Newbie 1817 - Bolo (Game Over)

[Aster]

FrozenMagpie and Gorny are, like, totes Mafia.
My flower senses are tingling.

VOTE: Gorny

[Aster]

Am I the only one who wants to see all the cute animals (and whatever GreyIce posted).

Are you implying that whatever GreyICE posted wasn't a cute animal?
How rude to insult his tastes like that. Just accept people for who they are already.

[Aster]

Hmm... I would love to OMGUS you, but that require me to unvote Gorny...
Such a difficult decision to make...

[Aster]

You know, I've made up my mind. ^^
I'll compromise.

UNVOTE: Gorny
VOTE: FrozenMagpie

[Aster]

You know, I've made up my mind. ^^
I'll compromise.

UNVOTE: Gorny
VOTE: FrozenMagpie

Stop folding, you're making the game too easy.

But... But...
I've only got a frail, weak little flower stalk...
Even the wind itself can fold me over ;_;
I don't have any backbone like you humans do.
Please stop applying your human standards to me ;_;

[Aster]

You know, I've made up my mind. ^^
I'll compromise.

UNVOTE: Gorny
VOTE: FrozenMagpie

y tho

It's pretty simple.
Both your name and FancyPants' name start with an F.
This change in votes gets me one letter closer to OMGUSing FancyPants while still allowing me to vote one member of the well-established Mafia duo.

[Aster]

Explanation for new players:

The game just began in the so-called "random voting stage" (RVS.) This is a phase wherein players vote random other players for whatever inane reasons. None of it is to be taken seriously. The purpose of this phase is to get discussion going: at the beginning of the game, there is not enough information to make any kind of sensible decision; if enough things are said, a few scumtells may surface which may lead to the end of the RVS and the start of serious discussion.

An example of a possible scumtell that just surfaced: why did Gorny take the posts seemingly seriously? Is he just unfamiliar with the process, or did him feeling threatened because he actually was Mafia form a contributing factor?

[Aster]

@FancyPants: I, Aster, the highly paranoid and absolutely insufferable townie, demand an explanation as to why you just voted Gorny.

[Aster]

@Draynth: this is the first time I'm playing on mafiascum.net, but I've got quite a bit of mafia experience on other forums.

[Aster]

Also, FancyPants, no answer?
Oh boy... that means I get to project whatever baseless accusation I want <3

---

FancyPants' post irks me significantly more than such a small post should. It accomplishes the following three things:

• It establishes that my point against Gorny is nonsense;
• It disencourages you to post nonconclusive evidence;
• It votes Gorny.

I shall reply to all three of these points.

Point 1:

I admit that my point was a very weak tell, but I do not think that means it should not be said. First, during day 1 there is generally very little evidence available and we must grab onto whatever we can get. Also, you could've defended Gorny without a personal attack.

Second, more importantly, pointing out a mild flaw in a scum's behaviour can get them to react, which can get more scumtells out of them. Many tells can not be found in generic posts they write, but they can be revealed by questions asked or remarks made. In this case, Gorny did not have any scumtells in his reply, so I'll drop the point. If I were to get the impression that he was like "OH NOES I SCREWED UP" and try to cover it up poorly, I'd press the matter.

Point 2:

Like I just said, you're free to accuse me of whatever. It gets the discussion going, which is a good thing. I am, however, more vexed by your attempt to

supress

discussion with the phrase "seeing scum tells in pedestrian behaviour gets you paranoid town points". That doesn't apply to just me, it scares of everyone to state their suspicions fearing "paranoid town points".

Notably, you called them "town points", not "scum points". So you're not even accusing me of being an overzealous scum lyncher? Of course you aren't—you'd earn massive amounts of "hypocrite" points if you did. And we can't afford that, can we? "Hypocrite" points are bad after all. Don't touch them.

Of course, you're going to say "I didn't want to accuse you, I only wanted to defend Gorny against your inane accusations." (despite adding a personal attack a bit earlier in the same sentence.) That could be true, but I suspect that there is an ulterior motive, see my next point.

Point 3:

Voting Gorny, the guy you just defended... like, why?
Alright, I know your answer already. That was just an RVS vote, right?
But why RVS vote Gorny? Why not me? Why not anyone else? Or rather, why vote anyone at all?

I can explain: because voting Gorny is the most townish-looking choice. It accomplishes the following:

• It distances yourself from Gorny, preventing you from being accused of being in a mafia team with him;
• By explicitly voting somebody other than me (rather than simply not voting) you really drive the point home "I do not vote people based on "pedestrian behaviour";

That's it. I cannot think of another reason why you would put that vote in a post like that other than to increase your townishness. Normally one would put no vote in a post like that, and a vote on Gorny just seems too convenient for the circumstances; it gives me the impression that your post was carefully orchestrated.

---

So, what point am I making? I get the impression from the attention to detail and convenient wording that FancyPants' post was not just a common post to help Gorny, but rather a convenient post he could make to appear townish. Of course, townies could attempt to look townish, but scum try harder.

Tl;dr:

FancyPants tries too hard to look like town.

[Aster]

I also have a question, on why it says peoples roles underneath their name?
Is this a bug?

I am highly sceptical of this post. There are two possible situations:

1. He genuinely didn't know those "roles" were meaningless;
2. He did know those roles were meaningless and pretended he didn't.

In the second case, I'd definitely call scum upon this post. Whenever a human is guilty of something, it is their instinct to ask questions about things they already know to make it appear as if they don't have a clue about the situation. I'd call this a very strong scumtell, significantly beyond just "trying too hard to appear town."

However, we also have the first case to consider. Could it be true he was genuinely unaware about the function of those "roles"? Let us assume that this case is true, then there are some odd things about his post:

(Note: keep in mind that, according to his post in the sign-up thread, he has card-game mafia experience but no experience on this forum.)

• There is a "coincidence" that he voted FancyPants who is titled "goon" because he thinks FancyPants is scared of Gorny who is called "goon" as well;
• He didn't point out that FancyPants was marked as goon—is it because he didn't notice it at that time, or because of some other reason?
• Given that he has card-game mafia experience, he must know that having everyone's roles public is an absolute no-go. His reaction of "Why are ... is it a bug?" seems a bit passive for such a massive screw-up.
• Arbitrary titles under people's names are a common feature on many forums. If he has been on other (non-mafia) forums before, there are good chances he could guess what those titles represented.

Alright, none of the above is conclusive enough to show that he really knew that the titles were meaningless, but I wouldn't just blindly assume his "I really didn't know what those titles meant!" to be true.

Moreover, even if he really didn't know what the titles meant, that does not in any way prevent him from being scum and asking. Note that he asked "why our roles are under our names" and he didn't ask "what those titles meant". His way of asking suggests me that he was intentionally trying to slip a "hey I'm town" into his question.

Tl;dr:

I suspect adilm29h posted the above-quoted post with the intention to tell us "Hey I'm Town!" more than that he really wanted an answer to his question.

UNVOTE: FrozenMagpie
VOTE: adilm29h

[Aster]

Adilm29h, can you please answer the following questions?

• At the point you voted FancyPants, were you aware that Gorny had the title "Goon" as well?
• Also, were you aware that Draynth had the title "Mafia Scum"?
• Finally, do you know how many scum/mafiae this game has?

[Aster]

So we've had 10 hours without a single post.
We're running out of leads.
Rather, it seems like up to now, I am the only one generating leads and everyone else is reducing them.
You know, like a bunch of politicians who are against any proposed tax hike or budget cut, but never propose a solution to the budget deficit themselves.
Only ever stating the safe popular opinions.

So,

MotherGothel28

, I am calling upon YOU to generate our next lead.

Also, GreyICE, you still haven't said anything but tell-less generic IC info yet. How about stating something non-IC next time?

[Aster]

First, a big thanks to MotherGothel28 for giving us some leads. I don't like the leads, but I at least appreciate you're attempting to give us some.

As for the leads you gave us, several of them are so obviously pointless that I don't even need to reply (bad humour correlates with being mafia? seriously?), but let me point out some of the biggest/most hilarious misses.

---

Even more so, it is suspicious when something as obvious as a vote is missed, as my vote is already on Aster. Would you have wanted me to re-vote for them? That doesn't make any sense, and is a very weak situation with a huge hole in it to base a vote on. That reads to me as someone who isn't paying attention to the game, which is unlikely for town trying to make a full reads list as you just managed to. Scum however are much more likely to skim the thread looking for anything they can make a false case against.

With this point, you're just twisting words. Your vote on me was made during the RVS stage; it seems very likely that one would perceive it as meaningless and forget about it; in fact, even I had already forgotten myself that you were voting me until you reminded me with this post.

More essentially, GreyICE's core point still stands: you did not make any attempt to use your newfound "scumtell" to try to lynch me. Nothing in your post gave any kind of feeling that you were now more convinced that I'm scum / that you were encouraging others to vote me / that your previous joke vote became serious. That is what GreyICE is accusing you of.

---

You sure are jumping around a lot. Its beginning to feel like you're throwing accusations at everything you can find and seeing if they stick,

Aside from the purported being true, did you actually manage to write this without even hearing the sheer irony?

(Hint: your comments about my bad sense of humour implying that I'm scum, do just about out-jump anything I've ever said in this thread.)

Adilm didn't say "I vote FancyPants because it clearly says Goon under his name!" He did make a vote without a reason, which is sus on it's own, but instead you use his newbie question to form a case? Feels slimy to me.

Please let me remind you that adilm29h himself already admitted that his vote was (in part) motivated by Gorny having the title "Goon".

(What did you mention again about those who "skim the thread"?)

I get the feeling you're over-defensive of adilm, who I still suspect of being scum. Let me say a bit more about why adilm is still suspicious:

• It's curious how he voted FancyPants "partially" because he was titled "Goon" (indicating that he saw those titles as reliable) while knowing Gorny was "Goon" as well, yet he completely ignored Gorny.
• His other reason for voting FancyPants was because FancyPants was trying to lynch the most-speaking players, amongst which Gorny, who he also knew to be a Goon.

The above gives the impression that his reason for voting FP along with what he claimed to have known when he did so, were all made up after the fact when he tried to patch together his past actions.

Adilm definitely is not off my radar yet. Call it "slimy" if you want. This isn't court where evidence being slimy means it has to be ignored.

---

Tl;dr:

MotherGothel28 is using bad arguments. I suspect a MotherGothel28 / adilm29h mafia combo.

[Aster]

She said "Alright, now we are getting into the meat of the game!" And this confirms to me 100% that she's scum.

This really bugs me that they choose this sentence to be ICE's proof that she is 100% scum, MotherGothel had been joking around about McGuyver before this post so it feels like a legitimate now the game is getting serious. Yes we've had some serious posts but the overall feel of the game still seemed light hearted. How do other people feel about this?

While I am definitely suspicious of MotherGothel28, I do think that GreyICE is over-hasty with the arguments he used. There is a clear reason why MG28 would say "Alright, now we are getting into the meat of the game!" and it's not because she's mafia. Moreover, while MG28 is pulling a clear OMGUS, I am not so sure that that's something only scum would do.

I am, however, still suspicious of her.

[Aster]

Looking more into Gorny, I noticed something. At first, I was a bit suspicious of Gorny because of his buddying with MotherGothel along with him being self-conscious about it ("if MG gets lynched I'll be suspected next"), so I considered MG/Gorny to be an alternative mafia combination pair should MG/adilm be incorrect.

However, it seems like MotherGothel is buddying with just about everyone. So far she's buddied with adilm, Gorny and FancyPants. Not in a "were mafia buddies" way, but in a "hey, I, MotherGothel, am friendly. Let's fight together against those bullies like Aster and GreyICE" way. It also correlates with her trying to take the "moral high ground."

Sure, it may just be one of her personality traits, but it seems like she's spending a significant part of this game to make friends rather than to hunt scum. For example, you may wonder why she had to be so lofty about FancyPants in this post, but it makes perfect sense: speaking well about FancyPants makes him like you more, which makes him an excellent ally in the fight against that mean Aster, whom FancyPants doesn't like.

I get the impression that MotherGothel is trying to recruit her own little army of friends to squash a minority of not-friends.

If that scenario is true, then it may actually be that, if MotherGothel is indeed scum, then FancyPants and Gorny are actually town: if they were mafia, MotherGothel wouldn't have to try to buddy with them open in the thread.

[Aster]

As for some of my remaining opinions on what GreyICE said:

What is my supposed scum motivation for not realizing your RVS vote was on Aster? How did the fact that I overlooked that allow you to determine my alignment?

I need to remind you that MotherGothel already explained this question—a stupid explanation, but alas, an explanation. She's saying that mafiae are more likely to accidentally miss things than townies.

Even more so, it is suspicious when something as obvious as a vote is missed, as my vote is already on Aster. Would you have wanted me to re-vote for them? That doesn't make any sense, and is a very weak situation with a

huge

hole in it to base a vote on. That reads to me as someone who isn't paying attention to the game,

which is unlikely for town trying to make a full reads list as you just managed to. Scum however are much more likely to skim the thread looking for anything they can make a false case against.

My plan tonight was to go back and reread the thread, but you just rushed yourself to the top of my scum list.

---

I've stated my opion on several players already, here are some more:

• FrozenMagpie: she looks completely neutral. Can't tell whether she's town or mafia, but she does a good job of just blending in.
• Draynth: he seems like a lurker, which is kinda worse than a null-tell. I am not familar enough with the mafiascum meta to know how bad lurkers are.
• Xa ligha: asks a lot, says little. Short of his criticism of GreyICE condemning MotherGothel based on that one sentence, everything Xa Ligha has done could be seen as active lurking.

---

As a general reminder to everyone on GreyICE: remember that many facts are true, and many of those are "in general" statements. GreyICE does not lie about facts in his position of IC (that's one of the IC rules), but he does have the power to choose what facts he will summon. For example, take his following post

Consider what I said about motivations. Scum want to avoid the lynch. The game doesn't begin for them until someone threatens to lynch them (or their buddy). Everything up until that point is not the important to them. The game doesn't start until votes move to them.

And this matches a very common scum pattern.

Scum often react to early votes and cases as if they are personal attacks, and begin debating. It's called "Oh my god! You suck!" (OMGUS) after a scum poster who literally posted those five words followed by a vote for the person who had just voted them. While the term can be misused - a vote might prompt a re-evaluation of a poster, and two feuding posters might both decide to vote each other at similar times - in this case she's played it to the letter.

The pattern he mentions is "very common". That may be true, but that doesn't mean that the pattern is happening right now: GreyICE may be scum himself and know that a townie just committed a very common scum pattern, and therefore summon the fact. If his buddy had just committed the very common scum pattern, then he would have just shut up about it.

The power to choose which facts you summon is a very powerful one; one can use it to "lie" with statements that are true. Please keep this in mind.

[Aster]

Because the question feels like a scummy one to ask

In what sense?

Seems like a potential WIFOM setup

I, too, find myself unable to figure out (1) where the WIFOM lies, and (2) how whatever-his-plot-was would help the mafiae.

Please explain in greater detail.

[Aster]

It feels like something that mafia could easily point back to as reasoning for a nightkill, or lack thereof and try to spin some yarn about it. It simply seems to me like this question has the possibility of causing a lot of confusion, directed by the scum of course, amongst the town.

@Fancypants
Asking him 'who would you kill' is different to 'who do you scumread' in my books, am I wrong in thinking this?

That... actually makes a surprising amount of sense.

I think FancyPants didn't ask the question with malicious intentions, but I consider your objection to be valid.

Xa ligha, I think you should

not

answer FancyPants' question. However, you are being suspected of active lurkingm so please provide some more generic scumreads instead.

[Aster]

I don't see the difference and still think he should answer, just pretend I asked:
@Xa ligha, if you were absolutely forced to lynch one of the players in the game right now, who would it be and what would your justification be?

If it makes you feel better. It's just a way to force him into committing on a scum read. I understand that Draynth thought I meant who would he NK but that's not what I meant for the record.
I don't see how knowing his scummiest read, can affect the NK at all.

You seem to misunderstand. Consider the following scenario: Xa ligha answers and says he would kill Alice (I'm not going to use a real player name there for soon to be obvious reasons.) The next night, Alice gets NK'ed.

Clearly Xa isn't stupid enough to kill the person he said he wanted dead, so of course the mafia is framing him. Unless Xa is mafia himself and is trying to make it look as if the mafia framed him to make him appear town. Unless... [WIFOM unfolds]

By using the word "kill" you are drawing more attention upon Xa's answer than when you'd have merely asked about "scumread", because there would be many "best scumreads". By having one clearly marked "kill X" target instead of many "I think X is scum" targets, you are giving the mafia a single unique target they can kill to generate significant amounts of WIFOM while leaking very little other information; in fact, if Alice were to get killed in the above situation, we may as well write the kill up as "Mafia killed Alice to generate WIFOM. Alice wasn't mafia. We know nothing else." And we'd be robbed of our opportunity to learn from the nightkill.

Also, now I have written this out, even not killing Alice would induce the question why the mafia passed up the opportunity.

And these questions aren't going to help us hunt scum, they will only distract us from it.

[Aster]

Mafia don't need to coordinate NK in thread they have their own PT they can communicate in pregame and night phases.

For reals. Discussing your NK target in the public thread takes a special kind of... something.

But anyway, Xa, can I get links to those three games you mentioned in your previous post? (Assuming they've already ended)

[Aster]

Adilm, can you please give an argument against MotherGothel that is not approximately equivalent to something that has already been stated thus far?

[Aster]

My read is that People who unnecessarily talk to much are hiding something, and just talk a lot to cover up their mistakes

This statement is headache-inducing.

[Aster]

headache-inducing

explain?
and interesting how you just stated how you felt, to make my others look at my post from a certain angle.

You are suggesting that people actively posting stuff and contributing to the discussion are more likely to be mafia than for example lurkers who only say the minimum amount necessary to avoid modkill or policy lynch. Or something in that direction.

This notion is downright toxic for the town community: it is well-established that it is important for the town to have an active discussion in order to find mafia. Do you notice how some of us have been calling upon others demanding they say something? That's because the less one says, the harder it is to get tells on them, and if we let them get away without saying anything, then they may be mafia who are just lying low while the talkative townies kill each other. So we're trying to encourage activity into others, so that everyone can get a better view of everyone and make a better-informed decision.

It takes the "discouraging activity" that I accused FancyPants of to a whole new level: do we

really

want townies and mafiae to believe that the best way for them to survive is to lay low? I definitely don't. That'd frankly be the worst possible thing that could happen to town.

If scum is really active, then you should be able to find plenty of scumtells or otherwise genuine reasons to vote them in their posts. You basing your vote on high activity tells "This player has said a lot of things, but I can't find scumtells in those posts." If you can't find enough cause to vote somebody in the huge amount content in the posts, maybe you should take a hint?

Also, on a side note, you are saying that I'm posting a lot in order to cover something up? My obnoxious level of activity started with accusing FancyPants. Before that, only the RVS happened. Please tell me what I'm trying to cover up.

[Aster]

I mean he didn't say that anyone posting a lot is scum, he said that he thinks anyone posting a lot

unnecessarily

is scum, which I would agree with to an extent.

Ergo, people should only post when it is necessary?
(Necessary for what anyway?)

[Aster]

As a personal preference, and because you're not a newbie I'm not going to lay it out all formal-like. Don't fucking make shit up about why I'm doing something unless you want me to come rip your throat out and decorate the walls with your blood.

This is

not

a way to treat other players. I hope that what you're saying is entirely figurative and in-game, but the fact that that isn't completely obvious is worrying.

As a special reward for behaviour that's absolutely inappropriate for an IC (or anyone else), I shall issue a special-edition post on why you're scum.

[Aster]

Now this is an interesting use of motivational thinking. What motive would scum-me have to overlook her opening post? Surely it changes very little about what I would need to right. On the other hand, let us consider her reaction. She said "Alright, now we are getting into the meat of the game!" And this confirms to me 100% that she's scum.

Consider what I said about motivations. Scum want to avoid the lynch. The game doesn't begin for them until someone threatens to lynch them (or their buddy). Everything up until that point is not the important to them. The game doesn't start until votes move to them. And this matches a very common scum pattern. Scum often react to early votes and cases as if they are personal attacks, and begin debating. It's called "Oh my god! You suck!" (OMGUS) after a scum poster who literally posted those five words followed by a vote for the person who had just voted them. While the term can be misused - a vote might prompt a re-evaluation of a poster, and two feuding posters might both decide to vote each other at similar times - in this case she's played it to the letter.

I mentioned that according the IC rules, you would not tell lies about mafia facts and what constitutes "good play", so I cut you some slack and, though disagreeing with this post, presumed that you would follow the rules and at least believed what you were saying. Now let's forget that presumption.

The part about motivational thinking as rubbish, since MotherGothel already stated the purported motivation in her post. Did you read over it, or are you intentionally ignoring it?

The statement that her saying "getting to the meat of the game" implies 100% that she's scum is bullshit of the highest order. Are you misunderstanding her or misrepresenting her?

Finally, the claim about OMGUS coming from the mafia playbook is remarkable. I let this one slide because I'm not familar with the local meta which may be sheerly different compared to where I come from, but where I'm from OMGUS is not even remotely unique to mafia, to the point I've started to wonder whether it is even indicative of mafia at all. Is the meta here that different, or are you, like MotherGother claimed, abusing your position as IC to influence people to believe you?

As for my explanations, I admit that I am in a Catch-22. I explain how I play mafia, and I am also playing mafia, so my play matches my explanations. I do encourage others to think for themselves here - but I am also encouraging others to vote with me. It's a weird line I've seen other ICs walk, and now I get to try for the first time. So MotherGothel is 100% right - I am trying to use my experience to influence you to vote for her, but I am doing so because my experience leads me to believe she is scum.

This statement may as well be ripped from the Wiki, but it is nevertheless notable. If GreyIce was a townie, there wouldn't be a thin line or Catch-22 at all: all he has to do is being the best possible townie he can be while spreading lots of good mafia knowledge. The thin line only exists when GreyIce is mafia himself: then he has to be mafia and deceive town yet still help town with truthful and informative information.

The fact that GreyIce stated this correlates with him feeling like he's walking a thin line, which would imply that he's mafia.

[Aster]

It's kind of obvious you don't believe her rationalization either, since you call it her "purported" motive.

Of course I don't. But that doesn't mean you get to pretend it doesn't exist. She stated the purported motive, you pretended she didn't say anything about a motive.

Actually, seeing you go down this line of defence, are you implying that you

did

realise she stated a purported motive but decided to flat out ignore it because it was stupid?

Yes, OMGUS is scummy. Reacting with "I am going to win this argument" rather than "I want to find your alignment" is clear scum motivationals.

And this is blatantly false in the meta I'm used to (hint: unless you're a jester, getting yourself lynched is never in your or your faction's favour.) I'd be more likely to vote somebody spreading false information like this than somebody who OMGUSes. Your statement is almost on par with "this guy defends himself so he must be scum".

Now Aster, your vote is on Adimlh. This indicates he is your strongest scumread. What have you been doing in that regard?

I never said I'd be voting my strongest scumread, that's a suggestion you made up. And just because you suggested it doesn't make it a good policy. For example, one might want to not vote whomever they believe is scum to avoid a L-1 or a hammer. Moreover, voting can signify that you're serious about accusing somebody and demand a reply out of them, which gives cause to vote somebody who is not your greatest suspect. Also, it is a political tool that signifies how pushy you want to be; as soon as you cast it, you're at war with your target. One may be very suspicious of somebody but not vote to preserve the possibility of a calm discussion.

I voted adilm because I had serious concerns about him being mafia and I wanted to put pressure on him.

I considered switching my vote to MotherGothel but decided not to because (1) it'd move pressure to MotherGothel who already had enough of it while removing it from adilm who didn't have enough of it, (2) a major part for my suspicion on MotherGothel was the adilm/MG conspiracy, which gives no cause to vote one over another, (3) it would become painfully easy to claim an Aster/GreyIce conspiracy.

I considered changing my vote to you but decided not to because you would reply with something along the lines "This vote is clearly motivated by you being upset about my post. If you truly thought I was the scummiest player, you'd have written that way earlier. You're not supposed to vote whomever you think is the rudest person because rudeness does not correlate with scumminess."

But, if you insist I change my vote once in a while, here you go.

UNVOTE: adilm29h
VOTE: GreyICE

[Aster]

IC Note: Of course you should be voting your strongest scumread. Your vote is mechanically how you lynch a player. If your vote is on a player other than your strongest scumread you are mechanically aiding the lynch of someone you feel is less likely to be scum. This is simply poor play. There are occasionally reasons to vote someone other than your strongest scumread - if they've claimed a power role, if they are VLA/being replaced and unable to respond - but none of them apply here.

This is a blatantly false statement that further reduces your credibility as an IC. Let me add some more situations in which you should not vote your strongest scumread:

• You are nearing the end of the day and need to get a hammer on somebody to achieve No Lynch while the crowd has achieved a deadlock. Ideally you'd convince the majority to switch to your target, but humans may be stubborn and that course may seem hopeless. If you'd still rather lynch the bandwagonee than have a No Lynch occur, you may want to compromise.
• If somebody did something really suspicious and want more information from him, you may want to ask him an innocent-looking question before you state your case. As soon as you vote, the target will be alert, be careful with anything he tells you, and know what you intend to do with his answer. If you avoid startling him and appear friendly, he may not be aware of what you intend to do (or what he needs to say to avoid exposing himself) and trip himself up.
• You are a cop and know who is scum, but don't want to say it until you've collected a bit more information that allows you to have a go at getting somebody lynched without having to reveal your identity.
• Many other highly tactical reasons that are a bit too difficult for you to understand.

Your vote does not matter for the lynch until the end of the day or the hammer starts approaching. Until then, treat it as a scumhunting tool.

This is interesting. Do you still believe MotherGothel to be scum?

I did think she was scum, but more recently I become increasingly unable to distinguish her from being a plain old VI. Yes, she's using many stupid arguments, but does that make her scum? Does scum stand to gain something from stubbornly holding onto their stupid arguments? (Motivation?) Right now she looks as much as a VI as she does as a goon.

---

Also, you didn't answer one of my questions:

Actually, seeing you go down this line of defence, are you implying that you

did

realise she stated a purported motive but decided to flat out ignore it because it was stupid?

Of course, not that I stated my hostile attitude, you should be able to figure out how you should answer that question, because there might be only one answer that doesn't result in you getting figuratively roasted. (♪ keeping up with the theme ♪)

[Aster]

I'm going to have to agree with cd about adilm at all points except the one about adilm being unfamilar with terms as "scum" and "scumread". I would find it very believable that adilm's real-life games use vastly different terminology, but that does not cover his many other very unbelievable claims.

Let's think back. In order for adilm29h not to be a lying bastard, all of the following would have to be true:

• Adilm does not have any experience on any forum that uses a title system;
• Despite having played over 10 games before, he does humour the possibility that having everyone's roles public was intentional. In fact, he asked confidently asking
  why
  the roles are public instead of
  whether
  the roles are public, pretending that he actually believed the titles to be the real roles;
• He knew that FancyPants was titled "goon" by means of title, but made up a wholly different reason for voting him;
• In fact, he claims that the title "goon" was not a reason to vote FancyPants at all (267), while in the same post claiming that he had no clue that the names meant nothing at all (remember him asking
  why
  and not
  whether
  ?)
• Despite knowing that FancyPants and Gorny were the goon team by means of title, he did not even try to lynch both of them ("free win");
• Despite knowing that Gorny was a goon, he thinks it is nonetheless scummy for FancyPants to gang up on Gorny amongst others;
• Despite having played 10-15 games before, he claims to know barely any tactics to tackling this game (124);
• Despite the above point, he still seems confident that scumtells like "active players are scum" and "rude players are scum" are sane.

I'd also like to remark that adilm's definition of "power role" has apparently changed between post 191 ("Power role meaning strong voice") and post 274 ("By power role I meant he is a Mafia"). This fits a common pattern for him to say things without thinking and only when somebody calls him out on it, he makes up a story about what he meant. The same thing happened when he got called out on his reason to vote FancyPants.

---

In addition to the whole case about him being a liar, his scumhunting "attempts" just give me the vibe that he's only trying to push suspicion away from him. For example, he says

In what world is asking a few newbie questions, scummy. Vs Someone losing their temper and adding hostile language as well as profanity not seem as scum.

This is what I call the "scumminess syndrome". It involves calling certain actions "scummy" without thinking about why mafiae would be more predisposed to do these scummy actions in this thread than townies. It is a handy trick for mafiae because by just stating "action X is scummy" you can appear to just make factual statements without even having to think about what is going on. I got the same impression when he just decided to call "active players are scummy" without any further scumread. Also when he accused MotherGothel, all his arguments were taken from something somebody else already stated; I think he was trying to shift attention to MotherGothel who was under fire while diverting attention from himself and weakening the MotherGother/adilm conspiracy.

In short, I get the impression that adilm is more preoccupied with shifting attention away from him than with finding mafia.

---

Frankly, the whole case requires improbability upon improbability to be true for him not to be a total liar. Him being a very likely liar trying to cover up his scumtracks should be more than enough reason to lynch him. Even in addition to that, his whole scumhunting practices just reek of scum.

At this point, I may even call this case "slam dunk". I see no reason to give him the advantage of doubt any longer. I will vote him with full conviction.

UNVOTE: GreyICE
VOTE: adilm29h

[Aster]

That being said if he does get lynched and flip green we have a great pool of players to examine (those on the wagon, particularly the early votes in this case).

It's great how you are trying to discourage people from voting who they want by means of threats. Super helpful. This is just what town needs to move forward. Thank you for your valuable contributions.

Techincally he supplemented his initial reason with another, he didn't use the latter in place of the former.

Yet he didn't mention it at all in the post where he voted FancyPants and didn't even mention it until I inquired him about it. He admits that he knew FancyPants was titled goon. It follows that one of the following must hold true:

• He found that title issue matter so little compared to his other argument that it wasn't worth mention.
• He lied about his motivations for voting FancyPants: he had a motive based on the title but made up something else to cover up his real motivations.
• He made his story up after the fact.

I'm betting on the last one.

Also, if adilm thought that people's roles are displayed below their names and somebody has the title goon, would you really believe that that could possibly be a

minor

reason to vote somebody?

How do you

know

he saw both of the titles?

Because he said so himself.

Yea when I voted FancyPants, I realised Gorny has the title goon as well. But no I was not aware that Daynth has Mafia Scum.

---

Card mafia and forum mafia are completely different things. How in the hell is this a scumtell even if they were

Are you suggesting that lying to cover up your mistakes is not a scumtell?

NewbieTown players often have bad reasoning such as this, it's far more common amongst newbTown than newbScum in my experience.

I'm not saying that his reasoning is good. I'm saying that his confidence in his stupid reasons (which he acquired through experience!) seem to conflict with his display of total lack of confidence in "I don't know any tactics plz don't hit me", and I think that adilm has a whole lot more confidence in his game than his cover post tries to make us believe. Frankly, trying to hide behind a wall of "I'm to stupid to do that" is suspicious by itself.

[Aster]

I do agree that Gorny seems quite scummy. Although his opinion changing within a single post is suspicious, it is not something mafia would have a motivation to do, and there are several reasons why that could still happen when he's town (his opinion changed during writing, and he forgot to update an old part; he had a memory lapse when compiling the final list; a mixup between something.)

However, more suspicious is that Gorny does not acknowledge his screw-up and is trying to waggle himself out of the situation by making stuff up, which is just about half of what I'm accusing adilm of.

I'd like to keep my vote on adilm, but it has become pretty clear to me that the adilm bandwagon won't be going anywhere today because some think it is so unfair to use newbies' mistakes against them that they'd rather let scum live. I may as well change my vote to the almost-as-scummy candidate that actually has potential to get lynched.

UNVOTE: adilm29h
VOTE: Gorny

[Aster]

yea i knew I had the Hammer

Here's the follow-up queustion: why did you hammer Gorny?

[Aster]

FancyPants asked me who I thought was scum. My opinion hasn't changed much from yesterday: it's crystal clear that adilm29h is scum. I called this case slam dunk yesterday, and nothing has done to lessen that notion today. In fact, with another lie from adilm today and some nice correlations, the case became even clearer than it already was, to the extent that's possible. With the additional bonus that there aren't any scumpartners left, so can state with confidence that everyone who isn't adilm, is town.

Adilm still seems to be busy doing his old scummery business. Without much thinking, he hammers Gorny because he wants to get some of the bussing bonus and can't risk that somebody else takes the last available spot from him. During the next day when asked to explain, he makes up yet another story which is inconsistent with his earlier statements. With this kind of behaviour, it's almost as if he's just trying to figure out how much bullshit he can get away with.

There's pretty much nothing to say and nothing to discuss. The evidence against adilm has already been stated and I don't feel like repeating it again (u mad, cd?). Adilm being scum implies that everyone else is town. Nobody but adilm is scummy. We know everything we ever need to know.

---

Unfortunately, some people seem to have started to internalise adilm's towniness as an ideological belief, at which point it may become impossible to convince them otherwise. If somebody believes deeply enough that all grass is red, he keeps preaching that even when standing in the middle of a green grass field. Why? Because the alternative, admitting that they're wrong, is downright unacceptable, so their human brain rejects it.

And at this point, when people start acknowledging that adilm is lying yet still maintain that that isn't a scumtell, the situation starts looking pretty hopeless. Frankly, I'm don't even feel like arguing about this anymore. The pile evidence has been stated and it is at least four times as large as any pile we're ever going to collect against anyone else. If you're still not convinced, I won't be able to convince you.

VOTE: adilm29h

[Aster]

Aster - You have all the attributes of a great player, well played but be careful of that old bastard confirmation bias, it's important to be willing to be wrong.

Rest assured that I certainly didn't write post 475 without realising the sheer irony.

Unfortunately, some people seem to have started to internalise adilm's towniness as an ideological belief, at which point it may become impossible to convince them otherwise. If somebody believes deeply enough that all grass is red, he keeps preaching that even when standing in the middle of a green grass field. Why? Because the alternative, admitting that they're wrong, is downright unacceptable, so their human brain rejects it.

I was kinda surprised that I wasn't called out on this: I was calling out others for being insusceptible to reason, while from their perspective, I was clearly the one who was being insusceptible to reason.

It reflects what was happening between cd and GreyICE: a small argument began between them because they disagreed about the definition of some words (a case where there clearly isn't a right or wrong side), but then the issue became personal and their minds just flipped to "everything the other party is stupid" therefore "the other party is insusceptible to reason, I'm talking sense."

I thought giving an example of how a person could be unreasonable while thinking everyone else is unreasonable, might help some people to get a bit more perspective.