Consulmaker II: the Pyrrhic War - Game over.

[Feysal]

Hello SpyreX. Hello Katsuki. Bye Katsuki. Hello everyone else I've not played with before.

I'm replacing Rabies, and I've read about a third of the game so far. I will read the rest tomorrow before the execution happens. I have no opinion yet on whether Katsuki deserves execution this game, but I will say that she is an easy target to get mislynched.

Reading about the two Consulmaker claims and the plans to find which of them was lying was certainly interesting. I saw some patently bad ideas, but fortunately there are players with common sense around, and all the ideas I had while reading were invariably mentioned by someone. Anyway, I think it is obvious that one of them is lying scum, though I cannot fathom what the scum hope to accomplish by it.

Time is running short, so I will just go ahead and propose a plan. As discussed, all players will be divided in two groups. Jack has to choose the next consuls from one group, and ribwich has to choose them from the other. Even if one consul dies, the one surviving consul and the identity of the night kill will indicate which of them is telling the truth. Just in case the real Consulmaker has yet to reveal himself, then this third Consulmaker should choose one consul from each of the two groups. Clear enough? I should hope so.

How the players are divided into groups is irrelevant, as long as it is arbitrary and has nothing to do with anyone's reads. I will just use the order of the playerlist. The current consuls are removed from the lists since they cannot be consuls for two consecutive days, as well as the two Consulmaker candidates, for obvious reasons. Even/odd won't work because both current consuls are even, meaning the groups would not have equal size that way.

Group A - Jack has to select consuls from these

1. chamber
2. Feysal (replacing Rabies)
3. SpyreX
4. Powerrox93
6. Mert
9. Primate
11. xRECKONERx

Group B - ribwich has to select consuls from these

12. Porochaz
13. dramonic
14. horrordude0215
15. Parama (replacing chesskid3)
16. inHimshallibe
17. scotmany12
19. Lowell

have we decided on the two lists for the consulmakers yet? if yes, must have missed it, show me.
it is necessary we do that before a lynch.
I also want both consulmakers to explicitly agree with it by quoting it, so there are no misunderstandings.

Hope these lists work for both Jack and ribwich.

More to come tomorrow before the deadline, once I've had some sleep and read the rest of the thread.

[Feysal]

I thought Katsuki's execution time was in GMT, still two hours or more away?

If it is in fifteen minutes or so, I am not going to finish my read of the thread before that, I've still got some pages to go. However... from a quick ISO read of Katsuki I feel this is a mislynch for lurking. I'm also worried it was SensFan who gave the order, given his earlier talk of lynching for information on day one. How much information are we going to get from lynching a lurker? I don't think this is a good idea. Maybe reading the final pages properly would convince me otherwise, but at the moment I very much doubt that.

[Feysal]

I finished reading the thread, and as expected, my opinion of this execution did not change. I believe Katsuki is town. She has been useless, that is true, but for Katsuki this is par for the course, even the replacing out when lynched. This lynch has all the signs of a scum-driven mislynch on an easy target. I could be wrong, but I don't think the chance of Katsuki being scum is any higher than when picking any player at random.

@everyone: I want a definite statement on whether you:
a) want the katsuki lynch
b) are comfortable with the katsuki lynch
c) are uncomfortable with the katsuki lynch
d) don't want the katsuki lynch

Definitely c.

I frankly don't give a damn about their reasons. Reasons are nothing but a way to hedge their bets. I just want a letter.

You say you want a letter, and you were not even the one asking questions. I just gave one, but if I had not explained my reasoning, what good would that be? If everyone just voted and declared their reads with no reasoning to back it up, all those votes and reads would be useless. You have to demand for actual reasoning, and analyze it to find the town motivation behind it, or lack thereof. That is how you find scum, not by asking pointless data without context.

There is very little time left until the execution, but I will go on record before the night that I am very much in disagreement with you. Early on, you said you wanted to lynch for information, yet you have done nothing to actually gather information. The only consul to ask meaningful questions has been Nathaniel. Your first execution target, chesskid3, was just a village idiot, and you posted your execution at a time when few people had commented on him, and there were no pseudo-votes yet. Had the execution been carried out, what information would have been gained from that? What information will we gain from lynching Katsuki, save her alignment? You've made no effort I can see to actually collect information and get definite stances from people.

My conclusion: you are either playing terribly for town, or you are scum pretending to play badly. My bet is on the latter.

Otherwise, my bet on the true Consulmaker is ribwich. Did anyone actually check the game he said he had used to decide? I did. Most of the discussion about confirming the Consulmaker has come from him, while Jack has appeared to avoid the subject. ribwich has consistently made plenty of sense and involved himself in the game. For that, I believe and sincerely hope he is the true Consulmaker.

I'd probably have other reads, but time is up. This needs to be posted now.

Preview edit: I see Nathaniel gave Katsuki an extension. We should make use of it. If we are going to lynch Katsuki, then at least we should try to get as many players as possible to give a stance on whether they agree on the lynch. With reasoning please, just posting a random letter is useless in detecting scum motivations.

[Feysal]

Feysal, a couple of people have suggested the idea that Jack and I are both town. Primate (I believe) has said that it's too stupid of a move for scum to do, and parama hasn't given an explanation despite me asking for one twice, but thinks that its obvious we're both town. What do you think about this idea and the players that suggested it?

Primate indeed brought up that theory of you both being town. Of course, that could be an attempt to indirectly defend fellow scum, but there were two players who said such a theory would be typical of him. While reading, I had some doubts about Primate, and I remain uncertain whether I should trust him. Once I get to doing ISO reads, that should make things more clear.

As for Parama, I disagreed with many of his reads in #396. He said that Jack was obvtown for claiming in the first place, and you were obvtown for counterclaiming. He admitted that Jack was more likely to be scum, but considered Rabies thinking the same to indicate otherwise. I'm not exactly thrilled that he made his read on Jack partly dependent on his read on my slot, and the way he seems to have disregarded the possibility of a scum ploy is worrisome. There is also the fact that he replaced into chesskid3's slot. I have read one of his games, and I am in an active (sort of) game with him, and he was different in all three. Overall, I really don't know what to think of Parama, I am getting mixed signals from his slot.

I don't think it is a very reasonable theory that you would both be town. When I first read your counterclaim, I did remember the scene from the movie Spartacus, where his soldiers rise and claim to be him to protect their commander. But, the Consulmaker is not a true power role that would need to be protected, so town would have no reason to counterclaim. Doing so would only lead to the situation we're in, where it is likely that one of you is lynched. Experienced players would know this, and I cannot see either of you as a Stimpy-grade idiot (he once counterclaimed the doctor in an open setup where he was the cop, resulting in both power roles dead and LYLO by day 2).

Question is, would scum claiming Consulmaker make any more sense? At first glance no, but there may be some mechanic involved we don't know about. For instance, the scum could have a role blocker and plan to force the Consulmaker into revealing himself, only to keep blocking him from selecting new consuls. There may be some hidden purpose in scum doing this which we cannot see.

We should be wiser tomorrow, but I fear the scum have some way of messing with the Consulmaker.

[Feysal]

I disagree with this. Although I can't comment on if this is common for Katsuki, there's more to the lynch than just the lurking. There's been the couple of times to suggest that Kat actually has been paying attention to this thread. (I still don't think the first instance was really that strong of a case since there are ways to explain it, but when another one pops up it makes me rethink it.) Kat also tried calling Spy scum just for being called out on this behavior, which is probably the closest to omgus voting you can get in this game.

Granted, these could be interpreted as slips, but I've seen Katsuki do worse and still be town. I'd like to think that if we had less lurking from so many players and more talking, we could find something stronger to go on. There is a kind of opportunism at work here. Since most of the players are lurking, the scum can blend in with the town lurkers. With everyone tired of the long day and the inactivity, all the scum has to do is wait for someone to slip up, most likely town, and let that someone be mislynched. Katsuki would be perfect for this.

Is there someone you think has a better case against them that isn't immune today and isn't claiming consulmaker?

This was difficult to answer. Off the top of my head I'd have said Powerrox93, since there is an actual scummy quality to his few posts. Mostly one-liners, very short comments and questions to others, but barely any thoughts of his own. However he appears to be new, and he is not all that much worse from many others. Mert has posted no actual content for nearly two weeks, despite promising it in his last post. horrordude0215 is the absolute worst player in game, for posting exactly twice. One of them was a limited access announcement, the other an announcement of being back and a promise of content by five days ago.

So, I tried to find someone with a better case on them, but failed. However, that does not change my opinion that the Katsuki case is weak, it just means that the state of the game is rather sad. If we had an active and competent replacement for Katsuki, that slot could probably be redeemed. But since I can't see anyone willing to jump in with Katsuki on death row (I sure wasn't), I don't see that happening. I suppose Katsuki has to go, we might even get lucky. I would really like some more activity tomorrow though.

I also did an ISO read of SensFan, trying to see if he would appear as scummy as during my first read of the thread. Some quotes and my thoughts below.

That assumes my primary goal is to have a town tribunal, or even a scum execution for today. Neither of those assumptions would be correct.

Information to give future executions a higher chance of success.

As long as I am in this game, I'll track pseudovotes if the Mod doesn't. I'll be giving more weight to an empty post with a pseudovote than to a post with half a dozen perfect arguments with no pseudovote.

I really don't agree with these. The town should always aim to lynch scum, and in this game we would want to keep the power in town hands, if possible. I thought the plan of having a confirmed scum Consul tomorrow was horrible. We could not have trusted anything said Consul said or did not to lead us astray, all we would have gained would be lies and disinformation. I would never want to have that kind of WIFOM bomb dropped on me. I don't think that having one or two scum as Consuls some time would be that bad, since their actions could be analyzed once they were found out later.

Also, I would take the arguments over the pseudovotes any time. Telling the truth only takes a moment, but making up a credible lie is hard. We want to force the scum into lying to us, and we want to catch them lying. Just demanding for pseudovotes and definite stances would be letting the scum off easy, much too easy.

However, I do not find SensFan suspicious because of our differences in how to play the game. I've had some strange ideas myself as town, and been suspected for them. My problem is that SensFan has contradicted his own statements by his actions. chesskid3 was annoying, but trying to execute him did not serve information gathering in any way. No pseudovotes had been cast at that time, and few people had commented on chesskid3 yet, or anyone else. Executing Katsuki now is not much better.

I also wondered about SensFan posting his first execution attempt on the weekend after Thanksgiving. He later even said, in post #378, that he would likely not submit an execution while players capable of vetoing were away. There were no V/LA announcements beforehand, but he should have expected that the weekend after Thanksgiving was one of the most likely times for people to be away. I noticed his location says he is in Canada, so perhaps he was not aware of the holiday, but I still did not like this.

I am comfortable with the Kats lynch. Nat better not reset the execution again, otherwise there will be frustration to be dealt with.

Feysal is NOT awesome =-=

There is already frustration to be dealt with, clearly evident from many reactions to the deadline extension. Lynching someone when frustrated is rarely a good idea.

If you have some problem with me, I'd like to know. At least I am talking, which this game needs more of. I was not responsible for the deadline extension, but I welcome it, and I'm trying to make the most of it.

[Feysal]

I just dont like your posting style Feysal <<

I don't always post giant walls of text, but I had a lot to catch up on after replacing in. I do tend to be verbose though.

[Feysal]

I still don't think we want someone deciding who the consuls are and having veto power. There's no one in this game who I trust to have that massive amount of control over our lynches.

As you said, it matters very little today. I don't see why ribwich would decide to veto Jack's execution, now that the choice of consuls has proven Jack to have lied, he has to go. Unless he has spent the night crafting some story worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Besides, how much control would ribwich actually have? He cannot dictate who the Consuls should execute, he can only choose the Consuls themselves. His opinion may have more weight due to his confirmed town status, but that is all the influence he has. I don't think this is reason enough not to choose him.

Then there is the plan to choose Tribunes so we can observe them and get their stances, in other words information. I'm warming up to this idea, though I would prefer to choose trusted players as Tribunes. Trusted, but not confirmed. From an information viewpoint, it would make no sense to have a confirmed town as Tribune, since there would be nothing new we could learn by observing him. This would not matter today, since Jack having lied seems to be beyond question, but on future days it would be a point against electing ribwich.

Vote: Primate

I'm fine with him and ribwich being Tribunes today.

P.S.

CETERUM CENSEO JACK ESSE CAEDANDUM!

(No, that is not a soft claim. I'm having a bit of fun with the ancient Roman setting, and even if only Cogito Ergo Sum gets the reference, that is enough. )

[Feysal]

Jack is town. Scum have no motivation for doing something retarded like that.

And what, pray tell, would the town motivation for doing that be? Not to mention, lying is generally regarded as anti-town, for good reason.

Oh, and one more thing:

CETERUM CENSEO JACK ESSE CAEDANDUM!

[Feysal]

horrordude being replaced is most welcome. But, should Katsuki not be replaced as well? She did ask for replacement, and she has yet to post today.

Just so no one forgets,

CETERUM CENSEO JACK ESSE CAEDANDUM!

[Feysal]

Wow. That was the second time I have been taken by surprise this game. On the first day, though I defended Katsuki, I did not expect her to survive the day. She needed to be replaced, and I did not think anyone would want her slot, and since there was no obviously better case I thought she would die.

Having ribwich of all people veto Jack's execution is even more unexpected. I will be interested in Jack's response, and in ribwich's case. For the record, I could almost believe Jack's explanation in #686, but I think it was too late. If he had posted that at the end of yesterday or first thing today, it might have worked for me. I once made a controversial move too, to provoke reactions and get some discussion going. I faked a post restriction (real bad one too, I wrote in iambic verse), but I explained my ruse halfway through the first day. In Jack's case here, it should have been clear to him that he would be tested, and I can't see why he would wait so long before posting his explanation.

Looks like I'll have to ISO read both dramonic and reckoner next. On my first read, I had a slight town feel from dramonic and mostly neutral on reckoner.

Feysal: Knowing that Katsuki was obviously lying about not having enough time for this, (she signed up for other large games afterwards) do you still think this is all a big null tell for her?

To give a simple answer, yes.

I had to do some research to arrive at that answer. Katsuki says in her signature that she has finals over two weeks. It has said so for a while so I'm uncertain which time period is meant, but looking at her posts it seems she has posted three times as much after she replaced out of this game than during the equal period of time before. This would be consistent with her having finals, and now having more time when they are over. Also, apart from this game I know Katsuki died recently in two other large theme games, where she was part of a hydra. Given that, I don't find it that suspicious that she would seek new games.

Oh, and

CETERUM CENSEO JACKUM ESSE...

well, you get the idea, and the joke is getting old. He is not dying today anyway.

(I checked my grammar. I had not considered proper nouns having different forms, and I suppose I should treat Jack as part of the second declension of nouns, like Iacobus, with the accusative singular ending -um.)

[Feysal]

This was on another site, where post restrictions often meant town power roles, so it was not meaningless. That stunt got me some suspicion that lasted to the end of the game, but never enough to get me lynched. Here, it could be different, I have not yet encountered a post restriction on mafiascum.net.

[Feysal]

If reckoner was to be executed at 15:02 GMT, should he not be dead already?

I'm somewhat disappointed that ribwich has not posted his full case or even named his suspect after saying he thought someone was scummier than Jack. He could mean reckoner though, he has mentioned a few points against him already. Unless someone shows up quickly to extend the deadline or veto the execution, that will probably have to wait until tomorrow. We've also got another replacement coming, I spotted it in the signup thread.

I did a quick ISO read of dramonic and reckoner. To me, it looks like dramonic was offering his opinions and playing the game early on, which gave me a town feeling on him. As for reckoner, he spent much of the first day promising to catch up and reread, when it was apparent he had not read the game even once. Then he suddenly declared he believed Jack town, after barely mentioning him during the first day. I have no experience with either of them, but if we had to execute dramonic or reckoner, I'd choose reckoner. His reading has been selective, his opinions few and his arguments almost nonexistent.

I'm not entirely sure dramonic is town though, even in the event that reckoner flips scum. Their fight could be scum distancing.

[Feysal]

There is also the fact that we have no explanation why scum would make such a move. Yesterday, I theorized there could be some scum power role that could mess with the Consulmaker, but apparently this has not happened. I still feel Jack waited longer than I am comfortable with to reveal his ploy, but I also can't explain why he would try that as scum. As things are, he probably has to die sooner or later, not a useful move for scum to make.

[Feysal]

So, dramonic really

was

bussing his partner. Good thing he was night killed, the town points from the bus could have made him difficult to lynch.

The death of a backup bodyguard is also interesting. It implies there is a bodyguard also, meaning we have another confirmed town should that someone wish to claim. Which that someone obviously should not do, unless he ends up on death row.

The second death last night also implies another killing role. The bodyguard could not have killed dramonic without being killed himself, and the backup should not have had the power yet. Even though I suggested dramonic and reckoner might have been scum distancing, I doubt a town vigilante would have dared to go for dramonic, particularly with Jack still alive. That means there is most likely a serial killer. Carthaginians maybe?

One more thing, after yesterday I have a strong town read on scotmany12. If he and dramonic had been scum together, I'd think they'd have found some way to not bus their partner so early in game. I think I need to check the timeline, but for now I believe scotmany12 to be town.

We are not letting ribwich be tribune after the shit he pulled yesterday.

I don't think it was quite that bad. I doubt we'd have gotten both dramonic and reckoner if he had not been there to veto Jack's execution, though obviously we can't give him credit for the scum deaths. He could not have foreseen that.

I would not mind ribwich being reelected, though I would prefer him to discuss his plans with the town before making another controversial move. We were fortunate dramonic had to put his executioner's axe where his words were, and no one vetoed the execution. I still think it would've been better if ribwich had made his case against reckoner, that would have discouraged anyone from vetoing. Now we had luck on our side.

Its Nathaniel. By all intents and purposes, he should have his head on the block at the end of the day.

I see you and Parama are in the same camp. However, I don't really agree on Nathanael being as scummy as you've depicted him. Particularly the part about delaying the execution was a catch-22. As we saw yesterday, the two days time to carry out an execution is really not very long, few people made any comments during that time. Extending the time would help with that, and if there was time before the deadline, I could do the same.

Then there is the fact that Nathanael (as Tasky) posted that he would not reveal his reads or reasons to avoid the scum messing with them. Now that he is no longer consul he has no reason to be secretive any more. I don't really disagree with the things he said and did during the first day, but I'd like to know what his reasons were.

[Feysal]

@MOD: Katsuki asked for replacement a while back, and we probably need to prod or replace a couple others. Magua has been waiting to replace in for about a week, perhaps he should get his chance?

In other news, I still disagree with SensFan's style. Even if we had a town vigilante instead of a serial killer, revealing yourself would be unwise. Doing it voluntarily would earn you town points, but it would also give an obvious target for the mafia. Perhaps later... serial killers are often compulsive killers, so skipping your kill for one night would certainly help in proving you were a vigilante instead. Right now I find serial killer more likely, based on the target and the fact that there was a serial killer in the first Consulmaker game.

Something else you'd liked explained?

Couple things. Where did your execution attempt of Parama come from? Earlier that day you had vetoed Chesskid's execution twice, and Parama replaced into that slot. What happened?

Then there is SensFan. You said he was your top scumpick on day one, and it was pretty clear from the context why. Do you still believe him to be scum?

[Feysal]

Actually, in a game like this, are we sure that the bodyguard shouldn't claim earlier? Normally I would agree with this, but confirmed town members are extremely valuable to us. If the bodyguard claims, we can ensure that there is at least one town consul every day. They'll be more likely to get nightkilled, but isn't that part of the point of the bodyguard?

My only problem with this is that we don't know what kind of bodyguard we have. An ordinary bodyguard dies to protect his target, and an elite bodyguard takes the attacker with him. If we have the elite version, it is definitely better to stay hidden and hope to take out an anti-town with you.

Since the bodyguard had a backup, I doubt he is an elite though, but still, I think I'd rather keep that confirmed town card until endgame to be played there.

[Feysal]

Hi. It's about time I dropped by, and we have a new player too. First to make some replies.

Hi guys. I mostly ignored D1, but read D2.

...

People who strike me as scum:
Feysal
SpyreX
scotmany12 (this one's shakier than the others)

Shame about SpyreX being a consul today, IMO. Can't say I really like either of those choices.

Nathaniel gets buddy-buddy points for vetoing my slot's execution (three times, yay!)

If you're awarding Nathanael town points for vetoing your slot's execution, and you have me in your scum list, there is clearly something wrong. Right there... you said you ignored most of day one. I replaced in at the end of the day, and had some words to say about Katsuki's impending lynch. I suggest you read it, and all of day one for that matter.

Saying "I veto'd the execution because there was no reason for him to be scum" makes absolutely no fucking sense if you claim you knew he was put up for execution for reasons other than being likely Scum.

I'm with Nathanael on this one. The way I understood his responses:

1. Nathanael knew Chesskid's execution was a policy lynch.
2. Nathanael did not want a policy lynch. He wanted to lynch scum.
3. Nathanael did not think Chesskid was scum at the time.
4. Nathanael vetoed the execution.

Nathanael could've clarified that he was against policy lynching Chesskid, and that he needed reason to suspect him of being scum to allow the execution to go through, but this is fairly evident from his recent responses. For the record, I'm satisfied with his answers to my questions.

And now to another subject... Parama.

Early on, I could not make sense of Chesskid. This is the third game of his I've seen, and his style has been different each time. In the two other games he was playing seriously, here he was in village idiot mode, and I could not read beyond the stupidity. But someone could: dramonic. In fairness though, he was not the only one to say they thought Chesskid was town. But the way dramonic kept saying Chesskid was obvtown, and Parama by extension, makes me wonder if something was up. Look at dramonic's ISO and count the times he calls either Chesskid or Parama town.

Next, have a look at the sniping on page 21. dramonic and reckoner doing some scum distancing, and Parama is there in the middle of it, siding with dramonic.

I could agree with some parts of Parama's case on Nathanael, such as vetoing Chesskid's execution after FoSing him earlier. But other parts of that case I have major problems with. Nathanael supposedly trying to setup mislynches by having one claimed Consulmaker executed makes no sense. In a situation with a claim and counterclaim it is natural to lynch one of them, and Nathanael was not even the first to voice this idea. Before him, Scotmany had suggested lynching Jack, and then Ribwich if Jack proved to be the Consulmaker. Lowell simply said "We kill them, right? What's hard about this?" Lowell got a town read from Parama in #396. Given that Nathanael later worked actively to prove which Consulmaker was lying, I see no reason to suspect him over this.

The part about Nathanael being scum because he delayed Katsuki's execution is also terrible. As I've said, delaying the execution to get more discussion and opinions is not wrong. What SensFan said about delaying resulting in less time to discuss other targets closer to deadline was a total lapse of logic. If Nathanael had allowed the execution to happen, there would've been no discussion at all.

Overall, I say that the major part of Parama's case on Nathanael is hot air. I'm not at all thrilled by how long it took him to post that case too. Parama's direct refusal to explain the case in #603 was not pro-town in the least.

This point may not mean much, but I find it interesting that chamber was killed the night after he vetoed Parama's execution. This would enable Parama to point to chamber and say he was pardoned by a townie, preventing that veto from becoming a point of suspicion.

With this track record, Parama will have to work overtime if he wants to get in my good books.

[Feysal]

Looked back, and found some posts I wanted to reply to.

Ah okay. I'm not very familiar with the bodyguard role, so I wasn't aware there were multiple types. Are bodyguards generally aware of whether they're regular or elite?

Noticed this post earlier, but had no time to reply and forgot later. I don't have experience with bodyguards either. I once gave the role as a mod, but I only told the player he could protect, so he thought he was a normal doctor. This is the first time I've encountered the role as a player.

Another thing that's occurred to me is we should pay more attention to the fact that only one kill happened night 1. Since the bodyguard is still alive, and it seems unlikely for there to be a doctor and a bodyguard, either there is no serial killer and it actually was a vigilante that killed dram, or a roleblocker prevented one of the kills the first night. If it's the second that's the case, and it wasn't reck or dram that they blocked, should the roleblocker claim now?

You're right, I neglected this earlier. On the site where I started playing mafia it is an unwritten rule that serial killers may only kill from the second night onwards. What happened this game was consistent with what I'm used to, so I forgot there is no such rule here. Based on this, we may have a vigilante after all, and he took a risky shot at dramonic. I find that more likely than a role blocker stopping one kill on the first night, but in case the town does have a role blocker, it could be a good idea to try blocking again whoever he blocked the first night.

Looks like I need to stick my neck out for the Katsuki/Magua slot once more. Can't be helped, I still think the slot is more likely to be town than not.

If you think that two of the names I gave have no chance for being scum, why would my words make any difference at all?

This was not directed at me, but I will provide my answer anyway. I know you're wrong about me, I believe you're wrong about Scotmany, and SpyreX probably too. Since you gave town points to Nathanael for vetoing your slot's execution, but not to me, I conclude you've not seen my defense of your slot at the end of day one. You did say you skipped reading most of that day. Admittedly I did not expect you to live, and I was mostly concerned with posting some of my thoughts before the day ended, but I still think you should read that before forming your opinion of me. You should read all of day one for that matter.

Anyway, since I believe you are probably wrong about all three of your scum reads, I have to wonder where they are coming from. Are you misinformed town, or are you scum, trying to push lynches on town? The difference is in the reasons. If you can point to valid concerns you may have with any of us, I can be satisfied with you being misinformed town. If your cases on us are bogus or nonexistent, scum starts to look more likely.

Besides, answering questions when they are asked is pro-town. Arguing semantics of whether it was a question in the first place is not, and countering the question with your own questions is not. You are stalling. You've lost the opportunity to earn town points with a timely answer, but I still want to know what led you to be suspicious of the three of us. Your response in #835 is too little to be satisfactory. If you need a reason to make cases on us, I'll give you this. Writing the cases on us would enable us to respond to them, and allow us to get a better read of you.

The first one I translate is "Why would you want confirmed town to be Tribune?" with the unstated add-on of "even though they executed scum yesterday".

The second I translate as "Don't piss off a consul, or they may execute you instead of executing scum," because, Lord knows, only scum would ever dare to piss off a consul.

I think both of your translations are off, particularly the first, due to the obvious factual error. Tribunes do not execute people, they veto executions. What ribwich in fact did was that he vetoed Jack's execution and voiced his suspicion of reckoner, but the actual execution was carried out by dramonic, another scum. You already made this mistake once in #818, so felt like I had to point it out. I don't think it matters really, I'm fine with ribwich being Tribune regardless.

As for the second, my common sense says not to pick pointless fights, with Consuls or anyone else, since that distracts everyone involved from actual scum hunting. You should not piss off a Consul, not because he can execute you, but because it is not helpful to the town in any way.

Oh, and happy New Year! Midnight just came around in my time zone.

[Feysal]

Feysal goes back to null.

I do? If it was something I said in my last post, could you point me to what you disagree with?

If it was something I did not say, I wanted to get that post out of the way before trying to make sense of Jack.

[Feysal]

Yes, it was something in your last post. if you can find it and explain it, I could accept that and put you back to townish.
if I have to point it out for you, I'll leave you at null.

Gave my post another look, and I could only find two things you might've meant. If it is neither of these, I'm stumped.

Firstly, I had just suggested that we may have a vigilante, and then suggested that a theoretical role blocker should block him again. Oops. I was thinking about two scenarios only, one with a town vigilante who only killed once, and one with a serial killer and role blocker. There could be a vigilante and a role blocker too, though I doubt it... all the power roles we have confirmation of are somehow limited, a town role blocker would be overpowered, and so we probably don't have one. Though the scum might. Double oops. I guess I just did not think this one through.

Secondly, I asked Magua to explain his reads of me, Scotmany and SpyreX, while not explaining my own town reads of the two. Basically, if Scotmany had been scum, then I believe he would not have allowed reckoner to be executed. Both dramonic (in #651) and reckoner (#733 and #746) were talking about the execution being vetoed like they wanted it to happen. Scotmany was online, he could've vetoed, but did not. If he was scum with dramonic and reckoner, I believe they could've played that better, and gotten through the day without having to bus. I do need to ISO read Scotmany though, perhaps then I'll get what is so scummy about him.

For SpyreX, I don't have anything that definitive. I had him as null until today, and while I'm leaning town after reading his posts today, it is not a strong read.

As for my read on Magua himself, there is the meta I had on Katsuki. In addition, both reckoner and dramonic said they were comfortable with Katsuki being lynched, and continued accusing each other. If Katsuki was scum with dramonic and reckoner, I doubt they would bus each other that eagerly after leaving Katsuki to die. This is enough to make me believe Magua is more likely town, despite his strange altercation with SpyreX. I would still like to hear his cases on us though.

[Feysal]

@Feysal. It wasn't one of the ones you showed. I just didn't like the overall tone of the post. I liked your response, though, but I prefer to keep you at null right now.

That's okay, null is a fine read to have mid-game.

But, here is another question: assume you had pointed out those things in someone else's post, would you have found it scummy? If yes, how scummy? If no, why did you think I could have found them scummy?

I admit that if I was not trying to find something wrong with that specific post, I might have missed or ignored those things, neither of them was very scummy by itself. But, I could've found them scummy in context with something else. I've seen town make enough mistakes to consider them a null tell, so the first point I mentioned I find weaker, but I've met players who would disagree, thinking I was trying to direct town actions. As for the second, if I saw someone claiming a town read on someone without explanation or previous mention of the player, I could consider it scummy, particularly if I disagreed with that read. In past games, when I've seen a player claim a town read on someone with no justification for it, they've been scum together often enough for me to take note when I see it. In this case, I had mentioned before why I thought Scotmany to be town, but nothing about SpyreX, so I thought it best to explain those reads, and Magua too while I was at it.

Looks like I missed the deadline with Tribune votes. I'm fine with The Fonz, the way he has been posting his thoughts as he caught up looked very town to me.

I'm a couple pages behind, catching up now.

[Feysal]

I don't have a case. I haven't put the energy into a case. I read D2 in one sitting and my gut read when I was done was that you were the most likely to be scum. I put it out there for two reasons: one, to get it out there, register my opinion, and two, to see what the reaction was.

I mean, just from the above, I get little cringes. "Misinformed town"? I can't be misinformed, as I'm not informed to begin with.

Misinformed, misguided... So I used the wrong word. Meant nothing by it, and I'd really rather not argue about semantics.

So you have no case, and all you have on us is gut. I guess that's fine. Gut is obviously not enough to push a lynch with at this stage, so I have no reason really to suspect you were looking for mislynches.

If you want to know my read on you, I consider you "probably harmless, but not terribly useful either". I'll have a hard time taking your opinion of me seriously until I know you've read day one.

Question for you: So you've got a fairly long list of people you think aren't scum. Who do you think is scum?

My top suspect is Parama, and I don't much like Porochaz either. I wrote something of a case on Parama earlier, and while I have none on Porochaz yet, I will be taking a closer look at his posts soon. There is SensFan also, I need to think over my stance on him, and Lowell the lurker.

Now this confuses the hell out of me, because your premise seems to be that when town lurk, scum will do so. I agree with this. However, the implication is both that lurking is bad, and that scum are likely to be doing it. 'Seen far worse and been town' is kinda OKish, but the logic of your argument seems to favour lurkerlynching, so why is Katsuki so bad?

Ah, I see that you come over kinda resigned after that.

It indeed favors lynching lurkers, and in the absence of any better leads that is what I would do. But I would still try to pick the lurker I thought was most scummy. Some players are liable to lurk whether as town or scum, and for them it is a null tell. For a normally active player to fall under the radar it is scummy. Apart from SpyreX, Katsuki was the only player in this game I'd played with before (this remains true after the replacements), and I knew she was definitely in the first group. I felt that the case was not enough about Katsuki being scummy and too much about Katsuki being Katsuki, so I voiced my discomfort with it.

How to remarkably hedge your bets on bussing scum.

Could be, but it was also my genuine impression of their play at the time. I did ISO read dramonic and reckoner at the end of the day, and then I mentioned dramonic may have been bussing.

Katsuki position, I continue to admire the bravery of it whilst being annoyed at the stupidity. Feysal, given your apparent opinion on Kat, can you name any specific thing she could have done that would have made you see her as scum?

Many things probably, but it is hard for me to speculate since they did not happen. For what it's worth, I did weigh the arguments raised against her against my own meta-read, and I still thought her more likely to be town. The argument that Katsuki would have lied about having time for this game did give me doubt, enough that I went to the trouble of researching her recent activity for evidence. What I found pointed to a different conclusion, so I said so. By the way, I am or was in both of those games where Katsuki was in a hydra, and her presence in them was also low, so the lurking was not limited to this game.

Hmmmm. I get a vibe of 'Hey dumb noob, pay attention to how I buddied your predecessor!' here.

You're pretty much right, though I tried to be more polite about it. I also meant to imply that I could not take his read of me seriously until he had read day one. I'd also be curious to learn how Magua would feel about SpyreX making the case that nearly got Katsuki lynched. He has said nothing that would indicate his awareness of this fact. I simply find his reads somewhat pointless, since he has by his own admission ignored something I would consider vitally important.

Similar to why he had to shoot reck second. The majority of the town wanted jack lynched. Had he tried to kill reck first, we once again would have known something was up. And I was the other consul, and I was pretty adamant during day one that I thought jack should be lynched. Its not crazy to think dram was afraid of me vetoing reck and then executing jack.

I don't see why dramonic would've been afraid of you vetoing the execution. That would've allowed him to get out of executing reckoner, and if reckoner ever died by different means, the suspicion would have fallen on you.

You do have a point though that dramonic's decision to execute first Jack and then reckoner does not preclude all three being scum, since dramonic really had no choice but to execute one of them. What I think is against them being scum together is the fact that they must have known Jack would not make it to endgame, and yet dramonic and reckoner continued to fight eagerly, making it inevitable they would have to bus each other. I would not be setting up a bus if I knew another of my teammates was about to be exposed.

---

Finally caught up. And I've still ISO reads to do on some players, and one post about game flavor and the possibility of two scumteams. Those will have to wait, I need to go to sleep.

[Feysal]

Can someone explain to the historically challenged why two scumgroups is unlikely with this flavor?

I was going to post about this anyway, but glad you asked.

The Pyrrhic War was a conflict between two alliances, but both sides included different states and nations. On one side were the Greeks, whose colonies were under pressure of expansion from Rome in southern Italy, and from Carthage in Sicily. The Greeks requested and received military aid from Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, who sailed to Italy with his army. There he won several battles against the Romans, but at crippling cost to his own army. The expression "Pyrrhic victory" comes from this, and Pyrrhus himself is said to have remarked after one of his battles that another such victory would utterly ruin him.

Anyway, Pyrrhus tried to negotiate peace with the Romans, but failed. Rome and Carthage formed an alliance against Pyrrhus and the Greeks, and Pyrrhus next moved to Sicily, where he routed the Carthaginian army. Carthage tried to negotiate, and would have betrayed its alliance with Rome to have peace, but Pyrrhus unwisely refused. Discontent among the Sicilian Greeks forced Pyrrhus to abandon his conquest of the remaining Carthaginian possessions in Sicily, and then to abandon Sicily altogether. He returned to Italy where he was defeated by the Romans, and soon returned to Epirus with the remains of his army. The Greek colonies he had come to help largely surrendered to Rome and Carthage.

We've obviously got Romans and Greeks (Pyrrhics) in game. I'd be disappointed if there were no Carthaginians, but I doubt they would form a complete anti-town faction, since they were allied with Rome in the actual war. Carthaginians being neutral, maybe a survivor or serial killer, would fit better with the actual history.

I'll have to look through the pages to find the quote, but I'm positive dramonic specifically said that the reason he wasn't going to execute reck was because it would be vetoed.

I know he did, I believe I referenced that very post earlier. What I'm saying is I'd have played differently in that situation, not that it matters much. Anyway, that situation can be interpreted in different ways. I'm not sure I believe SensFan's explanation that dramonic and reckoner were trying to appear so obnoxious neither of them would be made Consul, mainly because dramonic looked so much better of the two.

[Feysal]

Now this is kinda amusing to me, because Lowell is infamous on the site for his meta of lurking and uselessness, much more so than Katsuki (can you post one of the games where she was 'much worse' btw?) So you've given your own personal acquaintance VI a pass and then gone straight for the one you don't know.

I've never played with Lowell, and apart from what I've heard in this game I have no knowledge of his reputation. By chance, I had played with Katsuki before, and seen her lynched shortly before I replaced in here. This was in an ongoing game so I will not comment further, but if you want to read it yourself, check out Stars Aligned III and look for El Goosuki. They were a hydra of Ellibereth, DrippingGoofball and Katsuki.

Adding Lowell to that list was more of an afterthought, not that he was a serious suspect. I have noticed him lurking, and how people I believe to be town are suspicious of him, so Lowell is someone I should take a closer look at. As are the other people I mentioned.

[Feysal]

You know who DrippingGoofball is, right? I don't think a hydra involving DGB is valid meta for anything. When you were talking about Katsuki being herself, and that she'd done far worse as town, I was under the impression that you had at least one, and probably more, completed games with her as town in which she did absolutely nothing useful.

That hydra was the first and only time I've interacted with DGB. I've not been on this site for three months yet, and this is only my fourth game here, so I have limited experience with only few players, and no completed games yet. Sorry if this disappoints you.

[Feysal]

If you have no completed games, then you have no meta.

I don't, not in the sense that I'd had opportunity to compare Katsuki's town play to her scum play. I have witnessed her uselessness in two games though, and this gave me some idea of what sort of player she was (Nathanael mentioned the other game earlier). She seemed the type that would be easy to push into a mislynch, and this is why I acted day one. To point out something in this game, see chamber's comment on Katsuki in #419. It mached my opinion of Katsuki exactly.

FYI, DrippingGoofball is known for being, essentially, insane. I can't really speculate about that hydra though, cause it's an ongoing game and those are not acceptable sources of meta.

I see. I don't have any completed games though, so I'm using what I've got, even if they're ongoing games and only useful to myself.

[Feysal]

I'm not quite understanding what you mean here. You said dram wouldn't have been worried about it being vetoed, but he basically admitted that he was. What other way is there to interpret the situation?

Of course dramonic wouldn't have been worried about his execution of reckoner, his fellow scum, being vetoed. I'm sure they both wished someone would, and had it been me, I would've executed reckoner first precisely so someone would veto it and execute someone else instead. I don't think the bus was entirely deliberate, and they hoped that their fight would look so silly that someone would veto it, like Nathanael had vetoed Chesskid's execution.

What I meant with interpretations, we have two: one says that dramonic would not have bussed Jack simultaneously with reckoner, and another that says he had no choice, and Jack could be scum anyway. I can't tell whether Jack is scum based solely on this, though I would be surprised indeed if the scum had planned to bus two of their number right at the start.

You see, Feysal, I can't engage with your comments, discuss whether those games are valid representations, talk about how much of the hydra I actually think was Kat, the difference in circumstances between here and the other games or any of the other forms of meta analysis and discussion that are needed to put meta into context without breaking the rules myself.

I understand, and I was not looking to have any discussion. You wanted to know where my opinion of Katsuki originated from, and the answer is two ongoing games. However, I also cannot avoid having my opinions influenced by other games, ongoing or otherwise, and this is why I acted the way I did regarding Katsuki. This is what I meant when I said these games were only useful to myself.

[Feysal]

What I mean is, if dram had put in an execution on reck, and it got vetoed without us seeing that reck actually was scum, how was dram going to look? He was presented with one of the easiest lynch choices you can get, and he would be ignoring it to continue his bus. The entire reason why I picked dram as a consul was to see if he would choose reck over Jack, and I think he knew that.

Obviously it would've looked like dramonic was tunneling, and given how much flak you got for vetoing Jack, it probably would've made him look suspicious. However, it may have been beneficial in the long run. It is likely that either dramonic or reckoner would've been executed eventually, and the survivor would've gained the reward for the bus then. As a bonus, if the one executed was reckoner, whoever had vetoed his execution would look suspect because of it. Doing this would be risky of course, more so than what dramonic did, but I may have done it in his position anyway.

What this whole thing started from was my response to Scotmany in #1014. What I meant there was that dramonic could not really have been afraid of his execution of reckoner being vetoed, like Scotmany suggested. In retrospect, it should be clear that dramonic saying so was an excuse because he did not want to bus reckoner yet. It still tells me little about Jack, since dramonic may have well decided that Jack was a lost cause, if they were scum together.

Having thought it over, I don't see why Jack could not be scum with dramonic and reckoner. Whether he is and they gave up on him, or he is not, the fact that dramonic had no hesitation executing him is a null tell. There was that odd episode with reckoner suddenly believing Jack and ribwich were both town, and changing his mind just as suddenly, and I can't say why reckoner would do this, though the scum may have been simply late with their planning since they did not expect to get a consul position. The way dramonic made an excuse not to execute reckoner says to me that it was not a planned bus, and ribwich vetoing Jack's execution really screwed their plan. And if it was not a planned bus, then the fight between dramonic and reckoner was meant as distancing, but they overdid it and it blew in their faces. I've said before that it was odd how dramonic and reckoner were setting up to bus each other, and I would not do this if one of my teammates was about to be exposed. I've changed my mind, I don't think they were preparing to bus at all, it was simply distancing gone too far.

For Jack's part, while I have no experience with him, there are some odd things I noticed in his ISO. Like when he proposed reckoner as the deadlock lynch on the first day, out of the blue. And of course, he kept up his Consulmaker claim longer than I'm comfortable with.

[Feysal]

After my last post, it should be clear where I stand regarding Jack. I have no more strong feelings that he could not be scum with dramonic and reckoner. He lied, he kept up his lie too long, he needs to go. And he needs to go sooner rather than later, so might as well be today. Once Primate waives his veto the day will end, so once more, for old times' sake...

CETERUM CENSEO JACKUM ESSE CAEDANDUM!

(I promise this was the last time.)

I started looking into my other suspects too, and picked SensFan first. I disagree strongly on some of his ideas on how to play, so I went looking for past games of his to find evidence of him having controversial beliefs before. I found three completed mini theme games he played town in, start to finish, none recent: 862, 878 and 978. I did find something, like when he said here that he did not think withholding reasoning was scummy. That was the part I disagreed with most, so after finding this post from over a year ago I can't really call him scummy because of it.

But there is more to why SensFan is scummy, and after reading his posts in ISO in these games, and skimming some of them in context, he does look considerably different here. I feel that in all three games he interacted more with other players, asking questions, commenting, pressuring those he considered scummy. Today I've seen him pretty much tunnel on Jack and Nathanael, and mostly ignore the other players. To continue what I wrote in #562, does anyone remember when SensFan said he wanted us to pseudovote like they counted? We had pseudovotes on day one, SensFan ignored them, and there has been no talk of pseudovotes since, not from him or anyone else. I think pseudovotes would actually be a good idea to start using again, they would make it easier to see where people stand, and they would be something solid to discuss and comment on.

[Feysal]

Just an FYI, Feysal, my play is going to be significantly different in Minis and Larges. My play is also going to be significantly different in a game with severe mechanics change, like this one.

This is probably true, but I could not find a complete large theme game of yours to use for comparison. You're also basically right about the mechanics change, however I still feel it is odd that you've done nothing with pseudovotes after you wanted us to use them like they mattered.

While we wait for Primate, I thought some more about the bodyguard and when he should claim. The value of claiming is obviously instant town confirmation. In most situations, scum would have to be suicidal to counterclaim. The value of the town confirmation increases the fewer players are left. If the bodyguard claimed now, that would leave 12 players with unconfirmed alignments. If the bodyguard stayed alive and claimed when there are 6 players left, that would leave 4 players unconfirmed. From a process of elimination point of view, this is significant, and reason enough for the bodyguard to wait. If the bodyguard becomes suspect, he can claim any time anyway to avoid execution.

Also note that if the bodyguard claims, he is certain to be killed before endgame, probably the very next night. The town confirmation from claiming is therefore only useful for the one day the claim is made, so there is no point in claiming early and hoping to benefit from the town confirmation for several days.

I'd also like to say that the town confirmation from the claim is now much more important than the protective power itself. Suppose the bodyguard successfully protects someone and dies? Being dead, he cannot share with us who he protected, and the town learns nothing. Since the bodyguard had a backup, I find the possibility of him being elite remote. Therefore it could be best for the bodyguard to stop trying to protect anyone, since this decreases his chances of surviving. I'd bet the bodyguards were meant to protect our cop if he had to claim, and with chamber gone, I doubt there is any essential power role the bodyguard should protect. We don't know who the vigilante is, and we're not sure if he is a serial killer instead. I believe the bodyguard himself is now more valuable than anyone he could protect.

While I was thinking about endgame situations, it also occurred to me that ribwich will probably be killed just before LYLO, should we get to that point. The scum won't want confirmed town surviving at that point. I tried to think up a way to confirm the Consulmaker anyway, and came up with this gambit:

1. If the Dictator does not immediately execute someone, he is town (or serial killer, not mafia anyway).
2. The Dictator must then ask the other two players to claim which of them is the Consulmaker.
3. If the scum answers first, his answer depends on a guess. If the townie is the Consulmaker, he must also claim Consulmaker. But, if the Dictator is Consulmaker at the same time, he must not claim Consulmaker. I do not know whether it is possible to be Dictator and Consulmaker simultaneously, it was asked during signups, but CES kept it secret. That is how it must stay, I don't want the scum to have any clue whether this is possible.
4. If the townie answers first, then the scum can simply repeat the answer, and there is no result.

In other words, if the scum answers first and guesses wrong, he is caught. This only works with three players alive in LYLO, with four players you can do no better than reduce the number of suspects to two. Either the scum counterclaims the Consulmaker and is suspect with him, or he does not and the Consulmaker is confirmed town.

[Feysal]

What Magua said was not so much about lynching one of two claimants for the same role. What was odd about it was that you were pretty much the only one who believed Jack over ribwich. I'm really not convinced if that means anything though... such tells can be read in different ways. For one, scum are rarely eager to go against town consensus for fear of backlash, so doing that can be seen as something of a town tell. By that time, it should've been clear that the town would not agree with executing ribwich.

I've been going back and forth trying to get a read on SensFan. This is clearly not an open-and-shut case.

Meanwhile, does Jack have nothing to say? With his head on the line, I'd expect something out of him, and soon.

[Feysal]

I had a good laugh when I read Jack was the godfather, Pyrrhus himself. Makes sense though, now that I think of it. Since there was a cop, the godfather was probably investigation immune. That means Jack was the only one who could've tried such a gambit, hoping to draw an investigation that would appear to clear him. His play still amazes me though.

Porochaz was town then. I never got around to doing an ISO read or writing a case on him, but my suspicions were clearly misplaced. He feels like an odd target for the mafia though, so perhaps he did try to protect someone and succeeded. Damn it... even without using his ability he would've been valuable by being able to confirm himself by simply claiming. Now we won't know who he protected, if indeed he did.

Only one death. That pretty much rules out serial killer, so a vigilante looks likely now. With him on our side, I expect two more mafia left, one of them possibly a power role. Cineas and Caecus (chamber's role) were opponents in the peace talks between Pyrrhus and Rome, and since Caecus was a limited cop, Cineas could be a limited role cop. There is a very short entry about Cineas in Wikipedia, and reading about how he was supposedly able to greet every senator and guard by name one day after arriving in Rome immediately suggested role cop to me. Just a guess, but it would be appropriate.

Consuls, The Fonz and Shanba. The Fonz I support fully, but Shanba is a real surprise, having never posted and replacing into a slot that has contributed nothing. The idea must be that he has to catch up quick and provide some thoughts to live up to his office.

Tribunes... I'm not missing my chance to vote today.

Vote: scotmany12

[Feysal]

Lowell...

We're not voting to lynch scum. We're voting for people to become Tribunes. Did you forget what kind of game we're playing?

[Feysal]

Speaking of Lowell, I've wondered why he appears prominently in Jack's ISO. He was consistently calling Lowell scum right up until he was executed. Also, dramonic mentioned him once, when replying to Nathanael, saying that Lowell or Parama would not be lynched that day.

Whatever plan Jack had, it seems that Lowell had some part in it, given how frequently Jack mentions him. What the plan would be I cannot know. Another scum distancing/bussing attempt, or an attempt to get a townie mislynched?

As for Parama, I am less enthusiastic to believe him scum today, though not because of anything he said or did. Another game I was playing in with Chesskid ended prematurely during the night phase, and I learned Chesskid had been scum there while playing seriously. What little I have seen of his play suggests he plays more seriously and carefully as scum, and his style here was drastically different. I've begun to think dramonic may have been honest when he said Chesskid was obvtown because of his play.

[Feysal]

I get ribwich's point about Lowell fitting in as an absent-minded serial killer, but the problem with serial killers is that they usually have to kill every night. I cannot recall where I read it, but a serial killer may even have a random target chosen for him by the moderator if he does not choose himself. I think a limited shot vigilante is considerably more likely now.

[Feysal]

I'll admit I'm clueless about site meta, but what I said I'd read here somewhere. Anyway, if there was a serial killer, I find it hard to imagine that he would forget or skip killing for two nights, and target scum the one time he did kill. Vigilante is what I'm betting on now.

That still leaves me wondering about Lowell though. Jack started his claim of suspecting him early in day one, and kept it up to the end. What makes it even more baffling is how Jack spoke of scummy or village idiot players being good for consulship, to force them to get involved with the game, and how such players would be easy mislynches for scum. Lowell looks like he fits the description perfectly.

[Feysal]

Thank you for writing that case on me. Knowing why you consider me scummy not only lets me defend myself, it also allows me to get some kind of read on you. Here are my answers to your concerns.

K so Feysal. Guy he replaced, Rabies, isn't too scummy.

Obviously I did not need to read the slot I replaced into, but after reading the game I felt I'd replaced into an okay slot. I did not feel Rabies had left me any problems I'd have to answer for.

Then Feysal comes in. In his very first post, he focuses on something of only lateral interest: the consulmaker claims. In particular he devotes a huge post to proposing a method of settling the debate. That's kind of odd, considering there was already a method suggested (evens and odds) and all his suggestion did was introduce more confusion.

This one is easy to explain. When I replaced in, the first thing I wanted to know was what was going on. Nathanael's post #524 was the last one in the thread, something about Consulmaker lists, and how it was necessary to do those before the lynch. I knew Katsuki was about to be lynched already when I offered to replace, but I had no idea what these lists were. So I began reading. After reading about a third, I knew the lists were necessary for figuring out which Consulmaker was lying. The lists had apparently not been agreed upon, and there were less than 16 hours until the scheduled lynch. So I took a break from reading and proposed my lists. Note that I said I'd only read a third of the thread in that post, and by that point evens/odds had not been suggested yet, so I made my own lists. I only saw in preview that SensFan in #525 had suggested evens/odds, so I added this line:

Even/odd won't work because both current consuls are even, meaning the groups would not have equal size that way.

Consuls could not be reelected immediately after, and both Nathanael and SensFan had even numbers, which would've meant the list of even players was shorter. This was the only change I made in preview, then I posted and went to sleep. I don't think I added any more confusion, someone had to post the lists, I was there, and this is the sort of thing I often do in mafia games. I was in a hurry to do it too, since both Consulmakers needed time to read the lists and agree to them.

In general, he's said a lot without saying a lot. He replaces in and manages one scumread: SensFan, and then when pressed to give someone who it was actually useful to suspect at that point, he umms and ahhhs and say "eh I dunno". This was 23 pages in. He has one scumread at 23 pages in.

I am wordy. I will not apologize for that. And I did post more than one scum read. SensFan I wrote an actual case on. I said I did not believe both Consulmaker claimants were town, and that I believed ribwich, implying Jack was scum. When asked for other reads, I admit my response was weak, but Powerrox93 was my first pick and I said so. I had some town reads on others, including dramonic, and several vague or null ones. I did not expect much better after day one, particularly from only one readthrough, and even that I did in a hurry to finish before the scheduled lynch.

What's more, he doesn't seem to be pressuring people to gather info. Sometimes, it can be hard to get to grips with a game when replacing in, but if you don't have any solid reads you need to be active in creating solid reads by poking and prodding at people. Particularly given he looked at all those lurkers and said "well I dunno": why didn't he try and wake them up and get them posting and find out if they were scum?

This is a question of playstyle really. I'm not the type to poke and prod people, I watch and observe. In terms of good cop/bad cop, I could never fill the role of the bad cop. As for those lurkers as you call them, they were actually flakers. You replaced into one of those slots, and The Fonz occupies the other.

Again, in isopost 13 he starts setup speculating. The scumhunting he does is typically interspersed with large periods of waffle. I don't like this.

You don't like setup speculation? There is a time and place for that too, and the first post of a day phase is a good one, particularly when we learned something about the setup that night.

This was what really buzzed me though, on first skim through the game:

If you're awarding Nathanael town points for vetoing your slot's execution, and you have me in your scum list, there is clearly something wrong. Right there... you said you ignored most of day one. I replaced in at the end of the day, and had some words to say about Katsuki's impending lynch. I suggest you read it, and all of day one for that matter.

He defended Katsuki pretty hard. Now he's angling for towncred for defending Katsuki. Sure, this can be interpreted as a calling out of Magua for inconsistency, but the way it's phrased doesn't make that look likely, particularly as he later decides Magua is town. So Feysal is numero uno on my scumlist.

You're wrong with both interpretations. I was not looking for town credit. Why would it matter what Magua thought of me? He was not a Consul, he was not about to be elected Tribune, he had no lynch vote. No reason for me to care about his opinion. I was not pointing out an inconsistency either, not in the sense you seem to understand it, as pointing out something scummy. What I was saying here, put more directly, was this:

"You have an obvious inconsistency in considering Nathanael town and me scummy. This seems to be because you've ignored day one, so I don't find it scummy yet, but I can't take your reads seriously either. Go read day one and start making sense, then we can talk."

Sadly, Magua did not go read day one and did not start making sense, instead he refused to explain his reads and had a fight with SpyreX. So I intervened, and this time I did find him scummy due to his behavior, though still not for the inconsistency in his reads of Nathanael and me. Later I did find him town, after I had checked what dramonic and reckoner had said about him, and because he admitted his suspicions were based on gut. Trying to push mislynches based on gut was too feeble to be true, so I dropped that idea. I continue to believe Magua town by the way - Jack did not seem to have a problem with Katsuki's execution either.

[quote="Magua #1168]Given that Jack was scum, do you think this implies Lowell-town or Lowell-scum? I can't tell from your post.[/quote]

I can't tell either. I don't know. This is WIFOM to be sure, and I would not object to Lowell being executed, but I think he will flip town. If there are two scum left among twelve alive, null is about 83% in favor of town.

[Feysal]

I'm interested in how both Nathanael and Feysal could have such strong townreads on Katsuki-the-lurker, but such murky reads on Lowell-the-lurker.

This is simple really. I have no read on Katsuki based on her play, but she was on death row at the end of day one, and all our known scum had no problem with that. There was no effort to start a competing case either. This suggests to me that Katsuki was the mislynch the scum wanted. Also, since you replaced in, reading you has given me a better read of your slot. Your argument with SpyreX and your initial refusal to explain your reads were scummy, but now I cannot see any scum motivation behind them. You don't seem to have any clear agenda, you seem unsure of which direction to go, and just push whoever you find scummy at the time, even with a weaker case. That is town behavior, though not very useful for scum hunting. What I would expect from scum is a sense of purpose and direction, and pushing for mislynches on weaker town players, or waiting for a prospective mislynch target to appear and then jumping on board. You have done neither. Particularly the way you based your case on SensFan on the assumption that Jack was town says that you are town, since scum would not waste their time building a case that crumbles when Jack flips.

Now look at Lowell. He was never on death row, so we don't know how the known scum would have reacted to that. There are much fewer relational tells to use, and the ones we have from Jack are riddled with WIFOM. He was never replaced, and his posts remain useless and unreadable. Compared to your slot, there is barely anything to base a read on.

This doesn't feel right.

Why not? I don't have a read on Lowell, one way or the other. Do you? Does anyone?

[Feysal]

Why not? I don't have a read on Lowell, one way or the other. Do you? Does anyone?

Because it seems odd to say something like "I think Lowell is town, but go ahead and execute him." I get the idea I think you're trying to communicate here, but the way its phrased is what throws me. Like its prepositioning.

If he does end up executed and flips town, I don't expect anyone to gain credit from having a null read on him, even if that null is overwhelmingly in favor of him being town thanks to our earlier successes. Null tells are always in favor of town.

But lets leave that aside. My PoE is leading me to think the scums are Nathanael + (Lowell, Shanba, maaaaaaaybe SpyreX). Who do you think the scums are?

I've never quite understood what the case on Nathanael is about to be honest. He is one of my town reads, but I should probably double check that read by doing an ISO. There are others though who need that rather more urgently.

After I got a better read of Chesskid, I'm less inclined to believe Parama scum. But that does not mean I'd have forgotten about him either, and I remain unimpressed by what he has contributed. I still have him as scummy, but he is no longer my strongest scum read.

SensFan is another one I am unsure about. I still have a bad feeling about him from day one, though I am somewhat influenced by other people giving him a town read. Yesterday he was really beating the drum for a Jack execution, but given the situation that is a null tell.

For Shanba, after only three posts it is early to tell, but he is certainly not appearing as obviously town as The Fonz. His case on me is decent, but I feel there is a touch of rhetoric and a tendency to present things more negatively than they are. That could be okay, if you're writing a case on someone you are trying to make it convincing after all. I may get back to this in more detail later if he still wants me dead. If there was one thing that caught my attention, it was his lists in #1183. Having me and two of my stronger town reads as his suspects was bad enough, but the way he classified his reads was downright weird. I was the only one he would execute himself. There were four others he would let The Fonz execute. What the hell is this? If you were happy to see someone dead, it should not matter who carries out the execution. It seems as if he was trying to distance himself from eventual mislynches by having his fellow Consul carry out the deed.

Something that does make me feel better about Shanba is that he seems to be the first to suspect SpyreX. I've had him as null or slightly town, but I've been haunted from the start by him pushing the case on Katsuki. She is an easy target to get mislynched, and I've had the bad feeling about SpyreX possibly being scum because of it. It was also slightly odd how he called me fairly awesome when I replaced in, but did not comment at all on what I thought about the Katsuki case he had been pushing. I just did an ISO read on SpyreX, and I'm not seeing much to base a case on. His posting is townish, but I keep wondering where his reads come from, and the fact that the only two suspects he has ever really pushed are Jack and you has me in doubt. Perhaps I've bought into the hype too much, but I'd expect more from town-SpyreX.

I have Lowell as null like I've said, but he is pretty much a wild card. We could get lucky and he could flip scum.

Finally, there is Primate. I know, everyone believes him town, and I've been content to think that too, but I'm not sure that read is really my own, and I'm not just following the crowd. On my first readthrough my reaction to him was in fact scummy, but that is not saying much. I also had a scummy reaction to chamber and a town feeling from dramonic, both wrong. Still, I have an ISO read of Primate on my schedule too, though on a low priority.

There it is, I have a town read on one half of the town, and a range of scummy reads on the other. If I had to name my top two, I think they'd be Parama and SpyreX.

[Feysal]

Feysal: Most of what I was going to say about him was already mentioned by Shanba, but there's two other things I would bring up. First is in regards to yesterday's execution of Jack. Spy was talking about his uneasiness with it as more of a no longer being 100% sure type of thing, but it looked like Feysal was seeing that as a chance to get Jack to actually survive this game.

Say

what?

When was I ever trying to get Jack to survive this game? Before you vetoed his execution, I had consistently believed he was lying and wanted him dead for it. Nathanael's and SpyreX's doubts about the double bus gave me pause, so I thought over what dramonic did and was trying to do, and reached the conclusion that if Jack was scum, dramonic should have given up on him and he would have executed him.

This post start off with him still arguing for why the double bus was unlikely, but in the end he just kind of gives up and admits that Jack could still be scum. To me this looks like someone that was trying to defend their scumbuddy, but then backs off when he sees it isn't working.

Reading comprehension failure. I was describing my thoughts about Jack, and how I arrived to the conclusion that the double bus was null. What you have in that post is my thought process, what went on in my mind to convince me that Jack had to die. With the double bus argument out of the way, all that remained was that Jack had lied, and he had to go. If I had been trying to defend him, why would I have changed my mind mid-post?

I'll probably be the one killed this night, so I should get this out there. If Lowell flips scum, my next top scumread would be Spyrex. If Lowell flips town or SK, it's Parama and Feysal.

This worries me even more than your stance on me. What does Lowell's flip have to do with anyone else being scum? I've said my read on him is null. Null read means he is more likely town than not. Has anyone else said anything different?

[Feysal]

I think you're looking at it the wrong way. Lowell flipping town doesn't make me more suspicious of you. Lowell flipping scum makes me more suspicious of Spyrex. It just so happens that you and Parama would be at the top of my list if he's town simply because my read on Spyrex depends on Lowell being scum.

You missed my point. What worries me is the idea that Lowell indeed flips town, which is more likely than not, and that mislynch is then followed by more. I know I am town, and I've begun to think Parama may be too.

Why is your read on SpyreX dependent on Lowell?

[Feysal]

I seem to have received a prod, so I will check in to post, but in truth I don't have much to say.

Lowell and Primate are dead, both senators. I feared it would be so with Lowell. I can't see us gaining any useful information from these flips either. There are probably two scum left in ten players alive, and we should not get lazy now. We were lucky early in the game, and got a huge lead on the scum, but this game is still far from being won.

I am surprised by the choice of Consuls, particularly SensFan, after ribwich swore he would not be Consul again on the first day. He may be going somewhere with this, but if he is, that is for him to know and explain when he chooses.

This may not be necessary in the least, but I'm fine with The Fonz as Tribune.

Vote: The Fonz

[Feysal]

Very well, you have a point there. I can warn the town not to be lazy, but I would be a poor town player if I did not practice what I preach. Let's see if we can get some more discussion going about Tribunes.

Unvote: The Fonz
Vote: scotmany12

It is not that you would be a bad Tribune choice, but I think scotmany12 is in risk of being lynched, and I trust him to be town as well. Him being unlynchable today would please me, and it would allow for better process of elimination. With the Consuls and Tribune being unlynchable, the Consulmaker above suspicion, and you as a solid town read no one suspects anyway, the possible lynch choices would be reduced to five, myself included.

On the topic of myself, I of course do not wish to die. However if I must go, I refuse to go down quietly. The bad thing about the Lowell lynch is that so few people said anything about it, and so we missed a chance to learn about players from the stances they took. I won't be repeating that mistake. If I must die, I want everyone who agrees with my death to say so and explain why.

For starters, back in post #1193 I responded to Shanba's case on me. I don't think I've seen anyone comment on it, although I have still seen people name me as one of their top suspects. I would like to hear some responses now. Was there some concern I failed to address in my response, or is there something else to the suspicion on me that has not been said? Even if it is just gut or bad vibes, let's hear it. And for the record, I consider gut and bad vibes to be exceptionally poor arguments. I know better than to trust my own gut, and I certainly don't trust anyone else's.

As for my reads, there are some thoughts about Shanba I have not yet said, and for others I should do more ISO reads.

Preview edit: in response to the discussion after The Fonz posted, would it really be bad if we got a scum Tribune? On the first day, SensFan argued in favor of scum Tribunes, how this would force them to take definite stances. If scum were to save fellow scum at this point, it would be an optimal outcome, since there can't be more than two left. Did something change your mind, SensFan? If we're going to take a risk with Tribune votes, should it not be now while we still have a comfortable lead?

[Feysal]

Tribunes have two powers: they are immune to execution, and they can make someone else immune to execution. If we were to elect ribwich as Tribune, we would essentially be choosing not to have a Tribune at all. No one is going to try to execute ribwich anyway, and if he won't use his power to veto, then the whole potential of the Tribune is wasted, and we get no information from the votes either. I'm not in favor of this. At the very least, we can use Tribune votes as a vote of confidence, to choose someone that the town does not want to be lynched, by granting that player immunity.

As for the scum Tribune, yes, there is a chance that they would save their partner. If this happened, it would cause major suspicion for both the Tribune and the player he saved. I'd welcome it if scum did something this stupid, but I doubt they'd make another mistake this bad in one game. It is far more likely that scum would bus his partner by not vetoing his execution. This would actually be an argument in favor of scum as Tribune... scum could probably not risk vetoing the death of his partner, but town could be fooled into doing so, and become suspect because of it.

Of course there is still the problem that if scum was elected as Tribune, that scum would be immune to execution, and the odds of finding the one other scum and executing him would be much lower than if we had a town Tribune. By this time, this is reason enough not to pick our most suspect players as Tribunes.

In short: it is obvious that The Fonz has the confidence of the town. There is no real need to elect him as Tribune, and even less reason to elect ribwich, since they won't be executed anyway. Can we agree on anyone else who would deserve that confidence, and who would deserve to be unlynchable today? Even if Tribunes are discouraged from using their veto, voting for someone to become immune to execution would still have merit.

[Feysal]

Maybe I'm missing something, Feysal, but why it is in the Town's best interests to decide now on someone that will be immune from being lynched today?

Why would it not be? In a normal mafia game, players vote for who they want to die. Here, we would be voting for who we want to live. Of course the former is more powerful, but since that is not available to us, we should make use of the latter while we are able. It would be a way of getting definite stances from players, by forcing them to go on record with their townreads. Of course, to make it useful, ribwich and The Fonz should be excluded as candidates, since there is no information to be gained from electing either of them.

[Feysal]

I want someone to go down and tell me all the shit on him. Everything. So that I can make a judgement. I feel like I'm trying to do this in the dark here, trying to both divine why people are thinking he's scum and whether they're correct at the same time. Am I the dumb one? I don't see it.

I've seen you ask this multiple times, yet no one has answered. Perhaps you should ask Parama directly. He was the one who started the suspicion on Nathanael, and has been consistently pushing for his lynch.

I will now give my own take of the Nathanael case. Before I start, I want to make it abundantly clear that I don't agree on Nathanael being scum. If this post would have a title, it would be "Why Parama thinks Nathanael is scum, and why the case is bad".

For starters, some of Parama's early posts on day one (I've left out the parts not relevant to this):

Nathanael is scum
...
The Nath read is partly because of his fail logic, but I've come to expect that from the player. However, it's especially bad in this game - he's pretty much trying to line up lynches from the looks of things. Bleh I probably didn't say that the way I wanted to but whatever.
...
Nath 122 calls something that wasn't an attack an attack. Paranoid much? OH LOOK HE VOTES MY OTHER SCUM READ FOR TRIBUNE SOON AFTER. DING DING DING DING DING PARAMA WINS AGAIN. EDIT: He even re-votes later. Uuuuuh.

This is where it began. Parama declared a scumread of Nathanael, based on three things. One, for lining up lynches. Second, because Nathanael pointed his finger of suspicion at chesskid3, who was demanding him to explain why he voted Lowell instead of himself. Third, because Nathanael voted my predecessor, Rabies, for Tribune.

The first point I'll get back to. The second point I don't agree with, since chesskid3 was clearly being irrational. He asked Nathanael why he was voting Lowell instead of himself, and when SensFan pointed out that voting for yourself was useless (doubly so if you're already a Consul), chesskid3 really jumped and got defensive. He never directly attacked Nathanael, that is true, but I can see how Nathanael could see it as if chesskid3 thought his vote was scummy. I really don't see Nathanael as the paranoid one in this episode, that label goes to chesskid3. Parama would not say so of course, since he got chesskid3's slot.

The third point I would disagree with on general principle, even if it were not Nathanael voting my predecessor Rabies. Making your scumread dependent on your read on someone else, who may or may not be scum, is rather useless. After you know some alignments from flips there is a point to it, before that looking at vote history really has little meaning. From my personal point of view, I can say that this relation is a null tell, as I am town. So was Lowell, Nathanael's first vote. Of course the town does not have my knowledge of my alignment, so you don't have to share my view.

As for the first point about lining up lynches, Parama was asked what he meant. This was his response, after he was asked the third time:

I'll answer

when I give damn

.
I'm not going to bother pushing a case on someone who's unlynchable today.

What pro-scum reason would there be for lying about being consulmaker?

Supremely unhelpful, and completely devoid of town motivation. If I had a scum suspect I was pushing as strongly as Parama was, I would make sure to present my case before the night, to avoid the risk of it dying with me. And yes, Parama had repeatedly accused Nathanael of being scum.

And now we get to the full case, as it was when Parama finally posted it, the next day:

I really see no reason why we should not execute one of {Jack, ribwich}. As none of them took their claim back, it is clear that one of them has to be scum.
Since lynching the consulmaker is in no way worse than lynching a VT, we basically have a 50% chance of hitting scum without any drawback. You will never get such a high

a priori

(that is, without relying on scum/town-tells) percentage elsewhere.

And if both are town, we just lost two lynches based on a flawed dichotomy. Why you pushed the consulmaker lynch on D1 is beyond me.

This is what Parama called fail logic. This makes perfect sense to me, and it made perfect sense to scotmany12 and Lowell, who posted before Nathanael. Lowell went so far as to say this:

So... we already have a claim and counterclaim? We kill them, right? What's hard about this?

Inexplicably, Parama gave Lowell a town read, although he had supported lynching the Consulmaker claimants, just like scotmany12 and Nathanael. I call this consistency failure. Even if Parama had been consistent in treating this as a scumtell, I would still not agree with this being lining up lynches.

Come to think of it, why have we not pressured Parama for saying Jack and ribwich were both town? That was a major reason for the suspicion on reckoner, if I recall. Given how strongly Parama supported this view, you'd think that he'd have brought it up when Nathanael was defending Jack, but no. Parama barely mentions Jack at all after this case. Maybe he realized how silly the idea that they were both town was, but he never acknowledged that either.

PS:

FoS: chesskid

, for his nonsense-attack on me.

This supposed "attack" was chesskid3 (my player slot) saying he disagreed with Nathanael's tribune vote on Lowell (in less subtle language, of course). That he took it as an attack is scum paranoia.

I already explained my view on this, chesskid3 appears much more paranoid than Nathanael to me. Moving on.

Case two, Jack and ribwich are scum: the consulmaker chooses one out of each group, best case both consuls survive and we know two scum, worst case one consul dies and we lynch one of {Jack, ribwich} (the one whose group the consul was not in). Extremely unlikely worst case, both consuls die, in this case we look at the players who died, if there are only two players, it's as if we had the consuls, and will know everything. Should there be three deaths, probably the third consulmaker should out himself.

This is plain and simple filler. There is no way 2 scum would both claim consulmaker and cc each other.

Actually, I rather like how thorough Nathanael is being here. If you're exploring all possibilities in a dilemma such as this, you might as well cover the extremely unlikely ones too. Because, every once in a while, scum try something extremely unlikely precisely because town is unlikely to consider it, or scum just do something extremely stupid. That said, I consider this case a null tell.

Case three, Jack and ribwich are both town. I am not going to consider this case because in this case one of them is a complete idiot. The only possible way this could be is if the mod had forced one townie to claim consulmaker. (

Mod, is there anything bastardly in this game?

)

Watch and learn:
Jacktown claims consulmaker to cover for the real consulmaker and try to attract a kill as a VT.
Ribwichtown the idiot ccs because he is unable to process this simple thought process and ruins the entire point of Jack's claim.
That Nath doesn't even try and consider this option FROM HIS POSITION shows that he's aiming towards the dichotomy and is scum trying to set up two mislynches based on claims alone. Even a 3rd grader has enough of the brain to come up with the solution, "Oooh they could both be town right? Right? Riiiight?"

This point of course lost all value when Jack flipped scum, and it never had much. Like ribwich said immediately after this was posted, protecting the Consulmaker is pointless, since it is not a real power role, and it made no sense to think they were both town.

FoS: SensFan

This random FoS now gives Nath the ability to veto every single lynch Sens tried to push without looking bad for it. Clever, huh?

What Parama is basically saying here is that it is scummy to suspect your fellow Consul. No consideration given to Nathanael possibly having a real scumread on SensFan, who Parama gave a town read. I wonder why he did? If Nathanael was initially scummy for fail logic, and SensFan was not when he suggested a plan that would make a confirmed scum Consul, there is something amiss. Parama did not explain his read on SensFan at all in his post of initial reads.

VETO: chesskid's execution.

PS: SensFan is scum.

Like that! See? Seeeeee?
It's funny because Nath put up that FoS of chesskid3 earlier, and chesskid3 doesn't tend to do much to get rid of those. It's like he's forgetting his own reads. OH WAIT.

I really can't understand Parama's thought process here. He is implying Nathanael should look scummy for vetoing SensFan's executions, and the one he picks as an example is his own slot? What the hell? Why should vetoing your slot's execution be a scumtell? If you think Nathanael was angling for town credit when he saved you, say so. But then, he later tried to execute you himself. Yeah, clearly not looking for town credit from saving you. This point makes absolutely no sense.

The single thing about this case I could agree with is Nathanael's indecisiveness about chesskid3 and then Parama. First suspecting him, then vetoing his execution, and finally trying to execute Parama. I asked Nathanael about this, he explained it in #805, and I accept his response as making sense.

why do you think that SensFan is town?

Why do you think SensFan is scum? Saying something over and over doesn't make it true.

Nice dodge. There is, and was, plenty of reason to consider SensFan scummy. I detailed my read on him in one of my first posts, and there had been discussion in thread on the subject before either of us replaced in. Also, note the hypocricy in Nathanael saying over and over SensFan was scum, when Parama spent day one doing exactly the same thing, repeating over and over that Nathanael was scum, and outright refusing to explain why.

Parama, mind some thoughts?

Yes I would and I did and I have no clue why you asked this less than 24 hours after I replaced in even after I promised to put up content shortly after which I did oh joy. It's like you're looking for reasons to suspect me

Looking for content from a new replacement is not a bad thing, is it?

EXECUTE: SensFan!

Spoiler: ...

Yes, I know he is unlynchable. I just wanted to draw attention to how scummy he is.

Still don't see any explanation.

Is this not obvious? This was Nathanael calling attention to his scumread, the same thing Parama kept doing with Nathanael. He even purposely misquoted this very post for the purpose.

VETO: KATSUKI's EXECUTION

EXECUTE: KATSUKI

"LET'S MAKE IT LOOK LIKE ME AND KATS ARE SCUM TOGETHER SO THAT:
A. If Kats gets lynched, I look like town for trying to delay the lynch!
B. If I get lynched, Kats looks like my scumbuddy!"
Yeah. I already went over this.

This is the point I hate most of all. This is one of those catch-22 points where you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. Here Parama is obviously working from the assumption that Nathanael is scum, and only considers anti-town motives for his delaying. First of all, delaying the execution to allow for more discussion is a pro-town thing to do. It is ridiculous to say that Nathanael was trying to delay the execution so that there would be no time for discussion close to deadline, when if he had not delayed it there would have been no discussion at all. Eventually powerrox93 was executed two days before deadline, and not because there was no time for discussion. It was more like discussion dried up.

VETO: KATSUKI'S EXECUTION

EXECUTE: KATSUKI

See above.

Yes, see above.

VETO: KATSUKI'S EXECUTION

We are not executing Katsuki today.

EXECUTE: Parama

'nuff said.

By this point, I wish you had been executed. That would give us insight into the motives of two players, Nathanael and SensFan, both of whom tried to execute your slot. It is not too late though.

Also, Parama is the most obv-town player in the game FFS.

Tell me how Parama is obv-town!

Tell me why you think I'm scum?
You do nothing but ask questions of people without providing answers yourself.

Again with the dodge. Again with the hypocricy. Parama accuses Nathanael of not providing answers, while at the same time he does not provide an answer. Real cute. In my experience, Nathanael has answered any questions directed at him, while Parama has kept dodging them.

This also reminds me to note how dramonic, confirmed scum, was saying how obvtown chesskid3 and Parama were. Repeatedly. There were some more things to my case on Parama too, read it in full if you like in #840.

This is the original case on Nathanael in all its uglyness. Who would want to sheep this? Not me. Not ribwich either, based on his comment in #706. I can't recall if others have commented, but if not, now would be an excellent time.

Of course, more things happened later. Nathanael defended Jack quite strongly, and was wrong. He was not alone in that, and while I could imagine this being a desperate attempt to save a fellow scum after the loss of dramonic, I don't. Too obvious, and Nathanael's conviction was too strong.

The Nathanael thing just doesn't FEEL right at this point. Like there are people who are suspicious of him for the whole VETO/EXECUTE thing day 1: in particular someone (SensFan I think) mentioned he found this scummy because it was taking away time from people talking by pushing the execution closer to deadline, which is the most bizarre and dumb thing ever.

I'm glad you agree. And yes, it was SensFan, post #829.

Then there's the fact that everyone who suspects him seems to suspect him for different reasons. That's not something I've seen before, but compare, say, Parama's "this is how scum push lynches" with Magua's "I do begrudge him for not changing any of his reads, as near as I can tell, in response to the Jack-scum flip, especially in regards to SensFan" with SpyreX's assertion that his posts have been survival focused. Either he's the worst scumbag ever or people are simply making shit up at this point. Like, I'm not sure I'm explaining myself properly, but I feel if there was actual scummy shit going on a) I would be able to see it and b) people wouldn't disagree about what it is to such an extent. So I'm wary.

I think this is a combination of two things, scum making up reasons, and town seeing things due to confirmation bias. Parama in particular has been saying Nathanael was scum all game, and SensFan also had a short altercation with Nathanael over his reason for vetoing chesskid3's execution day one, on page 33. These are the things this case is made of. What is at the core is Parama's case in #700 though. That was where the ball started rolling.

Because I submitted an execution on Kat with something like a week left, I think. Then he delayed it a couple times, with the excuse that he was just giving more people time to talk before the Kat lynch. And then with like 3 days left, he pulled someone out of the blue and submitted an execution on them for really weak reasons, leaving everyone with a day to figure out if they like that lynch or not. That's very very scummy shit.

You submitted Katsuki's execution eight days before deadline. Parama by Nathanael was five days before deadline, and powerrox93 four days before. And powerrox93 did not appear from out of the blue, he was considered scummy by many players, including myself. And Jack. In retrospect, I should have paid attention to the twinge in my gut when Jack agreed with powerrox93 being executed. But, I said nothing.

So wait, the fact that everyone who suspects him is able to bring up even more reasons, rather than just sheeping each other's reasons, is a

bad

thing? You're kidding, right?

Given how horribly bad the original case was, no one should be sheeping that. The reasons other players have given are not really additions to a case, since the original case is so weak it should not be dignified by calling it a case. Thing is, no one has ever put together any kind of credible case on Nathanael, these added reasons just don't add up into a case by themselves. If there was such a case, then maybe I could believe these observations from people were real signs of scumminess from Nathanael. As things are, I believe Nathanael is town, and scum are trying to push a mislynch on him. Parama would be my first suspect for this. If it weren't for people having townreads on chesskid3, I'd think Parama would've been executed already.

On that note, given that we only have a week between the Tribune phase and the Day deadline, I propose that, if Magua agrees, Nathanael should claim soon, rather than waiting for an official execution to be submitted on him, so that there's more time for discussing the merits of his claim and/or agreeing on a secondary target.

Good to know that you don't deny forcing Town into a last-minute decision.
Also good to know that you have decided not to claim, which will give Town less time to discuss today as well.

Explain to me why Nathanael should claim? The only unclaimed power role we know of is the vigilante, and if he claims it, he is certain to be nightkilled. If you suspect he could be the vigilante you should not be pushing him at all.

I would suggest executing Parama. If he is scum, and I believe he is, that would go a long way to clear SensFan and Nathanael who tried to execute him. That is a significant potential benefit from a single execution. However, I will also second ribwich's question about what made Nathanael believe Katsuki/Magua was town. I could maybe guess, but that is for Nathanael to answer.

This became a real mother of a wall post, and took hours to write and research. Hope it was not wasted effort.

[Feysal]

I'm not responding to any of it, so it's definitely wasted.

I might've known, you did not respond the last time I put together my case on you either. Odd that despite this attitude, you still accused Nathanael of not providing answers.

[Feysal]

Explain to me why Nathanael should claim? The only unclaimed power role we know of is the vigilante, and if he claims it, he is certain to be nightkilled. If you suspect he could be the vigilante you should not be pushing him at all.

You're a fucking idiot. You would prefer if he were executed without a chance to claim?

No, I would prefer he not be executed at all. I would prefer to defend him without forcing him to role claim. And note, we have over a week left, it's not like he would not have a chance to role claim.

[Feysal]

IT KEEPS HAPPENING! THE SCUM, THEY FLOCK TO ME LIKE SHEEP!

And vice versa too, it seems. Remember that fake distancing between dramonic and reckoner back on page 21? You poked your nose right into it and sided with dramonic. That was your own doing.

I would suggest executing Parama.

I love the wording here. It says:
"Hmm, you should probably kill him for these reasons I've outlined, but I will take no blame myself when he flips town, so it's win-win for me as scum. Yay."
Yeah.

I lied about not responding to anything because this is too funny.

And how do you arrive at this conclusion? It is such a simple sentence. Analyze it grammatically, and you will notice that I am the subject.

I

made the case on you.

I

made the suggestion for executing you.

I

bear the responsibility for both. I am not a Consul though so I cannot execute you, but if I could I would. I cannot see how you could possibly interpret my sentence the way you did, by any stretch of the imagination.

I said before that Parama was a good execution since his death would give insight into the motives of two players. I should add myself as a third. I've made it clear in no uncertain terms that I would execute Parama. Make of that what you will.

[Feysal]

I said before that Parama was a good execution since his death would give insight into the motives of two players. I should add myself as a third. I've made it clear in no uncertain terms that I would execute Parama. Make of that what you will.

This makes it seem like you only want to execute me for associations, and not because you think I'm scum.
Shockingly enough, you don't think I'm scum because you're scum yourself, so it's half-true.

Again you fail to understand, or you fail to read.

If he is scum, and I believe he is, that would go a long way to clear SensFan and Nathanael who tried to execute him.

I said quite clearly that I believed you were scum. SensFan and Nathanael can only receive town credit if you do flip scum. I don't know if I would share that credit, the town might think that I bussed you to save myself, but that is not for either of us to decide.

And there you go again calling me scum, like you've done all game. You know what I just noticed? You've never changed any of your reads in response to flips. You acknowledged dramonic flipping scum in a single post, and continued to suspect me and scotmany12, the only two players who voiced any suspicion that dramonic and reckoner were both scum. You said, in post #965, that Jack probably was not scum because Nathanael was. You've not acknowledged Jack flipping scum with a single word, even after how strongly you supported the theory that he and ribwich were both town, and you continue to suspect Nathanael. Magua said he was suspicious of Nathanael for not changing his reads after a scum flip? You've done exactly the same, and you've done it twice.

I hope you realize all of the following:
a) A week isn't much time at all when it takes 2 days to find out if any Execution goes through
b) He is going to be put on the Execution block, at which point he should claim. I'm trying to speed up the process, so that we have more time to look at his claim and decide if he's still the lynch for today, and if not, pick someone else (and then give them 2 days for the execution to go through, etc...)

I hope that you realize how dumb it would be to put Nathanael up for execution when there is no case against him that would hold water. Shanba has asked many times for that case, and no one has come forward with one. You're talking as if putting Nathanael on the block was a done deal, when it should not be. If you intend to do that, I expect you to give good reason for it.

[Feysal]

If you don't think I've given more than enough reasons over the course of the game for why I think he's Scum. I

will

be putting Nathanael on the block as soon as I get online after the Tribunal election ends, and I think it would be in the Town's best interests to get the ball rolling along the process of {claim, claim discussion, looking at alternatives, picking an alternative, claim, etc...}.

No, I don't think you've given nearly enough reasons for why Nathanael would be scum. I just looked through your ISO and searched for all references to Nathanael there. Your first argument was that Nathanael was scummy for delaying Katsuki's execution, and that was you blatantly sheeping Parama. The only part of that point that was your own was that Nathanael would have been delaying so he could execute someone at deadline with no discussion. I've made it clear that this point is idiotic.

You said there were three scum reasons for Nathanael to delay. One, so he could look town for delaying the execution of a townie to allow more discussion. Problem is, this did not make him look townier at all, and you're completely ignoring the fact that if delaying an execution was a towntell the scum would want to emulate, then it would be something the town would do. You've completely neglected the explanation that Nathanael just wanted more time for discussion. Your second reason was that Nathanael would get to keep a useless lurker alive instead of someone posting, and the player he ended up executing was another useless lurker. The third point about executing at deadline to minimize time for discussion is just stupid, when that did not even happen. The execution happened two days before deadline, after the discussion had dried up, and when many people had agreed with executing powerrox93.

What else is there? There was the episode where you disagreed with Nathanael's reason for vetoing chesskid3's execution. That was your own misunderstanding. It was obvious to me that Nathanael vetoed because he knew you were trying to policy lynch, and he did not want that, he wanted a scum lynch. Aside from that, there were just isolated tidbits. You said he was making no sense in his defense of Jack, and you never even tried to build a case out of that.

So, I repeat, you have no case on Nathanael. If you try to have him executed when Parama is right there, looking scummy as sin, you will have hell to pay when Nathanael flips town.

As for your suggestion of claims, discussing claims and looking at alternatives, you can't be serious. We've only one power role left as far as I know, and starting to claim like this would only help the scum find that power role sooner, by process of elimination. Just look at what you said there. You are being idiotic.

Nathanael needs to claim now.

It's obvious that an execution is going to be put in on him. Not claiming now is just wasting what little time we have, and it gives him more time to come up with a believable claim if he is scum.

Not you too. Why is it obvious an execution would be put on him? And what possible claim could the scum come up with? In a game this poor on power roles, and nearly all of them gone, the only claim the scum could make is vanilla townie, AKA Roman Senator. Anything else and I would not believe it. If they were to claim vigilante, they would be counterclaimed by the real vigilante, so the scum can't do that either.

[Feysal]

One consul has said he will do it right away, the other has Nathanael on his "would execute" list, and the current tribune vote leader has expressed no interest in vetoing such an execution.

You are right about this, and this is precisely why I need to defend Nathanael. If I can get someone in power to change his mind and veto Nathanael, then we might actually get a scum lynch today. I may have an uphill battle ahead of me in getting that to happen, particularly since my own reputation is not so good, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let one of my better townreads get executed and do nothing about it.

[Feysal]

FYI, nothing but a claim will have any hope of swaying my decision. I will be submitting an execution on Nathanael at precisely 15:17 GMT on Sunday.

Fine, be stubborn if you want to. Being unable to reconsider and question your own reads is not exactly a town trait though. Scum can often tunnel mindlessly, and now you irreasonably support villainous intentions gone into leading away Nathanael to execution. To hell with talking to you then. Maybe Magua and The Fonz can be reasoned with.

Where are Magua and The Fonz anyway? I should think that the discussion on who to execute would interest them too.

[Feysal]

I've explained multiple times why I think he's Scum. So has more than one other person. Try reading the thread.

Try looking for those explanations, and all you will find are isolated remarks and opinions, not a single proper explanation or case. What Parama wrote on Nathanael was too pathetic to deserve being called a case. And I've never seen an explanation from you either, let alone many. All you've ever said on why Nathanael is scum is scattered all over your ISO.

You'd be a lot more likely to understand my posts if you read them, Nathanael. I wasn't attacking chesskid on the basis I thought he was particularily likely to be Scum.

This was the start of the first instance where you openly expressed suspicion of Nathanael. To recap, I had asked Nathanael why he tried to execute Parama when earlier that day he had vetoed chesskid3's execution twice. Nathanael explained that he vetoed because your attack on chesskid3 was nonsense, and because there was no reason for chesskid3 to be scum at that point. You responded with the above post. Nathanael said, truthfully, that he had never said that you would've believed chesskid3 was scum, and that he did not even think about whether you thought that at the time he vetoed. Suddenly you claimed that Nathanael had supposedly contradicted himself, in the post below.

You were asked about the flip-flop of your stance as it pertains to chesskid/parama, and instead of saying the obvious (something like 'I changed my mind on chesskid' or 'I just wanted to give people more time to discuss, so I vetoed Sens' Glroking even though I was suspicious of chesskid') you decided to attack me instead by saying my attack was nonsense because there was no reason for me to think chesskid was Scum. Minor red flag is raised with that explanation, because it stinks of trying to deflect the pressure from chesskid to me.

Then I point out that my attempted execution of chesskid wasn't based at all on me thinking he was Scum. Your immediate reaction is fairly predictable, you recalled that I was attempting a 'policy lynch' on chesskid, and so immediately jumped to try and debunk my criticism of you by asking me where you said you thought I thought chesskid was Scum. Unfortunately, you seem to have forgotten your claimed reasons for vetoing the chesskid execution that you gave a handful of posts ago.

The first paragraph is already terrible. It would be hilarious how you thought that Nathanael was attacking you with his explanation, if you were not apparently serious about that. I will say it to your face, your attempts to execute chesskid3 were ridiculous, Nathanael was very much right calling your attack nonsense. And what ever do you mean with that comment about deflecting pressure off chesskid3? What pressure? Not to mention, chesskid3 had been replaced by Parama long before this. The worst part though is where you claim that Nathanael said that there was no reason for you to think chesskid3 was scum. That was not what Nathanael said. That was you misquoting him. What Nathanael actually said was that your attack on chesskid3 was nonsense, and that there was no reason for him to be scum. He never said that you would've thought so.

In the second paragraph you present the supposed contradiction, and fail at it due to your error above. It was not Nathanael who forgot his claimed reason for vetoing chesskid3's execution. It was you who did not read very well. So much for this point.

Do you think Nathanael and I are scum partners?

If you do not, what rationale would scum-Nathanael have for delaying the execution of town-Katsuki three times?

1) You might be; I don't have a read on you yet
2a) It makes him look good if/when Kat flips Town
2b) He gets to keep a useless lurker around instead of someone posting
2c) He gets to delay the day until close to deadline, leaving very little time for discussion when after he swapped over to another execution

I've gone over this one before. You sheeped the point about delaying the execution off Parama, and it was already terrible when Parama wrote it. Your two additions (I spoke of one previously, I forgot 2b and 2c were both yours) are both nonsensical. Nathanael did not in fact keep around a useless lurker, he just executed a different one. And if I have to explain one more time why 2c is ridiculous, I might just start foaming at the mouth.

If there's enough demand by people other than Nathaneal for me to keep pointing out why he's as wrong as is possible to be, I'll do it. Otherwise, I'll let the game move on, since I'm pretty sure most people can see that his supposed stance on Jack is completely asinine.

You call Nathanael's stance on Jack asinine, and in retrospect he admittedly was wrong. You did not know that at the time though, and for all I know Nathanael made a townie mistake. I find it hard to imagine that scum would defend their partner like this, they should have known to cut their losses and allow Jack to die.

"There's a scumtell in your last post. If you can find it, I won't count it against you."
"Ignore the super scummy thing he did; you should just look at the slightly townie things he did to try and explain the super scummy thing."

These goldmines and more, brought to you by Nathanael.

Rhetoric. You did not even try to explain why these would be scumtells.

Would you look at that. Looks like chesskid may actually have been right about the fact that one of the D1 Consuls was Scum.

If you're actually somehow Town, Nathaneal, then please step away from this game for the rest of today. Tomorrow, take a deep breath and look at your posts anew. You'll see that you're not making any sense re: Jack, and you're asking me for things that I either explained weeks ago, or else explained why there's no way in hell I'm going to expand.

Pre-post: Just saw Nathan's last post. All the above applies even more. Especially when Fonz says "I want Jack lynched, if he wasn't here it would be Magua/Sens", and Nathan's response is to imply that Fonz called me "the most scummy player around".

You start with rhetoric, accusing Nathanael of being scum, and proceed to not explain why. You say Nathanael was not making sense regarding Jack (your opinion, and not necessarily scummy), was asking something explained weeks ago (you did, but an honest mistake like this is not scummy) and was asking about something you did not want to expand on (asking questions is scummy?). You were referring to something having been agreed upon, and Nathanael had every right to ask when this agreement was made and by who. I don't recall anything about such an agreement either. He also asked for clarification on your point, which is never scummy, and in response you blow up at him. You finish with another misread. Nathanael never implied anything about what The Fonz said, it was Nathanael himself who called you the most scummy player around. Well done, again you failed to explain why Nathanael would be scum.

By the way, you contradicted yourself there. When asked by ribwich, you explained that the great idea was about giving leverage to Consulmakers. In the version you gave Nathanael, it was about allowing Consuls to execute whoever they want.

Is it just me, or does Nathan say something like "this is probably the worst post in the whole game. I am really having a hard time believing you could be town. I don't care how townish your predecessor was, you are going back to scummy after this" whenever anyone calls him Scum?

Seriously. I'm pretty sure his scumlist is currently: Sens/scot/Parama/Fonz

Yes, it is just you. I hope so anyway, it would be tragic if anyone agreed. Since the one calling Nathanael scummy in this case was scummy-as-sin Parama, Nathanael had every right to put him back as scummy. Parama's wagon analysis was a joke.

Seeing a Nath execution would be like losing in overtime in the Gold medal game. I'd be really sad, and it would be a fairly hefty emotional letdown. But then the next morning, I'd realize I won the Olympic Silver medal, and I'd be happy and proud of what I accomplished.

(Yes, I'm watching Canada play international hockey right now.)

More rhetoric, and still no sign of an explanation.

Jesus, Lowell. Either at the very least read the fucking thread, or replace out and do us all a favour.

Also, perhaps I'm mistaken, but if I recall correctly, Nathanael's entire 'scumread' on me was based in large part on the fact that I was pushing too hard on Jack, in his opinion. His townread on Jack was based on the fact there was already more than enough scum bussing going around for Dram/Reck to have been bussing Jack, too. So now the natural result is that a JackScum flip means I'm still Scum? Huh?

That was not what Nathanael's scumread on you was based on, and you should know it. Nathanael began suspecting you back in #194 when you said your goal was not to lynch scum on day one. By the end of the day you were his number one suspect. Clearly based on you pushing for Jack too hard... not.

Add on 'Does his damnest to undermine the credibility of anyone who isn't mod-confirmed Town' to the list of reasons why Nathanael is probably Scum.

This was in response to Nathanael talking about The Fonz, and how he did not like him being made untouchable. It was a valid concern, we should not forget that clever scum can sometimes masquerade as obvtown. That said, I do trust The Fonz. Unlike Primate who I believed town because everyone else did, I am sure that my read on The Fonz is my own.

There it is. I did your work for you, compiled all your points against Nathanael, and denounced them one by one. Not one proper explanation in sight. If you think these add up to a credible case, you're sorely mistaken.

By this time I would love for Nathanael to be made a Tribune, to force SensFan out of his tunnel.

Unvote: scotmany12
Vote: Nathanael

[Feysal]

kcool. So if Fonz vetoes Nat, I execute Feysal.

So, you will not even consider executing scum today? You will not even consider the possibility you could be wrong? You would execute someone for pointing out you were wrong? Got it. See if I'm ever going to give credit to anything you say in the future. Hope you will like having your credibility trashed when Nathanael or I flips town, whichever you end up mislynching, you stubborn mule.

I actually want to execute Feysal more than Nath now.
It takes serious skill to be THAT scummy.

Good to know its not just me who thinks he can't believe half of what he's writing.

And there goes Parama, calling me scummy, and he gives no explanation why. Why don't you try making a case if you want me dead? That would be a welcome change.

And SensFan, you should watch what kind of company you keep. Parama is like the single most scummy player in the whole game. How you can listen to him and treat him as if he were likely town is beyond me. Can I get some agreements here?

As for you, the only reason why I think you are more likely town was because you tried to execute chesskid3, even though you were making no sense at the time. You stumbled on actual scum by accident. Ever since then, you have been wrong about almost everything, except Jack, and he was obvious scum to nearly the entire town.

And for the record, I stand behind every word I've written. I can't understand how you could believe half of what you've written about Nathanael being scum. Practically none of it makes any sense whatsoever.

ribwich, for the love of God, why did you make this idiot Consul again? He is bound to cause another mislynch at this rate, and the lead the town had is diminishing fast.

[Feysal]

Simple. Tribunes cannot be executed. If Nathanael were elected as one, he could not be executed, and SensFan would have to choose someone else. Looks like he is threatening to choose me in that case, I'd like to hear what his case is on me. Disagreements do not scum make.

[Feysal]

I don't care that you disagree with me (Shanba doesn't see the Nat case, and Fonz thinks I'm Scum, for instance). I care that your defense of him is some of the dumbest shit I've ever had to read in my life, and I think it may have caused me to lose braincells; and I don't think you're actually that thick.

You say my defense is dumb? Why don't you explain why it is dumb, or what specific things are dumb about it?

You should realize that calling something dumb is a convenient excuse for dismissing anything and everything, without actually having to do any work. That is why scum like to use it, when they can't come up with real logical arguments, or explain their actions. "Your case is dumb" or "the plan is dumb, I'm not following it" and so on. When pressed to explain, such scum can often not come up with anything credible, or they try to wriggle out of answering, and so they end up caught.

Of course I think your case on Nathanael is dumb. But I did not just say that it was dumb. See how useless such a statement would've been? Instead I've given detailed and in-depth reasons for why I think your case is dumb. Let's see if you can come up with counterarguments, other than just dismissing my defense with the catch-all dismissal of calling it dumb.

What is your stance on Parama by the way? Do you find him more likely to be town or scum, and why? Particularly if you see reasons for believing him townish, do share, because I can see none. Him replacing chesskid3 made me uncertain, but I'm long past that now. I've made my case on Parama twice now, and the only thing I could add to it is post #354 by Jack. If he was actually upset by chesskid3's play so much he wanted him replaced or replace out himself, that strongly implies a connection between them. If chesskid3 had been town, Jack could've welcomed his foolishness, the disorder he was causing, and the possible mislynch this would result in. If they were on the same team, then I can see Jack actually being upset.

I'd also like to hear more from Nathanael. If I were in his situation, I'd be sure to sort out and post my final reads, not to mention I'd be defending myself. It looks like you have no choice but to claim, given that ribwich wants it too.

[Feysal]

And Parama and SensFan are scum.

I obviously agree about Parama, but not SensFan. Don't get me wrong, I don't think there is anything townish about the way he is acting, but I can't see him and Parama being scum together. On day one, SensFan tried to execute chesskid3. It was also in response to SensFan's criticism that chesskid3 jumped and began to attract attention. This makes no sense to me if they were both scum. I can't see them orchestrating something like this, especially when they were already involved in some sort of gambit with Jack's Consulmaker claim.

Out of the two of them, I find Parama much more likely to be scum, and therefore SensFan should be town. Annoying and useless town, but still town. I would much rather see Parama executed than SensFan.

I'm a little wary about Feysal too. As much as I like his defense on me, the last time I did such a full blown point-by-point defense on someone else, I was scum. Don't know if this means anything, but I think it should be said.

We've only played in one game before that I know of, and you were killed on the first night, so you have no experience to judge me by, or vice versa. I simply believe you to be town very strongly. I have said that the case on you is garbage, but to name an actual reason for you to be town, that would be first vetoing and then trying to execute Parama. Since Parama is my top scumread, I can't see you as his partner any more than SensFan, and unlike SensFan, I agree with much of what you've done this game, and it looks town-motivated to me.

Nathaniel, are you accusing Feysal of trying to earn town points by being the one most opposed to your lynch right before the flip, or is it something else about the defense that's making you suspicious of him?

For the record, I don't believe in defending someone to be a scumtell. I would not want it to be treated as a scumtell, since that would give town players a bad incentive to not defend their town reads. Of course scum can try to obtain town credit by defending someone, which is why I don't consider it to be much of a towntell either, it is far too easily faked.

The only time I would treat defending someone as scummy is if the defender could not name any rational reasons for why the other player is town. Kind of like when you theorized Jack being town, and how only scum with inside information could know that. If scum defended town, they would also want the player they defended lynched despite their defense, which gives scum incentive to make their defenses of town half-hearted, enough to gain credit from trying but not enough for the defense to succeed.

I will leave it to you to judge whether I am looking for town credit from doing this, or whether I am genuinely trying to save someone I believe to be town.

When I ask for delays (for example say please don't hammer yet) it's because there's a specific question I want answered TODAY, a specific person I want on the record, or a specific issue I want resolved. The glib 'more discussion' just looks like posturing.

You make sense, but when Nathanael issued his delays, he did give specific reasons. It was not just buying more time for discussion. I just noticed that Parama edited out the reasons when he quoted the posts in his case. The complete posts were these:

VETO: KATSUKI's EXECUTION

EXECUTE: KATSUKI

a little time-gain.

@everyone: I want a definite statement on whether you:
a) want the katsuki lynch
b) are comfortable with the katsuki lynch
c) are uncomfortable with the katsuki lynch
d) don't want the katsuki lynch

VETO: KATSUKI's EXECUTION

EXECUTE: KATSUKI

a little time-gain.

Your ego just has to let me accomplish nothing today, doesn't it?

actually I just wanted a little more time to hear everybody.

PS: everybody, actually I'd like a reason for your answers too.

VETO: KATSUKI'S EXECUTION

EXECUTE: KATSUKI

I want to give replacements a little more time.
I am however willing to lynch Katsuki later.

To me, these look like townish reasons to delay, like the ones you described.

This is a pet peeve of mine. Not finding the town explanation particularly plausible is not neglecting it.

I concede you have a point here. Especially since, on closer look, Magua specifically asked SensFan for scum motivations to delay the execution, so SensFan could have restricted himself to those in his answer. However, I have also not seen him post anything about it possibly being town-motivated.

Is it not possible people just went along with it because deadline was nearing, though? I just feel like it's more in town's interests for Nate to take a firm position on Kat earlier than he did. Either go along with it, or make clear it's not going to happen at a point when there's time for a full discussion of other candidates. The ONLY thing Nate really achieved by vetoing and resubmitting was pushing things closer to deadline.

It is certainly possible that fatigue contributed to the discussion drying up, but I can't see why Nathanael should be blamed for that. It is also easier said than done to have a firm stance on a first day, on someone who had posted as little as Katsuki. Nathanael could have asked for opinions to help make up his mind. Finally, I'd say Nathanael achieved plenty. He got several people to take definite stances on Katsuki, including two of our flipped scum, and them agreeing with the execution is a strong reason for me to believe Magua town now. He traded Katsuki for powerrox93, and while it turned out to be a mislynch, you admitted he was an understandable player for town to execute. The one thing I cannot see is him having achieved anything that would help the scum. If he was planning to push things closer to deadline, he really did not try to take advantage of that from what I can see.

Nate, if scum, was probably working on the basis that Dram executing scum would make Dram look town for a good few days. In that scenario, Nate probably figures, because Dramonic's got so much towncred, we can afford to bus Jack. Then Dram dies overnight, and all of a sudden the numbers game looks pretty bad for the scum.

Nate needs to hit reverse PDQ, and the only thing he's got to hang his hat on is 'scum wouldn't double bus.' Nate knows this is a poor reason, but knows from experience if he makes a bad argument and really sticks with it obstinately in the face of all possible evidence then people will assume he's just stubborn town.

The alternative is that he actually bought the 'scum won't double bus' theory, and while I've seen townies believe stranger things, it's still pretty unlikely in my eyes.

I've seen stranger things in mafia games too. You make a credible point, but I disagree on that being the best play for scum in that situation. In this setup, all the scum need is one player who has a sufficient town reputation to either be made the final Dictator, or one that is not executed by the final Dictator. This setup works differently from normal mafia in that the scum have a much higher chance of winning in endgame. I'd bet the scum plan was to make dramonic sufficiently townish with the double bus that he would be made Dictator, and he would go on to automatically win.

Because of the difference of the setup, I would say that numbers are less important to the scum in this game, and what they really need is a pro-town reputation, which would let them win by being made the final Dictator. This is an added reason why I can't see Nathanael knowingly defending scum. Even in a normal game, I think it would be the best thing for the scum to salvage what they could and bus Jack like intended, and here even more so. Nathanael should have known Jack was a lost cause, that he could never win for scum in endgame, that it was only a matter of time before Jack was executed. If he were scum, Nathanael would have hurt his own chances of winning by defending Jack, and he should have known this.

That is why I believe Nathanael more likely to be town. Defending Jack would be very bad play for scum, and so it looks more like a townie mistake to me. Informed and calculating scum should know better.

I think I have to reread that day though. If I remember right, it was SpyreX who first proposed the double bus theory clearing Jack, but I'll have to double check if he was the first.

As for you, Feysal, I find it very hard to take you seriously when you're basically arguing that defending scum at a scumvenient point is a towntell. And I don't really see what's superscummy about Parama apart from, maybe, that he was calling your slot scum from the moment he entered. The scummiest thing I can find is the defence of Jack, but then, he's not alone in that, is he?

Thing is, like I explained above, I think it was a convenient moment for one thing only, to bus Jack.

The list of reasons why I think Parama is scum is likely too long for this post. I've made a number of points, but they're scattered around my ISO. I'll be sure to combine them into a single case before today is out.

[Feysal]

I'm not following this at all - because it would be exactly what you said. Instead of Nat getting the bullet you'd get the bullet.

Making Nathanael Tribune would have made him immune to execution. This would have forced SensFan out of tunneling and to look for another suspect. I voted Nathanael first, and SensFan threatened me in his next post. I could not and did not predict that.

Well, of course, Nat would veto that. So, all this would do in practicality is make sure neither you nor Nat could be lynched.

Not according to his latest posts. Nathanael apparently finds me scummy, perhaps because of the reasons Shanba posted, or he thinks I am looking for town credit for defending him. It should be obvious I am not. I was already accused of doing the same with Katsuki, and I know perfectly well I'm not making myself look any better by continuing this. I've said I consider defending someone to be a null tell, and I will not ask permission or apologize for defending my town reads. Someone might argue I'm trying to look better by saying this, like reckoner said to SensFan in #469. That's up to you. I am simply playing to the best of my ability.

Which does ??? for seeing if Sens is town. Because, I'd eat a hat on top of everything else if this was a bus.

I said nothing about seeing whether SensFan was town. I said making Nathanael Tribune would force SensFan out of tunnling on him, and it did. I did not know I would be his second option until he threatened me in his next post, and now I do.

@Feysal:

If we weren't going to execute Nathanael or Parama today, who would you want executed?

SpyreX. I have reason to believe nearly everyone else town, and I never got over the scummy feeling I got from him pushing the Katsuki execution. If I can manage the time before the execution, I'll try to put together something on SpyreX.

For the record, Shanba was another I had doubts about, but I'm feeling rather better about him recently.

Feysal's posts make my head hurt. His main agenda is to get parama lynched, not save nate. My suspicion is growing of him after his last few posts. What he does tomorrow is going to be very key.

I am trying to do both at the same time, defending Nathanael while offering Parama as an alternative execution. I am using my defense of Nathanael as a means to attack Parama for his bad case on him, and offering an alternative execution would make my defense of Nathanael that much more likely to succeed.

That said, I really can't do better to defend Nathanael. Apparently everyone in power agrees with the execution. So, all I have left to do today is to compile my case on Parama as promised, and maybe SpyreX if I have enough time. I believe they are our final two scum.

[Feysal]

Here it comes, the grand case of why Parama is scum.

I know some of these things don't mean much by themselves, but there is such a massive number of them that they start to look indicative of scum. And there are some tells I consider pretty strong too.

For starters, some relational tells.

RELATIONAL TELLS

Another strategy thought: best picks in the future may very well be scummy-VI'ish type players (or at least one). People who are easy mislynch targets for scum and who might reveal info in their choices.

As a scummy-VI btw I want to be a consul :DDDD

Here it begins. Jack suggests making scummy-VI players into Consuls, and chesskid3 is there to ask for Consulship, claiming to be scummy-VI.

@mod:find a replacement for chesskid (or me)

Here we have Jack expressing his displeasure with chesskid3, during his fight with SensFan. Of course, he could simply be posing, since it would be townish to be angry about spamming the thread. But, threatening to replace out is rather extreme to be posing. Why would Jack be this upset with chesskid3 if he was town? Scum would thank their lucky stars for a townie making himself into a potential mislynch like chesskid3 was doing. They would maybe make a half-hearted rebuke, not demand for that player to be replaced with a threat of replacing out themselves. To me, this is a strong indicator that they were scum together, and Jack was upset with his teammate failing in his play.

Chesskid and Sens are town. That's not a good thing though

Again Sens, I understand your frustration at Chesskid3's incredible usefulness, but even though he's a twat he's still town. Bad, annoying, frustrating town, but he is. You're town too, do the right thing and off someone who has actual odds at being scum.

@Chess: Sorry pumpkin, but even though you claim to be unstable meta-wise, you're predictable. Stop experimenting and start playing.

Well, the bad thing is I can't read Parama AFAIK
The good thing is that Chess was so obvtown that I wont have to

Also, Parama is the most obv-town player in the game FFS.

Meta.
Chesskid was obv-town, he always, ALWAYS play like that as town.
Heck, a cop could investigate him and if he gets a guilty I'd call him most likely insane.

Five times. Five times dramonic calls chesskid3 or Parama town. Does this look like scum defending a partner to anyone else? To me it does. And as if that were not enough...

Whee, dramonic's reads in 224 are mostly mine backwards! He's probably town

This has got to be one of the silliest reasons I've ever seen for giving someone a town read. After this, when dramonic and reckoner have their distancing fight on page 21, Parama is in the middle of it, taking dramonic's side.

And then, the best part:

I don't understand why people think one of the consuls is scum. Jack is obvtown for claiming in the first place and ribwich is obvtown for ccing. Town CAN lie y'know.

What pro-scum reason would there be for lying about being consulmaker?

Consul picks are bad, both consulmakers are still town, etc.

Jacktown claims consulmaker to cover for the real consulmaker and try to attract a kill as a VT.
Ribwichtown the idiot ccs because he is unable to process this simple thought process and ruins the entire point of Jack's claim.
That Nath doesn't even try and consider this option FROM HIS POSITION shows that he's aiming towards the dichotomy and is scum trying to set up two mislynches based on claims alone. Even a 3rd grader has enough of the brain to come up with the solution, "Oooh they could both be town right? right? Riiiight?"

Parama was defending Jack with his theory of both Consulmaker claimants being town, even after Jack had been caught lying. His explanation for why they would both be town is horrible. And what do you know?

Who out of {Jack, ribwich} do you think is the real consulmaker?

Ribwich, but Jack ain't scum sooooooooooo go figure.

I found this while doing a reread of chesskid3. Somehow, he thinks Jack is town, even though he believes ribwich is the true Consulmaker. This is very interesting. Two players from this slot have both said they thought Jack was town.

Finally, there is something I have no quote for, since the point is about something Parama has never done. Despite believing Jack was town he never tried to defend him again, and he has never acknowledged Jack flipping scum, or updated his reads in response to that.

So much for relational tells. Both chesskid3 and Parama have interacted with known scum in ways that make the slot look like scum with them. Both of them believing that both Consulmaker claimants were town looks particularly damning. Next up, scumhunting, or more accurately a profound lack of scumhunting.

SCUMHUNTING

Rabies is scum
Primate is town
Jack is town
ribwich is town
Lowell is town
Nathanael is scum
SensFan is town
Mert is town
chamber is scum

SpyreX is scum

dramonic is town

scotmany is scum

Powerrox is scotmany is scum
Reck is scum

This was the first and last time I've seen Parama produce reads. I've never seen him update any of his stances in response to flips. When dramonic flipped scum, he acknowledged it in one post, and continued to suspect scotmany12 and me, the only two players who had voiced suspicion of both dramonic and reckoner being scum. When Jack flipped scum, he never acknowledged it at all, and he continues to think Nathanael is scum. Now about his case on Nathanael, he had to be asked three times to explain it, and he refused at first and answered only the next day. I've already said what I think about that case in great detail in my post #1322, and I'm not going to repeat all that. Delaying in making his case was not in the least bit townish, and the case itself was so bad and hypocritical that I can only consider it scummy.

Parama gave reasons for most of his early reads of course, flimsy as first day reasons often are, and I find it all the more suspicious that he still sticks to those reads. One reason in particular was interesting, since it is an inconsistency. Nathanael was supposedly scum for wanting to execute one of the Consulmaker claimants. He was not the only one, scotmany12 and Lowell had said the same thing before, Lowell even worded it rather oddly as "We kill them, right? What's hard about this?" Nathanael and scotmany12 got scum reads from Parama, Lowell did not. Parama has never explained why he gave Lowell a town read, either in this or any other post.

Ribwich [5] (Nathanael, Lowell, Ribwich, Magua, Jack)

BTW at least 2 scum voting Rib here, Nath is one and Jack may be the other.

Well if I had to pick 2 from that wagon...
ribwich is confirmed town
Nathanael is scum
Magua (Katsuki) is not scum with Nathanael
Lowell is not scum with Nathanael

so it must be Jack.
And there are 2 scum on your tribune wagon btw.

Hmm now that I'm rethinking... there's probably 2 scum left, maaaaaybe 3 but it's less likely, so the scum probably aren't voting together on the tribune wagon.
So Jack probably isn't scum since Nathanael is.

This is the last bit of scumhunting Parama has done, some feeble wagon analysis. Somehow, the conclusions he reaches are exactly the same as his initial reads. And after this, Parama has never mentioned Jack again. He has never acknowledged him flipping scum, or updated his read of Nathanael in response.

If you look through his posts for scumhunting, you will find nothing else. He just sits there, taking jabs at his original scum suspects, over and over, never making arguments, never responding to arguments other than to call people scummy, never asking questions or doing anything else remotely useful.

There it is. More than enough reasons for me to believe Parama is scum. I have an additional reason for wanting him dead, and that is information. Both SensFan and Nathanael wanted him dead on the first day, and Parama flipping scum would go a long way to clear both of them. To name a selfish reason, it could also help me establish some credit for my own scumhunting.

As I said, my candidate for being Parama's last scum partner is SpyreX. I'll try to write a case on him next, hopefully before an execution happens. But first, I need to ask a question. Why would you not support Parama being executed, The Fonz? Or is it just that it is me and Nathanael, both of us your suspects, who are most strongly in favor of Parama being executed? Read through my case please, and tell me if there is any reason not to execute Parama based on his and chesskid3's play alone.

[Feysal]

Scumbuddies never call each other obvtown if nobody else is calling either of them obvtown.
There goes half your case.

Yeah right. In my experience scum do it any time they think they can get away with it. And for the record, there were others calling chesskid3 town. Primate, SpyreX, inHimshallibe.

Also I've done plenty of scumhunting, like catching you.

All you've ever done regarding me is call my slot scum since before I even replaced in. You have never, ever explained why, you just want me executed.

I looked back, and saw SensFan posted his execution more than two days ago. I suppose that means the execution cannot be stopped now, and if I am to finish a case on SpyreX, I've got to hurry.

[Feysal]

Ok reading that graveyard HEY FEYSAL YOU WERE LEGITIMATELY SCUMMY, GET OVER IT.

Okay, I've had it.

If you had made a single legitimate argument why I was scummy, I could just accept this and move on. But you never did, not even one.

What you did in this game was make up a bunch of poorly reasoned reads in your fourth post, and then you stuck to them like glue. You never considered any game events. You never considered flips. You never considered anything at all. You just kept mindlessly tunneling on your scum reads, never stopping to think that you could be wrong. Case in point, you had decided that my slot was scum before I even replaced in, and after that you kept repeatedly calling me scum, never naming a single reason. Is this what you call scumhunting?

Scumbuddies never call each other obvtown if nobody else is calling either of them obvtown.
There goes half your case.

Yeah right. In my experience scum do it any time they think they can get away with it. And for the record, there were others calling chesskid3 town. Primate, SpyreX, inHimshallibe.

Hey Feysal! inHim and Primate both flipped town! There goes your argument... AGAIN!

Did you even realize how stupid you made yourself look here? You first said that scum don't call each other obvtown unless someone else is doing it. I mentioned three people who were doing it. Then you said that two of them were town... meaning that there was someone other than scum calling you town. You did not refute my argument. You refuted your own. And to think that you criticized Nathanael for fail logic.

Feysal's case was crap. Nathanael was an antimiller. That's all there is to say on that matter.

I pointed out very clearly how you were buddying and defending scum, how you dodged questions and refused to respond to arguments except to call people scum, and how you did not do any scumhunting after your fourth post. There was nothing remotely townish about your play. The fact that you were town does not excuse that in any way. Your play this game thoroughly

sucked

.

Possibly the stupidest thing you said all game was calling Nathanael an antimiller. He was both a better player and townier than you, and even after his flip you refused to accept that you were wrong, and kept insisting he was scum. That is

retarded

.

Having seen all this, you leave me but one option.

I HEREBY BRAND YOU, PARAMA, A VILLAGE IDIOT.

Your town play is horrible, and you are a pathetic mockery of a scumhunter. Of six scum in the game, you only identified one. Random.org could have done better. You were the single worst town player in the entire game, without a single redeeming point, and having you criticize others after your dreadful performance is insufferably arrogant.

I sincerely hope that I will never have to play with you again. If such a tragedy were to occur, expect to be scorned as a village idiot comparable to Furcolow.

(6:48:14 PM) Sens: I be dead.
(6:50:10 PM) CogitoErgoMafia: Want to guess who the scum are?
(6:50:24 PM) Sens: Are? Not is?
(6:50:33 PM) CogitoErgoMafia: I'd link you to the graveyard qt, but I don't think the game will last much longer
(6:50:36 PM) CogitoErgoMafia: are, yes
(6:50:57 PM) Sens: 2 Phyrric left, or 1 Phyrric and an SK?
(6:51:05 PM) CogitoErgoMafia: 2 Pyrrhic left
(6:51:20 PM) CogitoErgoMafia: it's a very simple set-up
(6:51:27 PM) Sens: Fonz and Shanba, if I had to guess.

As for you, if you think that being right after you're dead redeems you, think again. I seem to recall that when Nathanael suspected The Fonz, you called him scum for it. Fact is, you should have done something when you were alive, to avert your own execution and to have scum executed instead. You did nothing. Even at the moment of your death, after being asked to share your reads, you did not. After Parama, I consider your play the second worst in the town, and what angers me most of all was that it was at least partly deliberate.

Besides, I'm immune to being executed today. I might as well make use of that by doing stuff that I believe work, but that I'd never get away with in a normal game.

As for pressuring me, feel free. I have nothing against it, and it won't affect my decision-making for today. You should know that I've already decided to play D1 in a way that I'm fully aware I would never get away with if I wasn't a Consul, though. I've been given immunity from lynching today, and I plan to fully abuse it to help me make a decision on who I want executed. To quote Tom from Survivor: "Tonight we make our move. Tomorrow we make our apologies."

The reason people don't get away with playing like that is because it is anti-town, and it obviously did not work, it just made you look scummy. You were a stubborn idiot, and I hold you personally responsible for two mislynches: Nathanael and yourself. I'd say that the single worst mistake ribwich ever made was making you Consul.

[Feysal]

Laugh it up. Bottom line is, you never had a correct scum read when you were Consul, and you refused to listen to anyone who did. That is not good town play. And I never heard a single argument from you either why I was scummy.

[Feysal]

That is not the problem. The problem is that you refused to listen to anyone. I gave a detailed explanation why the case on Nathanael was wrong, and for all my effort you called my case stupid and threatened to execute me. Several people said they did not agree with the Nathanael execution, and you ignored them. It is your stubbornness that I criticize you for, and the fact that you did absolutely nothing to avoid being mislynched yourself.

You want to know what I thought about you? I thought your play was so bad that I wondered if you were losing on purpose. Your wiki contains cases where you have deliberately cheated and disrupted games, so I knew you had it in you.

[Feysal]

If saying that out loud was out of line, I apologize for that, but I do not apologize for having thought that.

Awesome. Your last paragraph means I will never again read another post you ever make on this forum. Thanks for saving me the trouble of typing replies to you ever again!

The feeling is mutual. After this experience, I don't fancy playing with you again.

[Feysal]

It is not with being seen as scummy that I have a problem with, it is being tunneled on for no reason. Nathanael had legitimate reason to suspect me over the way I had defended Katsuki and then pointed out the oddness of Magua giving me a scummy read, and though I could tell something was off with the case Shanba made on me, it was not bad either. I've been suspected before for defending people, because supposedly only scum could be that sure of someone being town, but that tell does not work on me. As scum I'm much more likely to fade into the background and let the mislynch happen, and as town I just am that sure of some town reads. I've usually been correct too.

What I take issue with is Parama calling me legitimately scummy without ever making a single legitimate point why. And of course SensFan threatening me, apparently only because I disagreed with him about Nathanael. Anyone else... water under the bridge.

[Feysal]

I openly admit my play in this game was pretty bad, it was one of my first games back after a hiatus of several months, and I hold no grudges for anything either said during the game or constructively post-game. But I have absolutely no respect for anyone who will accuse me of intentionally throwing a game just because I played poorly, and I wouldn't care one iota if I found out he was hit by a car in the future.

Now I feel you are going a bit overboard.

What happened during this game is that when I was looking for your past games to use for meta, I read your wiki pages. If that stuff was true, it meant you had a history of disrupting games. After the way you refused to listen to reason about Nathanael, I wondered if you were doing it on purpose, and given that history I don't think I was wrong to wonder. I even checked the players who had replaced out for any possible alts.

If that history is not correct, then you might want to set the record straight, because it gave me a very negative view of you as a person.

[Feysal]

Attacking your character was not my intention, nor did I disagree with just one scum read of yours. I've been wrong quite enough often myself. I took issue with your overall play, with you not listening to people and dismissing counterarguments as stupid. What made it worse was how you said you were deliberately acting in a way you knew you could not get away with in a normal game, and on that last day you did not get away with it. That deliberate factor was infuriating, and your play got to be so unfathomable to me that, knowing that background, I began to wonder. I believed that you were town because of your attempt to execute Chesskid, see. Without that, I'd have been dead certain you were scum.

[Feysal]

I don't remember .-.

I think this statement shows perfectly the complete lack of substance in your "scumhunting". You tunneled on Rabies and continued to tunnel on me, and you can't even remember why? Astonishing.

I am perfectly aware of what a village idiot is. I don't care about your track record, your play in this game was so poor that you deserve the title. Seriously, I've never seen anyone play worse. When you called Nathanael an antimiller...

what were you thinking?

That was the single stupidest thing I've ever heard anyone say in a mafia game.