All right. This takes precedence over another of my long posts about who I suspect, but let me assure you this is just a reprieve, not a commutation.
For now:
Ythill wrote:First point: does the slip up Incog hypothesises seem like a realistic mistake? Meaning, if I am forward-thinking enough to lay out this elaborate "carpet," does it follow that I am short-sighted enough to miss such an obvious hole in the plan? Second point: the "doc protected" plan seems much more viable if I am scum, so what's the point of me asking the doc not to protect me? In Incog's theory, wouldn't that be entirely counter-productive? As scum, I should have asked for doc protection.
First:
Ythill wrote:Meaning, if I am forward-thinking enough to lay out this elaborate "carpet," does it follow that I am short-sighted enough to miss such an obvious hole in the plan?
Well, let me pose a different question. If you put the work and forethought into your plan as presented, does it logically follow that you would miss this possibility as town? See, this is a sword that cuts both ways, and I think this edge is sharper. Because if I was you and I did what you’re doing (and I don’t think I would) I think the idea of killing two scum on one day would be so big in my eyes that I’d scarcely be able to see anything else. Lynch/vig and cripple the bad guys for the whole game. And I think if I was in trouble when I revealed my plan I would be very aware of how a good vig kill would redeem me. I might not post it, because it sounds too much like pleading for a chance, but I sure wouldn’t have been caught by surprise when someone asked me a question about it. Because being surprised about it makes it seem as though you never even considered what the ramifications would be if you hit scum. And yes, that is a very big tell.
Second:
Ythill wrote:the "doc protected" plan seems much more viable if I am scum, so what's the point of me asking the doc not to protect me? In Incog's theory, wouldn't that be entirely counter-productive? As scum, I should have asked for doc protection.
As scum you wouldn’t need the protection. As a scum pretending to be town you would know that you might well get it even if you asked not to be, as the only claimed role. Plus, if you’re mafia you don’t care who the doctor protects night one as long as it isn’t your selected vig target. Your kill would be the mafia kill. And since you’ve presented yourself as a one-shot vig you could even make a fair pass at a case about not getting whacked yourself, even if the doctor didn’t decide to protect you no matter what you said. And if the doc did protect you, as the only claimed role, and you were about to get fitted for a noose day two, you might even manage to find out who the doctor was along the way, if the doc felt he had to claim to clear up why a second kill didn’t happen/why you aren’t dead. It’s not a perfect play, but given the situation you’re in right now it’s a better play than asking for the doctor to protect you.
Now, for the rest of you, here is why my vote is off Ythill:
If he’s mafia it doesn’t matter whether we lynch him today or not, mafia will kill someone tonight. If he’s mafia planning on announcing who mafia is going to kill, that person will be no more dead than if his partners decided who they were going to kill in secret.
If only one body hits tonight, then it is my hope that tomorrow will be the last day Ythill spends in town. If he is scum he is as dead tomorrow as he would have been today, and we have the chance to catch another bad guy today, if we can remove some of our focus from this one discussion. If he should turn up, after being hung, to be town, then we will have still had today to hunt for another scum and scum will have only made a kill tonight they would have anyway (maybe a different person, but still one town). So a Ythill mislynch today or tomorrow would be the same, in this one respect, as a Ythill righteous lynch today or tomorrow: In either case the town will be in the same position going into night two.
What could go wrong with this that would be detrimental to town? Well, basically the things I pointed out in my previous post, that there is the off-chance that Ythill could be an SK or the possibility that only one person dies tonight and Ythill finds some way to squirm off the hook on day two. In the first case we just have to keep our eyes open for the rest of the game. In the second, well if we, collectively, are that stupidly gullible, then we were probably going to lose anyway. Of course, it would also be detrimental to town if Ythill is the vig and kills town, but is anybody really willing to lynch him on the grounds of not trusting his judgment?
On the other hand, Ythill may be telling the truth. And if he is we have an opportunity to:
1. Find out with a reasonable degree of certainty that one of the players is not scum.
2. Get two scum in one day. Or at least have two chances of getting one.
And those are pretty big pluses. There’s another possible one, too, though it’s one I really don’t want to go into because if scum hasn’t thought of it I’d rather not tell them.
All that said, Ythill, I still think this was a bad play you made, and a bad play that benefits you more than town even if you are town. I’m not going to mention the ones it is too late to correct, but here’s two things you still could do something about:
1. Since you’re telling scum who you’re targeting, if you do end up targeting town they know who they don’t have to bother killing and you’ve all but given them two night kills. Stop putting who you’re going to kill in your posts. It may be too late to undo this damage, but what say we give it a try? Now that you’ve claimed one-shot vig, if we only find one body in the morning, whether you told us you were going to kill that person or not, you’re still in trouble. And if two bodies show up in the morning you’ll still get the benefit from it. And town would get a lot more if you didn’t outright say who it was going to be. How about we make the scum guess who you're going to kill? It would pretty much take the no-kill option out of play, because there would be no percentage in foregoing their night kill when you might, for all they know, have honed in on one of them. Proving your claim in this way may be important to you, but it is harmful to town and helpful to scum. If you absolutely can’t resist bread crumbing it in some way please do that instead.
2. You have made every case you make and every suspicion you cast throughout the rest of day one a potential weapon in the hands of town's enemies, even if you take the death list out of your posts. Please consider this in everything else you say today. And please, no more mentions of who you think is really town until today is over. No need to call out the scum’s play for them, all right? Not if you’re a vig, anyway.
Incognito,
I don’t like anything about Ythill’s claim. At best it seems a claim designed to benefit the claimant at the expense of the town’s greater interests, and at worst it seems absolutely scummy. But for town as a whole the possible benefits of leaving Ythill unlynched going into tonight outweigh the possible risks. If I were you, staring down the barrel of his gun, I am not at all sure I wouldn’t be reacting with the vehemence you’re showing. But lynching Ythill today would not be the best play for the town, and you have to put the town in front of yourself. Easy for me to say, since it’s not me we’re talking about getting killed by him? Yeah. Sorry about that. And I think the best thing you could do now wouldn’t be to either attack or answer Ythill, but to spend your time and energy hunting for scum among those players not named Ythill. It’s the very best thing you could do for town, and my guess is it is also the way to have the best chance of being alive in the morning.
Now, unless something dramatically new comes up involving this claim I am going to try to do some hunting. Because even if Ythill is scum, he’s not here all by himself.
