ASOIAF: Test of Faith Mafia (Game Over!)

[Locke Lamora]

Hi everyone.

Vote: LMP

[Locke Lamora]

If only I had two votes.

[Locke Lamora]

MOI is ABSOLUTELY playing his scum game right now. He takes little belittling shots like this at people when he's scum. Anything he can to try and undermine someone's credibility he will do.

Nope. Pointing out that you are trying to draw an bad link between me being scum there and me being scum here isn't belittling.

Nice deflection. The belittling is the "you never caught me in that game" bit, not the "pointing out a bad link". You try to undermine me with that throw away "oh you never voted me" buisness. You still haven't explained WTF that has to do with whether or not it's a fair comparison. Because it has dick all to do with it, but you're more interested in making a slick point than in showing my argument

to be false if it is.

You also did have not explained why the comparison is bad, you only call it a bad link. So double fail.

Hi again all. LMP is scum for the bolded. Please vote accordingly.

Thor: who else would you rather not lynch on D1? Do you think ANY of the points on MoI are good?

[Locke Lamora]

Because it implies he thinks his argument could be false. I think it's a hint that he's faking scumhunting because it contradicts the certainty of his MoI meta-assertion. You don't say someone's obviously playing to their scum meta and then change your mind. So had MoI brought examples indicating that he wasn't playing to his scum meta, what would LMP have done? Attacked him anyway by pointing out where MoI's play did match his scum meta.

[Locke Lamora]

Reading some of this thread is like pulling teeth. Only more painful. Scummy things that jump out at me:

-SK's vote hop reads as very forced and over-justified.
-Cow's hop on and off the Nexus wagon screams of riding the prevailing mood.
-Almaster's pushing for Magua over MoI based on connections shortly after lining up lynches based on MoI's flip and the Nexus mini-wagon is ridiculous, and overall his reasons for Magua over MoI are incredibly weak.
-Hinduragi's repeated DGB-sheeping is beginning to look very much like he doesn't have any ideas of his own.
-Magua seems like he's spending a whole lot more time explaining why lynches aren't a good idea than he does actually pushing lynches of his own.

MoI does seem genuinely annoyed to me. I guess he could be annoyed because he's been caught by a case that he thinks is nonsense, but I'm not really buying the 'stalling for a claim' argument. Knowing MoI and having played with him recently as scum, he's pretty quick off the mark, doesn't take that long to come up with fakeclaims, and if he was going to bother to post from his holiday, I would have thought that as scum, he'd come up with one beforehand, not draw the inevitable heat from posting and not claiming. And on that note...

Unvote; Vote: Magua

My bad vibe from LMP's earlier statement hasn't gone away, but I'm having a hard time articulating that into something concrete that people aren't just going to summarily dismiss with 'hey Locke your case sucks', so I'll put that on the back-burner for now.

[Locke Lamora]

Today I have no time and am going to sheep Faraday.

Vote: SK

[Locke Lamora]

Prodded. My response is that I haven't been here. I'll catch up tonight.

[Locke Lamora]

Ok, thoughts on catching up:

-Cow reads forced and a bit wishy-washy to me. Maybe it's because he's using actual words, but his reasoning doesn't always sound genuine and a number of his responses and stated reads have been fairly non-committal.
-Liking Almaster a lot, strong town read on him for the way he's attacking players and analysing the game.
-I don't get a good feeling about Benmage's play here. I get the impression that it's a bit more jokey and lacks the Benmage aggression that I associate with his scumhunting.
-Magua invoking ASoS for my past play really pings my scumdar. He's taking a single situation from my past townplay and then using it to justify an attack on me for shipping Faraday and then not posting, when I quite clearly haven't been around for a few days (and if he'd checked, he'd know that).
-SK's AtE does read townish to me, but I'm a sucker for that kind of things because I actually have faith in people, for some unknown reason. Everything else about his play really does not. The worst is asking why town can't do scummy things. I mean, you might as well give up mafia if that's your argument. If we dismiss any point against someone because it COULD come from town, then we're all going to sit here posting one-liners until people decide which wagon is the most fun to jump on. It's attacking completely the wrong point of the case and reeks of trying to find a cheap way to discredit the point.

All in all, happy with my vote.

[Locke Lamora]

I was going to go on a rant about how SK is infuriating me but I don't think it'd do any good, so I'll just endorse the request for a hammer.

[Locke Lamora]

Have you met Vezok before, SK?

I'd wagon Benmage with you, Thor. I haven't seen anything that makes me think SK isn't scum, though, and at the end of the day, a botched claim is a botched claim. I don't even know if I've seen that from town, and I can recall a number of instances off the top of my head where I've seen it from scum (and that includes myself).

[Locke Lamora]

at the end of the day, a botched claim is a botched claim

But isn't the botched claim a thing that doesn't exist? It would be like playing a DC Comics Mafia and have somebody botch their claim by saying 'I'm Harry Potter' Well...yeah....that claim is pretty botched, but I'm not sure why it has to be a scum botch. Thoughts?

In my experience, screwed-up claims most often come in situations where scum is trying to claim a role that will save them, particularly if they're not familiar with the flavour. Good example: Jason in the Wire Season 1 Mafia managed to combine two of scum's fakeclaims into one while trying to come up with a PR fakeclaim, completely confusing the flavour for his character in the process. I did the same in Mafia of Order by claiming in a strange format because I was focused on making my claim plausible enough to buy me at least another night rather than thinking about what format my PM was actually in. I managed to get away with it by arguing that I was just reading from my PM and I didn't know the flavour. So yeah, a vig who can't shoot until N3, combined with a piece of information in the original claim that was jumped on by those more flavour-savvy and later changed, sure looks like scum making up a claim to me and getting it wrong.

To answer your question, sure, it's possible SK is actually a vig who can't shoot until N3 who misread a piece of information from her role PM. However, I think that scenario is far less likely than the alternative.

[Locke Lamora]

I can see why Thor got confused now. I missed the point of what he was getting at with the Harry Potter thing. Add Nexus to the scumlist.

Hey DGB, want to have another round of 'Locke is scum...but there's no reason why'? It was so much fun last time.

[Locke Lamora]

Sorry all, been very busy at work. I'm with Thor.

Vote: Benmage

[Locke Lamora]

I'm going to assume DGB is just being DGB because that really doesn't make any sense.

Benmage: do you have some examples of you reacting to people calling you scum?

To those saying 'Benmage is obvtown' etc., how much actual scumhunting do you think he has done in this game? How similar is it to past Benmage town play you have seen?

CyberSet: are you asking if I think being hypocritical is a scumtell? I think treating two players differently when they're essentially doing the same thing can be a scumtell. I don't think it counts if one of the players is yourself. I think it's certainly indicative that Esp is getting defensive and frustrated with the reasons that he's getting suspected. The part I don't like is that his vote doesn't seem to be based on thinking you're scum. It's basically trying to push you away from what you're doing right now, which is suspecting him, and that, to me, suggests dubious motivation.

[Locke Lamora]

Ok, so as no-one has answered, I'm going to assume no-one thinks Benmage has actually done any scumhunting. Right?

[Locke Lamora]

Well, this all seems like a horrible, horrible mess. For obvious reasons I really don't have the time to go over everything, so here are my thoughts reading back what I can:

-I'm actually inclined to believe everything Empking says about his role. His play seems to fit with it. I don't know if that says as much about his alignment in a game like this.
-Benmage is jumping about all over the place, infuriating, and what's all the more infuriating is that if it was someone else acting like this, he'd tell them to shut up and lynch them. If anything it reeks of desperation, which I'd say is most likely to be CR-play. I'm just a little bit too much of a sucker for AtE to be very sure of that.
-LB seems like they don't have a lot of direction, which I do understand after trying to read this game. Leaning town.
-I think Hinduragi is town. Magua too. Espeonage, of course.
-Nexus seems to be obsessed with this slot being as lurky as him - which to me, ought to be a reason for him to empathise with the slot, not for wanting to lynch the slot. His only other point against us is just plain wrong. That said, he does read as pretty clueless and quite annoyed that he's not been contributing much, which read town.
-Spyrex seems like he's less lost than a lot of players, which kind of gives me a bad vibe. The one thing we know about this game is that town really is not in control at all. I get kind of a similar feeling from CES; there's a lot more certainty than I'd expect given that town has been absolutely all over the place.
-Thor seems to be fairly quiet today and more asking others questions than providing too much thrust of his own. I get that he thinks Nexus and CES should be under consideration, but he's not really put forward any convincing arguments for either.

So I guess I quite want to lynch Benmage, but I find myself frustratingly swayed by the 'no way Benmage would self-vote as scum!' arguments. Will keep rereading.

[Locke Lamora]

So if we don't lynch scum today, aren't scum guaranteed to win? Someone tell me if I'm missing something, otherwise I'll vote Empking.

[Locke Lamora]

Ok. Why do we lose if the recruiter doesn't get shot?

And my gut says Spyrex. I kind of agree with you about the Maiden thing, so that's giving me doubt. It would be a really perfect claim to make as CR, though, particularly at that stage.

[Locke Lamora]

Right, but that assumes that the recruiter does recruit, yes? If they don't have the scum figured out yet (which they might, granted), there's still a pretty high chance they fail, given how few town there must be left.

[Locke Lamora]

If Esp is telling the truth, he's basically screwed unless events play out in a very specific fashion AND somebody decides to let him win, so doing nothing at all is not helping him a great deal. I felt like the claim was a bit too eager, but I can't think of another combination of events that makes more sense for the kills.

[Locke Lamora]

We're screwed.

[Locke Lamora]

Empking. If there are 3 scum I don't see how we can do anything else. I'm becoming increasingly aware of how ridiculous this situation is as everyone posts analysis suggesting that there's only 1 or 2 townies left, and they're one of them. The fact is, cult want us to lynch scum (or maybe Esp, if he's not cult), and scum would like to be rid of the CR (or the SK, if Esp is telling the truth. I suspect both sides probably need the 1 or 2 remaining townies to help gain a majority, but scum have an NK anyway to take care of their business, so I'll go with the Empking lynch.

[Locke Lamora]

Espeonage obviously isn't going to help at all. We might as well get to tomorrow so I can begin the futile exercise of arguing that I'm not scum.

Vote: Empking

[Locke Lamora]

What can I say after 133 pages? I know exactly what your (and everyone else's response) will be, and I can't argue with the fact that this slot has done next to nothing this game. It also seems pretty likely that town doesn't have a majority any more, so I guess I need to convince cult as much as I need to convince town, as they need mafia lynched and lynching me is going to cost them the game as well as town. What's cult's wincon going to be? Get a majority? They might nearly be there, especially once we lynch Empking-scum. So scum also have to kill cult tonight to ensure that numbers don't get out of their control. To be perfectly honest, I don't think this game has gone that well for anyone; scum has done a bad job of shooting cult, cult and town have done a bad job of lynching scum, and it's unclear just how well cult have recruited, but it can't be that well or they'd already be in control. It could even be 2-2-2 tomorrow, depending on how the night plays out. So all I really know is that unless cult do have some kind of killing power available, or Esp really is SK, and either is going to shoot scum tonight, we have to keep lynching scum every day or scum win. We all know I'm not CR, and cult would have to be idiots to recruit someone who's virtually a dead-cert lynch, so I can't argue with the logic that says I should be lynched. I'm just not scum. I don't think I've played with any scum motivation whatsoever; I just haven't been here very much, and Bogre was here even less.

Want my reads? I think Magua is town. I think Espeonage is cult. I actually think Thor is scum. His interactions with Empking make sense for that. You've been about as lurktastic as this slot, but you've got more annoyed about it when people challenge you, so I don't really know what to make of that. I'd say scum but I don't know if I see that based on how Thor's been after you. Seems like the bus would be too hard. I honestly can't tell whether Hinduragi is frustrated town or really abusing AtE to make it seem that way, but he's cult if he's not town. I've been doing some rereading and I don't think Spyrex is cult because of his role in the AGM lynch. I really don't believe we have any more than three townies either, just because I can't see cult failing to recruit that many times.

So here's a question for you. Assume for one crazy moment that I'm not scum. Who are Empking's buddies?

Scum: Empking, Thor,

[Locke Lamora]

Oops, hit submit. I was going to say:

Scum: Empking, Thor
Cult: Espeonage
Town: Magua, Spyrex (just because both him and Empking being scum seems unlikely based on the roles, although I still don't get good vibes)
Cult or town: Hinduragi

So I guess that leaves you as the third scum, but I'm still not sure I buy that. Thor kept pointing out how much you were lurking and making sure people didn't miss you. It's really not a good strategy in a game of this size where you need to last a long time. It would have been quite easy for a wagon to start on you because of him.

[Locke Lamora]

You want more time? Fine. But I'm putting the vote back on unless you can give me some answers to my questions that I actually think are worth dragging this day out another week.

Unvote

So I'm confused, because I'm pretty sure Magua explained all of this to you already. Is there any scenario in which we don't lynch Empking today? Is there any scenario in which scum don't have to hit cult tonight if Empking does get lynched? As far as I can tell, the answer to both is no. So from what I can see, the scum are going to do their best to hit the CR tonight, and if they don't hit the CR, they're going to have to hit cult. So unless you're scum who hasn't figured out who the CR is, or the CR who's worried as hell that the scum are going to shoot him, why exactly do you need us to give you another 9 days to put up a case that we're not going to follow through with a lynch? Either scum hit cult tonight, in which case we have this all out again tomorrow, or they don't and it's cult win.

So I get that you're claiming to be annoyed that your wincon might be changed overnight, but to save you the time figuring it out if you haven't already, you don't have a choice about it. If you're town, you're at the mercy of both scum and cult. If you think town has much of a choice after that many townies have gone down for the loss of one scum, you're really not thinking very clearly anyway. Perhaps I'm seeing this with a bit more clarity than you because I know I'm getting lynched tomorrow, but town is probably done here, barring a virtually impossible series of events which include me not getting lynched tomorrow. I can tell you something else; the series of events where town wins starts with scum getting lynched today. So are you basically just saying you're going to make a big case directing the scum who to shoot tonight, or is there something I'm missing?

[Locke Lamora]

Esp, do you know that Spyrex is scum?

[Locke Lamora]

Hey Nexus. Scum win if we don't lynch them today. So no, we're not lynching Espeonage, whether you think he's SK or cult. We might lynch you, though. Let me try something.

Hey Thor, I'm cult. We're lynching Nexus. You game?

[Locke Lamora]

So this is interesting. I'm really not scum. So cult, you're about to lose the game. I know that includes you, Espeonage. The lack of a hammer seems to indicate that Nexus is also either cult or town, because I'm pretty sure scum would have hammered by now. So two of Spyrex, Magua and Thor are scum. I really, really think Magua is town. On the off chance it's Spyrex, I'm going to go ahead and:

Vote: Thor

[Locke Lamora]

Espeonage, no-one is buying that you're actually SK. So if you know Spyrex is scum, just say Spyrex is scum, and then you actually still have a chance of winning the game. If I get lynched, you're done, and you know it.

[Locke Lamora]

Oh cult. You're so screwed. I really can't believe you still thought I was scum.

[Locke Lamora]

Well, what's weird is that Esp voted Nexus, which is strange if they're cult buddies, but then maybe that was just a bluff. But if you're town, it has to be Spyrex-Thor scum, Esp-Nexus cult.

[Locke Lamora]

Nice setup, ooba, and very well modded. I'm going to make an apology much along the lines of Nexus' and say that I really didn't have the time to put into this game that it deserved and as a result I just got way behind. Incredibly, my replacement actually managed to do as much as me while I was away for a week, so that didn't help the slot a whole lot either. Well played to scum, I think they worked well as a team and it was very hard to tie them all together. Esp played well too, it was a really interesting plan that nearly paid off. I also would love to know what the Hinduragi recruit was about, though.