Mini 539: Game over

[Gorgon]

Between these comments and the digging into Claus's attacks on your replaced player, I'm starting to feel you're town pretty strongly.

I don't really see Claus attacking Apy that hard. Do you?

Anyway, I was looking back at what ChronX was saying, myself.

First off, I noticed a possible connection with Xtomx.

YTHill mildly chides xtoxm for answering a question directed at MafiaSSK. Yet when Incognito does something similar, YT seems to feel the heat and unvotes.

This can be interpreted in a number of ways, but the impression I get is that ChronX seems to be suggesting that Ythill is distancing himself from Xtomx. Quite convenient, if Xtomx is scum and gets killed as one, to be able to 'point' to this later.

I don't especially like that several players are coaching xtoxm to play better. I would prefer to let him flounder on his own and hold him accountable later. It will however, be useful to keep in mind who has been there with the virtual arm around his shoulder.

Oh really? ChronX explicitly states that he will let Xtomx 'flounder on his own' and 'hold him accountable later', and tries to make the people who are defending him suspicious ... even saying that it will be 'useful to keep in mind' who defended him? Useful when? Again, when Xtomx gets exposed as scum, perhaps?

Also, I note that ChronX never even mentioned Xtomx again ...

This warranted a study of what Claus had to say about Xtomx.

Xtomx

: I like his play. He seems direct with his accusations and his defenses. His vote follows his opinions, and his opinions are consistent. Also, he does not verborrage

That's it? This doesn't really say all that much. Also, I note that (unless I missed something), at the time Claus posted this, Xtomx had only voted one single time. Why then does Claus suggest a pattern of Xtomx's vote following his opinions? Also, Xtomx's opinions are consistent? So?

This analysis just doesn't look very genuine to me. Now, scum analysis is always less than genuine, but this strikes me as particularily muddled.

The kuribo x xtomx x Ythill love triangle

Again ... trying to connect town with scum Xtomx, just like ChronX did?

Another player that I could see a ChronX/Claus connection with is Ho1den (now Hjallti). ChronX only mentions him once (in a possible mild distancing fashion), and so does Claus:

Another lurker. Some of his posts I like (the Apy accusation, the questions to DS, and those to Ythill and Incognito regarding SSF), but he has a very timid style of accusing and not voting, or voting then later saying that he didn't want to lynch the person, that I find scummy. Middle of the road for me.

This reads to me like a pretty classic way of characterising a scum buddy. You don't want to attack them too strongly, but then again, it's quite convenient to make it known that you're not exactly defending them either. Claus can easily be said to be covering all the bases here. Also, he mentions bigger fish to be fried, thus leaving himself free to ignore Ho1den.

However, Ho1den came pretty aggressively at ChronX ... doesn't look all that much like distancing to me. Especially since Ho1den correctly points out ChronX's passive-aggressive attacks on him. I don't see scum making passive-aggressive attacks against a partner, and much less I see the same partner actually pointing this out.

ChronX never mentioned kuribo, Northjayhawk/Shteven, Apy, and JP at all.

Claus put kuribo in his 'Unlisted' pile, along with Ho1den, but attacked kuribo more strongly. I still feel kuribo is not scummy; he's certainly not top priority in my book.

Claus was pretty jolly towards Shteven, but that might easily be buddying up ...

Claus came pretty strongly against JP, and JP attacked pretty strongly back. Mutual distancing? Seems a little far-fetched ... especially since JP's clash with Claus seems quite reminiscent of his spat with known town Ythill. Also, JP started suspecting ChronX pretty early on.

Claus attacked Apy somewhat, yet seemed to be coaching him as well (Claus' post 6). However, the overall impression that I get is that Claus was buddying up to newbie town in order to look good, while still not dismissing him as a lynch candidate ... he stated multiple times that he liked others' cases against Apy.

However, this (directed at JP), bothers me a bit:

You started cool (loved your "hate pressure votes" comment), then eventually settled on Apydog. Then when you come under fire by Yth, you set all your cannons on him - eventually to the point of forgetting your previous attacks on Apy.

I can see this as a way of setting JP up to look bad if Apy gets outed as scum; like Claus is suggesting distancing from Apy on JP's behalf. Maybe I'm overthinking this, though ...

Incognito/SSK ... they're claimed mason, so I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt for today.

Regarding Claus' Nice/Unlisted/Naughty division ... if we assume Incog and SSK are masons, 3/5 of the people on Claus' Naughty list are town. Of the two remaining (JP and Apy/Jester), I find the latter that much more likely to be scum. However, I tend, at this point, to think both are town. Neither should be dismissed easily, though. I'm not sure Claus would have gone as far as to place both (yes, assuming 3 scum, which is a reasonable assumption) his scumbuddies in the 'Nice' category. However, it is not that unlikely that he put at least one buddy in there, especially as there were four in all in this category.

So, I guess Xtomx is my top suspect now. Mostly due to his possible connection with Chronx, and, to a slightly lesser extent, Claus. However, this is far from solid; I'm having a hard time separating the wheat from the chaff in this game right now. I'd love to hear some opinions on these thoughts of mine.

[Shteven]

I don't really see Claus attacking Apy that hard. Do you?

It wasn't that hard, no. Just hard enough to try to get a wagon going, not hard enough to get him lynched when Apyadg came up town. This is generally smart scum play - he just got vigged in the mean time.

Some of your scummy marks against Apyadg are solid reasoning; but only one can be true. He's either scum or not. In the end you're leaning town as well, so no problem there. I think he's made mistakes, but they were just newbie mistakes. Hell, even non-newbies make mistakes sometimes. People were a bit too harsh on him.

I agree Claus/JP seemed genuinely antagonistic - I think JP's pretty clean. I think a lot of their arguments came down to playstyle differences and thus they aren't really that game relevant, sadly. It could be Claus trying to get into game theory discussions, but I didn't see much else of that from Claus so I don't think there's much to this.

Regarding Xtoxm I've already had my doubts, and that his entry on the nice list was pretty disconnected from his postings is true. Having only cast one vote, but talked about many people...it's just a bit odd. But what Claus said makes sense - he was commenting mostly on Xtoxm's playstyle, without saying anything about this particular game. He makes short posts, this is true, but it's also useless for scum hunting.

[kuribo]

ChronX never mentioned kuribo, Northjayhawk/Shteven, Apy, and JP at all.

For the record, by the time I replaced in, ChronX had all but disappeared.

[Jester]

Hi all,

I have now finished my read! Yay! As I said before, incredibly dense, cluttered game. I think I'm going to have to go back and do a second read to pick apart some of the long,

long

posts that some people here like to hit us with ( ::looks at Justin Playfair in particular:: ). That said, let's talk about what I think about the game as of now. This is a series of three posts to cut down post length, so I'm sorry for the triple post.

Here's post #1.

Let me start by saying that I'm not even going to attempt to defend or justify my predecessor taking his vote off MafiaSSK. I would have left it on until I found someone better to vote for or until the votee made a deliberate attempt to address my concerns. Neither of those things appear to have happened. The only thing I can point to is that Apyadg is somewhat inexperienced at this game (107 posts total, according to his profile). So, I wouldn't have removed the vote and Apyadg did. I don't know why he did. And that's all I'm gonna say about that. </Gump> If anyone has any other questions about my predecessor's play other than this or his hostility (which I addressed in my first post), throw 'em over and I'll do my best to answer them.

Now, before I start with my own suspicions, I should start with some assumptions. When I came into this game, the first post I read was #0, which listed the players, dead and alive, and how the dead ones died and when. I then make my own assumptions about game balance. In a 12-person game with few power-roles, 3 scum and 9 townies is balanced. But this game had a vig and a doctor, both dead, and two people have claimed pro-town mason. You don't put a doc in a game without giving him someone to protect, which means there's probably a cop in here, too. That means we've probably got lots of power roles. We've got two dead bodies, and one of them is Ythill's. Ythill's final word was "woot!", which leads me to believe that he fired the shot that killed Claus, despite the fact that he gave

no

indication that Claus was going to be his target. In most games, all kills are simultaneous so I don't think the mafia could have prevented Ythill's vig. There almost certainly isn't a mafia RB, because if there were, they certainly would have blocked Ythill.

However, Xtoxm brought up the possibility of a SK, and I have to say I agree with him, at least a little (and I'm ready to take the heat for doing so). The reason I do is for two reasons:
:arrow: because of

how

Ythill was killed. Tied to the railroad tracks? Ew. And...
:arrow: As I said, game balance. If Incognito and SSK are telling the truth, there are potentially five pro-town power roles. That's a lot. I can't see a four-scum mafia in a 12-person game. That would be hugely unbalancing. So three mafia against five pro-town power-roles? Xtoxm is right. That's hugely unbalanced, too.

Before anyone bitches that there should have been three kills on night one, I can see a couple of potential SK situations that don't disrupt the night one kills. Here's the easiest: Ythill did indeed shoot Claus. But Ythill himself was tied to the train tracks by the SK, not the mafia. But who did the mafia kill, you ask? Ythill, of course. It just wasn't obvious in the examination of Ythill's body. I've been simultaneously SK'ed and mafia NK'ed in games before. Only sometimes does the mod make a double attack apparent, and Ythill invited such a double attack. So, let's not discount the possibility of a SK just yet, k?

I can see three balanced possibilities:
:arrow: The doc was included to protect the vig, we have

no

cop, and we started with three mafia scum. Two mafia left, no SK.
:arrow: We have both a vig and a cop, plus the mason claim is true, and we started with three mafia scum and a SK. Two mafia and a SK left.
:arrow: We have both a vig and a cop, the mason claim is only semi-true, and we either have a mafia mason or a cult. Insanely complicated for a mini normal, but a possibility. Two mafia left, plus the mafia mason/cult.
And of course, the game could be

un

balanced. It could include five pro-town power roles and three scum, and just be badly unbalanced in favor of the town. I'm in favor of that.

All of THAT said, this will be my last pro-active post on game setup until the night two evidence comes in. But right now, my money's on us seeing two kills on night two. If SSK had claimed to be pro-town mason, I would have scoffed, but it's Incognito that did, and I think he's pro-town, so for now, I'm inclined to believe the claim (which means that I have to believe Incognito when he vouches for MafiaSSK). I'll cover more of that in post #2. So for now, until I have good reason to think otherwise, I'm hunting with the assumption that there could be three scum left.

[kuribo]

Why would the SK assume that the Mafia is going to kill anyone other than the claimed vig? Why would he waste a kill going after a claimed vig, knowing that the doctor had died and couldn't protect him?

I'm sorry, but at this point, the evidence doesn't support the existence of a serial killer.

[Shteven]

Jester does make it seem possible, but I'm still leaning on this option:

The doc was included to protect the vig, we have no cop, and we started with three mafia scum. Two mafia left, no SK.

I don't think two masons are nearly as useful as something like 2 cops would be, so just calling it 4 power roles (5 if we have a cop) is misleading. Maybe count the pair as one power role? In any case, I wouldn't think that vig/doc/masons vs 3 scum is unbalanced. Add a cop, and maybe slightly townish, but nothing I'd be upset over if I was scum. Still pretty fair.

[Jester]

Post #2.

So, claims. Lots of them. Ythill's, as I mentioned a couple of posts ago, was a mistake. It was a mistake not only because it came too early, but because Ythill apparently didn't even contemplate the possibility of a mafia RB. I didn't mention a 4th or a 5th balanced setup that this game could have had:
:arrow: Doc, cop, vig, two masons, four townies, mafia GF, mafia, mafia RB.
:arrow: Doc, vig, two masons, five townies, mafia, mafia, mafia RB.
...because we don't have a mafia RB. If we did, he certainly would have blocked Ythill's kill.

I proceed from the assumption that Ythill

did

kill Claus. The kill method is consistent with a vig, and Ythill's death post started with "woot!". I take this woot as a bread-crumb: Ythill shot, and hit, the target he wanted to hit. But why shoot Claus, and not Incognito or Shteven, who Ythill was suspicious of for so long? To answer that question, I think we go back to Ythill's post 471, which weirdly, nobody has brought up!

In that post, Ythill has four major suspects and two minor ones:
:arrow: Claus. "Either he's scum or Justin is," Ythill says, "for reasons that will be apparent during a reread." The reasons, I believe, are the very credible argument between the two of them centered on posts 315 and 382. These two are pretty clearly not on the same side. A very smart read on Ythill's part (though see my post #3).
:arrow: Incognito. Though it's clear that Ythill's convictions had wavered about Incognito. Ythill suggests reading Incognito's defenses in light of Ythill's attacks after Ythill's death, but Ythill had a blind spot in seeing every post as an attack or a defense or a nothing. MS isn't that clear-cut.
:arrow: Justin. He's also clearly conflicted about Justin, and suggests that the cop (if any) investigate him.
:arrow: Shteven. Of Shteven, Ythill says, "the majority of the tells I uncovered regarding he and his predecessor were dropped while defending and under pressure which, IMO, makes them less reliable". I disagree. In my experience, tells dropped under pressure are the most reliable... if you know how to read them.
:arrow: On the low end, my predecessor. Ythill admits, "I’m very wary of the case against him because of my current suspicions." A key line. I'll come back to it in a sec.
:arrow: Also on the low end, Xtoxm. "His late D1 play taints him a bit", Ythill says. I agree. More from me on this in my post #3.

So, if we are to assume that Ythill killed Claus, why did he do that? I think there are three reasons:
:arrow: Why not Incognito? Because he'd either: a) come to doubt his position on Incognito, or b) felt that on his death, Incognito's scumminess would become so self-apparent that he'd be wasting a bullet on Incognito. I've already given my own position on Incognito: he's either the scummiest scum ever to walk the earth, or he's the towniest townie in this game's history, with no middle ground. I currently believe his claim, and am therefore pushed into the latter camp. So, either Ythill shoots a townie, or the town does the job on Incognito for him. Either way, no need to put a vig bullet here.
:arrow: Why not Shteven? Again, it's clear that Ythill came to doubt his own case on Shteven. I think Shteven is scummy, for reasons that I'll detail in my post #3, but Ythill clearly doubted himself here.
:arrow: Why Claus? I think Claus turned the vig gun on himself with his nice/naughty list. Who built the primary case against my predecessor? Justin. Who was on Claus's naughty list... BOTH Justin and Apyadg! I think Ythill looked at Claus's naughty list, saw both Justin and Apyadg on it, and concluded that either both JP and myself were scum, or Claus was scum. Justin built the case against me, and Claus directly referred to JP's case in putting me on his naughty list... but then put JP on his naughty list as well! Claus believed someone on his own naughty list? A clear contradiction. That's why Ythill said he came to doubt the case against me, and why he said either Claus is dirty or Justin is. It was a signal to the town that if Ythill shot Claus and Claus turned up town... that we should turn our collective eyes toward either Incognito and JP, or JP and myself. "If he [Apyadg, now me] dies and comes up town, put Incog and Justin in the hot seat," Ythill said.

It was a very nice, logical play. With one shooting, you get good information about four players.

In Ythill's view

, if Claus turns up scum, JP is in the clear, and Incognito and myself are probably in the clear. If Claus turns up town, JP and myself are almost certainly scum, and Incognito is probably scum. I'm not sure I agree with that view, but the logic holds together. It was a righteous shooting. Nice job, Ythill.

If anyone reads 471 differently, please let me know. I think it's an important post because it's the last thing we'll get from Ythill in this game.

So much for claims. Now on to my suspicions. That's post #3.

[Xtoxm]

I did bring up that point on why I think he killed Claus earlier, I think. But yeh I agree with that.

[Jester]

I'll put my post #3 out tomorrow, all. Have to get some work done today at some point, too.

[Shteven]

Shteven. Of Shteven, Ythill says, "the majority of the tells I uncovered regarding he and his predecessor were dropped while defending and under pressure which, IMO, makes them less reliable". I disagree. In my experience, tells dropped under pressure are the most reliable... if you know how to read them.

I imagine this is coming up in post #3 anyways, but just in case:

1) What do you mean by if you know how to read them? I wouldn't mind some useful tips on how to find scum if you're willing to teach your secrets

2) What then, do you think of me? What tells in particular did you see and is there any confusion I can clear up/questions that need an answer?

[kuribo]

Jester, two things:

One, I feel that given Ythill's attitude in the early part of the game, (basically taking the welfare of the town onto his shoulders alone) he likely had Claus in his mind as a target, and chose not to disclose that. Perhaps even intentionally misleading us as he had done by purposely dropping scumtells. Maybe he feared the existence of a Mafia doctor.

And two, regardless of his reasoning, we still got extremely lucky. It was a very risky move on Ythill's part, and if it hadn't paid off, we'd be cursing him right now.

[Jester]

A brief delay before my post #3, which I promise will be up within the hour. But there's a clump of it that doesn't really fit with the rest, and I felt like it made more sense to separate that clump into its own post.

I feel his interaction with Claus was particularily damning.

Could you go into more detail here?

SSK hasn't denied the claim, so that means they are indeed both masons, or both scum. The second possibility is too remote to address today.

I agree with this, with one little caveat. Let's assume for a minute that Incognito and SSK are telling the truth. If this is the case, Incognito has been a very good scum-hunter. MafiaSSK has been a very poor scum-hunter, possibly the worst I've ever seen. The mafia aren't going to kill MafiaSSK because that would confirm Incognito's claim. They might kill Incognito, except that would confirm MafiaSSK's claim, leave the rest of us with a confirmed townie, and put the mafia in the position of probably having to waste a NK on a useless, but confirmed townie. Either way, that gives the town a confirmed-innocent townie. Therefore, killing either of them is not a good play for the mafia. Better to leave some of us in doubt. Therefore, I can't see the mafia NKing either Incognito or MafiaSSK, at least not tonight.

Now let's assume they're both lying. In that case, they're also both obviously not going to be NKed, unless there's an SK. So, this mason claim could be a very clever claim indeed, one intended to throw the town into turmoil for the next couple of days while the two of them sit safely in their "presumed townie" status. I think this is unlikely... but "too remote to address today"? No.

If the town gets desperate and can find no better targets, it might be instructive to lynch MafiaSSK. He's completely useless as a scum-hunter, and lynching him would either definitely prove or definitely disprove Incognito's innocence. If Incognito is innocent, the mafia would

have

to respond by killing him the next night, but if we kept that day going for a while, we could potentially learn some really interesting things, plus all of Incognito's (long) posts would be confirmed as truth as he sees it. Right now, MafiaSSK might be worth more to the town dead than alive.

Want to get into the game, MafiaSSK? I'd appreciate it. Thanks.

[Jester]

Post #3.

OK, who do I think is suspicious? In rough order:

Shteven.

kuribo makes the beginning of a great case for the Shteven lynch in his post 563. I found myself nodding pretty much all the way through it. My own case for being suspicious of Shteven, in addition to what kuribo points out:
:arrow: Northjayhawk got on a very early Xtoxm band-wagon, apparently randomly (16). Then, when questioned on it, he suddenly said it was a serious vote and went out of his way to justify it (39). Then, when he was pressured on this, he tried to defend himself (101), then flipped this post into a weird little justification against "arguing for innocence", which made no sense to me. Ythill (correctly) called him out on it, and his response was an over-reaction to say the least (135). I really feel like NJH felt like he was digging himself into a hole, and abandoned the game rather than try to defend his questionable actions.
:arrow: Then Shteven jumped in, and his own play, if anything, started out even weirder. Here's an excerpt from his 163:

I am never happy to mislynch anyone. I've mislynched townies after they claimed a power role, then re-claimed a non-power role and admitted to lying. It's still a dead townie. However, mislynches are designed into the game. There's a reason town outnumbers scum (roughly, depending on setup) 3:1. You just can't be right all the time. Some mislynches are worse than others. I would never be proud of it, but I think a MafiaSSK mislynch wouldn't be as bad as some others, mainly due to the shallowness of his answers.

I'm trying really hard

not

to read this as, "Yes, MafiaSSK would be a mislynch, but it would be a

good

mislynch!" Ummmm...

huh?

:arrow: More minor to me, but interesting: as kuribo correctly points out, Shteven was the champion of the DS lynch (275), and was ranked high on Claus's nice list. What kuribo misses: Shteven immediately agreed with most of Claus's lists (317)... until Claus was found to be scum, at which point, Shteven felt there was limited value to looking at the lists (476). None of these are scum tells in and of themselves, but combined with everything else, none of them look particularly good.
:arrow: I found Shteven's defense from kuribo's 563 (567 and 570) to be over-defensive. In particular, he says:

Funny, that was exactly my point. Maybe, maybe not. Maybe Claus is a cross dresser*, maybe he isn't. You have to -show- that he is or isn't. Just saying "Well he might be" is not helpful in the least.

Tell me, Shteven, how do you go about proving a negative? Suspicion is what this game is all about. Only rarely do scum stand up and proclaim themselves as scum, so all you

can

do is lay out suspicions, say people might be scum, and proceed from there. For you to argue that kuribo can't or shouldn't play this way is specious at best, damning at the worst. You also gloss over the point that kuribo listed lots of suspicious activity in his 563, not just the fact that you appeared on Claus's nice list. kuribo correctly points this out in his 573.
:arrow: Finally, and this is a lot harder to pin to a single post, but Shteven's play has been... slippery. Initially, he was very gung-ho for a Ythill lynch, and a lot of this play felt very OMGUS-y. He listed three initial targets (Apyadg, Ythill, and ChronX) but his cases against Apyadg and ChronX were extremely weak, leading to a Ythill vote. When that didn't go anywhere and Ythill claimed, suddenly Shteven's suspicions became completely unanchored. He had suspicions at various times during this period for (deep breath) Apyadg, Incognito, Xtoxm, ChronX, MafiaSSK, charter, and finally, Disciple Slayer. That's more than half the players. Then he seemed to wait, and went into a councilor/adviser kind of play-style, until the DS band-wagon started gaining steam. And now he seems to be trying to settle back into that councilor/adviser role for day two. I find people who do this scummy.

So, really long explanation for my

vote: Shteven

.

Who else?

Hjallti

. His play has been incredibly off the radar. Ythill kept describing Ho1den as "definitive townie" or whatever, but never really justified it, something that I thought was kind of odd. I found Ho1den's play to be really off:
:arrow: In the early game, he joined the Xtoxm band-wagon with ChronX and MafiaSSK (25), but then took a blast from ChronX for doing it (49)! An early obvious inconsistency from ChronX. What's suspicious is that ChronX's attack on Ho1den was rather mild, but Ho1den's defense was

very

graceful, almost elegant (56). It pinged my scumdar rather hard.
:arrow: For the rest of the early- to mid-game, Ho1den was content to sit back, voice no suspicions about anybody, but instead just chide this person or that person on their play. JP got chided in post 80, DS got chided in 91, Xtoxm and SSK got chided in 149. It was like Ho1den was just hanging back, coaching people. Ho1den even admits to it... but doesn't stop doing it. Who'd he admit it to? ChronX.
:arrow: Then Ho1den received a massive defense from Ythill in Ythill's 167 ("Ho1den is the towniest mofo in our bunch, IMO.") which I felt was completely unjustified. How Ythill came to this conclusion on the strength of 15 posts, most of them of the "coaching" variety, I don't know.
:arrow: Then Ho1den drops out, there's a long,

long

gap, then Hjallti jumps into the slot. He says "I just went reading day 1, a long read! I will comment when I have time." Then... doesn't. Then, when he finally comments, starts with day two!
:arrow: His play since then has been of the NFL color commentator variety.

So, early play was very suspicious to me, later play has done nothing to reassure me about it.

Gorgon

. Talk about flying under the radar!
:arrow: charter had a grand total of 11 posts! Two of them struck me as particularly odd, 96 and 112. In 96, charter wants to know why Ythill thinks he's "definitive town." So do I. It was a perfect opportunity for charter to comment on someone -- anyone! -- else on the list Ythill posted. He didn't, other than mentioning that Ythill also felt that Ho1den was also definitive town. Nothing about anyone else. Scumdar ping. 112, though, was even worse. In it, he chides Apyadg for not asking questions of players in this game. Guess how many questions charter had asked of people in the game up to that point. Two. One of Apyadg ("Why did you remove your vote from MafiaSSK?"), one of Ythill ("Why do you think Ho1den and I are definitive town?"). Inconsistent, to say the least.
:arrow: Gorgon has 6 posts, one of which is "hi" and another of which is "too busy to play." Of the remaining four, I have questions about them. One, I posted in my previous post (why does he think the interactions between Claus and Apyadg were particularly damning?). I want to hear the answer to this before I start asking my others.

Anyway, my current feeling is that charter/Gorgon is too far under the radar. More after I get my first Gorgon question answered.


And finally, kind of a hail mary. I mentioned that I currently completely believe that JP and Claus were on opposite teams. I still believe that. My current belief is that JP is pro-town. But if we

do

end up with two bodies on night two, I think it would be interesting to reevaluate JP from the stand-point of him possibly being an SK. And I have to admit my reasoning on this is a little touchy-feely.

Countries routinely build war-plans on how they would fight anyone and everyone. There was a recent Real Life Comics comic about this which I think illustrates this neatly. I occasionally see MS players go this route, and they always turn out to be something other than what they appear at first glance. JP puts out an enormous amount of text, but as I was taking notes on his play, I finally realized that he's playing just this way (I think it finally struck me when he got around to doing Xtoxm in his 407). He's put out at least one such post about everyone's suspicious play. JP, are you suspicious of

everybody

? If so, why? I'd second Ythill's earlier nomination. If there's a cop, investigating JP would be a great choice.

Don't read too much into that right now. Right now, I think JP is town. But if we end up with two night two bodies, I think it's worth a close look.

And that's it for my suspicions for now. One more post to catch up with stuff since I joined, and I think I'm caught up! Yay!

[kuribo]

If the town gets desperate and can find no better targets, it might be instructive to lynch MafiaSSK. He's completely useless as a scum-hunter, and lynching him would either definitely prove or definitely disprove Incognito's innocence. If Incognito is innocent, the mafia would

have

to respond by killing him the next night, but if we kept that day going for a while, we could potentially learn some really interesting things, plus all of Incognito's (long) posts would be confirmed as truth as he sees it. Right now, MafiaSSK might be worth more to the town dead than alive.

This is a terrible play: If Incog is telling the truth, then both he and Mafia are town. If we lynch MafiaSSK, then the scum can kill Incog tonight, and we've lost two confirmed townies. On the other hand, if we keep hunting scum, then at best, they can only kill ONE confirmed townie.

Simply put, the scum can't afford to let both stay alive, and the town will be at a huge disadvantage if we kill one and let them kill the other.

Sure, we could get confirmation today, but we'd basically be killing one of them, and then allowing the scum to murder the other. Why give them what amounts to a free kill?

I really hope you haven't thought this through as opposed to intentionally trying to misdirect us.

[Jester]

This is a terrible play: If Incog is telling the truth, then both he and Mafia are town. If we lynch MafiaSSK, then the scum can kill Incog tonight, and we've lost two confirmed townies. On the other hand, if we keep hunting scum, then at best, they can only kill ONE confirmed townie.

::nods:: I recognize this. Like I said, it's a desperation play, not a first (or second, or even third) resort.

I feel like a lot of people are being influenced by Incognito, which is fine if he's town. If he's not, though... That's why I'm thinking if we get desperate, that will be a possible way to confirm his townie-ness.

[Incognito]

I need to read through Jester's case against Shteven and his suspicions of Gorgon and Hjallti more thoroughly before coming to a decision about all of this. Jester's play certainly stands in striking contrast so far to his predecessor's, which was to be expected of course considering how he played in my Vengeful game. =)

Jester, I may have missed this but what are your feelings about Xtoxm?

[Justin Playfair]

Jester,

About your questions to me. Yeah, I am mostly suspicious of everybody. But I’m a little curious about the notion that I’ve positioned myself to go to war with anyone at any time. My behavior on day one led Ythill to suspect that Incognito and I were scum buddies, and I’ve barely done more than ask Kuribo to clarify his position on something. Certainly I went pretty hard against your predecessor and Ythill, I sure made a case against DS, here on day two I’ve been more suspicious of Xtoxm, and I can see where it could be construed that I laid the groundwork for an attack against Shteven, but I’ve barely taken a pass at Charter/Gorgon or Ho1den/Hjallti. In my defense neither were here very much until replacements. In a greater sense (and especially clear, I know, if you’ve metaed me) I do tend to suspect everyone, and sometimes (though I don’t think in this game) it diminishes my ability to effectively scum hunt.

Oh, and I’m not the SK, nor do I think it’s likely we have one. We should know for sure tonight, though.

Just a couple things about other things you’ve said:

You mention a couple times that you found Ythill’s clearing of Ho1den to be odd. But since we now know Ythill was town why would you characterize it this way as opposed to baseless or perhaps incorrect or something along those lines? Or do you see some possible ulterior motive in Ythill’s statements regarding Ho1den?

I also noticed Hjallti skipping day one and almost commented on it, but I can’t figure a reason why this would benefit scum in general or a scum-Hjallti in particular. Given the kind of neutral and technical opinions Hjallti evinced about day two it seems unlikely he would have felt forced to give any real conclusions about day one behavior either, so I rejected the thought of him not wanting to be pinned down to a position. So odd, yes, but if you have a scummier interpretation of this I’d be interested in hearing it.

Earlier you suggested you would be writing something about Xtoxm in your post #3. What happened that made him fall off your scum list, if he did?

Thanks for any answers.

[Shteven]

Jester says:

Then Shteven jumped in, and his own play, if anything, started out even weirder. Here's an excerpt from his 163:

I am never happy to mislynch anyone. I've mislynched townies after they claimed a power role, then re-claimed a non-power role and admitted to lying. It's still a dead townie. However, mislynches are designed into the game. There's a reason town outnumbers scum (roughly, depending on setup) 3:1. You just can't be right all the time. Some mislynches are worse than others. I would never be proud of it, but I think a MafiaSSK mislynch wouldn't be as bad as some others, mainly due to the shallowness of his answers.

I'm trying really hard not to read this as, "Yes, MafiaSSK would be a mislynch, but it would be a good mislynch!" Ummmm... huh?

I said:

If the town gets desperate and can find no better targets, it might be instructive to lynch MafiaSSK. He's completely useless as a scum-hunter, and lynching him would either definitely prove or definitely disprove Incognito's innocence. If Incognito is innocent, the mafia would have to respond by killing him the next night, but if we kept that day going for a while, we could potentially learn some really interesting things, plus all of Incognito's (long) posts would be confirmed as truth as he sees it. Right now, MafiaSSK might be worth more to the town dead than alive.

I don't see how he can believably have a problem with what I've said. Also, I specifically said it would bad to mislynch; calling it a "good lynch" is a big jump from "some mislynches are worse than others".

I'll get around to most of the other points soon, but this one was extremely weak and I couldn't wait. Just when I was starting to trust Jester, he manages to keep it interesting!

[Shteven]

EBWOP:

*mutter* the jester says and I said are reversed. His quote is on the bottom. The bulk of the top quote block is me (the inner part) the outer part is his. Sorry for the confusion.

[Shteven]

I found Shteven's defense from kuribo's 563 (567 and 570) to be over-defensive. In particular, he says:

Funny, that was exactly my point. Maybe, maybe not. Maybe Claus is a cross dresser*, maybe he isn't. You have to -show- that he is or isn't. Just saying "Well he might be" is not helpful in the least.

Tell me, Shteven, how do you go about proving a negative? Suspicion is what this game is all about. Only rarely do scum stand up and proclaim themselves as scum, so all you can do is lay out suspicions, say people might be scum, and proceed from there. For you to argue that kuribo can't or shouldn't play this way is specious at best, damning at the worst. You also gloss over the point that kuribo listed lots of suspicious activity in his 563, not just the fact that you appeared on Claus's nice list. kuribo correctly points this out in his 573.

And I asked in post 576:

Other than the nice list, the "there's 3 scum" issue, is there anything else you'd like me to discuss?

To which I haven't seen any response. I looked for the initial case posting but missed it, then got a bit lazy and figured I'd ask for a restatement than go digging. I have been a bit lazy this game, that's true. Now that you've posted the number, I will go back and look it up, and respond (in a later post, but it's coming).

As for the rest of the paragraph - yes, announcing your suspicions is all well and good. But you can't take them as proof. He was basically saying "Player X is scummy because I think he's scummy." He wasn't saying "I think player X may be scummy." I was going after him for asserting too much based on his opinions only. He was trying to imply that I was saying the list was off limits - what I was saying that you shouldn't focus on JUST the list. Notice that shortly afterwards I did a more in depth look at all of claus's posts - the main effect of which I was less suspicious of Jester for. Going just on the list I'd have been more likely to suspect Jester, because 3/5 in the naughty have been cleared - not much space left for him to put a scum in there. But now I just think that there probably isn't a scum in there, although JP could be possible.

Speaking of which:

Oh, and I’m not the SK, nor do I think it’s likely we have one. We should know for sure tonight, though.

I'd probably accuse you of being the SK for proactively defending yourself from it - but there isn't an SK, so I guess you'll get away with it. If there are two night kills - hang Justin.

[Shteven]

So I went and checked out post 563 - turns out there aren't as many assertions there as I thought there would be.

His attacks, summarized (let me know if I've missed anything):

1) 3 scum issue
2) Was on the nice list
3) Jayhawk was very defensive/quit
4) tried to ignore day 1
5) didn't say much to Claus
6) Doesn't like deep inspection of the nice/naughty list

Responses

1) already answered many times.
2) already answered many times. Initial attack even said this was trivial.
3) Explained way back on day 1, at least as well as I could. Jayhawk seemed to play somewhat emotionally - not that I never do, but he didn't take pressure well. That is a newbie tell and not a scum tell.
4) This claim is a misrepresentation - I was trying to coax content out of MafiaSSK by asking what he thought of today's events. Kuribo interpreted this as a demand that no one can talk about day 1.
5) I didn't have much of a bone to pick with him, frankly. He was only alive for half a day, and I hadn't found much to disagree with him about. Most of his reads were simple and accurate - scum only have to lie about one or two teammates (usually scum throw some attacks on one partner, give or take). I didn't detect it, and still don't think his list was noticably inaccurate. I already mentioned where we disagreed.
6) repeat of 2, mixed with 5. He didn't have to lie about 12 people - most of those reads are simply honest and probably right. With the fact that townies aren't 100% right, comparing two 80% right lists may not really be all that much different.

Frankly I feel that all of these were already covered. Perhaps 5 could have used some more discussion, but it's been mentioned. Nothing here is new. If there are more attacks from posts other than 563, please let me know.

[Shteven]

Sorry for spamming the thread, but I'm having trouble going to sleep leaving some things unanswered

The last few minor points that Jester raised:

1) Jayhawk was scummy - answered when kuribo mentioned it.

2)

Shteven was the champion of the DS lynch (275), and was ranked high on Claus's nice list. What kuribo misses: Shteven immediately agreed with most of Claus's lists (317)... until Claus was found to be scum, at which point, Shteven felt there was limited value to looking at the lists (476). None of these are scum tells in and of themselves,

Correct, they aren't scum tells! (sorry, too easy) Anyways, roughly 100% of the active players here were on the DS lynch as well - he was very scummy looking. Also, I take issue with the way you say "until" - it sounds like I've made some reversal. The next two claims are not a reversal - the list was agreeable because it was mostly true (scum don't have to lie about 12 players) and

very brief

. There's just not much meat there. Read ALL of Claus' posts, as I have.

3)

but his cases against Apyadg and ChronX were extremely weak, leading to a Ythill vote. When that didn't go anywhere and Ythill claimed, suddenly Shteven's suspicions became completely unanchored.

I had been somewhat lazy at the start of the thread (plus I replaced in and had less time) with regards to hunting scum. So Ythill put me to task and asked who my targets where. He was #1, but I don't consider fingering one person to be sufficient, so I went through the thread expressly looking to list two other players. I had to find some two - so I picked the best I could at the time. The cases were weak. When Ythill claimed one-shot vig - I believed him. That basically put me at square zero. I have since talked about nearly everyone in the game - I think that you should discuss everyone. For example: I just called JP a SK possibility (if we have one), so is he now someone I've targeted? I haven't seriously pressed cases on anyone but Ythill and DS. Granted, not the best accuracy, but that's only one mislynch. I believed Ythill by the end of the day.

I'll keep it shorter over the next day or two I promise

[kuribo]

Correct, they aren't scum tells! (sorry, too easy)

Scum tells are subjective, just because you don't see something as one, doesn't mean that someone else won't.

I believed Ythill by the end of the day.

As I've said before, it was clearly in a scum's best interest to believe Ythill so as not to draw attention to themselves.

[Gorgon]

A brief delay before my post #3, which I promise will be up within the hour. But there's a clump of it that doesn't really fit with the rest, and I felt like it made more sense to separate that clump into its own post.

I feel his interaction with Claus was particularily damning.

Could you go into more detail here?

To be honest, no. I no longer feel that this statement of mine was accurate. It was an impression that I had - one that I don't have any more, after looking into things better.

My impression was mostly based on Claus welcoming Apy back into the game, while also coaching him somewhat (Claus' post 6). However, as can be seen in my last post, I have changed my mind my overall impression of the Apy/Claus link after a more careful review of the game.

[Gorgon]

5) I didn't have much of a bone to pick with him, frankly. He was only alive for half a day, and I hadn't found much to disagree with him about. Most of his reads were simple and accurate -

scum only have to lie about one or two teammates (usually scum throw some attacks on one partner, give or take)

. I didn't detect it, and still don't think his list was noticably inaccurate. I already mentioned where we disagreed.

The bolded part is a simplification, IMO. Scum have to play a much more subtle game of deception than just lying about their partners. Ideally, they want to get townies lynched, right? And this of course entails making up bogus cases against them. Well, either that, or following along wih townies' cases against each other, but that sort of behaviour is, of course, scummy. Primarily, what scum have to fake is

uncertaintly

. They know everything, but they must not let on that they do.

Anyway, I'm not sure this has much bearing on the current game. I find your answers to Jesters' and kuribo's case to be pretty credible. I don't find the case to be strong, and can elaborate on this in detail if anyone wants me to.

I am intrigued by Jester's case on Ho1den/Hjallti, though - Jester looks into things that I missed, and they only add to my own suspicions. I can see my vote going there ... there are certainly enough solid points building up against him.

I would, however, like to hear thoughts on what I have to say about ChronX's and Claus' interactions with Xtoxm. Shteven has addressed this somewhat, but no one else has.