? even if he suspected vijay was lying... why? I have no earthly idea what the town motivation could have been. It COULD be argued that maybe Robbnva wanted to protect the stupidly claimed vig by providing cover. But if THAT were the case, what should I make of the fact he was okay lynching vijay?

No. It makes no sense. Robbnva wanted to... what exactly? It seems likely that Robbnva wanted to trade his scum goon power for vig. Let us not forget these:

Save your response if it's for my benefit, I don't care about anything you have to say. The moment you said vig for scum is a fair trade, you lost the right to be heard.

no no no, trading a power for scum is never a good trade off. never ever ever in a million years is this a good trade off.

Clearly he believes this, whether it's good mafia playing or not. The inverse should also be true in his mind then: scum should WANT to trade their role for a vig. Which is exactly what he wanted to do with his claim.

But now he must be lynched for it.

[zoraster]

Vijay, u ever seen town fake claim vig and town fake cc?

have

you

?

[zoraster]

link to it.

[zoraster]

I'm not saying there what I believe, obviously. I think it's absurd made more absurd by the fact that it's a VIG claim. But as the quotes show, this is something Robbnva clearly believes. The goal here isn't to try and determine what you or I would do in a situation, but what he would do. And he gives us those tools.

And you seem to be missing the fundamental detail here: despite his protests to the otherwise, I don't think he believed vijay was faking at all.

Consider that implication. Let's say that Robbnva wanted to trade himself, a goon, for a vig. He CCs the vig claim hoping to get rid of the vig before it gets a chance to fire even once. Because in his world, this is a great trade for scum to make (see quotes). BUT THEN vijay backs award. He declares that he ISN'T a vig but is rather just a simple VT.

So now where is scum-Robb? He's left either pushing a lynch on vijay a VT or backing off. Consider what this means:
1. He can't trade himself for the power role because vijay isn't a power role
2. Vijay can stick around and be mislynched the next day.
3. He can try and find some other power role.

THINK ABOUT THIS and think about those quotes. Those quotes mean that Robb thinks the MOST important thing that a scum can do to win is to eliminate power roles. What would you do if your motivation was to eliminate power roles?

You'd do whatever you could to identify roles. You'd run up as many people as you think is reasonable and get them to claim. Once someone claims a power role, you lynch them or you kill them. Even if you can't get a power role to claim, you'd narrowed the field of players who might BE a VT. In the case of a vig, you want to prevent the power from going off.* Does that sound like what he did. YES IT DOES.

*Consider that a vig's power is one of the only ones that has its benefit vest at NIGHT before a mafia kill can stop it. Compare that to a cop that only has a chance to use the benefit the next day... after the mafia kill goes off.

[zoraster]

Well, sorta. I'm saying that as scum, Robb views his primary responsibility as identifying and eliminating town power roles before they can do harm to his team. I think that motivates his decisions. I don't know that it was a carefully orchestrated plan from the beginning, but I do think that's what's driving him.

[zoraster]

Well, sorta. I'm saying that as scum, Robb views his primary responsibility as identifying and eliminating town power roles before they can do harm to his team. I think that motivates his decisions. I don't know that it was a carefully orchestrated plan from the beginning, but I do think that's what's driving him.

1. Tell me how cc'ing vijay's claim was an attempt at me trying to out a power role?

2. If you look at the posts, I never once ask nik or vijay to claim. Someone else asked nik and vijay claimed on his own.

Your "theory" of me trying to out PRs if I has actually tried to get people to claim. I didn't, so your theory is flawed.

Calling vijay in his bullshit by CC'ing vig is scum motivated how? You explain that one to me please.

1. It wasn't an attempt to out one. It was an attempt to DEAL with one once it was outed.
2. Don't treat us like we're stupid. You know as well as we do that putting pressure on someone and trying to get them to near lynch will create a claim. You don't have to be the one to ask for it to be the one who wants the claim.

As I said, I believe you wanted to CC the vig in order to get the vig lynched. You knew that'd result in you dying, but you were prepared to do that. Then he claimed not-vig and you were stuck in the lurch.

[zoraster]

Obviously not. And it wasn't me who relied on it happening before. I don't need to. All I need to do is look at your conduct and fit it in with what you've said. As I've done repeatedly.

Even if you haven't bought what I've put forward, which I think is pretty conclusive, just look at the way he's just desperately looking for something else to focus on. He asks me whether I believe vijay is scum. Does he ACTUALLY care whether I think so or not? No. Because my posts have been clear that I don't now. I think he's an idiot for claiming vig in the first place, but not scum. Because Robbnva is more clearly scum, and the reasons for him being scum are his attempt to get rid of vijay.

Robbnva keeps trying hard to assert that he "knew" that vijay was lying. He did not. That's a completely revisionist look at the game.

[zoraster]

Quit asking questions you know the answers to.

Day 1 I thought you were the vig. Day 2 came and no one died and then you claimed you weren't the vig. If that doesn't say "game changer" to you, you're out of your mind.

You said you thought I was trying to trade a vig for scum 1 for 1 by trying to get vijay lynched. Well why is it that you have a problem with me doing that (which I actually wasn't) but you make no mention of Oso and Gorckat doing the exact same thing?

Let's make this very simple:

They didn't fakeclaim vig

. That doesn't mean they're town, obviously. But it does mean there is a wide gulf between what they did and what you did. Besides, while I can't see misguided town CCing a vig claim for real, I can easily see misguided town going after a scummy as hell vig.

did you not happen to notice that D1 I never retracted my vig claim but OSO tried to say he thought i was lying and he wanted me lynched, he even voted me. Gorckat also voted me and kept his vote on me. As far as anyone knew, I was actually the vig. Oso even admitted he was fine trading vig for scum.

Sure. But as I said then, we weren't lynching you yesterday. It didn't make sense to do so.

Spoiler: Zoraster Quote

guys, guys, guys. robbnva isn't the lynch today. i laid out exactly why he's ridiculous, doesn't really care about catching scum but rather looking good, may be scum,etc. but that STILL doesn't mean we lynch him. First of all, his claim is at least somewhat provable. 2 deaths tonight means he's either Vigilante or SK barring some third uncced vig. And the SK thing is actually to our advantage for a while. My point with all that way to dismiss the "i'm the only good player" card he keeps waving around so that we stop letting him hijack the game just because he's loud.

Damn no response yet? I'm eagerly waiting to see Zoraster wiggle his way out of this one...

This type of statement is so obviously scum trying to create false outrage that if nothing else sways you, this should. What? Robb really demands a response within an hour during the work day? No. He's just trying to get a response that his outrage feels "sincere."

[zoraster]

If he thought vijay was telling the truth and actually was a vig, why would he need to counter when scum could just NK viajy? - If he thought vijay was lying (as he claims), why would he counter as a vig? What PR could he hope to out with his claim? If there was a real vig would that player be inclined to throw a 3rd Vig claim into the mix? I think not. More likely a real vig would just NK one of the fakeclaimers. And no other potential PR would have had any reason to out themselves. So how was scum Robb accomplishing his "primary responsibility"? (I really should read all the way through before commenting as Robb makes the same points in his post 777).

Again, this isn't my set of priorities, but given Robb's statements about his, it makes sense. Because if he gets the vig lynched, the vig doesn't shoot. If he NKs the vig, the vig gets at least one shot off. Plus, he has to deal with doctor protects, etc. So in his mind... which is that trading a scum for a power role is obviously worth it, he gets rid of the vig ASAP.

[zoraster]

hmm. i need to review. because Robbnva's actually right. He sticks on Nik after vijay's claim, keeping Nik at L-1. I seemed to have remembered the sequence of events incorrectly. I'm not sure that means Robb's town, but it does mean that it's less likely he did it to get vijay lynched.

Until I get a chance to wrap my head around what that means:

unvote

[zoraster]

1. I voted him after he made his scummy "I'm a VI and I do VI stuff" and his VT claim. Like... within 4 posts of that. Why is that so hard for you to understand?
2. You suspected virtually everyone in the game, which makes it convenient to say "I always suspected X!"

And you pushed vijay until... people actually voted for him. You don't get to play the "I knew all along" card because you weren't willing to actually follow through on it. You backed out.

[zoraster]

@fitz: while I agree with much of what you're saying... there's not much town reason to do it... I need a SCUM reason someone would put their neck on the line. The reason I was pushing robb so hard was that I didn't see a town reason AND I saw a clear scum reason that Robb would do it. But although only a few posts go between claiming and backing off, Robb posted the following before vijay backed off while robb thought vijay was vig:

1. there is no way you are a vig cause I am the vig and I am going to shoot you tonight
2. if I do die tonight and you somehow live, my town flip will confirm you as scum once people go back and look at all the evidence I provided.

i'd gladly change my vote back to you and lynch you today, but all of the evidence I have provided has gone ignored by the remaining players, I was one of the first to call nik out on his scummy play (post 40 is an admission of scum imo), i'd rather hammer nik, but putting him at L-1 is good enough for me.

If he were really trying to get vijay lynched, this is where he'd put his vote. If Nik had been at L-3 or something, maybe he doesn't make the move immediately. But robb in this situation if he's trying to get the vig lynched needs to move immediately. He doesn't.

Don't get me wrong. This is dumb, stupid play. But I need some reason he'd do it as scum unless we're willing to believe that Robb is just a fool who does whatever occurs to him even as scum.

Put it another way: let's say Robb thinks vijay is vigilante but he ccs. How is that a win for scum if he's

not

going to get vijay lynched? It's a sure loss because vijay simply shoots him at night. Admittedly, I find it galling that Robb would do this as town too since if vijay really is vigilante, Robb gets shot at night, wasting a vig shot that could have gone toward a scum. But I've got to have more than that. Because it's possible Robb, as misguided as he would have had to be, really believed he was doing town some good there.

I need to think on this some more. But right now, as loathe as I am to do so, I think Robb isn't the best bet.

[zoraster]

If Robb really isn't lying, and I've yet to come up with a scum reason he would given what I've discussed earlier, vijay remains the best lynch. Vijay was getting a pass from me because I was convinced Robb wanted to lynch him to trade scum for vig, but with that not working, vijay no longer gets any town points.

VOTE: vijay

[zoraster]

I'm not positive Robb isn't lying, but until I come with a not-nonsensical reason to believe he'd do it as scum, it doesn't make sense to me for Robb to do as scum. If you can come up with a plausible reason that Robb would do what he did as scum, please let me know. I don't deny that I get serious scum vibes off him.

The reason vijay wasn't getting attention from me before was that if Robb was scum, it would have been very unlikely vijay was scum too. It could have been one of the most elaborate bus jobs ever, but then why go about it this way? It would make little sense.

But now that I'm not saying Robb is scum, it makes sense for vijay to be scum. It's pretty much for exactly the same reason I believed it yesterday ever since he claimed VT and VI.

[zoraster]

Eh, I suggested at one point off hand that it seemed like you were bussing and then defending vijay when the lynch actually looked like it'd go through, but I hadn't thought it all the way through yet. I saw you as being sort of generally scummy and inconsistent and defending vijay. I thought there was a chance you could be scum together. But as you can see, these things are evolving.

Now it's just occam's razor. No complex plan or anything. Just a scum that claimed, got called out, didn't have the guts to stand up to the CC for obvious reasons (he'll get shot), unclaimed and then claimed VT in hopes that he could wiggle off... as he somehow did yesterday.

There's the reasons I described that I don't think you and vijay are on the same side. But there's also the case that I cannot for the life of me see vijay being capable of pulling off a complicated gambit, which is what any plan that put you on the same side would require.

[zoraster]

I don't think this is where you meant to post that, fitz.

[zoraster]

Back in town. Work today, then I'll be back to this.

[zoraster]

I am voting?

[zoraster]

I'm here and tracking. I've just kind of been waiting for WPME replacement to come in/Tierce to grace us with substantive posts. I kind of feel like we're spinning our wheels, and I'd like to get those two player slots posting before starting up again. While Code_X gives me a meh feeling and I certainly suspected him D1, it feels distinctly like he's being voted for simply because he's an active target.

I'm not sure what else I can say on the subject except that vijay is scum, so he is the best choice for today.

[zoraster]

If we can get 4 or 5 truly confirmed town, we should 100% do it. I just suspect that is not possible.

[zoraster]

how are you "confirmed town" Robb? did i miss something? Likely town because of what we discussed earlier, yes. but confirmed?

[zoraster]

Shenanigans. Who claims cop when they have an innocent on someone who isn't being lynched?

[zoraster]

Name those people who are baying for it.

[zoraster]

what in god's name are you talking about? where did I "bay" for your lynch that would have caused him to claim?

[zoraster]

oh. that makes more sense.

[zoraster]

fine by me. though I do think we need Tierce and WPME's replacement to show up.

[zoraster]

fine by me. though I do think we need Tierce and WPME's replacement to show up.

Don't think tierce is getting replaced.

Yeah that's mean to be I do think we need Tierce to show up, and we need WPME's replacement to show up.

[zoraster]

2 Masons and a 1-shot cop seems to be marginally more likely than 2 Masons and an unlimited cop.

I cannot imagine 2 Masons, a 1-shot cop and an unlimited shot cop.

[zoraster]

unvote

for me as well.

[zoraster]

I don't necessarily disagree, but for argument's sake: first, neighborizor could easily be a scum role or tomorrow when one of the masons inevitably dies he says, "dammit! I targeted that guy!" Also, the fact that his innocent fell on someone who was already cleared by the game should cause some suspicion.

Still, I lean pretty firmly toward fitz town and code scum just because I see his role as more compatible with having two cleared masons, though that's hardly set in stone (especially if scum have some serious power such as godfather and/or roleblocker).

But leaving the two alive for today makes perfect sense, and we can get rid of the scum in vijay today.

VOTE: vijay

[zoraster]

i think you messed up split's vote, cfjm

Bleh, I make that mistake a lot. Fixed — callforjudgement

[zoraster]

Tl:dr: Code says didn’t want it discovered that he had got a town result on Robb from his investigation and only outed his PR when Robb was in impending danger. Which was absolutely not the case when the claim was made. Code was in more danger than Robb was.

That's how I interpreted it at first too, but Code was claiming because of the discussion on having cleared people.

[zoraster]

why do you play.

[zoraster]

Setup spec left me leaning town fitz/scum code, but the past couple of pages makes me feel exactly opposite. fitz pushing nownownownow on code despite absolutely no need to lynch code today and code seems genuinely pissed off point toward scum on fitz.

[zoraster]

VOTE: Code_X

[zoraster]

1. Get over your obsession with never voting for a wagon with people you think are scummy on it.

2. I have no idea why scum has done what it has done. Why not kill you N1? Why kill a CCed cop that had USED its cop power when there are perfectly good clear Masons to pick off? It does make my "wait. I've missed something" o-meter go off, but fortunately today isn't mylo or lylo or anything, and I have to fall back on "well, sometimes scum do dumb things."

3. No I don't remember. Knowing CFJ, I find it unlikely that he said "screw you" to the normal review group and ran his own thing though.

4. That type of neighborizor would be in the extreme minority and questionably normal. But there's an outside chance what you say is right more generally. Oso is a GF and claimed Mason with his scummate split. But it's a pretty ballsy claim, especially on D2, not to mention it requires quite a bit of luck that fitz happened to target the GF. And I think at least this would make killing fitz make some sense: confirm Oso as town, line up another town lynch. Shepard the game in lylo to a town lynch the following day. It still seems like CODE would be the more likely kill, but I guess Code was exceedingly unlikely to target split or Oso.

Actually, I need time to read back. If Oso claimed mason after fitz claimed his innocent, that would make a whole lot of sense. But I just don't know that I see that as being likely if Oso claimed first then fitz claimed the cop with an innocent on him.

I still think Code is almost certainly the lynch today, but it doesn't hurt to spend a moment thinking about this.

unvote

[zoraster]

I'm on the review board. Normally what happens is a mod posts his setup, his rules and usually his role PMs. The first thing I do is make sure it fits the normal standard. But in the same breath I'm already evaluating for balance. They really have no choice on that. They can choose to ignore me and the other mods (if the mods agree with me, which sometimes they don't) when it comes to balance. But it's not like they just submit their setup and say "only review for normalcy."

[zoraster]

Not to get into this, but yes. I understand it's optional. If a player wanted to say, "thanks for the input guys, but i'm going to do this anyway" he could, so long as it was normal. My point was I don't see CFJ thumbing his nose at the review board and doing that.

I guess we could ask since it was at one time public knowledge:

Mod: was your game approved for balance as well as normalcy?

Still need to look at the timeline when I'm not at work. Tierce says it happened in that order, and that's the way I remember it too, but I've already shown I get timing confused.

[zoraster]

Yeah. Okay. We lynch Code then. If he turns out to be town, then we can talk about these off the wall possibilities. But until then, it seems silly to spend much effort on them.

VOTE: Code

[zoraster]

To be fair, that assumes mafia knows there isn't a town doc. If you're the mafia GF, then 1-shot cop, cop and doc would make some sense, though it'd be kind of a crappy setup.

But frankly, I see the whole thing as so unlikely. For already discussed reasons, but also because if CFJ were designing a setup with a 1-shot investigative role and a unlimited shot investigative role, it seems far more likely that he'd use different powers. Cop and Tracker, Tracker and Gunsmith, etc. Cop and Cop just seems so... meh.

So I'm not worried about it. In the unlikely circumstance that Code flips town, we reevaluate. Until then, let's stop making ourselves crazy with unlikely scenarios.

P-edit: Code is acting like obviously given up scum there. Case closed.

[zoraster]

care to share thoughts?

no I do not. If I did, I would post them.

[zoraster]

Just a note: I am VLA this week. I've got computer access and can probably make a few posts but at this point the game I need to look at the game again and that may or may not happen until I get back on Sunday. Thanks for your understanding.

[zoraster]

hmm L-1. I may be able to make time in my vacation to figure out how I feel about a Nero lynch today, though no promises, although either way it seems like split's opinion as a 100% confirmed town should be heard. Just as an off-the-cuff thing, Nero seems like a legitimate if not a bit easy lynch option.

Also: Feelings on mass claim? We're almost there anyway, and I think we will benefit from forcing scum to claim today rather than tomorrow when they absolutely will expect it.

[zoraster]

Got in late last night. I need to take a closer look at this, which will happen during the day today if I'm not swamped with catchup work at work today or tonight if I am.

And I claim VT.

[zoraster]

Nero Cain, your turn

[zoraster]

sorry.

Triangle, you're last, bub

[zoraster]

More input from Zor would be lovely.

And you'll get it tonight. First inclination is that a Nero lynch is fine, especially if that's spark's preference. I don't like the Robbnva push by Tierce. It seems forced, and while Robbnva is not my favorite player, nothing has changed my mind that he's probably town.

[zoraster]

That is not what it says.

[zoraster]

Do I really need to parse it for you?

"I don't like the Robbnva push

by

Tierce. "

In other words "I don't like Tierce's Robbnva push." In other words, Tierce trying to get Robbnva lynched. Not the other way around.

[zoraster]

2 of 3: Nero, YYR, Tierce. I don't see the Robbnva-Nero link as particularly likely, but I'll certainly reevaluate if we lynch Nero and he flips scum.

[zoraster]

i'd like to hear split weigh in at least once more before we do this. you know, him being the clear townie who will be dead tonight in all likelihood.

[zoraster]

Wow.

[zoraster]

If so it's hard to imagine they thought they'd get much town cred out of it, split. The choice to lynch Code was so obvious, and it must have been so obvious from the moment they decided to kill fitz (for whatever questionable reason they did that), that it's hard to believe someone would think "if I vote for Code, people will think I'm town." Essentially, Code was set up to get lynched from the outset so who was on the wagon is almost meaningless.

[zoraster]

My hammer is ready, but waiting for split's promised post.

[zoraster]

split: are you saying you have a town read on Nero but for Code's faked claims? I'd like you to be more explicit with your views, especially if you're going to ask us to do a sharp right turn here and lynch YYR in the run up to the deadline. Your post is a little confusing. It seems that you're saying that your primary gut reads are Tierce and YYR, but you have this other doubt caused by thinking that Code would fake claim an innocent on at least one of his scummates. Is this correct?

[zoraster]

Give me a couple of hours to watch the euro 2012 finals, then I'll get to this. I know we're almost to deadline, so we're not going to no lynch unless shenanigans occur.

[zoraster]

What is fucking wrong with you? You think Tierce is scum. You've got Tierce at L-1. You know that I've said my three preferred people to lynch are Nero, Yierce and YYR. So, given the deadline what makes you think you're not about to getting a Tierce lynch? No. Of course you realize all this. Thus a 15 minute switch.

It's like you think you can coin your own townie currency by self-voting repeatedly. You don't expect me to hammer you because I've said I think you're town so you feel safe to pull off your 15 minutes of "danger". You just ADMITTED you didn't think you were in danger, so why do it other than you think you can gin up some sympathy? I've called you town in the past because I thought I understood your motivations. Or at least I understood that you WOULDN'T CC the vig if you were scum given that I couldn't think of a good reason to do so. But it's clear I don't really understand you.

I think you're scum who's too clever by half. You got away with a stupid vig-CC and then not dying that night earlier because it was just too stupid to do as scum. You're trying the same move here (why would scum keep voting himself?!?), but it's not going to play because doing it this often and when you think it's not going to lead to your lynch is a total scum move. You're not doing it because you're frustrated or anything like that. You're doing it because you think it'll make you seem townier. This too clever by half thing ALSO explains killing fitz.

Add in a bit of sexist taunting, which clearly fits your profile of not wanting to just win but also prove how much SMARTER you are than your opponents, and I think the brew is complete.

VOTE: Robbnva

Let's see if you self-vote when it matters.

[zoraster]

Oooops. Just noticed this was back up.

"Rigged" against you, Tierce? Is that an appeal to emotion I see there?

I too need to take some time and try and see if there are some obvious connections. And as should be obvious: this is lylo.

[zoraster]

In the middle of drafting my post. It's a long one, which isn't really my normal thing, but I think some structure might be good to wrap my head around things. Hopefully I can get this out before I go to bed at 10ish tonight. Bear with me.

[zoraster]

Did all but two pairings last night. It's on my laptop at home, so it'll have to wait until tonight for me to finish that up (plus I should probably, you know, actually work).

[zoraster]

Because I saw this done fairly effectively in Team Mafia by DeasVail, I figure I'll try this. Helps me organize my thoughts anyway:

• YYR-Nero
  
  YYR at one point says that he "doesn't have much" on Nero, but he's got vague towntells (1284), he then says that Nero is likely town due to Code's Result. Then he switches to saying that Nero is a "utility lynch" (1486) and finally he's "down for a Nero lynch" (1519) without much in the way to describe why he's changing. He puts Nero smack dab in the middle of his scum to town list (1592), then says that Tierce is a better lynch than Nero. (1601)
  
  The first time Nero brings up YYR is to put him in a potential scum group of 4 (1361) that included the conftown scum mason.
  
  The next time he really brings up YYR is to say he (Nero) is "really think' YYR is scum" (1575, then he pushes a triangle/YYR/code scum team (1577). Then Tierce becomes Nero's first choice, YYR second (1685)
  
  
• YYR-Triangle
  
  Opening statement on Triangle is “no read” (1186). “I haven’t read Triangle.” (1284). Mentions Triangle in an offhand way to someone else (1302). At some point there, Triangle becomes the “only firm town read” YYR has. (1592). Again talks about Triangle in third person (not directed at Triangle) calling him obvtown (1650).
  Triangle has a town read on YYR (1339, about 300 posts after YYR joins up). Triangle says that the scum team is likely Tierce and YYR if it’s Tiercescum (1594) in the same post with a Tierce vote. Then backs away from that the next post. Next interaction was today.
  This worries me a little bit as Triangle and YYR have virtually no interaction with each other directly. Then again, I don’t really recall interacting with Triangle myself. Mostly I just think if YYR and Triangle were buddies, they probably would do more to at least seem like they were interacting. As it is, they kind of just leave each other alone. My gut says no to this pairing.
  
• YYR-Tierce
  
  YYR starts off with a pretty manufactured interaction with Tierce (1186 etc.) with some questions back and forth. Then a very “buddy buddy” kind of thing with YYR saying “Tierce stealin’ my hammer” (1211). Then he comes out with a little stronger against Tierce saying “what’s the town motivation for this?” to Tierce asking about the neighborizer power (1268). YYR is later “worried by Tierce” but then the next time he mentions Tierce he says “[Tierce] has done a good job explaining things” (1337. More buddy buddy activity from YYR in Post 1440 (“Abort Tierce! Abort!”)
  
  Then things get interesting. He says that a Tierce lynch is better than a Nero lynch (as mentioned in the Nero section), but has Robbnva ahead of Tierce in scumminess (1592). But then he starts setting up a IF… THEN… scenario with Robb and Tierce. I.e. “If Robb is scum, Tierce isn’t.”
  Tierce’s mentions of YYR are somewhat similar. For example, Post 1269 is sort of a buddying up type of thing where she comments on something he said, but doesn’t really bring any heat. The next YYR mention is one where she calls YYR town along with Triangle (1308). The next is basically a place where she skirmishes with Robbnva about whether YYR and Triangle are town (since Robbnva was of the firm belief that the setup was 12 scum and 1 town). Then she defends Robb’s claim that YYR and triangle were lurking. More “YYR is town” here. Then Tierce makes a pretty broad meta based post about YYR (1514).
  
  
  
• Nero-Triangle
  
  Nero makes a comment about triangle being the last scum with conftown split. Then Nero asks YYR why YYR never said Triangle was town before. As of this point, he hasn’t addressed anything to Triangle all game. In fact other than a list that… I don’t even know what it was supposed to mean (1642) Nero doesn’t even try to address Triangle except as a way to attack YYR.
  First time Triangle brings up Nero is to vote him because of “Process of Elimination.” (1331) and a really tiny ISO. At this point, Triangle says that Nero is the only one he’s comfortable lynching. Says that Nero’s town claim may not actually make him town. At this point, Triangle goes pretty hard after Nero. Then triangle rethinks his stance on Nero, and thinks Nero is town (1594). After this point, Nero doesn’t really come up.
  
  
• Nero-Tierce
  
  Tierce starts off having only content by quoting Nero when he was quoted himself. While voting Robbnva, she believes the final scum is within me and Nero and “would find it hilarious if Code cleared both his teammates” (1308). She goes for snark when she asks Robbnva about his “scumbuddy Nero” (1311). But then she says she doesn’t want to lynch Nero today, she wants to lynch Robbnva (1322). Then she moves to put Nero at L-1 (1341). She asks Nero to claim at 1357, he does so, then she immediately moves her vote to Robbnva at 1363. Next she agrees with Triangle that his towntell (where he includes splitfarvle in the possible scum) is “nagging her.” (1402). Says that she thinks Nero towntold, but then says she thinks Nero is possible scum because only bad players would go along with killing fitz (1425). Once again says she believes Nero is scum and unvotes Robbnva and votes Nero (1483). Tierce votes Robbnva then switches to Nero again because she thinks robbnva is “protecting a power role” (1558). Much of the rest is really the same, and she advances the idea that the lynch should be either Nero or Robbnva. Votes Nero again quickly and then unvotes at lylo. All in all she mentions Nero 91 times throughout the game.
  Nero, on the other hand… doesn’t mention Tierce until 1444, where he votes her without comment. That’s his next post after saying that the scum team is between YYR, triangle, split and me (1361 He claims at her vote to put him at L-1. In justifying that when asked by triangle, he says “Robb convinced me.” Finally comments on something Tierce said (1642). Then guarantees Tierce is scum (1702).

Haven't done Triangle-Tierce yet, but I'm running out of time before work, and I think I should post this and come back to T&T.

These are the pairings that seem most likely to me in order:
1. YYR-Nero: This is my biggest pairing read. These two barely mention each other at first (besides YYR saying he just doesn't have much n Nero), but more importantly, when both mention the other it's usually to put them in the "He's Scummy but Less Scummy than Other People" category. This looks to be a pretty classic distancing attempt. They don't want each other to be

lynched

but they also want to be seen as being in conflict with each other. Which... they never really are.
2. YYR-Tierce: YYR-Tierce makes sense to me, but it worries me some that YYR has recently been riding the Tierce lynch pretty hard. In 5p lylo, I’d really expect scum to go for the win here. Yesterday would have been the more obvious bus day. It’s complicated by the fact that Tierce and Robb were in a virtual 1v1 situation and a bus might be “called for” here (in the same way CodeX was an obvious lynch), but I don’t think Tierce is anywhere near that level of obvlynch.
3. Nero-Tierce: Before I started this, this was my best guess for a scum pairing. It isn't now, but it remains plausible. It would require Tierce to have heavily distanced from Nero, frequently putting him at L-1 (though always professing a preference for Robb) and then going after him today, although I don't know if she was seriously thinking she'd get the Nero lynch at that point or was just making a point.
4. Nero-Triangle: I remain fairly convinced of Triangle-town, but of the two triangle pairings I've looked at so far, this one is the more compelling. But even so, the reversal of his opinion on Nero, though perhaps well timed to get a Robb or Tierce lynch, doesn't seem like something Triangle would do as scum.
5. YYR-Triangle: Using my WIFOMy reasoning I gave above, I don't think this pairing makes sense as neither has tried in the slightest to distance themselves from each other. The only time that it was plausible was when Triangle said that if Tiercescum then YYRscum, but then backs away from it... if you're distancing, why not leave that intact?

Still need time to digest this (as well as, for the sake of completeness, do Triangle-Tierce... maybe it turns up something surprising), but this was actually kind of helpful for me to add some structure. Hopefully it's helpful to others.

Biggest takeaway now: It makes me very wary of a Tierce lynch today.

[zoraster]

I know I have a pairing to go, but no response to any of that?

[zoraster]

you think it's me an Tierce just because I show some hesitance? YYR would be my first choice as I think the teams are likely either YYR-Nero or YYR-Tierce. Tierce-Nero is possible, but Tierce would have had to have played the distance game really well.

[zoraster]

what between saying you thought it might be Tierce/YYR and when you called YYR strong town convinced you?

[zoraster]

Nero-Tierce seems improbable now. YYR-Nero looking good. I don't believe triangle-nero is likely, Tierce. What makes you suspect that? Do you really think Nero is trying to bus in that situation?

[zoraster]

well, i already knew that!

If you've engineered this with Nero or someone else, I tip my hat to you, Tierce. But I'm ready to vote Nero. What about you, Triangle?

[zoraster]

All right.

VOTE: Nero

[zoraster]

not I. i assume that means tierce didn't just autowin, which is exciting. triangle?

[zoraster]

what if we're scum together? triangle-zor style?

more seriously, i think everyone is good now that nero isn't here. we didn't take 5 person lylo lightly and i think came up spades because of it. I think 3p can do the same.

[zoraster]

it was a joke. I meant what if triangle and me are scum, since you were talking about what if one of us was scum with YYR. And we were BOTH trolling you, but... i was obviously kidding.

[zoraster]

well, no lynch is the smartest play in this situation as there's no obvious choice who scum kills, making the kill itself very helpful. Also, it happens to be something I don't have to sweat over and, like many important decisions in my life, I can put off until "later."

VOTE: No Lynch

[zoraster]

Well hold on. That makes a very good point. Why DID we wait? I sent a PM telling the mod to start the day whenever as soon as the day was over. Did you all (as the mod indicated)? Because YYR didn't post from Wed. until today...

[zoraster]

that's also a good point. YYR not sending in the message would have prevented a quick night either way.

[zoraster]

okay. time to reread you both. On the face of it, I'm pretty surprised it was triangle who was dead as triangle-nero probably made more sense than tierce-nero after yesterday. That said, I hold Tierce in pretty high regard, so if someone were to effectively distance by turning on a dime on her partner, it'd be her.

[zoraster]

when would the scum team have won by voting you? It looks like Nero tried to quickhammer triangle, not you, or are you thinking about something different?

[zoraster]

That's a pretty good point... if I thought Nero was approaching this game deliberately and purposefully. Whatever he was trying to accomplish with voting for triangle, it was ill advised. I don't think he was aware enough of the game to recognize that I was leaning toward voting for you. Which is true, but wasn't set in stone at that point because the main reason you were my primary suspect was because of pairings of which you were involved in both sets that made sense to me (YYR-Nero, YYR-Tierce).

Besides, people get spooked in lylo situations. Had Nero suddenly gone YYR, I think my alarms would have gone off since either (a) he was bussing or (b) it took YYR-Nero off the table, leaving me only with YYR-Tierce as a pair, which was only marginally stronger than Nero-Tierce.

[zoraster]

er. obviously my analysis on (b) is wrong since it'd leave me with Nero-Tierce as the only option (since it couldn't very well be YYR-Tierce-Nero). So I guess had Nero had voted you, I would have either seen it as a bus or gone straight to Nero-Tierce.

[zoraster]

I get Nero, but why would Robb be exculpatory?

[zoraster]

So... I made the post below sort of free flowing analysis. I apologize that it's not that well structured.

The crash makes your meta kind of hard to read. The defense based on you not 1v1ing is weak. If that really is your meta, I fully anticipate your next scum game to be certain with your reads and go after someone aggressively.

Still, I don't need to rely on Robbnva to determine your alignment. I can look at the pair of scum flips and ask myself: "Do I believe Tierce would want to bus not just one but BOTH of her scum mates?"

So although Nero-Tierce is the easiest to get a grip on, I think it's time to return to the Code lynch. And to really understand that lynch, the night kill is essential. Tierce has repeatedly called the kill on havingfitz stupid. I tend to agree. So what would they payoff be for scum-Tierce? Because it's basically impossible that she wouldn't have considered that it's a pretty dumb move to kill a used up 1-shot cop that'll inevitably lead to your scummate being lynched.

I think the payoff would be exceedingly low. The only thing that could possibly come from it is a half-chance that people would recognize it as being beneath her. In other words, she didn't do it because she wouldn't do it. But that's a pretty remote possibility, and it's one that I think the majority of players here would be unlikely to make on her behalf.

Conclusion: Code-Tierce is unlikely.

Let's turn to Nero. I've already gone through the connections between the two, etc. When I've been thinking about this game, I've suffered moments of panic because the distancing came so much from Tierce, so little from Nero. He doesn't mention her until post 1444. In a way, this is exactly what I'd expect from a good play-bad player scum team trying to distance. But this is all unhelpful. So I want to turn to the Nero lynch and the events that led up to it.

Tierce votes Triangle. Nero moves in to vote Triangle. What's he hoping will happen here? There seem to be three main options. One: he hopes a townie comes in to hammer triangle. Two: he hopes his scum buddy is on and hammers it home. Three: it's an elaborate bus. One seems unlikely because only an idiot is going to hammer with virtually no explanation. Maybe Nero really believed it'd come, but I dont' think so. Three might be believable if Nero were a savvier player, but then again if he were, I have to 100% believe that he would go for the win in 5p lylo. I would. So two seems the more likely explanation, and that would eliminate Tierce as his buddy. To put it another way: I'd expect that pattern of voting on a townie to be Scum-Town-Scum or Town-Scum-Scum, with a preference for the latter. Scum-Scum-Town should be an obviously weak attack for scum to make.

The (only) nice thing about 3p lylo is that it's zero-sum. If I don't think Tierce is scum, that makes YYR scum.
As YYR was basically absent between Nero’s vote and my hammer, there’s not much to read there. The same is actually true of the CodeX lynch, now that I look at it. YYR comes in after the hammer is thrown (by CodeX himself) and says “Damn my schedule. Was that really the hammer?” I guess it’d make me feel a little better if YYR had also hopped on the CodeX wagon as even the least connected person would know that CodeX was going to get lynched the following day after a havingfitz kill.
Because there’s not much there to read and compare to Tierce’s actions, I’ll rely on my previous connection analysis:
•

YYR-Nero
YYR at one point says that he "doesn't have much" on Nero, but he's got vague towntells (1284), he then says that Nero is likely town due to Code's Result. Then he switches to saying that Nero is a "utility lynch" (1486) and finally he's "down for a Nero lynch" (1519) without much in the way to describe why he's changing. He puts Nero smack dab in the middle of his scum to town list (1592), then says that Tierce is a better lynch than Nero. (1601)

The first time Nero brings up YYR is to put him in a potential scum group of 4 (1361) that included the conftown scum mason.

The next time he really brings up YYR is to say he (Nero) is "really think' YYR is scum" (1575, then he pushes a triangle/YYR/code scum team (1577). Then Tierce becomes Nero's first choice, YYR second (1685)
[...]
YYR-Nero: This is my biggest pairing read. These two barely mention each other at first (besides YYR saying he just doesn't have much n Nero), but more importantly, when both mention the other it's usually to put them in the "He's Scummy but Less Scummy than Other People" category. This looks to be a pretty classic distancing attempt. They don't want each other to be lynched but they also want to be seen as being in conflict with each other. Which... they never really are.

With that in mind, although my panic-meter registers very high that I’m handing Tierce the win, this is it. If you’re scum, Tierce, at least don’t make me wait long to find out.

VOTE: YYR

[zoraster]

oh man. i'm literally shaking.

[zoraster]

it's weird that i know I need you to hammer YYR to win, but all i feel is relief.

[zoraster]

I believe my first mini-normal was a 3p lylo and I was scum. I'll dig it up.

[zoraster]

http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... &start=625

for what it's worth. I don't believe I've been involved in another 3p lylo.

[zoraster]

Mod trolling!

There's no rush, though I hope you don't overthink the decision.

[zoraster]

add &ppp=200 to the end of the url, I believe.

[zoraster]

sorry, tierce :-/

[zoraster]

oh to explain the fitz kill: I thought there was a small chance that fitz was actually a cop who was clever claiming joat. His breadcrumbing spelled COP, not JOAT. I thought he was

probably

telling the truth, but I thought it'd be pretty devastating if he were a real cop and managed to clear another person. Also, I really thought CodeX was getting lynched anyway, given that (a) his claim was CCed rather than the other way around; (b) the other CC was "stranger" and the stranger claim is usually the more believable; and (c) with two masons, a 1-shot cop seemed more likely. So to avoid the risk of him being actual cop, we killed him and let Code eat it.

As for Nero, I don't know what the heck he was thinking. We even had a system where if he posted, I'd come in and use a signal to indicate that for the next 10 minutes I was online and would instant hammer anything he put at L-1. But instead, he... I don't know why. I was NOT happy about going into 3p lylo as that's such a crapshoot, especially given that I wasn't going to be the decider.

Robbnva was ridiculous. I'm sure if he's kept up, he probably thinks "oh, I knew it all the time!" but that's what you get when you suspect literally everyone.

vijay made this game easier on me. It gave me someone I knew I 100% would have gone after as town because it was the RIGHT play.

[zoraster]

interesting though that the fitz kill kind of helped me on the basis of WIFOM, but I was actually making the kill because I thought it was the smartest move.

[zoraster]

I found triangle throughout the game to be the most unpredictable player after maybe splitfarvle. That unpredictability wasn't a bad thing for a long time, but I was more confident that you'd continue to read me as town than triangle since he had already proven he'd completely flip his views on a dime (even if it had been a bad (clearing scum) flip previously).

I also thought there was a decent but not great chance that YYR, knowing that he the natural next choice, would freak and place a quick vote on the person who had been suspected a lot, you. I thought I might get a nice easy quick hammer. Sadly, that didn't happen.

[zoraster]

I wanted to see if I could get better odds, and there wasn't an obvious person to kill. That said, I think it was a huge error on my part.

[zoraster]

well, maybe not huge. but definitely an error.

[zoraster]

Good job modding, CFJ. The only big suggestion was the one I made via PM: remove the replacement extends day deadline indefinitely. It SUCKS to be scum and plan your play so that the deadline will run up against you and make a quick lynch happen without as many consequences and then end up having it extended forever.

Still, a well moderated game. I thought the setup was pretty well done, but still scum sided.

[zoraster]

Congrats to the scum team, and great job in both LyLo's, Zor. I probably wouldn't have voted you in 3p LyLo.

The first thing I wrote in response to this was, "easy to say now, eh?" since second guessing from the graveyard is kind of a pet peeve, but the truth is that that definitely played into my choice to kill you. Not that I knew you would, but that you were unpredictable for me. Plus, a Tierce kill would have been more a "Zoraster does" thing than a "YYR does" thing.

[zoraster]

Well, we're having a discussion right now (sort of a very slow discussion, but nevertheless) in the review group that suggests we may have become too complacent in how much the move to 13p from 12p altered the game in favor of town. The total win rates for scum have inched their way up to 60%, so we're going to have to start reevaluating. In any event, I don't think it was outrageously unbalanced or anything. More like every game is going to be scum or townsided to some extent (almost any game anyway), and it's just a matter of identifying which it was -- though the result isn't about that.

And I think if the game becomes unplayable, sure, call a halt to the game, put it on pause or even extend the deadline. But one replacement shouldn't extend the deadline like it did multiple times. I'm not sure it matters whether it was pro town or scum, it's extremely frustrating for scum.

[zoraster]

ohhh okay. then cool. i thought you suspected me.

[zoraster]

What a troll.
You're such a troll, zoraster.

I'll take this as kind hearted needling?

[zoraster]

FWIW, the extent to which zoraster is trolling is a reasonably accurate gauge of his alignment (he does it way more as scum, in all the zoraster games I've seen). The problem, though, is that when he's trolling as scum, it's often hard to tell that it's

him

that's trolling without access to the QT.

Hmm that's interesting. Give me a few days and I'll think of a response to this.

[zoraster]

well as everyone who posted seems to think it's okay to give out: http://www.quicktopic.com/47/H/AZY787A2pV7

[zoraster]

to be fair, it's possible that the same gut feelings that cause someone to look power to scum look scummy to town given that both may exhibit activity that deviates from a normal VT. But that may be overly generous to our guts.