Open 566: Murder on the Oriental Express (Game Over)

[TobyLoby]

Mostly everyone on the Beli wagon has decided. Mostly everyone on the Chaos wagon have decided. You are speaking of an audience of maybe one, if that, who is deciding between the two. With a day left to go I don't see what this will accomplish.

[Titus]

Toby, someone has to move. There are four or five undecideds. If no one votes Beli, hammering will not matter. I am eliminating the excuse of Beli being the only viable wagon.

[TobyLoby]

I wrote down a whole spiel, but who in your mind are the four or five individuals.

Farside,

Spoiler: farside quote

The other point I'm also getting at, is that you based your vote on (scum) Amy listing one scum between you, Chaos, or CKD. Instead of voting for scum Amy herself, you voted for a possible association with Amy.

Six of one, half a dozen of the other, and I wasn't as certain of my scumread as you seem to believe.

If I'd seen something scummier before the buddying solidified my read, I would have changed my vote. Since that didn't happen, vote stands. It's not mysterious. It was that or sit in the not voting pile until I had an enormous wagon on me and everything I do looks self-serving.

why are you so certain you'll be gone?

I'm not a precog, I'm just reading the gamestate. It's going to be me or Chaos for sure today, and I sure as hell ain't voting Chaos even to save my own life --

he might vote me to save himself;

hence, I'm the more likely to eat rope today.

A flashwagon on CKD would be nice, but it's not my birthday.

Why do you think a player you are town reading would do the bold?

I'm not exactly sure what you're getting at, but Skelda offered to do the same thing yesterday and Beli whom you are not voting also offered to do the same. Do you think it's scummy for someone to vote another for self preservation purposes only?

[Titus]

Royal Ape, Naked Jogger,and Beli. Basically people who are not on either wagon.

[farside22]

I wrote down a whole spiel, but who in your mind are the four or five individuals.

Farside,

Spoiler: farside quote

The other point I'm also getting at, is that you based your vote on (scum) Amy listing one scum between you, Chaos, or CKD. Instead of voting for scum Amy herself, you voted for a possible association with Amy.

Six of one, half a dozen of the other, and I wasn't as certain of my scumread as you seem to believe.

If I'd seen something scummier before the buddying solidified my read, I would have changed my vote. Since that didn't happen, vote stands. It's not mysterious. It was that or sit in the not voting pile until I had an enormous wagon on me and everything I do looks self-serving.

why are you so certain you'll be gone?

I'm not a precog, I'm just reading the gamestate. It's going to be me or Chaos for sure today, and I sure as hell ain't voting Chaos even to save my own life --

he might vote me to save himself;

hence, I'm the more likely to eat rope today.

A flashwagon on CKD would be nice, but it's not my birthday.

Why do you think a player you are town reading would do the bold?

I'm not exactly sure what you're getting at, but Skelda offered to do the same thing yesterday and Beli whom you are not voting also offered to do the same. Do you think it's scummy for someone to vote another for self preservation purposes only?

I didn't think skelda was scum, so.....?

I'm asking what is beli's scum motivation for not voting chaos.
Typically either alignment has self preservation, but usually town will be more looking for scum and stubborn about there reads to a determent to themselves

[acryon]

I hold nk analysis for later. I have zero intent of rocking the boat so close to deadline. I am keeping a wagon other than Beli viable to force players to choose.

So you think chaos is scum? Or you don't think Beli's is scum?

Deliberately not making an opinion. I am forcing those in the game who have read and pushed theorues to decide.

This is stupid. You have just as much of a voice, and potentially a better perspective since you can read it all fresh.

[Baezu]

ChannelDelibird replaces chaoslord54. Thank you!

[Riddleton]

I hold nk analysis for later. I have zero intent of rocking the boat so close to deadline. I am keeping a wagon other than Beli viable to force players to choose.

So you think chaos is scum? Or you don't think Beli's is scum?

Deliberately not making an opinion. I am forcing those in the game who have read and pushed theorues to decide.

This is stupid. You have just as much of a voice, and potentially a better perspective since you can read it all fresh.

He does it for VCA purposes. Some people enjoy analysing that to find scum, in addition to other methods which you may be more familiar with.

[TobyLoby]

@Mod: Can we get more time due to the recent Chaos replacement?

[ChannelDelibird]

Mod: I don't need any extra time. Please don't add any.

I read the thread this afternoon when I noticed that there was a replacement request out. I can get more into all of my thoughts tomorrow (just about to go to bed right now) but will be plenty active before deadline and, crucially, Belisarius needs to be a world of dead.

VOTE: Belisarius, Lynch-1, claim and then die.

As I say, much fuller reads coming tomorrow but, in the meantime, my chief scumreads are Belisarius, Amy and acryon. I would also be willing to elect TobyLoby to actual, real-life political office and/or build statues thereto, such is the distance by which she is the towniest town around.

[farside22]

Mod: I don't need any extra time. Please don't add any.

I read the thread this afternoon when I noticed that there was a replacement request out. I can get more into all of my thoughts tomorrow (just about to go to bed right now) but will be plenty active before deadline and, crucially, Belisarius needs to be a world of dead.

VOTE: Belisarius, Lynch-1, claim and then die.

As I say, much fuller reads coming tomorrow but, in the meantime, my chief scumreads are Belisarius, Amy and acryon. I would also be willing to elect TobyLoby to actual, real-life political office and/or build statues thereto, such is the distance by which she is the towniest town around.

Seriously this is scummy shit.
I swear if beli flips town everyone needs to jump on this day 3.

[scrambles]

Well, I think we're both town, so I suppose I qualify: camouflage.

Seriously, enough with the WK'ing unless you're CKD's blood relative as well as his scumbuddy

So, what are your other reads then? WHo do you think is scum. If you're town, you should be trying to stay alive even if it means lynching someone else who COULD be town, because if you KNOW you're town, then that option is significantly better than you dying.
I think you're bluffing.

[Baezu]

Vote Count 2.07

RoyalApe: (1) NakedJogger

(L-1)

Belisarius: (6) Amy Farrah Fowler, acryon, scrambles, Riddleton, TobyLoby, ChannelDelibird
Curiouskarmadog : (1) Belisarius
ChannelDelibird: (3) Farside22, Curiouskarmadog , Titus

Not Voting: RoyalApe

With 12 alive, it takes 7 to lynch.

Deadline: (expired on 2014-09-26 16:55:00)

Mod Notes:
None

[/area]

[ChannelDelibird]

Seriously this is scummy shit.

Nope. If you like, I can provide multiple examples of me declining deadline extensions (including upon replacing in) as town but - here's the funny part - not enough time to do it Today, I suspect.

If it's the fact that I've come in and immediately voted for Belisarius that bothers you, consider this: five people were voting for Belisarius when I arrived. They can't all be scum. You may not agree, but it is not at all unusual that somebody entering the game would also reach their conclusion.

Next: Why I reached that conclusion (and the others)!

[ChannelDelibird]

So let's talk about Belisarius.

In my experience, scum like to find something righteous to do; it helps them feel like they can point out that they were doing something "important" even if they weren't doing anything

useful

. The way that Belisarius makes a pronouncement of his vote here - without actually explaining why farside's behaviour is more likely to come from scum than town - suggests scum.

As early as page 8, his activity levels are a huge problem - and it undermines hugely the righteous belief that he portrayed as being part of his farside vote. This essentially never improves from that early point.

If Beli is scum, then that lack of activity will be something of which he's very much aware whenever he hangs around the thread. You can see that kind of nervous energy in this string of hurried double-posts, where it feels like he's just doubling down on his zaniness under pressure.

This Skelda vote is pretty bad, too. It lets Beli show that he's reading the thread but he doesn't talk at all about why he's swayed and utterly depersonalises his contribution to the mislynch.

His first post of Day 2 reads like someone who planned out his angle of attack in a QT overnight. While nightkill analysis is more useful than people realise, scum often expect people to draw stronger conclusions from kills than they normally do (this is the guilt talking). This reads very much like someone who thought that his scumteam's kill of Dry was clever and assumes that it would immediately lead suspicion to a 'good' player.

Everything else is just Belisarius making noise. There's no pro-town interest in stopping his lynch, only a hope that his projected disinterest will give some wagoners second thoughts. His only efforts to find scum come from blankly applying buzzword scumtells - I say 'tells', it's actually just one: 'white knighting' - to a couple of people who are not serious lynch candidates. So even if he gets a couple of people paranoid enough to back down from lynching him, they won't follow his non-cases onto CKD or farside and will instead contribute to a more hotly debated lynch - thereby once again reducing Belisarius's involvement in the town's decisions, allowing him to take the moral high ground if we mislynch again.

This is textbook scum. I've been this player, a long time ago. I've seen a lot of players display the exact same attitude. It's easier to play this game than to risk engaging and have to manufacture scumreads. It's massively more pro-scum than pro-town. He needs to be murdered.

[ChannelDelibird]

I also promised you some reads on other people so I'll talk about some of those here. I'm not going to go into extensive detail on these right away, though, as we are imminently facing a Belisarius lynch and then a (probable) nightkill, which could easily shake things up again. The above post should make it clear enough that I'm not pulling these reads out of nowhere so simply rest assured that I can and will talk more about why these reads are what they are Tomorrow if required.

Scumreads

acryon

- have been back and forth on this but acryon has now been playing both sides of every argument too strongly and for too long for me to be able to townread him. Seems happiest playing "devil's advocate" when we already have three such advocates anyway. Best case scenario, his obsession with mildness is badly damaging the town

Amy

- started badly with a self-vote and has not been impressive since. All the more concerning that everyone was so keen to say how town she looked - the phrase "universal townread" has been bandied about, dangerously - and so allow her to slip into not actually doing very much for the town. More than one moment where it looks like she already knows people's alignments, next to no contribution when it mattered in the back half of day 1, voting Belisarius Today but barely looking as if she cares about it and happy to let conversation be dominated by a competing Chaos wagon rather than refocus onto the vote that she supposedly regrets not being around to push through Yesterday. To say nothing of the ridiculous hoops she's jumped through today to base her Beli vote on an elaborate triple scumread before we even have any flips. Yes, this is the condensed version of this read. We will be revisiting this in a big way on Day 3

Townreads

Scrambles

- fairly town, mostly coming from Mr Blonde but, while Scrambles hasn't excited me at all, he hasn't undermined that leftover cred and gets points for standing firm on Belisarius for a long time.

farside22

- fought for her Hiraki read early as much as she needed to do make her point/defend herself but didn't overplay it, as scum might have done. I don't agree with a lot of what she says but has got genuine belief

CKD

- slight town, handled the pursuit of his Skelda wagon well

NakedJogger

- town enough for now, willing to be divergent but not damagingly so

Riddleton

- the slightest of townreads; I thought Ranon was OK while he was briefly here

RoyalApe

- eroded slightly by general inactivity Today but, while I had a scumping or two on Day 1, was on the whole very impressed by Ape's effort and critical thinking

TobyLoby

- just ridiculously obviously town. Became clear very early and then, while I was reading, I'd keep having a thought like "I don't understand why nobody's saying anything about Amy" and then Toby would suggest a wagon on Amy, and her evaluation of acryon recently has again been excellent

On the fence

Titus

- fuck knows. Very likely town if Amy is scum but we'll get a better picture Tomorrow when Titus properly settles in

[Belisarius]

I've already claimed VT.

I really like that case against me, except for the bit where it's me that it's against. You get to be my new top townread.

Still liking CKD, farside, and AFF for scum, in that order.

[ChannelDelibird]

Lynch away.

[acryon]

I also promised you some reads on other people so I'll talk about some of those here. I'm not going to go into extensive detail on these right away, though, as we are imminently facing a Belisarius lynch and then a (probable) nightkill, which could easily shake things up again. The above post should make it clear enough that I'm not pulling these reads out of nowhere so simply rest assured that I can and will talk more about why these reads are what they are Tomorrow if required.

Scumreads

acryon

- have been back and forth on this but acryon has now been playing both sides of every argument too strongly and for too long for me to be able to townread him. Seems happiest playing "devil's advocate" when we already have three such advocates anyway. Best case scenario, his obsession with mildness is badly damaging the town

Amy

- started badly with a self-vote and has not been impressive since. All the more concerning that everyone was so keen to say how town she looked - the phrase "universal townread" has been bandied about, dangerously - and so allow her to slip into not actually doing very much for the town. More than one moment where it looks like she already knows people's alignments, next to no contribution when it mattered in the back half of day 1, voting Belisarius Today but barely looking as if she cares about it and happy to let conversation be dominated by a competing Chaos wagon rather than refocus onto the vote that she supposedly regrets not being around to push through Yesterday. To say nothing of the ridiculous hoops she's jumped through today to base her Beli vote on an elaborate triple scumread before we even have any flips. Yes, this is the condensed version of this read. We will be revisiting this in a big way on Day 3

Townreads

Scrambles

- fairly town, mostly coming from Mr Blonde but, while Scrambles hasn't excited me at all, he hasn't undermined that leftover cred and gets points for standing firm on Belisarius for a long time.

farside22

- fought for her Hiraki read early as much as she needed to do make her point/defend herself but didn't overplay it, as scum might have done. I don't agree with a lot of what she says but has got genuine belief

CKD

- slight town, handled the pursuit of his Skelda wagon well

NakedJogger

- town enough for now, willing to be divergent but not damagingly so

Riddleton

- the slightest of townreads; I thought Ranon was OK while he was briefly here

RoyalApe

- eroded slightly by general inactivity Today but, while I had a scumping or two on Day 1, was on the whole very impressed by Ape's effort and critical thinking

TobyLoby

- just ridiculously obviously town. Became clear very early and then, while I was reading, I'd keep having a thought like "I don't understand why nobody's saying anything about Amy" and then Toby would suggest a wagon on Amy, and her evaluation of acryon recently has again been excellent

On the fence

Titus

- fuck knows. Very likely town if Amy is scum but we'll get a better picture Tomorrow when Titus properly settles in

Yeah, this is super town. Admittedly I've been playing more cautious since in my first game online I pretty much led more than one of what I thought to be sure-scum lynches on town. I am probably playing it too safe, and still trying to find that balance between conviction and skepticism. But at the very least, calling me out helps kick me in the butt.

[FakedBlogger]

Should I hammer Beli?

[acryon]

Should I hammer Beli?

If you will be able to do it closer to deadline, I would wait.

[FakedBlogger]

Myeah, no prob.

[FakedBlogger]

VOTE: ChannelDelibird

[Titus]

I hold nk analysis for later. I have zero intent of rocking the boat so close to deadline. I am keeping a wagon other than Beli viable to force players to choose.

So you think chaos is scum? Or you don't think Beli's is scum?

Deliberately not making an opinion. I am forcing those in the game who have read and pushed theorues to decide.

This is stupid. You have just as much of a voice, and potentially a better perspective since you can read it all fresh.

He does it for VCA purposes. Some people enjoy analysing that to find scum, in addition to other methods which you may be more familiar with.

Indeed. I tend to value VCA a lot at endgame.

That being said, I will be out most of the day so....

VOTE: Beli

[acryon]

-_- Jogger already expressed that he could/would do it later