Scummies Invitational (OVER!!!)

[Patrick]

Votecount

Hoopla (1) -- Incognito
Empking (1) -- q21

Not voting: Everyone else
15 alive, 8 to lynch.

[curiouskarmadog]

(for the record, I asked to not be placed in a game with him, so I am not sure how we ended up in the same game)

This isn't an

/in

-vitational, this is the

Invitational

for all available winners of 2009 Scummies.

already got a couple of PMs about it..thanks, sure you can see how I got them confused.

[curiouskarmadog]

was excited for a bit, thought DGB was in the game,

also

vote vollkan

respect yo

[populartajo]

1. Have you played in a Lights Out game before?
If this is a lights out game, then yes. Otheriwse, no.

2. I give you $200 to place a bet on the first Day 1 lynch, with return odds of 15/1 for each player. Who do you bet on?
Empking.

3. What do you think is the optimum number of lynches for Day 1?
As many scum reads not dependent of each other as possible,

4. What is your favourite animal?
Dog.

5. Sum up your playstyle in one sentence.
Depends on the game but Im a logical town/scum hunter.

[populartajo]

Vote: Spyrex.

His answers were too serious.

Incognito, can you please quote those two Adel games you are referring to? Also can you point me to the thread, post, etc that made you realize Hoopla was an Adel fan?

[Incognito]

I think you were in one of them, tajo. That Tofu Mafia game. Adel created a list of questions that everyone went through great effort to answer, and it ended up just clogging the thread and wasting D1 time, which benefited the scum. There was some Newbie Game that he did it in too, but I forget the game number. And as for Hoopla mentioning she's an Adel fan, I can't recall where I read it. Maybe a GTKAS thread or something.

Either way, I'm not really building a meta-case against Hoopla. I'm just saying that I'm immediately distrustful of her intentions with respect to these questions since they're going to take awhile for everyone to answer, they most likely have to be answered in a WoW format which makes people not wanna read the thread anymore, and they could potentially slow the game down, which would benefit her if she's scum.

[imaginality]

I'm just saying that I'm immediately distrustful of her intentions with respect to these questions since they're going to take awhile for everyone to answer, they most likely have to be answered in a WoW format which makes people not wanna read the thread anymore, and they could potentially slow the game down, which would benefit her if she's scum.

It seems to me that Q1 and Q3 are relevant questions that we would be discussing today anyhow, whether in this format or otherwise; 2 and 5 are also arguably useful, and only 4 could be considered distracting fluff.
(Though, even then... it's well-known that 9 out of 10 evil villains prefer cats. We should watch q21 closely...)

And it's not like we need to wait around for everyone to answer before getting Hoopla's permission to proceed with the game...

[vollkan]

Good luck to everyone. I have a brief survey I'd like you to fill out;

1. Have you played in a Lights Out game before?
2. I give you $200 to place a bet on the first Day 1 lynch, with return odds of 15/1 for each player. Who do you bet on?
3. What do you think is the optimum number of lynches for Day 1?
4. What is your favourite animal?
5. Sum up your playstyle in one sentence.

What do you hope this survey will achieve?

Because, if you're scum, your survey seems like a nice little tactic to clog the thread with noise. I've seen Adel use something similar in at least two of his past scum games, I know he's a player you respect, and so I didn't want to go along the route you wanted me to take just in case this was that kind of tactic.

I think you were in one of them, tajo. That Tofu Mafia game. Adel created a list of questions that everyone went through great effort to answer, and it ended up just clogging the thread and wasting D1 time, which benefited the scum. There was some Newbie Game that he did it in too, but I forget the game number. And as for Hoopla mentioning she's an Adel fan, I can't recall where I read it. Maybe a GTKAS thread or something.

Either way, I'm not really building a meta-case against Hoopla. I'm just saying that I'm immediately distrustful of her intentions with respect to these questions since they're going to take awhile for everyone to answer, they most likely have to be answered in a WoW format which makes people not wanna read the thread anymore, and they could potentially slow the game down, which would benefit her if she's scum.

I understand where you are coming from, but I can't see how any of the questions are going to need to be answered in WoW format. There is a risk of them leading to distracting discussion about people's answers (particularly thinking of a theory debate arising from the playstyle question 5 if I were to give me view on gut-voting or something), but I think the biggest problem is really just that they don't seem to have any point.

@CKD: OMGUS

Vote: CKD

.

[Kmd4390]

Good luck to everyone. I have a brief survey I'd like you to fill out;

Vote Hoopla

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

Incog and q21 are town.

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

vollkan might be scum.

[SpyreX]

I'm looking at the whole questionnaire as null. Its a tool that doesn't DO anything inherently (and yes I was in Tofu). Now, where it GOES is the important part.

That said Volk you raise some interesting points and then follow up with a throwaway vote? What up

[Kmd4390]

It gets people talking about uselessness and tends to make people worry more about the uselessness than laying votes and finding scumz.

[SpyreX]

Ehhh random whatever is whatever and I normally can't reach terminal velocity unless something AWESOME happens for a while anywho so whatever random flavor inherently doesn't bother me.

Its what happens next.

[Kmd4390]

Voting Hoopla would be AWESOME. You know you want to give in to peer pressure.

[vollkan]

vollkan might be scum.

A statement of "X might be scum" or "Y might be town" has to rank among the most useless things that can be said in this game. If what you meant is that you actually have reason for thinking I am scum, then I can't see why you wouldn't elaborate to convince other people.

That said Volk you raise some interesting points and then follow up with a throwaway vote? What up

None of the points I raised in relation to Hoopla resulted in me having suspicion such as might justify a serious early vote (at least until Hoopla answers my question), so I figured I may as well RV as normal. (I don't like RVS, but it's the worst way of starting a game except for all the others, and

sometimes

it works as a springboard.)

[SpyreX]

Except for that whole not thinking Hoop is scum for that maneuver.

Hrrrmmm we need some spice in here.

[vollkan]

Except for that whole not thinking Hoop is scum for that maneuver.

How would me not thinking Hoop is scum alter a decision to RV?

[SpyreX]

Sorry that was in response to KMD's post not yours.

Its a bad habit I've grown over time.

I dig what you're saying. I'm not sure if I am totally BEHIND it, but I dig it.

[Kmd4390]

unvote, vote vollkan

[Tenchi]

It gets people talking about uselessness and tends to make people worry more about the uselessness than laying votes and finding scumz.

Meh, I think its better than random voting wagons... I'd actually wait whether Hoopla would say something about what he found out with the questionnaire.

Oh look shiny wagon!

VOTE: Vollkan

[Hoopla]

What do you hope this survey will achieve?

What do you think your random vote will achieve? I find it strange people object on the basis of it needing to explicitely achieve something, when it is debatable how much the witty back and forth banter of a RVS achieves. I will explain my motives and answer my own questions now;

1. Have you played in a Lights Out game before?
2. I give you $200 to place a bet on the first Day 1 lynch, with return odds of 15/1 for each player. Who do you bet on?
3. What do you think is the optimum number of lynches for Day 1?
4. What is your favourite animal?
5. Sum up your playstyle in one sentence.

1. No I haven't, and I was hoping someone here would have so they can fill us in with their first hand experiences, particularly in regard to how they went about planning lynches.
2. Empking seems like the obvious choice, but from the times I've played with him, he has a canny knack of making it decently far in the game. I've not actually seen him lynched D1. I'd bet on curiouskarmadog, because I remember seeing him lynched D1 before, he's kind of lurky at times, and I feel like he has a habit of being misunderstood.
3. I am thinking one. I will talk about this more shortly.
4. Crow
5. Data driven wonderland.

~~

The point of these questions was to kickstart some discussion, hopefully about the set-up, which is why I included two questions that related directly to that. The example Incognito cites is an example of noise, because it was done later on page 2 after relevant information and stances had been produced. This was the first post in the game, so I disagree quite strongly that I was trying to distract or create noise.

I've seen the survey technique used a few times, by Vi in particular, which is where the majority of my inspiration came from, contrary to what Incognito claims. There always seems to be a couple of people anti-survey, parading the noise/waste of time argument and want to get on with their random voting - this is what question 4 was used for, to tip some people into this mode of thought. Conflicting positions on a non-variable event creates fractures in the usually whole and fluid RVS, and fractures are something necessary to derive debate and hopefully alignment tells. Of course, this will happen naturally, but I deem it slower and less efficient which again runs contrary to Incognito's claims of noise, because the act of filling out the survey is a decision in itself.

Question 2 was designed to establish a collective consensus on weaker players, hopefully to motivate these players to lift their game around such company.

I'll post some of my impressions shortly, but I want to talk about the set-up first.

~~

Lights Out Mafia
Lights Out Mafia 2
TDC's A Rocissi Winter

These are the games that use a Lights Out mechanic off the top of my head - and I think a quick skim of them is good idea to know what to expect balance-wise and strategy-wise, though I don't expect any of you to do this. The scum/town ratio for these games were 4:16, 4:16, 5:16, which makes me wonder how many scum are in this set-up.

3 is the logical choice, as 4:11 in a Lights Out game seems like a high ratio of scum, particularly when you consider this clause in the ruleset;

There is at least one role in this game with a one-shot ability to bring the day to an immediate end after one lynch has occurred. No further details will be explained until after the game, but you have been warned.

This is a very anti-town role, especially as it is likely we don't know when it is going to occur. It makes planning a future day of 2-3 lynches particularly vulnerable to this screwy mechanic. There is almost no town motivation to use this role, which makes me think it must be anti-town. And even if town did have this role for some reason, I don't think the mods would need to put a clause in the ruleset, as it would be a decision being made by someone town and hopefully for the good of the town.

3:12 with scum having this 1-shot role is what I expect, though I can also see 3:1:11 with it being maybe an SK power. This far less likely in my opinion, as the SK in a Lights Out set-up makes the game very swingy and detracts a decent amount from the actual mechanic of this game, because more kills means there are less phases to have 2-3 lynch days, which seems like a significant point in running one of these set-ups. If we really are playing in a 4:11 with that horrible 1-shot role, I am scared, but I do not think it is likely.

I'd like to lynch just one player today, and treat it like a normal game, for now. Nobody really expects to lynch scum on Day 1, so I find it weird that we would want to lynch more than one player without confirmed information in the game. From Day 2 onward, players expect to lynch scum, so depending on our confidence, I would prefer higher numbers on D2 and D3, which means we are mass-lynching based on more information, and can possibly chew up that icky 1-shot-role relatively early in the game, so we have more options in endgame.

[curiouskarmadog]

Hoopla, have you ever asked a set question like this before in a game?

[vollkan]

What do you think your random vote will achieve? I find it strange people object on the basis of it needing to explicitely achieve something, when it is debatable how much the witty back and forth banter of a RVS achieves.

RV is generally useless, but always harmless. Since it is the norm (I'm assuming you don't often begin with questions or other unorthodox openings), then it's not unreasonable to ask why you decided to take a different approach.

The point of these questions was to kickstart some discussion, hopefully about the set-up, which is why I included two questions that related directly to that. The example Incognito cites is an example of noise, because it was done later on page 2 after relevant information and stances had been produced. This was the first post in the game, so I disagree quite strongly that I was trying to distract or create noise.

I've seen the survey technique used a few times, by Vi in particular, which is where the majority of my inspiration came from, contrary to what Incognito claims. There always seems to be a couple of people anti-survey, parading the noise/waste of time argument and want to get on with their random voting - this is what question 4 was used for, to tip some people into this mode of thought. Conflicting positions on a non-variable event creates fractures in the usually whole and fluid RVS, and fractures are something necessary to derive debate and hopefully alignment tells. Of course, this will happen naturally, but I deem it slower and less efficient which again runs contrary to Incognito's claims of noise, because the act of filling out the survey is a decision in itself.

That's similar to the reason I used to self-vote at the start of games (I stopped only because I noticed that the shock value seemed to wear off over time, to the point where it only affected newbies and thus had no point). You don't get a serious vote.

I'd like to lynch just one player today, and treat it like a normal game, for now. Nobody really expects to lynch scum on Day 1, so I find it weird that we would want to lynch more than one player without confirmed information in the game. From Day 2 onward, players expect to lynch scum, so depending on our confidence, I would prefer higher numbers on D2 and D3, which means we are mass-lynching based on more information, and can possibly chew up that icky 1-shot-role relatively early in the game, so we have more options in endgame.

I basically agree. It's impossible to say in advance how many we should lynch, since it entirely depends on the overall level of information; it certainly seems unlikely that we will reach the level sufficient to justify two D1 lynches.

V/LA until Monday

[Hoopla]

Hoopla, have you ever asked a set question like this before in a game?

Outside of newbie games, no, not really. At least not in the form of a survey. Sometimes particular games call for getting an opinion from everyone about a certain mechanic or early strategy, which is where I'll likely press with questions.

A few observations derived from the survey;

Initially I deemed Incognito's refusal to answer as unnecessarily abrasive, particularly when he found me suspicious under the logic of me 'clogging the thread with noise'. I spot the logical connection between all the dots; Hoopla (supposedly) respects Adel, Adel has done this tactic as scum, ergo Hoopla is scum. But I refuse to believe this is a completely genuine attack, because Incognito is quite familiar with other unorthodoxies I've commited as town and scum. Such a strong statement one way on the motivation behind my play seems odd, because the strength of conviction doesn't nearly as much match the strength of the tell. Clogging the thread with noise? Please. I know Incognito is a smarter player that. This quote in particular was the funniest to me;

Either way, I'm not really building a meta-case against Hoopla. I'm just saying that I'm immediately distrustful of her intentions with respect to these questions since they're going to take awhile for everyone to answer, they most likely have to be answered in a WoW format which makes people not wanna read the thread anymore, and they could potentially slow the game down, which would benefit her if she's scum.

Imagine the pre-game talk in the QT;

Hoopla:

hey guys, i have a great idea. watch me post a survay and clutter the thread with too many words!! LOL (laugh out loud)

mykonian:

yeah, that's a genius idea. imagine how slow the game would run if we did that!

q21:

wouldn't it be obvious ur scum though, 'cause it is pretty benefial for us.

Hoopla:

guys, trust me. it's worth the risk if we can pull this off.

q21:

okay, i'm in.

Hoopla:

scum high five?

mykonian:

sure!

q21:

primo!

---

I was surprised at the amount of support shown money-wise for an Empking D1 lynch. But even more surprisingly, only q21 followed it up with a vote. I think this is a town tell, as publically declaring the likeliest candidate for lynch seems like a pretty obvious place not to put a vote first up as scum, because of the potential negative image it paints.

In other news, populartajo is pretty obviously town.

[Tenchi]

Imagine the pre-game talk in the QT;

Hoopla:

hey guys, i have a great idea. watch me post a survay and clutter the thread with too many words!! LOL (laugh out loud)

mykonian:

yeah, that's a genius idea. imagine how slow the game would run if we did that!

q21:

wouldn't it be obvious ur scum though, 'cause it is pretty benefial for us.

Hoopla:

guys, trust me. it's worth the risk if we can pull this off.

q21:

okay, i'm in.

Hoopla:

scum high five?

mykonian:

sure!

q21:

primo!

I do not know why you would counter Incognito's argument of using the surveys as a distraction topic by countering with this comedic roleplay that you, as scum, would tell your scum buddies about your plan just to make Incognito's idea less plausible. I do not think this counter-argument from you makes his point less plausible.

In other news, populartajo is pretty obviously town.

Explain, pls. THX.

[mykonian]

Good luck to everyone. I have a brief survey I'd like you to fill out;

1. Have you played in a Lights Out game before?
2. I give you $200 to place a bet on the first Day 1 lynch, with return odds of 15/1 for each player. Who do you bet on?
3. What do you think is the optimum number of lynches for Day 1?
4. What is your favourite animal?
5. Sum up your playstyle in one sentence.

Hi, I found the game. Posting as I read.

1. No, this is a first time. I'll leave the theory to the rest.
2. I'd split the money over Empking and myself. I know that we had our share of D1 lynches in the past. This might be true for someone else in this game, but then I'm not aware of it.
3. Lets see. D1 lynches have the name to be often incorrect. Further, I'd expect town to have at least an even amount of nightabilities (scum have a kill and maybe 1 or 2 active abilities.Without a doc which doesn't give us extra information unless he protects, we might do better earlier. This is because the town loses it's abilities as soon as they lose the player, but at least one scum power stay's till the last man: the kill.

The extra information generated by the first day lynch, the nightactions, and the discussion during day 2 should result in a longer day, I think.
4. It was a whale. I longer know now.
5. usually too active.