Newbie 626 - Completed Successfully (dependent on town POV)

[New Coldness]

Hai gaiz. Reading thread now.

[New Coldness]

Just went over MamaLuigi, and I can't decide between newbish or scummy. Or maybe a diabolically clever newbie prodigy townie.

[New Coldness]

Freckles has given me very little to go on. No arguments of her own, just one-line opinions on others' arguments and declarations of indecisiveness. And very few posts. Not necessarily scummy.

However, Freckles HAS claimed girl, and everyone knows that there are no girls on the internet. LAL (this has been a joke).

[New Coldness]

Not going to impute anything from bmccleod to Amor.

[New Coldness]

mzldr2/Vipza have given me very little to go on.

[New Coldness]

Mispeled doesn't really set off my scumdar. Despite his low volume of posts, his logic appears sound and he doesn't seem content to let himself be swayed by crowd opinion, unlike what Freckles seemed to do a little (basically, pick a side and agree with it).

Neko comes next.

[New Coldness]

Yesterday was a battle between Neko and Grimmy. Neko had a very solid case against Grimmy, and Grimmy put up a very poor defense. He barely even responded after post 86. Once the time constraint stuff started coming up, I was immediately reminded of InHimShallibe in this game:

http://www.mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5362

Grimmy makes his PBPA, Neko rebuts very well, Grimmy bows out, Grimmy gets lynched. I was actually expecting him to be scum the first time I read through this thread.

Neko appears to be a very aggressive and logical scumhunter, and

assuming he's town

, he's a huge asset.

Of course, I don't believe in towntells.

Now then, if I had to pick a scumpair right now, it would be (discounting the other two replacements for the time being, because we haven't heard much, if anything, from them yet) MamaLuigi and Freckles. Luigi is a loose cannon but possibly just a wild-and-crazy newbie, and Freckles seems to be trying too hard to stay below the radar and go with public opinion.

This is just my opinion thus far. I don't consider any of it to be strong enough for a vote or even an FoS.

[New Coldness]

New Coldness, do you always make multiple posts like that?

Not usually. I don't know why I did it like that.

Thanks for trying to keep things organized, though. I agree with much of what you've said, but I'm interested to know if you don't have any opinion of bmc, or if you're just waiting for Amor, or what.

I'd really prefer to wait for Amor to post more, but I'll go back and look at bmc anyway.

[New Coldness]

Very little from bmc; the only thing approaching a scumtell that I saw was some possible role-fishing, but I think he might have meant something slightly different from the literal meaning of his words. Aside from that, he was fairly aggressive, not lurking (at least, not early on), and not wishy-washy. His early target seemed to be ML, who, out of the remaining non-replacement characters, I've already said I'd guess would be one of the better lynch candidates.

As for Amor, I disagree with his analysis of neko (I think the attack and subsequent lynch was perfectly reasonable, despite ultimately being the wrong move), but it's nowhere near enough to make me more suspicious of him than I am of ML.

Final opinion for now? There are people who look scummier to me.

[New Coldness]

like I said I am confused and surprised.. for now amor is on top of my list if you would like to know.

I'd like to know why.

[New Coldness]

The only issue I had with the lynch was the original basis for it - the case on Grimmy initially was pretty weak IMO - I only found him scummy after he posted the weak case on neko and OMGUS-voted.

Agreed. I wasn't sure if neko's original case was going to go anywhere, but Grimmy's response set off alarms.

[New Coldness]

Luigi! Reasons now or I place the first vote of the day upon thee.

[New Coldness]

FoS: MamaLuigi

If we get a deadline before he talks, I'm voting him.

[New Coldness]

Just letting you all know I'm still here... and I hope ML picks up his prod so I don't have to abandon my suspicion of the person that I think is the scummiest here.

[New Coldness]

How long does ML have to pick up his prod? My voting finger is getting kinda twitchy here.

[New Coldness]

Why would this be the case? Logically if ML did certain things because he was scum the person who replaced him would still be scum. I don't like this post, this could be either foreshadowing that his suspicions will change if ML gets a replacement that can competently defend themselves, or that he's setting up ML's replacement to be cleared of suspicion.

I'm not willing to impute anything done by an abandoning player, to his replacement. ML could have just been a noob. If he was scum, then yeah, his replacement is scum. But he might not be.

As for Syz... jeez. I adhere religiously to LAL, I think his claim, if true, or even HALF true, is mindblowingly dumb, and I'm just generally not happy with what he's done.

So we've got three possibilities on Syz:

1. He's telling the truth and probably just cost us a Doc.
2. He's lying and town, in which case my first instinct is to lynch on LAL grounds (illogical as that first instinct is, if this is the case), but we shouldn't because he just got himself NK'd and the town will lose a green instead of a blue tonight, which is cool. But scum could counterclaim Doc, and if we lynched Syz and he was cardflipped townie, the scum would still be immune to lynch unless the real Doc then counterclaimed,

if we have one

. If not, we're boned.
3. He's lying and scum, and just prevented himself from being lynched until MUCH later by claiming Doc. And on the possibility that he's just a townie, the Doc can't counterclaim. In fact, even if the *real* doc gets offed at some point, Syz can just claim townie later on and escape a lynch.

1) If I am not actually the doctor, the doctor should NOT counterclaim me. I repeat, do NOT counterclaim. That would be stupid, and it would only further my own goals if I am scum.

I HATE THIS, for reasons mentioned. There's a reason why LAL is a good idea, and it's this. If Syz is scum and the Doc gets cardflipped, Syz has just immunized himself from an LAL lynch. And if he's scum, we can't lynch him without a Doc being revealed

because he's claimed Doc

. Furthermore, I'd trade a Doc for a scum any day of the week this early in the game. If Syz is scum, a counterclaim would be the best thing a real Doc could do. If Syz is town, a counterclaim would be disastrous.

2) Since there is no counterclaim, the mafia do not know if I really am the doctor. They will be stuck in a perilous circle of wifom that will paralyze their actions at night. They will probably try to get me lynched so that they don't have to worry about nightkilling me.

On the contrary. If I were playing scum, I'd risk blowing an NK on the chance that you're actually the Doc. Even if you're a townie and the Doc covers you tonight, the scum can still get info off of this. Observe:

One of the following four set-ups is used for this game:

a) 1 Mafia Goon, 1 Mafia Roleblocker, 1 Cop, 1 Doctor, 5 Townies
b) 1 Mafia Goon, 1 Mafia Roleblocker, 7 Townies
c) 2 Mafia Goons, 1 Cop, 6 Townies
d) 2 Mafia Goons, 1 Doctor, 6 Townies

The Mafia already know whether or not they have a roleblocker. So they know if we're in A or B, or C or D. If they target Syz and he turns out to be the Doc, OR if the real Doc covers him, they'll know the setup instantly, assuming they have a roleblocker, while the town is still left in the dark. On the other hand, if the scum successfully kill him and he turns out to be town, it won't give them any new info. The Doc may not have covered Syz, or we may just have seven townies.

If the Mafia DON'T have a roleblocker, then if Syz turns out to be the Doc, OR if they try to whack him and the kill gets blocked, they know they don't have a Cop to worry about. If he turns out to be town, then it's still up in the air.

In any event, the scum just have to fire off an NK on Syz tonight to be in the clear. Best case scenario for them, they nail the Doc and it's a freebie, AND they learn the game setup. Or they lose an NK, but learn the game setup. Or they off a townie uncontested. That last one is the worst-case scenario for them, because they keep their tempo with regards to their NKs but gain no new info.

Know what's really fun about this? If Syz is scum, his buddy could counterclaim on him and they'd still both be effectively immune to lynches, thanks to the softness of Syz's claim. Then the real Doc would have to counterclaim. With three claimed Docs, one soft and two hard, the town would be paralyzed. If the real Doc got lynched, Syz could still fall back on his softclaim, in which case the prudent course of action would be to lynch him anyway... unless he's a townie running, IMHO, an extremely foolish gambit, in which case we lose a Doc and a townie to hit one scum.

I am EXTREMELY displeased with this.

But I am not displeased enough to try to lynch a claimed Doc. No, not even a softclaimed doc.

In fact, I'm going to operate under the assumption that Syz just softclaimed townie.

IGMEOY: Syz

What I'd really like to do is put Syz under the hammer and get a hard claim out of him. He claims townie, we lynch him. He claims Doc, real doc (if we have one) counterclaims, and we lynch Syz (and then the other claimed Doc if Syz turns out to actually be a Doc). If Syz claims Doc and we don't get a counterclaim, we back off and hope to God we have a Cop. If Syz maintains his Doc claim, gets counterclaimed, gets lynched, and turns out to be a townie, then we spit on his grave and hope that we have a Cop to confirm the other claimed Doc.

Neko, I see your point, but I HATE what Syz has done and will probably end up voting him unless everyone else can convince me that it's a bad idea to go for a hard claim. Syz's actions have caused the town to lose out on information in the long run, have given the scum WAY more information than he says (they can go for an NK on Syz tonight and possibly instantly know the setup) and have almost certainly cost us a Doc.

Best case scenario: Syz gets NK'd and turns up town. Doc (if we have one) stays under the radar.
Intermediate scenario 1: Doc eventually gets killed, Syz is scum and gets lynched.
Intermediate scenario 2: Syz gets NK'd and turns up Doc.
Intermediate scenario 3: Doc eventually gets killed, Syz is town and gets lynched.
Worst case scenario: Syz gets lynched and turns up Doc.

In other words, it's in our best interests not to lynch him as long as his current softclaim stands. Minimax. The two worst possible scenarios involve him getting lynched. This is GREAT for him if he's scum. Not particularly great for the town if he's Doc, 'cause he'll still get NK'd. Horrible for the town if he's townie, because then if we lose the real Doc further down the line, we'll lose a townie by lynching Syz.

If going for a hard claim is not agreeable, then may I ask that the Doc NOT protect Syz (and for the love of God, NOT ROLECLAIM)? We'll lose a townie if the scum decide to hit him, but we'll deny the scum information about the game setup.

If the scum decide to NK someone besides Syz, or just forego their NK altogether... yeah, I'm not even going there. Too much wine.

[New Coldness]

Ok, NC. There are now 7 players in this game, having lost 2 townies on D1 and N1. We have to lynch a scum today or tomorrow it's LyLo. Like I said, if I am not the doctor and the doctor does exist, then it all really depend on whether the doctor believe that I am scum or town pulling this gambit.

And because you just replaced in, it's essentially a coinflip. Or not, considering the rather scummy claim you made after replacing in.

NC, you mentioned that this gambit could possibly give the scum too much info, but this game can last a maximum of 4 days assuming we lynch scum today, lynch town tomorrow, and LyLo on Day 4. I do not see how even if the mafia does get information, it helps them in anyway. If anyone try to rolefish EVER, I'll personally nail their behinds and the scums have to choose a NK regardless of which setup it is in hopes of killing the one most likely to be a power-role (again, REGARDLESS of whether power roles exist, they have to try anyways) so IMHO, mafia doesn't benefit from this gambit at all.

If the Mafia has a roleblocker, then the existence of a Doc will reveal the existence of a Cop to them and no one else (except the Cop, if there is one). If the Mafia doesn't have a roleblocker, then the existence of a Doc will reveal that there

isn't

a Cop (to the Mafia and no one else), and a Mafioso will be able to roleclaim Cop with no risk of a counterclaim. In LyLo, that's deadly.

In addition, keep in mind that this is a SOFT claim, which means that just because I claimed* to be a doctor doesn't mean that it necessarily give the mafia ANY new info. if anything, it will drive them crazy and in a circle of WIFOM (praying here that one of the ICs isn't scum, let scums be newbies please!)

It screws the town harder. If a Doc gets killed off, we can't LAL lynch you without taking a serious risk. The only way to clear you without losing would be to follow a Cop, if we have one. Normally, townies are advised not to lie so that LAL can be an effective scumhunting tool. You've taken that tool away from us. Confusion is a tool of the Mafia. It does NOT help the town. And no matter how "confused" the Mafia may be before they make their decision, they're still going to turn in their nightkill. They may just think slightly harder before they turn it in. This gambit will cost the Mafia NOTHING.

The last setup that I tried this in was different than this one so I'll have to wait to see how it pans out. However, town will be screwed regardless of my role if I am to be lynched. This is because I know I am pro-town, I can say that much and my lynch today means LyLo tomorrow for town no matter what.

Here's the thing: WE DON'T KNOW IF YOU'RE TOWN. If you are, it's a horrible idea to lynch you. If you aren't, it's a horrible idea not to... but we still

can't

, despite the LAL convention, which would normally govern this situation.

The reason why a Doctor shouldn't counterclaim me is because if I am not a doctor and I get lynched as a townie, there exists the possibility of the doctor (existent or not) surviving to D3 whereas if the real Doctor does counterclaim somehow, he/she will be NKed for sure. The reason is that even if there are multiple Doctor counterclaims, all of them must be made by scums except possibly one since I don't think any townie in this game will be as adventurous as me (if I am a townie) to counterclaim with a fakeclaim as Doctor while being town.

And we can't LAL-lynch a scum claiming Doc because you didn't "exactly" claim it. Nor can we lynch you on LAL grounds, because you're straddling the line between Doc and Townie in your claim.

In fact, if we get 2 additional Doctor counterclaims, it'll be a great thing because at least 1 of them will be made by scum (if not both since the other 1 might be the real one).

This is the sole benefit of this gambit, and it isn't even that great because it still involves surrendering LAL. A Doc getting cardflipped won't implicate you.

Thus by logic, I don't forsee any counterclaims today. The key aspect of the gambit is whether the real Doctor (if I am not it) have faith in me despite me lying.

See, normally we'd lynch you right now on LAL grounds. But no matter what happens, you can claim that you didn't actually lie. LAL exists

specifically

to prevent this from happening. I find your attempt to circumvent LAL scummy as hell. But you claimed Doc, so I can't, in good faith, vote to lynch you. I can only hope that you're a townie who doesn't know what he's doing.

In fact, if we can waste at least 1 of the mafia's NK, we get one extra day and in a game which only last max 3/4 days, to get in another day will be optimal.

If the Mafia misses an NK tonight, there'll be six people alive tomorrow. Four town, two scum. If a townie gets lynched, that drops it to three town, two scum. The nightkill, if successful, will drop it to two town and two scum. That's endgame, scum victory.

So we'll be in half-LyLo tomorrow if we lynch a townie today and the scum miss an NK tonight. The town can then NoLynch, let the scum narrow the field from 4-2 to 3-2 on night 3, and pray that there's a Cop on the payroll. That's really not much better because we don't get an "extra day" because that day will just be a foregone NoLynch. If there's a Cop, he'll get an extra investigation, but that's all the benefit we could possibly get. And only the scum will know whether or not there's actually a Cop. Now for the fun part: if the Mafia knows there's a Cop, they can tailor their play to that. They'll NK more aggressively. If they know there isn't one, then they'll claim Cop and there will be no one to counterclaim.

In other words,

we will be no better off with the Doc saving someone tonight than we would be with a successful townie NK

, unless we have a Cop and unless the Cop survives to the endgame. I don't foresee any sort of revealing discussion during a 4-2 day

See, the only reason I'm so concerned about the existence of a Doc giving the scum information about the existence of a Cop is because of the rather strange setup possibilities in this game. It isn't possible for the town to have both a Doc and a Cop without the scum having a roleblocker. I understand that that's probably for game balance purposes, but the combination of setup possibilities gives the scum a truckload of info that they normally wouldn't have because they know whether or not they have a roleblocker. If it were possible for the town to have both a Doc and a Cop without the Mafia having a roleblocker, then I'd tell the Doc to go nuts because his existence wouldn't say anything to the Mafia about the existence of a Cop.

Incidentally, the setup possibilities make a claimed Cop absolutely useless after he claims. If the scum have a roleblocker, then they know there's a Doc. They'll roleblock the Cop and keep NKing until they hit the Doc, then NK the Cop. If they don't have a roleblocker, then they know that they can just hit the Cop with no risk of Doc protection.

Of course, I'm assuming a townie lynch today, just because that seems to be how it always works out. And in any event, I am NOT calling for you to be lynched because I don't want to lynch a Doc. Not even a softclaimed Doc. But having you around with that semi-claim and us unable to lynch you on LAL grounds nevertheless makes you too much of a liability to have around later.

So if the rest of the town doesn't want to put you under the hammer and force you to make a hard claim, then I ask the Doc, if he's out there, not to protect Syz.

Syz, if you're the Doc or a townie, I really hope that you take this as a lesson and never run this kind of gambit ever again.

[New Coldness]

Sorry, still randomly skimming this, will read more thoroughly tomorrow, but I have to ask...

I ask the Doc, if he's out there, not to protect Syz.

If syz is not the doc, and if there is a doc, the doc would know syz is fakeclaiming, obviously, so, why on earth would a doc protect a fakeclaimer?

Syz has been calling for the doctor to do that. Basically, he softclaimed Doc, and he asked for the "real" Doc to protect him on the chance that the Mafia will target him and lose an NK. His stated purpose is to "confuse" the Mafia. Although, at the end of the day, I think that all his strategy will do is deny information to the town. It won't cost the Mafia anything.

And that's assuming that he's town.

If he's scum, asking the Doc to target him guarantees an NK tonight. He takes the Doc out of commission.

Alright guys, you know my thoughts on this.

Vote: Syzygy

Let's run him up and get a hard claim. He claims Doc, will the real Doc please counterclaim? He claims townie, we've gotta lynch him. Syz, if you're townie, please just claim townie.

[New Coldness]

NC: I agree with you that getting a hard claim out of Syzygy is the way to go, but I don't see why we have to lynch him if he claims townie.

'cause he's the best possible lynch candidate I see right now, we've gotta lynch someone today, and if he claims townie then he's no longer a claimed Doc.

[New Coldness]

Weren't you saying earlier, though, that the two worst scenarios for town involve lynching syz?

That's if he doesn't hardclaim.

[New Coldness]

Alright, I'll reread Indigo later and see if doing so makes me want to change my vote. I'll admit, I've been pretty myopically focused on Syz here.

I am normally not very sympathetic to these kinds of claims of setup/mechanics ignorance. Information is gold in a Mafia game, and the idea that someone skipped over free information about the setup strikes me as hard to believe. Especially when the setup is as limited as this and gaining one piece of information can lead immediately to the deduction of another.

[New Coldness]

Okay, stuff on IH: first of all, the most obvious reason for the NK was explained,

by him

, early on: lurker. Offing him gives the town no new info. Pick someone who isn't controversial and who doesn't have many posts to analyze and it's hard to link them to anyone. Not that it matters, because trying to figure out why scum offed someone is an exercise in WIFOM anyway.

IH nevertheless analyzes the posts and links Kang to ML, then votes ML. And the only new information this is based on is the post analysis of Kang. Which, IMHO, is worthless. It's certainly not strong enough to bring an FoS to a vote.

On the backpedal: I think that Syz is potentially

scummier

than ML, but at the time it looks like I was in the minority on that. It wasn't until after I explained my opposition to Syz's softclaim that people started turning their scumdars on Syz. Giving the replacement a honeymoon, though, I can't disagree with all that much.

This, however,

@Amor: What were we supposed to do? I wanted to generate some discussion in this 'dead-end' game by voting for him. I was also trying to see which of the scum would follow in my footsteps by adding votes to the vote count for Mamaluigi, bringing him closer (but not enough to actally do so) to lynch him.

is LAME. I would have been more inclined to agree with IH if he had just stuck to his guns on why he voted for ML. Even though I think that the Kang PBPA wasn't nearly enough reason to push an FoS to a vote, I think there was enough reason already there before that to vote ML. Granted, the move was more aggressive than what I wanted to do (I wanted to wait for ML to post again before I potentially voted for his replacement), but I can't really fault the original rationale.

I can't really argue with IH laying off the replacement all that much because I did something sort of similar. It's just that 1) I didn't go as far as fast, and therefore didn't have much distance to backpedal, and 2) I ended up voting the replacement anyway. So here's what I do find scummy about IH:

1. A PBPA of an NK'd character pushing an FoS to a vote, when IH had already stated a perfectly good, tactically sound (from a scum perspective) reason to NK Kang that had nothing to do with the PBPA. The PBPA was pure WIFOM.

2. The backpedal - not on Syz -

but on ML

. "He seemed scummy" would have been a good enough reason for me to explain why he voted ML. A new character replacing in

was

a good enough reason for me (short-lived as it was) to back off the ML succession. But the statement that he was trying to draw out other scum by starting a wagon on ML was, as I stated earlier, lame.

Given all of this, though, I still find Syz scummier. But they could both be scum; it's possible that IH was bussing ML and then thought that Syz had convinced enough people he was town to buddy with him. But that's just speculation and I'm not seriously willing to go there yet.

[New Coldness]

Who are the ICs, anyway? Despite my early join date, I'm still a completed game or two away from ICness. Iciness? Heh.

[New Coldness]

I'm already watching Syz, for reasons stated. I think he's the scummiest in play right now and he isn't making things better for himself.

[New Coldness]

Looks like that puts Syz under the hammer. Does anyone need the case against Syz explained to them?

[New Coldness]

From the LAL page:

Some lies that have been repeated that don't turn out well for the town:

* Townie claiming to be a Doctor in an attempt to get the mafia to target them;

Yeah.

[New Coldness]

This whole thing against me isn't true. Not in the least. First of all, my vote for Grimmy was not a hammer at all.

This is correct. There WAS no hammer vote. Grimmy was clearly lynched by deadline, not hammer. And the final, tie-breaking vote against Grimmy was cast by ML, not Freckles. And then everyone who was voting for neko switched to ML, but it wasn't enough to save Grimmy.

Second, just because his first post is the only one you bothered to quote, does not mean it was the only one that dealt with me. Get your facts straight before you mount a campaign.

Also correct. I counted a few posts dealing with Freckles, including two contentless "no girls on teh interwebs" posts, a PBPA of neko that mentioned her,, and a scumlist that outlined his thoughts on everyone, including Freckles.

IGMEOY: Mispeled

[New Coldness]

Dude, craplogic makes you look scummy. If you go toe-to-toe with someone

for agreeing with you

, you'll have a hell of a time lynching them even if they are scum. Gambit or no gambit, it's a bad idea.

And Syz's desperation is a null-tell. If he's scum, then of course he's trying to save his own hide. If he's town, then he knows that any given player out there is more likely to be scum than he is, so he'd be trying to keep a townie from getting lynched.

[New Coldness]

I tried to breadcrumb in favor of Neko on day one. I should've breadcrumbed harder. :/

[New Coldness]

It didn't convince everyone that Neko was town. Not even Neko claimed to find breadcrumbing action.

Scum: what was the rationale behind your kills?

My rationale for investigating Neko was that he was really aggressive and logical. Like I said at the beginning of day 2, if he was town, he was a huge asset. If scum, he was really dangerous. I wanted to confirm him.

As for Indigo... I don't really remember my rationale.