Mini 909: Nice'n'Fun Mafia (Game Over)

[cruelty]

@Cruelty: Quagmire doesn't read his Role PM; that includes if he's about to be lynched, I'm guessing.

I could have sworn someone linked to a game where Quag said he did read it if forced to roleclaim. I can't find the post now though, maybe I imagined it.

The thing is he's now deliberately trolling - why? Quag, can you explain to me how your actions are helping you? I can't see how drawing this much attention to yourself aids you as scum, or how drawing this much suspicion and deliberately trolling the thread benefits you as town. Seems lose/lose to me.

Because the logic behind Hoopla's argument is frustrating. I have read and claimed my role PM before. That was in Tree Stump I.

What are you answering here?

That your current actions help you because Hoopla's arguments are frustrating?


I'll ask again, how is your playstyle currently beneficial to you? In any regard?

[Cruciare]

Vote Count

Quagmire (5)

hitogoroshi, Hoopla, Flareonage, Cyberbob, cruelty

The Tracker (1)

Nachomamma8

hitogoroshi (1)

Mindgamer

Flareonage (1)

RedCoyote

Cyberbob (1)

Quagmire

Not Voting (3)

angelmouse, AGar, The Tracker

With twelve alive, it takes seven to guillotine.

[angelmouse]

Ok first things first, sorry for the absence. re-read done and some comments on the main things to happen so far.

Hoopla's miller claim. Interesting. Not totally convinced either way on this. She has guaranteed herself almost a free pass to day D1 and N1 whether the claim is real or not. If it is, I doubt scum will focus on her tonight nor push for a lynch today, if she is indeed scum then she gives herself time to plant and get townies lynched. I'm willing to believe it for D1 and watch closely.

Quagmire not reading his claim. this seems to have dominated the thread so far. My opinion on it is that its neutral read for Quagmire, if it's his playstyle, it's his play style. There are far far worse play styles out there and he is now contributing. I can understand how distancing yourself from the game and your role is often useful when looking at the game. I'm not for a quagmire lynch today. Thing is though, i do see it as pro scum though.

Let me explain. The only people here that know quagmires alignment is scum, (or at least they know he has die for their win condition as he could be a third party role), so they are in the very unique situation here of having all the information. Quag is getting some heat for this and i am totally convinced there is at least one scum on the wagon for his lynch and will be one of those pushing for it. Imagine Quag is scum, if quagmire gets lynched then the scum partner(s) have been distanced from him and they would turn on those not on the wagon and so forth. If he isn't, well they have managed a townie lynch on day one and the "not reading his role" will cover their excuse for being on the quag wagon and the town will be left with little information on day 2. I don't like this situation as this doesn't benefit the town, but only because people now know quagmire hasn't read his role and scum can use this to their advantage either way. Quagmire if i was you i would now read your role, to eliminate this bias, but that is up to you and how "town" you feel.

Since i have been away for so long and posted infrequently i will give a suspicious list. Maybe im giving away too much of what i think, but only fair as i haven't been here:

Flare:
I need more information to get a read on flare either waiy. Leaning scum, but that is only in my gut at the moment as too quick to go with the consensus of the crowd especially on the quagmire thing.

cruelty:
Not much to go on right now. pushing for a quagmire lynch on the basis that his play style is bad, which is fishy as explained before. Hmmm. cruelty isn't showing any agreement with players or thought. i am always careful on those how distance themselves from all players, maybe a little scummier than town.

Col.C:
Before he asked for a replacement i was leaning town, will wait for replacement. I found him jumping on tracker early is strange at first, but the more i thought about it the more i understood why and saw him as actively scum hunting.

Cyberbob
Liked his read into the miller claim and the way in which hito backed up the hoopla claim. Liked the way he has conducted himself in the game so far, so town for me just now.

Hito:
Neutral. he has good game play and neautral posts. Loking like he is scum hunting and asking questions, but i get the feeling he doesn't like to rock the boat. Can't tell either way, think i have to read his posts again.

Mindgamer:
Nothing to get a read on. Will wait with baited breath till tomorrow for his post as he has missed a lot.

Quagmire:
See above. Neutral for me and i think he is a better candidate for day 2 when he has read his role.

Nach:
leaning town here. Was keen on tracer lynch, but reluctant on quagmire. That will prive useful depending on the outcome to day 1.

Hoopla
Pushes for a lot of information rather than giving a lot out (other than the miller claim!!). I'm not convinced as she seems to be quite good at planting the seed of though in players, but i'll believe the claim for now so therefore town. re-read on her posts needed and a wee thought.

RedC:
I totally agree that we should stop talking too much about quagmire's non read of role and more on to other things. His arguments are just, town just now for him.

Tracker:
Little to no comments on quagmire, nor the possible pro town/pro scum comments. I did read his comments alone outwith others and noticed he has always been on the defence since the start. The only thing he has picked up on throughout this is when Nich brought him up as an exchange lynch. Don't like this. Not commenting on the biggest thing to happen in the game so far, but still staying active in the thread, defending yourself instead, smells like you are trying to get yourself out of the limelight. I am beginning belive your "joke" wasn't a joke but a slip and you are indeed scum, sitting back letting quag get lynched which (if you are scum) would help you either way despite quags alignment. So for that reason

Vote: Tracker

sorry if post doesn't make any sense or my spelling sucks, but its late and im tired and reading this thread over and over has left me cross-eyed

[Nachomamma8]

I don't think you really get why I FOS'd him.

Then enlighten me.

But you're willing to excuse it.

I'm willing to excuse it because it's his playstyle, and I don't honestly see how it'll help his scum game. Lynching scummy > Lynching annoying/anti-town.

[Cyberbob]

Then enlighten me.

I already did, read my last post again. I refuse to cater to your obnoxious refusal to comprehend anything that isn't handed to you on a silver platter.

I'm willing to excuse it because it's his playstyle, and I don't honestly see how it'll help his scum game. Lynching scummy > Lynching annoying/anti-town.

In my book annoying/anti-town = scummy when it comes to an experienced player like Quag because he knows better (or should). "durp his playstyle!!" doesn't really hold much weight, sorry.

[Quagmire]

If annoying were scummy Cyberbob we both would have been lynched in the first two posts.

[Quagmire]

@Cruelty: Quagmire doesn't read his Role PM; that includes if he's about to be lynched, I'm guessing.

I could have sworn someone linked to a game where Quag said he did read it if forced to roleclaim. I can't find the post now though, maybe I imagined it.

The thing is he's now deliberately trolling - why? Quag, can you explain to me how your actions are helping you? I can't see how drawing this much attention to yourself aids you as scum, or how drawing this much suspicion and deliberately trolling the thread benefits you as town. Seems lose/lose to me.

Because the logic behind Hoopla's argument is frustrating. I have read and claimed my role PM before. That was in Tree Stump I.

What are you answering here?

That your current actions help you because Hoopla's arguments are frustrating?


I'll ask again, how is your playstyle currently beneficial to you? In any regard?

I implied it wasn't. Not reading my role PM is coming out of frustration for being unable to comprehend this strategy.

[hitogoroshi]

You know what the worst part of this playstyle is? You bring a lot of heat on yourself and distract town entirely (everyone is pretty much tunneled on you right now), so if you are a town power role, you're going to be forced into claiming day 1, thus heavily compromising your ability to help us. It's just fucking bad play.

I think what's more relevant is that he brings a lot of heat on himself and distract the town, giving scum a perfect smokescreen (as RC said). It's not that a town PR will be forced to claim that's the problem - the problem is that it makes a situation where the optimum scum play and optimum town play are more or less the same.

Also, since I'm agreeing with RC's statement with my vote still on Quagmire, let me clarify my position. Quagmire not reading his role PM is obviously a null-tell, however, it gives him a considerable personal benefit if he's scum at a significant detriment to the town. My campaign is in the truest sense a policy lynch; if I ever mod I intend to make the players respond with their role to avoid this. Is he scum? Probably not; he's got a 2/11, 3/11 or (god forbid) 4/11 chance of being scum. But I really don't like Quagmire screwing us all over for his benefit and I'm not just going to bend over and take it.

Are there scumtells so strong we'd be more likely to hit scum than Quagmire? It's possible; while Hoopla makes a good point regarding overconfidence on D1 scum reads there's still plenty of time for some scumslips to come up. But these odds are what let Quagmire get away with doing this every game; and while he says he's 'always acting pro-town' any blind scumhunting he does doesn't come close to us losing a whole day of information on his slot. He's hurting the town for his own gain, I think that's wrong, and thus I vote.

If Quagmire flips town, I'll be excited to reexamine his wagon, to find people like you & cruelty who have been jumping on a wagon at opportune times.
If Quagmire flips scum, I'll be excited to look at people like Mindgamer and The Tracker, who have failed to comment on the Quagmire wagon at all.

I'd be careful with such simplistic analysis. In the first case - well, Hoopla and RC, you'll remember Crossfire. There were 13 votes on a townie wagon - only two scum (one of which was a traitor who didn't even know who the scum were yet, and the other hammered.) There are easy wagons for scum to jump on, but there are also easy wagons for scum NOT to jump on and still feel secure knowing they'll go through.

And if quag is scum, I suppose it's possible they ignore him, but to be honest I doubt scum would choose to ignore something so big and it seems to be a null-tell to be left out of such a major event (Especially since mindgamer isn't even here.)

Although, now that you mention it, what about Tracker...? I don't seem to be able to remember any position he's taken on anything. An iso read shows a lot of touchy little one liners and not much content. Tracker, brevity may be the soul of wit but that doesn't mean posting extremely little makes you extremely smart - there's a happy medium and you're below it.

[Quagmire]

hitorogoshi, that is really bad analysis. You're clearly reaching to vote here, you could just admit it. I've explained numerous times why this benefits me as town as well.

[Quagmire]

One thing this hasn't done is distracted me from scumhunting (one benefit from my current strategy, cruelty). The rest of the town has only let it distract themselves from it.

In any case, it's fairly obvious Cyberbob is scum. He's been one of the more active posters of the game insofar, but has provided next to zero analysis; he's been the definition of a fluff poster.

Now, that's not a scumtell in itself, but the thing that sets me off is that he hasn't tried to do any real scumhunting at all; his signal-to-noise ratio is astounding and he's never put himself on the line to any particular topic. His two votes have been a random vote "Because there's nothing better" (stupid reasoning) and a policy vote (me)... one of my classic scumtells I've found are those that spend the majority of time dismissing others' arguments instead of forming one's own. Read his posts in ISO here.

[Quagmire]

Cyberbob's case isn't the strongest, but I feel it's pretty valid, considering the amount of town I've noticed so far in this game (Hoopla, Nachomamma, Flareon). I'm also going to reread hitorogoshi because I think he's been unnecessarily wordy. Is hitorogoshi always so verbose?

[Quagmire]

Someone give me some reasons of why my play is anti-town please... I'd like to shoot them town and then we'll move on. "Because it can benefit me as scum" doesn't work as an argument, because as I've already said it also benefits me as town.

[hitogoroshi]

hitorogoshi, that is really bad analysis. You're clearly reaching to vote here, you could just admit it. I've explained numerous times why this benefits me as town as well.

I don't care about how it benefits

you

. You are making yourself significantly harder to read, which doesn't matter all that much if town and gives you a huge advantage at our expense if you're scum. If you want to call my analysis bad, explain how your style is helpful to the town if you're scum (hint: you can't because you already said it's an enormous benefit to you if you're scum!)

"Because it can benefit me as scum" can totally work as an argument because if the benefit is significant (and it is!) while the town benefit is slight (and it is!), we can lynch you on the grounds of, "Well, we don't know who the scum is, but let's lynch the person who would be hardest to read if they were scum." The fact that you'll get some marginal benefit if you're a townie is irrelevant - you've set yourself up for a huge advantage if you're scum and I see no reason why the town should take that risk, especially when it was your voluntary choice to force us into this dilemma.

And 'reaching to vote?' I've been voting you the whole game, buddy.

Also, I try not to be so wordy, but yeah, I am usually this verbose, especially when it's something about logic/information moreso than scumtells.

[Quagmire]

hitorogoshi, the benefit I get as scum isn't so great. If I am mafia, you should be able to read differences in my play tomorrow. I'm not a foolproof player by any means.

The benefit is merely slight on both sides; with that said, any benefit is a good benefit.

[Flareonage]

I don't think it benefits him or hurts him. It's neutral and we're wasting our time focusing on him. Where's all the real scum hunting? We have pages of why Quagmire should be executed.

Unvote

VOTE: The tracker

Where has he been? It's about time he got in here and said something instead of hiding behind the whole Quagmire thing

[Hoopla]

Someone give me some reasons of why my play is anti-town please... I'd like to shoot them town and then we'll move on. "Because it can benefit me as scum" doesn't work as an argument, because as I've already said it also benefits me as town.

I'll try again, I suppose.

Are you accurately representing your opinions about your play? I get a small inkling that you have read your role PM and you just enjoy creating drama.

If you are true about your motives, you must be assuming your play is valid and arguing your point to change the positions of those that oppose you. But your play only works for you if you're the only one doing it, as multiple players operating under the same strategy would significantly weaken your advantage, and trivialise Day 1.

Take a game of Prisoner's dilemma - where altruism is best mutual benefit for

both

players. You can occasionally be sneaky and defect to improve gain at the expense of others, but it is a mutually bad result if both players defect.

I deem your play as defecting because you are trying to gain an advantage at the expense of others. The odd curiousity is, you're trying to convince us your play is tactically sound, when it is blindingly obvious it only serves to benefit you at the expense of others (we can't guess your alignment, you can guess ours).

If others played this way (an approach you endorse), it would be a far worse net result for all players, than everyone being altruistic. It may be true that the best

personal

play is to play this way, but when others do it, it goes down the gurgler, therefore it is in your interests to keep others from doing so to maximise the benefit of your advantage.

There is no possible way to claim your action is pro-town when more people doing it would be a worse result.

[The Tracker]

If it appears that way, my bad. I'm not a fan of his play, but he's just going to do as he pleases. Lynching him today won't help us much. I'm sorry i haven't been posting here, but I'm starting to overload slightly.

[Quagmire]

Someone give me some reasons of why my play is anti-town please... I'd like to shoot them town and then we'll move on. "Because it can benefit me as scum" doesn't work as an argument, because as I've already said it also benefits me as town.

I'll try again, I suppose.

Are you accurately representing your opinions about your play? I get a small inkling that you have read your role PM and you just enjoy creating drama.

If you are true about your motives, you must be assuming your play is valid and arguing your point to change the positions of those that oppose you. But your play only works for you if you're the only one doing it, as multiple players operating under the same strategy would significantly weaken your advantage, and trivialise Day 1.

Take a game of Prisoner's dilemma - where altruism is best mutual benefit for

both

players. You can occasionally be sneaky and defect to improve gain at the expense of others, but it is a mutually bad result if both players defect.

I deem your play as defecting because you are trying to gain an advantage at the expense of others. The odd curiousity is, you're trying to convince us your play is tactically sound, when it is blindingly obvious it only serves to benefit you at the expense of others (we can't guess your alignment, you can guess ours).

If others played this way (an approach you endorse), it would be a far worse net result for all players, than everyone being altruistic. It may be true that the best

personal

play is to play this way, but when others do it, it goes down the gurgler, therefore it is in your interests to keep others from doing so to maximise the benefit of your advantage.

There is no possible way to claim your action is pro-town when more people doing it would be a worse result.

In theory, that's correct. However, in reality, I'm the only one playing like this, aren't I?

Although that last sentence is false. PBPAs are a quick counterexample I can think of off the top of my head, if you're not convinced about my strategy.

[AGar]

So I finally got my read in.

Hoopla's roleclaim is... interesting. Not sure what to make of it, as I wasn't aware millers were told of there role, that was the whole point of the role in my eyes.

I'm suspicious of Mindgamer for a few reasons - 1 is the major absence from the game and the second is an echo of what my predecessor said - the insistence that "mislynch" was a joke early on. Plus, he tried pushing the RVS out of the question as "analyzable material" at some point when people were going after the "mislynch" bit.

FoS: Mindgamer

Unlike a few people in this game, I am a big fan of policy lynches when they present the appropriate opportunity.

Quagmire not reading the role PM sucks the life out of the game by giving him a free pass on D1. However, as people outlined, it's pretty anti-town. Also, there's been no scumhunting from him, just arguments about the validity of his garbage.

I'm sick of hearing him try and argue it as legitimate, and would rather see him policy-lynched than allowed to move on to D2.

Nacho, your buddying and defense of the tactic reeks of bad play.

Vote: Quagmire

[Hoopla]

In theory, that's correct. However, in reality, I'm the only one playing like this, aren't I?

Although that last sentence is false. PBPAs are a quick counterexample I can think of off the top of my head, if you're not convinced about my strategy.

Since you know more people doing it would be bad, why wouldn't you just keep it to yourself that you're playing this way? You could get your special advantage without the risk of being policy lynched (which probably outweighs any slight benefits). You then also reduce the risk of other players playing this way.

[RedCoyote]

If you're trying to bus somebody (which is honestly what all these shifty little attempts to focus suspicion look like), you're doing it badly.

Bus who? Quagmire or the wagon in general? Either way I agree that would be a bad bus because, for starters, it doesn't resemble bussing at all.

When did you ever have a part in it to begin with?

When I live in a town that is unwilling to get their hands dirty because they see an easy way out of D1. I'm part of it because I'm stuck playing devil's advocate on an issue that I don't really care about. I think townies squabbling during D1, especially if there are two strong, competing wagons, gives us a lot more to go on later on in the game than a D1 of "I don't like Quagmire's strategy, let's use D1 to lynch him then start fresh D2." "I agree." "I agree." "I agree."

---

you seem to be avoiding the possibility of Quagmire scum

No, you're right; that's very well a possibility. I'm just not going to say Quagmire should be lynched on a technicality that I don't see as reprehensible as you do.

If he is scum, do you think his buddies would be bussing him, or trying to make use of his tactic and keep him alive?

Yeah, I think there's a good chance of that. Mostly because only three people have made it a point not to join the Quagmire lynch on its current logic. Of those three, Flare has also said the exact opposite, so he could hop again at any moment.

What makes you think his wagon is scum-driven? What chance do you give his wagon being town-driven?

Because it's a red herring. We're missing opportunities to get multiple wagons going. The strategy in question is causing smokescreen, and D1 is turning into a referendum on the strategy itself. You can discuss mafia politics in the Mafia Discussion forum, let's use this thread to discuss who in our town is scummy. I've proposed Flare as a D1 lynch on account of his spinelessness and flipfloping. Nacho thinks that we're letting The Tracker get away with too much. Are you interested in these cases at all, Hoopla?

As far as the wagon being town-driven. You know my position on Flare. Cyberbob isn't very high on my town list either. While that bodes well for you and hito, I wouldn't give high chances that the wagon is town-driven.

---

Quag is getting some heat for this and i am totally convinced there is at least one scum on the wagon for his lynch and will be one of those pushing for it.

I love this statement to death. This is the kind of critical thinking that I think the game has been lacking.

I like post 202 in general, with the small exception being that angel's vote ended up on someone who wasn't voting Quagmire. I think I'm okay with that though because her reasoning is solid. I don't give The Tracker particularly high marks myself. He's seemed very self-interested for the better part of this game. When Quagmire started catching flak, that would've been a good opportunity for The Tracker to make an offensive push, possibly shaking off some of the earlier suspicions he had thrown on him. I think he's dropped the ball in this respect though.

---

It's not that a town PR will be forced to claim that's the problem - the problem is that it makes a situation where the optimum scum play and optimum town play are more or less the same.

Yeah, this is a much better way of putting it.

But these odds are what let Quagmire get away with doing this every game; and while he says he's 'always acting pro-town' any blind scumhunting he does doesn't come close to us losing a whole day of information on his slot.

This is where you start to lose me. Why should I care what other towns have let Quagmire get away with?

---

Cyberbob's case isn't the strongest, but I feel it's pretty valid, considering the amount of town I've noticed so far in this game (Hoopla, Nachomamma, Flareon).

I still don't see Flare as town, and I still haven't seen anyone give any basis for thinking that other than "he may be a newb". I take it this is your reasoning as well.

---

Unlike a few people in this game, I am a big fan of policy lynches when they present the appropriate opportunity.

So would you support a lynch of Cyberbob on the basis that he admitted to not reading most of what other people post?

Nacho, your buddying and defense of the tactic reeks of bad play.

Why do you think buddying as opposed to him having a different opinion than you do?

[Flareonage]

I agree completely with redcoyote. This Quagmire thing is wasting our time. We are not gonna learn anything and D2 is gonna end up being our real D1

[AGar]

Unlike a few people in this game, I am a big fan of policy lynches when they present the appropriate opportunity.

So would you support a lynch of Cyberbob on the basis that he admitted to not reading most of what other people post?

I don't see that as substantial enough to form a policy around. cruelty admitted to skimming, and I know I do it myself as well. However, if he's getting the main point, there's nothing that is problematic to the game with that. Not reading a role PM could be detrimental to the game. What if he's got a day action limited to that day. What if he's a doublevoter? Then he could really mess things up. That's a problem I don't want to have to deal with.

Nacho, your buddying and defense of the tactic reeks of bad play.

Why do you think buddying as opposed to him having a different opinion than you do?

Because he's defending the issue until he's blue in the face.

[Hoopla]

What makes you think his wagon is scum-driven? What chance do you give his wagon being town-driven?

Because it's a red herring. We're missing opportunities to get multiple wagons going. The strategy in question is causing smokescreen, and D1 is turning into a referendum on the strategy itself. You can discuss mafia politics in the Mafia Discussion forum, let's use this thread to discuss who in our town is scummy. I've proposed Flare as a D1 lynch on account of his spinelessness and flipfloping. Nacho thinks that we're letting The Tracker get away with too much. Are you interested in these cases at all, Hoopla?

It's only a red herring if he is town - this smokescreen allegation is not true, and I'd suggest that a Quagmire lynch is now quite informative of other player's alignments regardless of what he flips. The way that you're arguing this, it really seems as if you

know

Quagmire is town and are trying to rustle up some town points and throw suspicion on the policy wagon if he is lynched.

Policy lynching/pressuring anti-town play is viable Day 1 talk, just as important (sometimes more) than genuine scumhunting. Damning cases on Day 1 are not common, and are usually overstated and the percentages misinterpreted. There is no confirmed information to go off which is how most successful scumhunting operates. Policy lynches are the way forward.

~~

As for Flareon, his flipflopping is odd but I don't think it is scummy. The reverting back to the random vote is his scummiest action. It looks like a deliberate attempt to avoid stepping on any toes.

I still don't understand the Tracker case - explain it to me.

~~

Quag is getting some heat for this and i am totally convinced there is at least one scum on the wagon for his lynch and will be one of those pushing for it.

I love this statement to death. This is the kind of critical thinking that I think the game has been lacking.

I think you're mistaking critical thinking for 'guesswork'. By sheer probabilities alone, any random 5 players will more likely than not contain one scum member. This is a policy based wagon. If Quagmire is indeed town, I'd expect scum to go the other way, and not add fuel to the fire, maybe even try to condemn it and gain town points. Is my guesswork good too?

[AGar]

For all these people that agree lynching Quagmire is a bad idea on D1, I see very little posting trying to convince us otherwise with actual cases. You're not helping the situation by just opposing it, you're just looking lazy.