Scummies Invitational (OVER!!!)

[Hoopla]

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

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

[Hoopla]

Incognito, I'm upset you haven't completed my survey, and I don't why you didn't do it. Perhaps going for the gag entry was a way to impose yourself upon the game - I don't know. But, to make you conform, I will provide you with a survey specifically tailored for you, that will hopefully be more to your liking;

1. Who would you rather sleep with; Hoopla or camn?
2. Breasts, legs or ass. You can only pick one.
3. Have you ever had an erotic dream about a scummer?
4. Be honest, you like me more than Ether, right?
5. Do you shave anywhere below your neck?

[Hoopla]

I was wondering who the first nonconformist would be, and I didn't think it would be you.

[Hoopla]

Ojanen, Kinetic and mykonian were the favourites. You were going to conform because you're a submissive little butterfly. I don't believe the stance you are taking against me is genuine - it feels like a contrived act to assert dominance. Why didn't you want to do my survey?

[Hoopla]

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

Will you be answering your own survey? Will you be illuminating us with your insight on people's alignments once answers are received?

You don't get to ask questions if you refuse to answer mine.

[Hoopla]

What do you hope this survey will achieve?

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

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

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

~~

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

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

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

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

~~

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Hoopla]

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

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

A few observations derived from the survey;

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

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

Imagine the pre-game talk in the QT;

Hoopla:

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

mykonian:

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

q21:

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

Hoopla:

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

q21:

okay, i'm in.

Hoopla:

scum high five?

mykonian:

sure!

q21:

primo!

---

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

In other news, populartajo is pretty obviously town.

[Hoopla]

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

Tenchi, I've already done more countering than you can count. You're grasping at very small straws.

In other news, populartajo is pretty obviously town.

Explain, pls. THX.

How about you tell me about some of your reads? Was this post;

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

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

Oh look shiny wagon!

VOTE: Vollkan

....meant to be a joke?

[Hoopla]

Hey myko, lets vote KMD together.

Vote: KMD

[Hoopla]

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

Meh, I think its better than random voting wagons

... I'd actually wait whether Hoopla would say something about what he found out with the questionnaire.

Oh look shiny wagon!

VOTE: Vollkan

Unvote, vote: Tenchi

[Hoopla]

$200 on Tenchi.

[Hoopla]

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

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

Hoopz, thoughs of the interrogator?

I agree with mykonian's little summary;

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? Especially the incredibily effective (and discussion generating) OMGUS random vote!

It seemed like a weird action to take, but KMD and Tenchi are far more scummier. You should come and join me and SpyreX.

[Hoopla]

ckd collects some micro-non-mafia points for mixing this up with an /in-vitational. I assume scum have nighttalk and mod wrote nighttalkers could talk pre-game. It's somewhat more likely that Scummies invitational would be mentioned passingly than not and scum would be aware of reputations.

That's not a bad observation.

[Hoopla]

Post 47, on the other hand, is a pretty blatant strawman of my argument. Why would the tactic of clogging the thread with a questionairre necessarily need to be discussed in a QuickTopic before the game as some kind of strategy? I think it's equally as likely that a her-scum could have just done it completely on her own. Anywho, I'm gonna

unvote

because 44 seemed like a pretty good post to me.

If you think it's equally likely that I'd have done this as scum or town, why did you criticise me with such conviction that it was a scum tactic? You barely considered any town motivation for me to do this, which makes this explanation feel like a contradiction or at least a misrepresentation of what he was actually saying.

Thank you for agreeing with my theory about the game in post 44, but I am going to call you out on it, because I still don't think you are being honest with your intentions. You're unvoting me on the basis of theory talk, when you were attacking me for something non-theory. It looks more like you are now searching for a different reason to unvote me, rather than bring to light your attack on me was ill-conceived or exaggerated. You partially backed down, by claiming it was 'equally likely' for me to do it as scum or town, but it really strikes me the wrong way that you would seriously vote based on

that

, given what you say about it now. I don't think you'd be this stubborn as town. And I don't think your intentions to begin with and/or now make sense as town, because it looks like you're just casually trying to sweep it under the rug.

Unvote, vote: Incognito

I'm not usually a gut player, but he is very phony this game.

[Hoopla]

Hoopla, I think you're just mad because you have the hots for me, and I didn't kindly answer your little questionairre like you wanted me to. I had two options when I came into this game:

1)

comply like the other three or so people who complied with your questionairre before me (if I was scum, I would have totally done this making sure my answers are nice and neat and pristine and SO town-ish) or

2)

do something really cool that'll really kick the game off like not complying. I chose the latter option because I thought it would be more fun and would bring out more alignment-revealing information than just complying like everyone else.

So, you were doing it to bring out alignment information rather than genuinely finding me scummy? Is that what you're trying to say?

Out of curiosity, what exactly

did

you gather from the responses of people who complied? It seems to me like the only response that's piqued your interest is mine.

I gave my opinion on three different responses that engaged me - yours has obviously affected me the most. And it isn't just all about what I have found. When you read through the thread, there have been multiple posts where a response to the survey has prompted a follow-up question or an avenue of attack for other players. Tell me the last time a RVS did that.

[Hoopla]

Tajo, here are my current reads, if you want me to show my work, just ask;

Town; mykonian, curiouskarmadog, populartajo

Scum; Incognito, KMD

Those are my solid reads, and I don't want them to be tarnished by the inclusion of more names in there that I don't feel as strongly about. I'm liking Ojanen's presence this game, but I'm wary to give her too much town credit, because she is quite cagey as scum. Tenchi is another I have been swinging on, but I'm starting to see him in a town light, because I remember him playing (a while ago) this naive gamestyle that Ojanen summed up well - he is completely self-unaware, which is hard not to see as a town trait. I'm not writing him off as town yet, because I haven't seen his scum game, and want to cross-check that first.

q21 is the obvious exclusion from this list, and to be honest I don't know what to think. He is usually a careful, logically-guided player as both alignments, and he just seems to be making silly, rookie mistakes. Usually in these instances, scum would be quick to pounce on such an opportunity - it's essentially a free vote, very difficult to challenge, but I feel like this wagon is very much town driven, so I'm not opposed to it, even though I'm skeptical that q21 is scum.

[Hoopla]

On Hoopla, the survey kind of reminds me of the new "RQS" trend that I strongly dislike. It distracts from actually placing votes and calling people scum and tends to stall actual reads from occuring. The other thing it does is make some people's subconcious think "this player is town because they are asking questions".

I can see Hoopla doing this intentionally. I wouldn't say the same for many players, but Hoopla, yeah.

WRONG LOL. I ACCIDENTALLY POSTED IT. WOOPS, MY BAD.

[Hoopla]

Unvote, vote: Incognito

I'm not usually a gut player, but he is very phony this game.

Shittiest reason I have seen thus far. Just because somebody does not choose to play the same as you expect them to doesn't make the scum. The overwhelming stench of using meta to jump on a new wagon is overwhelming.

Also, Hoopla, please answer Post 154.

UM, I DID. My answer was in post 163. Incognito hasn't answered that yet.

Also, I think if you didn't completely remove the rest of my post from the quote you've shown here, you'd see my justification is more than just 'HE'S PHONY!' Here, I'll post what you missed;

Post 47, on the other hand, is a pretty blatant strawman of my argument. Why would the tactic of clogging the thread with a questionairre necessarily need to be discussed in a QuickTopic before the game as some kind of strategy? I think it's equally as likely that a her-scum could have just done it completely on her own. Anywho, I'm gonna

unvote

because 44 seemed like a pretty good post to me.

If you think it's equally likely that I'd have done this as scum or town, why did you criticise me with such conviction that it was a scum tactic? You barely considered any town motivation for me to do this, which makes this explanation feel like a contradiction or at least a misrepresentation of what he was actually saying.

Thank you for agreeing with my theory about the game in post 44, but I am going to call you out on it, because I still don't think you are being honest with your intentions. You're unvoting me on the basis of theory talk, when you were attacking me for something non-theory. It looks more like you are now searching for a different reason to unvote me, rather than bring to light your attack on me was ill-conceived or exaggerated. You partially backed down, by claiming it was 'equally likely' for me to do it as scum or town, but it really strikes me the wrong way that you would seriously vote based on

that

, given what you say about it now. I don't think you'd be this stubborn as town. And I don't think your intentions to begin with and/or now make sense as town, because it looks like you're just casually trying to sweep it under the rug.

Unvote, vote: Incognito

I'm not usually a gut player, but he is very phony this game.

[Hoopla]

Hey imaginality, do you still endorse your ckd vote?

[Hoopla]

No, SpyreX. We're having one lynch today. It's absolutely stupid lynching two players with NO information. It is guess work, and purely egotistical if any townsfolk expect to lynch scum D1 from nothing, in a scummies game, no less. Lets save the numbers for a double/triple lynch tomorrow and the next day, seriously.

And why do you hate me, Spy? How's about you come and help Hoops lynch Incognito.

[Hoopla]

And everything I say there and you comment on me wanting two lynches?

It's the thing I disagreed with most. Although, you didn't really bring up that much beyond a handful of personal reads. The Slicey thing was meh. The scum on Kinetic's wagon was meh, but probably right. I am certainly not feeling that wagon, even if I'm opposed to his Empking stance. The persona pushing the Kinetic wagon is more suspicious than Kinetic himself.

*shrug*

[Hoopla]

I'm not totally opposed to q21's lynch, despite it not being one of my first choices. If he does get lynched, I will not be endorsing any other lynch for today - this wagon has enough information to base a solid Day 2 on.

[Hoopla]

I think it's got to the point where there aren't really any other options besides q21. He needs to claim ASAP, because I don't like the possibility of having to scramble for a different lynch with 24 hours until deadline.

[Hoopla]

Ojanen, will you help me support a last ditch effort at an Incognito wagon? I think we just need another couple of players to make it a viable option.

[Hoopla]

HEY VOLLKAN.

VOTE INCOGNITO.

[Hoopla]

Hey Hoopla. What do you think of SpyreX and tajo?

I've already made it decently well known that Tajo is town. SpyreX reminds me of how I used to play scum - by overcompensating presence-wise to pull off a believable performance. I think he 'acts' a lot more as scum (I'm sure you all know how SpyreX acts). This game he has been lacklustre and almost disinterested which looks more like a town quality for him, even if he isn't powerhunting like I know he can.

[Hoopla]

Why don't you agree with the SpyreX hate? What's he done that's town-ish?

I'm not sure you are town either. Should I vote you?

Myko, do it. When have I ever steered you wrong?

[Hoopla]

First thought about the vig claim was to wonder how much sense a vig makes in a game of already multiple lynching possibilities for town every day. Hell if I ever knew anything about balance, though.

Rereading.

That's exactly what I was thinking. I don't think a 3rd party role exists in this set-up and I have seen Patrick use a 2-shot Vig before, so that gives it some credit as a claim. And it is provable too, so it's not a big deal leaving q21 alive.

Can I have my Incognito lynch now?

[Hoopla]

Your vollkan lynch isn't going to happen myko. Jump on the Incog wagon and make your vote count. Wanting a q21 lynch instead isn't an excuse now.

[Hoopla]

Volkan doesn't make sense for a lynch at the mo'. However, neither does incog. Of those 3 it'd be CKD by a margin.

CKD is pretty obvious lurky, clueless townie. I think the tell Ojanen picked up of him being confused at the start of the game is genuine, and something that wouldn't have happened if he had a QT talking session before the game. I've seen CKD lynched Day 1 as town for similar play - it feels like a mistake.

[Hoopla]

Well we could hold hands and lynch Tenchi? That'd be pretty sweet.

Nah he's town too. But I will still hold hands.

[Hoopla]

Yeah, that claim makes me feel like Kinetic is town, though it isn't all lost if he is, because we have had a few decent enough wagons to analyse for tomorrow. I'll be here on and off up until deadline, so if a voter is needed to hammer Kinetic, I'll do it, but I don't think he is scum. I'll happy endorse a quick shuffle of votes to Incognito, though.

[Hoopla]

Myko, your scumteam is missing the ever elusive, KMD.

[Hoopla]

I could go with an Incog lynch, but with less than 12 hours left to deadline I'm wary of making a change that could result in a no lynch.

I'll be on and off throughout the time leading to the deadline to keep up and help ensure that we get something meaningful out of this game.

I will be here until deadline and so will you. We are enough to swap to Kinetic if need be. But you are not giving the Incognito lynch a chance by not committing now.

[Hoopla]

Fucking hell. That was seriously a bad lynch.

[Hoopla]

Fucking hell. That was seriously a bad lynch.

No it wasnt. Even if Kin is town I needed his flip. The townies that were in his wagon needed that too.

Lynching Incog is stupid regardless of Kin's alignment.

If Kinetic was scum, I'll eat my hat, and every other hat, wig and toupee I can find. Anyone with half a brain could have realised Kinetic was town, especially after his claim. Scum was pushing that wagon hard, and I think it was to protect Incognito. Tajo, I don't think you're town any more.

[Hoopla]

You've chewed up all your town cred being on that Kinetic wagon, tajo. You don't get a say in any more lynches we decide today (if at all).

[Hoopla]

Are you saying I am scum, Hoopz?

Yeah.

[Hoopla]

Lynching Incog today is stupid because we dont have the Kin flip. It entirely dependes on the flip and the information it gives us about the players on the wagons. My position should be clear in the last post. I can understand why you think there is a contradiction there. "Lynching Incog is stupid regardless of Kin's alignment" means that I think Incog is town and that his lynch is stupid imo.

Scum don't self-hammer Day 1 with 6 hours until deadline. We need to be lynching the competing wagon NOW, so we have the information to sift through tomorrow. We know Kinetic is town now because of that self-hammer. We should go for Incognito now.

SOMEONE HELP.

[Hoopla]

Lets just try.

Vote: Incognito

[Hoopla]

Come on - we still have a couple of hours.

[Hoopla]

Dear scum,

Lurking now to save Incognito won't help your cause. Do the right thing and earn some town credit by getting on now.

- Love Hoopla

[Hoopla]

Lets see;

Empking - lurky and sporadic - Probably won't show up.
Incognito - won't self-vote
imaginality - kiwi, wrong timezone.
Kmd4390 - habitual lurker. Probably won't bus buddy either.
Slicey - Also lurky and unreliable - probably won't show up.
Tenchi - slightly less lurky, but lurky of late. Hope he's around.
vollkan - aussie, wrong timezone.

curiouskarmadog - might be around - not sure if he'd vote Incog.
poptajo - anti-Incog for some reason. Hmm.

Come prove me wrong guys!

[Hoopla]

Question... If Kinetic's dead... why does it still take 8 to lynch?

The 50% +1 rule. 15 players means 8 to lynch. 14 means 8 to lynch also, as 7 would be half.

[Hoopla]

You forgot to bold the 'hoping' bit. He is bluffing by dropping the PR-line, but has worded it in a way where he has options to go either way on it.

[Hoopla]

Hoping as in wagon hoping.

That's 'hopping', tajo.

[Hoopla]

That's brilliant!

q21 - are you claiming responsibility for this?

[Hoopla]

TODAY'S AGENDA

Lynch Incognito
Lynch KMD
Lynch poptajo

Am open to SpyreX and Slicey, but those three need to get pumped through ASAP.

The fact we've got one scum down puts us in a significantly safer position, opening up options for big lynch numbers today or tomorrow. 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.

It is still very likely to me we're playing in a 3:12 set-up. Lets get on with it today and power through some lynches.

Vote: Incognito

[Hoopla]

Not seeing Incog as scum.

What's the vollkan case again?

[Hoopla]

I'm a little disappointed the Incognito fell away this easily after everyone came out so forwardly with their desires to pump through a big list of lynches. I'm still relatively confident he is scum, and even if I can't convince you all of that, I'll try to sway you on the grounds of his lynch being necessary information. Lets flash back to when q21 was leading the race;

vollkan (1) -- Kmd4390
Kinetic (3) -- vollkan, Slicey, curiouskarmadog
mykonian (1) -- q21
q21 (7) -- Ojanen, mykonian, Empking, populartajo, imaginality, Kinetic, SpyreX
Incognito (1) -- Hoopla
Hoopla (1) -- Tenchi
SpyreX (1) -- Incognito

After q21's claim, his wagon collapses with time ticking, closing in on the end of day one. With a scramble for votes likely to occur, players dropping off the q21 lynch make this is a pivotal point in the game, as there is a fresh new column of votes that need to be redistributed. This is a beautiful time to be scum and to influence a wagon, as normally changing votes to a second or third 'suspect' is difficult to do if you've invested yourself in a wagon. But here, it is a fresh slate where votes are more liberally thrown around. Lets see what happens next;

vollkan (2) -- Kmd4390, mykonian
Kinetic (3) -- vollkan, Slicey, curiouskarmadog
mykonian (1) -- q21
q21 (4) -- Empking, imaginality, Kinetic, SpyreX
Incognito (2) -- Hoopla, Ojanen
Hoopla (1) -- Tenchi
SpyreX (2) -- Incognito, populartajo

The column of q21 voters slowly starts to sift into the crowd, propping a couple of players up to two votes. At this stage, I think Kinetic, Incognito and SpyreX (and possibly imaginality, as he collected a couple of votes soon after) were the only real chances of being lynched here, with Incognito being Kinetic's best competition. This is important to note, because Empking is the fourth voter on the Kinetic wagon, which serves as a soft defense to whoever else would be likeliest lynched if that wasn't pushed.

It's at this point mykonian moves to Incognito (closing the margin to 4-3), which is where it starts to get interesting. Incognito then pushes Kinetic back ahead by 2 with this vote;

Blah blah blah.

unvote, vote: Kinetic

He soon after defends his vote under the 'him vs. me' clause, citing both their wagons had jumped to the top, when there was a whole tier of players lurking behind on two votes, that he could have propped up. It's strangely early to be locking himself into that scenario, because when Kinetic would flip town, it was quite obvious he and others pushing the Kinetic wagon would come squarely into the forefront of the game. And with Empking riding the tilt vote to get Kinetic ahead, it's not the sort of attention he'd want to bring to that area of the wagon. I can see town motivation in locking the lynch into a two-horse race, as surely scum would desire more options, but this is as far as I'm willing to concede for Incog.

If you're undecided on Incognito's lynch, here is my appeal to information: Incognito was the main rival for Kinetic, and knowledge of his alignment is necessary for constructive POE cases as him being town or scum, gives us greater insight into scum's D1 motivations. If he flips scum, this heavily incriminates the back half of the Kinetic wagon, those deliberately avoiding the Incognito wagon and/or lurking before the D1 deadline. A town flip means our two leading, competing wagons were both town, which gives scum no urgency to commit to ugly quicklynch scrambling. I'd say the back half of the Kinetic wagon looks increasingly town, as they are horrible places to be as scum, knowing Empking was slotted in at number 4, and knowing those late votes will be scrutinized heavily. Scum knew the Kinetic wagon was going to look bad, so if Incognito is town, they had no reason to occupy those 'bad positions' and I expect them to be sitting back at the start of the Kinetic wagon or someone on the side not affecting the Kinetic/Incog situation.

Empking's Kinetic vote can be interpreted as a soft defense on Incognito, and though I'm not as bloodthirsty for his lynch as I was yesterday, I don't understand why he is getting off the hook being one of today's lynches when we should be lynching at least 3 people. And of those 3+ lynches, one of them really needs to be the competing D1 wagon.

[Hoopla]

Hi Ojanen, that post redirects me to the top of page 17 for some reason, rather than to post 408 which I assume is where it was supposed to go to.

I'm not sure whether there

needs

to be another scum on the Kinetic wagon if Incognito was scum. Infact I'd be quite wary playing as scum with Incog/Empking, watching them bundle on to the Kinetic wagon - that's the last place I'd want to be, and I'd only be there if necessary to prevent Incognito's lynch. The entire scumteam guiltily camped out on that wagon would be a bad result, so I guess we have to work out whether the other scum was thinking Incognito would lose that race. You make a good observation about imaginailty/Incognito scumteam not working, due to imaginality being on the quickwagon, and the L-2 vote, no less. That probably makes the back-end of the Kinetic wagon look townier

if

Incognito is scum, because we can reasonably deduce there was less chance of Incognito being lynched over Kinetic than we thought, ergo less reason for an Incog-buddy to contribute to it. I'll explain;

I feel imaginality's vote is the one that 'tips' the Kinetic/Incognito race in favour of Kinetic (at least for that point in time), making tajo's involvement on the wagon less scummy. Incognito spent most of his time 2 votes behind Kinetic, and whenever he drew closer, someone almost immediately put Kinetic back ahead by more. Empking did it first to take Kinetic to 4-2. Incognito did it second to take it to 5-3, and then imaginality did it shortly after to take it to 6-4. So, assuming Incognito is scum, we have those three tipping voters covered alignment-wise, which means the other scum is never in a tricky position - never having to consider getting on the Kinetic wagon or not, because it always sorted itself out.

To illustrate that point; when mykonian voted Incognito to 4-3 (one behind Kinetic), it took only 4 hours for Kinetic to get to 7, with only 4 individual players posting in that passage of time. And of those votes on Kinetic, only populartajo's is in doubt - because Incog and imaginality were the other voters. My point here is, that it would be reasonable to assume that

if

Incognito is scum, his partner wouldn't be on the back end of the Kinetic wagon with Emp and Incog if they could help it, and would be instead lurking elsewhere or not even having the chance to be on it if they wanted to because of how quickly it happened.

The q21 switch is interesting, taking it from 7-4 to 6-5, but again, that window of a 1-vote-gap only lasted 3 hours, before SpyreX jumped on. That could mean SpyreX-scum, but again, like imaginality, he was on that attempted quicklynch too. This would mean that two townies controlled the tipping votes, which wipes out scum's hiding places at the back end of the Kinetic wagon.

Vollkan, Slicey, Tenchi, KMD posted very little, most of them not at all during the exciting parts of the Kinetic/Incognito race, and if Incognito is scum, that is precisely where I'd be looking, rather than the back-end of the Kinetic wagon as I said before, because I think now only populartajo makes sense as scum with Incog of those three, but it is very blatant. Ugh, Ojanen, you're making me less sure. The amount of prob-townies we get from an Incog-scum flip seems too high for it to be real. But if it is true, we basically win the game.

[Hoopla]

Yeah, this is pretty much exactly where I'm coming from, too, except that I think there's scum in those four regardless of Incog's flip, especially since they completely coincide with the group of people I don't have a good read on. Lurking or not posting much through that hectic phase is what'd make most intuitive sense. If Incog is your buddy you shut up. If you know he's town being quicklynched you'll worry about appearing on the wagon and the momentum will still probably be there later.
Of course I'm a wimp but playing scum is wimpifying for most people.

I think you're right. It makes a lot more sense to just lynch from that pool now, than to go for Incognito and then lynch from that pool afterwards anyway. Haha, I can't believe I'm doing this after q21 has just stepped on, but;

Unvote, vote: Slicey

Of those four, I'm favouring Slicey and KMD (slight preference for KMD, but he can be next). Lets power through these next couple of lynches. We've all been talking about it, but now it's time to do it.

[Hoopla]

Why vote Slicey over KMD when you prefer KMD?

Slicey had a vote already. Does it matter what order we lynch them in?

[Hoopla]

No, just wondering. Why do you prefer KMD?

I've come down to that pool of players by way of process of elimination, and KMD is someone I've had my eye on regardless. He's been lurkier than most, and of the times he has posted, he's cited poor, weak reasons for a vollkan vote, and a couple of his reasons for suspecting me were even weaker. Slicey isn't a bad choice either due to his poor activity, and eclipses vollkan and Tenchi as far as '

wanting to kill them

' goes. One is capable of producing well reasoned, logical cases which is very useful if he's town, and the other I have a slight town read on (guess which is which).

[Hoopla]

You should come and help us, q21.

[Hoopla]

Otherwise, this

ckd collects some micro-non-mafia points for mixing this up with an /in-vitational. I assume scum have nighttalk and mod wrote nighttalkers could talk pre-game. It's somewhat more likely that Scummies invitational would be mentioned passingly than not and scum would be aware of reputations.

is still more valid than myko's case in my mind.
ckd's "myko isn't scumhunting" thing obviously referred to the whole policy lynch line by myko, even though it was exaggeratingly repeated. ckd's been passive but meh.

This tell is even more valuable when you consider CKD's initial confusion post;

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

I doubt ckd would write this if he were scum with Empking, particularly when confirmations were done via PM. It's almost certain scum would have been able to pregame talk and even if CKD were one of the later ones to confirm, his reaction to finding out Empking was in the game wouldn't have filtered into his survey response, because I remember there was a decent wait (at least 2-3 days) during confirmations.

[Hoopla]

I want the slicey lynch through sooner than later.

That seems like a strange thing to say without a vote to go with it.

[Hoopla]

Tajo, help us lynch Slicey, KMD and maybe vollkan and I'll give you my vote for a SpyreX wagon after. Come on guys, we really need to get on with it before we waste any more time.

[Hoopla]

If Slicey doesn't get in here after 24 hours, someone just hammer. We need to get through another two lynches.

[Hoopla]

CLAIM FIRST.

[Hoopla]

YOU WON'T. JUST START CLAIMING THO.

[Hoopla]

What part of the claim are you missing? For me, I don't believe it. I'm advocating a hammer if someone is weighing up dropping one.

[Hoopla]

One down. Kmd is next.

Vote: KMD

[Hoopla]

wow, lamest replacement ever.

Sorry Sera - well, if you're town that is.

[Hoopla]

Well, I was totally wrong with my 3:12 prediction - we must be either in a 3:1:11 or a 4:11. I speculated earlier in the game, that it'd be a pretty powerful scumteam in a 4:11 if they had some sort of day-stopping ability. I don't think the lights-out mechanic is as strong the mods of this game obviously think if we're in a 4:11, as we've been lucky with some accurate night kills. At this point, I'd say we almost certainly HAVE to lynch q21 to cover the 3:1:11 possibility. Even though it only feels like a 15-20% chance of being true, I think it's a strong enough chance not to take when we have this many lynches up our sleeve.

If we're playing in a 4:11, we must have some decent power to offset this, and I think I'm siding with Incognito, that it might we a worthwhile play to massclaim today. We

should

only need to find one scum in all of this, and if we can manage to confirm 2/3 townies, we can lynch through the list of non-confirmed players to catch the scum. Even if this process happens over the course of two days, by using one more night to confirm roles/results, if we can confirm 2 people as town at any point, this mechanic lets us win the game, with nothing existing to stop us lynching through the entire player list.

[Hoopla]

I wouldn't mind discussing who we think is scum first. If we get massclaim, that'll tell us something about the order in which it should happen.

Further, strategy is needed. Are we going to random lynch everybody who isn't ubertowny, or are we going to lynch one person and assume we are accurate again?

Yes, strategy is needed. As in, an agenda, to ensure we have enough time to do everything we need to do, because today will require more activity than previous days if we're squeezing in a massclaim, speculation on who is confirmed/how we can confirm players and then leaving enough time to crash through a big bag of lynches if necessary.

I'll take a stab at crafting today's plan;

Most importantly, we need to decide if massclaim is the best strategy to take today. If it isn't, we need to figure out how many lynches we're going to use. I, for one, heartily endorse massclaim now that we've got the Daystopper role out of the way, and the rest of my plan works off the assumption that this is the path we take. At most, this process needs to take 48 hours (ideally less), and like mykonian said, we should state our suspects before we begin, to try and get the scum closer to the beginning of the claim. So, what I propose we do;

1) Support/Unsupport massclaim in your next post. Couple this with your top two suspects, and top two town reads. Order of massclaim is decided on the basis of a point system - top town read = 2 points. Second town read = 1 point. And vice versa for your two scumreads, with those two reads obviously removing points. This system is a good, quick way to work out general suspicions of everyone, and doubles as an order generator for massclaim, as popcorning has flaws (one idiot/obscure read is all it takes to put scum in the top half).

2 days.

2) Tally up points from the quick and dirty suspect lists, and craft order from scummiest to towniest. We then massclaim.

2 days

.

3a) Depending on what we discover from this massclaim, depends entirely on our strategy. If we can't confirm someone, we should be making lynches that can give us information for tomorrow based on what they flip, and finish the game then, unless we discover a reason to take this to Day 5.

3b) If we can confirm 2/3 townies somehow, we can mass-lynch through the list for a guarenteed win - the only way we lose in this scenario, is if we are too slow and don't get through the whole list. We are wrong in our confirming of someone. Or there are somehow 5 scum in this game. None of this should happen if we are sensible and swift, though.

I've left Step 3 unchecked time-wise, because it is largely situational, but we need to be getting through the first two steps ASAP regardless of what we decide to do after. It's pivotal that we leave ourself enough time to consider going for the mass-lynch win today if we discover this is the right play.

[Hoopla]

As a show of good faith, I'll start us off;

Support massclaim

Town reads:
+2: Ojanen
+1: mykonian

Scum reads:
-2: KMD
-1: populartajo

[Hoopla]

Its a little bit bias because I find myself agreeing with most/all of what he says. Also, the recent mass claim proposal. Also, the wagon during D1, I don't trust the proponents of it.

But now that I look into t it, both wagons formed at the same time, but all three scum chose to vote Kinetic.

If anything, that's a slightly incriminating turn of events for Incognito.

[Hoopla]

I'm a 2-shot town powerrole cop. I can find out if someone is a town powerrole or not. This means town powerroles will be my confirmed innocents.

Tajo and Q21 are

town

powerroles

.

Seen that tajo that the flips this day made tajo somewhat an easy target for scum, I wanted to know who suspected him. Ojanen her read on Tajo was

very accurate

confirm vote imaginality

That's a strange role, but I have no reason to disbelieve it. So, it's guarenteed that these players are town powerroles, myko?

If so, we can lynch through everyone except Tajo and q21, to guarentee the win. Mykonian needs to be lynched too on the off chance he is lying about this. We should really only have one more scum to catch, so lets power through these lynches.

VOTE: imaginality

[Hoopla]

Going by what we've got so far from everyone's votes, are we all okay with this lynching order;

imaginality
Tenchi
KMD
Incognito
curiouskarmadog
Hoopla
Ojanen
mykonian
----
populartajo
q21

I seriously doubt there will be scum anywhere but KMD, Incognito, imaginality.

[Hoopla]

Mod:

Does the game stop once we've lynched the last scum? Or do we still have to keep going?

[Hoopla]

If there were 5 scum, with myko fakeclaiming with his buddy, then reversing the order like that makes no difference at all. Infact any order with tajo/q21 ending up last would lose it. But there is no way we are playing in a 5:10 with a mafia daystopper. I was partially skeptical about q21 being an SK, but there isn't any way we can go against myko's information. I wouldn't mind tajo coming in to confirm mykonian's claim, though.

I feel like the only way we lose this is if q21 has some sort of gimmick SK immunity that tricks mykonian's role. Either that, or we're too slow to get through the list. But with numbers dropping away, it makes lynches progessively easier to get through.

[Hoopla]

Thanks for understanding imaginality.

VOTE: Tenchi

[Hoopla]

Flay, while you're here, can you clarify this?

Mod:

Does the game stop once we've lynched the last scum? Or do we still have to keep going?

[Hoopla]

DOES IT HURT TO WAIT FOR TAJO TO CONFIRM THAT WHAT MYKO IS SAYING IS TRUE?

Jesus. Also, why aren't we completing the mass claim (or at least a partial mass claim)?

I'm not hammering and Tenchi shouldn't self-hammer. That's just dumb play even IF the game looks like it's in the bag.

^ scum trying to stall.

We have two options;

Myko is truthful: Tajo and q21 are town - quicklynching wins the game.
Myko is lying: Tajo and q21 are still town by way of there being one scum left. We lynch myko before we finish lynching just to be safe.

[Hoopla]

I'll be pissed if there was a 5 player scumteam.

[Hoopla]

I am a power role. Not a doctor though.

Claim it.

[Hoopla]

I'm a Bodyguard.

I didn't target anyone on N1 or N2. Tajo can get on with claiming now.

[Hoopla]

Why aren't we finishing this off now? Lets just lynch Tenchi and then Incog.

[Hoopla]

Hoopla, why didn't you guard anyone on either Night?

There was nobody town enough to give my life for - perhaps I'm a little selfish, but why would I risk saving a possible VT for the loss of this role? Bodyguard is there to protect outed PR's, I feel, not townie towns. Besides, I was the towniest town, so it wouldn't have been worth it.

[Hoopla]

tajo is a jailkeeper.

[Hoopla]

yes, he's after tenchi.

[Hoopla]

Who still could have been an SK.

[Hoopla]

We still have 10 days - it's not such a big deal.

[Hoopla]

Did you hear the one about the cannibal who dumped his girlfriend?

[Hoopla]

what are you, kmd?

[Hoopla]

what are you, kmd?

wait, no. you claimed vt. never mind.

[Hoopla]

Hmm. So, we need to know Tenchi's role now.

[Hoopla]

Well, we had a plan. Mykonian's information say that you and q21 are town powerroles. Lynching mykonian and everyone else in the game, except you two should have been enough to win. But I'm confused as to why we can't find this missing kill.

[Hoopla]

How's this for a theory; scum no-killed on N1 in a bid to frame q21 as a liar. It was just unfortunate from a scum perspective that q21 hit one of their own, otherwise, they would have had a nice mislynch for day 2, with town thinking q21 was scum.

[Hoopla]

Really bad theory.

what's yours if tenchi's role doesn't find the stopped kill?

[Hoopla]

got the prod. doctor. incog safe. thx for not hammering. have something tomorrow will be back friday.

that makes me feel a little better. who else did you save? i find it odd that scum would target incog n1.

[Hoopla]

UNVOTE:
VOTE: KMD

Likeliest to be scum out of the pool of players without some form of confirmation (kmd, ckd, Ojanen, Hoopla).

[Hoopla]

I'd rather just trust you and tajo, to be honest, myko. And leave you two as the last alive. For you to be fakeclaiming, you must have guessed that tajo was a town powerrole, which certainly isn't worth the risk, as surely you must have known it would have locked in your lynch at some point by confirming two townies. Surely, you'd have known this as scum, and resisted the concept of clearing two innocents, because you'd have so much more chance of winning by staying quiet.

Lets leave myko/tajo as the last two.

[Hoopla]

I side with tajo - but we still need to plan who the last two players alive are, though. I don't think q21 should be there.

What if we lynched Tenchi? By not finishing the game, that would confirm his claim as true - meaning we can trust q21 more? Or, no?

[Hoopla]

There's no way we're playing in a 4:1:10, though.

[Hoopla]

Assuming Tenchi's telling the truth about his role, my guess is the scum targeted me on Night 1 because they incorrectly thought I was soft-claiming a power role back when I said that "sniping a PR before deadline" comment on D1. If so, I'm pretty pleased with myself at this point since that was partly the purpose of that comment.

I'll have more to say about recent stuff after I get back from a jog.

Hm, I actually kind of believe this. New suggestion;

Lynch Tenchi and q21, if that doesn't end the game - it proves that they were both town, and this is exactly what happened with the N1 kill, which would make Incognito town.

We then lynch mykonian, if this doesn't end the game, he is town. Which proves tajo to be town too.

We then lynch through the list leaving Incognito and populartajo as the last two alive.

[Hoopla]

What if tajo is scum?

You have him confirmed as a town PR, remember?

[Hoopla]

Well, that was comprehensive.

Night 1
Mafia does not send in a kill

Deliberate or just forgot? The entire mafia team were lurkers or semi-lurkers at some point.

This game didn't feel like much of a contest - not at all what I expected given the setup. I had actually designed this for 20 players earlier, but several people dropped out. I had some concerns about simply knocking off 5 vanillas and not changing anything else, but maybe they were unfounded. I'm curious whether Hoopla thinks it favoured the scum.

I'm not sure - I've never played in this sort of set-up, so I was basing my opinion on previous Lights Out games that were 4:16 - it seemed 4:11 would have been a stretch, particularly when mafia has a ability to mess with the one thing that advantages town in this set-up - multiple lynches. I think that role was necessary though from preventing a mass lynch when enough town has been confirmed or semi-confirmed, though I'm not sure if 4:11 was the right balance. Obviously things went very well here, but substitute q21's vig shots for townies, and the game would have been completely different - it's hard to tell how powerful the multi-lynch mechanic is. I feel like with clever and active towns it's a pretty significant advantage, so not sure, really.

A big round of applause to Ojanen and mykonian who made themselves pretty obviously town throughout the entire game - and it looks like Empking would have been a good policy lynch after all. Thanks for modding you guys - it was very professionally run. Pity the scum didn't put in a good show, though.

[Hoopla]

SORRY TO INCOGNITO - I WAS WRONG ABOUT YOU ON DAY 1.

Luckily I came round and corrected that read later on, but still, your fault, not mine.