Mini 776: End of the World Zombie Survivors Mafia: Abandoned

[Amished]

Who would you primarily like to vote for then Lowell, now that musher has a replacement?

[Herodotus]

Hero, now that Musher has been replaced, why are you still willing to switch your vote to him? The point of lynching Musher is to kill off a lurker but it doesn't seem as if that is going to be the case any more.

Because I think lynching RisingPhoenix would probably be better than a nolynch. I'm not even 100% sure whether that's true, since the presence of Lowell and EEM on his wagon makes me think there's a decent chance that he's town. Of course, that's not conclusive. So like I said, if there's no other option at deadline, I'd probably switch.

By the way, I was hoping someone would answer my question about whether there's a case on Musher other than the lurking...

[Amished]

Pretty sure it was just Musher's lurking.

Linked here for the votes on Musher

[Herodotus]

Yeah, I've read DGB + Lowell's exchange a couple times. I just thought there might be something more, either buried in the thread or unwritten, that I was missing.

[evilevilmatt]

Rising has enough breathing room for now so I'll keep my vote there. Still willing to switch my vote to anyone else on my scum list if there is any support.

[Lowell]

Who would you primarily like to vote for then Lowell, now that musher has a replacement?

I'd vote for you or hero. Though this is all pointless since clearly we can't get our shit together enough to lynch anyone at this point.

[semioldguy]

What is everyone's opinion of Rishi? He has promised an large update of sorts for over a week now and hasn't delivered. He isn't voting and he isn't suspicious of anyone. To me, not being suspicious of anyone at all is something that can happen to scum who have a hard time trying to make cases on people they know to be innocent.

[Amished]

I just took a reread of Rishi (which then prompted a reread of Lowell). In Rishi's last 5 posts (from ISO 7 on) he's said Lowell's behavior is a null-tell, "Hi" to DGB, fell behind, Lowell's behavior is a null-tell (again), said Lowell's behavior is a null-tell (yet again) but now thinks he's slightly scummy, and then that he's catching up. Either Rishi knows something we don't, or he's faking it pretty well. As good a place to start for me. Thinking Lowell is scum, then writing the votes/suspicions toward him off as all against his playstyle is scummy, and the ever slow change from his initial stance to lowell might be scummy is suspicious as well.

Unvote

Vote: Rishi

[Rishi]

Have you guys even bothered to check my activity on the rest of the site? This isn't a newbie game, so I'm not sure why I have to explain this here, but there is a difference between being busy and lurking - lurking means that I am intentionally avoiding this game. Being busy, I haven't been posting anywhere on the site that often. I'm not going to bring personal information into this game, since I don't think anyone wants to hear a sob story, but believe me, I had good reason to be absent up to this point. I should be able to contribute somewhat regularly from here on out.

So, I am surprised that semioldguy took absolutely no heat for shooting OGB. OGB has zero votes at the time, and he presented a case primarily based on lurking. (See my first paragraph of this post to let you know what I think of lurker-hunting.) Yes, we're close to deadline, but he gave OGB only two days before the shot, during which time OGB did not log into the site once (or at very least didn't post anywhere). After making the shot, he immediately started a case on me IN THE VERY NEXT POST without even seeing the result of his shot. He was not in the least bit interested in gathering any information from the kill - he just wanted someone dead.

Now here is the BIG PROBLEM with the lurker hunt. This is EXACTLY what the Mafia want. When you lynch a lurker, you get very little information from the lynch. You can scan the posts of a lurker and get nothing from them - and as long as the lurker isn't scum, the scum remain fat and happy. Tomorrow, we could be down THREE townies and be in basically the same situation we are in today.

I know I've been flipping a little on Lowell, but I find Lowell very difficult to read. His analysis on all players was an attempt to be helpful, though, which is more than I have seen from him previously. I will not vote for Lowell at this point.

The only viable wagon other than my own right now is Musher/RisingPhoenix. Again, a lurker who is not going to give us much information on the lynch.

I'm voting for SOG right now. His shot on OGB with little justification was terrible - and the fact that he seemed completely uninterested in the result of the kill makes it even worse. I know that deadline is in a couple days. I don't like the Musher/RisingPhoenix wagon (though still better than No Lynch), but hope that a viable counterwagon emerges. I'll be on sporadically through the weekend.

Vote: semioldguy

[Amished]

I guess my thoughts on vigging in general is to get rid of the lurkers so that we have only people around that we can vote for, and therefore get more information out of voting. Who would you have rather seen shot? Clearly he was not going to shoot himself.

[Rishi]

If you're advocating killing lurkers, that amounts to a policy lynch. Call that a difference in opinion, but I think that the object of the game is to determine the alignment of players, not to quibble with playstyles.

Drawing lurkers out with pressure votes and direct questions is the best way to deal with them - if they are intentionally evasive to direct questioning, then there is a justification for lynching them.

Yeah, obviously he wasn't going to shoot himself, but I would have liked to see him at least question the person he was going to shoot (and wait more than a couple days for an answer) and perhaps go after someone the town was suspicious of. There is no evidence that he didn't shoot OGB for any other reason than the lurking bugged him - it was not because he thought OGB was scum.

[Amished]

I advocate vigging lurkers. BTW: Lurking is *not* a playstyle. It's a way to show you're too lazy to put the effort into a game or to not play at all. I'd dayvig every single lurker out there if I could to get rid of lurking completely as I think it'd lead to better quality games and therefore more fun for everybody. V/LA is different (evidenced by my leniency on Kabe since he posted a legit reason for being away), and if abused I'd prolly dayvig for abuse of that too. It also would've been better if you said you were busy, instead of keeping us all hanging with your "This will be my top priority the next time I log on."

As 3 of the remaining players have not cast a vote yet, and 4 people are on a lurker lynch, I'm still looking around for a good scum target. Also as everybody else that has a vote on them only has 1 vote on them, we're a rather indecisive group and there wasn't much of a consensus as to who people thought were scummy.

I also recall you saying you had a large post coming (that was before SOG's vigging), so I'm looking forward to that as well yet.

[Rishi]

Just because I don't intend to post the details of my personal life in this thread does not mean I don't have a legitimate reason for not posting.

The game situation has changed somewhat since the last time I promised a large post. I don't recall everything I was going to say, but much of it is no longer relevant.

[semioldguy]

@ Rishi
Aside from myself would you mind listing two of the other who you suspect as most likely to be scum, as well as your reasons for suspecting them? If we are going to get enough information on a kill prior to deadline how long would you have waited before taking the shot? How much time would you give for other players to be able to react to the shot before being hit by the deadline?

Why is what you previously going to say no longer relevant? It would still be helpful to know what you thought at the time.

[Rishi]

Your attempt to be evasive and not respond to the points levied against you is noted, SOG. Also, Amished's attempt to deflect the pressure from you is also noted. Still, other than the last few posts, Amished has seemed pretty pro-town, so I'll give him a pass for now.

My top suspects other than you are probably Hero (vote hopping, pretty thin reasons for some of his votes) and DGB (playing differently this game – I've played with her a decent amount and she's usually more aggressive and active. The fact that she's more docile this game is odd).

I would have, at the very least, given someone the opportunity to log on (or be prodded) before shooting them. The crux of my argument, however, is not that you didn't wait for a response, but that you didn't particularly care if OMG was scum or town.

Here, I'll even write out questions for you: Did you think OMG was scum? Or did you shoot OMG for lurking? Did you even care what OMG's alignment was? What information did you hope to gain from killing OMG?

And, I'm turning your question back on you: who do you think are scum? I want an actual reason why you think people are scum other than "oh, they're not posting much, so they must be scum."

You've had suspicious of myself, Musher/RisingPhoenix and OGB – all for the same reasons, that they are lurking and haven't contributed much. You did have a vote for Hero, but you pretty much just said, "I agree with Diamond" and left it at that. You expressed suspicion of Lowell for trying to direct use of the gun, but other than that, all you've done in this game is discuss theory and make wishy-washy non-committal statements about people and vote hopped. Look at this:

Musher hasn't added much content or brought anything to the table. I don't get a scummy vibe, but not enough from Musher333 to get a townie read at all.

Two days later:

I disagree with Herodotus on several points so far this game. But I know that just because I disagree with someone doesn't make that person scum. The points I don't agree with I see as just being because the two of us look at the game differently. I'll be keeping my eye on him for that reason. I wouldn't be surprised if Herodotus said the same about me in regards to our different play styles/views (He more or less has a time or two already). I generally get a pro-town feeling from him.

Vote: Musher333

I haven't really seen anything of real substance come from him yet. His posts have either been following or agreeing with others.

One day later:

Before I had just seen him as having bad logic, which I still believe. Diamondilium has pointed out Herodotus has contradicted himself.

Unvote; Vote: Herodotus

Basically, what you're doing is keeping your options open on players so that you can move a vote to them later, if the game demands it.

So, what I would like you to do is a post a list of your suspicions in a more in-depth way than checking people's post counts.

[Amished]

Just say that you were going to be V/LA then. You don't have to go into details about how you have 3 doctors appointments, 2 finals, 4 papers and anniversary and 9 funerals to attend. Christ.

[semioldguy]

Your attempt to be evasive and not respond to the points levied against you is noted, SOG.

You did the same thing of my points against you until I brought it up a second time. I was still waiting to hear from you before I responded to your post of me.

Did you think OMG was scum?
Or did you shoot OMG for lurking?
Did you even care what OMG's alignment was?
What information did you hope to gain from killing OMG?

And, I'm turning your question back on you: who do you think are scum? I want an actual reason why you think people are scum other than "oh, they're not posting much, so they must be scum."

Yes, I though OozingGolfBall was scum, and I gave several more reasons other than lurking for why I suspected him as such.
Yes I cared what his alignment was... after his death scene everyone can read what his alignment was. You were my next suspect after him and would have taken the shot if he had claimed and it was deemed to be believable and worth keeping him around for. I shot him when I did because I thought he had plenty of time to log in for a close to deadline situation and also wanted everyone remaining to be able to have a chance to respond to the gunning. With just under three days left, this would make it so that by the prodding requirements everyone would need to come in and make at least one post about it.
I didn't know how long it would take the mod to come in with a death scene and wasn't going to post nothing waiting around for that to happen. Waiting to present cases on anybody else in that situation seems dumb because it's just waiting around when we had very little time to be waiting around.
Information is dependent upon alignment (obviously) and looking at whether or not others suspected him or avoided him, whether they supported the shot or if they didn't prior to the reveal all are useful things. Unlike you, he actually took a couple positions and took stances on the cases against a couple different people and now we have an alignment based insight into the positions he took.

My first post regarding Musher333 was a direct response to Gateway, but I like how you omitted that part. I have not thought Musher333 to be scummy, at the time the vote was to apply pressure so that he would actually come to post and players could get a read off him.

As for Herodotus, I found him scummy for several reasons. The contradiction that Diamondilium pointed out is only one of those reasons. I didn't like the loaded question he directed at Lowell. I thought it was scummy for him to suggest lying about roles when claiming as town, for reason I already stated.

Regarding Rishi; lurking isn't the sole reason, or even the primary reason, why I suspected you to begin with. In addition to what I addressed earlier, now you have an OMGUS vote as well as several misrepresentations of me in your recent post.

There are a couple things I don't like about Lowell that I find scummy. When DrippingGoofBall voted for him earlier off Musher333 he immediately came in and would say that he would vote for Musher333 if she did. He both got a vote off of himself and diverted attention toward someone else. Also as pointed out, initially he did not want to gun to be used in a democratic way, but showed disappointment or contrary opinion to that when the gun was not used democratically.


Also you have

still

avoided some of my questions.

The game situation has changed somewhat since the last time I promised a large post. I don't recall everything I was going to say, but much of it is no longer relevant.

Does this means parts of it are still relevant? If so, would you mind sharing them? Could sharing parts that were relevant then, but not now, still help us as it could help get some insight on you from a previous game state? If not, then why not? If your opinions have changed since then, what between then and now have caused your opinions to change?

[evilevilmatt]

Rishi has a damn good case. Gonna reread with new info and consider switching my vote.

[Lowell]

Townpoints for rishi. Not going to vote him.

What he says about semi is what I've been thinking but haven't been able to articulate. semi says "I don't necessarily think we should use the gun as a lynch" then kills someone and says "hey it's what you wanted me to do."

That said, I'm not voting for semi, either. At least he does something.

[Amished]

ungun, gun semioldguy. To get this moving.

The double-lynch plan is intriguing,

but I'd rather he just kill someone he thinks is scummy

. Less complicated, less bickering. Let's lynch someone.

Lowell, you've also said this, so I don't know why or when you changed your mind about the gun, so I'm glad you're not basing your case off of the fact that Semi still did kinda what you thought was appropriate at some point.

[evilevilmatt]

Upon further review I still dont find semioldguy all that scummy. I supported OGB's death too so I cant fault him for that. The part about him not trying to see the flip before going after the next person I view as a nulltell. (Thats what I wanted to review the most.) We are under a time crunch and he was trying to pressure Rishi before he killed OGB. Theres not much info to be gained by the flip anyway, especially concerning Rishi.

The vote hoping I had not noticed before and its a good thing to note.

I will not vote for either Rishi or semioldguy at this time.

Still doing other individual rereads but my scum list hasnt changed.

[Diamondilium]

I was going to vote Rishi had the situation ended up like the one with Musher; however, now that he is posting I see no reason to vote him.
At first I found Rishi's case to be quite convincing but upon looking at SOG's explanations, I feel that it has no merit. I also feel like SOG's arguments against Rishi (avoiding questions, misrep) don't have any merit either.

[Lowell]

ungun, gun semioldguy. To get this moving.

The double-lynch plan is intriguing,

but I'd rather he just kill someone he thinks is scummy

. Less complicated, less bickering. Let's lynch someone.

Lowell, you've also said this, so I don't know why or when you changed your mind about the gun, so I'm glad you're not basing your case off of the fact that Semi still did kinda what you thought was appropriate at some point.

That

is

what I thought, only I seem to remember being shouted down for that reasoning. Instead we made a big song and dance about using the gun democratically, then semi more or less didn't do that. And yes, I realize I thought oozing was scum at the time.

[Herodotus]

hello. so as a replacement i should read the game, correct?

Rising, have you read the game yet?

Who would you primarily like to vote for then Lowell, now that musher has a replacement?

I'd vote for you or hero. Though this is all pointless since clearly we can't get our shit together enough to lynch anyone at this point.

Demoralizing and parking your vote while stating you'd rather lynch someone else is anti-town.

So, I am surprised that semioldguy took absolutely no heat for shooting OGB. OGB has zero votes at the time, and he presented a case primarily based on lurking. (See my first paragraph of this post to let you know what I think of lurker-hunting.) Yes, we're close to deadline, but he gave OGB only two days before the shot, during which time OGB did not log into the site once (or at very least didn't post anywhere). After making the shot, he immediately started a case on me IN THE VERY NEXT POST without even seeing the result of his shot. He was not in the least bit interested in gathering any information from the kill - he just wanted someone dead.

I think that's a pretty strong conclusion to draw. If he is scum and just wanted to kill a townie, he could have chosen one whom others suspected (though I suppose it would be easier to later direct a mislynch on them.) I didn't like the original selection of OGB, but then OGB stalled near a deadline. His decision not to respond (and it WAS a decision, even if he never logged in during those 2 days -- and keep in mind he is an alt) was harmful to the town. This may be somewhat of an after-the-fact justification, but I feel that pulling the trigger was the right thing to do at the time. And the approaching deadline explains SOG's decision not to wait longer. (I think he probably should have "aimed" the gun a day or two earlier, but that's just a strategy/judgement issue.)

I guess my thoughts on vigging in general is to get rid of the lurkers so that we have only people around that we can vote for, and therefore get more information out of voting. Who would you have rather seen shot? Clearly he was not going to shoot himself.

I agree with vigging lurkers when there aren't better options, but did you really feel that the person you were voting was not the best person to be killed?

Drawing lurkers out with pressure votes and direct questions is the best way to deal with them - if they are intentionally evasive to direct questioning, then there is a justification for lynching them.

My top suspects other than you are probably Hero (vote hopping, pretty thin reasons for some of his votes) and DGB (playing differently this game – I've played with her a decent amount and she's usually more aggressive and active. The fact that she's more docile this game is odd).

You suggest pressure-voting lurkers (I agree completely,) but criticize a player for thin reasons for his votes? Wouldn't those pressure votes show up as thinly-reasoned votes in analysis?

My voting history:
I voted Lowell because of minor/moderate suspicion.
I voted EEM because he didn't answer a question and let two others answer for him, and to prompt him by example to vote. I unvoted after he gave a townish-looking response.
I voted Kabenon because he didn't answer two questions.
I returned my vote to Lowell when my suspicions of him became stronger.
I voted Rishi because he was lurking. I'd previously asked him to post more and say more, but my requests weren't enough without a vote. (And it seems my vote wasn't enough pressure, either.)
I voted EEM because of strong suspicion.

Three of my votes were pressure votes, while I've voted two players based on serious suspicions. Those two players are my "most likely scum" list. I don't consider that to qualify as vote-hopping.

DGB's play is apparently different from her normal play (I've only been in a marathon game with her, so I can't confirm that, but I understand she has a reputation for a particular style.
But is this a scumtell? Does her play in this game match her play in games where she was scum? I don't think a different playstyle is a scumtell unless it's consistent with either previous play as scum or a scum strategy. My read on her is pretty neutral other than the Musher wagon, which I thought was mildly suspicious.

As for Herodotus, I found him scummy for several reasons. The contradiction that Diamondilium pointed out is only one of those reasons. I didn't like the loaded question he directed at Lowell. I thought it was scummy for him to suggest lying about roles when claiming as town, for reason I already stated.

My question may have been a false dilemma, but it was not loaded. I had already explained this at the time. Your lack of response to my explanation suggested that you understood this.
The part where we disagreed about claims was after your vote on me, so it could not have been a reason for your vote when you placed it.
So we're back to this supposed contradiction. So far no one has quoted contradictory statements of mine, they've only asserted that I did it. As I said to Kabenon, I think players are responsible for their assertions being either valid or otherwise pro-town, even if they're just agreeing with others. Maybe especially when they're agreeing with others.

On a side note, I think there's nothing inherently wrong with lying when you're town. As long as you're playing by the rules and not harming anyone, lies and manipulations by townies are a matter of the ends justifying the means. In my last game, I made a decent attempt to talk two scum into outing themselves by misrepresenting the game strategy and bluffing. Sadly, I only got one. And in this recent game Rhinox, who was town, claimed SK to avoid a mislynch in LYLO. He even tripped up a scum in the next post, but one of the townies was too closed minded to accept his gambit. Another example is a cop voting for someone because of a guilty investigation without claiming that they're a cop, which breadcrumbs their results. But I suppose this question is academic.

As I stated back in the last paragraph of 252, I agree with Amished and SOG that Lowell's criticism of SOG for his decision on the gun is out of place and suspicious.
I currently have Lowell linked with Rishi, anti-linked with EEM and DGB*, and dis-linked with SOG. These links are not strong, but I think a Lowell lynch is possible, has a decent chance of hitting scum, and could be informative. I'm a little more suspicious of EEM, but Lowell is close behind, and a Lowell lynch would give us a better picture regarding EEM as well as others.

(linked meaning possible scumbuddies, anti-linked meaning "of likely different alignment," and dis-linked meaning "not scumbuddies.")

*From games I've read, voting "deals" like their Musher wagon usually involve a scum and someone they are not teamed with, though they could be two scum from different factions.

So I'd support a Lowell lynch. I hate to spread out the votes even more, but I'll be back before deadline in case this doesn't go anywhere.

unvote; vote Lowell

[evilevilmatt]

I'll support you on a Lowell wagon.

unvote.
vote : Lowell

Lowell > Hero > Musher