Mafia 64: The New "C9" - Game over!

[Thok]

Hi all, I'm replacing in.

From hat I can tell, we have a bunch of investigations that are completely irrelevant, and the person I replaced in already claimed. Are there other claims that I should be aware of?

I've taken a look over a few of the scum to see what I can dredge up from them.

My personal feeling is that the most likely godfather is The Fonz. I expect that to feel weird to people, but it looks like YB spent much of day 1 bussing TCS and The Fonz threw RogueBen under the bus on jumping into the game.

To clarify why I feel YB was bussing and not going after a townie, I'll point out that YB spent a lot of time being very focused on TCS for sort of meh reasons, but kept hyper focused on him for much of day 1. And then he jumped on the ABR wagon and never said much about TCS again (the only other time he mentions it is in his list of two scums, and he never tried to push on TCS again, even though TCS tried to get YB lynched over Sarcastro, for example, which would make for a good argument to go after TCS.

Meanwhile, TCS was doing a lot of "YB always looks scummy to me" and on multiple occasions picks alternatives to a YB wagon. There's this weird bizarre time near the end of day 2 where both he and YB are going after Glork (to be fair, MBL was on that wagon also, although MBL's vote there feels more authentic.) TCS does go after YB at the end of Day 2, but that in preference to Sarcscum: I'd feel given the chance scum would prefer sacrificing YB to Sarcastro.

And then day 3 happens and TCS goes after Billy Twilight, which makes no sense to me.

Rogueben makes a lot of posts of the form "TCS is doing stuff that looks scummy, but I think he's protown." He does the same thing with respect to The Fonz (specifically complaining about The Fonz's singlemindedness.)

I think scum jumping into the game when The Fonz did would be likely to bus Rogueben; he was the top suspect. By itself, that isn't really an arguement, since town would also likely have had some suspicion of Rogueben. What makes The Fonz's play interesting is that he basically only talked about two people yesterday: Rogueben and Simenon.

In particular, I feel like The Fonz was trying really hard to push the idea that he didn't think Simenon was the SK yesterday. If he was the Godfather, it's very much in his interest to do so.

No vote yet, since I'm still processing info.

[Thok]

From hat I can tell, we have a bunch of investigations that are completely irrelevant, and the person I replaced in already claimed. Are there other claims that I should be aware of?

Actually, wait, it seems that TCS claimed (not the people I am replacing), and I need to double check if the person I replaced claimed. Feels stupid.

Is there a particular reason why we have/haven't mass claimed with 5 left? I' not sure it helps, but I'm not sure it hurts either.

[Thok]

I mostly agree with your comments about a mass claim (which is why I said that it probably doesn't help.) But I'd prefer that any possible confusion be cleared out before endgame.

Also

FOS

for the two dead docs comment. That's blatantly not true (ManaSpryte is the only dead doc), but it feels like an assumption scum would make knowning that their kills have been unblocked for a while.

Consider a scum replacing in who had a good read on the game when you did. I claim it's not unreasonable that they found TS to be a likely SK possibiliy (if you look at her posts, she never discusses the SK at all, which is an SK tell for her. Sim also claimed the he felt that The Fonz was one of the more likely partners with Rogueben and was scummier than his predecessors.)

Then they're at a position where they had a really scummy partner, a good read on the SK and 4 other players alive. I feel the correct play for scum in that situation is to do what you did; bus your partner to decrease the chance of you being lynched, butter up to the SK to avoid being killed for a night, nightkill the SK and get a couple of mislynches.

(I will agree that you mentioned other people, and that the reason you mentioned Jack more is that you were pressed on it. But Jack was the only person you claimed was clearly protown.)

[Thok]

FOS

Thok for craplogic since 'there aren't any doctors left alive' is an equally reasonable assumption for town to make.

It's not the "there aren't any docs alive" but the "there are two dead docs" that I have issues with. That suggests you are determining the number of dead power roles by ways other than looking at the first post and that you have reasons to care about the number of dead power roles.

[Thok]

Yes, and that 'other thing' was, that I thought I remembered Guardian being proven a liar due to other doctors.

Guardian was proven a liar due to him admitting he was a liar, not because of other claims.

[Thok]

Ed: That being, him surviving the night was put down to another doc protecting him. But Mana claimed doc, and said she hadn't protected him,

so the only way he could have survived the night was by being scum.

Then

he 'fessed up. Although it turned out that he actually wasn't scum.

Or you know, Guardian could have survived since scum/SK chose not to target Guardian because he was doing his hardest to look like lynch-bait. Which appears to be what actually happened.

It was not obvious that Guardian was lying until he admitted he was lying. There are posts from other people at the time of the Guardian lynch that support this point of view.

[Thok]

THat may have been what actually happened, but it was an extremely unlikely combination of affairs. He was as good as dead once manaspryte claimed.

Compare Yosarian2's 2029 and 2030. That's the sort of thing that makes it not obvious that Guardian was a likely lynch even when ManaSpryte claimed.

[Thok]

Edit BWODP: I mean 2030 and 2031. Stupid Yosarian2 triple post

[Thok]

And a triple post

It's worth noting that some of this tunnel vision I've accused you of is something you tend to have as a townie also. So it's possible I'm over reading it (and under reading the WIFOM defense MBL's been putting up, although it does feel somewhat valid to me.)

Can't see Yos2 being scum; if you force me to go into more depth on this I will. Reading BillyTwilight is weird.

[Thok]

What do you mean by tunnel vision, Thok? I mean, I can see how the accusation could be made, but I can't see where you've actually made it.

My argument for you being scum partially relies on seeing you focusing mainly on Rogueben yesterday (which would be the case of tunnel vision), and attributing that tunnel vision to an attempted bussing attempt. The fact that you would be likely to do the same thing as a townie is a fairly valid criticism of my theory.

Also, many of the things you attribute to me apply to pretty much every player in this game. MBL and Yos didn't look much beyond one another. Billy was 'fixated' on Rogueben until Sim came along, and then concentrated on Simenon.

I'm not simply suspicious of you for focusing on RogueBen, but for the timing of how things happened when you replaced in (and also for some of TCS's interaction with YB.)

On looking at stuff, the main thing that's bugging me with this theory is TCS's claim that he was going to attempt to fake doctor, which seems like a suicidal play for a mafia godfather.

[Thok]

OK, explain the timing. I replace in, at which point Rogueben looks hella scummy. I'm voting him until deadline hits, when he remained hella scummy.

And you don't really talk about anybody else. And heck, you don't put that much effort into getting him lynched other than saying "Rogueben is hella scummy."

One, what do you think a pro-town player would be likely to do in MBL's position, that is, ten minutes before lynch in the middle of the night? Do you find it disengenuous that he says we can't afford a no-lynch whilst bringing one about? If not, why not?

We're talking about MBL here. I find it reasonable that he could claim what he did, and as he points out there are other reasons to believe he's protown.

Also, for MBL to be scum you have to assume that either he
a. thought Simenon was SK, but didn't want to deadline lynching him
b. didn't think Simenon was SK, but decided to nightkill him rather than go hunting for the SK.
c. WIFOM WIFOM WIFOM

Two, what do you make of CTD's entry into the game?

Haven't thought about it, since I know his role PM. I haven't looked closely at Inhim's entry into the game either (or any of the other of my predecessors.) His impression of YB being town is based mostly off the fact that at deadline day 2 the dueling bandwagons were Sarcastro and YB, and Sarcastro's role was already known. I can see why people might think that.

[Thok]

Random observation: there was a period of time when Yos2 was discussing how inhim couldn't be the SK because there was an SK kill that was submitted while inhim had disappeared.

The same argument implies I can't be the Godfather. (There was a mafia kill submitted on Manaspryte during that period, and only the highest ranking mafia can submit the kills. Reading the first post FTW.)

(This actually doesn't work because inhim's last post on MS was September 2nd, which is in the middle of the 4th night [his last post in the game was about half a week earlier]. But it's a neat thought.)
---------------------

Furthermore, Thok, I'd like to hear how you think TCS would have managed to pull off his gambit at the end of day 3 if he was the GF? This is my sticking point on Fonzy being town. I played a good bit with TCS last summer, and I think his play during that period is best characterized as slightly erratic. He claimed in one game as a cop with absolutely no pressure on him and no real reason simply because he was bored, and he pulled a very risky play as one of my scumpartners in Clue 2 involving rolenames. He seemed fond of gambits at the time (and maybe in general; I haven't played enough with him to know if that is his usual style or not). It is something that I could see him doing as scum; I just don't see how he could have thought that he would manage to pull it off.

I do agree that TCS's claimed gambit is a point in his favor. There is a possibility that TCS lied about why he wanted to be the lynching vote, but that feels unlikely.

Why can't you see Yos as scum? Why am I weird?

Obviously, I haven't listed everything I was thinking about every player. Part of this is me gathering data.

As for Yos2, there a bunch of general principles that he sticks to as town that give me a read on him. His pushing against vanilla claimers, and his positions of Guardian pre and post unclaiming seem consistent with protown Yos2. Yosarian also spent a bunch of time attacking MOS in a way that doesn't look like bussing. There's also the "Let's lynch Rogueben and win the game" comment, which shouldn't come from a Mafia Godfather, IMHO.

Part of the reason I consider you weird is that I don't have a metagame read on you (as I do to some extent on Yos2/The Fonz/MBL from playing with them.) Therefore I have to put in more effort to try and analyze your play. I did consider asking Fonz to consider unvoting in order to give you a chance to participate.

Blah, I'm probably wrong about The Fonz and voting MBL will end the game. But I want to hear people's thoughts in case MBL is town.

Yos, where are you? It scares me that you have basically dropped out of the game while MBL and I hack at each other, and Fonzy and Thok do the same. We need your input on everything that has gone down since you voted MBL.

This comment makes me feel better about you, for what it's worth.

[Thok]

Useful thought. There was a mafia kill on ManaSpryte between the time MBL was at Burning Man (August 20-September 6).

If MBL is the Mafia Godfather, how did that kill get submitted?

[Thok]

BillyTwilight, name two people you think are likely to be town, with reasons.

[Thok]

Twiddles fingers while waiting for a response to my question.

[Thok]

Odd question.

Yosarian2's comment about how he thought I was protown because I was trying to clear multiple people on replacing in made me notice (at leat in my opinion) that you were willing to keep at least a token amount of pressure on everybody today. I wanted to see what happened if I forced you to switch up your point of view and spend some time defending people rather than attacking them.

[Thok]

I'm one of the few (if not the only) player in the game to spend a lot of time "confirming" players as town. I was the first to really make the argument that TCS was probably town due to his actions on day 4 and I cleared Kinetic as townie when I could have let him stew in his own juices if I chose to. Furthermore, I've only kept any pressure on MBL and CTD today, so I think it's a mischaracterization to state that I've tried to keep a token amount of pressure on everyone today.

"Today" is an important word in that phrase (as to some extent is "my opinion".) The point is that the closer to lynch or lose it is, the more important it is for scum to keep options open for people to lynch.

[Thok]

This is more of a still here, still reading stuff post. I'm very much not sure who I'd vote for at the moment.

(Actually, I'd appreciate it if people bombarded me with 3-4 questions each, as that might give me some stuff to focus on.)

[Thok]

That's an interesting point. Why didn't the scum hammer someone?

Because you're the godfather?

(There's some amount of snark in that comment, but it is a plausible explanation for yesterday's voting.)

----------------
Can somebody point me towards the previous discussion of whether a godfather could delegate/presubmit a night kill? (If we can clear MBL by this logic, it's obviously important.)

In fact, I find it unreasonable that the relevant Mana Spryte kill could have been presubmitted by MBL (he left before day 3, and wouldn't have had any desire to kill Mana Spryte until the doc claim day 4.)

Mod

, can we get a clarification on whether or not night kills must be submitted by a godfather?
---------------

Other stuff I'm thinking about

1. The Fonz-Rogueben interaction versus Yos2-Rogueben interaction yesterday. Rogueben has a lot of "Yos2 is suspicious/needs an FOS/might be the godfather", but seemingly very little desire to turn that into a Yos2 vote.

2. Reading random stuff: Post 2216 by Billy Twilight feels protown to me (specifically his comment that he hadn't considered Glork as a cop as an explanation for Glork's pursuit of Sarcastro.)

3. This is WIFOM, but I don't see why MBLscum would attack Glorkcop immediately after his claim (see the relevant posts starting with 2222), and then nightkill him. Scum knows there likely isn't a doc left, so there seem to me to be two reasonable actions for scum at the time
a. Attack Glorkcop in an attempt to fish for a MBLGodfather investigation, and let him live
b. Leave Glork alone and nightkill him.

Neither really fits with MBL's actions. Yes, this could be bad play by MBLscum, but I'm not really fond of the whole MBL is scum, but really stupid theory. I'm pretty sure stupid MBL is generally metaTown.

[Thok]

Eh? How so? If I was the other scum, then why wouldn't I have, a few days before dealine, said "Oh well, I guess I'm not going to get rougeban lynched today, don't want to risk a no-lynch here" and moved my vote over to Simoon instead?

I'm looking at this from the "Why didn't Rogueben move his vote" point of view, as opposed to the "Why didn't Yos2 move his vote" point of view. Granted, there's explanations for Rogueben's lack of another vote even if you are town.

[Thok]

Thok, how much have you played with Yos? Do you feel like you have a reasonable meta on his play? I ask because, since you replaced in, of all the players in the game the one who seems to have changed in beliefs, tone, and style the most is Yos.

I've played with Yos2 a lot. I wouldn't claim to have a good meta on his play.

Do you believe Yos2's change in "beliefs, tone and style" is a scum tactic, or just reacting to a new player?

Also, why are you so certain that TCS was actually telling the truth about his day 4 intentions?

[Thok]

I want anyone to give me a plausible explanation for what TCS would have done at the end of day 4 to save himself if we had forced him to hammer. Barring that, I don't understand why anyone would be suspicious of Fonzy at the moment.

"I wanted to be the hammer. I haven't done it in a while and it's always fun to do so. Thanks for the opportunity."

I sure I could think of other things that work.

[Thok]

OK, replace "Hammering is fun" with "I wanted to draw reactions from people in order to get scum to overreact. In case I die tonight, these are the people who reacted to my request in a way that looked scummy."

[Thok]

Poke

[Thok]

Part of me seriously wants to lynch MBL, because the "Why wasn't MBL already lynched" argument is somewhat compelling, as I do think that certain players could have already gotten MBL lynched without looking particularly badly. Moreover, I consider it a protown sign towards Yos and to a lesser extent towards BillyTwilight (I can't see how you can spin Yos2's unvote of MBL as an antitown sign without significant use of WIFOM. I could see Billy's delay of voting MBL as an attempt to make his play look consistent.) I'd also argue that such an argument doesn't really apply to me, as there was a decent chance I'd be lynched tomorrow even if I jumped into the game and supported an MBL lynch.

I also sort of feel that MBL has been pushing some of my arguments a little too heavily.

That said, I don't really see why scum MBL would have expected an SK to target somebody other than Rogueben, given that a lot of people had found him to be a likely scum candidate. The Simenon kill sort of supports that, given that it was for an uninvestigated person (although the fact that Rogueben was likely to be lynched soon independent of his play mitigates that factor.)

[Thok]

Sorry for being a smarmy prick about it, but then again I'm not the one who's only been looking at one and the same townie for the past three months. If you're town, it's time for you to start helping carry the load.

This feel like the pot calling the kettle black, given how much you've been going after Yosarian2 before today. (Yes, I don't know that Yos2 is a townie, but your behavior towards him has some similarities towards The Fonz's behavior today.)

I need to get myself to stop thinking about the later nightkills and read more of the game. For example, the more I think the Rogueben nightkill, the worse it seems to me as SK play, but that line of thought is absolutely worthless in terms of finding the GF.

[Thok]

Got poked. Tomorrow/Friday suck for me timewise and I really need to get some sleep today.

I'm confused why The Fonz doesn't think Yos leading what would be a Yos/BT/Fonz lead lynch of MBL would be better play for scumYos then the whole flip-flop issue. HyposcumYos was likely already winning this game before the flip-flop on MBL. (Seriously, assume Yos doesn't flip-flop. Of the three nightkills for hypoYosscum after an MBLtown lynch, I'd favor Yosscum getting somebody else lynched in at least two of them [the ones where I'm not killed].) If Yos is scum, I don't see why he'd need to make waves this late in the game.

[Thok]

I'd have difficulty seeing how Yos would get you lynched over himself. I haven't seen any indication you'd vote for BT rather than Yos. Plus, the very substance of the argument chosen sets up the Fonz-then-MBL double mislynch, if Yos is scum.

Huh? BillyTwilight fairly clearly indicated I was his second most likely scum candidate (after MBL) when I asked him to list who he thought was protown, and you also indicated stuff that indicated a preference to lynch me over Yos given the choice (your 2994 for example suggests a lack of interest in a Yos lynch.)

Remember, if Yos doesn't flip-flop then MBL's likely lynched by BillyTwilight 3090 (or is lynched not much longer after that post: in any case it's not hard for hyposcumYos to anticipate an MBL lynch occuring relatively soon in that scenario.) The last 4 pages or so which make me look better and Yos look worse wouldn't exist in that scenario.

And that's ignoring the fact that I've been implying that I've thought Yos is protown since replacing in: hyposcumYos has reason to believe that he can talk me into making a mistake at lynch or lose also.

[Thok]

@Billy: I didn't think it was obvious that TCS was "clearly hinting at a power role," but rather that he was merely planning to do something weird. Looking over his posts, only TCS's 2653 sort of makes that line of thought clear. And again, this is essentially your only argument against TCSscum.

Similarly, I don't believe it's obvious that if TCS didn't make a role related comment when he hammered then he would be run up. You've claimed that, but I don't necessarily consider that a pro-town sign. (Also, if he was hinting at a protown power role, nothing really made sense at a time: any doctor should have protected Manaspryte, any mason knew that Glork was the likely kill, and anybody else was essentially impossible.)

Given that context, Yos's 2662 asking for people to stop talking about the topic should be seen as a protown sign.

I'm also curious why you think this line of discussion is likely to help us catch scum. Given your vote, I feel like your highest priority should be either convincing us of the merits of an MBL lynch or reassessing your own views of that lynch.

Also, there's a fairly big difference between MBL and Simenon in that MBL was fairly active before the deadline, while Simenon was not. Simenon literally made only one post in the three weeks before the deadline, and that one was a response to the prod just before deadline.

The whole Yos2 is scummy for misreading the game argument doesn't do much for me right now. If you think MBL is the last scum, the right point of view is to try and convince others that you are right, not attack others as scum for misanalyzing data. And if you don't think MBL is scum, why are you voting for him?

Has anybody looked over beanbagboy's thoughts on MBL early on? In particular, anybody want to try to explain why scum would suggest their godfather is an SK day 1 in an open game that potentially has a vig? MOS also did the vote MBL over FOS: YB thing on replacing in (from scum that's often town voted and scum attacked), and attacked MBL with at least one completely flawed reason (claiming MBL was lurking, when he wasn't.)

It occurs to me that BT's rant against AE's lurker hunting in post 647 is really anti-town in context. First of all, AE was looking at other people other than just lurkersat that time [she was repeatedly voting YB, who wasn't really lurking at that time], and also at that point a significan portion of the people she was putting pressure on were scum (she was suspicious of both beanbagboy and YB.)

[Thok]

And for the record, right now my scum list looks like

1. BillyTwilight
2. MBL
3. The Fonz
4. Yosarian2

Strangely, The Fonz's recent play has made me lower his score, mainly because it seems fairly consistent with how I think protown The Fonz would play, and MBL's play has been bugging me some.

[Thok]

The whole TCS thing is becoming a distraction, IMHO. Looking over your posts, it's clear what your analysis of it was at the time, and that it's consistent with your comments (except for the whole "you would run him up if he did something different": you seemed to believe that the people who were attacking TCS for this were likely scum.) I still think it's a stretch to call it an obviously protown sign (at least two pro-town people were voting TCS over that incident), but I'm willing to accept that you thought it was an obvious protown sign.

Given that context, Yos's 2662 asking for people to stop talking about the topic should be seen as a protown sign.

I don't follow what you mean here. Please elaborate. I don't think anyone would say that #2662 is a scumtell, so I don't understand why you are even mentioning it.

I'm mentioning it as further evidence that Yos2 is protown, duh. (And which I think is important because I feel like a Yos2 mislynch is being setup for tomorrow.) If Yos2's scum, there's no reason for him to try to keep discussion of TCS's gambit from happening, especially if he thinks it means that TCS might be forced to reveal a role. To be fair, I should count your 2636 in the same manner as a protown sign.

I'm also curious why you think this line of discussion is likely to help us catch scum. Given your vote, I feel like your highest priority should be either convincing us of the merits of an MBL lynch or reassessing your own views of that lynch.

Because right now the only other person being seriously questioned by players in the game is The Fonz. I'm trying to convince everyone else that lynching Fonzy is a bad idea. Mislynching town right now would not be the best thing for us, do you think? I don't understand how arguing to avoid mislynching town should be construed as a scummy.

Then why don't you suggest other reasons for The Fonz to be considered protown other than relying on a single gambit made by TCS? I don't think defending The Fonz is scummy. I do think basically only using one piece of evidence to defend him that may not be accurately interpretted is scummy. It may be a protown sign for The Fonz, but I'm not convinced it should be the only event we should assess him on. At best that line of reasoning is sloppy, IMHO.

Also, there's a fairly big difference between MBL and Simenon in that MBL was fairly active before the deadline, while Simenon was not. Simenon literally made only one post in the three weeks before the deadline, and that one was a response to the prod just before deadline.

Perhaps. Doesn't change the fact that he was voting for Yos when he could have been voting for RB. Your argument here would be much more reasonable if Simenon wasn't around to make the NK. Night only lasted 3 days, so he was active enough at that point to decide to kill RB. I HIGHLY doubt that he would have been ready and willing to kill RB in the night phase, and not ready to move his vote to RB a few days before when he posted a day before deadline. The point is that I believe his vote placement and night kill choice were intentional. He didn't have an epiphany during the night phase and decide to kill RB. I'm merely providing an example where scum could have voted to lynch someone and didn't, then night killed them, something that Yos doesn't think scum would do.

It takes much less effort to send in a night kill then to try to fake rereading the game and setting up an argument justifying a change in a vote that doesn't really fit your previous comments. Simenon would also have the extra three days to submit a nightkill.

The whole Yos2 is scummy for misreading the game argument doesn't do much for me right now. If you think MBL is the last scum, the right point of view is to try and convince others that you are right, not attack others as scum for misanalyzing data. And if you don't think MBL is scum, why are you voting for him?

Show me where I called Yos scummy, please. I disagree with him, and his opinions about the game so far. See post #3139, my only real analysis of Yos's play. I come to the conclusion that I don't see him as being a very likely GF, but I don't think his contribution is helping. I basically state the same thing in post #3189. Never do I call him scummy. I disagree entirely with his opinion on the game right now. I think Fonz is the worst lynch we could have today, and I think MBL is scum. Yos thinks the opposite, and I'm trying to show him that he's wrong.

Words like "I don't like" that you put in your 3189 generally imply you find somebody scummy or that you're trying to suggest somebody is scummy. Similarly the whole "I don't think Yos is scum, but I find his play doesn't make sense" comments and the whole "I think Yos is trying to skate through the day" comments in 3139 are very weasally; while you don't say that you think Yos is scummy, you certainly imply that you are open to the possibility to a Yos2 lynch. If you disagree with his opinion, try to present arguments to change Yos2's mind/try to counter our arguments; don't take potshots at a player you think is protown.

Has anybody looked over beanbagboy's thoughts on MBL early on? In particular, anybody want to try to explain why scum would suggest their godfather is an SK day 1 in an open game that potentially has a vig? MOS also did the vote MBL over FOS: YB thing on replacing in (from scum that's often town voted and scum attacked), and attacked MBL with at least one completely flawed reason (claiming MBL was lurking, when he wasn't.)

It occurs to me that BT's rant against AE's lurker hunting in post 647 is really anti-town in context. First of all, AE was looking at other people other than just lurkersat that time [she was repeatedly voting YB, who wasn't really lurking at that time], and also at that point a significan portion of the people she was putting pressure on were scum (she was suspicious of both beanbagboy and YB.)

Shrug. I think lurker-hunting is a pointless endeavor that more often lets scum get an advantage than helps town lynch scum. I've seen scum start lurker hunts on multiple occasions. Furthermore, I stated what I believed (and still believe) to be true, that lurker hunting is bad for the town and very often a scum-tactic. The entire conversation that stemmed from that was theoretical in nature and pushed just as much by Yos and other players as it was by me. I consider calling my statement about AE a "rant" mischaracterization. My entire original statment to AE was "I hate lurker hunting. AE, that puts you one down in my book, real fast... You've posted like crazy since you came in. I've not seen anything in your posts that I don't like, really, but fyi, lurker hunting makes me angry. Let the mod handle it, ask for a prod, etc, but lurker hunting sucks, and it's something that scum love to do." How do you characterize that as a rant, especially considering it made up a minor part of that post?

I use rant more generically than others. But, my point was that you brought that up as a topic of conversation when addressing her at a point where scum might need to try to cast doubt on AE's opinions.

I still think MBL's scum. I am trying to convince you or Yos that MBL is scum. I'm waiting for MBL to respond fully to my posts against him before furthering what I think about his play. I also think that Fonz is not scum, and for you to call into question me trying to keep us from mislynching is ridiculous. To shut my mouth and let him hang

would

be scummy, don't you think?

I'm not calling you in question for trying to keep the Fonz from being lynched. I'm calling you in question for very heavily leaning on a single piece of evidence, that I'm not convinced should be the sole deciding factor of a person's alignment (which makes me wonder if you already had an idea of TCS's alignment and chose to defend him for that reason.) I'm also calling you in question for not trying to bring up additional arguments that would help people change their minds.

[Thok]

*taps foot*

Sorry, I got wrapped up in Space Monkeys prep only to be vaporized immediately upon landing. It's a cruel universe.

Why don't you answer BillyTwilight's questions while you are around?

[Thok]

I will, I will. This game is like that Senior Thesis that you put off til Finals Week. Just thinking about it makes me want to whip out the XBox360.

Do you need some sort of deadline to force you into action? I will threaten you with a lynching vote in order to get you to respond to stuff others have posted.

Thok, did my post from the other night make an impression? I surprised myself by finding a pretty decent reason to think Fonz might be town after all.

I'm doing my own analysis of the situation, thank you very much. This question comes off very much as "Hey Thok, look at me, I'm doing analysis in a way to try to make you happy. Aren't you proud of me? Doesn't my analysis make you think I'm townie?"

That said, I think at least one part of your analysis is wrong (about what The Fonz does if you are hypoTown and get hypomislynched today; The Fonz/BT aren't likely to lynch each other in endgame, [assuming one is scum and one is town] even if you are hypomislynched.) It also feels like you are being hypocritical by focusing mostly on The Fonz/BT/Yos2's play today is assessing people's scumminess while asking us to look over your overall play.

[Thok]

BT, can you explain why you didn't move your vote from Simenon to RB in 2969, when a deadline had just been announced, or in 2981 when there was less than a day until the deadline hit?

(I have read your most recent posts, but I want to hear you discuss this issue, since it hasn't been brought up at all.)

[Thok]

@Fonz: Fair enough. Replace "Nobody's brought it up" with "Nobody's forced BT to explain himself over this."

[Thok]

Thok, I'm thinking this one is going to be up to you. If you vote for Fonz, or BillyTwilight, or MBL, (or probably even me), it looks to me like that person is going to be lynched. So, I'm just wondering; if you absolutly had to vote for someone right now, who would it be?

Honestly, it would probably be MBL, but that's partially my gut not liking MBL's play today (it feels very opportunistic and high-strung), and partially me feeling that in case of a mislynch today we'd be better off with a mislynch on MBL than a mislynch on anybody else. In some sense it's a safety play.

Next would be BillyTwilight, who feels scummier than The Fonz.

I really need to force myself to spend about four hours focusing on nothing but this game.

[Thok]

I'm going to give the game a reread, and should make a vote by Friday. It will probably be for MBL at this point: he definitely seems to be stretching arguments to make a point.

[Thok]

Blah, running slowly on this (I blame the heat wave in my area.)

Haven't started on the reread. Will try and do it tomorrow.

[Thok]

Still haven't put in the effort to reread yet. Also, as per V/LA, the next couple days will be fun with grading finals.

[Thok]

And I'm waiting to kick my butt into gear and do my reread. I've forced myself to get other real life stuff done slowly.

Yos: can you do a comparison of The Fonz versus Billy Twilight? Even if it is just a process of elimination thing, I want to hear your thoughts about both of them. (I'm not including MBL in this because he's sort of a separate case in terms of what he's done in the game.)

[Thok]

Still here, still rereading/thinking about stuff. I will be voting somebody before the deadline.

MBL, you mentioned that you would post stuff about why you think me and my predecessors are obviously protown. Could you do that? (This is a force you to post stuff to see if your logic makes sense.)

[Thok]

Feh. I basically have to vote now, since I'm leaving to meet with my family for Father's Day.

So,

vote BillyTwilight

Part of this is situational: I don't think Yos2 or The Fonz is the last scum, and it's easier for me to lynch BT then MBL then the other way around. Part of this is the fact that BBB and Rogueben kept pushing the MBL is SK idea, which doesn't make sense to me if MBL is the godfather. And part of it is that I see a lot of BT settling for his second best lynch, when his best lynch is YB/Rogueben. That pattern makes the YB interaction seem more like bussing to me.

[Thok]

Wow. Just wow.

I knew the case on MBL was poor.

[Thok]

OK, a couple more comments while I'm a little more under control.

One thing worth taking from this game is the observation that stupid doesn't necessarily equal scum, while controlled reasonable arguments don't necessarily equal town. (See Guardian and MBL for examples of the first situation, while Jack and BT are obviously examples of the second situation.) Obviously they aren't exclusive (YB would count as a person who acted in a stupid manner and also was scum) but it's worthwhile looking closer at what people were actually doing.

Thanks for putting up with me taking my time to think about the situation. I was rereading stuff, and at the time I made my vote, I'd probably put my confidence in who was scum at about 60% BT, 30% MBL, 8% The Fonz and 2% Yosarian2 (numbers totally not scientifically accurate.) I spent a non-trivial amount of time thinking about possible night kills in the event I was wrong while I was at an A's-Giants game with my family.

[Thok]

This makes me very sad...

I can understand why that is. And to be fair, I probably would have pushed for Guardian's lynch if I was in the game when he did his doc unclaim. But not everybody has the same style of play.

[Thok]

To be fair, I had put BT in my most likely to be scum slot by 3191 (before MBL's big post about it) and possibly even a bit before that when I was arguing with BT about his behavior during the day. Ironically, the tone of MBL's post against BT was part of the reason I had his scum percentage as high as I did (and the fact that he accused BT of lying about being on vacation); I was worried that I had misread things and that he was scum scrambling to avoid a lynch.

I mean, that's not to take away from MBL, who did a good job of finding scum once his back was against the wall.

A lot of my read came off of last day stuff. As I said, Yos2's flip on MBL made no sense for him as scum. Similarly, The Fonz's reaction to the me/Yos2/The Fonz attacks didn't strike me as something likely to come from scum (specifically the declaration of me likely being protown while Yos2 wasn't; scum would have kept suspicion on both of us to keep options open or dropped the attack on Yos2 to butter up to me.) (Rereading confirmed by feelings about The Fonz, as YB was attacking him as scum after the MOS/Sarcastro deaths, and I decided that YB wouldn't be bussing at that time.)

[Thok]

Thanks so much, PJ, for keeping this thing alive for so long. Did it last a full year?

Taking a look, this seems to be the longest finished game that's ended as a town win.