Open 60: The New C9 - Game over!

[Justin Playfair]

Curiouskarmadog is dead. somestrangeflea is the logical culprit.

Vote: somestrangeflea

[Justin Playfair]

MadCrawdad,

You know, this is the second time someone here linked my name to that reality show buffoon. My name is taken from a character played by George C Scott (see avatar), in a movie called They Might Be Giants (see sig), in which he believed he was Sherlock Holmes (see funny hat and pipe). Please vote me for being too thematically consistent or being a movie geek instead of your current icky reason. Thank you.

[Justin Playfair]

Wesaq,

I’m just a little curious about the following statement:

I phrased it not as clearly as i thought. I selected you as a random target. And after that i found a reason to choose you.

Are you really suggesting that as you were posting a random vote on Kabenon you realized that you also had a reason to be suspicious of him? In the very act of posting? And if so are you now suggesting that the vote was not random by the time you finished the post?

You also posted this:

@kabenon
I've seen, what that was a parody of a name, but like many others was too lazy to figure out.

But i still see no other choice, so the Vote is still with you.

Are you maintaining that your vote on Kabenon is still serious? And that even though you now see “that was a parody of a name” that you still believe it is a reason to vote for Kabenon? Or has this vote reverted to its pristine “random” state?


Spacecase,

In sequence, I am curious about this last little series of statements you have made:

So what we are basically saying is that we interrogate the "veteran" players, right?

To tell you the truth, Wesaq has me confused in more ways then one. Such as his overall reasoning of voting you in the first place. unvote

but that's the thing. It had to be deliberate to take the most analytical person out of the game on night 0.

I’m curious about this sequence because you first suggest that we should interrogate the veteran players. This would exclude you, of course. You then overstate the case that Peers raised by stating that it had to be “deliberate to take the most analytical person out” to try to keep attention focused on this (and once again, of course, it couldn’t be you acting in such a deliberate fashion, because you are new). And then you jump in with Kabenon on being suspicious of Wesaq, and once again take the issue farther than even the person who originated it with this:

vote Wesaq, Seems like the smartest choice instead of playing the guessing game. Also, this will clear up confusion later in the game, sine it seems Wesaq can't keep his facts straight.

From what I read above I assume that you favor a lynching of Wesaq at this point, on the evidence available.

To me this looks less like trying to be legitimately helpful to town and more like trying to point attention in any direction as long as it is away from you. Just a couple questions:

What would a “deliberate” killing of the “most analytical” person in town tell you that would help you find scum, with no established relationships or suspicions within this game to guide you? What next step would you take, other than to encourage attention be focused elsewhere?

What are the “more ways than one” in which Wesaq has confused you? And are you in fact comfortable with a Wesaq lynch at this point, as your post seems to suggest?

Peers,

There’s a lot in this post that makes me curious of Peers.

So, from the descriptions, Timmytuttut was killed by the serial killer, and CKD was killed by the Mafia. I think we can presume the SK kill was picked at random, as he has as little info to work with as the town does, but the CKD kill was deliberate -- at least one person in the Mafia has been in games with him and knows his playstyle could be dangerous to the Mafia, especially in an open game.

So, how many players here have played a game with CKD before?

I’ll forego the issue of which person was killed by mafia and which was killed by the serial killer. But this statement just makes no sense at all:

I think we can presume the SK kill was picked at random, as he has as little info to work with as the town does

The only information Mafia would have that the SK would not would be who the other Mafia are.

This would be irrelevant for the reason you then give for Mafia killing CKD with reason. The SK would be as aware of who (s)he thought was threatening to him/her as Mafia would.

So since the SK would have the same information as the mafia for the purposes of selecting a target on night 0, specifically which players had in previous encounters seemed most adept at scum hunting or most proficient at seeming town, are you suggesting that the SK must be one of the new players? Or someone who has not played with any of the other players in this game before? If not, how does the logic in the above statement work?

And this is just really specific:

but the CKD kill was deliberate -- at least one person in the Mafia has been in games with him and knows his playstyle could be dangerous to the Mafia, especially in an open game.

Why would his play style be especially dangerous in an open game, as opposed to some other kind? And why are you absolutely certain that the Mafia’s knowledge of this was the reason for his death?

Lastly, what bothers me about your post on this is that you ask…

So, how many players here have played a game with CKD before?

…but then you had to be directly asked, by Farside22, if you had played in games with Curiouskarmadog before you told the rest of us that you had. Was there a specific reason why you didn’t offer this information unprompted, since you asked others to divulge it?

By the way, I was in the last try at the New C9 with Curiouskarmadog.

And thanks for any answers provided.

[Justin Playfair]

Jesse Gunn,

Just a couple questions. First, how would you propose we move from this point, where "we really don't know anything" to a point at which we do? Because asking for more information about those actions which have seemed the most unclear or curious seems to me to be the best way. Do you have an alternate method you favor, and if so what is it?

Do you have specific reasons why the things I asked constitute “grasping at straws”? And since I would assume the obvious “joke-vote” you are referring to would be Wesaq’s vote on Kabenon, could you explain in what way I am over-analyzing it? And why would the questions I asked be more of a “grasping at straws” than the votes that were placed on him for the activities I questioned him about?

Thank you for any answers.

And since we’re discussing things now, let me

Unvote

my random vote.

One last question, Jesse Gunn. Why is your vote on Six Aces not random?

[Justin Playfair]

Ack. Sorry. somestrangeflea already covered the territory in my post above.

[Justin Playfair]

Well, assuming it's true that's better than anything I had. Six Aces, is there anything you'd like to tell us?

[Justin Playfair]

Boiling down Six Aces’ response above he:

(1) claims that a little pressure usually doesn’t crack a person who is innocent (wrong)

(2) says that it was strange for Jesse to crack under so little pressure (right, but it makes a tiny bit more sense if he’s telling the truth and already had a great big secret that he was busting to tell than if he’s lying and just trading the possibility of being lynched today with the certainty of being lynched tomorrow, if Six Aces comes up town [the subset of this, that Jesse is bussing Six Aces under these conditions, is possible but seems far-fetched])

(3) states that Jesse only chose Six Aces after he got in trouble (wrong again, and in retrospect it is easy to see the hints Jesse tried to drop, and in fact even his post to me makes more sense in the context of him having a great big suspect he wanted everyone to look at)

So…

Vote: Six Aces

Seriously, though, Jesse Gun? You weren’t under much pressure at all, you were nowhere close to being in danger of being lynched, and if you are with town there were ways you could have communicated what you knew more subtly.

[Justin Playfair]

Hmm...

Given Farside22's comment and SixAces' response let me state as emphatically as possible that we do not need counterclaims to either of these two claims, and in fact they would be useless, as the first post points out that both these roles could have 0-2 owners.

[Justin Playfair]

Quick thoughts:

Kabenon,

I understand what you’re going for with Shteven, but the problem here is two-fold. First, to have real meaning the kind of slip you’re suggesting here would either have to be part of a pattern of behavior or be far more blatant in thinking of a situation from a scum perspective. Second, in and of itself, Shteven’s statement doesn’t approach the issue from the perspective you’re suggesting it does. I mean, from any reasonable examination of the situation it would seem most likely that Jesse Gunn would have been doctor protected last night.

Given that Shteven, even if he were scum, could not know that Jesse Gunn was protected last night if as scum he killed another target, and given that it would seem a logical assumption for town or scum that Jesse Gunn would be protected for anyone playing regardless of alignment, why would you consider what Shteven said to be particularly indicative of a scummy slip?

And on that score…

Phate,

Please correct me if you see a flaw in this reasoning, but randomly we have either 0, 1, or 2 doctors in town. Unless I’m mistaken in how this random choice is arrived at that means we have a 66% chance of having a doctor. For all intents and purposes we have a claimed cop in Jesse Gunn. Not only that, but we have a claimed cop whose claimed first night investigation struck scum. So, if we have a doctor I cannot think of a more logical person for the doctor to protect on night one. If we do not have a doctor, scum wouldn’t know that, and would not therefore seem likely to risk their first night kill going after him.

Given this, none of which seems like very deep thought, what were your reasons for being surprised that Jesse Gunn was alive this morning? And why did you choose to phrase your question to him in what at least strikes me as a very pejorative ‘when did you stop beating your wife’ type manner? Because the answer you have offered as one that Jesse Gunn should give would have in no way answered the clearly suspicious implications of your question.

[Justin Playfair]

Farside22,

I am curious about this sequence of posts from you late on day one:

My issue with this statement is there is more likely then not at least one cop. I haven't seen anyone attempt a counter claim of any sort. I will grant you he should have played his hand better. If that is your best defense against the claim I'm just not buying it.

The first post states that there may be 0, 1, or 2 cops or doctors. You suggest here that a counter claim to what Jesse Gunn posted would have been a logical step. But with a possible 2 cops in town someone claiming to be cop could have been merely a second cop. This would have had no bearing on Jesse Gunn’s claim. The last sentence in this post almost seems to urge Six Aces to make a claim of his own.

Which Six Aces did, immediately, claiming doc.

I then pointed out that we specifically did not need more claims and within ten minutes you had posted this:

I agree with that. At this point one of the two of them is lying that I have no doubt about.

It seems possible to me that this quick, largely contentless post (because as Fonz pointed out in his next post, of course one of them was lying) was to agree as quickly as possible to the point I had raised to try to cover the fishing/coaching you had done in your previous post.

If you would be so kind could you explain your thinking throughout this sequence?

[Justin Playfair]

I was a bit curious about Vollkan’s vote on Kabenon. Having reread the thread to check on Vollkan I find myself now a bit more curious about Kabenon.

Kabenon,

The fact that you have made the following two posts so early in our proceedings is of interest to me:

A word of warning Phate, vollkan always gives off town vibes...

And then later, giving an example:

I agree that a particular scumtell, or even town tell, cannot be placed on everyone. Take vollkan for instance. His large posts, contentful, appear pro-town. But he also does them when he is scum. I want to wait for a recent vote count before I vote, mostly because I don't have time to check myself. (I'm lazy and busy, sue me!)

All right, so you have warned us twice that Vollkan may be scum however town he may seem. Do you have any reasons for suspecting Vollkan beyond his usually seeming town that would warrant two warnings about him in the first nine pages?

So I guess I have two questions about this.

Who are you waiting on a vote count to vote on? You’ve already voted Shteven, making a rather persistent case against him. Is it Vollkan, which might be suggested by the linkage in the above post, or someone else?

Does your above statement about waiting to vote mean that you no longer believe the vote you already have on Shteven is appropriate?

This post bothers me some:

Just expressing my opinion, Shteven. That way, when people ask what it was, I can go back and point to a specific spot and say, Look there it is! Instead of saying "Well, judging from how I worded this post, I felt XXX." Much more concrete, more helpful to the town.

First, because the post you made which you are referring to here is this:

I think we should keep the idea that Jesse might be scum in the back of our minds, just as a last thought kind of thing. We can scum hunt without worrying about it too much. If we can't figure it out, we can always go back and examine him thoroughly later.

If you could please explain both how saying that Jesse might be scum or he might not but we can find out later is “concrete”, and how it is “helpful to town”. I understand how it might later be useful to you.

Finally there is this, in response to Farside22 asking you about your suspicions of Wesaq:

Why do you want to know?

While it is perfectly appropriate to ask the question you are asking in return, it would also have been appropriate to answer Farside22’s question. In this case it actually would provide something “Much more concrete, more helpful to the town”.

Why did you choose not to answer Farside22’s question?

Anyway, thank you for any answers provided. For now:

Vote: Kabenon007

[Justin Playfair]

Pardon,

Vote: Kabenon007

[Justin Playfair]

Farside,

About this:

Justin, I need a bit of clarification from you. I found your analysis of kabenon reasonable and certainly needs addressing. However I find it's at odds with what you told him previously in post 162 (fyi page 7). You talk about his suspicions of Shteven and specifically talk about the logic of the hypotetical freudian slip. I do not mean to suggest that this is bad analysis. What I want to know is, why does this not appear on your subsequent post explaining a whole host of new problems with kabenon? It seems you relegated it to a throwaway line about k's attacks on shteven. I would think that that only helps your case even more that kabeon never responded to you directly. He attempted to clarify it to others (such as Fonz, Vokan, and Farside when they questioned him) but you have not followed that line of questioning your self. Are you saying that as you put it "Quick thoughts" have been surpassed?

Just a bit curious about this:

However I find it's at odds with what you told him previously in post 162 (fyi page 7).

To be at odds would generally be construed to mean “contradicts”. If this is what you mean can you point out how anything in my later post contradicts what was in the previous one? If you do I would be pleased to answer.

About this:

What I want to know is, why does this not appear on your subsequent post explaining a whole host of new problems with kabenon?

I think you answer this yourself just after:

He attempted to clarify it to others (such as Fonz, Vokan, and Farside when they questioned him)

Most especially, in this case, his exchange with Vollkan. I dislike asking the precise same questions another player is already asking, for a number of reasons. Although it seems all right to me, sometimes, to return to the same questions at a later time to see if someone’s answers have “evolved”, pursuing this line heavily at the same time it was being pursued by another seems more designed to crack someone regardless of alignment than to find scum.

This troubles me just a bit:

I would think that that only helps your case even more that kabeon never responded to you directly.

I don’t think my case wants that kind of help. Kabenon was answering questions about his accusation against Shteven. To pursue him for not addressing his answers to me in particular would be persecution, not investigation. If you would, could you explain to me what value this would have other than to try to force a lynch regardless of Kabenon’s alignment?

Finally:

Are you saying that as you put it "Quick thoughts" have been surpassed?

Well, my quick thoughts were expressed. But certainly I am more suspicious of Kabenon007 for the behavior I pointed out in my later post than I am for the poor accusation of Shteven.

[Justin Playfair]

EBWOP:

Sorry, that should be...

LaptopGun,

...at the top of that post.

[Justin Playfair]

Shteven,

Just a listing of your posts since the Kabenon007 balloon went up. Now I don’t think the case against Kabenon is all that good, although according to LaptopGun and to a lesser degree you, I am probably the mastermind behind his would-be lynching. I do, however, think it is the best case we have at this point for a day two lynch.

Seems Kabenon007 now has 3 votes + 1 fos. So far, I'm just not really seeing the case, honestly. It's mostly just tone, I don't have anything solid, I am mostly just posting this for notes so I don't forget.

IGMEOY: Justin.

There is definitely something odd about his claims on vollkan and then vollkan voting for him, but I don't consider that vote worthy alone.

Now I understand that in the next post you provide an answer about having your eye on me, but it’s the line below that which has my interest. Who is it on whom you don’t consider the actions you describe worthy of a vote? Because you could be talking about Kabenon, who made claims against Vollkan, or Vollkan, who subsequently voted Kabenon. It could even, given your subsequent response to Vollkan, be a vote on me. But following what you actually say in this sentence it would seem you are either suspicious of Vollkan for placing his vote on Kabenon or Kabenon for making claims. And yet you never follow up on either of these. Could you explain your thoughts on this more clearly?

That's an error on my part: I had been rewording that sentence a few times. I meant I didn't like Justin's tone in stating it. Looking back that wasn't very clear. I didn't want to lean too heavily on Justin for it, but I ended up basically removing the entire thing.

Fair enough, you didn’t like my tone. You then question MelodyMan about why he voted for Kabenon007:

Mind telling us why, MelodyMan?

And use his response, which references my post, to post this. Now this was after LaptopGun chimed in with his own boogeyman post about me.

This is exactly why Justin is so dangerous. He always makes good logical arguments. However, he's not always town. And if he is town, he's not always right. Logical does not mean that it correctly finds scum. Now, I'm by no means positive that he's scum here - I really just don't know. But his case gave me more pause than inspiration. It is 100% true; but it feels like he's eager to lynch. More than I think a town Justin would be.

Again, mostly just a feeling, which is why I wasn't sure if I should state it all upfront. We haven't heard anything more from him since.

Just a few things:

Since three out of four of my pushed cases in the first try at this C-9 were wrong I would certainly agree that I am not always right. But this would serve more as an argument that I’m dangerous to town when I’m town, and then only if I got enough others to follow me to lynch someone, which I certainly didn’t there. In my only other completed game I made an extensive day one case against scum which no one followed and I got killed night one for my trouble. So maybe I would be dangerous as scum, but if I would be as dangerous as scum as I am as town I think we can all sleep easy.

My vote was the second on Kabenon007, so the eager to lynch line doesn’t really play, nor does it make sense as part of a meta as I generally tend to cast a vote early based on my strongest suspicions. So could you explain how in this case it feels like I’m “eager to lynch”?

Can you explain how my case being “100% true”can be made to comfortably coexist with your previous statement “I'm just not really seeing the case, honestly.”? This could just be a byproduct of what you said in your answer to Vollkan, that you mangled the earlier post, but on its face it certainly seems contradictory.

Then:

For the record, I'm a bit uncomfortable with the speed of this game. A six page day 1 was inevitable after the claim, but there's no need to repeat it. We're past half of the votes for a Kabenon007 lynch on page 12.

and:

/seconded.

Fair enough on both counts. The second was agreeing with Fonz about the Kabenon007 wagon not seeming very good but there not being anything better.

And you show you’re not a fan of any existing wagon:

Well, was kind of hoping a bit more would be here now, but in any case. I'm not a fan of the melodyman wagon. I've seen a lot of lynches based on single mistakes turn up town. Jumping on a wagon with poor/no reasons is something experienced scum really don't do much. You just end up lynching the unfortunate.

But then these two posts, which I really don’t like:

Not really too thrilled that Jesse is voting just to end the day. It is tempting to do, but I won't. Kab, please do give us some thoughts in the event you are lynched, which seems likely at this point.

I am, however, concerned about lynching a town player. When I vote, I want it to be because I believe the person is scum, not because I believe the person has a lot of votes on them.

Shteven, your posts above show that you’ve done no real scum hunting since suspicion first started turning against Kabenon007. You’ve given no reasons, outside of my dangerous self using a tone you didn’t like for not wanting to see Kabenon lynched. You’ve asked a total of one question to people on the Kabenon007 wagon. And if you are “concerned about lynching a town player” should you be willing, having done nothing to look for other suspects or poke holes in the case against Kabenon, to accept “the event you are lynched, which seems likely at this point.”?

Because the behavior above looks a lot more like someone who doesn’t want to be associated with a lynch than it does someone who doesn’t trust it and would like to see it stopped. To that end, Shteven, before deadline could you give us some idea of your suspicions, if you have any? And, if you have any, your specific problems with the case on Kabenon007?

Thank you for any responses.