Mini 886 - Popcorn Mafia - Game over!

[Sarag]

Do not deliberately act scummy so that you will get the gun.

.

Haha yes, I considered that and dismissed it as dumb.

I guess we should vote or FoS even though it has no game effect, in order to aid scumhunting. Like this:

FoS: rite

- only scum don't capitalise their names.

I also think Val should keep her thoughts to herself as much as possible (bar asking questions she wants answered, or analysis she thinks will be useful for town) - there's no point in letting the scum know how she's leaning until she pulls the trigger, and she doesn't have to prove herself town.

[Sarag]

Not really. Keeping stuff to yourself for a while is okay, but I'd advise letting people know who you're planning to kill ahead of time, rather than just suddenly shooting. The last-minute flurry of activity is very informative.

Hmm yeah, I wasn't too clear on that, but I didn't mean literally until the post where she pulls the trigger. Anyway, obviously what to talk about and what not to is something Val will need to decide on - I wanted to point out that she needn't feel she has to play transparently in order to prove her towniness.

I'm not familiar with the kingmaker role, but the rest of Xyl's advice seems good.

@Zakeri - The scum put pressure on Val when they made her gun bearer. My discussing the situation and trying to be helpful did not.

@Slicey - It seems forced because it is. I'm very deliberately suggesting a practice for denoting who we think should be shot. What's not to like? So far the conversation has been about strategy, which I think is useful, but will only go so far with actually finding scum.

[Sarag]

@Sarag: How well do you think I will handle the pressure of gunbearer from what little you've seen me post? Please elaborate beyond a one-sentence answer.

So far you seem to be handling it well enough. You're open to advice but appear to be judging its value for yourself. It's early in the day though and your decision must seem far off - perhaps it will be harder on you closer to deadline, especially if there are no clear choices. However, you seem cautious but not flakey, so I expect you'll avoid making a terrible choice.

[Sarag]

Unless you want to give me the gun, you shouldn't shoot me.

I don't find this very compelling.

[Sarag]

Why? I'm not personally afraid of being shot. Are you?

Yeah, it would be lame if Vala died. Both scum and town should wish to avoid being shot, Bogre.

As for why I don't find your response compelling, it's because it amounts to you just stating that you are town. It's kinda meh.

[Sarag]

Yes, Bogre, I see the distinction. I also see how you're distracting people from the fact that your original response to Vala's question was completely lame. I'll remind them:

@Bogre: Why shouldn't I shoot you today?

@Vala

Unless you want to give me the gun, you shouldn't shoot me.

I don't think we've heard from Vaya yet. Is there anyone else who hasn't checked in?

[Sarag]

FoS: Bogre

for:

- Giving a useless answer to Vala's question, and ignoring calls to make a better one.
- Making a very contrived case on rite that involves (1) claiming to have caught rite "thinking of personal survival" when this appears to be Bogre's favourite topic; (2) being very nitpicky in claiming rite scum-slipped by saying he knew Bogre was town.
- Responding to his points being challenged by changing the topic.

(I don't think (2) is

too

bad, I have seen scum "slip" like this and argue it's dumb. But... It is kinda dumb, and not a strong tell.)

[Sarag]

Suggesting that Vala shoot rite instead, and claiming to scum-hunt is a much better answer than "I'm town". At the time you answered her quesetion, it

wasn't

obvious that Vala would see you scumhunting, because you hadn't done any. I agree it's a tricky question, but it shouldn't have taken this much pressure to drag a better response out of you. There are still better responses.

Why shouldn't she shoot me? Because I'm an active player, I try to keep my posts game-relevant, on topic and try to be clear about what's actually going on. As town, I will pay attention and make a good effort to scum hunt. As scum, I will leave a long paper trail.

The point of such a question is to get you to say something about yourself, or your play style, to say why you think you're valuable to the game - to help Vala get a read on you.

I agree with Yos' take on Bogre. I disagree with him, but I'm not sure that all this means that he is scum. Xylthixlm seems pretty rabid...

@Elmo - would you please prod Vaya? I'm not sure what your activity policy is...

[Sarag]

What, calling you rabid?

[Sarag]

Bogre, my first reaction to that post is: Holy backtracking, Batman!!

I think it's more likely that you just didn't know how to answer. But, ok, you did it to spark discussion. If you say so.

[Sarag]

Ok, I'm going to be a bit less active over the weekend. I don't have heaps of time now, so I'll just use this post to make a defense of the Bogre scum-buddy accusations that have been leveled at me.

Sarag is a possible scumbuddy because:
- coaching in 67. Trying to help Bogre answer the question and redeem himself.

Firstly, the accusation of coaching is ridiculous. I can see how you might think that if you read 67 in isolation, but I was actually just answering the question he asked me - of what a better answer would be. Here is the relevant context:
- I called him out on his poor answer to Vala's question (35).
- When he wriggled and tried to avoid it, I pushed harder (38, 48, 57).
- I didn't ease up until he

finally

gave a slightly better answer in 62 (underlined):

I am curious as to what a better answer of that would be, Sarag.

Obviously she will see that I am scumhunting (and actually have found one)

. Why shouldn't she shoot you?

At which point I acknowledged his response was closer to what I was after. I didn't think pushing further on that particular issue was likely to bear any more fruit, so I backed off a little. I then

answered his question

of what I thought a better answer would be, and why Vala shouldn't shoot me (quoted above, not underlined). If it was scum-buddy coaching, it was pretty terrible - push hard and wait for the damage to be done,

then

coach? I don't think so. I very much feel he was beyond redemption at this point.

---

- Attacking Bogre's backtracking, and then saying it's ok in Post 71.

Ok this, I think, is a simple misunderstanding. Here is my post 71:

Bogre, my first reaction to that post is: Holy backtracking, Batman!!

I think it's more likely that you just didn't know how to answer.

But, ok, you did it to spark discussion. If you say so.

The underlined bit is sarcasm. I don't actually think it's ok.


I'm still not sure how I feel about Bogre. He has continued to keep digging himself further into a hole, but his bull-headed play remains consistent with poor town. In my experience, townies act like this more than scum do, but there are obvious problems with relying on that.

The case that DraketheFake has mounted against me feels very much like clutching at straws, and like opportunistic bandwagoning (metaphorically of course, since there are no votes - but he followed a few others' accusations that felt more genuine to me). At the risk of being accused of OMGUS, small

FoS: DraketheFake

. If anyone actually cares, I will defend but I'd rather not waste everyone's time.

[Sarag]

On the contrary, I'm a little concerned that there is too much focus on Bogre, despite my hand in it. I think it's a real risk that lurker scum could be kicking back, enjoying the show at this point. Bogre has had this much bad attention because he wasn't very good at defending himself. I'm clearly not reluctant to defend myself from attacks that have actual substance - see the majority of my last post.

[Sarag]

Only scum play soft.

Wrong.

[Sarag]

Hey folks, just popping in to say I won't be able to post properly until tomorrow evening. Sorry, I've had a busy weekend and now I'm preparing for a presentation tomorrow.

[Sarag]

Hey, still here. I will need to catch up. Sorry, things have been quite busy but I will back in good form very shortly.

[Sarag]

*sigh* just got my prod. I'm sorry, I've been really busy but I'm enjoying this game so I don't want to replace out. I'm going to give myself til tomorrow night to catch up or request replacement.

[Sarag]

Catch-up since page 5.

Discussion between ortolan and rite - they both seem to be nitpicking in an unhelpful way. I don't find ortolan's accusations of rite to be particularly compelling, but rite seems to be misrepresenting ort's case. I think rite comes out a little worse in it, since misrepresenting someone's argument seems less town than making a flimsy case in the early game. I have a slightly town "vibe" from rite, but that may only be because he was attacked by Bogre in a really poor way, so I may have to re-assess him.

I also think ortolan's case on DoS isn't too compelling.

ort vs Zakeri - I agree with ortolan that speculating about motivations is not in any way scummy. I think Zakeri was responding to the apparent trifling nature of ortolan's accusations though, which I agree with.

Xylthixlm - I'm finding him pretty hard to read. I'm not really familiar with this kind of super aggressive playstyle. He doesn't seem too interested in playing transparently which concerns me.

It occurs to me that correct play as a townie is to encourage being shot

Uh... WTF?? His follow-up is also bad. This adds to my suspicions from his earlier analysis (88).

I also want to know how the opinions of a confirmed town player compare to my own, because that is a good way of calibrating whether the reactions I might get from other players are town or scummy.

I don't really get this... Ortolan, would you clarify, please?

Vala - I have a mild town read on rite, and a scummy read on DraketheFake. I'd be much more comfortable shooting Drake at this point. I agree with ortolan, that he seems to just be posting for activity points. I'm still reading way too many people as neutral, though, so I'd be happy to use the next ten days to try to firm up some impressions.

I guess we should vote or FoS even though it has no game effect, in order to aid scumhunting. Like this:

FoS: rite

Why rite? He hadn't even posted?

I gave an explanation right after the text you quoted. It was "only scum don't capitalise their names". Witness my failed attempt at a RVS.

If we're lucky Bogre is scum trying to seem like a townie trying to get the gun. If we're unlucky Bogre is a townie who is playing against the town. Either way I want him dead as soon as possible.

The good news: I agree. The bad news: If he's not scum that means his death equals two town deaths.

Does this mean you think rite is town?

[Sarag]

To be absolutely clear, I am not subtly trying to get rite lynched. I honestly don't see why people think he is scum. So... Let's have a closer look at the back-and-forth between rite and ortolan and see if I can make my position clearer.

Ortolan said of rite's post 26 (in which he answered Vala's question by claiming to have lurked in the past as both roles):

Town players don't want to give information like this so that they can be evaluated "fairly", they want to convince others that they're town. It looks like he is going out of his way to appear "honest" rather than acting how a townie actually would- trying to convince people that they're town.

This I disagree with, I don't think there's anything scummy in the way rite answered the question. Lurking is anti-town. But if he has done it in the past, should he lie about it? No. His coming across as trying to be honest is because he is admitting to an anti-town meta. It's a null tell.

Then we have:

Also, you first say you associate newb scum with being "defensive," then say you associate them with giving out information so they can be "evaulated 'fairly'". I don't understand; these two appear to be at odds.

This is a misrepresentation of ortolan's argument, which ortolan corrects in post 125.

However, I think it's possible that what I call a misrepresentation was an honest mistake, so I'm far from damning rite at this stage. While I disagree with ortolan's case (on rite and also on DoS), making such cases is pro-town, as it generates discussion and involves people. And finally, I called it nitpicking because I think the discussion kept going when it was no longer useful, and it was originally about some behaviour of relatively minor interest in the first place.

[Sarag]

It'll be a few hours before I can catch up on the replacements and post. But my top three are DraketheFake, Bogre and um.. I don't know maybe Yosarian2 or DragonsofSummer.

I don't really have a good third candidate. Yosarian2 keeps sliding under my radar and seems to be playing very reactively, DragonsofSummer only really responded to ortolan's attacks and then went back into hiding.

I'm reading town on Slicey, ortolan and Xylthixlm.

Neutral on rite. I don't think he's done anything particularly scummy, but nor has he seemed pro-town.

[Sarag]

My scumlist is now: HackerHuck, DraketheFake, Bogre, in that order.

DragonsofSummer beats out Yosarian2 for fourth place since he is obviously acitvely lurking. See below for explanations and other general catch-up. I hope this isn't too little too late. Sorry I really haven't had the time to play as well as I'd like. Some of this probably won't get answered until day 2, but I wanted to get it in before the day ends in case I'm shot.

---

I’m not seeing the general scumvibe on DraketheSnake that everyone else is. It seems more to me that he doesn’t have a proper understanding of the mechanics. Are you all really arguing that he’s scum trying to convince townies that they should try to get the gun pointed on themselves? Yes, I understand that’s what the scum are thinking, but verbalising is a sign of scum who can’t maintain an inner dialogue.

Your final sentence here seems to

support

the case that he's scum trying to convince townies that they should try to get shot. What am I missing?

---

oh wait...I was confused...HackerHuck replaced rite?

Who did you think he'd replaced?

---

I was going with the just name names and see reactions process. Here's a quick reply . . .

Zakeri: Lurktastic.

Borge: Scummy.

Slicey/DraketheFake: Gut.

The reasons given for Bogre and Slicey and DraketheFake are not real reasons at all. And why group Slicey and Drake together both as your "third" option AND when giving reasons? Perhaps you just tacked them on as an afterthought and couldn't be bothered to make up a different reason for each of them.

---

Bogre thinks he knows the definition of anti-town. You forget that anti-town also means self preservation instead of trying to win. You're anti-town because you are too worried about staying alive instead of trying to help your team.

When was Bogre too worried about staying alive? He accused rite of doing this, he didn't do it himself.

And I don't really even see Drake's case against you, so the fact that you're worried about it is surprising, and even pretty scummy. Also worried about OMGUS, which town really shouldn't be.

Drake's case against me is in post 88 where he criticised something I had said or done no fewer than 4 times. This was all in the context of a full game analysis, so each criticism was independent and interspersed with other observations. And yet he never bothered to state plainly that he thought I might be scum, and didn't try to push a case against me. If it were me that found 4 independent things scummy about one player I would be pushing hard. That is why I find his case scummy - because he buried it, as if he's worried about pushing a case against a townie.

The reason I was worried about OMGUS is because it's hard to objectively assess an accusation of yourself. I wasn't sure I trusted my own judgement on this particular case, because his accusations seemed so obviously poor to me, and yet it was apparently not obvious to him.

His posts since then have been worse. His 166 where he says townies should try to get shot is terrible. He parrots Bogre's argument about townies not being afraid of the gun then says Bogre is scummy for saying Vala shouldn't shoot him because he's town. It makes no sense and it just looks like he's skimming.

I'm reading neutral on rewq - he's better than Drake, but nothing says town, so he stays on my scumlist.

Sarag, why do you want to focus on other players when we have a very likely scum (and even you kinda think so) in Bogre. Trying to shift the focus on someone else?

That was quite early in the game. I pressured Bogre for acting anti-town, and we got a bunch of posts from him that told us a fair bit about his playstyle. Pressuring him further seemed likely to just yield more of the same. I didn't see it as a strong scum-tell then, since it could be interpreted as poor play as easily as scum. It can sometimes be more informative to see how people play once the pressure is off and I didn't think I was going to reach a decision by pressuring him further at that time. What's more, the whole Bogre discussion was all that was being talked about, pretty much. It ran the risk of being a big distraction and there was plenty of time for more scumhunting.

So how has Bogre been since the pressure was off? 185 is just more of his same stance about townies not being afraid of getting shot. Repeating himself and conjuring excuses to keep pushing Rite.

Then a few more weak accusations of people without much content. Then his best moment in 284 & 286 catching HackerHuck out for saying he's worried Bogre will shoot Xyl. And that's basically it. The only worthwhile thing out of Bogre was just because he was tunnelling hard on HackerHuck (rite) anyway.

Bogre stays on the scum list.

---

tl;dr version: It's impossible to tell a person's meta from a single game because it's impossible to know what changes based on alignment.

This is true, but it IS possible to find a counterexample to a case using a single game, which is what ortolan was trying to do. So if someone says "Bogre is scummy because of behaviour x" and then ortolan says "but Bogre displayed behaviour x as town in the past" it is a legitimate comment.

--

That's..actually kind of a scummy reason, HH. "I don't want X to get shot today because he'll become gunbarer and then shoot me" is exactly what scum would likely be thinking in that situation.

You're calling him scummy for not wanting to get shot. Haven't we already established that no one wants to get shot?

You mentioned me at least once:

Possible scumteam of rite and Xyl?

I think yes

HackerHuck bringing it up is curious, though.

because Hacker is trying to implicate a townie along with himself

Now this is a case I can get behind. I cannot think of a reason for town-Hacker to mention Xylthixlm in this context. He goes to the top of the scum list.

---

I've been very active, and quite agressivly scumhunting the entire game. I haven't been "reactive" at all, other people have been forced to react to my attacks. Including you.

So what the heck are you talking about?

You've been better lately. I was referring to your comments on Bogre early in the game. You came in with a weak stance on an ongoing discussion. I didn't see you generate much for quite some time after that.

---

- Sarag, are you saying that you agree with both Zakeri and ort in their argument? I have no idea what you're trying to say about the two of them. Whose side are you on? Also, you really didn't make any firm opinions on anyway. You think rite is town and you think Drake is scum, but you don't sound very sure.

I said I'd be comfortable with shooting Drake, how much surer do I need to be?

I was saying I agreed with some parts of each of Zakeri and ort's arguments. I was commenting on the content, rather than the authors. I agreed with ortolan that the nature of his attacks (speculating about motivation) is not scummy, but I also agreed with Zakeri that the particular attacks were poor. So I didn't think ortolan had a case on DoS, and I didn't think Zakeri had a case on ortolan.

Basically the same thing applies to ortolan and rite. Eliminating cases is not exciting, nor does it give you an answer, but it gets you closer to one, and it isn't waffle.

---

- Ort: Okay. I agree he's town too, although he's more accurate than you are IMHO.

This is referring to page 11. Who are you talking about? Ortolan talked about both Bogre and Drake being town on page 11 but they're both on your scum list.

Page 5

On the contrary, I'm a little concerned that there is too much focus on Bogre, despite my hand in it. I think it's a real risk that lurker scum could be kicking back, enjoying the show at this point. Bogre has had this much bad attention because he wasn't very good at defending himself. I'm clearly not reluctant to defend myself from attacks that have actual substance - see the majority of my last post.

But how do you tell the difference between a town player that can't defend, and a scum player that can't defend?

That's exactly the point I was making - you can't.

---

If I take those four's votes out of the count, not only does the top 4 stay the same but it also removes

almost every single vote on any player not in that group

.

I've also noticed we are an oddly cohesive group. I don't know what to make of it. Shooting the wrong person will no doubt shake things up a lot.

[Sarag]

But how do you tell the difference between a town player that can't defend, and a scum player that can't defend?

That's exactly the point I was making - you can't.

Actually that wasn't the point I was trying to make. But you can't, and I wasn't claiming you can.

[Sarag]

I don't think Bogre being town changes the case on HackerHuck, so he's still my top suspect.

[Sarag]

I know it's lame to be prodded and then immediately go

V/LA

but

I won't be able to post until Dec 28th

. If Elmo wants to replace me, that's fine - I've consistently had a lot of trouble keeping up with this game. But I'm also happy to keep playing after Christmas and I may be able to find more time for mafia then.

[Sarag]

Hey I'm back. I hope you all had a good Christmas.

Alamaster 381 - what do you mean when you say I'm "kicking" offense?

2: This one's for everyone: Do you feel that Almaster's query is valid, given the comments HR has given, esp. his indications of Xyl's strong play, and his subtle accusation that Xyl looks bad in hindsight?

I looked, but I have no idea what you're referring to.

1.) Why do you feel I was tunneling on Rite/Huck? Was this deserved?

You started with a flimsy reason and then kept accusing him. Anything to do with him you interpreted as scummy. Confirmation bias at its finest. The fact that you eventually found something that I think was worthwhile doesn't change what went before.

2)If you had one failing as a scumhunter in this game, what would it be?

I haven't been staying current with the game, so I'm not commenting on things as they happen and eliciting responses that way. I'm catching up so by the time I post on something it's already been discussed and responded to.

3)Who has been the most effective/least effecting in scumhunting?

Hard to say. Ortolan was vindicated on Bogre, and he's been active on a bunch of topics.

4) Who is the most/least protown? Why are you protown? What have you done anti-town?

Before Slicey flaked, I was liking her posts a lot. I'm pro-town because I try to be accountable, and I've tried to advise the gun bearer on who I think is scum and why. My activity has been too low.

Some of this probably won't get answered until day 2, but I wanted to get it in before the day ends in case I'm shot.

Oops! Why would one be worried about being shot D1 . . . and not being around D2? Hmmmmmm . . . SCUM!!

/facepalm
I made that post late at night, I was tired. Yes, I was panicking about being shot. The game mechanic here just slipped my mind, I was thinking I'd die like in a normal game of mafia. Sorry, not exactly a "golden nugget".

Ort, if you are town, it's your duty to try not to get shot. When you say stuff like that, if it's not a gambit, you're at least skirting the edge of "play to win" stuff. Don't, please.

I don't see how Ortolan saying what he did is actually likely to lead to him getting shot for it. He could easily be blustering about, overconfident in his read and getting frustrated that people think he's scum. That seems more likely to me than that it is a scum gambit. Does anyone have a meta argument for ortolan? Does he like to gambit?

[Sarag]

I've been doing some iso reads on a few people.

HowardRoark

There are a bunch of things that really aren't adding up with HowardRoark's posts.

He spends a bunch of effort calling Slicey scum:

Top 3? Zakeri, Bogre, Slicey/DraketheFake.

Slicey/DraketheFake: Gut.

I dislike both the ortolan and Slicey posts after the trigger was pulled.

Then inexplicably lists her as one of the most effective scumhunters:

Most effective could be any of the active players: Xylthixlm, Slicey, ortolan to name a few.

I don't think Slicey had even posted anything in that interval.

His position on Xylthixlm seems to change every time he mentions him:

Overall, Xylthixlm doesn't look good in hindsight.

And then post 450 where he lists Xyl as one of the "most effective" players.

Howard, do you think the most effective scumhunting is coming from scum players?

And in these two posts we have an outright contradiction:

@Bogre: Based on the scum lists, Xylthixlm has been pretty much accepted as town.

I don't like how he's stating that Xyl has been accepted as town. I don't think you can make the connection that agreeing with Xyl's scumlist is the same as finding him town.

I'm not saying it's about the scum lists. Try again.

Is it about the scum lists or not? If not, what is it about?

HackerHuck

I'd like to remind people of this case because it seems to have slipped away.

Bogre’s my second, but I think he's a bad target if we're wrong. He might do a decent job at finding scum as the shooter, but he'd need to take his sights off of me and Xyl before I'd feel really comfortable risking that. It's not so much that I don't think he's really scummy, it's that being wrong about Bogre would be like killing two townies.

Reading 284 through 287 you can see that Bogre mentioned a rite-Bogre scumpair theory once as a joke, and never pursued it. It was so minor he'd forgotten he'd done it.

So why was HackerHuck concerned about Bogre suspecting him and Xyl? One possibility is that he is scum buddies with Xyl and was overreacting to Bogre's comment. Ortolan suggested that he was pretending to overreact to a flippant comment in order to implicate Xyl if he were to be shot.

Either interpretation has HackerHuck as scum. I can't think of a town motivation for the way he acted, except just a weird fixation on that comment.

DragonsofSummer

I've never seen someone lurk so beautifully. He posts just enough to not get replaced and yet has barely said a thing all game. He has defended himself against ortolan's early attacks and quoted other people to agree with them on topics that don't involve scumhunting. All of his meagre content has been in direct response to questions from the gun bearer.

People have been commenting in an off-hand way about his lurking but it's time to bring him to task. If direct questions are all that he responds to, then I suggest that every player ask him a question. Here are some of my own:

1)Which comments of AlamasterGM's do you find wishy washy?
2)Which are overly defensive?
3)How is AlamasterGM's OMGUS on HR different to yours on ortolan?

---

On a broader note, I think we need to have less of the "X is scum, shoot now" type posts. Bogre (yesterday), Xylthixlm (he's toned it down a bit today) and ortolan are the prime offenders, but others have done this here and there. Don't get me wrong, some of these players (Xyl, ort) have been active and agressive, which I find pro-town. However, I don't think the overconfidence is helping. So many people were sure of Bogre, and that didn't work out so well. Sounding sure and being right are not the same thing.

This game is all about the gun bearer. If you think you have worked out who the scum are, you need to convince the gun bearer, not just throw down your theories and think you've done your job. You also need to revise. There is considerably more content now since some of these decisions were made, and it is just as valid as the early stuff.

We can also learn something from the way Vala played as gun bearer. She said she had decided on Bogre well before she actually shot him, and she deliberately used all her time to pressure other people and try to elicit responses and more data on other people. That was great. However, she made one mistake there and that was not to threaten Bogre at the very end and try to get more from him. Ultimately the person you need the most data on is the one you think you'll shoot. You need to check if you're right. I think the gun bearer should use that last minute flurry to get responses from several people, the top suspect included.

[Sarag]

I don't think leading the town is a scum tell.

Aaaahm, Sarag? Why are you throwing random accusations on Xyl, if you had a town read on him earlier?

Eh what? Where did I accuse Xyl?

[Sarag]

Oh right. That's not a serious accusation. I was systematically examining the possible explanations for HackerHuck's response. My point is that the analysis suggests HackerHuck is scum, your involvement is incidental and unimportant.

[Sarag]

I really like Sarag's post 587 - except for the part where she says "either interpretation has HackerHuck as scum".

Feel free to provide a townie interpretation, I can't think of one.

I had a very similar feeling in that he was under the radar, yet you know that he's active from reading.

I had this lingering feeling for a while but I've more or less accepted Yos' defense, and he's been seeming pretty town to me lately.

The slip is that even if a townie was shot

they would still be around D2

. But a scum wouldn't be. Which I think is what Howard really meant, but his explanation sucked.

This is how I interpreted Howard's point as well, it's certainly more compelling than the fear of being shot line. I obviously made a mistake and said something stupid. You all have to decide if that was scum forgetting to pretend to be town, or town forgetting the rules of this game.

Is interesting, but not primarily for the contradictions. More that it goes back to what I was saying earlier; I got the feeling Howard was really dancing and weaving on the issue of Xyl, and my gut is that he's doing it because it kind of scares him that Xyl has such widespread support.

I can see that explanation, Yos, it has merit. I would be interested to see Howard's comment about the inconsistencies and about your case.

[Sarag]

Also if for some reason I get shot before my post, I will be shooting Ortolan tomorrow just so everyone knows.

This strikes me as kind of scummy... Why say this? There would be plenty of time tomorrow, unless he's saying he will auto-shoot (and it seems like he is). The only reason to do that is to threaten town that he'll be a bad gun bearer in order to discourage Bogre from shooting him. I know we had that whole discussion at the end of day 1 with Vala not heeding this kind of thing, but DoS has obviously been skimming so he may still think Bogre would fall for it.

Bogre, what's your read on HackerHuck? I'm surprised to see he didn't rate a mention in your last post.

Sarag- Slight

He was really soft towards me day 1

I didn't have anything strong to go on, Bogre. Aggression is really not my style, especially day 1, and with good reason. I was still wrong, even after I thought the evidence against you was stronger.

Nachomamma- Heavy

Drake was my top suspect on day 1, but I liked rewq a little better and Nacho even more. Town are definitely capable of poor reasoning, and nacho has seemed to be actively scumhunting, even if I think he's looking in the wrong places. I'm still uncertain because of my strong scum read on Drake and nacho certainly isn't obvtown, but I don't want to see him shot today.

HowardRoark-Heavy

I'd be happy with a Howard shot. He still hasn't explained his thought processes adequately, despite posting to address the contradictions, so I'm inclined to go with Yosarian2's interpretation.

Noncontributors

DOS, Almaster, Ortolan

They haven't really said anything.

DoS is coasting. I think you should seriously consider shooting him. He needs to be pressured early so we don't get stuck with him in end game having played like this the whole time. Bogre, what do you think of my suggestion of asking him direct questions?

Alamaster could also do with some pressure. He replaced in, so I'm inclined to give him a bit more slack than DoS.

Ortolan has been pretty active, so if you think he hasn't really said anything, then that should be setting off some major alarm bells for you. I don't agree that he hasn't said anything of content, and I've been leaning town on him so far. I've been putting his play down to arrogance and stubbornness, but I would really like it to stop. If he's town, his play isn't helping. Today has been really bad. Ortolan, just because you haven't had an unexpected alignment flip doesn't mean you don't have to re-evaluate your cases. Even if you come to the same conclusion, at least demonstrate that you've tried to test your own theories. I don't believe anyone is such a good scumhunter that they can reliably find the scum day 1, and even if you believe you are that good, you're not convincing anyone with your current play. At least find new evidence to support your cases, and try to avoid confirmation bias.

Sarag is a much much much better kill. Look at how perfectly 587 sets you up to misvig Nacho, then for Nacho to successfully vig Sarag, then for us to assume the two of her buddies she named afterwards are town. Wowzor.

OMG I can't believe you cracked my amazing plan! Oh wait, you already decided I was scum before you interpreted my post. Without the sarcasm: Ortolan is wrong and this post is not helpful.

forcing town reads is far more likely to trap the scum in this setup

Do you mean forcing scum to name who they think is town? Because Bogre was talking about saying who he thinks is town.

[Sarag]

Sarag, do you really want a dead-weight gunbearer? Do you really really want DoS to be the gunbearer? Don't think so. shooting scummy people > shooting lurkish people

I believe DoS is scummy. He's not top of my list, but his lurking has gone on for far too long. A credible threat of being shot may pressure him to be more active and give us a better read. If it doesn't, he should be shot.

Xyl, Yos and Nacho have covered why your stance is bad policy and I agree with what they said.

[Sarag]

We are now in lylo. DoS, if you misfire, town loses.

I really hope you'll be a bit more active and please don't just shoot straight off the bat like you said you would. Ultimately you still just have to shoot who you think is most scummy, and the fact that scum handed you the gun doesn't change that. Please look at everyone, not just the few people you've commented on so far.

I'm hoping we'll see some better play from ortolan today. You've had one of your scumlist confirmed as town, so it's time to reassess.

I'm still comfortable with the cases on HowardRoark and HackerHuck. I feel worse about my case on DragonsofSummer. :p

[Sarag]

I put Maemuki third on my list after Howard and HackerHuck.

[Sarag]

HowardRoark
I outlined my case on him yesterday in my post 587. I also agree with the last paragraph of Yosarian2's post 605.

HackerHuck
I know why I think he's scum (see my post 587), but why do other people? I had a town read on him early game when a lot of people thought he was scum and I think the case on him is pretty confused at this stage.

Maemuki (Slicey)
Hmmm, Maemuki replaced Slicey, I'd forgotten that. I had a pretty strong town read on Slicey. Re-reading now, his play could be interpreted as hopping on the easy bandwagons but I did like his questions and thought he gave good reasons for his reads. He didn't really do anything controversial or risky though, so may have been playing a safe game, which is more likely to come from scum. Maemuki's play, on the other hand, is weak. She's playing like it's early game but it really isn't anymore. She asked questions on replacing in but instead of following through, has seemed to just flake.

AlmasterGM (Zakeri)
Rereading Zakeri I actually quite like his play. He was lurky, but his posts were good when they were made. I find it easy to follow his thought processes. I also liked Almaster's pressuring of Howard, and his other posts. For some reason I wasn't noticing him much and thinking of him as a lurker almost as bad as DoS but reading his posts, they're actually decent. Not amazing, but I see nothing damning there.

I'm finding Xyl, ort and Yos' listing him as scum kinda weird today. Why exactly do you all think he is scum? Also, please remember to fact-check... e.g.:

Hmmm...yeah, Almaster could be scum. It's notable that really all he's commented on for most of the game is his attacks on Ortolan.

Yos said this after apparently re-reading Almaster but it simply isn't true- he pressured Howard a fair bit, and he also weighed in on my "scum slip".

And this complaint of Howard's applies to me too:

Also, please show me where I have been "uber-attacking" HackerHuck all game. He didn't come onto my short list until D2.

I thought rite was town, I only thought the slot was scum after HackerHuck replaced in and said how concerned he was that Bogre might shoot him and Xyl.



I haven't re-read nacho, Yos or Xyl yet.

Sarag, do you really want a dead-weight gunbearer? Do you really really want DoS to be the gunbearer? Don't think so. shooting scummy people > shooting lurkish people

This post is pretty interesting given who was selected as gunbearer.

Why do you think this post is interesting?

So if ortolan improves, would you still shoot him? How do you evaluate all that scummy shenanigans from yesterday?

I've never advocated shooting ortolan. I've been frustrated lately because I think he's town but he's stubbornly convinced I'm scum and has been pretty opaque about his reads. He did revise HackerHuck, but he hasn't explained why.

@ortolan: I'm not sure why you're so convinced I'm scum. There doesn't actually appear to be a case on me. I just re-read you in iso and you never gave a reason. And this is simply false:

she was all but a guaranteed vig yesterday.

Bogre said he had a weak scum read on me, with a stronger scum read on Nacho and Howard. Stop the rhetoric please. You shouldn't have to make things up.

@Xyl - What do you think of HowardRoark going back and forth on you? Do you disagree with Yosarian2's interpretation of his actions (post 605)?

[Sarag]

@ Sarag,

I thought rite was town

Haha - oh wait you're serious. Yeeeeeaaaaah, why?

He hadn't done anything particularly scummy, but kept getting attacked. I actually didn't have a strong town read even then, I just didn't see any evidence of scumminess until later.

She's playing like it's early game but it really isn't anymore.

Nooooo D3 isn't early game I never knew that. Pointing fingers without reasoning is bad.

If you actually read the sentence after the one you quoted, you'd see I did give a reason. Nice attempt to pretend I didn't though. Bad defense is bad. Here's what I actually said:

Maemuki's play, on the other hand, is weak. She's playing like it's early game but it really isn't anymore.

She asked questions on replacing in but instead of following through, has seemed to just flake.

Even I can see that - and my vision is not that good. I said that we probrably shouldn't shoot DoS over a person, and guess who became the gunbearer?

Over whom? There's no clear alternative in that discussion. I still don't get this. What is it meant to imply? I can't see how this is anything but WIFOM.

--

Hmm, actually after reading HackerHuck's 689 I agree that AlmasterGM's turnaround on me does seem pretty scummy. Like he thought "hey - easy target!" (or "hey I'm going to help my scumbuddy push this case") and then when no one cared, he let it go. Some town points to HackerHuck for this find actually.

Sarag, besides your thinking Mae is "flaky" do you have any other reason to suspect her, and is that the only reason you switched from a strong town read on slicey to a scum read on Mae?

Pretty much just the flakiness. But that seems pretty scummy at this stage of the game. I can forgive it early, but not in lylo. Plus reading back slicey doesn't look as good to me now as he did at the time.

Ebwop: To those on my short list why shouldn't I shoot you?

You should shoot HowardRoark instead. I've made the case for that already.

My number one question is how you know that you will leave a long paper trail as scum.

This was right at the start of the game and I was simply saying I'm not going to lurk out and completely fail to facilitate reads.

[Sarag]

I think the setup is rather town-biased myself.

I don't know, it's true that there were some advantages the town had that they don't in a normal game - e.g. no night kill, which was very rough for us because we couldn't get rid of those obvtown players who were on to us. I expect Xyl and Yos would have gone early.

But I think it was quite well balanced, and possibly even favours scum a little. To be honest, the scum team didn't play very well for a lot of the game, and town were pretty good. I was the only scum that didn't replace out, and morale was pretty low at times. I didn't really click with any of my initial scum buddies, and coordination was near zero early in the game. Nacho was great when he replaced in and I think my own play was best middle to late day 2.

I consider this my first real game as scum (I have played in two other games on another site where I didn't get to play the role for more than one game day). It was pretty rough, but I certainly learned a lot.

Thanks to Elmo for running, and thanks to all the players.

Oh and Bogre listed three shots he was considering before the deadline, and they were all scum.

[Sarag]

I'm ok with posting the qt if the others are.

[Sarag]

Speaking for myself, lurking was definitely a genuine scum tell in this game. The times when I fell behind for RL reasons were then exascerbated by poor confidence so I didn't leap back in the first chance I had. I was a bit surprised by this, I expected I'd be able to rally myself to post more than I did.

[Sarag]

Yeah the deadline rule is fine. It shouldn't ever come up, but you need the deadline to be meaningful for town. Locking the thread doesn't force the gun bearer to make a decision

now

.

Actually maybe these kind of games should have shorter deadlines. Although I think 3 weeks is too long in normal games anyway.

[Sarag]

Does anyone know what happened to Xyl?