Scummies Invitational (OVER!!!)

[imaginality]

Hello world.

1. Have you played in a Lights Out game before?

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?

Everyone: I win 15x$200, and lose $14x200, giving me $200 profit. If you're going to quibble about 'a bet' though, I'll go for Empking on the basis SpyreX and curiouskarmadog probably know more about the other players here than I do.

3. What do you think is the optimum number of lynches for Day 1?

Depends on context e.g. if we have two competing wagons then we may learn a lot from seeing both flip; in general though I'd lean towards 1 lynch for D1 because if we use our 'extra' lynches D2 or D3 then they're likely to be better informed due to night action results, night kills and such.

4. What is your favourite animal?

Meerkat

5. Sum up your playstyle in one sentence.

At best, calm and cheerful, with occasional flashes of insight and humour

[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...

[imaginality]

Bayesian statistics says learning that Kmd4390 is prepared to avatar bet on Tenchi being town should make me increase the probability I assign to Tenchi being scum...

Hoopla, are you voting Tenchi for contradicting himself in the post you quoted?

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.)

Now you are talking yourself into it.

You dislike RVS
Hoopla clearly creates a way to escape RVS
You

comment

on it.

and random vote anyway?

Not sure I see the problem here.

Contrary to Hoopla, I dislike Q21's vote on Empking. Going for the likeliest target before he has posted and on page 2 is hardly protown. This is not daring, this might be creating a selffulfilled prophecy.

This, I agree with. Except it was on page 1. But it does seem a little like taking the easy route. Also,

Now time to hedge my bets with an Empking vote.

random votes with smileys are 17.4%* more likely to come from scum trying to make people like them.


*Objective accuracy of statistic is not guaranteed in all countries. Consult your local soothsayer.

[imaginality]

Post 99 is full of goodness.

Vote: curiouskarmadog

[imaginality]

Actually, Myk, that post wasn't to test pop's response. You're right, if it was I did it badly - completely gave the game away. It was to test yours.

If that's true, why all the waffle about testing pop's response? You could simply have voted Mykonian and seen how he responded. This sounds a bit like you backpedalling about your reason for the vote.


On a different note:

I do think we should have two D1 lynches. Lynching is the only weapon we have. And I do think less NKs for scum the better.

It's not quite as simple as that. Two lynches per day vs one per day gives scum fewer NKs. But it could be two D1 lynches and two D2 lynches, versus one D1 lynch and three D2 lynches, for example, or three D1 and one D2. All of those give scum the same number of NKs, but which is best for us is a situational judgment.

[imaginality]

Why I don't have any votes on me I'm not sure. In a short-deadline game like this, consistent activity is pretty important. DING, hypocrisy? No: I wasn't lurking strategically but I accept that even non-scummy lurking is antitown, and if need be I'll seek replacement rather than slip behind again.

Reading up now.

[imaginality]

Thoughts during my re-read:

Page 1

* I agree about ckd's in/vitational confusion being a townslip.
* q21's random-vote for Empking seems slightly weaselly, hoping for a policy-based wagon to start up?
* Slicey's answer to Q5 is the more suspicious than the 'my playstyle changes' answers, totally agree that it's a "Hey, don't pressure me 'til D3 or so please" plea-in-advance
* I notice Tenchi wanted 'more input' about the how-many-lynches question but it doesn't look like he followed up on this

Page 2

* Tajo's answers and vote seem genuine
* Vollkan dismissed answering the survey as 'pointless', but early in the game, isn't everything (including random votes) pointless until it leads to something more? I.e. this doesn't seem a good reason for not answering it anyhow
* I like SpyreX's questions
* Hoopla's setup discussion feels genuine
* Myko merely answering the survey seems a cautiously quiet entrance at this point

Page 3

* Kmd's laziness feels genuine

Page 4

* myko's pressure on Tenchi feels genuine
* Ojanen picked up the ckd towntell and Slicey's excuse-in-advance
* Empking's Hoopla vote feels more lazy
* q21's questions are bad, not scumhunting; myko picks up on this
* Kmd's reads feel genuine and aren't lazy ones
* ckd is vague, and a bit omgussy in reaction to mkyo when myko calls him on it

Page 5

* ckd now casts suspicion on others on the wagon on him but lightens up on myko
* Kinetic scum-slip: "not on my lynch

N1

list"
* Not sure I like the way q21 defends his early vote on Empking ("You thought that was a genuine attempt to get Emp lynched? Really? Wow...") - partly because taking early votes seriously is okay, and also I don't sense q21 would have been unhappy if a policy wagon/lynch had built up on Empking early on
* Kinetic's attack on Ojanen for her comments about him smells fishy

Page 6

* vollkan's post (131) is the point I made earlier with myko's quote (vollkan's RV after answering the survey wasn't scummy)
* Incognito is a bit wishywashy on myko, but gives good reasons for voting Kinetic
* Empking's dismissal of the roleplay counterargument is bad
* q21's test vote, yep, bad, and while his call of OMGUS is also bad, he has a better point later on (P7)
* Slicey votes kmd for laziness, lists K second - scum with K?
* Ojanen's vote on q21 is good, and myko's revote timing seems okay given later explanation; Empking's jump onto the q21 wagon is more opportunistic though

Page 7

* I can see q21's point; myko does seem a touch concerned about how he is perceived - wanting to make it clear he wasn't OMGUSsing on q21 for example; this echoes his cautious entrance into the game
* Tajo's reads seem reasonable at that point
* Hoopla's "bring[ing] out alignment information rather than genuinely finding me scummy" question to Incognito is a false dichotomy as Incognito later points out (to be fair Hoopla doesn't explicitly say it's either-or, though, it feels like a genuine question)
* vollkan in post 165 is good; I like his defense of ckd and vote of Kinetic
* Empking fails to give a good example of ckd misrepresenting
* Kinetic softclaims a hidden motive for his comment - not sure what to make of this; gut says scummy, but 172 sounds genuine

Page 8:

* Slicey is right that myko seems a bit jumpy - we see this again later with the myko-ckd exchange (the 'tunnelling' accusation)
* Kinetic defends meta reasons to lynch Empking; I think as far as the meta reasons go he sounds genuine
* vollkan's 185 is great, especially: "And the beauty of this setup is that the traditional argument for policy lynching early on doesn't apply so much; if Empking really does turn out to be a human trainwreck, we can lynch him later on and not sacrifice a day"
* Kinetic's stance in 186 that policy-lynching on D2 or later is bad is already destroyed by vollkan's point in the post above: this set-up creates the opportunity to policy-lynch later than usual
* Kmd's reads (vollkan-scum, Hoopla-scum, Empking-town) sound genuine albeit meta-y
* Tenchi's questions to me: "1. Should a policy lynch on Empking happen?" No, not on D1. Let's review the evidence from N1 and our reads on him during D2 and policy-lynch him D2 or thereabouts if required. "2. CKD has addressed suspicions of him on page 5. Reactions?" I liked ckd's defense of his own actions, but am bit wary of his eagerness to paint everyone on his wagon as suspicious.
* Ojanen vs vollkan feels town vs town
* Incognito calling out Kinetic for not scumhunting is a better point against Kinetic at the moment than Kinetic's policy-lynch stance; Kinetic's post 200 seems to recognise that maybe he's been tunnelled on the Empking point too much and clarifies his other reads
* SpyreX's comment about the game so far gives me a gut-town feel because I think my sense of a game is similar to his at times and I felt much the same as he did here, and needed a good deep reread to get my teeth back into this game

[imaginality]

Copleting my summary of where I'm at, here are my overall reads at this point:

* ckd has got into the game and been more active, and I am happy to remove my vote from him; I've liked his recent posts
* Empking hasn't shown he has anything of value to offer, and has failed to back up claims like the 'misrep' point. At this point, I can see an argument for a D2 policy lynch depending what we learn from the night and whether we get a clearer read on him. There's no reason to push through a policy lynch today though
* Hoopla I'm pretty happy with for the most part, good discussion, clear and reasoned stances
* Incognito I read as strongly town
* Kinetic I see as reasonably scummy for points noted above, and I'm not opposed to a Kinetic lynch, but I think I can get a clearer read by watching a bit longer and I think he has more to offer if he's town than some other players
* Kmd4390 is town; I disagree with his reads but they sound genuine
* Mykonian I'm interested in; I think I have a slight tendency to equate activity with towniness which I'm trying to correct for. Mykonian's been active, but I sense a certain caution and reactiveness to other's opinions of him. He's someone I plan to meta this weekend.
* Ojanen's one of my stronger town-reads
* populartajo I don't know yet; next step is to re-read him in iso. Not a D1 lynch candidate though
* q21, I'd be happy with a lynch of; several scummy points and not offered much
* Slicey I'm happy with but would be good to hear more from
* SpyreX ditto but more neutral
* Tenchi - too many words; another one to iso. I see some confused and/or poor points made by him but he's been pretty active so maybe they're outweighed by good points. Not a D1 lynch anyhow
* vollkan seems to be generating some differences of opinion. For me, I read him as town and like the points he's been making

Unvote; Vote: q21

[imaginality]

No, I think ckd responded well to the pressure put on him.

[imaginality]

Kinetic, earlier you said: "I do think its inevitable that [Empking] will be lynched even if its not today." So it seems your concern about leaving him 'til D2 or so boils down to the "it distracts from scumhunting" angle. I just don't see why that should be the case. With single lynch games, it wastes a day. With this game, it's easy enough to say, "blah blah, vote X, oh and p.s. empking is still useless, let's lynch him too". It's just whereas for some players, our attitude D2 will be "we will lynch you if you're scummy, but not lynch you if you're neutralish or pro-town," with Empking it might well be a higher threshold, more of a, "we will lynch you if you're scummy or neutralish, but not lynch you if you're highly pro-town." It's not using policy-lynching instead of in-game knowledge, it's using it to judge whether the in-game knowledge is sufficiently strong in his case for him to avoid being lynched.

To further reduce possibilities of discussion being derailed, we might want to consider pseudo-voting tomorrow; it could make sense in this setup anyhow. We can all pseudo-vote/unvote multiple players if we want to, and once any player gets enough pseudovotes to hit the lynch threshold, we lynch them for real. That will make it easier to spot any scum players who use "let's lynch Empking" as an alternative to scumhunting or listing other suspects.

Or are you worried that a cop will have an innocent result on him and we'll have to let him stay alive and he'll lose it for town in endgame? I imagine our cop, if we have one, will investigate someone else, to avoid exactly that dilemma.

In any case, if you want him lynched today, why not come help us lynch q21 first and then we can talk more.

[imaginality]

I think I see SpyreX's case, but it's pretty weak in my opinion due to your iso1 (143) coming between Incognito's iso7 (132) and your iso2 (176). If your iso2 was in post 143 then the echoed reason for voting Kinetic would look a touch opportunistic which is kinda what it seems to me SpyreX is suggesting.

SpyreX, do you have more against Slicey or is it mostly a gut read plus your argument that there's scum somewhere on the Kinetic wagon?

[imaginality]

q21's claim reads all wrong for me. Presumably he does have a killing role, but I think it's more likely he's SK than vig. The good thing is with this setup, there's less downside to lynching a vig claim so even if he kills tonight, we should keep a close eye on him.

I'm going to throw my vote behind a Kinetic lynch. He looked scummier to me earlier, and I definitely think he's more likely to flip scum than Incognito is. As a bonus there is also more we can tell about others based on his flip, I think.

[edit]Also his criticism of Incog for voting him in the current context of deadline looming and those two being the likeliest candidates is terrible.

Unvote
Vote: Kinetic

[imaginality]

Myko, I want that damn reason about Spyrextown in your next post.

Seconded.

[imaginality]

At work now. In this game it's possible scum might self-hammer so as to appear town and get town to lynch a townie before deadline, if they think their own lynch is inevitable. That said it still seems unlikely, so

I'll help with an Incog lynch if there's still time. I doubt he's scum but the information argument is good enough to support this anyhow.

Vote: Incognito

L-2

q21 should vig whichever lurker he thinks scummiest. Please don't target someone active.

We'll have more info by the morning and can make good use of tomorrow's lynches.

[imaginality]

Hoopla said:

Remembering there is that yucky one-shot role that stops us at one lynch, I think it's a worthwhile idea to lynch big numbers today or tomorrow to try and chew it up early. If it doesn't come on D2 or D3 during these days (or we lynch it), we can play the game normally with one-lynch days from thereon in, neutralizing it's influence. If it comes today or tomorrow, great. We have a bunch of options for endgame depending on our numbers and the scum numbers.

QFT. I agree with this approach.

Vote: Incognito

[imaginality]

Unvote

Incognito's not scum. I wanted to see how he and others responded to this wagon on him. His response feels pretty genuine to me.

I think Ojanen's post is good, and I'm keen to read the 'more stuff' in her next post, especially re. SpyreX = town. I looked back on another game I was in with him and he was more active and helpful as town in that one, so I'm starting to have my doubts about him here.

More from me later.

[imaginality]

Ran short of time this weekend, grr. The more from me will be tomorrow. For now, I'm happy to see Tenchi lynched:

Vote: Tenchi

Agree with the posts above: ckd's self-vote feels genuine. I'm definitely not in favour of lynching Ojanen either, and I have no desire to lynch q21 (though there's still a possible SK concern there, so he's worth keeping an eye on). Not so strongly town about Hoopla but think there plenty scummier players to occupy us today at least.

I think at least one of Slicey and SpyreX is scum but probably not both, and I lean much more towards Slicey there; happy to lynch him.

I think probably one of myko or Vollkan is scum, and lean slightly more towards myko. Also I noticed Empking speak up in myko's defence at one point and I think he's more likely to have done that for a scumbuddy.

Kmd and tajo I'm feeling fairly neutral about. Between the two of them I'd lynch Kmd first.

[imaginality]

I think probably one of myko or Vollkan is scum, and lean slightly more towards myko.

Also

I noticed Empking speak up in myko's defence at one point and I think he's more likely to have done that for a scumbuddy.

Oh My God U Suck.

unvote vote Imaginality

. A it is called buddying. B Vollkans overall play consists out of a single big movement against Kinetic, textbook scumplay. You dismiss the whole game to "lean slightly more towards myko" because of the buddying of Empking.

Note the bolded; your assessment is not correct. I saw you as scummier (well, at that point as less town) than Vollkan in my D1 read, and I do so still, except less sure that Vollkan is town than I was yesterday. And there's something about the way the two of you are interacting that gives me a gut feel it's not a town vs town thing.

[imaginality]

At least a few more of us need to collaborate if we actually want to get multiple lynches in today.
I'd appreciate more of these people stating their preferences out of the block [Slicey, Tenchi, vollkan, kmd]. Right now there's 2 votes on each of Slicey, Tenchi and vollkan instead of a wagon on anyone.

Okay, I'm happy to help here. Let's get Slicey going.

Unvote
Vote: Slicey

Of the other three, my preference is Tenchi > Kmd > vollkan.

[imaginality]

Answers to a few things:

I think probably one of myko or Vollkan is scum, and lean slightly more towards myko.

Also

I noticed Empking speak up in myko's defence at one point and I think he's more likely to have done that for a scumbuddy.

Oh My God U Suck.

unvote vote Imaginality

. A it is called buddying. B Vollkans overall play consists out of a single big movement against Kinetic, textbook scumplay. You dismiss the whole game to "lean slightly more towards myko" because of the buddying of Empking.

Note the bolded; your assessment is not correct. I saw you as scummier (well, at that point as less town) than Vollkan in my D1 read, and I do so still, except less sure that Vollkan is town than I was yesterday. And there's something about the way the two of you are interacting that gives me a gut feel it's not a town vs town thing.

Make a case for me, please. I can't properly OMGUS vote you if you don't.

I thought it was mainly D1 you're this touchy...

@Imaginality, just to make your work easier. I've heard that I seem to be touchy/cautious etc. more often. If this is observed, it is usually on day one. Accusations against me don't seem that serious to you, and I seem to overreact on them. The reason mostly is that it hasn't been uncommon that I got lynched day 1 by people all voting me for different little reasons. I'd rather seem a little cautious then let that happen here. (see also my answer at Hoopla's question)

Where is my case? If you don't want to post it, you can leave it, but you are going to say something about it.

I'm going to leave it for now while we focus on getting a few more obvious lynches done today.

---

Incognito's not scum. I wanted to see how he and others responded to this wagon on him. His response feels pretty genuine to me.

I don't get this at all. Considering how quickly votes seemed to be coming onto me at the start of Today, do you really think you would've had time to unvote or something of the sort if the vote totals started to get too high and my response hadn't arrived yet?

Yes. I knew I'd be back online in just a few hours (my vote on you was at 3:30am or so, and I was

---

Little things I couldn't understand for the life of me:

@imaginality

Hoopla, are you voting Tenchi for contradicting himself in the post you quoted?

Hoopla said yes and you never came back to it. Why did you ask this?

I wanted to see if there was anything more to her vote than just that, because I didn't see that contradiction in itself as a scumtell (it looked deliberate, with humorous rather than scummy intent). Her reply was:

Yes, as well as being completely wishy-washy and noncommital. His posts are the definition of filler.

which I was happy with, since I could see those points against him.

[imaginality]

Edit to response to Incognito: ....and I was going to be back online a few hours from then. I didn't think it likely you'd be quick-lynched in that time.

[imaginality]

Didn't see day had started. I agree with this plan anyhow. Very likely only one scum left, if there is an SK as well it's q21, we can lynch a bunch of people today and win. No reason for me to try to stay alive when this plan wins it for us.

I'm vanilla town. I tried to drop a few cop breadcrumbs D1 in case scum were looking for breadcrumbs.

Vote: imaginality

Now get lynching the others, quick chop.

[imaginality]

Wow, that was pretty comprehensive. Full credit to q21 - two mis-viggings and this could have been a whole different kettle of fish. Well played too to the other smarter townies with better reads than mine.

I like the multi-lynch, fixed deadline game mechanic. Was vollkan's day-stopping power one-shot or multi-use?

[imaginality]

I just wondered if it was maybe 2-shot like the pro-town PRs.