I'm not at all suspicious of Yosariwen, the crumbing, while a bad move, feels like unnatural play for scum (especially smart scum), and while I've never played with Nuwen, Yos feels like his town self thus far.
This sort of argument is of seriously questionable value. One of our heads (Shanba) used this sort of argument before:
I have been vocal pretty mcuh all game that I think Oman is pro-town, based on his cock up attacking whoever it was based on a mistake in reading his rolename - he counterclaimed another player who he thoguht had claimed his rolename. Frankly, although we know scum have fakeclaims, I don't think scum would counterclaim in that situation. I just don't think it would even cross their mind. I wonder whether Oman clearing me is partly based on OMGUT, then - he's been influenced by me calling him town? Wouldn't be the first time I'd seen that. I'm not too bothered by it, frankly.
Similar sort of argument - it's just unnatural scum play - and it turned out to be 100% utterly wrong. Oman was scum who only really got lynched through an unfortunate process of elimination.
Another example, from Mini 443, Tapioca Mafia;
Aimee wrote:
The main reason I do not suspect Shanba is because of the following - why would Shanba basically spend all of day 1 attacking a d8P and Khelvaster partnership? Although it could be proven it was to show he was more town after their lynches, I am sure Shanba would agree completely that as scum, it would be very risky to argue tirelessly to lynch your two partners. As a result I am pretty sure that, to conclude, Shanba is pro-town for now, and would thus argue he is not the right lynch for today.
Shanba was a godfather who had bussed both his goons starting day 1. It is so easy to manipulate expectations of what town expect scum to do, what town have heard or seen scum do before. What I have learnt is that one of the cornerstones of scum play is to do something unusual, take a stance that is unpopular, move in ways town do not expect you to go - and then town write you off because, well, "scum would never do that." I realise the analogies are not perfect, but the underlying principle - beware the unexpected - remains the same.
When I see a play that there is no reason (or only poor reasoning) for town to do, these days, I immediately become suspicious.
If we combine this with the
massive
inconsistency that J-Scope pointed out, I find it extraordinarily unlikely that Yosariwen is town.
Yos is also, now, not reading the game thoroughly. He claims there was no contradiction - proving that he has not read J-scope's post, where he points out a contradiction. If he were aware of even an alleged contradiction, then he would not act so affronted when it is referenced by Hogfather.
He also claimed there was no non-crumb case against him - when we had already bought up a couple points against them which do not rely at all on the crumb post. Again, his reaction indicates he hasn't even seen this post by us. Which is extremely worrying - it really, really worries me when a player under this much pressure is only skimming the game. I have only my own experience on this (not even my partner's, who I cannot consult at the moment - he'll be back tomorrow) but people who skim the game like that, who aren't really aware of what is actually being said, are so often scum. I know for a fact that when I'm feeling lazy as scum I do this. If you don't actually care about who scum is - seeing as you already know - it becomes almost irrelevant what people are actually saying. You just need to read enough to give the illusion of scumhunting.
OTOH I don't think Yosariwen refusing to claim says anything about their alignment - it just means they are confident they won't be lynched. As either alignment in that situation, they would refuse to claim.
I want to look at the AIM convo in some depth - I really think this could be the key thing in determining their alignment.
8:52:11 PM Mercuriala: guh, this sounds like a ringing endorsement for a power role witch hunt, which -seems- like a sub-optimal way to catch scum. But the numbers!
8:52:34 PM ArtherDent: Heh. I'm glad you have a good justification lined up
8:53:41 PM Mercuriala: I tend to have reasons for everything. I probably should have explained myself prior, whoops.
8:53:54 PM ArtherDent: Eh, 's all right.
8:54:47 PM ArtherDent: One suggestion...you may want to sign that post
8:55:11 PM ArtherDent: I'm sure most of them will figure out it's coming from you and not me, but still, we don't need this getting any more confused then it already is, hah
8:55:20 PM Mercuriala: Indeed.
8:56:07 PM Mercuriala: A skimmer like Jdodge might very well latch onto "two conflicting posts OMGOMGOMG" for three plus pages.
8:56:22 PM ArtherDent: Yeah
8:57:08 PM Mercuriala: I am also changing Yosariwen's phpbb style. Do you have any sepia allergies?
8:57:17 PM ArtherDent: Heh. Not to my knowlege
8:59:43 PM Mercuriala: Deep south tends to reward lynching every claimed player.
9:00:00 PM Mercuriala: Just based on the higher 50-50 distribution of open power roles.
9:00:17 PM ArtherDent: Eh; I disagree
9:00:40 PM ArtherDent: Lynching a power role, especally an information role, costs the town so much more then lynching a vanillia does
9:00:59 PM Mercuriala: Yeah, the cost of a mislynch is far higher.
9:01:06 PM Mercuriala: But the chance of it is much lower.
9:01:31 PM ArtherDent: Eh...well, except that if someone is a power role, you can also get infromation from how they use their power role
9:01:42 PM ArtherDent: Not to mention, if they have an info role, you get even more information
9:02:33 PM ArtherDent: Actually, I would tend to lean to the other extreme; in a mafia game like this, the goal of the town is often to get enough information so they can quicklynch everyone who DOSN'T have a confirmable claim or some role-based way of confirming them as town
9:02:46 PM Mercuriala: Consider also the mexican standoff of claims that can happen in a deep south lylo; there are only so many claim/alignment combinations that can explain how actions resolved.
9:03:11 PM Mercuriala: Which is a great place for town to be in.
9:03:24 PM ArtherDent: Very true
9:04:23 PM ArtherDent: Also; let's say you lynch all power roles, town and scum. In that case, you kind of make it into a mountanous game; and town has historically had a very, very bad record in mountanous games
9:05:17 PM Mercuriala: Also true.
This first thing is that there are no real issues in the timestamping. If there were large chunks of time unaccounted for, then that would be a strong indicator the conversation had been doctored. It's still possible it has - though if it has, it's been done extremely well. All the comments fit together and there are no jarring moments where comments don't fit.
The convo is mostly theoretical in nature - and as such, could have been had between a town hydra or a scum hydra. There are a few things that make me lean either way. Firstly, "8:52:34 PM ArtherDent: Heh. I'm glad you have a good justification lined up" - this looks slightly scummy to me. Concerned about appearances blah blah blah. Nothing damning. I don't really understand why Yos wants Nuwen to sign the post. Which post? It's obviously not the original post, this is from after that. I think, looking at stuff that follows, that it is Yosariwen's Post 8 - and this also finally explains the contradiction.
Let me run this through, this is a sort of epiphany I've had just now.
Yosarian posts that he wishes Nuwen hadn't pointed out the breadcrumb, because he feels it was a poor play.
Nuwen the posts that she wanted to run by the idea of
lynching
these people with Yosarian - and in the AIM convo, that is more or less what she does. She was not running the idea of outing the breadcrumb past Yosarian - she did that independently - but due to miscommunication and a small amount of talking at cross purposes - J-scope's question is about the following quote
hitting a power role at random is more likely to hit scum than hitting any play at random.
and he asks whether she felt that at that time - and therefore whether it influenced Nuwen's decision to out the crumbing - but Nuwen's reply (Mmhm, but I wanted to run the idea by my hydra partner prior.) is about the idea of
lynching
those claims, not about the specific breadcrumb post.
Hrm. That wasn't the dealbreaker/maker I was hoping for. The AIM convo is too focused on that one particular issue - the crumbing post - and tbh, could have been written by scum or by town. I think there is a decent amount of concern about appearances (which
is
scummy, if not amazingly so) but there is also the fact that the situation is discussed
from a town perspective - this will hurt town, this will aid town, this is a great position for town etc. etc.
I really, really want to see some proper scumhunting from these two ASAP. There is no reason that when you are under attack you cannot do both. Yos' only attempts at scumhunting have been weak and OMGUSsy (again, things like the idea that I slipped just make my eyes roll. I have never, not once in my mafia playing career, seen a "slip" I believed in. He's right I didn't even consider the possibility of a town kill. Why is that scummy? Prior knowledge left testicle - when I see a player die, and that player is the only player to die, I think scum. Town don't always have a kill, scum almost always do! (Also, for the record Yos, it was not a bizarre misinterpretation, it's actually a very easy misinterpretation to make. I've had to read the exchange about three times, compare to your AIM convo and take some time to reflect on it before I finally understood what was going on. We don't have access to your minds, we oly have what you wrote, here, in thread to go on - and with what we have here, in thread, it looked like a contradiction.)
Raging Rabbit - If you continue to insinuate that I am scum simply because I am disagreeing with you, then there's really no point in arguing. I'm not going to waste time trying to convince a player who is clearly so motivated by his ideology that he can't even consider that town could have a differing opinion than him.
To approach this as "a noraml game of mafia, only twice as fast" is suicide, unless you're scum of course. which is starting to look more and more likely.
Not only is this a strawman, it's also a logical fallacy disguised by being slipped in as an insinuation.
Basically, it comes down to this. I think that if we go into this with the eye to lynching as much as possible, we will make it very easy for scum to push any lynch that they want. We need to lynch when we have a majority of players that a re reasonably convinced a player is scum - like in any normal mafia game. Otherwise, we risk scenarios like this:
TOWN A: *Scummy remakr*
TOWN B: OMG SCUM LYNCHGOLYNCH
SCUM A: I AGREE LYNCHGOGO
SCUM B: LYNCHLYNCHLYNCH
TOWN C: Big wagon, hrm, since we need to lynch as much as possible, I will join in!
*TOWN A IS LYNCHED*
And then the next day:
SCUM A: *Scummy remark*
TOWN B: OMGSCUMLYNCHGOGOG
SCUM B: Eh, I'm not convinced.
TOWN C: Too much resistance to this wagon, we need to lynch quickly, let's go after someone else!
Do you see what I mean? The idea of lynching lurkers days 1 and 2 etc make it even worse - it's so easy for scum to just push the attention off their partners when they get in trouble but push any townie wagons - and because we need to lynch quickly, we go after the easy lynches, and because we're lynching quickly and we're rushing, we never have the opportunity to go back and spot these connections after all. Personally, I would prefer one informed lynch a day to two rushed lynches a day.
I agree with Zaphod Beeblebrox that Raging Wishbone's vote on Yosariwen is scummy. I don't agree with the signing the hydra heads, thing, but then we as a hydra have already discussed this and I don't feel like going into any more depth. The only reason this post is only expressing my views is that my partner is absent, otherwise I would be communicating his viewpoints as well.
I need to re-evaluate slightly. I still think Yos is a good lynch, but I've lost track of swswc somewhat - and there are other players (notably DTH, PTA, RW) who I want to have an in depth chat with JD about.
