California Trilogy: City of Angels - Off Stage (Game Over)

[Talilan]

/confirm

[Talilan]

Shoot, I have to wear this Princess Leia bikini costume, and zwet wont even get a lousy Charles Manson costume on?

Whoever's getting coffee, get me a trim mocha latte. And quickly. I'm due on stage soon.

[Talilan]

I agree zwet is nervous. He has previously stated DGB can read him accurately but when she has merely reiterated this in this game he responds with "you are lying".

Also

You silly. You're one of the few people who can get accurate reads on me,

but this is ridiculous.

Unnecessarily strong and self-conscious phrasing compared to how zwet usually says things. There's a good chance he's scum.

MafiaJin: why did you choose the players you did?

Also, and I preface this with

I do not want you to reveal who the assistant producer is if you know

, but do you, as the director, know who all the players with roles are, including the assistant producer?

[Talilan]

it's not just him, it's the director role in general - either they know or they do not.

I believe at some point it's going to come up and will inevitably be subject to the usual WIFOM (if AP dies then is it because the director is scum and told their buddies who to kill?), which was my motivation for wanting the information out on the table to begin with (of course this all assumes the original assistant producer is still in the role, when they get ousted there will be no guarantee of the alignment of their replacee).

but you may be right in that, assuming MafiaJin is town, and assuming there's a decent chance they do actually know who the AP is, perhaps they should not reveal whether they have knowledge of the AP at all.

[Talilan]

Also to be more clear, it's to prevent the following sort of scenario:

MafiaJin is town. They are thought scummy for whatever reason and lynched. They are replaced by someone who turns out to be scum, but is widely thought of as town. They know who the AP is, and kill them. However they claim not to have known who they were (and there is no contradictory evidence) and because they are otherwise trusted they live through to end-game (in the process a scum AP may well have been inadvertently promoted by the original AP after they are killed, screwing town over even more.)

Also,

Normally I'd be like "lol fishing on page 2" but this game has significant unusual mechanics.

What specifically about the mechanics of this game has prevented you from leveling an accusation of rolefishing at us?

Carrie doesn't get so many leading roles these days so she wants to make the most of her time in the spotlight.

[Talilan]

Lastly, the people On Camera should try to take as close to the 2 week maximum as possible as 3 days is definitely not enough to decide on a lynch, especially for the first couple of days.

I agree, we should leave it at least about 9-10 days (but not so late as to risk not getting a clear majority) before we hammer on camera

That is unless we get the cue which I think Zorblag is gonna give us which means you've reached a lynch. I fully support using the sound man like that.

Like, a tortose might mean "slow down, we need more time", while a rabbit might mean "ok, we're done." Something like that.

Sounds good, if you can think of any more useful cues (because that's already covered by Mighty Orbots to some extent) do tell.

From his statement, "There's a good chance he's scum.", I assumed that he would be willing to lynch since I know that I would lynch someone who I thought there was a good chance was scum.

If I had to choose someone to be lynched, right now, it would be him. That doesn't entail that I wanted him lynched immediately, without further opportunity to provide more tells as to his alignment (and I don't know why you'd think I would want to lynch him right now?)

I like a zwetvote. His play reminds me of my early scumplay, in particular newbie 297 (an air of trying too hard).

What do you think dahill's downplaying of zwet-tells says about his alignment?

I (ortolan) have made every post except 46, which was Talitha. I should stop hogging Carrie, but she wants to shine whenever she gets a more substantial role than her Scream 3 cameo.

[Talilan]

meh I'm making the most of having access to this thread while I'm here and have time.

Further, since I can say it while people on camera in scene one can see it we almost certainly want to do whatever the advocates say in the first scene. Unless we got particularly unlucky we should have at least one town advocate in the scene. If the two advocates disagree then one of them should almost certainly be scum so the scum has good reason to fail to deceive us right at the start.

I agree entirely.

MafiaJin: I meant to ask you in my previous post: why did you choose the players you did? (not just yourself).

This assumes that the Off Camera group actually has something useful to say about the On Camera decision, and it's possible (OK probable) that having the Off Camera group discuss the On Camera decision will distract from from having the Off Camera group discuss who to lynch.

I don't see any reason to withhold commentary as it comes to you. See the Parallel Universe games currently taking place. In this case it's much simpler, there's just one larger group of players watching/commenting on a smaller group of players, rather than 3 equal sized games cross-commentating.

We've got 3 other pieces of information that we can pass on through zwetschenwasser and Mighty Orbots. What else do we want to be able to let the on camera people know?

Well, when we lynch someone and find out their alignment, that might be a useful thing for the on-camera people to know, since that could help them figure out if they should trust their advocate or not, if they're keeping careful notes about this thread and who they thing might be connected to who. That's be a pretty simple thing to communicate; all you'd need is a picture of their avatar, and then either a picture of an angel for "good guy" or a picture of a demon for "bad guy".

I agree. The cameraman should probably preserve their pictures for this.

As far as I can tell, the choice we make On-Camera will be largely random, and will not necessarily enable us to find and kill scum.

Where are you (or anyone else for that matter) getting the idea that the decisions made on-camera aren't important, or are at least less important than that of deciding a lynch?

Does anyone have a very clear and concise explanation of the mechanics in this game?

I suggest you ask the mod anything (he will then make it public if it wasn't already in the rules). I agree that the rules leave some of the functionality of the game unclear.

[Talilan]

I am not sure if I am allowed to quote from the rules post, so I will avoid doing so for the time being, but:

That said, I see nothing to indicate that any individual player has any knowledge or preference for one choice over any other choice during Scene One

It explicitly states in the on camera rules that the advocate gets information to help make the decision. Ergo, the first scene is not random at all. Did you just miss this or is there another reason you think the scene is still entirely random?

Either way I don't understand your point about the second and onwards scenes being

not

random, or at least

less

random than the first. The difference is that the advocates are chosen by scum, rather than randomly. Just because it has a scum-WIFOM filter applied to it wouldn't somehow render it non-random if it was already random to begin with.

Note that the choice isn't "to follow one or another advocate", that's only for the first scene. It doesn't mean that one advocate is town and another is scum, it means that one is the right advocate to follow; presumably independently of their alignment. Note in subsequent scenes the choices aren't tied to specific advocates, and e.g. in Scene 2 there are 3 choices and only one advocate.

So basically, the setup is:

advocate has knowledge to help

advocates chosen randomly for first scene

advocate(s) chosen by scum for subsequent scenes. They will still get the useful information whether they be scum or town. They are kind of like a weird version of night-kill choices for the scum.

I haven't seen a single person actually make a case as to why On-Camera decisions would be more important than killing scumbags, yet I've had three people question or disagree with me on this point. I would LOVE to see some counterpoints if you folks have them.

Well for example the result of the worst outcome in a scene might mean the scum get 5 nightkills that night rather than 1, or 0. We just don't know what form they're going to take. I don't understand why you'd assume that the on-camera action would somehow be irrelevant when it looks like it's designed to be the centrepiece of the game. The players on-camera are a minority whose every move is going to be under particular scrutiny and who can't scrutinise most of the other players. Furthermore there are several devices to relay information to them, albeit subtly. Why would you think the players with limited communication, who everyone can see, would be less rather than of equal or greater importance than the flock of people off-stage?

[Talilan]

Wow, I was not expecting to get hauled off stage mid-scene. If KY thinks she can doing a better acting job than me,

whatever

. It's good to get out of that costume.

I see there's been a lot going on back-stage, so please bear with me while I catch up on 16 pages of notes.

[Talilan]

not only have I been unceremoniously kicked off stage but this is going to require a great deal of catching up. Forgive me if I pick up some old threads that were abruptly cut short.

[Talilan]

Talillan 119

advocate(s) chosen by scum for subsequent scenes. They will still get the useful information whether they be scum or town. They are kind of like a weird version of night-kill choices for the scum.

Your word choice here seems to imply you know that scum don't have night kills. I just reread the rules (again. . .) and I couldn't find anything to suggest this. I don't like using slips anymore ( I used to really like them, but have recently found them to not work well) to find scum, but this one looks better than most.

You are incorrect to imply that what I said entailed me knowing the scum have no night-kill choices (and I'm honestly not sure why you would think that either). In fact the mere presence of a night to me makes me think this isn't the case.

I'm not sold. My gut is telling me this is overblown (and I'm incredibly wary of slips anyway). I don't see that his actions in putting himself on stage are the massive crime that Gaspar is making them out to be (at best a mistake, though). I don't feel the slip is particularly worthwhile. In short, I'm not a fan of the wagon.

Zwet, otoh, I think is looking pretty damn scummy. His post rebutting DGB is unusually long and detailed for him, and was already his second post addressing the situation; he's worried enough about it that he has to address it twice before giving any thoughts on the game. Yet when I quizzed him about it, he claimed that it was impossible to defend against anyway. So why spend such effort trying (and yes, for zwet that was a relatively large amount of effort). Then there's the buddying up to DGB, the person attacking him, which screams scum to me. I really think zwet is a much better lynch than MafiaJin.

-Shanba

This post sums up my exact attitudes to the game as of this post.

Others might disagree with my interpretation that Talitan was asking for input from those of us off stage but zwetschenwasser should have at least commented on it and whether he wanted to post a photo.

Actually we weren't after input from those off stage, we also knew perfectly well that there was a good and bad outcome. We were trying to catch people slipping claiming divergent/scummy scenarios.

(Mith may mislead, but he wouldn't lie, and scum wouldn't risk that much on the first decision unless they knew it was so important that it was worth risking two of their members.)

Recall that we (well, I - ortolan, at least) had no knowledge of this and no facility to access your commentary during our time on camera. I am very surprised at the commentary by elmo (213) and Gaspar (238) (and followed by Goofballs and Balloons and to some extent Mighty Orbots earlier) which suggests we are obv-scum merely for not being 100% certain of the decision we should make several days into the on-camera scene.

All we were doing is questioning curiouskarmadog, which, you know, is good for gauging reactions from ourselves, them and the other players. At no point did we ever announce that we did intend to vote against the effective consensus by the two advocates. Yet Gaspar and elmo have developed a lock-on scum reading already where they conveniently take the least charitable possible interpretation of our actions (note Gaspar already did exactly the same thing with MafiaJin (who I read as town because of his directorial choices), which I will get to later).

On my other suspicions...I've got kind of a bad gut feeling about Gasper right now. I can't really explain it, but he seems off, feels more like scum-Glork then town-Glork. I don't really like the way he's scumhunting, and I'm unconvinced about and unsatisfied with his attack and focus on MafiaJin. Talking to Elmo now and he also has a bad feeling about Glork.

SAME BUT I THINK YOU'RE HIS BUDDY. If you genuinely had a strong scum read on him along with your hydra he'd be number one in your condorcet.

Yeah, well, that last game we played together I had a gut feeling you were scum there as well, and didn't follow up on it as much as I should have. We all know how that turned out, heh. My suspicions on you aren't really meta based; it's more about how your

Yep! You forgot to fill in your reasoning to make your distancing look legitimate here (who would possibly stop writing that mid-way through if that were a legitimate comment?)

I'm considering whether I find Orbots or Thok scummier. Thok, from what I've seen of him, isn't this quiet and doesn't post so quietly, even with excuses. He lied, saying that DGB was tunnelling on me. Seraphim typically doesn't lurk this much in games, KY Krew has been making too much nonsensicalness (even trying to mask his desire to policy lynch me with a strange analogy), and I find Shadowlurker slightly scummy for his overeager vote.

Yer conveniently he's just commenting on the people no-one else is concerned with.

I skimmed the rest of the game in order to post this (and will catch up on that and why I think MafiaJin is probably town after that but...)

Vote: [zwet, Gaspar, elmosaurian], People, MrJellyLee, GoofballsandBalloons, Bagel Eating Cowfrog, No lynch, Talilan

Tags removed. Only use bold for actual votes, and you can only vote for one player at a time. - Mod

[Talilan]

Who are you attacking whom I suspect? Gaspar? Yes, that's busing(/distancing, whichever lingo you prefer), as I already explained.

What reasons you suspect me have I failed to respond to?

Why was the OMGUS so unashamedly swift?

[Talilan]

Vote: zwet

, Gaspar, elmosaurian, People, MrJellyLee, GoofballsandBalloons, Bagel Eating Cowfrog, No lynch, Talilan

[Talilan]

Yos:
We were only dragged into this thread a matter of hours ago. It's a lot to catch up on. Give us a chance. We've been a bit stagnant in the other thread, having basically made a decision, waiting, not knowing what is going on here but wanting to give you guys plenty of time. Now we're here and the clock is ticking fast so it's no wonder that Ortolan has jumped to get involved here immediately.

This is important though -> You need to understand that over in the other thread we had NO access to the rules and information posted here by the mod. We were going purely from memory and I myself had barely had time to skim the rules before being whisked onstage. We weren't ignoring anything, we simply didn't have the information apart from what we could remember.

- Talitha (Ortolan posted the remainder of our posts since we switched excepting the first which was me.)

And I'm trying to get through the thread - stop making pages faster than I can read them.

[Talilan]

All the reasons you brought up for attacking us are reasons I already addressed in post 409. I will reiterate with more detail:

- We never announced any intention of going through with a vote for Locke to drive.

- We were unsure on how mod-WIFOM factored into things. I sent several PMs to Mr. Grey trying to discern better how the advocates decisions worked e.g. asking if what the [something else] players chose as the correct choices determined what information was given to the advocates or if it was independent of it.

- We had no access to the off-camera thread to see e.g. Thok's opinion that mith would never directly lie to players.

- By reserving our judgment and considering contrary points of view we incited discussion which allows people better opportunity to read those on camera.

- Uncertainty is not a scum-tell, particularly in this setup when scum know which is the correct decision, and innocents do not.

- View e.g. Post 102 by us (me) on-stage. Gaspar and yourself's scenario of us being scum relies on us intending to subvert the overall opinion despite the knowledge the advocates provide. If this were the case you cannot explain why we changed our mind to saying that voting for Valentine to drive was inevitable, and that there was really no alternative (this alone means you should have adjusted your opinions of us, but apparently you're still tunneled down the same path without recognising that if you were town you should have changed your suspicions in response to our actions).

- We asked for a spot poll of those outside the thread on whether we should trust Locke, which defers our decision to other people. It really is astonishing that you can still pretend to find us scummy after actions such as this. But you're welcome to try and explain how this fits in with your Talilan-as-scum theory.

- There was the additional point made in the thread from memory which seemed generally agreed with that the advocates would be stupid to lie as scum, because afterwards it would be transparent and they would get lynched. If so it seems equally bad if not worse play as scum, to, if one is not an advocate oneself, single-handedly argue against both what the advocates advocate, with the full knowledge that not only is one likely to not be able to convince anyway, but is likely to look scummy for trying unsuccessfully to divert from the correct course of action while on-stage. On the other hand, if by a miracle one did convince everyone else to vote against the advocates, resulting in the wrong decision being made; one would be basically an automatic lynch choice when one comes off the stage.

Not only are these points a defence of us, but they serve to underline that yourself and Gaspar's attacks on us rely on reasoning which is inherently extremely faulty and single-minded, and ignores many, many mitiging factors, and is therefore scummy. I also consider the above quote very good evidence of you attempting to distance from Gaspar. You and Gaspar are welcome to try and argue why your attacks are not scummy in light of the above. And you are welcome to explain why you weren't attempting to distance from Gaspar in post 305.

[Talilan]

Also, the fact you ignored it (or failed to notice it) and failed to respond when Glork pointed it out in 310 suggests to me you are not having a dynamic conversation with him as one would if you were an innocent and not aware of his alignment. You would instantly jump in to clarify and justify what you meant, and why you'd trailed off and forgotten to finish what you were writing.

[Talilan]

The only thing I fear today is that KY Krew might pull themselves On Stage at the last moment if they are going to be lynched. So let's just agree to this now:
KY Krew, if you put yourself on stage during the last five days maximum of the scene OR do not replace either MafiaJin/Talian/whoever is most suspicious on stage, then you will be lynched at the next available opportunity.

Thanks for this step-by-step guide of how to avoid lynch and get an innocent lynched that you gave to KY Krew, btw.

-Talitha (still reading)

[Talilan]

At least there's an OR in there. How far away is deadline anyway?

-Tal

[Talilan]

Btw as far as I can tell we both agree that KY Crew is very, very scummy also if that wasn't clear. Plus zwet's defence of him "COME ON GUYS HEAR WHAT HE HAS TO SAY" is exactly how zwet would act towards his buddy.

zwet's been scum for: overreacting to DGB declaring she can read his alignment when he's previously acknowledged that is the case. Then sucking up to DGB. Then doing nothing else I can remember. Then defending KY Crew who is also scum.

Four scum on day one is a new record for me I think.

- ort

[Talilan]

You know I just realised Carrie Fisher is in scene two also (which means unless KY Crew gets changed/murdered somehow he will be in Scene 2 tomorrow instead of off-stage where he's lynchable).

- ort (damn time zone differences)

[Talilan]

Yeah, the timezone thing means we have a whole lot of posts in a row. I hope we'll be forgiven for another one, because I don't think I'll get a chance to post again for about 20 hours (sleep+work+kids soccer practice).

--------

If someone has a great idea for a picture from zwetschenwasser that gets across the idea that we don't trust KY Krew I'd be all for it. I'm not quite sure what would do that though. A picture of Kentucky with an X through it perhaps?

A picture of Carrie Fisher doctored to have red satanic horns and a tail? With a big thumbs down beside her for extra emphasis? It'd be great to have something nice and clear ready to go in case KY-Carrie tries to get them to follow Locke.
Carrie's supposed to be in the next scene but at least she'll be joined by MO, Rawr & MJL. I hope she gets stunted back.

-------------

In other news, I think my hydra partner ortolan is pretty awesome with his explanations and postings. He failed to mention that it was me who did most of the stuff people found suspicious. I was the one who got it in my head that the Decision might have 2 bad outcomes (I thought that Valentine & Locke might both have had the same offer, therefore we'd be better going with the known rather than the unknown). Like PJ, I was suspicious of Valentine's evasiveness, and also not quite trusting Locke. But from discussion with ortolan and his remembering of the rules I worked my way through to arrive at the conclusion Valentine should drive. I don't think any harm was done by carefully examining the two options. I think we did a lot better than if we had decided early it was a no-brainer (like some of you did) and had nothing meaningful to say for the rest of the time while waiting impatiently for some sign that off-stage was ready to end the scene.

----------

I'm pretty happy with Ort's condorcet, except I don't rate elmosaur as quite as suspicious as Gaspar.

-----------

DGB: Just one thing I was wondering about. You said that you don't think Zwet is scum because he hasn't been bussed. But you also said you think there's likely only 2 scum offstage. If Zwet was one of those scum, that would only leave one to do the bussing, so your reason for thinkiing him innocent doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Also, do you think that all players here would bus zwet if he was their only currently-in-thread scumbuddy?


----Tal (Goodnight, and I'm sorry for the excessive in-a-row posting)

[Talilan]

In the meantime, I can't wait for Talilan to respond to the posts I've made regarding her.

Haha. Because my post does not contain direct quotes of yours does not mean I haven't thoroughly dressed down all the arguments you provided against us and shown why they betray you as scummy, not ourselves. As I said, you are welcome to defend your scummy behaviour or we will put in our best efforts to lead you to the noose, before or after your buddy zwet.

[Talilan]

Actually, if Elmosaurian and I could have voted for you before you entered the thread, I'm quite sure we would have done so.

Attacking someone who is not in the thread and is therefore not able to defend themselves is not a point in your favour.

You're accusing Elmosaur (and myself now, I assume) by OMGUS on a mere technicality

I would attack anyone for the scummy tunnely attack you made on us (and of a similar nature to the one you made on MafiaJin). You conveniently pick your targets off camera then after forming contrived plans to pull them off-stage suggest that they are scum for pointing out the several flawed logic you're using makes you scum.

when it's apparent that we suspected you long before you had read a single one of our posts, much less stated you think we're scummy.

Again, this is the privilege you get when you're off-stage, I'm not sure how it's supposed to be a point in your favour.

Actually, you just answered your own question, I think. You decided that voting for Valentine was the inevitable correct choice. What that tells me is that aside from Hewitt, you couldn't drum up enough support to get the town to make the wrong decision... so you said "yep, we'd better vote Valentine" to try and save face.

This is exactly what I mean about favouring a singular extremely tunneled version of events to any equally likely possibilities.

You very seirously questioned a decision which should be completely obvious.

No, it wasn't obvious in any sense. This is your scummy spin again. Furthermore as has been pointed out you neglected to attack hewitt who considered exactly the same course of action as us. You also neglect to mention that MrJellyLee was strongly considering the advocates were lying or had been given misleading information even though they actually replaced into the off-camera thread and had the benefit of the discussion which took place beforehand. Your behaviour is inconsistent (you are soooo sure we are scum for doing the same thing other players whom you've failed to attack have done. Your reasoning for not attacking hewitt when questioned was also poor.)

You suggested that the players On Camera follow a plan which you are told will turn a townsperson into a Scum, in order to spend a future day lynching that player;

Please tell me how this is scummy and also how suggesting equals definitively advocating.

2) You tried to steer away from the "Follow Valentine" consensus by suggesting that following Valentine would lead to a similar (if not equal) result, which is preposterous considering one result is Good, while the other is Bad.

No, we didn't. This is your scummy spin coming in again, maintaining that "we intended to steer them away from following Valentine all along". Note you signalled intentions to tunnel on us and ignore any town-signals as early as 238:

Just chiming in to say that I don't like Talilan's badgering of Locke either. I should think that anybody with half a brain would know that Following Locke is the Bad decision, and Following Valentine is the Good decision. Whats worse is, I'm almost certain Talilan will pass it off as flavor/acting, which is entirely unprovable one way or another. (There's one other explanation they may provide, which I don't want to give in advance. I want to see if they come up with it themselves.) We'll tell them to knock it off if they ever play in a scene again, and that will be that.

Being "almost certain Talilan will pass it off as flavor/acting" means being "almost certain" that we will deliberately lie/deceive about our behaviour, which guarantees we are scum. I'm curious as to how you got such a strong read on us right then. I'm also curious as to what that other explanation we were supposed to provide was.

The other point is that you totally ignore that we asked for a poll of the off-camera crew (yep, it doesn't factor into your consideration of our alignment at all, which is completely ridiculous) which effectively forces our hand even if we had been trying to derail the game.

Talilan, you act as if you had a solid case against Gaspar. Except, I'm not seeing it anywhere. Thus your zwet vote is looking opportunistic to me.

The above and 415 constitutes a very solid case against Gaspar as far as I'm concerned. They demonstrate his attacks do not come from the perspective of a pro-town player but one who formulates selective tells in an attempt to interfere with the on-camera action and earlier get the director lynched. Zwet has always been scum, I think I was the second person to comment on it after yourself and in even stronger terms. Note I originally tried to vote zwet, Gaspar and elmo as an indifferent top 3 but that's not allowed. I would readily change to Gaspar but intended to help him bus zwet (although now he's given up on that).

Tags removed. Please use bold only for voting. - Mod

[Talilan]

Also Gaspar and Yos wouldn't independently buy such poorly reasoned attacks on us. They are scum together. Yos' vague pre-emptive asserion that Glork's play was off (when it was obvious at least to us coming back in the thread), his failure to finish a crucial line in Post 315 which looks like he was trying to think of a valid reason to post rather than giving an honest response; his failure to respond when both Glork and myself pointed it out; and the fact Yos was in this game when I posted 415 but failed to respond to it having simply laid down a scummy vote for us with no reasoning; posted in other games; then came back and posted in other games but still didn't respond to us are all scummy.

Tags removed. Please use bold only for voting. - Mod

[Talilan]

I never said you did. As I said, it seemed like you were doing your best to confuse the issue, when it seemed fairly steightfoward.

To you and Glork it was very straightforward. To ourselves, and hewitt, and Jelly, it was not. Countenancing other possibilities is never scummy unless you're scum-Glork trying to paint it as such.

My guess on the scumteam would probably be: Gaspar, Elmosaurian, zwet, KY Crew, hewitt and actually, ShadowLurker

All the information that you needed was in the rules, which was in your thread

Please point me to the rule that says "the advocates will never be given untruthful or misleading information"

There were only two paragraphs located under the "on camera" thing, in the rules that were in your thread, and it very clearly states in there that some choices are good and that some are bad; you kept saying stuff to try to make everyone else think that both choices were bad, and you should have known better.

It also makes the same thing clear in the "endgame" section of the rule, where it makes clear that the kind of endgame we get is based on how many "good" and "bad" choices the town makes.

Paraphrasing what I wrote in our quicktopic on the 23rd:

"The only evidence against both getting the chance to defect is I'm fairly sure mith said the outcome was either good or bad. Which suggests there are two differing outcomes depending on who we choose to drive. But I guess that's sufficiently vague to perhaps maintain the possibility that they both could have symmetrical offers of being traitors.

I concur with you in that it doesn't seem bad play to just take ckd at his word, allow him to drive the bus then lynch him. At least we guarantee the lynch of scum- because either he's become scum or he already was scum and was lying."

I hope that has given you some insight into our thought process at the time. I would check with Grey to see if I'm allowed to directly quote from our quicktopic, I assume we can.

Plus, we had already started to discuss this in thread while you were here, before the scene started.

We had discussed nothing relevant to whether the advocates might be given misleading information, which is the only thing which is actually relevant.

? So, you are trying to claim that you "asking for a spot poll" somehow proves you town, to the degree that anyone who doubts you must be scum?

Did I say that? No, of course I didn't. You know that's a strawman as well as I do. What I said was that you and Gaspar didn't even take this into account when at the very least it should have been a mitigating factor. It's both a point in our favour and a reason why you both are scummy.

Nope. If an advocate lies, then we know he's scum.

Yes, I agree with you, as of this time.

Someone who's not an advocate, though; well, it does look scummy when they argue the wrong way, obviously (that's why you look scummy here), but it gives you a little more wiggle room (like you're trying to use here.) This is such an absurd WIFOM argument, it's basically "I wouldn't do something scummy if I was scum because then I'd look scummy"

Well you're the one who attacked us for it in the first place so I can only conclude your attack was an absurd WIFOM argument itself?

I'm pretty sure I was the only person attacking Glork for that at the time. Baiscally, I was the first one to point out that his play looks off. If you agree with me, then you sure as hell shouldn't be voting me for saying that, unless you're scum and don't really care.

I don't see why. I don't see any reason for such shallow analysis, especially in regards to players like yourself and Glork. I still believe you were distancing from him. The fact that I support your position on him yet you still vote me first (yet strangely still suspect him) just looks like you two are trying to push through a lynch of us before we cause too many problems for you.

I was jumping up and down when writing that post, and then I didn't preview it before I submitted it, so there was an editing error, a half-sentence that either shouldn't have been there or was left unfinished by mistake. I can't believe you're seriously trying to use such an obvious editing error as proof that "I was distancing from Glork"..

It's not just your behaviour after the fact, it's the fact to this day you still haven't finished the sentence. Please complete:

***

Yeah, well, that last game we played together I had a gut feeling you were scum there as well, and didn't follow up on it as much as I should have. We all know how that turned out, heh. My suspicions on you aren't really meta based; it's more about how your _________________________________

***

I've been explaining all day why I suspected you. I wanted to give you a chance to explain yourself before I voted you, as I made clear in my earlier post. You failed to do so, so I voted you.

So I take it we didn't defend ourselves satisfactorily? What argument could we have made which would have led you to not voting us at that point?

...wait...I'm scummy for...posting in other games?

Are you scum, or are you stupid?

Why did you post in the other games over this one?

Current scum-team call-out: Zwet, KY Crew, elmo, Gaspar, hewitt and...ShadowLurker (this does not need to be interpreted as an additional attack but just my gut at this moment).

[Talilan]

I gotta go, but

I concur with you in that it doesn't seem bad play to just take ckd at his word, allow him to drive the bus then lynch him. At least we guarantee the lynch of scum- because either he's become scum or he already was scum and was lying.

Rebuts more than half your post. It was never assumed that Locke was innocent to begin with.

[Talilan]

Zwet, it's Talitha here. Why are you pretty sure Gaspar is scum? Why are you so calm about being lynched?

[Talilan]

I'm not going to enter into ortolan's arguments. It looks about as fun as trying to butt my head into a brick wall.

If anyone is actually interested in reality rather than the warped accusations that Gaspar is spinning, here you go:
Pretty sure I have never articulated this to ortolan, but when I made the suggestion to Locke that he drive and we lynch him as a matyr - it was as much about getting a reaction/read on him as anything, because I didn't quite trust his matyr act (he was saying that choosing not to lead would get him killed by scum, but that he had to do it anyway).
His response was to ask me if I really thought that was the best course of action. Just a small thing, but it actually made me feel a bit better about Locke's genuineness.

[Talilan]

Uh, when did he say that?

Yikes, were you actually reading the other thread at all?

I was given a choice. I do not take it lightly. For this choice, dooms me I am sure. I am sure this choice will make the guilty angry and the innocent stronger. My time with you will probably be short, but know that what I do, I believe is right and just.

probably will be my doom.
If a petal dies, does the flower not live on?

If I drive, we will lose one of our numbers. For I will no longer be an innocent. You see, I had a choice. I know Valetine is meant to drive. However, if I convinced you to let me drive, I would get to join the Enemy.

I am chosing a harder road...to stay innocent. Not the biggest sacrfice I have ever made, but a hard one to be sure.

I assume They know this. I also think I will pay for it.

If I drive, the sun will indeed grow hotter, if I dont, most likely I will just fall off the flower.

As you see, the easier road, would have been to except the offer and try to coerce you to let me drive….to lead…or to not say anything at all and let the pieces fall as they may.

As I have said before, I chose a different…harder road.

Anyway, Talilan, when there is a strong, logical reason to suspect you, given by multiple people, and your reaction is "THE ARGUMENT AGAINST ME IS SO OBVIOUSLY BAD THAT ONLY SCUM WOULD MAKE IT", then it dosn't make you look any better.

The only people who have given reasons are you and Gaspar. If your case is so strong and logical, why is no-one else buying what you're selling? (I cannot for the life of me figure out what reasoning you've given that hasn't been explained more than adequately).

Tal

[Talilan]

No town would ever be ok with taking a pro-town person and then turning them into scum just so we could lynch them.

Why do you keep entering into this? We were entertaining the possibility that ckd was lying in order to get us to divert to the other advocate. According to minmax theory, this has the best outcome according to the other options:

If Locke is telling the truth, then we go with him but apparently the only bad thing which happens is losing an innocent, who we then lynch the next day.

If Locke is lying in an attempt to divert the wagon to the other advocate incorrectly, then we get the best outcome possible. It's not rocket science.

The alternative was going with Valentine

If both advocates are lying or one or both has misleading information, then we have the worst possible outcome. We still don't know if ckd is scum or town. We still don't know if Panzerjager is scum or town.

If that is the correct decision then all is well and dandy (barring mitigating factors like e.g. ckd actually being scum all along but being accepted as town from that point on because he led us in the right direction, and it would be too bizarre to claim to have the opportunity to defect if it weren't true and one was scum all along).

Thus, going with Locke actually has the least worst potential outcome. There is certainly no reason not to consider it, particularly if it generated discussion.

Plus, you are completely ignoring the fact that not ONLY does making the wrong choice apparently turn CKD into scum, it ALSO apparently hurts the town in endgame in some other way as well.

Source for this?

Why six scumbags, and why Hewitt and ShadowLurker?

I want cred post-game if I turn out to be right about all six. Six just seems a good guess at the number of scum. Am I right?

The fact that you say you didn't "definitively advocate" it is irrelevant.

So expressing any doubt or skepticism of the correct course of action gives Glork-scum open license to tunnel on us till the noose?

You're backing down from a HORRIBLE, COMPLETELY ANTI-TOWN suggestion by saying "oh, but I was only making conversation, not saying we should actually DO this." It's bull. You are scum.

You can make this argument of anyone attempting to start discussion, under any circumstances. It is scummy.

Being "almost certain Talilan will pass it off as flavor/acting" means being "almost certain" that we will deliberately lie/deceive about our behaviour, which guarantees we are scum. I'm curious as to how you got such a strong read on us right then. I'm also curious as to what that other explanation we were supposed to provide was.

How on earth does "flavor/acting" mean "lying about our behavior"? I have used flavor as an explanation for things when telling the truth, and I've used flavor to lie before. You're trying to force me into a circular argument, when all I'm saying is "this is how I believe she's going to explain it, and we won't have any way of proving whether she's lying or not."

The phrase "pass it off" (strongly) implies intent to deceive. You had already ascribed scummy motivations to what we were doing.

The decision was both obvious and nearly made, and you wanted to draw in another element.

This is just unashamed spin. I would also ask you why we would try to subtly subvert the course of action as scum, if, as you say, the decision was both obvious and nearly made? I suppose on the contrary you would judge someone to be auto-town if they went for the right decision all along (which, as we know, the only people who know this are scum). Did we have a viable chance of actually altering the decision or are we just really bad scum players who slipped up hardcore and got caught by Glork?

You want to use "asking for a poll" as a sign of fariness, when I saw it as a distraction, a way to try to appeal to yet another set of players who might bring Locke into question.

You, as part of this group, intended to bring Locke into question did you? Why do you see deferring to a larger group over which we have no influence being likelier to help our goals than just using our own influence in the scene? Or is it because all our buddies are off-stage and we wanted to bring in their influence?

THIS IS COMPLETE HORSESHIT, TOO. I could probably find a hundred times where I was posting and simply forgot to finish a sentence because I got distracted by something else. For all you fucking know, whomever made that post had a phone call, and returned to the thread to start a new point. You are reading WAAAAYYYY too much into nothing, and just grasping at straws here.

Why are you defending elmo for him? If you are town are you not considering he might be scum and might be making up disingenuous reasons to suspect you? Doesn't look like it to me.

Honestly, how can you accuse me of tunneling on finding excuses to call you scum, when you horribly misrepresent an incomplete sentence? I laughed it off, because it's something that just happens.

I am glad you can laugh it off, because frankly I would be a bit upset my partner's slip of the keyboard had betrayed us.

In review I cannot see any possibility that Yos and Glork are not both scum. From playing with Yos I know he'd be far more concerned about getting a false positive reading on us. His behaviour also suggests only one thing: he's gone into damage control after encountering unnecessary resistance and fallout from someone he thought would be an easy lynch. He wants to sweep us under the carpet before we cause him too many problems.

Glork is similar. I know he acts very self-confidently as town, but this is way beyond that. If he were town he'd be far more concerned about being wrong about us, advocating our lynch and having us flip town which would reflect poorly on him.

[Talilan]

Oh yer, I also meant to ask

Glork: if you were successful in getting us lynched and we flipped town what would you say subsequently? Just: "oh, damnit, I thought they were incredibly scummy" or "oh my god how what terrible town-play" or what?

If we flipped town who would your suspects be?

Yos: same questions

[Talilan]

Thank you, Rawr Hydra, for actually putting yourself in the shoes of the people who were onstage. When I read your earlier thoughts (made while you were ill) I was impressed enough to make this note about it: "Very intelligent post 324 :good posting:"

I agree almost entirely with RH above. I'm not as convinced as ortolan of a Gaspar/ElmYos scumpair. But as ortolan has mentioned we're surprised at their play if they are town.

With Gaspar it's not just the fact that he won't even try and see any scenario where WE might be innocent, it's a pattern that started with MafiaJin. Several people gave decent reasons why MafiaJin might have put himself onstage and not be scum. The "win condition" MafiaJin mentioned I do not think was a scum slip at all; from the context it looks pretty clear to me what he was getting at (but he should answer to that himself when he gets here).

Zwet - in case you miss it, I asked you some questions on the previous page. Really looking forward to hearing more from you.

Tal

[Talilan]

Thok, it only makes sense it ortolan answers those questions. I said none of it and would not do a good job if i tried to answer as my thoughts have not been along quite the same lines as ortolan. Sorry if it looked like I was ignoring your Qs.
Tal

[Talilan]

I've been around but wanted to give the posting a rest cause we've (well mostly me) were responsible for about half the posts for a timeframe and I feared you might just stop reading them.

Thok:

From what I've seen in my quick glance since I've last posted, I wouldn't necessarily find Gaspar/Elmosaurian suspicious even if you came up town. Your defense involves things like "I couldn't see the argument Thok made in the thread that mith wouldn't lie", even though the default assumption in a non-bastardly modded game is that the mod won't lie.

It is not comforting to know that if we flipped town you would entirely ignore our sentiments about the scum.

Why did you find it likely that mith would mislead CKD or Panzer?

Again and further to the above point this is a completely different use of the phrase "bastard modding" to how I would expect it to be applied. Lying in a standard role pm is bastard modding. Having the roles of advocates who need to lead the town to a correct decision (especially when you have two different advocates) is not the same. I just did not view this as in any way a situation where we should think the advocates had complete/accurate information. Especially when what they said was so solid which directly indicated us choosing a specific choice. Had they claimed to have been given more cryptic information I would have assumed they had been given the truth but that we had a puzzle to solve or WIFOM to work out. In this case they just emphatically agreed on us going in a specific direction. If this was the correct decision then it kind of makes you wonder what the whole point of the first scene was to begin with. Because under your arguments and what it seems like now it's pretty much an autowin for the town. Not only are there two advocates minimising the chance of either being scum but if one or both is scum then they will caught in a lie anyway. I have since looked at what Jelly posted and conceive of these scenes more like a resource game with added WIFOM, as I said in our quicktopic:

I think what MrJellyLee had to say was intelligent and correct albeit a lot was pure setup speculation. It pretty much seems to be a resource game with WIFOM where scum will have to decide whether to install themselves or others as the advocates and whether to lie or not as an advocate (which will also lead to WIFOM as to whether a townie is or is not telling the truth when they get made an advocate). Lynching them decreases the pool of scum they have to draw on to dispose of by misleading the town. I think this setup is the cool the more I think about it.

You are also ignoring the fact that there still IS a non-zero probability of both advocates being scum, 6.25% assuming the scum make up 25% of the town. These reasons are easily enough not to be completely certain about what to do. Being completely certain I would be more inclined to interpret as a scum-tell. While Talitha and I agreed we got the vibe you were likely pro-town (albeit I don't think you've been particularly helpful so far) I think you are perhaps suffering from confirmation bias and coming up with all these reasons to suspect us given elmo and Glork's strongly stated opinions.

Quick post: Gaspar, do you believe the Advocates were truly chosen at random? If so, what would you say if a [Something Else] received John Locke's offer to turn scum?

This was something else we were wary of which we discussed on camera, and was the motivation for considering letting Locke drive. He may have been relying on his claim he could have defected to later effectively confirm him.

This is one of the things that makes me think there is a strong chance that John Locke is lying. For the record, though, I have already asked Mr. Grey if "random" means

truly

random, and he refused to give me an answer. But I don't see how a Something Else "turning" into a Non-Innocent is really a

bad

thing if it is also

announced to the Town

; all that would really do is tell us somebody who was already scum to begin with.

If Locke is telling the truth and him driving is genuinely the bad outcome then I would have expected, if he drives, for mith just to say "that was the wrong choice". We would have had no way of inferring from this that Locke's alignment had changed. It's only because Locke claimed it to begin with that we would potentially know.

"I think it's clear what decision to make, however I think we need to force more information out of the advocates to help assess their scumminess/not scumminess."

What the hell? Since when is telling someone you're specifically trying to work out their alignment conducive to finding out their alignment? Do you genuinely think your argument here holds water?

Now, you did later change your mind in thread and start pushing toward the other (I'm assuming "good") option instead, but by that point, it was arguably pretty clear that the town was going that way no matter what you said.

Even Glork said that even

before

we brought up our dissenting voice the decision was already pretty much set. You can't use the argument "well it was already decided when you finally changed your view" without considering whether "well it was already decided before you brought in your dissenting voice in the first place".

I would be pretty upset with your horrendous use of mislogic.

I still see no evidence of such anywhere.

We apparently can't quote the mod rules, but go back and read through the rules for endgame again; it clearly says that the more "bad" choices are made, the harder the endgame will be on innocents.

I don't think this is clear. Changing the alignment of one player from innocent to scum itself will affect the end-game no matter what.

When I said that I thought Talilan would give an "flavor/acting" explanation for her behavior, I thought to myself "it would actually be good if she said she needed to put pressure the decision to force the On-Camera players to provide her alignment insight."

This is the most absurd thing I've ever seen. Please provide one way in which this is not exactly the same thing or entailed by "generating discussion and getting reads on other players", which is what we claimed as our goal multiple times.

I actually came to a similar conclusion to GAB, because it seemed to me no one was really beefing with Talilan before the sudden switch. It's only after, when the sparks started flying, that anyone expressed suspicion of Talilan such certainty as was associated with MafiaJin.

No, it was before. Gaspar was attacking us very heavily before we were switched and an increasing flock of people seemed to be following him.

Well, I asked Talilan to explain their behavior, and in a lengthy conversation, Talilan didn't bring it up once. If Talilan were suddenly go "Oh yeah, that's another reason I was making alternate suggestions," I would not be inclined to believe them.

I'm sorry that we did not think to write "we needed to put pressure the decision to force the On-Camera players to provide us alignment insight." instead of "we were attempting to generate discussion and determine other players' alignments". You don't have a leg to stand on and as such have resorted to transparent word games.

In light of seeing Elmosaur's 480, and PJ's reply in 490, I'm going to unvote. I suddenly feel like I've played an extremly poor day one.

Unvote

I don't understand what you were referring to as your "poor play" considering you revoted us in 496.

[Talilan]

Also, two things.

The fact KY Crew claimed having important information to share as a pretext for stuntmanning in but is yet to say anything pretty much confirms he is scum.

Also I am wondering if it's possible that the advocate tomorrow will be muted. I am also, on reflection, wondering if they will even know which is the correct door to begin with. If so, I propose that if it turns out that they can't talk then we assume that they do know which is the correct door. Thus, optimal play is for them to pick a door which isn't the correct one. Thus the decision should always be to change. That way if they do not know which door is correct, then if they pick anyone, one gets closed and we opt to change, we get the standard 2/3 chance benefits of the correct solution to the Monty Hall problem. If, however, they do know which is the correct door, we instruct them in advance to pick a door which isn't the correct one, so that changing will force us onto the correct door always.

Basically we want to ensure, assuming the advocate is muted which is a possibility, that we always opt to change to the other door, and that their behaviour entails the best possible results whether they know which is the correct door or not. The only way this plan fails is if the advocate is scum and deliberately sabotages it or in the event they do not know which is the correct door and we lose on a 1/3 probability.

I am checking some things with our host.

[Talilan]

Apparently the advocate does get to speak in scene two so disregard that.

[Talilan]

You seem to be implying that you'd trust CKD more if he gave you less information. That strikes me as extremely counter-intuitive.

Wow why do so many people repeatedly misrep us. I said if the nature of the information given by both advocates was vague, as is a possibility going into the first scene without any knowledge of the sorts of advice given to advocates and how they will express it; then I would have been more confident that there was a riddle or puzzle to solve or somesuch. As it was they both gave emphatic responses, which begs the question of why the decision is so easy. I'm frankly surprised you misunderstood the argument I was putting forward to such an extent that you misrepresented it and put it in such uncharitable terms. I never said anything specifically about CKD, I never said "I would trust him more if he gave us less information" which carries totally different implications and implies he is deliberately holding information back, when I am talking about the nature of the information given to the advocates in the first place.

Even in this 6.25% chance, if scum lie they lose two of their members. The odds that scum think the benefit of winning the stage 1 game are more important than the benefits of losing two scum are probably pretty small. (Obviously it's hard to give specific odds to this event, but scum can't afford to give up too many free lynches or they'll run into the 2 scum lots of town worse case endgame no matter what happens in the stages.)

Ok that is all true but for God's sake what is at issue is whether Gaspar/elmo's attacks on us were ever justified. It is not a matter of whether the scenario that both advocates are lying scum is likely, it is whether Gaspar/elmo were justified in attacking us for even countenancing the possibility in the first place.

What is happening is Glork is saying we are scummy for X reasons. We are saying doing X is not scummy. You are then asking us to prove not X. It's not a valid line of enquiry or attack at all. We are not arguing "it is likely that both advocates are lying", or "it is likely that the advocates are giving misleading information". We are defending against Glork's accusations that we are scummy for even considering the possibility. I really do not see where you're coming from at all.

Way to miss the point completely. The point is that you can say "I think a specific decision of who to drive is the right decision" and then continue to scum hunt anyways, rather than give the impression that you're ambivalent about the decision of who should drive in an attempt to scum hunt.

This is really "silly". If it's a foregone conclusion then you're not going to get any more information out of the advocates. If you leave things on the table then you're still going to get information. It's the same as the argument for why you can't say "ok we're definitely lynching X today but let's have some more discussion" on say day one. If who you're lynching is a foregone conclusion, and scum know this, there's no validity to scum-tells anymore. They're not going to defend their buddy anymore if the person is scum, and they're not going to bother attacking townies anymore because the lynch is already determined. There is also the fact that "giving the impression you're ambivalent" isn't even scummy to begin with. As I said being ambivalent is a scum-tell. We never gave you any evidence we did intend to vote or coerce people to let Locke drive. Considering the possibility helps catch scum. End of story. I can't understand why you don't see this.

I am clearly going to have meta you because that condorcet is honestly completely horrible.

[Talilan]

The last four posts by Talilan are all ortolan

[Talilan]

zwet, Mighty Orbots, please send a signal to the stage immediately telling them not to trust KY Crew. He just posted and asked for directorial firing and looks like he suggested to follow Locke.

[Talilan]

The pic is fine. I'm in two minds whether the pic should be posted straight away to be safe, or if we should wait a bit to see what the other on-stage players say about it first

[Talilan]

No. This is bull. You quoted your own damned QuickTopic to say you thought following Locke actually had merit. Now you're saying you suggested following him merely to create discussion? I'm not even sure YOU know what you're trying to say here. You're either trying to have your cake and eat it too, or you're just vomiting nonsense as you go along.

I gave both reasons all along, please actually read the game e.g. post 415 where I very strongly argue for both reasons e.g.:

- By reserving our judgment and considering contrary points of view we incited discussion which allows people better opportunity to read those on camera.

- Uncertainty is not a scum-tell, particularly in this setup when scum know which is the correct decision, and innocents do not.

Now please admit you are wrong, are either not reading the game or deliberately ignoring the points I bring up, do not have a leg to stand on, and are scum.

My play has been less-than-stellar

The only notable things I've seen you do all day are attack myself and MafiaJin. Which of these are less than stellar, and if you agree they are less than stellar why are you persisting with them?

So perhaps I should rephrase my question: Do you have good reason to believe that Mith would not give straightforward answers?

No I do not, having read your commentary in this thread. At the time, I did. You are seriously willfully ignoring what I post, as Glork is.

Do you have good reason to believe that CKD/Panzer would misrepresent the type of information they were given and provide a straightforward answer rather than a puzzle?

Possibly, especially at the time. Now I think it unlikely considering they are both unlikely to be scum and if they were are unlikely to be lying in conjunction.

Another point that people have failed to analyse is that we were actually unsure initially whether the information given to the advocates is independent or dependent on what the scum choose as good/bad outcome.

And now I think of it I recall actually arguing with Gaspar saying the "day one decision is random" in contrast to later days, where it is affected by scum-WIFOM (which means he agreed with the above paragraph). Now, however, he is arguing, having no further information about the setup, that it is not random and that the advocates advice will reliably lead us to the correct decision.

Gaspar- please explain this behaviour

Thok- please explain why you are not suspicious of Gaspar for this behaviour.

It is really frustrating that Gaspar is not a viable lynch today when everyone is letting him slide by on reputation when really he is acting as scummy as it is possible for one player to act, and elmo and Thok are both towing the party line. Also if it wasn't clear, I've changed my mind. Thok is scummy. And lol if people still think I would act like this as scum and leave such a paper trail of people I've pretended to suspect and find town who I've been so emphatic about.

I would change our vote to Gaspar now (even at the risk of our own life) because I foresee butting heads with him tomorrow and again trying to get him lynched as being rather tiring, but I'm not sure if Talitha will approve.

- ort

[Talilan]

I more than approve of switching our vote to Gaspar. For one thing, I'm only at 50-50 on Zwet being scum. If we get lynched.... well, shit happens. If you're feeling it too, go for it.
-Tal

[Talilan]

Hope you don't mind Thok creeping up

Unvote
Vote: Gaspar

, zwet, Elmosaurian, Thok, ShadowLurker, People, No lynch, Talilan

[Talilan]

Note: I have town reads on all the "People"

Also note: I believe zwet still leads the vote

- ort

[Talilan]

If they had disagreed, or if both of them had been vague/unhelpful

Read the thread. ckd was initially vague.

To accept your defense, it seems like we need to accept that you didn't bother to consider the implications of CKD/Panzer's statements. That leaves me in a position where I have to worry what other implications you are missing if you are town.

Again, this is a total misrep, we did, as evidenced by us always having a preference for Valentine over Locke. When I look at posts like 46 and 50, 53, 64 and 72 by us in the thread it's pretty clear we have information-gathering motivations. Your read is bogus.

Why do people think just because both Locke and Valentine have been given information which leads to the same conclusion this is the right one? Is it as simple as that?

Is this not a valid point? Are we not very clearly laying our thought processes out on the table for everyone to see, and being very clear? If I read posts like that by another player there's no way I'd ascribe such suspicious motivations to them. Your push on us is bogus.

See also:

We (my personalities) were also wondering if we should take a spot-poll of passers-by off-set as to whether they think Locke is lying or telling the truth. Neither of us are familiar with Locke's previous roles so we're not sure whether we should be impressed by his performance at this stage. The cameraman could perhaps send us a thumbs up or down if people think his acting is or is not up to its usual standard.

Rawr and Bridges I would very much like you to vote before the day is up.

[Talilan]

Glork is such a good information lynch. If (when) he flips scum we can knock over all his buddies like dominoes.

[Talilan]

What percentage probability would you assign to Glork being scum?

[Talilan]

Have you ever been a mason or a hydra, Thok? When you have another person to bounce thoughts around with, it makes you play differently. If we were singular with no-one else to speak to we might have been less of a try-hard detective and more open with what we were actually thinking in private. But maybe not, because we had 2 weeks to fill, boredom to stave off, and mith's strikes jumping at out heels.

I can't really believe we're still discussing our onstage play, especially seeing as (1) we still had several days left on-stage to get the decision made so you're judging us on an incomplete performance and (2) as soon as both advocates agreed, there was only ever going to be one outcome on-stage.

If we acknowledge that there are 3 players who are suspicious of our on-stage posts, and that Talilan respectfully disagrees with their reasoning, can we move on? Seriously, just vote us. I would really like to move on to other subjects. We have a death scheduled very soon. Hopefully Gaspar's.

-Tal

[Talilan]

I wouldn't have said the 'information lynch' like ort did, because it detracts from the fact that we think Gaspar is scum. But ALL lynches are information lynches, sillies. Some are just better than others.

And don't get me started on WIFOM. People try and use the dreaded acronym to shut down interesting speculation about players' motives. But speculation and judgement calls about players' motives IS MAFIA. It's ALL guesswork.

What I'm getting out of this is that three people have strongly disagreed with you, and now you believe they are all the most likely scum candidates. This statement is obviously very simplified, but at it's root, that's the pattern I have noticed. Good to know my vote's in the right place.

It's unlikely all the 3 are scum. When you flip scum I'll try and convince ort to adjust the condorcet a bit if that'll make you feel better.

[Talilan]

No-one else has weighed in on this that I can see, but I have thought about it and would like the picture posted asap.
-Tal

[Talilan]

Information lynch? Saying someone is a good "information" lynch, as far as I know, usually means "they're town, but their death will serve us". It is essentially excusing oneself if they flip town, because a better lynch wasn't available. If you're very certain he's scum, Talilan, it shouldn't be an "information" lynch.

It's an incentive for you to lynch him. Even if you don't agree with me that he is obv-scum then surely you agree from an information perspective. By convincing the town that his lynch is optimal not only because he is very obv-scum but because his lynch will provide loads of information I advance my agenda of winning by lynching scum; because he is scum.

People keep taking my latest reason for stating something as my only reason (please stop doing this), consider it an additional reason. They are cumulative. There are many good reasons to lynch Glork.

OGML, I would appreciate it if you'd vote Gaspar when you take over hydra duties.

It's unlikely all the 3 are scum.

I disagree, I think the scum are rallying around their leader because once he goes down all is lost. Gaspar knows as long as he lives he can buy some time by busing his buddies, claiming survivor etc. like he did in Dantès in Fresno. I would also note that I think I was the first to bring up the fact I think elmosaurian was distancing from Gaspar. After that I think they reasoned I wasn't going to let up and so the best course of action was to try and just get rid of us as quickly as possible

New scummy points about Gaspar just off the cuff:

- He announced intentions of meta'ing zwet but has made no attempts to meta my half of the hydra; even though his primary and most important interactions over the last few days have been with us.

- He has not in any way reconsidered his position (or simply acted indidgnantly, as I might expect him to according to meta) since we came off-stage and started attacking him for his opportunistic attacks on us. Instead he is entirely acting like scum afraid for their life and dug his heels in.

What I'm getting out of this is that three people have strongly disagreed with you, and now you believe they are all the most likely scum candidates. This statement is obviously very simplified, but at it's root, that's the pattern I have noticed. Good to know my vote's in the right place.

It's not a scumtell and I do it all the time as town. If people are attacking you for something which at its heart isn't actually scummy, even if it appears to be at first glance (at which point scum frequently jump on with terrible wiki tells or similar); then they are scummy. Reading our posts on-camera, I know they're not scummy (in fact I don't even think they're superficially scummy). I therefore conclude anyone attacking them is scummy (especially persistently, as Thok has done; especially opportunistically, as you did to both myself and MafiaJin and as elmosaurian did to us). It's very simple. As Talilan and myself discussed, we both give Glork and Yos too much credit as town players for the poorly reasoned and persistent attacks they're making on us. They are hoping we (well I, at least, because I maintain both are scum) are the only players that see it and they can quietly sweep us under the carpet.

I dislike the way this condorcet is being used for people not to take strong stands on the lynch candidates. As far as I'm aware they are Talilan, zwet and Gaspar. I find it hard to believe most of you could find neither us, Gaspar or zwet in some way scummy (although Thok has amazingly blatantly left himself provision to ignore our case on Gaspar even if we're innocent, and even more amazingly produced a lower than baseline scum-reading for him) and would like to see your primary votes changed accordingly.

I am pretty surprised DGB's hydra isn't voting frankly.

[Talilan]

- ortolan

[Talilan]

Yay!

I agree that zwet/ Mighty Orbots should act now as ckd seems to be considering KY Crew's advice (I believe you have both only used one of your two communications off the top of my head).

- ort

[Talilan]

MafiaJin - We (Talilan) want to stay here.

[Talilan]

KY Crew is in the scene tomorrow, we are the stuntman. I believe we are the only player that can extract KY Crew from the scene (because, as I pointed out ages ago, Carrie Fisher was already predetermined to be in Scene Two irrespective of who the director chooses. KY Crew currently occupies Carrie Fisher's role having stolen it from us) as long as we hold the stuntman role.

I don't really buy the "Gaspar voted zwet to save himself, therefore he's scum" argument. Even as a townie, from Glork's point of view a zwet lynch would be better than a Gaspar lynch (known townie versus unknown alignment, plus Gaspar would be more likely to help town than zwet based on scum-hunting reputations.)

I agree, this is not a good argument for Glork being scum. The ones we presented previously are however. I viewed the way zwet seemed to be laying down his life and calling Glork out as scum as an attempt to lay down his life and give Glork some cred for being attacked by a scum-flipped player (having already thought zwet was scum since the beginning of the game). But now all we know is that zwet's suspicions were genuinely held. I actually would have been pretty much certain Glork was scum if zwet flipped scum, say about 99%. At the moment seeing as he flipped innocent I'm only about 97% sure Glork is scum (this is intended to be moderately facetious before you start dissecting it).

What I attacked you for was the way you seemed to believe everything CKD was saying,

but wanted to make him drive anyway

. That, I can't think of any possible town motivation for.

As I said, for a start, point me to some evidence that we, at any point, "wanted to make him drive anyway". We didn't, we didn't vote as such, we never gave any indication that we leaned that way over the alternative. We considered it as a good town player should do, and incited more discussion in the process. You are still being opportunistic.

Last point before I read new posts but Gaspar, before the game you claimed Count de Morcef was 99% innocent. Yet then when Orbots questioned you about it, you said that it was not Hewitt you were claiming it about and that Orbots had the wrong name. However, a look at the cast shows that it is indeed Hewitt who is Count de Morcef. Clarify that please. (I don't believe Orbots ever followed up on this"

This whole comment by Glork to begin with was entirely ridiculous. Especially considering the roles aren't our actual roles anyway.

I do not think there is any question that scum can day-talk after the way KY Crew played on-stage. The only reason he would have intention or motivation to hammer that decision in was to lock in zwet as a lynch (irrespective of whether you think this incriminates Glork or not). There is no other explanation for why he suddenly and otherwise arbitrarily decided to change his tune and hammer unless his buddies off-stage told him to. I was actually wondering whether his posts on-stage were ghostwritten, because they were so different to what I'd seen off-stage from; I'm pretty sure it was all rajrhcpfreak. But having had a (very) quick look at inHimshallibe's writing style elsewhere I'd have to assume it's just because they were written by him.

- ortolan

[Talilan]

btw I just heard from Mr. Grey that the assistant producer cannot hold two roles simultaneously. So let's not nominate replacements and just let them decide or we risk outing the assistant producer.

The attacks on people on-stage are extremely easy to make; bogus; and opportunistic. I found hewitt scummy for his persistence but in light of the fact scum can obviously day-talk (assuming there is only one at least major mafia faction as implied by "primary non-innocent alignment"; and going off e.g. mith's mod-meta of only having one scum group in his invitational setup with no other anti-town alignments) I think his buddies would have cautioned him not to be too blatant fighting for a lost cause.

And whenever I read the totality of our posts on-stage I think "Yep, Yos and Glork and Thok" are obv-scum for attacking us for them".

I am not saying there were no scum on-stage (which I'm sure e.g. Thok will argue due to his propensity for taking my words out of context and using the worst interpretation possible to rebut them), but I'm saying relying on on-screen tells in the absence of obviously strange or inconsistent behaviour; especially when we know the scum know the correct choices all along and could thus deliberately avoid giving this away as a tell; and at the detriment of attacking the off-stage players with good arguments; is scummy. See: Gaspar (and elmo and Thok).

So folks, I have 3 scums. KY Krew, Gaspar, and Thok.

Yay, someone agrees with us. Get a few more and we can form a townie coalition and mow them all down.

And the way you keep trying to link me to Glork for really terrible reasons might mean you're scum with Glork, although that would imply a lot of distancing.

Really terrible reasons? Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe you

still haven't

explained your unfinished sentence to Gaspar. This was good evidence of distancing. It doesn't cease to exist the more blatantly you fail to address it.

Thok, you've stepped in and answered for me three times (give or take, I haven't been counting) in the last 48 hours or so. Are you buddying up to me? The first time or two, I was like "whatever, that's just Thok being Thok" but your most recent defense of me has taken you off my list of very likely Innocents.

This is so bogus. Glork is actually flaunting his scumminess, I bet they are rofl'ing in their quicktopic about how reluctant people are to lynch Glork even when he's obv-scum.

not sure why zwet was lynched here....I read and I am still unsure..someone want to explain?

Well basically what happened was Gaspar instructed KY Crew to hammer in the decision in their quicktopic before he was at risk of winning the condorcet.

I fail to see any evidence whatsoever of MafiaJin being scummy. Gaspar's push on him has always been scummy and baseless. MafiaJin also voted that Valentine drives almost instantly after hearing the advice of Locke, which as Thok and Gaspar and elmo have said any good townie in that situation should have done, and which we are scummy for not doing; but apparently MafiaJin is still scummy for it (if any more evidence was needed of Gaspar using tells entirely selectively and arbitrarily).

I will be very, very, very displeased if Gaspar somehow lives through day two.

- ortolan

[Talilan]

I fail to see any evidence whatsoever of MafiaJin being scummy. Gaspar's push on him has always been scummy and baseless. MafiaJin also voted that Valentine drives almost instantly after hearing the advice of Locke, which as Thok and Gaspar and elmo have said any good townie in that situation should have done, and which we are scummy for not doing; but apparently MafiaJin is still scummy for it (if any more evidence was needed of Gaspar using tells entirely selectively and arbitrarily).

do you think that is the only reason you in particular look scummy?

I don't understand this question. What you've quoted is a passage where we were defending MafiaJin and calling the attack on them scummy. I said that Glork has attacked us for not going with the follow Valentine decision all along; but he is also attacking MafiaJin who DID go with the follow Valentine decision all along. Seeing as it's the only scum-tell he produced on us before we counter-attacked him, and yet he was so confident we were scum because of it, presumably he should be equally confident that MafiaJin is town (note: I think all his "reads" from on-stage have been rubbish altogether). So basically, I disagree that there is any reason we in particular look scummy, as we haven't done anything scummy all game. We are town and have been earnest in our opinions throughout the game. I have stated multiple times that I have concluded, from our posts on-stage, that I don't see how thoughtful town players would come to the conclusion we are scummy. Attempting to empathise with scum is not a path I'll willfully go down.

Honestly, Ortolan, I have to know. Do you have any idea what any of my arguments over this game have been

Yes

or do you insist on just throwing a bunch of words at me in the hopes that you'll trick someone like Goofballs into thinking I just might be scum?

No. Do you think that throwing a bunch of words at us (as you did before and after we had facility to respond) will trick people into thinking we are actually scummy?

[If you can find one shred of evidence that I said "MafiaJin is scummy for immediately wanting to follow Valentine," I will honestly eat my hat. I swear, I'll even YouTube it, too. And I like wearing my hat on my head.]

This is not just a gross misrepresentation of my dislike of MafiaJin; it's a complete and utter

LIE

. I NEVER said ANYTHING of that nature.

That wasn't the point. See above in response to ckd.

Seriously, if you're protown, you're going to get an extremely long and extremely angry rant from me after this game. If you're scum, I suppose you're doing your job by CONSTANTLY making an enormous ruckuss in the wrong direction so I wouldn't be able to fault you there.

At last you are providing the indignance I expected. But only after I called you out on it. Too late. The only possible purpose of this passage can be to try to scare me about being wrong into revising my reads. Fear is not a tool town use.

[Talilan]

I normally wouldn't have thought a scumbag would encourage the lynch of a director on their team but it's possible Glork was trying another busing maneuver which would effectively clear him. Aside from that though I fail to see how the director putting themselves on stage is such an amazing tell, especially from the player involved and especially when I still am not convinced by Glork's argument that off-stage is more important than on-stage; and am especially not convinced by the argument that even if this is the case on reflection; that a director who didn't act in accordance with this at the very beginning of the day was necessarily scum.

- ortolan

[Talilan]

I think the important thing is we agree we should lynch Gaspar

[Talilan]

You'd rather have someone else lynched over Krew? Enormous Gigantor FoS.

Obviously I wasn't considering KY Crew at the time (considering he starts the scene on-stage and all) and have been calling him obv-scum for a long while now. This is either a joke FoS which I wouldn't expect from you, or simply a totally baseless one.

Come on Yos you can do better than 624.

Everything that I was originality going to say there ended up in the next paragraph instead.

Ah yes I missed it, probably because you used a one line explanation to dismiss something which I still find scummy.

Yeah, well, that last game we played together I had a gut feeling you were scum there as well, and didn't follow up on it as much as I should have. We all know how that turned out, heh. My suspicions on you aren't really meta based; it's more about how your

Anyway, as I said in my post, I'm really made uncomfortable by how much you're focusing so much on MafiaJin, just because he put himself in the scene, especally considering that he did that so early before we had really worked out exactally what all of that meant in thread. Using that as a reason for suspicion isn't irrational, but it seem really, really weak to me, and far less relevent then stuff that has happened since day 1 started to me.

Your explanation is plausible as you did go on to give a non-meta based reason in the next paragraph but it still strikes me as a really weak attack which just "gets you on record for suspecting Gaspar" even if it doesn't actively start attacking/undermining him.

[Talilan]

Ask the other mathematician in this game, Thok, to confirm that your logic is flawed. Ask Thesp, or PJ, or ShadowLurker, or anybody who FUCKING KNOWS HOW PROPER LOGIC WORKS, and they will tell you that you are FLAT OUT WRONG. You claim that everything I say is "baseless" when your arguments are COMPLETELY INVALID.

Ask me and I'll tell you deductive logic is 100% irrelevant when we were making an inductive argument.

I am saying you are scummy because you suggest we are obv-scum for considering following Locke, under the notion any good townie would follow Valentine instantly. However the person who did follow Valentine most emphatically, you are attacking, for other reasons (his on-camera choice). Which implies you are using your arguments entirely selectively and arbitrary. The lecture about deductive logic is entirely irrelevant, I know very well how it works and it has basically no relevance to a mafia game except in setups with role-logic puzzles.

Joke? Baseless? You stated that I was the person you most want to see lynched on Day Two, even though Krew has very obviously shown to EVERYBODY that he is like 99.999999% to be scum. Your defense ("I forgot about Krew at the time I said that") is NOT obvious, which is why I called you on it, and now you are backpedaling after you got caught trying to press that I should be lynched over YOUR scumbuddy.

NO YOU ARE SCUMMY. Read my posts, I've said KY Crew is consistently scum. Your accusations are completely horrible. It's never in question that he's going to get lynched and I guess you will come up with some more horrendous argumentation that me wanting you dead means I'm trying to distract from the fact KY Crew is obv-scum.

[Talilan]

arbitrarily*

[Talilan]

Thok, I (Talitha) for one found it really hard to scum hunt on-stage. It's not like mafia that I am familiar with, with voting and stuff. But we were suspicious of Panzer/Valentine for being vague and seemingly evasive. We weren't sure on ckd, something felt a little off but it was probably just the overacting. Then I do recall saying privately to ortolan that I was kinda suspicious of those who were still talking about following Locke after we figured out the one good, one bad choice thing, and he agreed. But I WOULD need to question them on their reasons before labelling them scummy. Very soon after that we were whisked into the centre of controversy here and that has taken all our attention so we haven't followed up.


Yos, we've been playing this game as best we knew how for our side, so it's just an impossibility for us to ourselves in a bad light I guess. Maybe if you are town and if you choose to take a step back and look at us from the point of view that we're town and were trying different things to stir up the scene, you might see us differently. We can't really do the same, take a step back and look at ourselves unbiasedly, because, well, it's

us

. Also, please take into consideration that half of Talilan has reserved judgement on whether you're scum. The more vocal half has understandably had more of your attention. I think Glork is scum because I just don't think he's genuine. I can't prove it but I feel it in my bones. I don't feel quite the same about you at this stage.

[Talilan]

Thok: I have been very clear about at least 4 players on-stage. I don't like the implication that I have been ignoring them at all, as it's completely untrue.

We have constantly proclaimed our own towniness (obviously)

I have said I found hewitt scummy for his persistence in opposing Valentine driving despite there being no evidence to the contrary. On the other hand I find his actions inconsistent with the day-talking scum pretty much obviously have.

MafiaJin I believe is town purely for his directorial choices. I would be surprised if he'd put himself on stage where he'd be under increased scrutiny; and I'd be surprised if he put us on stage with him considering I've played a fair few games with MafiaSSK and some with Sajin which would give us a good chance of reading them and working out if they're scum. Conversely, I think the reason they put us on camera was to get a good read on us. I just now tried to look at the other players they put on stage but I can't see where they are listed to dissect their motivations in choosing. I would like an explanation from them as to why they chose the people they did (which we asked for before scene one even started but I don't think they ever obliged).

And KY Crew is obv-scum

And re-reading the thread briefly I will additionally say I found StarKiss' comment "I just have hunches. Good ones." in 78 a bit curious which is why I questioned them on it and which of them felt that way in 105. I had been thinking they were a bit scummy but this comment is quite town:

Locke, I asked if you feared death because in the event you were to convert to the darker side, wouldn't you know the identity of a newer "company?" Would you mind sacrificing yourself to, in a sense, snitch on who they may be and do the rest of us a favor, even if the end result meant that your death had to ultimately follow?

I see that comment as very impressive scum-play if they are scum, but I think it makes them substantially more likely not to be.

The rest of the players I am not confident in reading them from memory. I would give the advocates a few town points I guess (remembering that scum know what the correct choice is all along and can easily buy town-cred, at least from some by advocating that choice before any else cottons on to it.)

My other comment on the on-screen action is that I think people were role-playing too much. Sure use euphemisms and such and the language of film but all the melodramatic language going on (some of which we were guilty of) brings up WIFOM as to how serious you were when you made the comments. For example I wouldn't have seen any problem with ckd saying e.g. "I got a letter in the mail from a mob called the Screen Mafia Guild who will pay me handsomely and let me join their crew if I can weasel my way into the driver's seat."

If you don't think my reason for suspecting Glork was good (which was basically a combination of gut, and that the focus from him on mafiajin seemed odd), then explain to me why you think Glork is scum.

No, the thing about MafiaJin IS a good reason for suspecting him. I just saw your post as obligatory distancing. Gaspar was acting extremely OOC at that point and I think you as his scumbuddy and acknowledged as a good player would gamble too much if you didn't draw attention to his scumminess at that point. And I also feel you left yourself a lot of wiggle room, as just saying "I have a gut feeling Gaspar is scummy" in addition to the above reason leaves you crawl-space to not attack him, at least for the time being, but it will also earn you town-cred when he flips scum.

And I agree the back and forth between myself and Glork is no longer productive. I recall Xyl saying in mafia discussion "one of the worst mistakes you can make is trying to convince scum they are scum" so I shall have to leave it for the time being.

- ortolan

[Talilan]

(Among other things, hearing what Ortolan thinks about KY Krew and Talilan isn't helpful to me, which is why I left that out: in the former case we have obvscum once he switched and in the latter case ortolan isn't going to say he finds himself scummy.)

As this seems to be a point suggesting we haven't given many reads of on-screen players, by way of comparison, how many reads of the people on-screen have for example YOU produced? I have given the totality of valid reads I've produced and I'd say we've given substantially above the average number of opinions about on-stage players among both those who were off-stage and those on-stage. I don't get why we are suddenly under obligation to do 10 times more work than anyone else, as seems to be implied by what you are saying.

Here's the thing Ortolan: you claimed that you suggested following Locke for information gathering purposes (among other reasons.)

Yes

I think it's reasonable to probe to see what information you actually got from those questions

Yes

and the response you gave me was that at the time you found Hewitt scummy

Not sure at what point you're referring to, but I would say this is not accurate. I would say I made the point he was

potentially

scummy, but this is mitigated by the fact scum can day-talk and I suspect his buddies would have told him not to simply writhe out there looking scummy.

for behaving similarly as you did in terms of suggesting following Locke and nothing else.

I would again say this is a misrepresentation. I did not say they were scummy or potentially scummy for "behaving similarly as we did." I said they were potentially scummy for persistently doubting the advocates over time, despite both advocates agreeing on the same course of action and there being nothing really to suggest disbelieving both of them was viable. Relative to us, this was both a very much greater length of time and number of posts over which they remained skeptical and seemingly attempted to undermine the advocates; long after for example townies like us were resigned that there was only one viable choice.

This is another example of what I can only describe as leading questions by you. That is why I think you are scummy, your line of questioning, particularly against us, clearly demonstrates systematic bias where you clearly do not take our arguments into account. Arguably scum wouldn't be quite so blatant doing it, but I know you're an experienced player and don't see how questioning people in such a biased way over an extended period of time facilitates accurate reads. Without knowledge of your meta I am more inclined to ascribe scummy motives than town motives.

(Talilan and KY Krew have been discussed above, and you assessment of MafiaJin had nothing to do with his on-camera behavior and everything to do with his process for picking who went on camera.)

That is correct. But my read of MafiaJin is reinforced my Gaspar's attempts to unseat him on what I see as no basis.

- ortolan

[Talilan]

This is another example of what I can only describe as leading questions by you. That is why I think you are scummy, your line of questioning, particularly against us, clearly demonstrates systematic bias where you clearly do not take our arguments into account. Arguably scum wouldn't be quite so blatant doing it, but I know you're an experienced player and don't see how questioning people in such a biased way over an extended period of time facilitates accurate reads. Without knowledge of your meta I am more inclined to ascribe scummy motives than town motives.

Also, I would ask, do you agree that your questions towards us are leading or do you genuinely feel you are acting impartially?

[Talilan]

This question is ridiculously leading and pointless.

Actually, it's not leading at all. It leaves you the option of saying that your questions are coming from an impartial i.e. innocent perspective. Basically what I'm asking you is if you're deliberately trying to be leading in your questions towards us (because you think by asking us leading questions it will help catch as scum or something) or if you genuinely think your questions aren't leading. If you think they aren't leading, just say "they aren't leading, they are impartial questions", that's all I'm asking.

If I had asked you what information you got out of suggesting that you follow Locke on camera, your answer seems to be "I found hewitt might be scummy for it, but I've changed my mind based off of other evidence"

I didn't say "I've changed my mind", I said "the other evidence makes me think otherwise". "I've changed my mind" indicates I had a strongly held and emphatic viewpoint and then changed to another fairly strongly held and emphatic viewpoing. I would literally be amazed if you are not conscious of the fact you continually twist my words in every post. Yet another example, you state we "suggested we follow Locke on camera", but we never did "suggest" that course of action, we just "considered" it, and made it clear we were "considering" it. We did not "suggest" it at any point. Do you dispute this? Do you think your words here were poorly chosen or were they reasonable? That is what I want to know. Do you find twisting people's words a convenient device for trying to catch scum in a lie (which is the only remotely viable alternate explanation), or are you just scum? I cannot believe you are doing it without being conscious of it.

That suggests the possibility that your hydra was lying about using the suggestions to follow Locke as an information gathering tool.

How? Bear in mind that we have always reserved the right to use both the explanation of being unsure of the correct decision and the explanation of wanting to generate discussion. We *can* use both of them at once you know, and frankly if people don't believe us (and these people in question are actually innocent) then that's their problem

Preview: @ckd, I will let Talitha answer that, not only because she was the one who posted that but because people seem to prefer her explanations for our behaviour more than mine anyhow.

Also, I feel like you are either overestimating the difference between your point of view and Hewitt's: it feels like both of you conceded that there was a right pick after zwet put up the thumb's up picture.

The rest of your post ignores the fact that we were the ones that incited the zwet thumbs up in the first place, and specifically asked for off-stage input.

Your post 72 before zwet's picture clearly questions whether the obvious choice was obvious

All I can say is that I wish our positions were reversed, I wish we were off-stage and scum at the time like you were and you were on-stage and innocent at the same time like we were/are, we would capitalise on the fact you were unsure of the correct choice too.

as far as I can tell no realier post from your hydra implies that you've made up your mind one way or the other

as I said oh so many posts ago, if nothing else, prematurely announcing your decision then prevents scum from dropping any tells from that point on. There are many reasons why this would be bad play as town.

- ortolan

[Talilan]

Talitha. Not completely up-to-date with thread. Unwell. Kinda grouchy.

CKD & Thok
Regarding MY post on-stage that began...
"The decision, Mr Locke, is whether to have you drive knowing that either you are lying now or you will defect to the enemy, then dispose of you at the next opportunity."

I will answer to this ONE more time.

At the point of that post I

did not know

there was one good and one bad choice. I thought there may have been an identical offer to Valentine as there was to Locke. Valentine was acting weird and evasive. I did not trust she had told us everything. I also thought (AT THAT TIME) that if Locke truly wanted to do the right thing for the town, and IF IT WAS LIKELY that Valentine got the same offer, then he would at least be open to the idea of driving. Locke appeared to think about it then he put the question back on me. THIS ANSWER DID NOT GIVE ME SCUM VIBES.
THEN I discovered from ortolan and from asking on-stage that there was, in fact one good choice and one bad. SO THE WHOLE THING WAS MOOT.

There will be no more explaining of this. If anyone brings it up again, if better be accompanied by a vote with an intent to lynch me dead.

-Talitha (um yes, very grouchy today)

[Talilan]

- ortolan here again.

Just because something has two options doesn't mean it isn't leading. Your question either forces me to say "No my questions aren't leading" or forces me to try to justify why leading questions need not be a bad thing.

No that isn't a leading question. I perceive all your questions as biased. I am asking if you are deliberately biasing your questions as part of your playstyle. If you disagree with me and do not think your questions are biased then just say such please. It is not leading because the question doesn't carry any other implications than what is being asked- namely where you are deliberately biasing your questions or not. Saying "no" doesn't imply your questions are unintentionally biased, just that you don't think they are biased. So; please answer.

Ortolan, do you want to keep playing semantic games? IMHO, you're not particularly good at them,

You're the one who introduced the element of semantic games. Whenever I argue against someone I at least look at their position charitably. You have apparently sought to deliberately misrepresent in your every post. The reason I changed the phrasing is because your phrasing DELIBERATELY MISREPRESENTS us.

and if you are town then all they are doing is telling people that you are hopelessly tunneled.

This applies to you, not me.

Also, I sort of want to link you to a dictionary definition of suggest, but that would be fairly pedantic.

"suggest" in common usage and what would undeniably be interpreted by most people from your question is used in the sense "do you have any suggestions?"- in plainspeak, they are ideas to improve things. We did not put forward following Locke as an idea to improve things. We publicly considered it, and weren't ever behind the idea. This IS relevant to the implications of what you were saying, otherwise I wouldn't have noticed it. And you've done it repeatedly to us.

If you don't have any information from your information gathering attempts, it could be that you didn't have time to gather any information. (Which is what Talitha said, which is part of why I combine your two response as a slight plus) Or it could be that you didn't get any information because you weren't trying to gather information.

See this is again an instance of you using very very particular interpretations of things. An information-gathering attempt is not a discreet and clearly defined entity. We can be gathering information both for our own purposes and to give the other players things to analyse. Saying we did something partly to gather information does not imply "we specifically were looking for information from time X to time Y, and would then make that information public"; it could mean as intended that we were trying to incite information for others to analyse. We could also have hoped for someone to slip up and say something scummy in response, because we were approaching the situation from left-field. If that didn't occur then we wouldn't necessarily have anything to comment on. Your portrayal of mafia seems to be we should say whenever relevant "WE FIND YOU SCUMMY AND ARE TRYING TO LOOK FOR MORE TELLS TO BETTER ANALYSE YOUR ALIGNMENT" or "I AM SAYING THIS IN ORDER TO BAIT INFORMATION, AFTER X RESPONDS I WILL TELL YOU WHETHER THEY ARE SCUMMY OR NOT". This is a highly, highly suboptimal manner of playing.

Assuming that I was on-stage and town, why couldn't I have been sure of the decision?

You might have been. It's impossible to know, as you were neither on-stage, nor town at the time.

You really think someone really have suspected me for NOT attacking Glork there?

Yes, I would have suspected you anyway at that point from memory. It's mostly from you just buying his terrible arguments for us being scummy off the bat and showing none of the intelligent skepticism I would expect when faced with obviously poor arguments.

The other thing perhaps I haven't been explicit on, elmo. Your behaviour in relation to Gaspar and myself doesn't make sense. IIRC you agreed with him that we were scummy, but then said he's scummy also. As far as I'm aware it looks exceedingly improbable that both Gaspar and us are scum together. As such I view it as scummy to have us both as scummy, which you seemed to be doing; rather than one as scummy or the other town, or even possibly both town. That's why I think you were distancing from him. That's why instead of examining yourself when we called you both scummy, you dug your heels in harder to us and really seemed to push for our lynch; which makes little sense if you supposedly find Gaspar scummy.

The only possibility I can think of is that there's a chance you're a townie who's just flipping out because he got attacked

There is legitimate motive to attack people who have attacked us in this game. As I've said, we have not behaved scummily. The only explanation is looking at our behaviour through a scummy lens. It has only been yourself, Gaspar and Thok who've attacked us. You and Gaspar in particular I know are very good and widely respected players (I am not saying Thok isn't but I have no real knowledge of his meta). I would be very surprised if you both pulled similar reads on us based on:

1) The fact I know for a fact you're both wrong and we are town
2) I see absolutely no basis for them based on the way we behaved. There is nothing scummy in the way we acted. I believe good analytical players would come to this conclusion. Certainly yourself and Glork are some of the best respected analytical players on the site; the probability of you both coming to the same conclusion based on what I see as absolutely no evidence whatsoever is incredibly minimal (also you three along with Thok are the only players who've attacked us). In light of this I see the way you acted towards Gaspar as obligatory distancing. If I had Glork on my scum-team I probably wouldn't care about buddying up to him as I'm sure plenty of townies would do the same anyway and it wouldn't necessarily be perceived as a scum-tell. But Glork was acting totally out of character and in my opinion was completely off with his suspicions and attacking people for bogus reasons. If at that point you didn't get your opinion heard that you think Glork was "off" you risked getting carried down with Glork (assuming he later got lynched), because people would expect a good player like you to be able to read him better when he's obviously acting wierd.

[Talilan]

And I will add I have actually been vaguely suspecting MIGHTY ORBOTS was a survivor or neutral for a while now, even before his most recent post. The minimal number of people in his scumlist combined with the fact he apparently finds myself Gaspar and Thok all townie looks like his main motivations are avoiding both the noose and the night-kill.

[Talilan]

If you read my day 1 posts, I actually mentioned that his attacks on you were the one thing he was doing day 1 that made me doubt my scum read on him, since his attacks.

There you go again. How come you put a full stop when the sentence wasn't actually finished yet? You weren't trying to replicate your earlier slip to give the impression you do it frequently and it's a null-tell were you?

And CKD. That's now 4 of the most experenced players in the game, all who have legitimate problems with your day 1 play. Do you think we're all scum?

ckd has not said we're scummy. And I don't care if he does, he's simply wrong. I wouldn't change anything about the way we behaved on camera, if other people's (genuine) read of us is deficient then that's their problem. I could also make the argument that you must be legitimately scummy because 3 experienced players are attacking you, our hydra, troll's hydra and DGB's hydra; off the top of my head.

Which basically sounds like "YOU'D BETTER STOP ATTACKING ME FOR THE SCUMMY STUFF WE DID YESTERDAY OR ELSE" just really, really makes me want to lynch you.

No it's not a threat at all. If you stopped attacking us I would continue to find you scummy.

(shrug) If you look scummy, and he looks scummy, I'll say I suspect both of you.

This is silly. This game is pretty much guaranteed to only have one major scum faction, with the possibility of neutrals more likely than multiple killing factions (assuming the scum has a kill, which is reasonable enough). Gaspar and ourselves both being scum looks pretty darn unlikely to me. Having us both high without ever acknowledging the seeming mutual exclusivity of us both being scum is still scummy.

- ortolan

[Talilan]

OK Yos, I guess I was a little combative earlier. My bad. I would back down and say that I will discuss the "scummy" thing I did yesterday, but it's only worthwhile if you would give due consideration to my explanation that I have made at least twice, and ortolan has also expanded on. You don't seem to have anything to say about the explanation, just keep going back to the "scummy thing".

Anyway, I'm pretty sure that other players are as sick of this particular argument as I am and we'd be doing everyone a favour if we just back off and cool off.

I dislike that this game is being dominated by walls of text and quote wars

I agree and this is especially important during scene. It's real hard to come back after a scene and be 20 pages behind ... we need to make it easier on these people by cutting the less relevant stuff out of our posts, being concise, and not going over and over the same ground.

I would like to point out that TBTKM and Starkiss have been pretty good at escaping notice. I mean, really, really good.

I agree, and DGB is worth her weight in gold. (Yep, still talking like we know you're town. Can't help it.)

- Tal

[Talilan]

Everyone due on-stage should write down MIGHTY ORBOTS cues in 612. Although I suggest you change "don't trust the director" to "The Wombats - Kill The Director"

- ortolan

[Talilan]

Right back at ya, champ

the odds of being wrong about anything on day 1 are always fairly high.

It's day one and a half now, soon to be day 2. I do appreciate your point about having Gaspar higher than zwet in your condorcet. If that is the case then I thank you for your attempted bus.

is the way you guys reacted to pressure.

Do you think it is inconsistent with my town meta (and it is largely me we're talking about in this instance, not Talitha) to counter-attack people when I feel they're attacking me for scummy reasons?

- ortolan

[Talilan]

Right. Because if I was scum with Glork, of all people, my first instinct would be to attack him out of nowhere, pressure him, very nearly lynch him, and do this all in a way that wouldn't even get me that much town cred in the process by making him my #2 vote in a situation where the #1 vote, you, was not in any real danger of being lynched.

Honestly, I really can't believe that you could actually believe most of what you're saying here.

Well, I still strongly suspect you and Glork are scum together. You trying to convince of how "obviously ridiculous" this idea is doesn't make me believe it less.

I don't know. If you're trying to make a meta defense for your scummy OMGUS behavior here, then go for it. Show me some links where you acted in the same way as town, I'd be interested to see them.

Election Mafia was a game where the vast majority of the people who attacked me day two were all scum, which I suspected at the time. Mushrom Kingdom 2 saw someone voting me in very scummy where circumstances where they thought I would be an easy mislynch at the time, which I and other players called them out on and got them lynched.

The other is that if the scums can choose a scum advocate (I'm not clear on whether this is possible, but I didn't see anything in the rules to suggest that it is impossible)

It has seemed pretty clear all along that they would be able to pick a scum advocate. If that weren't the case the game would be very broken.

then they could just pick the Good door and assume that we will follow the Monty Hall problem.

Yes, I agree with you, and this is something that our hydra has already considered. I don't think there's any point discussing it until we see who the advocate is though.

[Talilan]

- ortolan

[Talilan]

Anyway, my point was that if I was scum with a player like Glork, there's no way my first instinct would be "Hey, let me bus Glork on day 1 and try to kill him in a situation we he's under absolutely no pressure before I attack him". My first instinct would be "Kickass, I'm scum with Glork, now we're going to dominate this game"; I've actually been scum with Glork before, and it was awesome. Call it WIFOM if you want, but it's also true; I dare you to find one game, out of all the hundreds of games I've played on this site, where as scum I decided to try and bus a highly skilled scum partner on day 1 when he wasn't even under any pressure, like you're trying to suggest I'm doing here; I don't believe I've ever done that.

I am not claiming you are not capable of sophisticated busing. If it was transparent then it wouldn't be as effective now would it.

I'll go take a look. I stopped reading election mafia after I died on day 1, so let me look at that.

..Ok, I see Vi attacking you for a reasonable reason and I see you OMGUSing him because of that. Of course, Vi was town that game, but it does support your meta.

And then Yaw attacks you, and your response is to OMGUS attack him as well. (Yaw was also town).

Yeah, it does look like you might have a meta of making bad OMGUS attacks like this when town. Ok, I'll keep that in mind. You might want to, you know, fix that, though, since it's quite anti-town.

Doesn't look like you read the game in question. Vi wasn't town for a start. I was referring to the fact when I almost got lynched the wagon was:

ortolan: 7 (Vi-SCUM, Yaw, Knight of Cydonia-SCUM, Charrat, Sebguer, Battle Mage-SCUM kuribo-SCUM)

If you incite four votes out of seven on you to be scum then yes, retaliating is going to be very effective at hitting scum. It's certainly the case that you shouldn't ignore scummy attacks on people simply because they happen to be on you. Another game: I caught Vi again as scum by counter-attacking partly based on the meta above in Phables: Death Note Mafia (before replacing out). When I see people's attacks on me/us when we're town as being explicable as poor play, then I'll accommodate that. In this instance your attacks are genuinely scummy.

- ortolan

[Talilan]

List looks fine to me.

Elmo: I thought of another game where I attempted to manipulate the whole "if you OMGUS me you're scummy thing" as scum: Fantasy Mafia.

See e.g. here:

http://www.mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopi ... 26#1674226

According to your logic, it was scummy/bad play for Sudo_Nym to counter-attack me, even though he was right (and I was playing off the incorrect notion that it is necessarily scummy to retaliate against someone).

[Talilan]

^^ scummy

- ortolan

[Talilan]

The problem with your case as I see it, Yos, is that it's a real simplistic reason to suspect us. We made what you call a blatantly scummy move on screen... isn't that the equivalent of, I dunno, hammering a townie in a normal game? (just the first example I could thing of) It's the kind of action that newbies get all excited about and jump up and down shouting "Tali hammered a townie without waiting the requisite 16.5 hours.... scum, scum!", while the more experienced players listen to explanation, shrug, then
VOTE: that quiet dude in the corner over there.

In this case it's
"Oooh, Tali suggested following Locke then killing him!... scum, scum!" (It's

possible

we might've posted that as scum trying to convince the town the wrong choice, but I like to think I'm better at playing scum than that. At the very most that action was a null tell.)
But your reaction to it has been like the newb-town or opportunistic scum.

-Tal

[Talilan]

Sorry, I didn't read MafiaJin's post properly. We are Ms. Blue now (permanently), not Carrie Fisher. We are not, therefore, going to be in the next scene automatically, nor do we want to be chosen to be in the next scene. That is KY Crew (Carrie Fisher) who is going to be in the next scene automatically.

- ortolan

[Talilan]

Goof, because they didn't want to give the advocate information to a townie, and KY can blatantly do his best to make the town make the wrong decision with no consequences since he's getting lynched anyway.

I am pretty sure ortolan has already asked mith, and we do NOT get the advocate information when we switch.

Ortolan had a post pre-prepared so if KY was the advocate we could quickly stunt in before KY could pick a door. Damn time zones foiled us again.

At this point I see no reason to stunt in in a hurry. We have a classic game of WIFOM to play and we should watch and try and figure out some good advice to take on stage. The lynch is already decided.

Tal (at work, more later)

[Talilan]

I'm a bit surprised at the reactions frankly. It was blatantly obvious KY Crew was going to get made the advocate. And yes, we intended to stunt in before he chose a door because doing so still fixes us at 2/3 odds of winning even without the information he has.

Clearly KY Crew did have SOME information about which the correct door was. Advocates need to have SOME information, and look here:

have been given information that my charity was greatly helped by getting rid of Door 3.

He may or may not be lying here. But if you think about it, knowing the state of ANY of the doors to begin with means you can guarantee a win (if you're town). If you know the state of one door and it's the right one, you just pick it and tell the town to stay. If you know the state of one door and it's the wrong one, you pick it. The host has to close the other wrong door which is guaranteed to leave you on the correct door if you switch.

So, basically

- KY Crew had information about the state of at least one of the doors
- Having information about the state of at least one of the doors or even just simply being automatically told which is the correct one both guarantee one can pick the correct one and will know which is the correct door.
- KY is scum
- KY will have chosen a door in an attempt to WIFOM as much as possible, or simply chosen randomly.

I conclude that the best course of action for town is to attempt to use a provably random measure to pursue a mixed strategy of 2 (switch)/1 (stay). Because you win 2/3 times when switching and 1/3 times when staying. But KY Crew knows this and will have countered it. This means we need a random number generator which will generate switch two thirds of the time and stay one third of the time. Mixed strategy allows us to fix our odds and also prevents horrible, horrible WIFOM over what we should advocate. I predict scum will get more of an advantage over town as they can avoid dropping scum-tells, already knowing which the correct door is. So yes, any ideas on a random facilitator?

Also: no-one died overnight. I suspect possibly making the wrong decision enables night-kills.

I also have no idea why ckd fired MafiaJin (particularly with that timing).

- ortolan

[Talilan]

Remember that not everyone is completely clueless - it's likely that scum know which door is right and which is wrong. I'd like to see the decision play out and people give their reasoning, rather than use a random generator. I don't think going random will improve our chances of getting the decision right, but going random could deprive us of the information players give out as they make the decision.


Also, my gut/crap-shoot/wanna see if I'm right later pick: We should stay with Door 1.

~Talitha

[Talilan]

What if we run up enough votes for KY Krew to get lynched here.

When we decide the time is ripe, Talilan stunts KY Krew to die as soon as he crosses from on-stage to off-stage.

The lynch will seal the choices. Or does than deprive Talilan of a vote when that hydra is catapulted in? Is that the down side?

-DGB

Don't worry, he'll definitely be lynched when we stuntman him off-stage today. There's no need to hurry it.

Unlike Talitha my gut actually says he will be double-bluffing and thus we should switch as per usual

I'm also curious as to what people's thoughts on random v.s. non-random are.

- ortolan

[Talilan]

I dislike the so overwhelmingly OMGUS back-and-forth between Talilan-elmosaurian/Glork. Talilan is clearly attacking them simply for them attacking Talilan and it’s honestly obnoxious. Neither side is really listening to each other and it’s becoming increasingly circular.

Yep, I was right, hewitt is scummy. The scum-team's making it really easy; throwing all their eggs in one basket and attacking us.

With that being said I think if there was a player who I shared the most similarities with posting-wise during Scene 1 it would be Talilan. I think the biggest difference though is the reasoning why behind our posting. Read through my post-by-post analysis and then compare it to Talilan’s explanations for her posts. Big difference.

Yes there was a difference in that your was persistently and actively scummy whereas we were resigned to the correct choice after a short while.

This makes sense to me. Talilan’s attacks on them being scum together is pretty reaching in my opinion.

Noted. We will come knocking on your door after they both flip scum.

- ortolan

[Talilan]

Talilan you realize that every person you've been attacking so far is the result of an OMGUS?

No, we attacked you first therefore you are the one OMGUSing us (see how subjective this is?)

I dislike the so overwhelmingly OMGUS back-and-forth between Talilan-elmosaurian/Glork. Talilan is clearly attacking them simply for them attacking Talilan and it’s honestly obnoxious. Neither side is really listening to each other and it’s becoming increasingly circular.

Spouting pro-town platitudes. "Why oh why are you guys fighting with each other" yet you don't take a proper position on players on either side of the argument beyond describing our attacks as OMGUS.

attacked you and that I was slightly more vocal about following Valentine than you were.

With that being said I think if there was a player who I shared the most similarities with posting-wise during Scene 1 it would be Talilan. I think the biggest difference though is the reasoning why behind our posting. Read through my post-by-post analysis and then compare it to Talilan’s explanations for her posts. Big difference.

This also seemed to be attacking us for some unknown reason but I could be wrong.

Tags removed. Please use bold only for voting. - Mod

[Talilan]

Also obligatory "omg Yos isn't acting like KY Crew is obv-scum on stage, he must be scum himself". It's fun when your victims can't retaliate.

[Talilan]

wow Thesp is very very obv-town

Not only does he agree that Gaspar is scum (KY Crew is irrelevant as he's obv-scum to everyone) but that MafiaJin has done nothing scummy all game.

I'm really hating the hidden-side mechanic.

What do you mean?

[Talilan]

I find it more than a little interesting that a hydra would actually both sit here and make gut calls and actually disagree

I'm pretty surprised you'd call that into question as the whole point of a "gut" call is an instinctual thing rather than something that has for example been reasoned through or in the context of a hydra for example, discussed with your partner. I'd be more inclined to think the scum-team is double-bluffing with the correct decision and in fact the correct move is to switch as it usually is. I tend to give people more credit that way. "Hmm, well they know we're trying to sabotage them, therefore let's put the wine in its usual position and leave it for them to out-think themselves". Of course the level of "bluffing" is infinitely abstractable and Talitha might not think of them as single-bluffing but rather triple-bluffing or quintiple-bluffing or somesuch.

[Talilan]

But do you trust the judgement of either player in the hydra? That's what really matters when it comes to the Director role. It doesn't really matter if they're town or not if they make stupid decisions. I definitely don't trust SSK based on meta, and(again based on meta), I feel like he'd be rash and make decisions without talking to his partner(who I don't know as much about).

I don't get how you can push this argument based on the facts so far. There were no problems with his scene one choices. I as yet see no issues with his scene two choices. Yet you are saying "well it's MafiaSSK, he might act rashly". This is divorced from the evidence of the game so far. And yes, I would much rather have a townie, any townie in the role rather than scum; which is what is risked by firing who I think is a town director. Random choices are better than scum-influenced choices. I also don't see why ckd didn't explain himself before firing MafiaJin.

So agreeing with you means someone's obv-town, and disagreeing with you means they're scum? Because that's the feel I'm getting from your posts. If there's other reasons, please point them out, because I must have missed them.

Yes, I am using it as a town-tell in this case. It's perfectly legitimate as far as I'm aware. If I know we're town and have at least some respect for our judgment, then if someone agrees with you on not one or two but three players (granted one of them was us; but also MafiaJin and Gaspar), in contrast to the rest of the game who often seem to be flip-flopping or deliberately taking neutral stands on the issue then I see it as a very legitimate town-tell from our perspective. Of course if you are town you can't be sure we're not lying scum but the fact remains it is good play for us to use it as a town-tell and take it into account when evaluating Thesp.

[Talilan]

- ortolan

[Talilan]

and on hewitt, that whole "us and Talilan had totally different explanations for our on-stage behaviour" seemed to be implying we were scum and really really tugged at my "someone's tryina' take advantage of us" sense. I mean someone who went with the stand we initially took but took it to the nth degree to the point of looking scummy; then comes off-stage and questions our motivations just gets my suspicions right up. I would like hewitt to explain the comment:

With that being said I think if there was a player who I shared the most similarities with posting-wise during Scene 1 it would be Talilan. I think the biggest difference though is the reasoning why behind our posting. Read through my post-by-post analysis and then compare it to Talilan’s explanations for her posts. Big difference.

This seems to be implying that our "reasoning" was scummy in contrast to his. I would like to know why.

I also didn't like the way he was seemingly writing off our attacks as OMGUS (yet he didn't really take a stand on the issue, sometimes suggesting both parties were at fault and distracting the game, sometimes implying we were the ones at fault), yet he counter-attacked us, seemingly oblivious to his hypocrisy (and therefore not appreciating the insight that perhaps OMGUS isn't a scum-tell). I see this as less likely to come from a town player.

- ortolan

Tags removed. Use bold only for votes. - Mod

[Talilan]

C'mon Gaspar, you're doing this weird attempt to make mountain out of molehill again. If you don't like the way we are playing as a hydra, that is one thing, and maybe we need guidelines for hydra posting etiquette I don't know. But saying that we're (scum) trying to push indecision because ortolan and I disagree on stuff, is rubbish. It is particularly silly right now because indecision is inherent in this situation. We have so little to help make this decision that it will end up being a crap-shoot anyway. The only small chance for our actions here to benefit the town is hearing from people about what they think and why. And for that I will probably indulge your earlier Q and explain my reasoning for my crappy guess.


Also why do you expect so much input from MrBuddyLee? It's surely up to them how they divide the posting between them. I remember you were part of a very lopsided hydra once so this is extra weird.

~Talitha

[Talilan]

You just admitted your attacks were OMGUS

Hey now, OMGUS is merely a description of the nature of the vote. It's not a scum-tell and doesn't rob the vote of any legitimacy. The archetypal "OMGUS" action (on which the whole expression is based) came from a town player. Note Glork has also just now claimed this as a deliberate playstyle which he finds helpful:

This is how I always play. I ALWAYS want to know why people suspect me, because I want to pick out those reasons and examine them. I typically find it easier to find scum who are running ME up than scums who are running OTHER people up.

ANYBODY who has played with me in the past can tell you this. Sadly, most of the people who know me best (PJ, MBL, Thok, Yosarian, Pooky) are currently On Camera. I understand where you're coming from, but I have always been a self-interested bastard.

Talilan {ortolan}, you use the word "seem" quite a bit. Do you often make accusations rather than implement accepted-facts?

I'm not aware of myself using the word "seem" excessively and I'm not sure how using the word seems constitutes "making an accusation", or how it prevents me "implementing accepted-facts", whatever that means.

I have no defense to the timing other than to say that the scums set me up, and that once I'm lynched as an innocent, look strongly at the people who first proposed the KY-Gaspar connection.

I want it noted that I never thought KY Crew's activities

alone

necessarily implicated Glork. It's true that KY Crew, as scum, had motivation to do that then regardless of whether Glork is scum.

Also obligatory "omg Yos isn't acting like KY Crew is obv-scum on stage, he must be scum himself". It's fun when your victims can't retaliate.

Oh okay my bad I'll make sure to keep in mind that I shouldn't be commenting on the other half of this game Talilan. My bad, totally forgot that the Off-Camera action is the ONLY thing I should be commenting on.

This wasn't intended as an attack on you but rather elmosaurian.

- ortolan

[Talilan]

Ortolan: There is one MASSIVE difference between what I've said and what you've done. I have asked for explanations behind people's suspicions of you, but you have almost universally (Elmosaurian, me, Hewitt) fought to convince others that your attackers are scums. Note that one of the people I find most protown (G&B) is someone who really wants me dead. Do not try to liken your behavior to my playstyle, because there are some very large fundamental differences between the two.

I am not saying it is my playstyle. I am saying you appear to be claiming it is your own playstyle, especially those comments about "self-interest" etc. Which counter's hewitt's assumption that OMGUS is scummy.

I have no defense to the timing other than to say that the scums set me up, and that once I'm lynched as an innocent, look strongly at the people who first proposed the KY-Gaspar connection.

I want it noted that I never thought KY Crew's activities

alone

necessarily implicated Glork. It's true that KY Crew, as scum, had motivation to do that then regardless of whether Glork is scum.

What exactly provoked you to respond to this statement, which was made in response to Sottyrulez?

I felt like it. Thought it would be interesting to comment on.

EBWOP: Add Thok to that list. Seriously, it's ridiculous.

It's the only thing people have been doing which is scummy, apart from KY Crew. I don't see evidence of scum lurking in the background while I attack all of you. I very much think I'm on the money with most of you (which is why so many people seem to agree). It won't be so "ridiculous" when I'm vindicated at the end of the game when you all flip scum now will it.

- ortolan

[Talilan]

They don't counter Hewitt's stance, because OMGUS is accusing your attackers of being scum, not asking them to explain themselves. Two COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THINGS.

He is classifying what we do as OMGUS even though it is in the latter category as you describe. You seem to take every opportunity to attack us irrespective of whether it's, you know, logical.

- ortolan

[Talilan]

Gaspar later said it was a joke.

No, I'm sorry, but I 100% agree with Hewitt here. Maybe if you had looked at one of your four biggest attackers and found any one of them to be reasonably protown, but you don't.

Because they're not? If they're attacking us for what I know to be crap reasons I'm not going to suddenly say "oh yer hehe I guess we have no idea, we

are

scummy." No, we're not, they are opportunistic scum. And contrary to your other point, this isn't a scummy move AT ALL. If we get lynched as scum then we all but clear four players right then and there. It's terrible play as scum. Scum try to plant false seeds and manipulate the town as you are doing by calling G&B pro-town, which looks as arbitrary as your incorrect declarations that MafiaJin and we are scummy. Because G&B have pretty much exactly the same suspects as us, it just happens in our case it's "OMGUS" because we were the ones who had the scummy attacks made against us to begin with.

From the moment someone disagrees with you, they're scum, and from the moment their top suspicions coincide with your top suspicions, they're protown (i.e., Thesp, G&B).

Yes? I already justified this attitude in my previous post. Just because you pull the clichéd scum move of claiming to find G&B town "in spite of them suspecting you" but we have the guts to call out our attackers as scummy doesn't make you more pro-town.

Talilan, what are the main points against the people you suspect, besides that they're suspicious of you?

Frankly I don't want to go over it again, I've been very clear in past posts. Your hydra (I think it was Shanba maybe) already complained about the back and forth detracting from the game. I am only addressing new points in this post.

I suggest you stop and think very long and very hard about what I've said about KY Krew. Especially look at the post where I absolutely rip into Talilan for saying that I should be lynched Day Two. And then I want you to tell me if you really think this is a valid argument at all.

Surely if you think we're scum you can come up with more than incredibly cheap and bad attacks. Obviously KY Crew is scum, that was never in question, we never took issue with the notion he is scum. He is still not presently on-stage and lynchable. I would like to see your lynch as soon as possible. It's quite simple. Obviously KY Crew is going to be today's lynch when we take him off-stage, which is in some respect regrettable as you're a more dangerous member of the scum-team.

And truth be told, this exploration makes me feel MUCH better about probably being lynched on D3 or D4. As long as Talilan dies as scum the very next day, I'll trade me for a scumbag anyday.

Yer I'll believe you're willing to lay down your life tomorrow when I see it.

More importantly, is everyone happy with going with the voting approach to the Monty Hall problem rather than random? We'd better sub in soon. I would add I'm skeptical of Gaspar's motivations for asking for people's opinions on the correct door to choose. Looks like a way he can incriminate townies later based on them not knowing which the correct choice is and thus getting it wrong.

- ortolan

[Talilan]

We should switch within 24-48 hours so if anyone has anything else to say to us (preferably not about Gaspar, that can wait till tomorrow) especially about voting v.s. random go ahead.

- ortolan

[Talilan]

My reasoning for wanting to stick with Door 1 was that I could see the scums' reasoning going something like this:
1. Usually the town would switch to the other door
2. BUT the town don't trust KY AT ALL
3. So they won't switch!
4. But they'll know that we know that they don't trust KY!
5. So they'll switch!
6. Therefore we should pick the right door to start with.

So the secret to choosing correctly is guessing exactly how many iterations of "I cannot choose the wine in front of me" they would've gone through. Or maybe they flipped a coin and we should too.

In conclusion, I have absolutely nothing. But I give townie points to all who have favoured one door or the other. Scum would be more likely to stay silent I think.
Ready to switch whenever.

~Talitha

[Talilan]

last orders please

[Talilan]

Usually ortolan takes care of the housekeeping for us but he must be busy cooking me some eggs or something. I'll PM mith now.
~Tal

[Talilan]

(At work)
I havent had a chance to read what I missed off-stage yet. Would prefer to stay offstage to give us time to catch up. But if it's firm that we're going back onstage I guess that's okay we'll just have to read/post quickly.

~Talitha

[Talilan]

Basically, the biggest reason I doubted that KY was scum was just because I didn't see scum making the most suspicious looking guy in the entire game the advocate if he was one of their own; it just dosn't make sense as a scum play.

Um, it makes perfect sense. As I think Jelly Lee said earlier, it's pretty much a resources game. Scum has to decide whether to put one of their own into the role of advocate as a sacrifice; or to make the advocate a town player and give the town a free win (depending upon how much information the advocate has) or depend on the town not trusting a town advocate. Choosing KY Crew is a no-brainer- although he can be stuntmanned at least they can waste the advocate's ability on him before he gets lynched.

elmosaurian, obviously your post 954 was not questioning whether or not there were scum in the game. My point was that I cannot see somebody

seriously

questioning whether KY Krew was scum. In fact, the most plausible explanation to me as to why somebody might claim to doubt KY Krew being scum is that they are scum of a different faction.

I agree, that seems to be the only even remotely plausible explanation- that he is different scum to elmosaurian, elmo was expecting him to therefore flip town and wanted to gain cred. Apart from that it's possible, and in fact I see it as more likely given other evidence, that elmosaurian was simply trying to look "too scummy to be scum"- why defend someone who's obv-scum? This is because for other reasons I think there is only one primary scum faction in the game, see below.

The most KY Krew could do to hurt the town was to make the decision On Screen a coinflip, which I think KY Krew effectively did.

I actually think town won through good reasoning, rather than luck, but it doesn't matter much.

Reading Gaspar's posts he has managed to not be scummy at all really since we've been on-stage for the second time. He has actually said perfectly logical and townie (if perhaps a bit obvious if one actually reads the rules) things, exactly of the sort we would say. For this he may yet gain the honour of not being lynched until after elmosaurian (if nothing else for pragmatic purposes, because elmosaurian looks absolutely horrible to pretty much everyone right now). I maintain that I very, very, very, very, very strongly feel the Gaspar-elmosaurian discourse is busing through and through.

1) CKD is also a Scientologist and simply lied about the mafia group's name. His mentioning of the mafia name "SMG" came after Krew's Scene One debacle, which could usefully serve to create this kind of confusion as we look in the wrong directions.
2) Krew/Cruise was a Scientologist, there is in fact a Screen Mafia Guild, Kruise was probably operating alone as a third party. If this is the case, we probably won't be able to find out anything useful about him unless he was in fact a cult-ish role. But as others have stated, I don't think he'd say "there's a cult" if he were a cultist/cult leader. It seems particularly self-destructive.

3) Tom Cruise, the Scientologist, is a member of the Screen Mafia Guild.

I think that Scientology really does lend itself to being a cult. No offense to any scientologists here, but seirously.

Remember that KY Crew was the one who brought up cults to begin with, in the full knowledge he was under suspicion and would flip Scientologist. Could have been an easy way of planting WIFOM. Plus I agree with Glork's point that it's unlikely he would have brought up cults to begin with if he was in the cult.

But ortolan once said that you should never allow ignorance to influence your play, so I got ma' eyes wide open.

Wut?

Ortolan cautioning against ignorance? How ironic.

Where have I displayed ignorance?

I think Talilan should stay off screen and stunt out elmosaurian as well.

We are not stuntman, but agree that elmo needs to be stunted out at earliest available opportunity. I don't have any issues with your sottyrulez or GnB picks off the top of my head.

2. The fact that he seemed completely uninformed was very strong evidence he was not communicating with the scum

As we pointed out ~twilight of day one, the timing of KY Crew's hammer very, very, very strongly suggested he was day-talking with other scum in the off-stage thread. I'd be surprised if you'd forgotten this.

Go back and read his posts, carefully, and then tell me if you think he was "playing dumb" or if he actually had no idea what was going on. I got a very, very strong vibe it was the second one.

Question: Have you played with inHimShallibe or raj previously?

That makes no sense to me at all. I can't imagine in a million years a scum CKD randomly inventing the whole "I could turn scum" thing if he was scum. And to top that off, you're suggesting that not only did he lie about that, but he lied about that and then used the WRONG SCUM ROLE NAME in his claim, even though you think he HAD that scum role name, and even though he would basically be caught lying as soon as we lynched a scum?

I agree with this argument.

However, I will say this: the best argument for the presence of a Cult seems to be the fact that Mr. Grey should have taken into account the possibility that the town will No Lynch every single day. Even if there were a seven player mafia (I use this number because it strikes me as absurd and to make a point) with a kill every night (I assume seven nights?), they could only get the town down to 6 players.

I do not understand this point. Could you explain it please?

At the very least, I do not think that if there is a Cult it is the only scum-group. That would essentially require the Cult to have started the game with 4 players.

Why?

Assume the game starts with a 3 player Cult as the [Something Else] and that's it. Now assume the town lynches a Cult Member on Day One. This would automatically trigger the best end-game for the Town.

Yes, argh, this was precisely the same argument I was about to make for why I don't think there's a cult at all. They would need to start with at least four players and if they can recruit every night it's ridiculously unbalanced. From what we know town can therefore

never

get them down to two players.

Gaspar's failure to alter his opinion of us in light of us always thinking elmosaurian is obv-scum (which he seems to agree with) and also failing to comment in any way on our rationale which resulted in us, along with others, choosing the

correct

choice for scene two (and attacking elmo for not doing the same) means he still has his place saved alongside elmosaurian in the mafia team. He is just trying to not give away too much information after his inevitable lynch by continuing with the same thing he's said all game about us which has never changed from the moment he arbitrarily decided to declare us obv-scum at the beginning of the game.

I would like the most townie players possible on-stage in scene three as frankly elmosaurian is a blatantly obvious lynch tomorrow for any town players. GnB, sotty, ckd (he is town despite what some scumbags are claiming, I disagree with his decision to fire MafiaJin but don't think scum would do it like that), might want Jelly Lee off-stage as he wants to be and need some backup defending against bad attacks from Gaspar/elmosaurian, not sure on the others. Maybe VP Baltar and MafiaJin ("so he can be further scrutinised"?)

- ortolan

[Talilan]

but I'm as certain as can be that Elmosaurian and Gaspar do not share alignment.

Argh! That's exactly what they want you to think.

[Talilan]

I made an oath I would avoid wall posts, especially v.s. Gaspar and elmo, which I will stick to. I just want to be clear about two things:

1) For the record I never meant to imply Gaspar had attacked Buddy Lee, merely that the logic they had consistently displayed would assist in routing some of the poorly-reasoned attacks I anticipated against us.

2) The fact I think elmo and Gaspar are busing is hardly paranoid or unfounded. I have thought such since day one. I agree that their attacks now look more genuine (which they would want them to if indeed they are busing one another, considering some people e.g. myself already said they suspected busing on the previous day). Obviously they will fervently deny busing but I am making my position clear to avoid later accusations of inconsistency.

I find ckd's list 1075 very interesting. A lot of those reads are completely at odds with ours, but it may be down to a vastly different playstyle.

MO's 1083 list is better, less fence-sitting than previously.

I'm a little bit unhappy my argument for why we should actually load the next scene (only the next scene, mind you) solely with pro-town players wasn't addressed (because elmosaurian is the obv-lynch today regardless of what happens) but hopefully it won't matter.

If twoplayers ONLY went after each other all game, and people generally thought both were town, then it might be better to get rid of one before the end so they can't both be picked for a 7 player endgame, leading to a situation where they'd vote each other right off the bat, possibly leading to a easy mislynch.

*alarm bells* at the idea of "two people both being town" yet suspecting each other, and one getting cleared by the death of the other.

Glork is scum. I'm about 90% sure of that. He needs to die, and he needs to die as soon as we can possibly make that happen, even if it involves using the stuntman to pull him back out of the scene tomorrow.

C'mon. Irrespective of whether all you other guys see this as busing or not (which I do), it's obviously not something a pro-town elmosaurian would say, because it feasibly has absolutely no chance of happening. At the very least we can all agree that elmosaurian is scum, even if you're too scared to make the leap to the fact Glork is also.

- ortolan

[Talilan]

Oi! IMO as there are two advocates, the scummiest advocate by consensus vote should be made to give their information first. This is important.

[Talilan]

(it provides the less scummy advocate who either isn't scum or we are likely not to yet know is scum, therefore they've a vested interest in not outing themselves, opportunity to counter-claim any information they get) This allows us the best opportunity of catching lying advocates

and

making the correct decision.

[Talilan]

Do you agree with this Gaspar:

Oi! IMO as there are two advocates, the scummiest advocate by consensus vote should be made to give their information first. This is important.

And will you tell the other on-stage people if they don't get a chance to see it?

[Talilan]

Come on now, do you reeeeaaaaallllly think I'm Glork's scumbuddy?

I found Glork more suspicious than you but the whole KY Crew thing made absolutely, positively, zero sense to me. Only explanation I see is that as PJ said you knew he wasn't part of your mafia faction so assumed he was townie, but even then I'd think you as a player very, very, very unlikely to make such a transparent play. And there's the door 2 thing, and you pretty much brushed off any argument with me about it at the time.

- ortolan

[Talilan]

I'm not caught up with reading yet and I'm unsure if we're going onscreen so I'll just post a couple of my thoughts that I have shared with ortolan.

To me KY was obviously mafia - anything else doesn't explain his blatant scumminess. He didn't care about getting lynched, he didn't even try to appear pro-town, he just wanted to create confusion as he went down.

I think Scientology/cult is a red herring. Either scum get to choose their own (non-innocent) alignment flip, or they will each flip with a different descriptor. I don't think they're all scientologists, to me it just doesn't jive. I'm content for now to assume the existence of only one anti-town group until there's definite evidence to the contrary.

mith seems to have gone to a lot of effort to conceal the true identity of the mafia group. This is the first game I've seen where the mod directly refers to the scum (e.g. PNIA or [something else]) but is blatantly holding back the exact scum group name. Why would he go to the trouble of refering to them as [something else] all over the place if we were going to find out exactly who they were after the first one died? I think he is keeping the exact name of the mafia group as un-mod-confirmed until the game is over. This is possibly his way of nullifying the usefulness of role claims in this game.

At this point I do not believe CKD was lying about his information. Screen Mafia Guild is another nice, vague, mith-esque name for our scummy-scums, but it does give us a little more info as it implies a group of movie actors.

~talitha

[Talilan]

well in the last scene the two crims are next to each other. That was the only obvious other link I noticed off the top of my head. I think it is possible that Locke wasn't meant to allude to Peter Wiggin and in fact they were simply both randomly selected characters who made it into the first scene.

My stance on you is I don't really see why what you did would make sense as scum. I'm not yet read to discount the possibility that the SMG is just an overarching group descriptor, and all the scum might flip something different but possibly related.

why talk about this before the scene starts? why talk about this before the mafia picks advocates?

Why not? The mafia are going to be pursuing optimal strategy with advocates anyway

- ortolan

[Talilan]

I'm currently inclined to think those kills were a once-off ability. Potentially ckd's picks getting overruled is part of that.

I still very much support elmosaurian getting taken off-stage.

I'm going out on a limb here but I don't see scum-ckd volunteering to have himself be put on-stage and made an advocate alongside elmosaurian.

There's still several things which give me pause about his play though, including the fact he clearly saw what I said about making the scummiest advocate go first as he directly replied to it; but then volunteered his information before elmosaurian had the chance to speak, even though it's clear to me that elmosaurian would be deemed the "scummiest" advocate, and even if that wasn't clear ckd should have at least waited to hear opinions from other people.

I'm not sure also why ckd didn't make his choices known immediately. Surely the reason the director has to submit their five choices a while before the scene starts is so that scum get the chance to pick who they want the advocates to be. After he'd submitted his choices to Mr. Grey, I don't see why he wouldn't make them public. All he's accomplishing by not doing so is making sure the scum have a headstart. I say this because potentially his reason for not telling us his choices was so that he could pull one on us when the scene actually started and say "oh, gosh, look, I'm in the scene now, even though I didn't want to be".

Then again if he was scum and wanted to be convincing it seems more likely he would have told us his (fake) picks before the scene, then put himself on-camera anyway.

But again, this doesn't make much sense as by putting himself on camera he's taking away from elmosaurian's thunder.

Looking over ckd's scum-list a few pages back I find it quite agreeable, the only really unexplained one is why he finds Mighty Orbots actively scummy. Neutral/wary I could certainly tolerate, but "scummy" is a bit odd.

My stance is I still want elmosaurian pulled off-stage, I'm still sure he's scum (with Glork). I'm most confident of his scumminess and lynchability.

Pre-post edit: looking at on-camera the only two replacement roles were for two characters who died. I do not understand:

Glork, Ito, Mr Lewis, The Count, and/or Mr. Godwin

He seems to be implying he chose five players for that scene even though he only chose 4.

My inclination is that both advocates are telling the truth. I also strongly suspect that the "Mother" is the neutral choice.

You think both the advocates are town?

Currently I'm tempted to go with elmosaurian's suggestion of the "non bad" choice and pull him off-stage and lynch him. At the very worst then we get an innocent lynched and a non-bad choice, or else we get a bad choice and a scum lynched, or possibly even a scum lynched and a good choice if he was lying or trying to WIFOM with his advice to begin with.

- ortolan

[Talilan]

Currently I'm tempted to go with elmosaurian's suggestion of the "non bad" choice and pull him off-stage and lynch him. At the very worst then we get an innocent lynched and a non-bad choice, or else we get a bad choice and a scum lynched, or possibly even a scum lynched and a good choice if he was lying or trying to WIFOM with his advice to begin with.

Do you think this is a bad idea? (bearing in mind I think most of the other people in the game do find elmosaurian scummy as far as I'm aware)

[Talilan]

Also Thesp, I would like if you would do two things with a picture:

put two doves in a noose to indicate that the two dead players were town

also, put a picture of a stuntman in the same image to suggest to the assistant producer that they need to appoint a stuntman (we do not know if the assistant producer is on or off-stage)

I believe you are allowed to make your own images.

[Talilan]

not in a noose, sorry* some way of communicating those two were town

[Talilan]

No, he had to chose five in case some of the roles became unavailable. See post 948.

ahic, sorry. I'm gonna ask Mr. Grey what happens if the director's picks run out (i.e. does the director automatically enter the scene or is it scum's pick).

Also pulling elmosaurian and lynching him makes zero sense if they are to go with the mother choice. If he is trying to mislead us and we end up picking the mother choice, then we will have him 100 percent tomorrow. Why put both our birds (the decision and the lynch) in one basket?

This argument isn't bad, but if elmosaurian is obv-scum we should lynch him regardless. I think he is obv-scum (and perhaps we shouldn't go with the "neutral" option he's told us of).

There are many many things I find scummy about elmo:

On-stage yesterday, he inexplicably insisted KY Crew wouldn't flip scum despite behaviour which was only consistent with KY Crew being scum

On-stage yesterday, he voted door 2 apparently only because we voted door 1, and we explicitly asked him to address our argument for door 2 which he failed to do.

He failed to respond to my point yesterday (1033) that if nothing else, it should have been obvious to him that KY Crew was scum based on the way KY Crew hammered in the stage choice day one to set zwet as the lynch. The timing of this is

only

consistent with him day-talking with other people in the thread. He hammered as soon as Gaspar changed his vote I think, prematurely. It would be ridiculous to suggest this was anything other than the result of his on-stage buddies telling him that he needed to hammer at that point. In retrospect I should have ensured he addressed this point, but we will have the opportunity to put it to him again when he is pulled off stage.

He failed to respond to my query (1033) as to whether he'd played with inHim or raj previously, having made the comment he thought their hydra was flailing like someone clueless or something similar. Again we should have been more proactive in ensuring he responded, but when Gaspar again brought it up in 1131 he seemingly wilfully ignores it in 1133. Gaspar again brings it up on the second last page, and elmo has never answered it. I have to conclude he was not even trying to look town anymore.

If anyone has a good response to all four of these points and as to why they think elmosaurian isn't obv-scum, please go ahead. Right now we need to get him off-stage, and for that we need the cameraman to tell the on-stage assistant producer (because we don't know whether they're on-stage or off so we need to wait for the message to be relayed on-screen to avoid giving away information as to their identity) that they have forgotten to appoint a stuntman.

Step 1: tell on-screen people the two dead were innocent and the assistant producer needs to appoint a new stuntman

Step 2: have the stuntman take elmosaurian off-stage

Step 3: lynch elmosaurian

Step 4: have them decide on-stage which path to take

- ortolan

[Talilan]

How is his not posting a list make sense with him being wisked on stage as an advocate? Only scum could make him an advocate, not the director.

I'm not quite sure what you mean, I know it's the scum who appoint advocates.

I was wondering if initially the scum had used some one-shot ability to kill two innocent players and switch the director's choices (I was thinking along the lines of Prisoner's Dilemma 2). Then I noticed that the two dead players were players the director had actually chosen. Therefore it's possible the only ability the scum used was to kill two players. Thus I need to ask if, if say there are 5 choices with 4 required and scum kill two of them, if the reason the director ended up on-stage is the default or if the scum chose the director to end up on-stage.

Also pulling elmosaurian and lynching him makes zero sense if they are to go with the mother choice. If he is trying to mislead us and we end up picking the mother choice, then we will have him 100 percent tomorrow. Why put both our birds (the decision and the lynch) in one basket?

I do not think waiting till tomorrow to lynch someone who is clearly scum is a good choice. There is a case to be made that elmo would try to coerce into picking the bad choice on his way down however and that needs to be taken into account, so perhaps going with his "neutral" pick isn't the best choice.

- ortolan

[Talilan]

I got a refusal to answer when I asked what happens if the director picks 5 people when 4 of them need to go on-stage and 2 get killed, leaving 3.

We're waiting on you for the pic, Thesp

- ortolan

[Talilan]

I have to agree also that I don't see how Gaspar can be so confident that the information elmosaurian is giving is accurate. If he is as sure of elmo's scumminess as I am (and he seemed to be), then I don't see why he would assume elmosaurian would be telling the truth.

- ortolan

[Talilan]

I would, as we're lynching elmosaurian today.

Did you guys forget that Gaspar said posting condorcets or any extra information about who you suspect helps the scum? If so why are you voting off-stage people? Do you take issue with the fact elmo is scum? Or do you disagree that posting condorcets/extra information is anti-town?

Pooky: please take elmosaurian off-stage. It was pretty much universally determined that he was the scummiest player and needs to die today. If you need further reasons please read my 1202. Also tell the on-stage players that the two deceased were innocent.

- ortolan

[Talilan]

I'm still trying to wade through pages 43 onwards making sure I havent missed anything important during the week. Thanks to ortolan for picking up the slack.

How did SL know there was no stuntman as at the time he made post 451 on stage? Is this as suspicious as I think it is?

~ Talitha

[Talilan]

Pooky, if you wouldn't mind, can you also ask Gaspar (Angel) why he is so certain elmo (and ckd's) information is correct on my behalf please

- ortolan

[Talilan]

Why would scum mind one of their own getting lynched? They are only taking 2 scum to the end game. The rest are free to be lynch fodder (i.e. this is the perfect game for bussing. Gain townie cred without any impact on number of scum going to endgame.)

~ Talitha

[Talilan]

He couldn't have seen this thread simply by using an alt (unless the alt was actually playing in the game obviously), during scenes it's only visible by accounts listed as being "off-stage"

- ortolan

[Talilan]

Go bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S
Go bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S
You lean to the left,
and you lean to the right,
you peel your banana,
and you take a BITE!!!

*waves pompoms vigorously*

[Talilan]

Hi elmosaurian, do you happen to like nooses by any chance?

[Talilan]

it's really more like "Yos thinks Door #2 is good even if KY is 99% sure to be scum"

I didn't see that at all. For me it wasn't the fact that he chose Door 2. Any townie could easily have settled on Door 2. The problem was that his reasons for choosing Door 2 (reasons to do with KY Krew) just didn't make any sense.

~Tal

[Talilan]

Tell me; why were you trying so hard to get me off stage instead of Glork? I suggested we lynch Glork today, and your only response was to defend Glork with an "obviously THAT'S not going to happen" response. Why are you so opposed to the idea?

We got you off stage because you're scum who has been caught. Nearly as caught as you can be without a cop's guilty result on you. And just about everyone can see that.
I'm sure Gaspar is scum but it's going to be a little harder to lynch him. You can bet we'll be trying, though.

Because you always seem to say "Yos and Glork are scum together", but you only seem interested in lynching me, you don't seem interested in lynching Glork at all. The way you do that really is making me wonder if you're trying to distance from your Glork-scumbuddy; I really suspect that your plan is to lynch me, then when I come up town, to drop your attacks on Glork; you've set it up so you would be able to do that, by making sure that every single time you attack Glork, you attack him as "Yos's scumbuddy".

If (and that's a mighty big if) you come up town I guarantee there will be no letting Glork off the hook. Promised right here in black and white.

~Tal

[Talilan]

In your opinion, what were his stated reasons for choosing #2? (And if it isn't obvious, why don't they make sense?)

Gosh I don't know to put his reasons into my own words... I could not relate to them at all. SOMETHING LIKE: Because the scum picked KY to be the advocate they were being extra sneaky by picking a townie that was very suspicious to give the information to. So KY might be telling the truth. A big double bluff by the scum.

Didn't make sense because there were much simpler explanations.

~~~~
Looking back now I think I can see what Yos was trying to do on stage that day. He expected that we (Talilan) would get the advocate information when we stunted in. It probably would have told us to pick Door 1. We would have came out advocating the same course of action as KY Krew did. Confusion would have ensued, KY and Tali BOTH wanted door 1, ending up with a reasonable reason to switch to Door 2 for those who had expressed suspicion of KY & Talilan.

Us not getting the advocate information threw Yos's devious plan into disarray and he ended out on a limb.

[Talilan]

And then, after saying KY might be town and truthful, he "leans towards" the door that KY WAS NOT ADVOCATING. Because poor, clueless KY was probably out of his depth and had no idea what was going on.

[Talilan]

^ (Talitha in both of above)

[Talilan]

Heh. "only consistint" is way to strong; I've scene people act scummier then that and then flip town pleanty of times. I certanly agree that KY looked bad, and I was trying to lynch him on day 1, but I had some doubts day 2 for reasons I've explained way too many times.

I'm also not sure what you think I would have expected to gain from that as scum.

The only explanation I can think of right now is that you were setting yourself up for a nice bus from Gaspar.

Also, I can't imagine why you would think that makes me scum, when you've defending Glork so hard here; if that theory is true, then it would obviously make one of the two people who might have been at risk of being lynched instead of Zwet scum; so, if you're right, then either Glork, or you, or both, MUST be scum. So why were you defending Glork so hard when I wanted to lynch him?

Me? Defending Glork? Pfft.

Glork's argument was dumb. THe fact that I've played with them both before is part of the reason I thought I had a read on them.

In your experience do they usually play really, really, really, really scummy when they're town?

Tell me; why were you trying so hard to get me off stage instead of Glork? I suggested we lynch Glork today, and your only response was to defend Glork with an "obviously THAT'S not going to happen" response. Why are you so opposed to the idea?

I'm not but everyone agrees you were scummy and need to be lynched. No-one feasibly could have argued to take Gaspar off when he hadn't been as actively scummy as you have.

KY being clueless would indicate a lack of that, a lack of being "informed".

I saw no evidence that KY Crew was in any way "clueless". All I saw was them role-playing a crazy person.

We will push for Glork's lynch irrespective of your (scum) flip anyhow If you flip scum then it was busing, if you flip town then that's 4 out of 4 dead townies and counting who found Glork scummy. Don't worry, his time will come.

- ortolan

[Talilan]

I just deleted a whole paragraph of arguing with this scum.
On-stage contingent can thank me later.

Are we ready to vote, ort?

[Talilan]

The on-stage decision is tricky.

I think ElmYos's information should be disregarded as he's much more likely scum than town, and I'm sure he knew he won't live to endgame.

CKD is either town, or scum with more reason to tell the truth. His info is much vaguer though. I wish I knew whether the alphabet is considered circular (i.e. is 'Z' immediately before 'A'?). I tend to think it wouldn't be circular but I'm not entirely sure.
If it ISN't circular, the Maiden looks like the best choice to me.

Crone Maiden Mother

Locke said

The one we should not choose (ie bad) is the one that does not come instantly before the best choice in the alphabet.

If the alphabet isn't circular, it would mean that the best choice is Maiden or Mother, because Crone doesn't have anything before it. It would also mean the bad choice is either Mother (doesn't come instantly before Maiden) or Crone (doesn't come instantly before Mother).

If my reasoning is correct (and there's no guarantees, but it's the best I can come up with) Maiden is possibly the best choice , and definitely not the bad choice.

Opinions?

-Tal

[Talilan]

ortolan to follow:

elmosaurian, if you'd like to I suggest you put together a list of whom you suspect, apart from Glork and us (or feel free to give more reasons why you suspect us). I fully intend to vote for you/lynch you today. Your explanation that "raj always looks scummy and InHim lurks a lot." was particularly unsatisfying. They were roleplaying a crazy person! A crazy, scummy person! Who escaped day one to avoid getting lynched! Who knew which the correct door was and deliberately chose it so that the usual best strategy in the Monty Hall problem wouldn't work! I know both those players are way, way, way way more intelligent than that and you do too.

Vote: elmosaurian

[Talilan]

No comments on my thoughts about on-stage decision?

How about someone answering this for a start:

Does the alphabet start at A and finish at Z?

~Tal

[Talilan]

If two confirmed town were advocates, and the alphabet was circular, would the puzzle be possible to solve?

That's a very good question. My head hurts thinking about it, but I think the answer is 'no'. There are people onstage who want to take both advocates' information as truth, but it hasn't lead them to a distinct answer. Only that 'Mother' is the best pick as it must be neutral or good.

I actually think Mother is probably the bad choice.

I quite like my alphabet non-circular, so I'm going to go with these possibilities:
Crone is Bad or Neutral
Maiden is Neutral or Good
Mother is Good or Bad

I'm suddenly feeling quite strongly about picking Maiden. I'd really like us to go up 3-nil vs the scum. If I can get a majority of people here to agree with me, would we be prepared to support sending a picture onstage?

[Talilan]

To clarify further, by my interpretation of CKD's information the NEUTRAL choice must come immediately before the GOOD choice in the (non-circular) aphabet.

i.e. neutral good bad
or bad neutral good

Otherwise CKD's information is almost completely USELESS.

[Talilan]

MafiaJin, we don't particularly trust anyone, but are not too suspicious of CKD and we're content with the job he is doing at this stage. We might oust him in the future if it looks like a good idea.

If we send a 'Don't pick Mother' picture I think they will pick Crone... which looks to me like the worst possible option.

[Talilan]

Yeah I have to say there are 2-3 people onstage who I have my eye on too.

Ah, Thesp can post a pic or Mighty Orbitz could post a song.

I would like everyone to please post a definite 'agree' or 'disagree' with sending a pro-Maiden signal onstage, with reasoning.

Scene three specific signals:

* Choose the Mother and end the scene:
Picture: Mother kissing baby: http://hab.hrsa.gov/livinghistory/image ... _child.jpg
Song: The Rolling Stones, "Mother's Little Helper": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cfQ4O7FSH8

* Choose the Maiden and end the scene:
Picture: An Iron Maiden: http://s3.amazonaws.com/readers/2009/07 ... den2_1.jpg
Song: Crash Test Dummies, "Two Knights and Maidens": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlL4xOaiaNc

* Choose the Crone and end the scene:
Picture: Crone Mask: http://www.maryloubagley.com/img/artwork/crone.jpg
Song: The Crones, "Stuck In Between": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y30yVgEN ... re=related

~Talitha (also several previous posts)

[Talilan]

Talilan, if you really want us to believe you're not scum with Glork, you need to explain yourself better here. Why did you go manipulate Pooky into switching me off stage, why did you never even seem to contemplate suggesting switching Glork off stage?

Today is your day for being lynched, tomorrow is Glork's. It's just fate I'm afraid.

You don't think that they evidenced a lack of understanding about Monty Hall? Like, picking door #1 and then advocating door #1 which is clearly incorrect, or even saying "Mr. Odbody, what 'monty hall math thing'?" in 207, when Yos asked him about it?

No, it reinforced that they were manipulative scum. At the time we said:

I think the right course of action is staying. I think they originally wanted to stick with "stay" being the right option as we're more likely to switch off-hand. But then they tried to double bluff us by saying door 1 is the right option. So I'd say stay.

This turned out to be an entirely correct prediction of their scummy thought process. Instead of responding to it, you continued down the baseless tangent of "wondering if KY Crew was scummy" and then voting Door 2 apparently solely because we voted Door 1.

Anyway, all this stuff is irrelevant. I realised I've again let elmo get away without something obviously incriminating:

He failed to respond to my point yesterday (1033) that if nothing else, it should have been obvious to him that KY Crew was scum based on the way KY Crew hammered in the stage choice day one to set zwet as the lynch. The timing of this is

only

consistent with him day-talking with other people in the thread.

Did you forget that I who first suggested that possibility?

Also, I can't imagine why you would think that makes me scum, when you've defending Glork so hard here; if that theory is true, then it would obviously make one of the two people who might have been at risk of being lynched instead of Zwet scum; so, if you're right, then either Glork, or you, or both, MUST be scum. So why were you defending Glork so hard when I wanted to lynch him?

Firstly, please point us to where you suggested that possibility.

Secondly, even if you were the "first to bring it up" this wouldn't explain why you didn't take it as obvious evidence KY Crew was scum. Why did you not think the way KY Crew hammered in the choice was sufficient evidence for him being obviously scum?

[Talilan]

Also if you were town you would realise your actions are clearly very, very, very scummy and it is in no way scummy to attack you for them.

- ortolan

[Talilan]

Zorblag,
I guess your interpretation is possible too. But if your interpretation is the true one, I would disagree that both advocates got the same amount of info. They might end up with the same amount of possibilities after applying their information, but the ElmYos was way more useful (if it's true, or if he got that same information about the maiden or crone but changed the subject of it to mother) because it eliminates the bad option. Which is really all we want to achieve. CKD's information does not come close to eliminating the bad option under your interpretation, but it eliminates it under mine.

I wish I knew the exact wording of CKD's info. But I don't so you're probably right about best course of action.

More opinions would be good, though.

~Tal

[Talilan]

just before I turn my attentions to the on-stage problem as Talitha has already done, I just wanted to say it's lul that elmosaurian is withholding a vote on us because apparently the elmo part doesn't think we're scum (what changed since day one?)

elmosaurian, I also want to know what your preferred choice for the on-stage decision is. By defending yourself (uselessly) you seem to be avoiding giving any input on it.

- ortolan

[Talilan]

Ortolan, can you explain just why you think yos and Glork are both scum and bussing each other?

Large component of the read was them both attacking us for bad reasons when we were on-stage scene 1 (I make no apologies for this). Plus elmo's sentence to Gaspar which he didn't fill out, something like "I find you scummy because...". He then clearly started writing a new paragraph and it looked very much like he was trying to find a reason to suspect Gaspar but had forgotten to fill it out. At that stage when I was re-reading I found Gaspar's unfounded attacks very, very scummy and wondered why elmo was just going along with them. Just to the point where his attacks got ridiculous elmo seemed to make the point "aha! there is something scummy about you Gaspar" which is completely nondescript. I feel at that point Gaspar's scumminess was obvious and if elmo didn't get on the record at that point as suspecting Gaspar (even though again, they scummily didn't give any actual reasons) then they risked getting pulled under with Gaspar later.

True to my predictions, after I suspected them of distancing; elmo managed to act really scummy on-stage and towards KY Crew. Likewise he and Gaspar inexplicably locked onto each other. It looks exactly like they're just going through with their busing plan. That's it. I do feel pretty strongly about this and it's telling that while no-one was initially convinced by our arguments, labeling it OMGUS etc. as the game has progressed people have started to come round.

Also, Gaspar automatically trusting elmo's information despite declaring him obv-scum is completely nonsensical. There is evidence they are linked, and there is also evidence they are scummy separately (I would remind you three out of three dead townies all said Gaspar was scummy).

elmo: I promise I will advocate for Glork's lynch tomorrow regardless of your flip (in the absence of him getting unequivocally, 100% cleared somehow; not that that's viable, or even possible as he's scum). Otherwise I don't see any point continuing this discussion with you. I've always thought you were scum.

On to the on-stage problem:

um yer, I just looked at it and frankly it looks like the Crone is the completely obvious choice.

It is the only choice if we assume both advocates' information is correct.

As Gaspar inexplicably trusted elmo's information and I think they are both scum, I think it's because Gaspar knows elmo is telling the truth to begin with.

Even if this isn't the case, if we assume elmo is manipulative scum, then he couldn't have predicted we'd choose Crone to begin with (except by reading ckd's comments prior which admittedly he did, meh). It's possible he said the mother was the neutral choice in the hopes we would pick it assuming his information is correct.

Assuming elmo actually is town, I think ckd is town also therefore we get the only solution being Crone. My vote is definitely for Crone at present having not properly read what everyone on/off stage or even what Talitha said.

- ortolan (posting in the right place this time)

[Talilan]

Yossy do you think the Crone is the right choice?

[Talilan]

Why does Panzer's most recent post make my scumdar go wild?

And a 26-worder too. Are you having trouble keeping up with the posting in this game Panzer, or why are you posting so little?

And please take a stand, which of these are you going to run with here: is Yosarian being damn good at mafia or is he ridiculously town?

~Talitha

[Talilan]

Why didn't you mention your preference for lynching Glork back in the between-scenes part where it seemed that everyone who were actually expressing opinions about who to lynch were favouring ElmYos?

Or, why not mention it earlier on this day before Pooky stunted?

Why now, halfway through the scene when it's too late to do anything about it today?

When did your suspicion of Glork become so strong? because all I can see you saying about him is that he's a different alignment to Elmo.

~Tal

[Talilan]

Probably just temporary while I discuss something with ortolan:

unvote: ElmoSaurian

[Talilan]

ortolan and I are not set on 'Crone' as best choice. We're discussing the likelihood of ElmYos's information about the mother being true.

We're kinda thinking it might be true...
a) because of how Gaspar is acting about it, and
b) because there's no down-side to scumYos giving us the correct info as most wouldn't believe him anyway, and if he lives another day he'll look really good.

[Talilan]

Are you able to be a little more specific, instead of "something about the way your conversation is going"?

[Talilan]

I went and started re-reading ElmoSaurian's posts since we stunt switched him because I wanted to make sure we're lynching the right person today.

I am satisfied.

Anyone who is still wondering whether ElmYos is scum go back and read KY Krew's performance onstage with the Monty Hall business. Then add KY's runaway stunt switch and ask yourself how any intelligent townie could think for a second that KY might be town. Not just town, but also believe he's an advocate who received no useful information.

If any ElmYos sympathisers want to explain this to me, I am all ears.

~Talitha

vote: ElmoSaurian

[Talilan]

(Pssst, not you ElmYos. You've done lots of explaining. I would like the people defending you to explain it.)

[Talilan]

Lots of points for effort, but I simply don't believe you. Any townie of your experience would recognise a scum performance like that from 1000 miles away, while blind-folded, in your sleep.

And it was fine for you to be suspicious of KY, there was no down-side to that for scum-you, until you needed a reason to not vote for the correct door. Then you needed to manufacture some BS.

I understand the Monty Hall math thing, but as has been mentioned it only applies if you believed KY was town. That is the issue. Did you REALLY believe KY had a DECENT chance of being town. I say no way.

And I think it was more a case of people forgetting about the advocate information and making sure everyone understood the monty hall problem pre-scene 2, rather than assuming we wouldn't get any information.

[Talilan]

Zach said..."the bad choice does not come before the best letter of the alphabet"

My interpretation was that the bad choice does not come before the best choice, alphabetically, but I think that's the same as what you're saying. But no looping, which is where our theories differ. Under the no-looping theory this is a possibility:

Crone neutral, Maiden good, Mother bad

~Tal

[Talilan]

Oh, we are looking at the alphabetical thing differently too.

Initially I was thinking about A as best choice in the alphabet also.. then I figured that it was probably CKD's way of paraphrasing that

the bad choice doesn't come before the good choice, alphabetically

, not that the bad choice doesn't come before choice A.

[Talilan]

Green light picture or music, por favor.

[Talilan]

lol @ Yos voting one of the towniest players in the game

lynch pls

it will be interesting to see if elvis can keep Glork's charade

(haven't read recent posts properly yet)

- ortolan

[Talilan]

Yes, 1304 was what I posted on-stage accidentally.

I see any theories based on the idea the alphabet "wraps around" as being meritless, ckd repeatedly insisted the bad does not come "instantly before" the good. Assuming both advocates are telling the truth, it has to be:

if Crone is good, then:

Crone < good

Maiden < neutral or bad

Mother < neutral or bad

If the Maiden is the best choice, then it has to be

Crone < neutral

Maiden < good

Mother < bad

If Mother is the best choice, then it has to be

Crone < bad

Maiden < neutral

Mother < good

If we assume Yos' information is correct, then I think it's very unlikely that the Mother is the actual good choice. It's far, far more likely to be neutral. If it is indeed neutral, then Crone has to be the good choice. If Yos was lying and that information is misleading, then we're not picking his suggestion of the "not bad" choice anyway, so we're in no way guaranteeing a loss anyhow. I don't honestly think his scumgroup would have thought that far ahead to manipulate us all the way into choosing Crone like this (even though ckd did post his information first). Ergo, I think Crone is the best pick. Plus it has the classic "lead casket" appeal from the Merchant of Venice ~

I am a little bit wary of people using the "vision from Carrie" as an excuse to vote the Crone. For a start it should have been clear it was a personal opinion and in no way an authoritative representation of the views of off-stage as a whole. That should have been very clear from the way it was worded that it was intended as a discussion post for off-stage, and when I misposted I posted immediately after "sorry, I didn't mean to post that here". If there's any reason for people's votes to be affected, it should be because they found my arguments convincing.

That said, my pick is still the Crone

We would also like some real opinions from Panzerjager (guess who Talitha was considering changing our vote to from elmo)

- ortolan

[Talilan]

This is stupid. Mother was so obviously the right choice, but I think we already hit lynch.

Yep, that is scummy. There is no way whatsoever Mother is "so obviously the right choice". If you look at my diagram above, there's only one configuration where Mother is the best choice, one where Maiden is the good choice, and two where Crone is the good choice. Also why does the obvious "mother is not the bad choice", assuming Yos is even telling the truth, entail "mother is the good choice"??? My (subjective) theory is Gaspar actually knows Crone is the correct choice, and is trying to buy town cred by pretending not to know this fact. Either way you can't say he has a basis for saying "mother is obviously the right choice".

- ortolan

[Talilan]

Wellllll, elmo managed to be really scummy. He did stuff I would have lynched anyone for, the fact it was Yos that made most of the slip-ups was even worse.

Also Gaspar's "Mother was so obviously the right choice" stuff is still really scummy (in fact according to my diagram if Crone is bad then Mother was indeed the "good" choice, but he (should have) had no way of knowing this at the time.

Anyway, it's cool, we can lynch Gaspar now. It would be highly disrespectful to disregard the wishes of the four dead townies.

- ortolan

[Talilan]

and you can talk about who you find suspicious (I guess) all you want...but if there is some sort of group think (like the lynch elmo plan from yesterday)..then the scum are going to pick those people to be advocates...

There are no advocates in the next scene.

[Talilan]

I'm going away tomorrow for 2 weeks and will leave the Talilan posting duties in ortolan's capable hands.

I'll leave you with a couple of thoughts before I go:

1. Lynch Gaspar

2. StarKiss is scum. This is a tally-gut special and comes with a money back guarantee.

Besos,
Hasta,
~Talitha

[Talilan]

ckd- I'm not entirely sure why you expected us to fire you.

Glorky- please explain how Mother was "so obviously the right choice". Please also explain how you were sure the information elmo (who you were sure was obv-scum) was providing was correct. I would like to hear who elvis suspects.

hewitt- it should have been obvious that our on-stage posting was accidental. What I posted was my own point of view intended for consideration by the other players off-stage. There was nothing to suggest it somehow represented the combined off-stage opinion. For a start I very clearly said I hadn't intended to post it off-stage straight after. And, from memory, there was nothing to suggest it implied for example that the majority of off-stage people also agreed with the Crone.

- ortolan

[Talilan]

Also, I PMed Mr. Grey to ask about the circumstances that potentially lead to ckd ending up on-stage. I asked "what happens if there are 4 people required for a scene, the director picks 5 and then two die, does the director automatically go on?" He said he couldn't answer.

[Talilan]

good to see elvis towing the party line, thus giving me no reason to change my scum-read of Gaspar

- ortolan

[Talilan]

btw cee kay dee, please leave Gaspy off-stage so I can lynch him/her (and leave me off too).

Cheers darl,

orty

[Talilan]

The last 4 scenes have been updated, For Your Information

[Talilan]

Thokky, frankly not only do I find you are lurky and don't really post much, but what you do post I get a strong vibe of being needlessly conditional about what you say and not really taking strong stances on anyone (bar Gaspar). This could be a playstyle difference and it could also be due to you not being up to date with the game. Would you be able to produce a few players who you are pretty sure are scum? Cause just saying "yer I don't know if this guy is scum or not" happens to work very well as a scum cover.

- ortolan

[Talilan]

I'm not actually sure if I see the benefit of artificially limiting conversation between scenes. Like, the scum know who you suspect anyway. This is the only time people are all on-stage together.

- ortolan

[Talilan]

Like, the scum know who you suspect anyway

Wait, wait, wait, wait.



WHAT?

Well, for example, you, the scum, know that I suspect you.

[Talilan]

I'm basically letting EK do her own readthrough of the game, so that my preconceptions won't taint her reading.

'Twould seem a bit late for that, heh

[Talilan]

Do I, the alleged "scum," know who Thok or Pooky suspects?

No, you do not. Nor does anyone else. But having the scum know who you suspect is better than innocents not having indication of who you suspect, or whether you are town (it's pretty much a default position in mafia that you provide reads on people- sure they can help scum but they're

essential

for town).

[Talilan]

Not quite sure what you're asking Glorky, but my position is that I think you are scum, Thok could be too, but this is irrelevant to the argument.

Basically I counter VP Baltar's "we shouldn't post full scumlists before the scene starts, so that the Scums can't swindle us with the Good/Bad decision-making" with "the scum have a good idea of who most people suspect anyway from what they've said in previous scenes (which isn't a bad thing as it's automatically entailed by people being clear about who they suspect), therefore there's no point holding back between scenes"

[Talilan]

The reason elmosaurian was made an advocate wasn't because too many people slipped up between scenes and made their preferences clear. It was because he was obv-scum (who somehow turned out to not be scum). I am not convinced the potential pitfalls of discussion between scenes outweigh the benefits (especially when some people are consistently failing to contribute properly throughout the game and aren't otherwise going to be brought to account).

[Talilan]

good point, ell oh ell!

so yer, I would like a scumlist from the Thokster

[Talilan]

Personally I think ckd's picks will potentially reveal everything we need about his alignment.

[Talilan]

VP the next scene doesn't even have any advocates, relax

[Talilan]

VP the next scene doesn't even have any advocates, relax

No. That is not a valid reply to the reasons I gave not to do it. Until you provide any sort of actual logic as to why it is substantially more beneficial to have this lists at this exact moment, you need to stop goading people into making them.

As the default in mafia is giving your scumreads whenever they become available, on the contrary, I'd ask you to provide some justification as to why we should deviate from the default position.

Thok's "playstyle" is starting to annoy me. He only has two town reads in the whole game? And pretty much the rest of the players are "could be scum", or "hehe I think they're VIs, they could be scum too."

Then there's the non sequiturs and lack of reasoning e.g.

There are a bunch of people who, if they are town, I can't see much of a reason to listen to them (Talilan, VP Baltar, hewitt). Baltar's posts, which were a flat out attempt to shut down discussion about what people felt about Elmo was actually scummy. I'm trying to decide how much I should view Hewitt and the Ortolan part of Talilan as VI.

He seems to be claiming that Baltar's posts are an attempt to shut down discussion (which I argued against), but we are also labeled VIs? (without reasoning of course, the Thok-special). For the record I very strongly resent being labeled as a VI (which is in no way borne out by the game that I can see anyway?) by someone who's done naught but lurk the whole game, presents inconsistent reads and inexplicable trust in Gaspar, and is happy to write off legions of people, some of whom are confirmed town, calling Gaspar scummy without explicitly counter-attacking them.

[Talilan]

I've already explained why I think you're ignorable. You've spent a significant amount of time basically going "Anybody who attacked me for my on screen behavior is scum", which has been proven wrong at least once, and which IMHO is wrong a second time.

Also, if you're town, your On Screen post scene 3 is more reason to ignore you.

Well see the thing here is you're basically saying "based on what I've seen I think you're a bad player (presumably in every game, not just this one), so I will safely ignore everything you happen to say." It's textbook ad hominem, and provides you a free pass to ignore anything I say, regardless if how intrinsically valid it is. Also please explain the bolded.

Basically, if you are town, I don't see why I should listen to you. I definitely shouldn't try to convince you of anything, since you seem unable to contemplate arguments that don't fit your view of the game.

This is one of the most anti-town approaches to the game I've ever read. Basically you're saying you'll completely ignore anyone you don't like.

Of the dead, BEC's attack on Gaspar's are mostly gut that I don't agree with, MJL didn't find him scummy, zwet is zwet. If you think Yos-town being suspicious of Gaspar is good reason to be suspicious of Gaspar, then more power to you.

Why does zwet being zwet mean he is incapable of ever being correct about anything?

I cannot believe you expect your approach here to win you games as town.

I think a lot of the issue is Glork not having played in a year or so (as far as I can tell), so people aren't familiar with or don't remember his play style.

Wait, this is really scummy. Since when does just conforming to one's meta (however you determined he did) make one automatically town? Especially a player like Glork? Have you not seen Gaspar manipulate everyone into winning as scum in the previous CT game? I can't see you, as competent town, assuming Gaspar is so easy to read that you can have been 90% sure he was town so early in the game (and have continued with similar rhetoric throughout).

[Talilan]

btw- on me posting lots, I understand it might be frustrating, but I'm just trying to leave a paper trail. We got attacked a lot early in the game (for reasons I still find scummy), and in explaining our motivations thoroughly I believe most people have come to the realisation that we're town. So yer, they might be annoying to read, but they advance our agenda of looking town as to not get lynched and help the scum; and also allow us to actively scumhunt as we're trying to do. We have actually differed on a few things SL- Talitha wanted to vote Panzer yesterday instead of Yos, and she actually thought Mother was the correct choice initially. Otherwise, yes, we have agreed on a lot of things. We have a 130-post qt and have discussed many things before posting them.

I also can find no common ground with Thok really, completely disagree with most of his reads.

- ortolan

[Talilan]

Btw, not trying to find common ground with other potential town players is really going to screw us up this setup- scum are just going to exploit it to its fullest in their end-game choices. Fact.

[Talilan]

Gaspar's play also annoys me. His modus operandi of finding scum-tells is to blatantly twist everything you say. It's not insightful, it's not the mark of a good player, it's the mark of a lazy scum player resting on their laurels.

EVEN AFTER ELMOSAURIAN WAS LYNCHED AS AN INNOCENT, YOU POSTED THIS:

It was because he was obv-scum (who somehow turned out to not be scum).

Elmo died as an Innocent, and even AFTER THE FACT, you're still referring to him as "obvscum."

If you are protown, you cannot be reasoned with. Even when faced with being wrong about a player, you sit here and obstinately state that the Innocent player was "obvscum."

I'm not trying to say you're a terrible person or that I dislike you, but if you're protown, and you are completely unwilling to consider the possibility that you are wrong, you need to find a different game. Everyone is going to be wrong more often than they are right, and the ability to adjust your worldview based on current events is what makes a player even mediocre at mafia as a game.

It was clearly intended in the sense that "elmo looked like incredibly obvious scum, and the only conclusion I would expect a reasonable player to draw is that he was indeed scum." You seem to have agreed with this position? I know you might not in your life have been exposted to any metaphors, or similies or figurative ways of speaking, but that doesn't mean other people don't use them.

I also have no idea what you mean by "presenting my opinions as fact"? What the hell is that supposed to mean in the context of a mafia game? I think you are scum, yes, how is that "presenting my opinion as fact". It's like you're reading out of a textbook of cheap rhetoric to hurl at your opponents.

[Talilan]

k, sorry for defending ourselves, we should have just submitted to Gaspy's craplogic and obnoxious playstyle and allowed ourselves to be lynched day two.

[Talilan]

looks like my preds were 100% right on both counts. I am sad that Gaspar's lynch will be delayed 4 scenes from when it should have happened.

[Talilan]

ckd fyi please leave Gaspy off-stage as he needs to be lynched

[Talilan]

Orbots are you scum, or are you extremely confused, or are you both? (more likely)

Talilan -

That's really bad reasoning, Ms. Fisher. You're saying he's a Decepticon for advocating the correct choice - when he gave ample, logical reasoning for doing so? We also gave that reasoning when we were on break, are we scum too?

This seems like a really bad excuse to lead us astray. My good guy read of you has been shot to hell. Ugh.

You never did respond to this.

oooooooooooooooookay well looking at the in camera thread

That's really bad reasoning, Ms. Fisher. You're saying he's a Decepticon for advocating the correct choice - when he gave ample, logical reasoning for doing so? We also gave that reasoning when we were on break, are we scum too?

This seems like a really bad excuse to lead us astray. My good guy read of you has been shot to hell. Ugh.

vote: Push the button

Okay firstly I didn't say our friend the Hard-Thokker was scum for advocating the correct choice. In fact I worked backwards from the assumption he was scum.

Secondly I would hardly characterise "I don't like Tabris n Odbody therefore I'll vote against them" as ample, logical reasoning. I also think distrusting Pooky's a bit spurious as Talitha tells me he always plays like this and I believe Thok choi should know this.

Do you stand by your above post?

So in fact I gave you a response (which furthermore called out your posting as completely illogical and asked for an explanation) in the very subsequent post.

You then backtracked

I was referring to Angel, Ms. Fisher. Sorry for the confusion. Please see his post 22 in isolation for more details.

Which made sense at the time when I wasn't paying very much attention- Elvis_knits' name is Carrie so you said Carrie meaning her but I thought it was addressed to me.........except looking at it now you didn't say Carrie at all, you said "Ms. Fisher".

Now you are claiming I never answered your post? What the hell?????????? Are you reading the game? Much as this is sloppy it's also scummy, looks like you've been making some horrible excuses to try and continue to appear consistent.

Anyways this is my list of scum who need to die oh so badly:

Gaspar
Thok
Thesp (yer, changed my read, the insistence that elmosaurian was town when he was acting xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxtremely scummy still catches on my scumdar. Plus Talitha said "if you're wondering about Thesp, then he's probably scum". Thesp is apparently a great player but has been pretty useless all game apart from constantly attacking me for posting too much, which is easy to do as scum or town. In fact it'd be something I'd love to do as scum.
Mighty Orbots (pending explanation for continually illogical and inexplicable sequence of posting)

The attacks against myself are all scummy so save yourself the trouble of forcing me to lynch you because we all know we've been very explicitly pro-town the whole game (boasting a 3-3 correct voting record in the on-stage which few can match). Whoever attacks us just gives themselves away as scum so I suggest you don't. Likewise the attacks against DGB are probably very obv-scummy but I need to re-read more closely.

I'm a bit busy for a while so I'll leave you in Talitha's capable hands. I hope she shows no mercy to the punk-Thokker

Btw there actually will be legitimate scumikazes coming soon, trying to swap their lives for town players. They still have up to ~5 players waiting in the wings, so even if we lynch scum consistently from now it's very very unlikely we'll make it to end-game in the best position. We do positively need to lynch Gaspar to ensure we get another scum-lynch on the board. And AP PLEASE CEASE FORGETTING TO APPOINT THE STUNTMAN TA

[Talilan]

btw Orbots' attacks against us reek of convenience. All game they've been giving us a mildly pro-town read or something similar but now change to "my town read of you is shot to pieces" while forgetting to actually make this appear logical or coherent in any way.

[Talilan]

Funny. Another player states they suspect Talilan, and now suddenly they are "obviously scum," according to Talilan.

did you actually read the sequence of posts during which they claimed to suspect us, then withdrew the suspicion (inconsistent with their original post), then claimed we "hadn't answered their question" (despite the fact I had and furthermore asked for an explanation which they'd backed out of providing), or are you just outed scum trying to create as much noise as possible before the n00se?

[Talilan]

and as I said, bring it on newb-scum, whenever you claim to suspect us it just makes you more obv-scum. You don't like that, do you scummies

[Talilan]

Ok then, replace

Okay firstly I didn't say our friend the Hard-Thokker was scum for advocating the correct choice. In fact I worked backwards from the assumption he was scum.

with

Okay firstly I didn't say our friend

Gaspar

was scum for advocating the correct choice. In fact I worked backwards from the assumption he was scum.

I find it quite laughable you're saying I argued "Gaspar is scum for choosing the correct choice in scene three". I clearly didn't. That's clearly not the only reason I suspect him. It's clearly not a valid basis for saying "oh noes my town read of you is shot to pieces". But, it was scummy. All the "oh my god the ...mother was so clearly the correct choice was legitimately scummy"- it was very silly to be so confident of that.

And as for my scare tactics, I'm fine with the scum getting scared. I can see you quivering in your boots already.

I just gained a whole lot of respect for Troll's scum play because he really had me thinking you had a good chance of being town during his tenure in the hydra.

[Talilan]

Oh yer just to clarify if anyone else is confused, the reason I accused him of backtracking was because I had originally thought he meant "that wasn't addressed to you, Carrie, that was addressed to elvis-Carrie", but in fact you wanted

us

to discuss him rather than the Thokster.

I was referring to Angel, Ms. Fisher. Sorry for the confusion. Please see his post 22 in isolation for more details.

For the record I still don't know what post this was supposed to refer to or how it was relevant in any way.

[Talilan]

MO I still don't know what "22" means, sorry.

other is a pock mark on the face of this town's ability to find scum.

says the dude who just lynched MafiaSSK. Yes, one us and Gaspar is scum- we've known this all game, and have been continually frustrated at town's failure to lynch him (it's not my fault you've managed to go 4 scenes without lynching the obv-scum). Perhaps if you (the town) would care to lynch the obv-scum we'd get on with the game and stop detracting from "finding the scum" which is apparently your term for "continually pointing out the extremely obv-scum and expressing frustration when they're not lynched".

[Talilan]

argh, that was a quote from VP Baltar, not I

anyhow I should disengage again, I sense the pattern starting again when the scum are being blatant, the town is apathetic/pathetic and just ignores this, I feel obliged to defend against craplogic attack after craplogic attack from scum/noobs and then get accused of posting too much

DISENGAGE

[Talilan]

trying to determine whether someone has played horribly is a really dumb thing to do in the middle of the game. I'm sure when most of my suspects flip scum you will still come up with some terrible argument for why I still "played horribly", meh. You just can't win with certain towns, they're just composed of too many stubborn/incompetent/ severely hypocritical players.

[Talilan]

and policy-lynching MafiaSSK and saying "oh hehe stop acting anti-town and we'll stop lynching you" isn't being clever, it's just being incompetent

[Talilan]

I really wish I this weren't the case, but there's no way I'm gonna be able to catch up with this thread before the 72 hour deadline. I'll try my best though.

Glork, no-one thinks orto(tali)lan is perfect, but I've actually been appalled at your repeated and personal condescention. At least ortolan has kept it about the game. Please give it a break.

Pooky, you're a delightful genius who can beat mith and Thesp at strategy games while you're 90% asleep... what's with your decision voting record in this game?? I have to give you a good chance of being scum purely based on that, pooks.

~Tals

[Talilan]

Well, between MrJellyLee and Elmosaurian, you're 0 for 2 so far. But I applaud VP for being the only person aside from me/Thok to go "wow, Talilan is just OMGUSing everybody who attacks them, deciding that they are 'obv scum.'"

Sorry, I just had to respond to this rubbish, you're just making complete crap up now which has no basis in reality. I never said anything like MrJellyLee is scum, I recall consistently saying he was extremely obvious town (plus he never even attacked me). Also all this B.S. about my playstyle, the insults from you were flying long before you pissed me off enough to start responding in kind. Remember guys, if Glork calls you an idiot repeatedly it doesn't count, he is permitted to be as contintually passive-aggressive as he likes (this sort of crap about people making a completely hypocritical mockery of the notion of civility is what I was complaining about recently in an MD thread).

Also (just for my own benefit so I can boast at the end of the game, because the more insightful I am the less inclined people are to listen):

Thok grouping himself and Gaspar and Thesp together in the first group of "likeminded people" is a gambit. They are actually all scum.

- ortolan

[Talilan]

PZ: Gaspar was scummy for his choice in the Crone/Maiden etc. scene because he said "...Mother was so obviously the correct choice". Whatever you say, it was not "so obviously the correct choice" at all. See my posts reasoning out the best solution for why there was a good chance it was Crone also. Certainly not enough to justify it being "so obviously the Mother", especially with the ambiguous nature of the hint elmosaurian was given. Either way that's certainly not a basis for your "town read of someone being shot to pieces".

- ortolan