Newbie 1024 -- Minimalist Mafia (Game Over)

[Mastin]

Hello, Fellow Newbies! I'm Mastin, and I've never played a game before. It's nice to meet you all for the first time, and I'm...
Wait...

I

am listed as a

SE

?!?
Well...this really throws a wrench in my plans...
[hr][/hr]
As you can tell by if nothing else my title (to my knowledge, you still need at least 100 game posts and 6 on-site months for one), I'm obviously not a newbie, but the last time I played was over a year ago. So, forgive me if I don't exactly live up to the standard SE material.

Anyway, I've read the thread multiple times as a spectator; now to try it as a player.

[Mastin]

History Lesson: when I started playing, games required two IC's. This was later dropped to one IC and one SE, but to me, I always considered the SE to basically have the same role as the IC, if not even more important--the IC is what the players are supposed to eventually want to be. One does not have to be an IC after five games. The SE is who the players are supposed to SOON be, as in, show what they're supposed to play like in a few games. You're pretty much assumed an SE after a few. So, to me, that's a lot of pressure.
(Anyone know why my HR tags didn't work? :/)

---

A

warning

: I have--and always will--hate the RVS. So if the below seems a bit, well, too soon, it's just how I play.
Neruz starts the game voting for our IC. Now, I know it's the random voting stage, but voting for the person you're supposed to be learning from doesn't sit well with me. So,

IGMEOY

. ([SE] IGMEOY--I've Got My Eye On You. It's a weak, weak

FoS

--Finger of Suspicion. There's also

mFoS

, minor Finger of Suspicion, and

MFoS/ HoS

, which is Major Finger of Suspicion and Hand of Suspicion. IGMEOY is below mFoS in strength--it's basically just what it says: keeping an eye on them. We have one vote--a Hand of Suspicion is treated pretty much as a vote without voting, because you suspect them that much. Fingers CAN fill this role, but generally, a Finger is a secondary suspect.
At least, these are my definitions--any different ones from the other SE or our IC?
Keep this in mind, too--ICs and SEs aren't all perfect. We're only human, and we have our opinions. Exact definitions can vary from person to person. [/SE])

Kayi expresses agreement (I assume--is that what you meant), but does not back it up with a vote on Beefster--may I ask why?

Here are some questions that I find are often quite useful.

1) What time zone are you in?
2) What experience do you have playing Mafia?
3) How often do you anticipate you'll be able to post?
4) Are you male or female?

I believe I know how, but I'll ask just in case:

Why

do you find these questions often helpful, Trend?
Anyway, to answer:

1:

I live in the Pacific Time Zone. I believe that's GMT - 8 or -9, depending on DLST on or off.

2:

My experience is all on the old forum, before we upgraded. (I was a bit infamous, there. When we moved, most people had forgotten about me.) Most of my games can be found on my Wiki, though I never got them all in before I left. (I'm not exactly proud of them. See "infamy". I'd much prefer to have the prefix in there dropped. ) You have to replace the 'mafiascum.net' part with '67.222.17.61' to see them. I also played epicmafia extensively, and am currently playing a Werewolf game on another forum, my third there.

3:

Not at all on the weekends--I have no access, then. However, I currently have something like eight hours on Friday and four on Monday to make up for it. My weakest access day would be Wednesday--I can come on, but only for two hours. (Next week only, it might be only one, but only next week.)

4:

For some reason, people keep calling me a "she", despite what clearly displays on my profile the "Male". I'm a guy. (After all, we all know there are no girls on the internet. )

I've played a few games on another forum, this'll be my first here.

Might I ask which one? Might help me with my reads. (I'm a bit of an analytical player. I may have an unusual brand of it, but I like logic, and this can help me determine if you're town or mafia.)

VOTE: Trendall for being the first to confirm. Somebody's excited to play.

Might I ask why you think this? 'Cause when I do a random vote off of confirmation, it's the opposite for me. (Please don't use the advice in there. It's outdated. It can still be used in the RVS, but beyond that, it's useless.)

Vote: Kayi because you don't have a avatar

Now that Kayi does, Mujex, do you plan on keeping this vote?

and a couple of hundred games over at Epicmafia.

I

thought

I recognized that avatar! You were playing over there before, right? How long have you played, there?

Anyway, that's about it on my readthrough. I have a few suspects in mind, but I want to get some answers, first.

[Mastin]

Question: Do you like it better when you play as Town, Mafia or a Third Party? And why?

Town, oh so much town. I've been Mafia quite some number of times--if I had to guess, at least a dozen on this site. Know how many of those I won?
One. As an alt. With my partner saving me, when I was going to be lynched. And

he

was the

newbie

! (I was the SE, 'cause as an Alt, I couldn't exactly be an IC, and you're not supposed to fake being a newbie, even in an alt. Being saved by the newbie when you're the SE, and having that be your only Mafia win? Yeah, you'd hate being Mafia, too. )

Third party? Only been so once. It...did not go so well. I was the lyncher, and our mod, RC, was my target. I was faking my cop meta, but that attracted the attention of the Joat, who saw I was a lyncher and made this knowledge public...on day one. I needed to lynch RC on day two or later to win. Guess who was lynched on day one?

Town, however, I have had great victories as. Not *many*, but enough to make me like it a lot more than any others.

Also: note my title. I earned it. If you think my posts are too long, please tell me; I am an absolutely horrible judge of post length.

[Mastin]

Typed over the weekend, without looking beyond Beefster's first post after mine:
Fun fact about me: I’m a writer. Interesting fact about writers: they have an overactive imagination. Fascinating fact about overactive imaginations: can very,

very

often lead to extreme paranoia.

Anyway, I am typing this up over the weekend. I’m trying to keep at bay all the negative thoughts: a bandwagon forming in two days without me being able to voice my opinion, being replaced over the weekend, failing the mod, that kind of thing. Mostly, though, I’m anticipating the start of the new week, and how I’ll have quite some load of work to do in this game.

I suspect that if it wasn’t beginning to end already (it certainly seemed that way), the RVS will truly be over by the time I come back. (Sorry if I

did

end it before you’d have preferred. As I said, I tend to dislike the RVS.) So, I probably will have more to work off of.

However, I don’t have much, right now. Trendall to me at first glance seems town. Beefster actually looks far less so, to me. Not to the point where I’d call Beefster a suspect, but to the point where he looks like a figure of interest.

However, if this MIGMEOY (minor IGMEOY) were indeed true (we’ll see as the game develops), that would mean my Neruz suspicion would be lessened, because who’d want to vote for their buddy? Okay, so most people would, but would a newbie do it on the first post of the first day, when their partner is the IC? Not unless the IC told them the night before. (I realize this might seem a bit WIFOM-y, but it’s just a psychological thing, to me. I tend to be good at reading emotions online. And this is something which falls under that category. A newbie would simply be too afraid to immediately vote for their buddy, without any votes previously. It’s just…something I know, okay? Call it gut if you must.)*
Therefore, I think I’m going to conclude that one of Neruz and Beefster are town. It’s possible both are, and I suppose it’s possible I’m wrong and neither are, though I doubt it.

So, I’ll keep both under observation.

*Inversely, newbie scum buddies tend to go with their partner a lot unless specifically told not to. Also, this doesn’t really apply as more votes come in—the more people who have voted, the more comfortable scum will be in voting for someone, no matter who.

So, this pretty much only applies to Neruz.

Wait…
Oh, nevermind. I think that Neruz has played before, which means anything about being a complete newbie applying above is negated. Ha. We all have our moments…

Anyway,

Usually i've found the real discussion begins when someone breaks out of random voting and puts down a vote they actually mean, or look like they mean.

Okay, a few questions about this…
1: Where does this experience come from?
2: Why do you think this is true?
3: What do you see as the difference between a vote they mean and look like they mean?

I’m liking Kayi right here, though that

might

be my personal bias towards not liking the RVS. I tend to disagree that they’re truly random; a more accurate word would be “random”—as in, meant to appear as random; they aren’t always. So, on occasion, you can deduce things from them.

The question Kayi asks might not be that helpful (I’ve seen it many times before), but I believe it was a genuine attempt at getting discussion going. I still would like an answer to my original question, though. (It most likely will have one by the time I’m back.) If I get an answer I like, I can call Kayi town. 
I believe another player besides Mute mentioned having played on another forum, but I forgot to ask them which one. When I come back, I’ll see who it was and ask them.

I’m hoping Beefster will address points in my post by the time he comes back—I was waiting, but a couple hours after he responded to Trendall, I still had nothing. At the very least, there are two things worthy of addressing:
1: My definitions of IGMEOY, mFoS, FoS, and HoS.
And 2: My asking him about his random vote. It would be nice to see both answered, and if they aren’t, I still expect one after I post this.

Anyway, that’s about it. Having no access, this is really all I can do over the weekend, waiting. (I shoulda opened another tab to the first page, so I could do weekend notes on there, too. D’oh.)

When I come back, hopefully, all my questions and stuff will be answered—the responses and reactions are what I need most to do a proper analysis of a player.

[Mastin]

VOTE: Kayi for this blatant alignment fishing question.

I find this response interesting. It seems to be making a lot out of nothing. (What was that, Strawmanning? Or was that making a lot

into

nothing? Ahg, I'm so rusty.)
Why did you think this to be true, Beefster? To me, it read as a kind of icebreaker, I suppose, which I've seen in a few other Newbie Games I've been reading. Nothing unusual.

It's like the loaded "are you excited" question that I've never been a fan of. It's supposed to fish for power roles.

Might I ask why you think that question is loaded?

Anyway, that's a brief version of page 2. I'll read Page 3, might not get a chance to respond before I have to leave for a few hours, but I'll be back at 1 pm to wrap up any loose ends. (That is, ask for any answers I haven't gotten, respond to things I glanced over, that kind of thing which rushing causes.)

---

Does Mute already have a vote? If so, Jay might've been the first to start a wagon.

Nevermind. Have to go; be back soon!

[Mastin]

Alright, I have four hours, today. It's time for me to get in the game.
("Wait, what were you doing before, then?!?" Umm...preparation for being in the game?
More seriously, I chose the exact right moment to be able to replace in...but replaced in on the worst day possible, Friday. I couldn't really get into the game before I had to leave. Monday, therefore, is my day to truly begin the game, 'cause it's the start of the week.)
Anyway, I apologize for the length. (My title was earned, remember? ) Hopefully, this will be my longest post in the game. (I'd hate to scare you off, now, wouldn't I? )

---

Page 1 brief summary:
Neruz votes Beef,
Kayi expresses agreement,
Trendall's questions,
Kayi mentions playing on another forum. I believe I forgot to inquire before about which one.
Mute does the same; I did inquire, and I have an answer, now, I believe.
Yenros votes Mujex,
Beef votes Tren,
Neruz mentions experience; I do not believe I asked, because I felt he gave enough info.
Mujex votes Kayi
And that's it. I believe I've covered most of this before.

---

Now for page 2:
Beef inquires 'bout Trend's questions. (Beef is voting Trend at the time.)
Mute votes Neruz.
Neruz answers Mute.
Trend answers Beef's inquiry. (And one by me, I suppose.)
Yen says his experience is RVS>RQS, essentially.
Neruz's experience is that the RVS is worthless, and that the game begins when someone places a real vote.
Kayi Agrees, and also posts an icebreaker-type question. (That's what I understood the intentions to be, anyway. Get the game rolling.)

I didn't express it as a question, so I never got an answer to this:

Neruz

, Why'd you vote for Beefster, our IC? (Still GMEOY.)
Also,

Beefster, Trendall

: What do you think of the definitions I gave? Are they good? Is there any you disagree with? (Not really a game question, so much as an SE+IC thing. Call it a "Teacher's Conference", of sorts. )
For that matter, what do you think of my opinion on SE's?

Kayi:

In your first post, you seemed to be expressing agreement with Neruz's vote on Beefster above. Why if you were agreeing, did you not back it up with a vote?

(Answered on page 3.)

Beefster:

I would still like an answer to another part of my post:

VOTE: Trendall for being the first to confirm. Somebody's excited to play.

Might I ask why you think this? 'Cause when I do a random vote off of confirmation, it's the opposite for me.

You answer Trend about it, when he asked if it was serious. (You said "not really". The inner psychologist in me is screaming Weasel Wording to that, itself. But assuming it's a flat-out "no", my question was different.)

I like Yen's reaction to Beef; it seemed town. It could have been him defending Kayi, though.

I dunno, it seems like an off question to me in general. It's like the loaded "are you excited" question that I've never been a fan of. It's supposed to fish for power roles. Good point though. I wasn't thinking of that.

Unvote

I'm stupid.

Something in here seems off. Call it gut, but this statement rubs me the wrong way. Maybe it's the small contradiction between thinking it's an off question and admitting Neruz has a point? Could be that he's connecting it to a different question which to me seems rather unrelated. Maybe his unvote and--if I remember the details of page three--later vote again (making him vote-happy) is concerning me. Maybe it's all or none of the above. It's...Something here just isn't right. I wish I could put my finger on it.

Fishing, being passive, is relatively easy to deny and thus is a tool the scum like to use.

[SE]

It also runs both ways: Fishing, being something so general, is also a really easy accusation to make against someone. I've had it used against me dozens of times, when none of them were intentional. (More experienced players tend not to use fishing as an argument, 'cause often times, they'll find it's a bit hypocritical to do so. In my experience, anyway; most of the times I accused others of fishing, I was potentially [though not intentionally] guilty of it, and most of the times people accused me of doing it, I pointed out things in their very same post the accusation is in which showed how they could be seen as doing the same.)

[/SE]

Kayi answers why she asked the question.

---

Okay, that's page 2. Now, for Page 3. There will be more here, of course, being our current page.
Mute explains his experience. Thanks. (I'd respond to a lot of what you're saying; I can related. However, it's off-topic, and this post is already long enough.)

I'm really liking Yen's post here, except for one thing...
Yenros had earlier defended Kayi from Beefster. Now, he's doubting her.

Yenros:

Why the change?

Beefster's Answer puts some of my doubts to rest. However,

That said, I'm going to put my vote back on.
VOTE: Kayl

THAT did

not

. I do not like this revote at all, when the concerns about Kayi's vote had been addressed previously. It also shows a bit of vote-happiness, something which I frown upon strongly. VERY strongly. ESPECIALLY with the concerns involved already answered, with no further reasoning for the vote given.

Beefster:

do explain yourself, please.

You also seem to be too logical to be a village idiot which is the other type of player that tends to alignment fish.

For reference, in my experience, alignment-fishing is harmless. Completely null. No alignment associated with it. No player type associated with it. (Okay, so "play to win"-type people will use it more than "play to have fun"-type people*.)

*It's a theory I'm developing about eight player types. I'll make a wiki article about it when I have the time.

Neruz brings up a valid point, though Beefster defends that it's his meta to basically do so. (Am I wrong?)

[2]Unvote: Kayi It was a random vote I do not find her scummy right now. I will now wait for someone to stand out. Jay's random vote seems a bit odd.
[1] @Heather, Do you find anyone scummy right now ?

[1]I replaced Heather, Mujex. Also, why did you address Heather? Was it for not posting? For being gone like you were?
[2]

FoS: Mujex

. You mention waiting to vote until someone stood out. And then, you mention Jay standing out...without voting. Care to explain yourself?

Kayi answered my question. It seems believable, but somewhat questionable at the same time. (Let's compromise and call it neutral, for now. ) However, this is a good post, 'cause it brought up points I, myself, had been noticing above. Wow.

---

Okay, I'm caught up, now. My vote will most likely be going to Beefster, but 1: I want to wait for his answers, and
2: He's already got two votes on him; mine would be the third. (I've had some experiences with newbies quicklynching my suspect and gaining suspicion because we weren't ready to end the day, yet. So, with those bad experiences in mind, I want my answers before I vote.)

[Mastin]

Quick note: Hmm...I'm seeing a HEAVY link to Kayi and Neruz, in a LOT of their posts.

HoS: Kayi, Neruz

. Looking at my post above, they're agreeing with each other a lot, not to mention, supporting each other from attack, and--to top it all off--they're now voting together as well.
Current suspect order: Kayi/Neruz (almost enough for a vote), Beefster (individually, my largest suspect, however, I'm waiting for answers), Jay. (His defense is less than convincing.)

[Mastin]

*EBWOP (Edit By Way of Posting)
I hit submit when I meant to hit preview. Mujex should be up, there, too, below Jay.

[Mastin]

Alright, so there's a bit more posting, here, than I was expecting. I was expecting one or two brief responses from each person.

Warning:

People, be careful about constant walling. There's a reason I once had a mod specifically modify my role to have a posting restriction: because I made finding replacements nearly impossible with my post length. You'll also note one of the things people say from time to time is, "You're all Mastin Alts!", "I posted a Mastin", and other such terms. They're not compliments.
The cycle happens something like this: a person (generally, someone who's behind, like a replacement. I was, for example) posts a long post. Someone responds to any relevant points, and feels compelled to add in their own. Often, responses to a single sentence take a paragraph. Then, someone responds to

that

, and of course, it's longer. And it spreads, and spreads, and gets worse, and worse...yeah.

Be careful about post lengths!

You might find yourself trapped desperately behind. Valid points you make might be missed by people browsing, and if you browse to catch up, you miss some points. (I did when I browsed.)

---

One thing I note about Kayi: it seems multiple people are defending her, and she is defending multiple people. Her opening line in this post is defending Jay.

According to your post, we've agreed with voting for Beef. I mean, his RVS vote way before my question, my joke suspicion, and way after that, my actual vote.

This would be valid...
...If Neruz had removed his vote. He kept it on, the joke-vote becoming serious when he began to suspect Beefster. You agreed with him as a joke, but did not vote. You agree with him now when serious, and back it up with a vote. See the connection?

You suspect Beef as well, for the same reasons I do.

This is valid. I do suspect Beef, however, you do not look much better. In fact, you're beginning to look

worse

.

There's also the fact that we don't like the the RVS. You agree with that as well, and I don't think it has anything to do with the actual game.

So why bring it up at all? I brought it up as mentioning I might have a possible bias towards thinking you're town. Meaning, I should factor that in. You bring it up, and it looks like you're trying to create that bias, slide me back towards thinking you're town--same with Beefster. See the logic I'm applying? I've never been much of a fan for buddying. (It's one of my MITs for a reason. Granted, they're tells meant for the RVS, but on occasion, they've ironically proven correct.)
Not sure there's anything in Beef's post I can address well, so on to page 4. (Ahg, I hate walling. "Wait, you HATE it?!?" Okay, I love walling itself. I hate the

consequences

of walling. See my warning at the top.)

---

If Jay stands out as being scummy that does not necessarily mean I have to place a vote. I don't like to abuse my right. I want to be sure of my vote.

[SE]

While I understand your reasoning, you can always change your vote if needed. Excessive changing of votes can look bad. (See Beefster.) Occasional and justifiable changes in votes tend not to. If you think strongly enough that Jay is mafia, you should vote for Jay unless you find a better suspect. Votes left unused are votes wasted.
"Wait, then why haven't you placed a vote, yet?" In my case, I'm debating between two main suspects, Kayi and Beefster. If you have only one suspect, you should vote, barring special circumstances. These aren't really special circumstances. (Special circumstances are situations like they're already at L-1, and your vote would be the hammer before a claim. That might be a risk soon for voting Beefster, but not for your stated suspect of Jay.)
That's my take on voting, anyway. (Beef and Trend, you're free to disagree, though for the sake of the newbies, it's good to say why.)

[/SE]

I agree with most of what Trend says here, with two exceptions: 1--SE's. Like I said, I'm old. I still remember playing games where two ICs were required. When it was lowered to one IC and one SE, the SE was still expected to teach, though not as much. The SE acted as a lesser version of the IC, and more than that, they were also what a player was expected to be in a few games, whereas the IC is what they eventually would be. To me, that means the SE should still try to teach.
2--the point about Kayi and Neruz. I know it doesn't always apply. If it did, the related MIT tell would not have the disclaimer around it stating it's best not to use it out of the RVS. However, in this case, I'm beginning to believe it does. Strong town alliances are not unheard of, but they are uncommon, and most of the time, come from more experienced players. Strong scum alliances, on the other hand...

Hmm...I see something questionable.

Beefster is giving me pause for thought at the moment; something about his play doesn't seem right for an IC. He's coming across as somewhat erratic and unsure of himself. It might just be the paranoia speaking but i'm really not liking his play at the moment.

In that same post, he goes on and says

A quick re-read shows that she is spending rather a lot of time agreeing with me. It

could

just be that we happen to have similar opinions, but looking at the rest of her play i'm thinking it probably isn't.

She seems to be tunneling a bit much on Beefster

, pausing only to address posts directed at her and this is way too early for that kind of attention on a single person.

Note the slight hypocrisy? Neruz has addressed others pretty much just as often as Kayi has--not very often, compared to his focus on Beefster. He shows doubt about Kayi, yet continues to think Beefster is his best vote.

Neruz:

Do you honestly believe the scum would go after their buddy on day one? If so, why? If not, well, that's certainly the tone I'm getting from suspecting

both

Kayi and Beefster, so could you explain why it wouldn't be true?

---

At this point, I'm liking the Kayi-Neruz scumpair more than I was before. I probably will be voting for Kayi, but I'll wait for answers.

[Mastin]

But I don't want to get into the Beef thing again. I've said enough.

[SE]

It's good that you're trying to keep your post shorter. However, this is not the correct route to take. You have focused a good case on Beefster, and are mainly focusing on defending yourself. That's good, however, simply trying to make yourself look less suspicious than Beefster will not save you from the noose. You need to--at every available moment--expand the case in any way you can, until you really have nothing left. Basically, be careful to balance offense and defense: too much of either, and you have a far greater chance of being lynched. (In my first game--one I got replaced in--I was completely against the idea of defending myself. Guess who was an almost-immediate suspect? In some games, I was completely defensive with no offense at all. All I did was get myself lynched, without making a good case for the town to use, leaving my death completely pointless. In others, I was all offense, completely disregarding my defense for pure attack. It didn't work well. And--one thing to watch out for--sometimes, you can try to balance both, but end up tunneling OMGUS-style on your attackers and convince yourself they are scum. [I was notorious for this. Out of all the things I'm infamous for {there are a lot}, this is perhaps the worst.]
These are ALL things you want to avoid. It's a hard balance to find, but when you lock onto it, you'll be one of the best players on the site. It's remarkable how many players only know how to do one well at a time. Manage to do both well, and you have an advantage.)

[/SE]

Mastin - Ha. It would be stupid for me to try to get you to believe me just because we've agreed on a few things. Agreement and disagreement mean nothing more often than not, and that's exactly my point. I wanted to indicate how this a shaky thing to rely on. That's all I'm saying, and I don't mean to imply anything else.

This did not seem like your intent to me. Like I said, it still feels like a minor attempt at buddying.

When it comes to the voting thing, if you look at the timing, Neruz's suspicion on Beef became serious after I expressed finding Beef's arguments slightly suspicious, and his vote seemed to become official on Page 4 when he said he was keeping his vote. Brought up the RVS thing because I wanted to acknowledge having noticed it.

I will need to look into this, because that's not how I remember it.

---

Have to leave, now. Be back at...oh, probably some time between 3:30 and 4 pm.

[Mastin]

Yenros, I find you slightly suspicious because of the way you are accusing me. I still do not really understand why you find my random vote scummy, and the way you said that you do not know how to explain better doesn't help. I didn't want to look like that guy who says "You think I look scummy so I'm gonna say that you are too!!!" but that note about not being able to explain made it seem more suspicious. Mafia who want to look like town sometimes make a large effort to find mafia so that people think,"Wow, he's trying so hard he must be town!" Until you are able to explain yourself better, you are my main suspicion.

There are a few problems in here. First, you mention, OMGYouSuck. You're obviously aware of the concept of voting your voter, or suspecting the person who suspects you. You claim that your reason for voting him is different.

[SE]

Nobody believes anyone who suspects their voter. At best, they'll think they're tunnel visioning on their voter, OMGUS Confirmation Bias. Really, REALLY bad to do that. (Trust me; I did it all the time. It was NOT good.) At worst, they'll think you're desperate scum.

[/SE]

The second is your use of the "Too Townie to be Town" fallacy. It's possible someone who is putting a lot of effort into the game is scum trying really hard to look like town...Or, Occam's Razor can be used, that is, the simplest explanation applies: that they are, in fact, just town.

---

Sorry, out of time, again.

[Mastin]

I had a post, but just lost it.
Be back later to re-say what I wanted to.

[Mastin]

And, as promised, I'm here at 3:30.

I'm still here. The name "Mute" isn't just a name, it has some relevance to my personality. If I see a time to talk or say something I will, like if I'm addressed (like now) or would like to add something to the discussion.

Ah, yes, this. Something I wrote two SE paragraphs on, but lost.

[SE]

Honest? I believe you. I have no problem with your posting style, and fully understand it. To some extent, I have that style as well. I try to only talk about relevant things, and otherwise, tend not to post as to avoid cluttering the thread. However, most people won't be so understanding, Mute. Most people--when they see a person who doesn't post--will point it out, and be weary if they show up immediately after that. Made worse when that note is accompanied by suspicion (AKA, you're coming back to put their suspicions to rest), and if you address that you came back

because

of the inactivity suspicion, because it encourages them to push for your lynch when you're inactive. It's such a common tell that we have a word for it: Lurking. Now, I personally don't use lurking as an argument against someone. (That would be very hypocritical of me, considering I used to do it as both alignments.) However, most people will react

extremely

negative to lurking, some to the point of policy lynching them. (Depends on what kind of lurking. I have three categories: Active [posting, but not posting content], passive [online, but not posting or even checking the thread], and regular [checking the thread, but not posting]. Which is the worst depends on who you ask, but nobody likes any of them.)
So, Mute, I'd advise against continuing that strategy. Try to become more active. There's almost always something to say, even if you don't think there is. New information pops up every time someone posts.

[/SE]

I'm suspicious of a few people here, but for now I want to see how things unfold before I begin to make any decisions for one set person to vote on.

SE teachings, part two:

[SE]

Now, there's nothing wrong with this, however, I'd advise against it. The scum hunter's most treasured prize is information. One of the scum hunter's greatest tools in gathering information is getting reactions. Now, you

can

get reactions, from not voting, stating suspicions, or giving reasons. However, in general, you get a

lot

more information if you do. Votes are a good example. It's a common tactic to vote without a reason, to look for a reaction--I would highly advise you don't do this until you have more experience, as it's easy to say that voting without a reason means you didn't have a reason and when you

do

state your reason, they'll call it BS'd. (A simple way of getting around this: "VOTE: X; I have a reason, but I'll wait for a/some response(s) before I state them." Doesn't always work, though, so again, it's a tactic you should learn how to use...but not use it unless you think you can pull it off.) However, the most common way of gathering reactions is to have both a reason and a vote. These are the goldmines. Not only does it let other pro-town players know who you think is scum, should you perish, it ALSO gives people a LOT of material to work with when responding.
So, I would encourage you to vote/state your suspects, and explain why. However, it is up to you. Maybe you not stating them is you looking for responses, for example. So, it's your choice, but as an SE, I'd recommend you do state your suspects.
...Especially considering how you were just accused of lurking, and are gathering some amount of suspicion. A vote with a strong reason can go MILES to convince someone you're town surprisingly often.

[/SE]

(Dang, the original version was more concise.)

I've seen the strategy that I mentioned (I think you called it Too Town to be Town) work before

If by this, you mean me talking about a player looking so town they can't possibly be town, well, think about that. If someone is trying hard and the result is that they look like town, they're likely to be town. It's

possible

they're scum, sure--but anything would be possible. Anyone could be any alignment. So, that's why we rely on things such as probability and logic. Both dictate that someone who looks like town...is most likely to be town. If by chance, they

are

scum, they're doing a darn-good job at it. Players like that are one in a hundred, I'd guess.

---

On to page five.

@Mastin: Who is your biggest suspect? Why aren't you voting?

I will respond to that question with one of my own:

HAVE YOU BEEN READING MY POSTS?!?

>_<
Really, I'm not sure I could make it more clear who my suspects are:
You, and Kayi/Neruz. I haven't voted, yet, because I'm having trouble deciding which among you is the most likely to be the scum. Right now, Neruz is looking better. Kayi and you? Not so much. If you were paying attention, you would've realizes that, yes, I DO have an opinion on who's scum: YOU.

BUT

, my scum read on Kayi is just as strong. I don't think you're both scum, so I'm trying to figure out which of you two is more likely to be scum. I haven't made up my mind, yet, because you're that equal to Kayi. Logically, you're about equal. Initially, my gut said you, but then came the idea of the Kayi-Neruz theory of mine, which my gut

really

liked. So, instincts refuse to make up their mind, and currently, intuition is equal. One of you or Kayi will eventually tip logic's scale to one side or the other. And that's what I'm waiting for. I'm getting as many reactions from both of you as I can. I'm observing you two more than most (though as you can tell, I am not tunneling on just you two). I'm trying to figure it out. And that's why I haven't voted yet. If I had one clear-cut suspect, believe me, I'd be voting them. As I've got two, I cannot.

Oh, and Kayi?
Just made me feel a lot better about her, here. I'll go back. Check the whole thread again, one more time, look for anything I could've missed, but from what I've seen, Kayi has defended herself far better than you have, Beefster.

Vote: Beefster

.

[Mastin]

Heh. Took me half an hour to write this. Anyway, minor Edit BWOP: "Honest" should be "Honestly" when I'm giving my SE advice to Mute to not lurk.

[Mastin]

Got about an hour until I have to leave, so I won't be able to do a reread to confirm what everyone has been saying about their play on previous pages, not yet, anyway. However, I can respond to what's been posted so far since I left, to make my reread post as uncluttered as possible. (I, too, like conciseness--simply because I want what I type to be read. )

---

Mujex apparently asked for a replacement, so i'm going to UNVOTE: Beefster until said replacement turns up.

1: Why the unvote for a player completely unrelated to Beefster? 2: Now that we have a Mujex replacement, will you be voting for Beefster, again?

The one thing I've noticed that stuck out to me was Yenros. Initially (as from page 2's initial post), he posted in what appeared to me to be a passive-aggressive manner, and after suspicion was placed onto them he seemed to shift into a more defensive posting style. The wavering resolve I feel is something that should be addressed, or at the very least kept in the back of my mind. And even when accused by Jay I don't feel his response was adequate enough for me to have any less suspicion of him.

This is an interesting view. I'll need to look at this when I do my reread, but in the mean time,

Yenros:

it'd be nice to address Mute to the best of your ability. (Reactions are what we need most.)
Mute might already know this, but in case he or anyone else doesn't:

[SE]

For reference, quote tags are handy.

Code: Select all

[quote]This is stuff appearing inside the quote.[/quote]And this is stuff outside the quote. [quote="Insert Name Here"]This is how you do a named quote, as you often see in posts.[/quote]It ends the same way. Also, links to posts are nice. See the little icon in the corner?

is an unread, and is a read post. That icon: right click it. Depending on the browser, the command differs, but in Firefox, it's "Copy Link Location". The result: This is a link to RC's Mod post at the beginning of the page.

Code: Select all

[url=https://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?p=2606819#p2606819]This is that same link.[/url] You can combine these two as you might've seen in my posts. [quote="[url=https://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?p=2606819#p2606819]RC[/url]"]Vote Count Here[/quote] is how it works.

Just a few tips. None of it is necessary, but people tend to prefer quotes over quotation marks. The exception seems to be portions of a sentence: You said, "I don't understand" in quotes is cluttered. I said "This is a paragraph example. A small paragraph, granted, but nonetheless an example of why we have the quote button instead of constantly needing quotation marks. It's a very handy button. Quick reply no longer has the "Quote Selected" button it used to have, and even if it did, it wouldn't include the name, but with the above, you don't have to quote a whole post. You can instead quote a fraction, like I've done." Now, imagine how much easier that would be in quotes.

[/SE]

Sorry it's a bit long, but if there's one thing I'm good at in forum games, it's being thorough.

I observe others, see how a discussion is started and by whom, how everyone reacts to it, gauge their reactions, so on and so on, compare their posts to their responses and accusations, and

prefer to let others do the talking

so that when I do post, it's either to bring to the table my own observations, or expand upon what people've already posted.

[SE]

This is good! It's an excellent way to play, and if you can adjust to MS's site meta, you'll be an excellent player; I can tell. With...one small exception: the bolded. Now, letting others do the talking is fine. If you're the only one posting, chances are, you're posting too much. Others do, indeed, need to talk, so I can understand not posting very often. However, you should try to get at least one game-related content-filled post in a day. It doesn't have to be much. A one-liner will do, sometimes, if it's a good reaction-getter. The fact is, you'll get more pro-town feedback if you partake in discussion more often. If you keep your thoughts to yourself for too long, then you don't get anyone else chiming in.
It's a balance thing you find, eventually. It's definitely fine to keep a few observations to yourself. (For example, Sometimes, you might not have anything and you can use that observation as a content post while you try to think of other things.) However, you also need to keep in mind, you're only one person, one out of--in this case--nine. You have eight others you need to have interactions with: keeping an eye on everyone, trying to get feedback from everyone, etc. And others will be doing the same for you: they expect you to give your opinion on what they say, they will be watching you, etc.
Not sure I can help you any further, on the matter. Hope this helps.

[/SE]

Beefster: Well, you could look at the SE portions if you want to make sure I'm not teaching them wrong, but you don't have to. The game-related parts were addressing Jay, and you. The part about Jay is mainly showing how his logic of his suspicion is flawed, so you don't have to go over that, either.
I mainly address your question about why I hadn't voted: split suspicions, between you and Kayi. Kayi made me feel better; you, less so, so I voted you. You can make me feel better by putting your best effort into defending yourself against every point you can think of. When I do my reread, I'll be looking mainly at both you and Kayi. If what you say matches better than what Kayi says, my vote would change. But so far, Kayi is looking better.

---

Anyway, that's in. Again, I apologize for the length. The Inner SE within me likes to teach a lot.

[Mastin]

Nice catch-up post.

[1]Is it normal for you to be act so personal? [2] Question, did you think your crossed out text was worth enough to post, if so then why discredit it as WIFOM and cross it out?

[1]Huh? How so? Don't see how that was very personal at all. You're going to have to be more specific and say what exactly in there you see is personal. [2] It was discredited because it was invalid, but not due to WIFOM--due to Neruz having past game experience, which the whole thing relied on. I felt the info in there was good, if a bit irrelevant. (In hindsight, that probably just made it unnecessarily wordy.) Basically, my logic was: had I posted that, I wouldn't've been able to edit it later and cross it out. It would've been there for all to see; I would've had to later correct myself, as I did. If I wouldn't have been able to edit it out normally, why would I want to make it special by having the chance to edit it out? Or something like that. I'm a bit braindead right now, and I think I was then, as well. Anyway, again, the info looked good, albeit not required, so I kept it in there.

[1]Mastin can you PLEASE keep your walls a little more concise? [2]I have no idea what point you're trying to make half the time when what you type is drowned in borderline IoA.
[3]PLEASE Mastin keep all this SE teaching nonsense down, [4]I didn't think you'd keep this up the whole game.

Hmm, where to start? [1] Sorry, bad habit. Old habits die hard. Earned my title for a reason. I am trying, mind you, to keep it down, and am one of the major advocates for shorter posts. (I'm just not personally very GOOD at it. ) [2]I don't really see any IoA, except for possibly the SEssions. (:P) If you see a non-SEssion borderline-IoA which seems to pop up, though, I'd like to know about it.
[3]Related, of course, to the previous. The SEssions (I'm liking the pun. ) are--again--no different than what an IC often does: teach. I come from when there were two tIChers (:P), so the SE acts as one, to me. They're meant for new players to read to get a better idea of how to play. You don't have to read them, and I clearly mark them with SE tags. (I'd try to make them larger--if you'd like--but since the move to this forum, I don't know how the Size tags work and I'd end up making it really small instead of really big as intended.) You can really skip over them if you'd like; they're just me doing my (to me) job of tIChing. (Make the puns stop, make it stop! )
[4]I have no intention of keeping them up the whole game. I really was hoping to not do them much at all. Really, though, these things come up whenever I see someone playing in a way where I believe with a good talk, they can learn to do better. As it so happens, there have been a lot of cases in these last couple of pages, but believe me--I've done this before. As the players in question improve, the SEssions decrease significantly. Similarly, even if they

do

make the same mistake, I can point to a previous SEssion to help them. So, I can't promise that I will stop with them--oh, I wish I could. But I CAN say, I'll get better.

Vote: Kayi

Case and shit later.

I will be waiting for that.

[Mastin]

Well first off this whole entire happy go lucky face you've put on sets weird vibes.

You mean ":P"s? I'm naturally a joker, so I use them a lot. (Like, a lot a lot.)

[1]A whole lot of your post comes across as hand holding like [2]YOU

have

[1]to be the teacher to guide everyone through with those giant blocks of SE fluffery. Let the IC do their job, [3] nothing so far as been so bad that you have to come to the rescue.

[1]Like I said, I come from when games had TWO IC's. (I've said this many times.) I was around when it was dropped to one IC and one SE--but to me, that SE was still a second IC. And as I explained, the fact that it takes less time to be an SE means that filling the role is at

least

equal to the IC in terms of importance and pressure, to me. So, yes. I feel the need to teach. To me, I feel like it's part of my job, as an SE. I know, it's not, anymore, with the current rules. But it USED to be. And I'm a guy who is very slow to change, obviously. [2]As for me having to do it...well, yeah. I consider it an obligation. If I were to slave off my entire life, I would never pay off the debt I owe to this site due to how I used to play. I really do feel the need to try and redeem myself. I feel compelled to teach, because I feel that--ironically--my extreme infamy has given me the kind of experience which makes me very good at the job: because I know what NOT to do, better than any other player. I know the consequences of actions, and can help teach others to try and avoid making them in the first place.
[3]But there have been situations in this game where players have made mistakes, already. Mute lurking, for example. Beefster had not addressed that point--at least, not enough--and it didn't look like he would. I, however, did, and now, Mute is looking like he might become more active because of it. Can you tell me that was wrong?

You're contradicting yourself, info can not be good if it was invalid. Explain.

Can't, really. It was half-asleep logic. If you say something when drunk, for example, and are asked to explain the reasoning later, it's going to be really hard to do so. I suppose it might be due to the whole IoA thing? You know, it was information, but because I couldn't form a conclusion from it, it was worthless for analysis. Maybe? I dunno, half asleep. I posted 62 at 7:30 AM; give me a break. (That might not sound bad, but keep in mind, I had been up 'til two the night before, and had just taken a long ride to get there. Sleep deprivation and logic do not mix well. ) It sounds right, though. Yeah, I think it was "nice info, but info I can't get

info

* conclusions from".
*There are multiple definitions of information. One of them is, well, facts, stuff gathered as evidence, etc.--what we think of as info. Another, however, is...ahg, I had it in my head just a second ago. I know there's more than one, and that this second definition I was using could've created the confusion.

...Can we drop this, now? It's making my head hurt; I'm going in circles; it's cluttering the thread unnecessarily; it's not really relevant, at least, not to me; it has the risk of getting personal really quickly (and I have some...really bad emotional reactions. Another thing which was so bad about me. )...the list could go on. >_<

[Mastin]

A-ha!

—Synonyms
1. data, facts, intelligence, advice. 2. Information, knowledge, wisdom are terms for human acquirements through reading, study, and practical experience.

That's the difference. Things gathered, versus things learned. Info can mean either.

[Mastin]

I don't know how to use Spoiler Tags since the move, either. >_<
Anything new to 3: Can't do. :/
Things around before then: master of.

[Mastin]

maybe something

Spoiler: along the lines

of this?

words words words.

Spoiler: SE

more words words words

words words words

Wow, just like that? Hmm, thanks. I think I'll use that in the future.
Anyway, I'll soon be leaving for the day. On my reread, I'm half-way down page three.

[Mastin]

My walls will get shorter, 'specially now that I can use the spoiler tag.

Kayi case will have to wait, probably tomorrow.
HoS: Beefster

A few questions--1: You're voting Kayi, and HoS'ing Beef: do you believe both are scum, heavily bussing the other on day one? If not, then why? 2: Why the delay in the case? (You realize that means I won't be able to read it 'til Monday, most likely, if you wait.) 3: Why the HoS? Do you still believe Kayi is a stronger suspect than Beefster?

Also:

Trendall:

You promised a post yesterday--I have not seen it. What happened?
More when 1: I have time, and 2: when I complete my reread.
(

[SE]

This should be the longest a post should get, by the way--beyond this, and it's a wall.

[/SE]

)

[Mastin]

Small Edit BWOP: Longest an

average

post should be. It's alright to get longer, but anything longer will tend to take most if not all the screen--and that's where most people begin to call it a wall of text. So, on average, keep posts around that length or shorter.

[Mastin]

Lateral, in reading your Kayi case, it looks to me that basically, it boils down to Kayi being long-winded, and that being scummy to you. That's what I saw in the first quote, (she said too much, where a simple "I don't have enough to vote, yet" would have sufficed) and definitely the second. Some people just naturally are long-winded, especially if they're bad at explaining things. (I know I am.) Am I wrong, in that this seems to be your main point against her?

[Mastin]

L22: Thanks for the clarification.
Beef: He is voting, for his main suspect, Kayi, and is HoS'ing you. Really, I can understand missing a lot, but come on, bold things are bold to make sure you don't miss them, Beef. This isn't the first time, either; you've missed a lot of what others have said, too. It gives me more reason to keep my vote on you.

Anyway, I'm probably leaving for the weekend; be back Monday.

[Mastin]

Just a note: I'll have less time on today than normal, however, I think I can catch up. (With luck, without walling. Conciseness is something which we all should strive for. )

[Mastin]

...By the way what does HoS mean? I'm pretty sure FoS means finger of suspicion but I'm not sure of this one. [/stupid newbie question]

Apparently, you didn't catch my SEssion on the subject in my first real game post. (Second post.) Hand of Suspicion, basically treated as something ALMOST worthy of voting, more so than a Finger of Suspicion, which is a second suspect. HoS implies the two suspects are almost equal; FoS implies the FoS'd isn't as suspicious. Basically.

I honestly have no idea how to get a game started, and get conversation going, so I didn't know what to do there, but when I saw Jay's random vote I thought it was scummy.

[SE]

Spoiler: SEssion

Generally, you did the right thing. Random voting at the start is the norm. Other options have been tried, but the end result is pretty much the same: the game always begins pretty much on page two, regardless of RVS, RQS, or the "Debate Tactic"--a strategy where the first poster proposes they do not RVS and instead discuss immediately. There's pretty much no way to end it earlier than that without looking extremely bad. (Such as, my old Signature Move, voting myself and claiming scum.

That

always

got discussion going...on me. Do Not Try This

At Home, Kids

In A Game, Folks. )

So, an RVS was fine. When you saw Jay with a late RV after most thought the RVS to be over, you did the correct thing in pointing out how it's suspicious. Pursue any possible lead you have as to who the scum are, or--if you have the misfortune of being scum when a newbie--try your best to appear as if you are. Voting Jay when you thought him to be suspicious I believe was the correct move to do, because it was something which seemed like a genuine attempt at scum hunting--something which, regardless of alignment, is a good thing.

[/SE]

Though that could just be my opinion.
Anyway, that's page six; I don't have time for page seven at this time, but will come back, soon.

[Mastin]

Lateral sums up pretty much what I'd say about Jay's post. However, Jay is a newbie, and so, might not even know better. (Yes, this means it's time for another...)

[SE]

Spoiler: SEssion

WIFOM is an unusual acronym. Princess Bride, Wine [not whine] In Front Of Me: Wes versus "Inconceivable"-guy. On most sites, this kind of defense is actually fine, and many see it as valid. So, people on other sites tend to be shocked when what was once their best defense and one of their greatest tools turns out to be completely worthless at best, a scum tell at worst. As I mentioned early-on, I play Werewolf on another forum. In this forum, it was one of my main defenses, and--guess what?--it worked beautifully. It's an attractive concept.
Here's an older version of the current article. I've since also found it [WARNING! MastINC is not responsible for lost time on the following website!] useful to read a similar concept--simply put, it's such a psychological battle to be pretty much worthless.

I've seen articles which tend to disagree. Simply put, WIFOM is a very complex subject. People have argued both ways for WIFOM. It can be seen as a good thing, it can be seen as a bad thing. This one I found is an example of a middle ground--it recognizes that in most cases, WIFOM is bad, invalid, really. However, in its given example, you can tell it works, because it's risk-reward. My stance on this is somewhat similar, in some aspects: Look at this quote, from the EpicMafia article on WIFOM:

WIFOM is virtually everywhere in Mafia; therefore, the better is player is at WIFOM, the better that player is at Mafia. Expert Mafia play is about using WIFOM continuously to make oneself unpredictable and unreadable, being able to determine the roles of and predict the choices of other players, and manipulating the actions of the other players subtly yet efficiently to ensure your victory.

I agree with some of it--basically, anything can be made WIFOM if someone wants to argue hard enough against a point by calling it WIFOM, so WIFOM everywhere (as stated). The article referring to WIFOM making a good player also holds true, if speaking of night actions. It relates to Meta; if one is very good at manipulating their meta and night-actions, other players trying to play the WIFOM game* will end up losing. That kind of WIFOM is a valid scum tactic, something scum should do.

*Don't bother denying it: we all know that every single player in pretty much every game will try to guess who did what night actions, and why. It's almost always futile to determine things about the night actions--especially in Newbie Games--however, people still do it, regardless. Sometimes, it works. If the scum are even semi-good at night-WIFOM, it almost certainly won't.

However, during the day, I say that WIFOM is as the original articles say: not a good thing, ESPECIALLY applied to your own arguments. You could plan something out from the start, and later argue "scum would never do that!"--it's not going to convince anyone. It is a bad idea to employ this form of WIFOM. WIFOM has basically boiled down to a psychological battle, so there are multiple forms. Night-kill WIFOM is a valid scum tactic. Claiming so in-thread, not so much. I've used kill-WIFOM before: I killed people SUPPORTING me as Scum, and brought it up. Bad Move. Had someone ELSE pointed it out, it'd be a valid move. Basically, never use WIFOM to defend yourself. Similarly, try to avoid using (particularly, night-)WIFOM as an attack against someone; it rarely ends well.**

**Though as mentioned, we'll do this anyway. So, while you might not be able to avoid trying to figure out night actions, you can at least limit their influence on attacking another due to it.

There are so many articles on the subject that you could spend a week or two reading about the concept. We have a MD thread on it. I'm currently reading This Wiki Page I found on the subject. However, again, to me, it boils down to what kind of WIFOM you're talking about.
Back to the original post...that is bad WIFOM.
-You're defending yourself. If another did it, it wouldn't look as bad. (It would still be WIFOM, and of course, the person doing the defending might be linked to you. This is why post-WIFOM is almost always bad, as opposed to night-WIFOM only being mostly bad. )
-The nature of your actions. You could've planned that from the beginning, for all we know, and planned this as your perfect defense. We have no way of knowing any differently.

Sorry for the length of the SEssion. I guess I went overboard, because WIFOM is a huge subject. Basically, however, it boils down to this: Jay, your post was bad WIFOM, and it made you look more suspicious. Try to avoid WIFOM, unless you know what you're doing really well, and how to distinguish between the different types of WIFOM. My ramble about it is just my opinion, after all; it is not necessarily fact. (I am no expert on WIFOM. I might be good at reading emotions, but that's as far as my psychological skills go.)

[/SE]

I agree with Neruz's position against Beefster.

Mastin's a better SE than I am an IC, anyway. Listen to his advice.

Wow, uh, well...that's...I guess I should be honored?

[Mastin]

Anyway, to further my thinking:
Beefster: Get you head in the game. No, seriously, I'm going to rant on the subject to show you why that is really necessary.

Spoiler: I never thought I'd give a SEssion to an IC...

I can understand how doing the same thing over and over again might be a bit of a monotone, so I recognize you might never do another newbie game, but you still have to give this game your all. Remember what you said in your IC post? That this game was your top priority no matter what?

Live up to that promise

. I, for one, will never get tired of newbie games--there are four different setups, you can be multiple roles, experience the game twenty times each from a different angle, and--while not required (apparently) from a SE--you can teach newbies how to play, and that's one of the best things in a game, to me: knowing that you helped another player grow in their skill.
I understand how you might not like the idea of teaching. I understand how you might think you're not very good at it. But for Mod's sake,

do your best

! I'm not a perfect teacher; you won't be, either--that doesn't mean you shouldn't teach at all. That means you do whatever you can to teach. An IC who doesn't play and teach to the best of their ability can be worse than an IC who replaces out of the game. Simply put, you might not like the pressure of being the person people look up to...but that doesn't change the fact that they're still going to look up at you. You might think you're a terrible example to newbies...well, then, turn yourself around and do your best to make yourself a good example. It doesn't matter if you succeed or not; you just have to TRY.
So, yeah. You might've lost your motivation. I don't like being rude, but quite frankly, TOUGH LUCK. Just because you

think

you have no reason to play, doesn't mean you

don't

. You may have no interest in this game--that doesn't change the fact that you have to give it your all, you HAVE to play your best, because otherwise, you staying? Would be worse than you replacing out.

Also:

unvote
VOTE: Trendall

Why did you drop your case on Kayi, Beefster? Why change your vote, yet again? I know you stated your reason for Trend:

You've flown under the radar too long. Do something useful. (yay, hypocrisy!)

...But

why

do you find his pattern to be suspicious? Of course, to me, the answer is already there, but look at the newbies: they might not. This is a perfect example of something you can teach, Beefster. Why is flying under the radar for so long bad? Why do you think Trendall has flown under the radar at all?
These are all things you can easily answer.

[Mastin]

Sorry I didn't get on yesterday. Got sick. :/
Anyway, I got better.

Mod:

I won't be on Tomorrow. Veteran's Day and all that.
Should be back Friday, though.
(And I've got today, of course. )

[Mastin]

@Mastin: I like the teaching aspect, but I find explaining myself and being an example player to be a challenge, as I have a strange playstyle and I get my poor explanation powers from my dad. Then the aforementioned repetition gets to me.

*Rants*

Spoiler: tICher SEminar

If you like the teaching aspect,

then teach

! No excuses. Being an example player is, indeed, a challenge, one of the reasons I'm not sure I'll ever IC again: I am not the best example. So, what? Doesn't matter. They need a better example than "Guy who gives up after three or four votes are placed on them".

I

have an unusual playstyle, too. I'm freakin' Unabridged Mastin, an infamous player. Does that stop me from doing something I see to be my job? No. I, too, have VERY bad explanation abilities. The fact that I'm so long-winded should make that fact perfectly obvious. It doesn't stop me. And repetition? Sure, I can understand how you might feel differently, but I've already explained why every game seems unique to me, therefore, the repetition is lessened. Until you've been every role in every setup, you can't truly say the game is repetitive. That's 4 games as a 'nilla, 4 games as a goon, and 2 games as a roleblocker, plus 2 more as a cop, and 2 more as a doctor. That's 14 games before you even have a chance of calling it repetitive. Find ways to make the game interesting. Find things which make it fun, instead of repetitive. Don't be a 1a. If nothing else, be a 3a, but try to be a 2a or 4a! (See: My Player Type Theory for what I'm talking about.) As you are, it's really pathetic. People who give up have always bothered me, since what I consider my first game, Newbie 735. (Technically, my first game was 688, but I was scum, panicked, and replaced out. Scarred me forever. Yes, I'm that old; nearly 400 games have passed since I started playing! ) Two of the veteran players--both at IC level--not only gave up; they self-destructed, voted themselves, while throwing wild baseless accusations against their lynchers. Don't be like that, Beef. Never give up on a game. The game ends when you're lynched, or you replace out.

Never

sooner than that.

Also, Beef:

unvote, VOTE: Trendall

Why did you drop your case on Kayi, Beefster? Why change your vote, yet again? I know you stated your reason for Trend:

You've flown under the radar too long. Do something useful. (yay, hypocrisy!)

...But

why

do you find his pattern to be suspicious? Of course, to me, the answer is already there, but look at the newbies: they might not. This is a perfect example of something you can teach, Beefster. Why is flying under the radar for so long bad? Why do you think Trendall has flown under the radar at all?
These are all things you can easily answer.

---

I do not approve of Mute's Vote--Beef's definitely cracked under the pressure. But does that make him scum?

Mute:

Do you think Beefster is scum? If so, why?
I find that vote to be somewhat suspicious.

---

Anyway, be back in a few hours. Done with 7; I'll resume on 8.

[Mastin]

Nope, still not liking Mute's reasoning. It's better explained, but still feels wrong to me. When I have more time, I shall elaborate.

[Mastin]

I see Beefster's most recent vote as him trying to turn the bandwagon on him around to the most easy target, which seems to have become me over the past page or so.

I have not seen this. Explain.

I'm reluctant to hammer on Beefster right now, because if he flips as town, you'll all see me as an opportunistic mafia who lurks and then hammers on a town player.

This is scummy.

Spoiler: Now I'm doing Sessions for SE's, too!

Why is it scummy, Trend? Because, if you're town, this should be your last concern. We all make mistakes. None of us are perfect; we all have our flaws. If you hammered town, so what? We lose a town player, but gain information from their lynch. True, we wouldn't hit mafia, but we are one step closer to that. A pro-town player should realize this. They shouldn't fear the hammer, because hammering is part of the game. Scum, however, do: scum fear the hammer, because of the exact reason you state: they fear that it'll make them look scummy. It doesn't, not anymore, anyway. Most players who are even semi-experienced realize that hammering is far from a scumtell in most cases. Reluctance to hammer, however,

is

. You're afraid to look bad. Townfolk know they are town, and tend to be a

little

more on the carefree side. Remember my tells? This was one of the most valid for a reason--I've found it's around 60/40 for work/not work. Unless you're constantly cautious, there is no pro-town reason to fear the hammer of a player who

might

be town--they might also be scum; you don't know, if you're town!
If you're scum, however, you do. You

do

know they are town, and that you're hammering town, and that you'll look bad. Therefore, what you did was a bad scumtell, Trendall.
That said, though, just because you don't want to look like scum, doesn't mean there aren't any valid reasons to NOT hammer Beefster. In fact, a very pro-town reason was already brought up in-thread by Yenros: for more discussion. More discussion--99% of the time--will be better than less discussion. Considering how far away the deadline is,

that

is a valid reason to not hammer. Had you said that, I wouldn't have thought twice of it. That you

feared

hammering him, however, is what made it catch my eye.

Dang, I can't help myself. I just love teaching.

but trying to survive increases the chance of your faction winning. It's just as valid for a townie as it is for scum)

This is true, folks. However, do note that it reads like a defense to me, here. While what Beef says is valid, it seems again like something which is being used as an excuse.

Beefster, this has to be one of your best posts in the game so far. Keep it up. However, I do see something which I--again--see as more of an excuse.

Although, when I play, I try to take on multiple perspectives throughout the game so that I can try to understand the picture as a whole- and this can sometimes be seen as scummy, as well as leading to frequent vote changes.

Multiple perspectives? Fine. Understanding the picture as a whole? Good! Frequent vote changes? Unrelated to the previous two, in my mind, so to me, it seems like you're trying to tie your scummy behavior to a more pro-town action.
Also,

Beefster

, I know you changed your vote, but you still have yet to answer the questions I posted, then requoted here. You know, the part about voting Trendall instead of Kayi? I do want to hear you answer those.

[Mastin]

For reference, This is probably the most pro-town thing Jay has said all game. Asking questions is good.

[Mastin]

As I've said, the fact that on this site the day lasts so long is extreme culture shock (on the forum I mentioned and frequent, there have been two games that were started, and finished, and now are working on starting a third.) Whether that defense works for you or not, it is my reasoning.

Oh, it works...
...For a while.
You can only start to use that justification for so long before it morphs into an excuse. You're getting rather close to that mark, Mute.

Beefster has blatantly cracked under the pressure, and as far as i can tell he has not cracked in a town fashion.

[SE]

Spoiler: SEssion

Never,

ever

crack under pressure, folks. I know. It can be hard to stop, it can creep up unexpectedly, but you have to try. The end result of the crack is never pretty. If you maintain enough sanity, you'll ask for replacement if it's well before the deadline. If you aren't sane, or it's too late, you'll probably get yourself lynched.
Neither are desirable outcomes. Nobody wants to be replaced, nobody want to replace someone else (especially a mod). So, don't. crack. Avoid being in too many games. Note what makes you stressed and try to avoid it. Look for warning signs such as lethargy or--alternatively--extreme emotional swings. "THESE PEOPLE VOTING ME ARE SCUM, SO LYNCH THEM AFTER I FLIP TOWN! I AM THE TOWN DOCTOR, VOTE: ME!, LOOK, I JUST HAMMERED MYSELF!" (No, that's not me. I was in a game which had someone do that, and then, the next person did almost the same thing, only he was sane enough to not fakeclaim doctor. Two back to back IC-level people breaking like that...it's not a pretty sight.) Okay, so that's the extreme end of emotional breakdowns, but you get the idea. Too much emotion or not enough are both signs that perhaps you're beginning to become a little stressed.
Try to remain calm. Try to keep things logical. Even if you're a player working by gut and instinct, your normal methods are worthless if you're going to break down. Remain collected, try to piece yourself together, and never let yourself fall out of the game. This is particularly true if you ever decide to IC. Not only are ICs rare, but they also have the duty to teach. Some games only have one SE, and not all SEs are going to be able to be as good as I am, not able to match the IC. And even those that do won't like the pressure, as not all games have three SE's in addition to the IC; some only have one, as mentioned, so that one SE--even if they were like me--would feel the strain. Don't. Just don't break. It's one of the worst things you can do in a game. And that says a lot. My worst games are the ones where I was broken.
It also effects your reputation. Even if the breakdown is the exception to the rule, it will scar you forever. People remember players who either do really good, or really bad, generally. So, well...just...never give up. Ever. Not all losers are quitters...but all quitters are losers. Keep that in mind, forever. You never want to suffer a meltdown. It will always haunt you, even if you somehow manage to be forgotten by everyone else; you will remember the failure.
Take the warning well, and remember the warning signs, so make sure to -stay away from many games at once. Not necessarily playing just one, but definitely not playing ten. -If real life is a problem, replace out early, instead of late. If it's early, nobody will condemn you. You did the wrong thing. If it's late, you will be criticized. -If it's certain elements in a particular game, try to resolve them. If that is not possible, then again, ask for replacement. -Don't get bored. This is a big one. 1as aren't necessarily bad...but they more than likely will be. If you feel lethargy setting in, get out, quickly.
I'm getting really repetitive, so I'll stop, here. However, the message should be made clear, one more time: No matter your alignment, DO NOT CRACK UNDER PRESSURE. There's ALWAYS a way out. It is your job to assess how to avoid the pressure, or if you can't, find the best way to resolve it.
I...just feel really strongly about this subject. It's worse for an IC, sure, but to some extent, it's with all players. How many people have given up after one tough experience in a game, to never return? How many people have let a single bad experience put them down? Too many; don't let that be you.

Gotta go; see ya Friday.

[/SE]

[Mastin]

I'm switching my vote for pressure and reaction fishing. (same as previously) It's very useful later on.

Alright, then. 1: What reactions have you gotten so far?
2: "Fishing" is something you've called bad before. "To get reactions" is fine, but "reaction fishing" sounds like it's more subtle, and less direct--you know, like the other two that you've called bad, alignment and rolefishing? Do explain.
3: You're being lynched. You're at L-1. Explain how this information can be useful later on, if you're currently at a very real risk of being lynched.
Kayi here seems to mainly be mirroring things I said before. Mentions not liking Trend's post (something I mentioned here), and then, mirrors my dislike of Mute's recent posts.

@Kayi: Yes, my post was aggressive.

For reference, aggressiveness

can

be a good thing. Heck, it used to be one of my major town tells. However, not always. Pushing for the lynch of someone more on policy than actual evidence (as it seems to be with Mute), for example, is not a good way to channel aggression.

I don't feel like sitting back and letting us get boggled down in back and forths.

Spoiler: Minor SEssion

This is the nature of Mafia, Mute. We discuss things, back and forth. It might seem repetitive, but it is all good info, especially for later in a game when people do good rereads of the game. Discussion might not ALWAYS be the best thing...
...But it ALMOST always is. Even if the arguments seem like the same thing, over and over again, you can bring that fact up later in the game. "You didn't have multiple arguments. You had the. same. freakin'. one. Over and over again."<--Something like that, in a case against someone else, for example. It's valid, too! As scum, I tended to have a bad habit of mentioning the same thing over and over again, in a different wording than before, simply to try and nail the point in. I tried to get my targets lynched, pushing my case...yet I brought nothing new to it; it was always the same stuff.
As town, I did better. Not much, but better. I brought multiple cases together, and only after I had thought of every possible case I could make did I begin the repetition. So, subtle things like that can make a huge difference. So, like I said, there's no problem with back and forth conversation. It's part of the game, and can be great for rereads. (Particularly if the case someone made--which seemed valid at the time--on further inspection looks like total BS. If someone's pushing total BS constantly, there's something wrong.)

Get what I'm saying?

It is [the job of?] everyone here who is town to search and eliminate any mafia players, and I will do my damnedest to do so.

Funny, considering I didn't seem to get the impression that you really thought Beefster was scum. I got the strong vibe that you thought it was possible he was scum, but that you weren't even close to sure about it.

It's my duty as a townie to rid ourselves of scum, and by hunting them down I'm doing my part.

This might just be me, but I've found that someone constantly calling themselves town, and mentioning their duties and obligations, what the town should do, etc., and doing it frequently...
...Are generally up to something.

---

Anyway, have to leave, for now. Be back soon!

[Mastin]

Mod: Please Prod Trendall and RedCoyote. It's been three days since they last posted.

(Okay, so that's mostly meant as a joke, considering everything. However, Trendall--to my knowledge--has not posted anything about being V/LA--in fact, I seem to recall him stating that this would be his week off, and that he'd have more time available. So a prod might be a good idea, just in case. )

I think everyone's been okay, but I'll do an activity check anyways.

[Mastin]

I said earlier that the only fishing I agree with is reaction fishing.

Huh? I don't remember this. Care to point it out? I have a horrendously bad memory.

You can refer to what dead players said about others after knowing what they flipped. For example, if a cop dies, you may try to look for breadcrumbs in attempt to find who they investigated and what the result was. In my case specifically, you can look at how people reacted to my play, questions, pressure votes, and and use that to piece together a useful case.

In the case that you lynch someone else, though, the information is just as valuable, minus the flip.

But the person who was posting for those reactions--you--is going to be the best one at getting information from them. That's basically my main concern with this line of thinking--sure, we gain info, and quite some bit. However, because your intention was reaction fishing, you would be the best one at interpreting those reactions, most likely. So, we'd either have to keep you around, or lose a small amount of information. Get where I'm going with this? The words aren't coming to me easily. :/

[Mastin]

Ah, thanks.

[Mastin]

For reference, Trendall misinterpreted my SEssion's intended meaning. I will elaborate when I have the chance. However, quick version:
-He didn't quite understand what I meant to say. (I will attempt to clarify my wording soon.)
-This isn't subjective. This is stuff I HAVE noticed, in many games. It is very objective. Hence, it is valid to me as a SEssion. If this was just my opinion, I would most likely not have made it a SEssion. I've found it to be true on an overall scale. It's a long, LONG explanation. Heck, I might need to create a completely new article on the Wiki for it. Needless to say, this'll take time for me to explain in detail. So, short version short, Trendall is incorrect in presuming this was merely a speculative opinion-driven argument. Would violate my principles as a player.
-Even if what I said turns out to not be true, I have stated several times in the past that I am human. I make mistakes. I've been encouraging the IC and other SE(s) to call out any of my SEssions they think are wrong, in case they ARE just my opinion, instead of something backed up. I'm--as mentioned--a SE, not the IC. I'm not as good as an IC. Not even close. If--even after clarification, even after I've gathered all the evidence I can--the SEssion proves to be inaccurate, I will admit it was incorrect and I made an error as an SE. However, I still believe what I said is, in fact, valid.

Again, I don't have the time right now to explain, but I will, later in the day. This is something which needs elaboration badly.

---

Have to leave, now. Just a note: deadline's two days from now. However, I would ask that anyone considering hammering wait until I have elaborated on the above as promised. (Not to mention, comment on the other posts so far, today.)

[Mastin]

Here's my short post which I'll do before my explanation. (Speaking of which, if this gets too large of a debate for this game, remind me to make a MD thread about it when the game is over. We shouldn't do it while the game is ongoing.)
Yenros is right about Mute, though we're actually closer to deadline, now. (Two days.)

I'm unquestionably quite a good target here, seeing as I am 'lurking' or whatever.

Simple question, then:
What are you going to do to fix it, then?

I've gotta say, I'm going off the idea of a Beefster lynch a bit.

We're two days from the deadline. Got any other suggestions? I'm open to them.

I find it hard to believe that a scum player would act this out of the ordinary when the pressure's on them, especially on day one. I'd expect mafia to be trying to get votes off of themselves here, which Beefster doesn't seem to be doing.

By the way, this is another example of WIFOM. We don't know what Beefster is thinking. It could be that he wouldn't act that way, or maybe that's what he--as scum--is hoping for, so is taking a gambit.
Note that this case of WIFOM doesn't seem negative to me. Again, many arguments can be made WIFOM. Ack, exact words on this are escaping me. How about this: It's WIFOM, but not a scummy use of it. (I'm a little braindead, right now. Been sick the whole weekend, and I didn't sleep well last night. Sorry that I can't explain it better. I'm not sure I'm communicating my intended message, but can't think of a way to say it better.)

For reference, Neruz says here basically a huge part of what I was conveying with my SEssion. Fear of being lynched (before lylo--which in this game is a minimum of Day 3) is more a scum tell, than a null or town tell--and this applies to things looking really scummy, too. Fear of hammering, because it looks scummy. Scum don't want that. I've seen plenty of town people do it without fear.

Speaking of which, I think there's a slight need to make sure there's no confusion on a subject: "Reluctance to Hammer" is expressing willingness to do so, but being reluctant: to keep both options open. You could go either way on the matter. What was that scumtell? Wishy Washiness? I know there was a scumtell for that, though I don't remember its name. Basically, it's in the wording: scum will want to--as much as they can--take a neutral stance, so when the time comes, they can take advantage of their former-neutrality and choose whichever side benefits them the most, whereas if they committed to one, they couldn't change to the more beneficial one without looking scummy. Town players don't. They either will, or refuse.
"Refusal to Hammer", on the other hand, is flat-out stating you won't. It's a neutral to town tell, to contrast the Reluctance being far more a scumtell. Is it necessarily good for the town? No; in general, it actually tends to be anti-town to refuse to hammer...yet it's something VERY few scum will do. Simply put, it's something they fear doing. It's not only taking a stance which is impossible to reverse without consequences, it's ALSO an anti-town stance. (More clarification on terminology: "Anti-town" is something which works against the greater good of the town. It is not a scumtell to do something anti-town. Many players have anti-town playstyles, for example. They don't benefit the town, but it has no impact on alignment.) And scum don't want to take an anti-town stance, because--even though the two are separate (see my terminology clarification)--it puts them in the spotlight, perhaps permanently.
The other town (also neutral) reaction is to simply hammer, without reluctance.

A way to basically say it is, well, all players might have the same thought process on it. "Should I hammer, or shouldn't I?" Town players tend to post their conclusions--that is, "Yes, I should *Votes*", or "No, I won't." If they're undecided, they tend to not even mention it. (Well...okay, *I* don't.) Scum players tend to say, "Eh, I dunno, maybe..."--which a town player will think, sure. Thing is, the town players don't POST that.
I think, anyway. I remember seeing this before, somewhere, but I don't remember where. I think it was actually another player (possibly from ANOTHER source) who pointed out that scum players will say something which town players WOULD be thinking, but wouldn't say.

You'll note the lack of SE tags. I believe the above to be true, and if I researched it, would most likely be able to find more evidence supporting it. However, it's something I just now thought of. I have no backing for it. (The Relationship between Reluctance/Refusal/Insistence to Hammer is something I need to research more. Reluctance to Hammer, however--by itself--I consider part of a larger scumtell my SEssion attempted to explain. The fact that Trendall reacted this way means that I failed, obviously. [So, I will elaborate, once I post this.]
Is this making sense to you at all? >_<)

btw Mastin when you explain why something is scummy of another person (in order to accuse them) that shit stays out of SE tags.

That's the thing: it wasn't a suspicion. I wasn't accusing Trendall. I said it was scummy. I said it was a scumtell, and that Trendall caught my eye. However, I still currently think Trendall is town. There's a huge difference between these terms. Anti-town, scummy, and scumtell are all separate. In the case of Trendall's post, it was scummy because it was a major scumtell. (Scumtells aren't always scummy, believe it or not. Similarly, a LOT of things can be Scummy without any scumtells.) However, while it's going to make me keep a closer eye on Trendall (suppose it could be a full-on GMEOHim), it was not an accusation. I think he's town. I need to keep my eye on him in case I am wrong, obviously, but because I currently think he is town, I posted it as a SEssion on how to improve his play as town to avoid looking scummy. As a SE should do when they see scummy people they think are town, not scum. Their job (again, this is just for me, obviously, as SE-->Lesser IC to me, personally) is to teach.
If I was suspicious of Trendall enough to think he was a serious suspect, it wouldn't have been a SEssion. But while Trendall has certainly moved up on my scumdar a little, he's still near the bottom. Hence, SEssion, not accusation.

---

...Oh, dear. That was suppose to be the *brief* post! >_<

[Mastin]

Sorry. I'm really tired, right now. However, a promise is a promise. I tend to be very obsessive about honor, to the point where it can be unhealthy.

So, the above touched on the subject, but this will be longer; I can guarantee it. However, it is something which will be long. Very long, if I'm doing my job right.

Disclaimer:

This is meant for the people who read my SEssion and disagreed with it, thinking it was Opinion-based. Hopefully, this should clarify matters.

Spoiler: TRUST Me: You'll thank me for the Spoiler Tag

Just a small note, In a way, Trendall's statement actually ticks me off, so I'm probably letting that influence me a little. (Trendall said that it was subjective instead of objective. Now, that's fine; if it appears subjective instead of objective, I didn't do my job right, so it's a valid criticism. However, it can also be read as an accusation: I was abusing my SE status by throwing my opinion into the tags, and my opinion will almost always be influenced by my alignment. Meaning, it can be interpreted as an accusation that I was misleading newbies in a SEssion, which is so against my principles that it pushes a berserk button when people mention the possibility. Teaching should--as often as possible--be separate from playing.)

Anyway, with that out of my system, we can get on to me elaborating, as promised. (Promises are serious; I do NOT like it when a promise is broken.)

Reluctance to Hammer simply is a scumtell, and I think if we asked most veteran players, they'd agree. (I could be wrong about this, but I honestly don't think I am.)

Why

it is, however, is a bit more complicated. Again, I think they key is in the wording. For starters, there's this:

Why is [Reluctance To Hammer] scummy, Trend? Because, if you're town, this should be your last concern.

This might have been a poor choice of words on my part. Perhaps a better way to word it would be as such: "Reluctance to Hammer might be a thought all players have. However, for a pro-town player in a non-lylo situation, they should not be too concerned. They should be weighing other factors involved in it. The actual thought "To Hammer, or not to Hammer" might be in their head, however, there more often than not should be no pro-town reason to post that.
There is an exception, however. Say, you've gone through every single option you can think of which I'm about to go through. You've tried it all, seen the evidence for both sides, and are still undecided. THEN you can post, asking for other opinions on whether you should hammer.
However, it should be a question. It should be you asking for advice. You either post all or none of your reasoning for the pros and cons: no middle ground, like a single reason not to, such as, "A lurker such as me hammering would look bad". (Just an example, not meant as a paraphrase of Trendall's wording, just so we're clear. This is meant as a fictional example I thought up of.) If you have only one reason, you're probably not thinking about it enough. Again, many or none, no middle ground.
That's how you should go about asking about the hammer. It shows you have an open mind to possibilities. You're willing to listen. And if you ask for help deciding, you're more likely to have people think you're well-intentioned town who is genuinely having trouble decided." (Continuing on...)
That said,

We all make mistakes. None of us are perfect; we all have our flaws. If you hammered town, so what? We lose a town player, but gain information from their lynch. True, we wouldn't hit mafia, but we are one step closer to that.

This is something which goes into the above. It's something you should consider. Basically, it's alright if you screw up when you hammer. Many,

many

people have made mistakes by hammering someone who is town. However, it's not a bad thing. If nobody ever hammered, we'd never lynch scum, either. Sure, we'd avoid lynching town, but we wouldn't win, either, now, would we? So, it applies in that way, too: we could lose a town player, but we could hit scum, so there's no shame, no suspicion, in hammering. (Umm...

Most

of the time.) In the Pros section, there's the fact that we gain information from the lynch, no matter what. Sure, we have a con (we didn't hit mafia), but because of the Pro (we have information--we know the lynched was town. We know their opinion was genuine. We know that scum statistically are likely to have played a part in their lynch. [On average, scum tend to like being half-on, half-off. All-on is considered suicidal to more veteran players, because Bandwagon Analysis {looking at previous vote counts} sees that pattern really quickly.] All good stuff to know), we are one step closer to finding who the mafia are.
I mention other Pros later on, too.

That said, though, just because you don't want to look like scum, doesn't mean there aren't any valid reasons to NOT hammer Beefster. In fact, a very pro-town reason was already brought up in-thread by Yenros: for more discussion. More discussion--99% of the time--will be better than less discussion. Considering how far away the deadline is, that is a valid reason to not hammer. Had you [Trendall] said

that

, I wouldn't have thought twice of it.

A good pro-town player will be weighing all of this in their mind. A newbie might not think about the implications of this, but I can almost guarantee you all veteran players do this, even if they never think about it. It's such a small thing that it's basically subconscious, but yeah, I'd be surprised if someone experienced genuinely never thought of something like this. All of this leads to the next part:

They shouldn't fear the hammer, because hammering is part of the game.

I've explained this above. Without hammers, we never lynch. Without lynches, we never win. Sure. We

could

be lynching town...but we also could be lynching mafia. Townfolks have no way of knowing which is which.

Now on to the important part.

Scum, however, do [fear hammering]: scum fear the hammer, because of the exact reason you state: they fear that it'll make them look scummy.

This seemed self-explanatory to me. However, now that I look at it, I was right and wrong. It tells the message fine. However, it gives no proof. I state flat-out that scum fear hammering, because it'll make them look scummy. It's my fault that I didn't give you any evidence of this off the top of my head. I have dug up many links for this in the past, however, I'd have to track them down, and that--again--takes time. (This post has--as of now--taken me 40 minutes, and I'm not even close to done.) So, I'm afraid I still can't give examples of how this is true. But, the logic behind this isn't that hard to follow. Scum fear hammering, because of all the cons involved. For instance, it cuts discussion. Pro-town players oftentimes won't like that, because discussion is pro-town. The scum tend to know a few Pros to hammering, but mainly, their given reasonings are mostly BS for their true reasoning of wanting a mislynch to get closer to their victory. They post their willingness to hammer, but often times, give little to no reasoning why, instead preferring a reason or two to not. This is huge, because it shows that...what's the word...Fencesitting? Yeah, I think that's it! Fencesitting. Sitting in the middle of both sides. They can go to either side at will. If they can go to either side at will, they can take the side most advantageous to them in the end. They have a specific way of wording things. Words hold power. Sentence structure, synonyms, etc. People can be incredibly diplomatic with their wording, and this is what scum try to do. I elaborate on this in my post above.
Basically, scum...think that hammering will make them look worse. They think, however, that it's a good idea to express interest in hammering. "I mean, what's wrong with expressing interest? As long as they don't give the finishing blow to a townsperson, they're fine! After all, Refusing to hammer is a town tell. So, Reluctance to Hammer would look similar to Refusal, only when you get approval from the town, you can go ahead and hammer, without a complete reversal!"
...Yeah, basically that. I think this better explains the concept. I wish I had more proof. I know

I

think that way as scum. I've seen scum on multiple occasions show reluctance to hammer, but I don't have any links. It's a common scum thought process. I've seen it a lot more from scum than from town. Which is why it's what people consider to be a scumtell. (I could be wrong. But I don't think I am.)

As I mentioned, I truly do believe "Most players who are even semi-experienced realize that hammering is far from a scumtell in most cases.", as I said in that post. Again, this goes to "Yes! Hammer/No! Don't!/Hmm...Maybe?". I guess that's a larger part of my argument on the matter than I thought. One of the things you mention is my tells. That would be referring to this part:

Reluctance to hammer, however,

is

[a scumtell]. You're afraid to look bad. Townfolk know they are town, and tend to be a

little

more on the carefree side. Remember my tells? This was one of the most valid for a reason--I've found it's around 60/40 for work/not work. Unless you're constantly cautious, there is no pro-town reason to fear the hammer of a player who

might

be town--they might also be scum; you don't know, if you're town!
If you're scum, however, you do. You

do

know they are town, and that you're hammering town, and that you'll look bad. Therefore, what you did was a bad scumtell, Trendall.

In hindsight, saying it was a bad scumtell probably read as an accusation against Trendall; it was not intended as one. However, I'd like to point out that no scumtell is universal. Town people do scumtells all the time. It's a scum tell because it's more

likely

for it to be done by scum; it is not

required

for it to be done by scum. And as mentioned, some players ARE naturally cautious, and there's nothing wrong with that. If Trendall is as he says (I need to look at his past games), it could just be part of his meta.
The rest still applies, though. Scum who hammer are afraid to look bad. That's probably at the core of my argument, so you'll hear it a lot. (I wish I could be more clear and concise, but sadly, I was not gifted so.)
My link to the tell was a bit misleading, however. Town being a little more carefree was a bad way to say it. Basically, it's as I said. It's true as I mentioned that townspeople tend to be a little more on the "reckless" side, but a better way to say it is that they

appear

to be more on the reckless side. With that into account, I'd say the statistic would actually be more like 70/30. By appearing to be slightly more reckless, I'm of course--in this case--referring to Hammering. The Caution is Reluctance. Refusal is

also

on the reckless side of things, if we want to go by my tell.
Again, I think it was misleading for me to have that link. Caution and Recklessness are

similar

, but not identical, to what I was talking about. So while the links between them are strong, the cluttered nature of the above is proof about how they are slightly different. Reluctance will not always appear to be Caution, and Caution will not always appear to be Reluctance. However, if it DOES appear that the Reluctance is Caution (especially for a poorly justified reason, like, "It'll make me look scummy to hammer!"), it looks FAR worse.

Get what I'm saying NOW? (I hope so. I just hit the 70 minute mark. >_<)
Quick checklist...
-Addressed the lynching town concern. (Bad wording on my part.)
-Reinforced it was your stated reason, Trendall, which made it so scummy. (Your stated reason in your response was that you'd prefer more discussion until close to deadline. That's valid. Not hammering because you were lurking and it'd look scummy?
...Less so.)
-Addressed the Caution/Reckless Tell as best as I could. (It was a bit misleading, but if the two are linked, it'd be APPEARS to be Cautious and APPEARS to be Reckless, instead of being Reckless or Cautious. I'm well aware that many players are naturally cautious, and an equal number are naturally reckless. However, their moves in a particular game can be telling, because something APPEARING to be Cautious when it's actually a well-thought out decision is bad, because it shows that you've thought it out but still are in the middle. APPEARING to be Reckless is--similarly--when well-thought out is fine, but probably more null than town.
Or something like that. It's a hard point to clarify.)

Was there any I missed?

Okay.

Hopefully

, that clarifies everything. Sorry for its length, but "clarity and conciseness" does not mix well with Mr. Mastin Unabridged.
(Seriously, I wouldn't be surprised if I was diagnosed with obsessive compulsive wall-posting disorder. )
Total posting time: 90 minutes/an hour and a half. I have no life.

[Mastin]

What Beef says here is true--it's type 1 a in my player theory. That said, there are other reasons to suspect Beefster. (I've stated them in the past.)

[Mastin]

At least the fluff is all in one spot, and mostly out of view for those who don't want to see it. (Trust me, it wasn't always that way. It...was......interesting. )
I'm voting Beefster. Kayi is my secondary suspect. Neruz WAS behind her, but I'm thinking Jay is third. After that, it gets a bit more hard to tell. I've stated my reasons before; saying them again is a bit repetitive when it's not really that necessary, right now.

[Mastin]

*sigh* I wish we had more time. The day might've been stagnating a little, but there was still a lot I feel we could've gained if we had that extra time. Ah, well.

[Mastin]

For reference, I mainly did an ISO read of Kayi, and did not like what I was seeing. I need to catch up on the thread before I post anything, though.

[Mastin]

Upon looking at the stats, I support a no-lynch. "Wait, shouldn't you have already known?" I'm human, not a god.
I've personally never experienced a no-kill situation so early in the game. I've had one--later on--which made it 4p mylo instead of 3p lylo due to the doc both tunneling on me and misinterpreting me to think that the doc is someone else...when that person was the one person who I was sure wasn't the doc. >_<
I've also seen it intentionally as 6p, then (after a correct lynch) 4p. Those scenarios were different, and lynching both times (much to my chagrin in the former) actually worked for the town. However, this early in the game, after looking at the stats, no-lynching is logical.
So, I suppose no-lynching is our best option, but I would prefer to wait until after Thanksgiving. Lateral mentioned having experience with no-lynches, but that we should make sure everyone's here. I'll be here, tomorrow (unless weather prevents it--possible, considering the number of snow forecasts. >_<), but the day before, during, and after Thanksgiving--plus my normal weekends--I will not be here.

@Trendall & Lateralus: Lat, you from the get go were all Eager McBeaver to lynch Kayi, but then Trendall posts and you side with him soon after. I've had my suspicions of you both, but Lat's actions are definitely not something to dismiss.
Vote: Lateralus22

Elaboration, Mute. You have a grand total of 17 posts, and not a lot of content in there. Your Lat suspicion is good...but I'd need a lot more than this to go off of. Why are you suspicious of Lat and Trendall? Why Lat above Trendall? Things like that.
You elaborate, here, but do not explain yourself further. What suspicions of Lat? (Maybe it's just me, but I saw none of this yesterday.) Point out specifics, like the point about Lat siding with Trendall. Do it for yesterday as well.

Mute, for future reference, Claiming Early is a BAD idea.
Gotta go. I'll give a SEssion to Mute on this, but I have to leave. Be back soon.

[Mastin]

For reference, Mute is town. People might not think much of the early claim, but I'll tell you an interesting fact:
I've--quite frankly--never seen scum be stupid enough to claim so early.
Really, it's true. (Sorry, Mute, if that sounded a little offensive.) Every time I've seen someone claim before they're even close to L-1, they're town. (Not necessarily the role they say--there are plenty of people who lie about their roles as town in their first games because they think faking being a power role is a good idea.) Simply put, it's something scum don't do. Scum claim when they're panicked--under heavy pressure, which is almost certainly near L-1. Town claim whenever. Sometimes (like with me), it's when they have no choice: a claim or die situation. Other times, they have a good reason to. (Cop with a guilty, mainly.) However, there is a particular brand of people, who get the "e" word...that is, "emotional". And, oh, how many claims I've seen based off of emotion well before their time. Mute, yours was an example of this. Perhaps you had some logic behind it, but claiming so soon was not the smartest move. I do see the logic behind revealing your protection after there was no death...but keep in mind, the scum could've chosen a no-kill, or maybe even missed their kill. (I've seen scum who talked close to deadline, but missed it because they were still talking, and of course, there's always the classical scum were both gone. Those are the two extremes [too active to submit a kill, too inactive to submit a kill], but there's a middle ground.) So, by claiming, you can't clear Kayi, nor yourself (though I am inclined to believe you--it also fits with your play, but now that you've claimed, you better be more active today). I like to use the term "semi-clear" for situations like this. Simply put, it means Kayi (your target on a night we had no death) is more likely to be town...but not confirmed town. So, claiming early-->Not a good idea.
For reference, with this claim, we should NOT no-lynch today. Call Mute a clear, who'll die tonight for sure. No-lynching just isn't an option with a claim, whether you believe it or not.
Have to leave, again, but I'll even further elaborate when I have more than ten minutes.

[Mastin]

Okay, this is a bit long, and it's mostly directed at Mute. I think there's a bit of personal opinion in it, but still is good advise.

Spoiler: I wouldn't call it a SEssion, but it's close

and at the onset of this day Lat votes for him without giving any reason.

For reference, I've seen this accusation many times before, after a failed kill. "Oh, look, that person is immediately voting for someone after a no-kill. They must want a second shot at killing that person!" In your case, that logic is even more valid. However, I've found it to only been true a small fraction of times. Most of the time, if the scum kill someone, and that kill doesn't go through, they instead try to make that person look like they're practically confirmed town. This might just be my personal experience on the matter, and it's heavily influenced by off-site experience, but I still think that what you should look out for is other people calling your protect confirmed town.

However, Lat voting for Kayi immediately I

do

find to be valid, just not for your stated reason.

Lateral:

You need to answer--Why'd you vote Kayi at the beginning of the day? (I did not see why.)

(Nevermind; answered later.)

Spoiler: The Not-Quite-SEssion Continued

@Mastin: *shrug* I have a strong suspicion of Lat (~92% if i had to give a percentage), the only reason I even decided to claim.

Something like 92? General rule of thumb: if you think your suspicion of someone is above 90, chances are, you're beginning to tunnel on them. (This, too, might just be my personal preference, however, I've noted that every time I've been above 90, it's tunneling, and every time below 85, it's not.) So, Mute, got any other suspects, other than Trendall who is guilty by association? (You

do

know that logical fallacy, right?) If you can answer "yes" and give reasons as to why, then you're not tunneling. Otherwise, you need to step back and observe the game, double-check your reads, and look at more than two or three people. If you look at everyone and still conclude that Lateral is scum,

then

you push the case you have.
This might seem like a lot to do, but you would not believe how many games have been lost to tunnel visioning. And how frequently it happens, too. I've personally tunneled in...oh, probably about 80% of my town games, and 40% of my anti-town games. I've seen tunneling in...oh, probably about 90% of my games. I can think of maybe two or three which there wasn't tunneling in. Tunneling is such a big issue, and many don't know they are doing it until it's too late, so this is a bit of a big subject to me.

Lateral makes a good point in that he had been building a heavy case on Kayi yesterday. However,

Lateral:

Why didn't you mention that your reason for voting was your case yesterday until just now?
For reference, again, I don't think Lateral is scum. If he was, then (assuming there was a kill on Kayi, not a missed or no kill) he chose to deliberately NK his main suspect. He was voting Kayi all of yesterday and had built his case on her. To kill her...That makes no logical sense at all. "Oh, hey, I've made this person look scummy! Let's NK them!" That might happen from, oh, a 2a player (I need to make that thread into a Wiki article), but Lat strikes me as more of a 3a, personally. (2a--play for personal fun. 3a--play for personal win.) So, Lateral as scum shouldn't NK Kayi. So,
-If Kayi is confirmed town to you, Mute, then I would say Lateral is not scum.
-If Lateral WOULD be scum, Kayi probably wasn't targeted last night, and therefore, is not even close to confirmed town.
That's my take on it. Anyone disagree with the logic that killing your largest suspect is a huge scum "NO!"?

Mastin, we can't possibly know if Mute will die tonight. That would be making strong assumptions about what the Mafia would do. And we don't really know that, so I don't really like your assuming that the Mafia will kill Mute on N2. I don't want to go into WIFOM-y territory, but I think you know what I mean. And why is NL a bad option with a claim like this?

There are only three possibilities here, Kayi:
1: Mute is scum, and the scum no-killed or missed their kill. (There has been no doctor counter-claim, so Mute is either the doctor or nobody is.) This is extremely doubtful, from my experience; NO scum claims unless they're close to a lynch; town claim whenever they feel like claiming. Mute had no reason to claim prematurely as scum; it's risky, perhaps suicidal, and there's always the chance of a counter-claim. So, that makes this doubtful.
2: Mute is town, and the scum leave Mute alive to frame him. Possible, but doubtful. Mute to me is confirmed town for the claim. (It wasn't a GOOD claim, and I would've rather had Mute not claim when it wasn't really needed, but we have to make the most of what's been done and not waste it.)
Or
3: The most likely, the scum kill the claimed, practically-confirmed-town doctor, Mute.
We lose a clear. Right now, there are effectively only seven suspects (six if you count Kayi as clear, five if you want to rule yourself out), which is the same as if we had a night-kill and there'd be seven alive. If we no-lynch, we lose the town role whose opinion could go to very good use today. If we no lynch, we waste Mute; Mute dies, and we have nothing new. Simply put, we probably should no lynch--but not today. Today, we should lynch. For today, we have Mute, which we will not have tomorrow.
We should not NL with a claimed doctor. It puts the scum in an extremely favorable position. Statistically, there's no difference. Seven people who could get lynched. The difference is, in one, we have an extra voice, in the other, we do not. A town needs every opinion it can get. Mute, for example, is beginning a Lat and Trend case. If we NL'd, then Mute couldn't continue building those cases, now, could he?

[Mastin]

Sorry, but I'm leaving an hour early today--Washington just got a huge load of snow, dangerous conditions and all that, so I'm leaving for today. (This might also mean I MAY not be able to get on tomorrow. However, I believe that I will*. )
*Kinda have to, considering Thanksgiving and all.

[Mastin]

Sorry, sorry, sorry, oh so sorry I couldn't keep my word and post on Tuesday.
For the same reason I had to leave early last Monday, I couldn't post on any other day:
Conditions. They were bad. Specifically, I was snowed in. 4 inches of dry snow+slick ice+a steep hill = trapped. ;(
Ah, well. We all know these things happen. Real Life Writes The Plot, sad as it is. :/
My bad. :'(
Anyway, I'm back...

[Mastin]

Jay's post here has a lot of what seems like noise. Jay's mentioning a lot of things I already have. He--with a slight case of paranoia--brings up things he doesn't even believe to be true (Mute possibly being scum). The last part addressing Mute I found valid, though.

My suspicion is that L22 and whomever else is mafia is piggy backing onto someone else to spread the suspicion from them.

What exactly do you mean by piggybacking on someone else? That term can have multiple meanings. It could mean the scum are supporting someone else ("Yeah, you're right, X!" "X is right." "I agree with X", etc.), or that the scum are supporting a certain wagon. ("Vote: Y; I like this wagon", "Vote: Y, because of *reasons*" when Y is a leading wagon.) The two are completely different, and I feel like there's another meaning it could be, though whatever it is slips my mind. (I got one or two hours of sleep last night. Kinda braindead. )
Anyway, I think that's the only game content we've had so far. I'll need to reread the thread to get suspicions, but right now--off the top of my head--I'd take a guess and say it's Jay and Trendall. (But, again, mostly gut; I need to reread the thread to make sure.)

[Mastin]

Hi, Nacho. I've seen you around, but I don't think we've ever played together.
I look forward to your fresh perspective.

Lynch today and no lynch tomorrow, am I right?

Agreed. As I said, I think my main suspect right now would be Jay. (It WAS Kayi, but due to Mute, she gets a pass for now as semi-confirmed*.)

(*See previous post on what "semi-confirmed" means: not confirmed, but less likely to be scum, so should be left alone for now.)

[Mastin]

I'll do one, soon, too.

[Mastin]

...and the doctor's protect during the night isn't confirmed as town alongside her?

Semi-confirmed. As in, will not be lynched today, at the very least.
Anyway, we should not no-lynch, as we have only 7 possible lynch candidates in theory, 6 in practice. That's better odds than we'll ever get by no lynching.

[Mastin]

Six in practice is better odds than a no-lynch will ever give us, Nacho, because if we no-lynch, one of the two outsides is killed, still leaving us with...yup, six in practice. In other words, we gain NOTHING from no lynching; it is statistically identical to lynching today.
What we gain from NOT no lynching, however, is an extra player's opinion we would not otherwise have.

[Mastin]

Have I given a SEssion on Isolation Reads this game, or do I need to tICh people what it means?
Hmm...Jay said he'd be fairly active. True, he seems active during certain times, but most of the time, his posts are every-other day.

Jay:

Any reason for this?
Anyway, I'll put it in spoiler tags 'cause it'll be a bit of a long wall.

Spoiler: Jay Isolation Read continued

Jay randomly voted Mute. Doesn't sit well with me, considering Mute's claim. Jay says he was panicking, but I'm not sure the story is legitimate. Maybe on that website, but on here? That mechanic doesn't really exist. Unfortunately, that's the kind of thing you can never gather evidence either way for; I can't tell if he meant it.
He engages in OMGUS against Yenros, here, yet still has a Mute vote instead of switching to his suspect, keeping that random vote.
He also employs the Too Townie To be Town fallacy.
He says he's reading the thread. He asks about HoS--something I mentioned in detail in pretty much my first vote--so obviously, he either 1: skimmed, or 2: lied about the reread. More than that, he now has a Beefster suspicion. His vote?
...Still on Mute. He said he wasn't 100% on it--but, hey, if you're more than 25% sure someone's scum (9 players minus self-->8 players, 2 scum-->2/8-->25%.), then you should still be voting them, because they're more likely in your eyes to be scum than the standard percentage.
He uses Wifom here, too. He was aware of what Wifom was, too, and yet, he was using it. Reads similar to scum who've read about wifom and thought it was a good idea to use it to survive.
This is Jay's best post so far.
Promises a reread, but does not follow through, at least, not with a vote. He's still on his random vote.

Jay:

You mention not knowing our abbreviations...so how did you know Wifom, exactly? Sites which use Wifom tend to use other terms you see here, too, 'cause most likely, they copied the terms from here.

Spoiler: Jay Continued

This is one of his best posts, by the way. However, he never followed through or if he did, didn't give his conclusions.
This post reads as massive paranoia. There might be a few valid points, but they're buried in the pile of mostly-fluff.
He also has not given any content from his last reread.

Jay:

Have you gained anything from any of your rereads? If so, Mind posting your thoughts?

---

Next on my list of to-reads in ISO is Neruz.

Spoiler: Neruz ISO

Starts the game voting for the IC. I am not particularly fond of this, quite honestly.
Something in this post seems off to me. I can't put my finger on it, but this post rubs me the wrong way.
However, I have a town read on Neruz, for posts like this.

I suppose that's it, for now; more ISO reads when I come back. (Then actual in-game after all my Iso's are done.)

[Mastin]

I don't understand what you mean by that it does not sit well with you considering Mute's claim.

I find it a bit uneasy that--of all the people to random vote--you got the doctor. Granted, there's no way anyone regardless of alignment would know (unless you're one of the crazies and think Mute's lying... ), but it still rubs me the wrong way. Call it mainly gut, I suppose. It just...feels wrong.

and as for the fact that I never changed it, despite voicing suspicions of Yenros and Beefster, because I was not completely sure of my suspicions yet and wanted to think them over more.

Then why have the vote still on Mute at all, after the phantom issue was cleared up and it was clear that wouldn't happen on this site? (Outside of a really messed up theme game, at least.)
And for that matter, you can never be 100% sure about anyone unless you're the cop, yet you certainly believed them to be scum at the time; why so reluctant to change votes from someone random to someone not?

When I had more time to research things, I looked WIFOM up on the Wiki.

Out of curiosity, when'd you look? The article had been under recent discussion and editing for a while, so it might've changed.

For some reason it just felt like I was missing something

For reference, if you feel like you're missing something, check again. Double-, then triple-check something. If you still can't find anything, look beyond the literal words people are giving, and try to see inside of them. If you feel like you're missing something, 95% of the time, you are.
Thanks for answering what you did, Jay.
But, well,

Jay:

what are your suspicions at this point?
...Actually, given recent events, I think that's a question we should all answer:

Everyone:

who is/are your current suspects?
(For me, it's still Jay, but I'll wait for the answers. Trendall would most likely be my secondary suspect.)

[Mastin]

Mod:

Just a note, I'll have slightly reduced access 'til January, due to the upcoming Holidays. ("But those aren't for another two or three weeks!" Considering I'm going out-of-state [don't worry, I have access where I'm going] for them, that means there's a lot of planning involved.) I should have access at least twice a week, though I'll try to get on more.

[Mastin]

Alright, from what I'm seeing...
...I've concluded that inactivity is killing this game. We're all posting within the limit (so something like a mass-prod probably wouldn't do any good), but quite frankly, I've come to the conclusion that we've stalled the game, and that if this continues, the result will be a last-minute rush to lynch someone, and the end result will be a less-solid lynch than we desire.
So, I'm going to

Vote: Trendall

. I haven't reread him, but I'm thinking at this point, I really should.

It's harder to get a read on you for your long posting, and I've noticed you use it to hide some terrible arguments.

Oh, come on, Nacho. I know we haven't played with each other, but I've seen you around for quite some time; surely, you've seen the same of me. That's my natural style. It's something I've been constantly trying to better in my playstyle, 'cause it's a weakspot. It's a part of my meta which I'm trying to change, but obviously, not successfully. My posts are long, yeah, but it's not intentional, and never would I try to hide anything in there. "Hide terrible arguments" has been an excuse against wall-posters since well-before my time (though it obviously increased quite some bit after I arrived in February '09), but never have I seen it to be true.

For example, the case on Jay.

That wasn't a case, Nacho. That was an ISO read with questions addressing Jay. There's a difference. I was expressing my opinion on some of Jay's posts, and asking for clarification. That's part of how you scum hunt, no?

What's the point of posting something like "you random voted the doctor"?

I, myself, pointed out how Jay had no way of knowing Mute was the doctor; it just felt uneasy to me. I admitted it was my gut acting up, if you paid attention. As it was gut--something you can't defend against--it was not a point against Jay; merely my personal feelings about Jay.
For reference, this post by Trendall is a good starting point for why I'm voting him. Let's start, shall we?

I've gotta say, I agree with the arguments against Mastin here.

Buddying to Nacho, same player slot as L22.

For somebody who's talking so much and telling everybody else how to play, I'd expect him to do a far better job of finding the mafia than he has been doing.

This is SERIOUS Burden of Proficiency. I'm quite the mediocre player, really. If anything, I'm a bad player. I've said it before: the main reason I'm so good at teaching is 'cause I know--from first-hand experience--exactly what NOT to do. That doesn't necessarily mean I can do what I'm supposed to very well. It just means I know what to avoid doing, nothing more.

His arguments against Jay, especially 'you randomly voted for the doctor when nobody knew who the doctor was' are just terrible.

Re-using Nacho's flawed argument, when I made it clear it was an ISO-read of Jay, not a case against Jay. ISO: Isolation read. Not case. It says so in the post I made it in. Also, again, it was not a point against Jay. As it was gut, I cannot in any fair mindset use it as a valid argument against Jay, for it is extremely opinionated, instead of evaluated. Subjective, instead of objective. It's my personal feeling on the matter, not something which is a logical argument against Jay. Instinct over Intuition. How many ways do you want me to say it?

Then again, I'll have to do an ISO read before I can commit to this more.

Add in fencesitting to all this. It's still a quite valid tell.

Some players do just make bad arguments against people regardless of whether they're town or mafia. However, there have been a number of times when I've seen Mastin make an argument against either me or another player, and I've just thought 'what? That's nonsense'.

*points to wiki* Again, I've been trying to improve my playstyle, solidify it, use better logic and all that, but I'm not a god. I'm quite frankly rather human, and I have a LOT of flaws in my play. My job as an SE (to me) is to try and teach others how to

avoid

those mistakes, to remove those flaws. (That's one of the reasons I will likely never IC: An IC is supposed to be the best a player can be. They're supposed to be the role-models for players. I can't be a role-model. I have too many flaws in my playstyle to be that good example. I can teach them how to avoid the mistakes--like an IC should--but I cannot demonstrate for them how, because I still have the problems which were developing way back in my second game, Newbie 742.) My arguments have never been renowned for good logic. I've been right for all the wrong reasons quite often in my mafia career. So, I don't consider this to be valid.

---

Sorry, I have to leave, now, but this is a good start for me, I think. I have a good start on my Trendall case. (Not just ISO. I'll be doing ISO as part of the case, though.)

Fixed tags.

[Mastin]

Bah, broken quote tags.

[Mastin]

The problem I have with this is...why would you bring this stuff about Jay at all if you don't find it scummy?

I brought it up because it was a gut feeling. Gut gives somewhat-scummy reads, so I did find it scummy. It's just nothing which is valid as something I could use in a case, 'cause gut is not an argument. It's still something I should have--and therefore, did--point out; I explained why it made me feel a little worse about Jay, personally.
Basically, there's a big difference between an ISO, and a case; if this were a case, I probably wouldn't have brought it up, 'cause it doesn't stand as evidence. As it's an ISO, I did.

You posted a couple of posts before your read on Jay that him and I were your top suspects, so I thought that it was kind of heavily implied that you were trying to build an argument against him.

You read your top suspects to get a better feeling for them first. If you see them as better, you explain why. If you see them as worse, you begin to build a case. Jay made me feel about the same, however, his answers made me feel a little better, so I'm not going to build a case against him, if that makes sense. (Sorry, I'm a bit busy right now, partially braindead and in a rush.)

Are you seriously telling us that that wasn't intended to be an argument against Jay?

Yeah, 'cause I made it clear it wasn't. It was me, truthfully posting my gut feeling about Jay. Gut!=Case, Gut !=Evidence. Gut doesn't hold in an argument, so yes, it was not an argument against Jay.

You were just saying that as an interesting observation that doesn't have any bearing on what you interpret Jay's alignment to be?

No, that isn't true, either. I said it was a gut read, which made me feel worse about Jay. Gut !=not valid at all. Gut isn't valid in an argument, but it is a valid reason to suspect someone.
Really have to leave; answer rest later.

[Mastin]

Continuing on...

As far as I can tell, what's just happened here is you've tried to make an argument against Jay, other people have told you that your argument isn't very good, and you've gone 'oh, well I wasn't trying to make a case anyway'.

Thing is, if it was a case, I would've marked it as a case. It's really quite that simple. I didn't. If I make an argument against someone to be lynched, I make it clear. I'll pull up examples from past games--old as they are--or even ones from off-forum (where I'm playing Werewolf) if necessary. When I make a case, it's quite clear it's a case. When I make a read, it's quite clear it's just a read. Lots of times, when I do a read, it contains a lot of information, but virtually zero analysis of said information until later. I'll put notes in, like "X and Y seem to be close, hmm...", but I do not form a conclusion from all of it until I'm done, and those small opinions are often replaced with the bigger picture instead of that smaller place. It's, uh, really hard to describe, but I do do it. When I make a case, I accentuate everything, not just the bigger picture. I tend to give the larger points first, and then go into more specific points as I go in, trying to further convince others of my case, and why I'm right. There's a huge difference. Like right now, I'm beginning to build a case on you. I mentioned specific instances which are part of the larger problem against you, Trendall, and I intend to back them up with further proof, later. Buddying to Nacho, Burden of Proficiency (you used it against Beef as well, if memory serves--will need to look at), and fencesitting (which I believe you also did yesterday; will need to check). These three points are probably going to be the basis of my case. These go beyond casual observation, what I'd do in an ISO read.
Does that make sense to you? ISO reads and building a case are two entirely different things. The former is something which is almost always (but not necessary--plenty of cases can be built without ISO-reads) part of the latter...but it is NOT true vice-versa. You do not need to build a case to do ISO reads. I was intending on doing an ISO for every player, but ran out of time. Was my ISO on Neruz a case against him?
No, it wasn't. It was pointing out a few spots which made me uneasy about Neruz, however, I concluded after reading through his ISO that points like the post I gave made him town, and that there'd be no point in listing every single post of his I like, every single one I find neutral, etc., when the vast majority I actually liked. I pointed out the only spots which make me doubt Neruz.
I did the same for Jay, only there were more.
Neither was a case. Both were ISO-reads.

This behaviour just strikes me as very over-defensive.

*Points to wiki*. I take attacks somewhat personally. If you attack my play, that's fine. I'll point out why your attacks are wrong, and that'll be it. Attack my character, and I take offense. You're doubting my terminology. That definitely pushes into the latter. And when someone insults my integrity, I take SERIOUS offense. I go out of my way, rambling on and on to explain just how they're wrong, and most likely, I will not stop it until they admit they're wrong and apologize. I. Hate. Personal. Attacks.

No it isn't. Read my previous games. I was town in both. I was exactly the same. I'd rather vote correctly than go around haphazardly voting for anybody. I'm considering the possibility that you might be town. If that's going to be a problem for you, then I won't bother rereading and will just go ahead and vote for you now

Threatening me, eh? Piece of advice: threats tend to backfire, especially against people who don't really care about threats like being voted. Go ahead, vote me if you like. It'll just be another piece of information for me to use to catch scum, and at this point, it looks like it'd be you.

Okay, so what is an ISO read? I'm quite confused.

>_<
I could've sworn I explained that.

[SE]

An "ISO read", AKA, "Iso read" and "Isolation" is when you look at someone's posts specifically. You can do this by looking at the "Display posts by user:
" area. By default, it's "All users". You can click the drop-down menu and choose a specific player. When you hit "Go", you'll see posts from just that person in this thread. That is what we call an Isolation Read, or ISO read for short. It's a bit of site-specific terminology, 'cause not many sites allow you to filter out other users.

[/SE]

[Mastin]

Sorry about the length. Trendall made me a bit emotional, and when I get emotional, I rant heavily.
(Defense mechanism, I suppose.) Probably should try to keep a cooler head, as I wouldn't be surprised if these attacks were deliberate; many, MANY players who lose their cool COMPLETELY self-destruct and lynch themselves, and if I don't gain control of myself, I might end up doing that.
Anyway, I have to leave, now, but I do have Trendall's posts in ISO, so I can look when I'm away. (If I get the time. >_<)

[Mastin]

Your vote on Trendall seems kind of rushed.

1: I was in a hurry.
2: I am not sure how much access I'll have in the future, so I need to get as much done in what little time I have as possible.
3: This game has somewhat stalled; the vote should hopefully liven it up.
4: Deadline's a week away. That's not much time; I'd rather throw my vote out now than have a last minute rush; said rush could potentially be disastrous, as I've explained in the past.
So, yeah, it was rushed.

You mention fencesitting because he wanted to do an ISO before being fully sure of his suspicion of you, but how is that any different than how you did an ISO of me? It seems now that you thought I was suspicious, having voiced your suspicion of me before, so you did an ISO, and decided Trendall was a bit more suspicious.

You just answered yourself, Jay. Trendall was fencesitting, unsure of whether to think I am town or not. He expressed interest, but was still in the middle. I, however, was quite suspicious of you, but found you less so after it. While I wasn't voting you, Jay, I was quite concrete on my suspicion of you. Trendall, on the other hand, wasn't as concrete. He was far more in the middle. While certainly leaning towards the scum side, he refused to take a full stance on me, hence, fencesitting. Hope that clarifies the difference.

...You know, this next section is so long and directed at Trendall, it deserves spoiler tags for him.

Spoiler: Mainly Answer Trendall

Why did you feel it necessary to say 'Jay randomly voted Mute. Doesn't sit well with me, considering Mute's claim'?

'Cause you should point out gut reads of yours. It's simply a bad idea to keep gut reads away. If you suspect player x because of y not sitting well with your gut...you better explain you suspect player x because y doesn't sit well with your gut. It's not something you can use in a case. Again, huge difference between a case and, say, an observation. A case is actively trying to push for everyone to lynch who the case is against. Pointing out your gut reads doesn't fit into that category; it's more like what you do when you have just replaced into a game; you read it, and summarize your current game thoughts in one/a series of catchup posts; you include gut reads in there, don't you? (Okay, so I might be one of the few who actually has experience with that, but in my experience, yes, you do post your gut reads then.) I'm finding it difficult to explain, but this is no different.
It's not a case.
But it's not irrelevant, either. It's something which should be brought up, but can't be used in a case against Jay.
That's really the best I can do to explain it. (I'm terrible with words. >_< Problem with me is that I have the unique trait that I am obsessive about wanting to explain exactly what I mean...and at the same time, have the disability that I really suck at explaining things. :/ End result, rambles until I can convey the message. >_>)

I can only see two possibilities - either you brought it up because you thought that it was scummy and needed attention drawn to it (which you seem to be vehemently denying),

No, it was scummy. How many times do I have to say it? Gut reads can be something scummy. They can't be used in a case, but that doesn't mean they're invalid. They're invalid for a CASE. They're not invalid for EVERYTHING. Huge difference. I had a gut read on it, and that gut read was a scummy read. That's valid. In no way am I denying that it was scummy that way.
I can't use a gut read as evidence against someone, so it's invalid for a case. That's what I'm denying, that I was using it as evidence against Jay in a case, where I--once again--must insist I was not building a case.
See the difference? This really shouldn't be that hard to understand. Gut != Invalid. Gut != Usable as Evidence. Gut = Valid Opinion. Gut != Valid Evidence. (Subjective, Objective, that kind of thing.) What's so hard to understand? >_<

What am I meant to be looking at on the Wiki, and where are the personal attacks exactly?

Hmm, my bad. Sometimes, I forget I have one of the longest Wiki pages on the site. Basically, you can look at the Quotes and my Games sections. You should get an idea fairly quickly how I used to (old notes), and currently (Flake Notes) perceive myself, as well as how others have. It shouldn't take much guess-work to figure out I got offended easily about some things. In particular, I remember this line from the old notes section:
"Another game which proves lurking from me is not a scumtell". (Jungle Republic, I believe.) I was overstretched (a dozen games) and becoming increasingly V/LA, so when Yos2 and iamausername accused me of lurking, I took it quite personally. Another example is Inventor Mafia, where I was lynched on day one for basically not contributing anything really useful; I was in the middle of writing it when I was hammered, so I never got around to it; that ticked me off to no end; I was mostly busy defending myself and didn't have the time for offense 'cause people were attacking me, personally, and I HAD to defend against it. (Lurking was among said accusations.)
As for the parts I'm taking personally in your posts, I believe I've explained; I'll probably do so again in my ISO-read of you.

that this is now the second time that I've made what I feel to be a fair argument against you, and you've taken it as a personal attack and basically said 'no, you can't make that argument, it's out of bounds'.

Well, then, find an argument which isn't attacking my integrity. I do not like being attacked as a person. If you point out specific things I've done which you consider scummy, that's fine. But if it's something I feel is attacking who I am as a person, I'm going to take offense, as I have.

1. Buddying with Nacho - I happen to agree with him. Why am I mafia and Nacho isn't? He's the one who brought this up

'Cause unlike with Mute, I feel like you are more suspicious than Nacho. I had a town read on Lat. You seem more guilty of buddying than Nacho or Lat were, and for that, you're more suspicious to me than Nacho would be. Though I do eagerly await Nacho's answers to me.

2. Burden of Proficiency - Making an argument with a fallacy isn't scummy at all.

It is for someone who should know better. Come on, you can't tell me that in either of your previous games, this was never brought up. It had to have been, so you should know better. Newbies are encouraged to read the wiki, and while most tells tend to be a little out-dated, logical fallacies never are.

Logical fallacies like this exist in real life, and everybody makes them.

Yeah, but we have no way of discerning the difference between someone who's a fool that honestly believes the logical fallacy and someone who's mafia who's trying to use it to their advantage. In some cases, it'd be the former, yes. For someone with two games under their belt and quite some way into their third, I would've expected them to have been exposed to said logical fallacy. In fact, I could've sworn it was brought up earlier in this game, too.

My real life friends make arguments with fallacies in them all the time, but it doesn't mean that my friends are part of a mafia organisation.

This is completely and utterly unrelated; it's worthless filler. The two are totally different scenarios. In real life, something like 1/1,000,000 will be a member of a mafia organization. In newbie games, it's 2/9. You can't apply that kind of logic, Trend; it simply doesn't work. It's borderline another logical fallacy, though I don't remember which.

Plus, as the Wiki says, it's not necessarily even a fallacy. If a player is behaving differently from how you'd expect them to, then that should naturally raise suspicions, and you're not playing as well as I'd expect you to.

True, it's not necessarily a fallacy. My argument about you should have in your time being exposed to said fallacy above would potentially qualify as this fallacy, if it weren't for the fact that I expect people to be exposed to that logical fallacy pretty much above all others, and can't comprehend how you couldn't have been.
You, however, expect me to play well, when historically, I suck.
Really, if you look at my Wiki, I have something like a 40% win rate, max. I'm not a good player. I've made this clear from very early on that I have never been a top-tier player; I'm far better at teaching than I am at playing for this very reason. Quite simply put, I'm awful at nailing scum, a fact easily verifiable, so it does fall into this fallacy.

but I'm looking at your profile on EpicMafia where you say 'I have become good enough that, when left alive, I rarely ever choose wrongly', and I'm noticing that that directly opposes what you've said in this game, and also that you've chosen wrongly twice in this game now (firstly Beefster, now me), and it's making me suspicious.

Dude, my EpicMafia profile's, what, two years old? It's seriously out of date. 'Sides, EpicMafia is a totally different environment. My brand of logic there was unusual, and not expected. Because it wasn't expected, the scum were caught off-guard many times by how I often was right. This was way back when people barely knew me, and I played actively. After enough time had passed and people who knew me learned how to play with me, and my skills actually degraded with time. Heck, I recently went back to EM and found myself completely essentially lurking through days as town, when before, that used to be an EM scumtell from me, personally. So, 1: You can't use another site against me, and
2: You can't use something years old against me when more recent information will prove to be more accurate.

Sorry for the length. I'm really not that good. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if I had a condition, but nothing's been officially diagnosed. I'll just call it "Mastinitis*" for now.
*I could make an MD thread about it. Basically, containing every single problem I seem to suffer from put into a single post, formatted humorously as one of those commercials. "If you or a loved one are suffering any of these symptoms, please consult your local IC. (

Note:

If you

are

the local IC, self-diagnosis is not recommended. We advise you to take a vacation from IC'ing until symptoms of Mastinitis have seceded.) Should an IC be unavailable, please stop by the nearest MD for consultation."

[Mastin]

...I still think I was being emotional in my response above, dang it. >_<
I think I'll get started on that Trend case and not check more recent posts; they're proving to be too large of distractions. (I'm an obsessive compulsive poster. )

[Mastin]

Alright, I've already built up the basics of the case; now for the specifics.

Spoiler: Trendall Case Beginning

Well, previous mafia experience is very relevant, because people's playstyles are obviously going to change depending on how much they have played the game.

Hmm...Keeping in mind what I was saying before, how does this sound to everyone? To me, quite poorly. It does not mix well with his view on me.

I think I enjoy being town and mafia equally as much as each other. Mafia gives you a strong sense of satisfaction when you win, as you have managed to lie through your teeth for the whole game and get away with it. As town, it's great when you catch scum, because you've managed to outsmart somebody who was lying through their teeth.

Wait, weren't you town in both your games on-site? (Hmm...)

Surely every scumhunting technique is [inconclusive]?

This shows recognition that no matter how solid a case is, it's not going to be 100%. This is relevant for two reasons--1: It means Trendall shouldn't be as cautious as he has been. If every scum hunting technique is inconclusive, you might as well use what you have to the best of your ability and vote with what you have, because you'll never get to 100%. (He doesn't.)
2: It shows recognition that no matter how good a case is, it's not going to be 100%, so therefore, someone who is wrong will not necessarily be scum. This is a huge hint at previous experience with the Burden to Proficiency. If scumhunting techniques are always inconclusive as he says, then there's room for error, meaning people will not always be right, not even a veteran player. (Heck--quite honestly--veteran players seem to be less accurate than newbie players, for some reason. I don't know why; it just seems like on average, newbies have that beginner's luck which gets them right more often than veterans.)
He ignores this later on, expecting me to be correct with my case, when in fact, I have no way of knowing for sure I'm right.
In that same post, he says that a SE--what I am--isn't required to teach. To me, if I look behind the literal definition and at the intention of the words (I'm a writer; I am good with metaphorical meanings and picking up on Exact Words, Weasel Wording, etc.), it's him saying that just because he's more experienced doesn't mean more should be expected of him. It may seem like a stretch to you, but think about it for a solid moment. It fits so well in that context. Though maybe that's just me. My brain is wired in an unusual way, and to me, I see this as the deeper meaning.
And if true--Trendall will obviously deny it, of course--that would make Trendall a bit hypocritical, expecting too much of me, when really, I haven't played regularly in over a year and at my best would only be equal to a good newbie player. (In other words, I might be able to teach like an experienced player, but I can't play like one; I am no better a player than most newbies.)

I'm often being accused of being scumbuddies with someone else, when it turns out that me and that person are both just two town players who happen to be on the same wavelength.

Foreshadowing, anyone? Yeah, this seriously reads like an excuse, to later justify his buddying to Lat/Nacho.
Promises content here, but doesn't deliver. He answers things directed at him, but nothing beyond that and again promises more which he does not deliver on. It takes him three days before he posts this, on Beefster. There's more wrong with this post, however. It reads as slight OMGUS, in isolation. (Admittedly, I don't seem to remember thinking it was OMGUS before, so this might just be because it's out of context.) More than that, however, he posts his fear. I gave a SEssion on why that was scummy. (My initial wording was bad, but my later clarification I feel nicely handled the issue.) His wording in response to it I'd rather not go over right now, not even in an initial case; larger posts are special, and require more attention.

...Okay. To make sure we're perfectly clear, I'm not done with my Trendall Case, not even close. But this is a good start for it. Next up,
1: Covering things which I don't think I can do out-of-context. The No-lynch area of today, for example.
2: Covering Trendall's bigger posts. This'll take a while.
3: Looking at Trendall's past games for Meta purposes.
...Not necessarily in that order, but you get the idea. For now, I see more than enough to keep my vote on Trendall, for now.

[Mastin]

My attack on you was for your weak attacks within those long posts.

Which I also addressed. I might be an analytical player, but ironically, my logic has never been one of my strongest points; if anything, my gut has proven more useful on my reads than logic. I attack with what I have. My way of thinking tends to be unusual, so my cases might seem weak or illogical, but trust me, it's just the way I think.
You can be right for all the wrong reasons, you know.
(I AM trying to get better, though. It's hard, however, changing the way you think. I'm so used to "Mastin-logic", things which make sense to me, trying to make them sensical for others as well is hard.)

You said Jay was your top suspect, and you did an ISO read on him. That qualifies as a case to me.

*points to the massive debate against Trendall on the subject*
Short answer, no, no it is not. A case is what I just did on Trendall. An ISO read on your main suspect--like I did with Jay--is not. Was Neruz a suspect when I did my iso read on him? Heck no; I was intending to do an ISO on every player, but ran out of time. Jay was first on this list:
Jay
Kayi
Neruz
Mastin** Heather
Yenros
Mute
Trendall**
Nachomamma8**

Kayi gets a pass as semi-clear, then came Neruz. Mute also gets a pass as clear, so that left Yenros, Trendall, and your playerslot to do.
It was coincidence that Jay was first. Jay's also the first on the "Display posts by user", which is another reason Jay was first. That he was my main suspect at the time had nothing to do with the fact I ISO'd him first. He was simply the most convenient to do.

And might I say that it's scummy as hell that as soon as I apply a little pressure to you, you drop your case on Jay and try to pick one up on Trendall.

And this has nothing to do with you, Nacho. I stopped focusing on Jay because 1: I was not building a case against Jay, and
2: Jay actually dropped in my suspicions after he answered me.
You applying pressure to me had absolutely NOTHING to do with my switch to Trendall. Which fallacy was that?
I think this one. Might be the parent fallacy, though. You get the idea. I had my reasons to go to Trendall. You were completely unrelated. I would've gone to Trendall, regardless of what you had said, or when you'd say it.
I had a quite logical reason to no longer have Jay as my main suspect. I had a quite logical reason to switch to Trendall. Neither involves you at all.

[Mastin]

Nacho and Trendall do seem to make a reasonable case, and Mastin seems like he's flailing a bit at the moment, especially over the Mute vote.

Do elaborate, considering I have refuted their case quite well, in my opinion.

Mastin; Jay randomvoting the doctor isn't even a valid gut read. How can it be scummy, even from a gut read?

Because it's voting for a player who's guaranteed town, and more than that, an important role. There's no logical reason to suspect Jay from it. That's why it's gut. I can't explain a gut read. The best way to explain a gut read: "just 'cause." If asked why, "just because it is". That's really all there is to it. Gut does not work like logic does. You can have absolutely no logical reason for suspecting something, but have your gut act up against it. And that's what happened. There's no way that gut feeling can ever be used as valid evidence; if you were to, say, go to court, "I didn't like it when he said x" wouldn't hold up as a valid reason to prosecute the suspect. It is, however, a good way of getting personal reads, and the town has the right to know personal reads. I, for one, hate it when players keep their gut reads to themselves; they often try to mask that they're going off of gut, because they think it's a bad idea to go off of gut and throw together some BS reasons, where if they simply said "gut", I'd have no issue. I really don't see what the issue of Gut is. It's my personal read. It can't be explained by logic. There's no reason, no POSSIBLE reason, to explain it logically. But my gut still acted up.
Is that really such a big issue?
No, not to me, because gut's gut. Trying to explain it CAN work out, but often times, doesn't. That said, gut reads should still be made public. It's not something you should use to try and convince others to lynch someone; it doesn't work. However, just because it won't convince them doesn't mean you should keep it to yourself.
Get it?

What you've basically just said is very similar to saying "I rolled a d6, it came up 3 and my gut says that means Jay is scummy."

No, that uses logic. Very, VERY bad logic, but logic nonetheless. Gut is different. Gut cannot be explained by logic, because Gut is logic's opposite. I saw something from Jay. Logically, there's no reason that Jay's vote on the doctor could ever be suspicious. But my gut acted up, and I did what I should have: I pointed it out, instead of keeping it to myself. That's that. Do I need to ramble about Gut to you all? Gut works differently than logic, so you can't use logical reasons for bashing that gut read.
It's simply put, making a huge argument out of nothing. I bet if we asked around, most people would have no problem with a gut read like this. (Remind me again to make a MD thread about this subject as well after the game's over.)

[Mastin]

Mastin, I disagree with your reason to bring up the fact that Jay's vote was on Mute.

It's not a reason; it's gut. Big difference. Let me put it to you this way:
If a player votes for someone purely off of gut, I have no problem with it. Gut is their personal feeling. It is very subjective, and who am I to say their gut is wrong? I have no way of knowing. (Unless, of course, said gut read is on me. )
...But I would never vote with that player because of just gut. If they ever want to get more than just themselves voting for a player, they need objective reasons, things based off of logic to convince me.
That said, however, I do want someone to state if they have a gut read on a player, one way or another. If you know said person has a gut read, that means you can better understand their logic when they DO give their reasons.
Hence, Gut reads can be on anything, about anything, and should NEVER be called wrong based off of logic. You can disagree, sure. You can say that you don't agree with the gut read, and obviously, if it's on you, you might know it's wrong and it's okay to say so then.
...But you can't say it's wrong, because that's forcing your opinion onto another person's opinion. You're using something--be it subjective or objective--on something which is subjective. You simply shouldn't do that. Gut is something which shouldn't be called out like that. I've seen plenty of players use gut, on things that they can't explain, because they simply have no reasonable explanation; gut is just that, gut; you can't explain it, nor should you. The more you try to explain gut, the harder it becomes, and the less accurate it'll be, because gut in its core is something unexplainable, an unexplainable feeling about someone which can't be chosen logically.
I--logically--disliked Jay's prolonged vote on Mute, well-after the phantom vote issue was cleared up, similarly to you, Yenros--and I said so in my post.
However, I--by gut, illogically, something I can't explain--liked it even less because Mute's the doctor. I can explain the former: keeping your vote on someone you voted randomly makes sense as a valid reason to suspect someone, and can be used in a case; it is very objective.
...Thinking it was a "random" vote for the doctor, which doesn't sit well in my gut? ...That's subjective. That's my personal feeling, one which I just had and cannot explain, because there's no logical reason. By logic, there's no way Jay would know Mute was the doctor, so by logic, it can't be used. That would mean that looking at it purely from a logical standpoint would make it invalid.
...But a gut feeling works differently. Gut just is. I really can't think of any other way to explain it. You have a feeling, and that's that. You have the right (and should!) to state that feeling, no matter how illogical it seems. Nobody will follow you until you can give a more concrete reason other than gut, but that's alright. Many, many, MANY players operate large--some entirely--off of gut. They're not listened to very often, because gut isn't something objective; it's not something which you can prove. It's subjective, and therefore, you can't give it any logical explanation. Gut's gut, and that's all there is to it. Ask most veteran players on this site their opinion on gut, and I think they'd back me up on this one. Gut is something most people just take for granted and ignore, because it's subjective--not objective--and therefore, is a personal reason not a logical reason, and isn't something to pay attention to.

You point suspicion on him for liking both equally because he has only played town here, he has played games elsewhere and said so.

Hmm, think I forgot about this. It might still apply because of being on a different forum, but to me, that's too much of a stretch, so I will consent that point is not accurate. (Human, not a god; I make errors in my cases, but that is something true of every single player in this game, to be quite honest.) But in a way, that actually further condemns him, because I know Burden of Proficiency is brought up on EM. If it ISN'T, then EM has truly changed a great deal. So, yeah. Trendall would have knowledge of the Burden of Proficiency fallacy, and should've realized it was a fallacy.

Admittedly i am having extreme difficulty reading and comprehending your huge-ass posts due to my general disinterest with the game at the moment, but it did rather look like you were probing for a potential valid case on Jay and then dropped it like a hot coal when called out on it.

Well, then, was I doing the same for you, Neruz? I had you in the EXACT SAME POST as an ISO read. PEOPLE ARE ADDRESSING THE JAY ISO WHILE IGNORING THE NERUZ ISO.
No, I was NOT looking for a potential case which I dropped. I was trying to get a read on the game, like EVERY OTHER SINGLE PLAYER WHO PROMISED TO REREAD. I simply posted the results of my read, a lot of information. It wasn't truly a case, because I didn't do a lot of analysis of the information; I was trying to get a feel for Jay, like any good player should. He was my main suspect.
Compare my case on Trendall to my ISO of Jay.
Do they look anywhere at all the same to you?
One's a case.
The other's just a readthrough.
The two are not even remotely similar, because that's the difference. My Trendall case was just that: a case, meant against Trendall and trying to get others to lynch Trendall; it was extremely objective.
My read on Jay was just me trying to get a feel for him, because he was my main suspect. It was meant for my benefit, much as anyone's reread would be. I addressed Jay, because I wanted Jay to help clarify some matters; when he did, I felt better about him, and he was no longer my main suspect.
That's part of how you scum hunt. You look at other players, and try to get reads on them. You ask questions, and those answers either make you feel better, or worse. If better, you can put to rest some suspicions about them. If worse, you probably will vote them. Jay was the former. Trendall was the latter. It's really as simple as that. Read my opinions of the two, and you will find it's quite consistent.

Additionally i'm not really seeing anything from Jay between your last post about him being your top suspect to your change to Trendall that would justify dropping the points you brought up.

Oh, it's nothing, only...
THE FREAKIN FACT THAT JAY ANSWERED ALL MY CONCERNS AND THAT TRENDALL'S RECENT POST BROUGHT MY CONCERNS FOR HIM INTO FAR MORE LIGHT. Seriously. I did an Iso of Jay, and had some concerns. Jay ANSWERED those concerns, dropping him down in my suspicion list. Trendall posted, and I found it rather suspicious, which--when put in addition to him already being one of my main suspects--made me focus on him, and start building a case.
THAT is the difference between the two.

"Bringing up this gut reading which is based on something which cannot possibly be considered an alignment tell under any circumstances whatsoever is a complete waste of time."

No, it is not a waste of time. It was my opinion. Opinions matter. They're subjective, sure, but it helps you understand my motives better. That better understanding will allow you to better read my objective arguments, knowing what I had already from my subjective opinions from before. It is NOT a waste of time to STATE YOUR FEELING ABOUT SOMETHING,

EVEN IF BY LOGIC, IT MAKES NO SENSE

. Yes, by logic, my gut read on Jay voting Dr. Mute could never be an alignment tell, under any circumstances. But for the umpteenth time, GUT IS NOT LOGIC. I had a gut read on Jay for that specific reason. I brought it up. You deserve to know my opinion on something, even if that something is impossible by logic, by evaluation, because it allows you to know what I am thinking.

Get it?

It doesn't matter if the read is gut or not, the statement the read is based on is ironclad, it cannot be interpreted as anything other than a null tell under any circumstances.

Yes, it does, because guess what?
TELLS ARE LOGIC-BASED.
You cannot apply logic to gut. So, it's impossible under any circumstances to be a tell, yes. But tells are logic-based. Guts work outside of logic. See where I'm going with this? Just because something is impossible by logic doesn't mean we can't have a gut feeling on it. It's a null tell, yes. But null tells are logic, gut reads aren't.

Bringing up that gut read is disingenuous as it allows you to imply having a scum read on Jay in a way that cannot be countered, because it's a 'gut read' and thus not subject to logic.

Fun fact: way back when I started playing mafia, this was my opinion, too! I thought gut reads were a scum tell, because, surely, only scum would lack a logical reason and vote on "gut"!
...Yeah, that didn't last very long. Gut reads aren't subject to logic, so, yes, they can't be countered.
...But they also don't have to be followed. If someone relies entirely on gut, they'll never be followed, because people want evidence, and that is something gut can never give. Gut is a part of scum hunting. It's null. Both town and scum use gut equally. However, people who use logic should learn to use those gut reads. If a player votes off of gut, and says so, again, I'm happy with that player; they're being honest and saying they have no logical reason to vote for said player. It helps me understand how that player's mind is working, both as town, and as scum.
[hr][/hr]
...And that is why I have the title of "Unabridged", people. >_< Sorry for the rant, but being called out on something I consider such a small fact, something which shouldn't ever be an issue, something which pretty much everywhere else is taken for granted...really strikes a nerve.

[Mastin]

Basically: Gut reads are nice to have. You can ignore them while said player is alive.
If, however, said player were to, oh, say, have a gut read on two particular players, and said player was completely neutral, out of the way, and apparently no threat...
Well, then, you better go look at their reads, gut or logic.
That's the extreme, but you get the idea. Gut reads are part of the game, and a good player will express their gut reads, no matter what they are, no matter who they're on, no matter how illogical it seems. The gut reads can't be used as evidence against someone, because they're subjective. They can be used for someone to justify their vote personally, but they can't be used to justify getting others to lynch someone. A good player will know all of this, and will express their gut reads. Then they'll also use their logic, to either augment or contradict their gut read. Whichever they feel is stronger between personal opinion and fact is what they'll go off of.

...Hey, I think I actually like that wording; it fits fairly well. If I do decide to talk about this after the game's over, it'll probably make a nice wrap-up, after a little editing. I like it.

[Mastin]

Alright. For reference, I have not read the sixteenth page, but let's just say after the above serious rant, I felt better, and once I calmed down and got a more level-headed thought process, I gained a lot of clarity.
First off, I owe you all an apology. For cluttering the thread, for getting emotional, for getting a tad bit condescending, y'know, pretty much falling into my old style of play which I swore to never do. I also owe you an explanation. See, my real life's been stressful, recently, but I'm sure you don't want to hear that. What you might want to know about is how in an off-site Werewolf game, I was in a recent debate. The person I was fighting against combined the Gambler's Fallacy with Burden of Proficiency. This was recently, so imagine how I felt, facing two examples of the exact same (okay, vaguely similar. But in my thought process at the time, exactly the same) argument. Short answer: rather frustrated. I walled there, too. But then, something amazing happened:
Two pages of walling later, both parties involved had a realization: it was a semantics argument. Neither side was wrong, neither side was right. We apologized. And guess what? ...We lynched a wolf that day. Another thing which I had thought about was when I was reading another game as an observer, I thought, "GEEZ, IF THIS TOWN DOESN'T GET THEIR ACT TOGETHER AND STOP FLINGING MUD, THEY'LL

NEVER

CATCH SCUM!", essentially.
...Which lead me to realize the irony of my statement, there. And that lead me to realize... "Whoops. I, uh, did it again."
Basically, this is exactly what I was afraid of happening when I started playing this game: I start out rather rational, but once I see an attack on my character (whether intentional or accidental), I explode. Whenever I see someone post an opinion which I fundamentally disagree with, I'll argue to no end against them on a matter of semantics. ...And that has to stop. Semantics arguments should be left for post-game and/or MD, not in the middle of a game. So, I probably won't be answering any of the responses to my rant about gut above, because that's what it is: it's a bunch of semantics, and arguing it only worsens the game state.
For that matter, however, I must thank you all, for giving me a few things which might be MD-worthy. Notably, a long talk on a subject taken for granted, instinct (gut) versus intuition (logic), and how each of them works in detail. Another was that one we discussed earlier during day one. Also, there's the fact that this game has made me quite well remember all of the flaws in my play, so it'll be easier to summarize them and basically, make a list of "things not to do in a mafia game".
There was another I had in mind, but I forgot it. Ah, well. Not that important.

Now, all that said, I think it's time I got back to playing the game. Not making a MD article inside a newbie game.

---

Let's move to page 16, shall we?
Trendall's vote is predictable, but unfortunately due to my earlier attitude, null. Had I kept a calm, rational mind and not walled (which frustrates players regardless of alignment), I could call this voting a scum tell, though.

As to the gut read on Jay random-voting the doctor, I still find that scummy. Call it gut, eh?

Alright, I'll accept that's how you feel.
These two examples do not contradict. The other site I'm playing on is recent. I've been playing for something like, one or two months on there. EM, however, I've played, like, once in the last year and a half. My profile on the other site is up to date, my EM profile is not. My attitude on EM was different, because EM is a COMPLETELY different site. My attitude on the other forum is similar, because I modeled my play there after the experience I gained from here. Hence, no contradiction. EM, completely different AND out of date. That other site, actually quite similar (see above; they even have the same accusations! ), and quite recent.
That's the difference between the examples.
As for this one, "old" is very subjective, you know. "Old" on EM is "nearly two years". "Old" on this other site?
9th Sep 2010, 10:57 PM was the exact time I signed up for my first game, there.
Again, no contradiction.

---

Kayi nails it in her post. I need shorter posts, the argument is going in circles (semantics arguments always will, because there's really nothing you can do about players using different terminology other than state your opinion once; after that, it'll inevitably get repetitive), etc. Anyway, now that I've caught up and hopefully clarified things, I intend to further my Trendall case. (Keep posting, Trendall. It helps me. )

[Mastin]

That's not to say that I've run out of points against Mastin, or that I can't repudiate his points against me, because that's definitely not true, but it seems like for every one thing that I post, Mastin posts about forty things in return, to which I have a lot to say etc., and it's not really getting us anywhere.

Yeah, see above; I do apologize for it; it's a bad habit leftover from my former days here. However, if you have points against me, state them. If I consider them to be actual points, I shall address them. If they're repetitions of previous points, I'll simply direct you to my original answer as to not clutter the thread.
As for your defense, that's your choice. Admittedly, I'm not very strong on the offensive. (Or rather, when I do go on the offensive, it's way,

way

overboard. So, not enough punch in my attack, or having far too much bite; I'm still trying to find that middle ground. Remember, I essentially consider myself a newbie. A newbie with a lot more games than most players, but still, a newbie who has a lot he can improve in his play.) However, when I do make a valid point, and you don't answer it, you'll have to face the consequences. But, meh, this is mostly irrelevant, considering how I haven't gotten around to making the full Trendall case. I really should. (Trendall, as you don't have a wiki page, would you mind linking me to your other games to make it easier for the meta section of my case?)
Anyway, on to work.

[Mastin]

To be fair, it's kinda hard to judge how the walls look when you don't use the preview button (often, at least); to me, that didn't look like a solid block of text; it looked like it was rather readable. :/
(I type almost exclusively in the Quick Reply box.)

[Mastin]

Also, if you fancy reading through the whole games, note that this 'burden of proficiency' thing doesn't come up at all.

Believe me; I will be looking.

Plus, on epicmafia, the only other place I play, I don't think a single logical fallacy has ever been talked about in technical terms in the couple of hundred games that I've played over there.

I have trouble saying anything other than "BS!" on this. It could be my time on EM was too long ago and the quality of play has degraded so much that such discussions never come up, anymore, but when I was playing in my thousands of games (I played when you were allowed multiple alts for free, so most of my stats are actually on other accounts) there, this came up it, like, at least a third of them. I have trouble believing that in HUNDREDS of games, this hasn't come up often enough for you to remember it. When I did go to EM, I saw signs of it, in people's reactions to Karma and Score. "Oh, this person has a lot of Karma/Points, they must be a good player, but haven't found scum; DIE SCUM DIE!" (Burden of Proficiency at its best.) You're telling me you've never seen it? You're telling me nobody's challenged it as a logical fallacy?
Come on, I consider that rather doubtful. I saw it when I revisited EM after over a years' absence, in less than twenty games. It was used at least five of my games. You HAVE to have seen it, Trendall. So, I can't help but think that you saying you've never seen it before is you trying to cover up a mistake. Maybe you didn't remember it at first, but were afraid of backtrakcing later-on, but it's trapped you, now, because to me, it shows.

One of your arguments against me, and correct me if I'm wrong about this, seems to be, in simple terms - 'Your argument has the burden of proficiency fallacy in it, and you should know better than to make arguments with this fallacy in with how many games you've played. This is scummy'. You realise that that's a burden of proficiency argument in itself, right?

I address this in one of my posts, I believe. I'll track it down if I need to.

[Mastin]

I'm trying! >_< Conciseness has never been one of my strong points; as mentioned, I'm obsessive about conveying

exactly

the message I want, but am terrible with words. (I stutter a lot in RL, and tend not to talk 'cause I'm trying to think out sentences in a way which makes even remote sense.) The result is that I make something wordy unnecessarily when something far more concise (which I legitimately never thought of wording that way) would suffice. It's just who I am, okay? :/
You might, uh, call me practice for more severe diehards?
(By that, I mean, you WILL encounter a lot of wallers on MS.net; it is becoming a more frequent problem. You WILL see others who freak out emotionally; it's sadly quite common. And you often times will see both at the same time, unfortunately. You find ways around it; believe it or not, I of all people skim a lot. )

[Mastin]

And yet, Trendall, we have a wiki article for it. It's used often pretty much everywhere...
...But on every site I've played on, it hasn't proven to be true. It IS a fallacy. It shouldn't be used. It COULD be right!
...But that's true of pretty much any fallacy. It could be right, but is it more likely to be right?
No. That's why you don't see me blurting out my MITs in every game. They can--and have--been right in the past...but no more so than anything else. (And for fallacies, if anything, it's less so.) It's a fallacy, and I don't believe even on EM that people deny it. I've seen the argument used--and you've admitted to using it--there, but almost every time

I

played, the player denied it. Denied being good, denied being popular, denied being experienced--most just excuses, but that only made up about half of the denials. The other half? Pointing out how the logic is flawed, how it's a logical fallacy.
Ask any player on this site, and they'll say it's a logical fallacy. Ask a player who's been accused of it on any site, and they'll say it's a logical fallacy. Even on EM, go ahead and ask someone who has a lot of karma or currently has a score about it, and I bet you they'll say it's not true, aka, it's a logical fallacy.

You trying to defend it is scummy to me, because everything I've experienced tells me that it's practically common knowledge about that fallacy. They might not know the name of the fallacy, they might not know to call it a logical fallacy, but it's common knowledge that it's false. That's my experience, and if you couldn't tell, I base a lot of my play on experience. So, when experience tells me something's a common logical fallacy known even by those who don't know the name of the logical fallacy... (if that makes sense)
...It also tells me someone denying the above is likely to be lying, trying to cover their tracks, desperately trying to fight out of a corner. Yeah, vote stands.

[Mastin]

as you could legitimately argue that experienced players -are- authoritative about catching scum, especially if there is prior evidence to indicate that the player in question does show a pattern of catching scum often as town.

Nope, not from me. My record is abysmal. I'm good at finding some town reads, but not at scum reads. So, yeah, it doesn't apply to me. If you asked pretty much any player who knows my name, "Is Mastin a good scum hunter?", I'd bet that at least 75%--if not close to 90--would say, "NO!" The other 10-25%? "Eh, maybe", or "Eh, sometimes", or "No more than any other player". (Okay, so maybe one or two people--like 1-2%--would say, "yes", but the simple fact is, the vast majority of people would say I am not good at catching scum.) I believe I made this clear from very early on, that I'm not a good scum hunter, so Trendall would've known.

Spoiler: Length reply to Neruz

@Mastin: It's not so much the walling itself which i find unreadable as it is your particular style. I have no problem whatsoever with large posts if those posts are large because they contain a lot of content and are edited nicely so that paragraphs are seperate and different subjects are clear and concise.

From what i can tell, this is not the case in your posts; you seem to either reiterate the same point in different language multiple times or bring up multiple points in the same sentance with no rhyme or reason, this, combined with the fact that you don't blank lines between paragraphs, makes reading your posts extremely difficult.

Would you rather I do this?

Make insanely large gaps for very little info?

I tend to separate my paragraphs by thought. If two thoughts are related, yet seem like they need a line break...
...I use one, like here. Or if I'm continuing on the same subject but it's a long paragraph,
I'll break it up where convenient.

When I start a new thought, I go to a new paragraph, meaning that gap is larger. However, since I do chain my thoughts together a lot, there tends to not be a lot of these. The alternative to my style of posting single line breaks under the above is to either 1: make insanely short paragraphs, making the post look a lot longer (hence, more intimidating)--something I don't want--or to 2: make insanely long, blocky paragraphs, same result. (I personally hate paragraphs which go beyond five--maybe six--lines.) This, for example, is a decent--albeit a bit on the long side--paragraph, at four lines in the Quick Reply box.

As for me bringing up points multiple times, this has been explained already; I'm really bad with words, and yet, I want to get my message across as clearly as I can. The two end up making me fairly repetitive. That's one of THE main critiques I get whenever I write, "Stop being repetitive, Mastin!"

I am well aware of the problem, Neruz, but as this post should show, I'm kinda screwed no matter what I do: there's no way to make people happy.

I am trying to change my style, but I'm not very good at it. >_<

[Mastin]

I do not understand what you're trying to say, Trendall. Mind clarifying?
(Oh, hey, a short post from me! Yay! )

[Mastin]

Mastin, have you tried writing something, then going away for ten minutes to do something else, then coming back and rereading it and cutting it all down?

Despite me having a reputation in certain places for planning things out well ahead of time...
...I, uh, really tend to just wing it most of the time.

In other words, I don't think my posts through a lot. I can--and I think I was to some extent earlier in the game--but it's hard for me, especially when I'm on a schedule, and could potentially lose what I write forever. (Remember early on when I mentioned I was paranoid about a lot of silly stuff? Yeah, losing posts is among them. ) Though considering I do have time to spare, I might try it later today in my case against you. (Cases are a good place to practice a surprisingly great many skills.)

[Mastin]

Really? Huh, I always thought it just made people skim through it more. Ah, well. You do learn things no matter what your previous experience is. (Like I learned to use the spoiler tag. Best tool evar. )

This is not the case, Trendall. I have explained

why

I think you're lying, why I think you should know, why I think that you're trying to hide your knowledge of it.

...You haven't explained to me why I should be a good scum hunter.

Your 'lack of knowledge' I find scummy, and I've explained why.
You thinking "Mastin hasn't found any scum yet; he must be scum" hasn't been explained, other than "It's not a logical fallacy". That's your 'opinion' on it, but you haven't given me any evidence which shows that I

should

be a good scum hunter. Can you give evidence proving I should be a scum hunter?

That's the difference.

---

On a side-note, I'm going to stop posting for a while; we've added a whole page in less than 12 hours--that's too much for my tastes. (Mostly my fault. )

[Mastin]

I still find it kinda concerning that both Neruz and Kayi are agreeing. >_< (You two have virtually an identical stance.) Anyway... I assure you, Neruz that I am not. It's simply how I naturally talk. I would never do it deliberately, and am actively trying to phase out repetition from my playstyle.

Now I'm more concerned with how you're tunnelling my balls off and making a lot of points against me that just seem to be making a big deal out of absolutely nothing.

Your absolute nothing is not the same as mine, Trendall. I took offense at something which to you was absolutely nothing, for example. This holds no weight.

In one of your earlier posts, you went through a load of stuff that I'd made, and effectively said 'this wasn't scummy before, but now that I've decided that Trendall is mafia, this backs up my point'.

Oh? How so? Do explain. I see none of that in my post; elaboration required.

From what I can tell, you're not interested in working out whether I'm mafia or town at all. You've already decided that I'm mafia

This part is true. The part about me changing my mind is not. I changed my mind about Jay, didn't I? I liked Jay's responses to my inquiries. I did not like your responses to my case.

and now you're going through my posts, picking tiny little irrelevant details, and using them to back up your case.

Of course I use details in my arguments. I've already given the broad picture of why I think you're scum; the more specific reasons require evidence which the finer details give. In that way, they are not irrelevant. Not to me, anyway.

I'm fairly certain that you've ruled out the possibility of me being town completely.

Post something I think is town enough, make a case against someone (other than me, obviously) which I think is convincing enough, or rebut my case effectively, and I would at least drop you down to neutral. I haven't seen any of those, not to my satisfaction, anyway (though the fact that I haven't done enough reading might be contributing to this; I still haven't furthered my case against you, yet; too many distractions. >_<).

You think that I'm mafia, and are now looking for things that fit well with that.

I think you're mafia

because

of the things that fit well with it which I initially picked up at a quick glance. The case which brought more of these details to light was just the icing on your cake.

It would be, 'right, I need to build up a case against this person, so I'm going to go back and find stuff that fits'.

Or, y'know, "I am suspicious of this person, so I should go back and see if I'm right". Like a good scum hunter would do, following through with my reads.

it strikes me as odd that you simply neglect the fact that I play on epicmafia a lot in this point against me.

I had forgotten that particular point at the time I said that. It wasn't that large of a discussion thing. It's a minor detail which I happened to have forgotten at that particular time. When (I believe it was) Yenros pointed this out before, I said as much. People do make mistakes like that. Also, you'll note most of the Burden of Proficiency arguments come AFTER that post, meaning the spots where your EM experience come up weren't until later.

By simply omitting crucial information, you've manipulated something that I've said to make it fit into your case against me.

And yet, I admitted I had forgotten, that I had made a mistake by including it in the case against you, when Yenros pointed it out. No omission intended. There

was

one, but not an intentional one. Hence, no manipulation. Trust me; I know how to twist words like no other. It's one of the things some players best know me by, actually.
...And that was not me twisting your wording, manipulating your words to fit my case. Well, not intentionally, anyway.

---

Sorry, I have to leave, soon. (Stop distracting me! >_< I am very easily distracted, and if someone posts, I tend to answer.) So, no furthering of the Trendall case, unfortunately, today. :/

[Mastin]

...D'oh. Shoulda spoiler'd that. Didn't realize there were that many quotes in my post. >_<
Ah, well; too late now. :/

[Mastin]

Spoiler: Kayi's Points

The case against Jay (that Mastin claims is an ISO read),

Claim, nothing! I made a case against Trendall. I made an ISO for Jay and Neruz, planning one for each player but ran out of time before I could continue down the list.

Spoiler: Jay

Isolation

Read

continued

Read. ISO READ. That's from the post in question.
Also, if this were a case, why would I bring up this, in Jay's

favor

?

This is Jay's best post so far.

If it were a case, I would not bring it up. Similar example:

This is one of his best posts, by the way.

And finally, proof I was intending this for every player,

I suppose that's it, for now;

more

ISO

reads

when I come back. (Then actual in-game after all my Iso's are done.)

Convinced yet? Or do I need more to prove that when I say ISO read, I mean an Iso READ, not Case?

Trendall said that he'd rest his case for the moment.

Which, might I point out, I countered. If he has a point which has stood, I have yet to see it.
Also, I'd like to point out I countered 408 in my post 412.

I felt that the fencesitting suspicion he brought up did not make much sense,

Ask almost any veteran Scummer. If they don't think fencesitting is a scumtell (which most will), they'll say that it's anti-town and bad play. I have the former opinion, that it's a scumtell, not the latter opinion, that it's just anti-town. I'm far from alone on the matter. Unless you can give me a pro-town reason to sit in the middle to counter the anti-town reasons I've (I believe, anyway) brought up in the past.

and the example that Trendall cited above, in post 408, I think it was, he seems to have picked a random thing that Trendall has said and tried to make it appear scummy to fit his argument.

Which I, again, countered in 412.

Spoiler: Trendall's Points

Trendall brings up this quote to support his "oh, this wasn't scummy before, but now it is" point against me:

Hmm...Keeping in mind what I was saying before, how does this [referring to this] sound to everyone? To me, quite poorly. It does not mix well with his view on me.

*deleted for being nonsensical* Trendall said later on that I should've found scum, the Burden of Proficiency fallacy. I pointed this out soon after. In the above post, looking at his earlier post, I noted his later attitude [which I pointed out in my earlier post] seemed like a contradiction to his earlier attitude, and it did not sit well.

That is not "oh, I think this is scummy now, when it wasn't before"--that'd be invalid. That's "This is scummy, because it contradicts something he said earlier"--and THAT is valid.

I was

not

saying, "oh, I thought this was town before, but now it's scummy". I was saying, "given his earlier attitude compared to his later attitude and how they contradict, it is scummy", and contradictions ARE scummy.

Trendall was a neutral (but leaning town on glance) player originally, who I quite frankly wasn't paying much attention to. I saw some points which looked town, yes, but at the time, I was focused mainly on Beef and Kayi. When I took a more serious look at Trendall, I realized that I hadn't noticed a lot of scummy stuff showing some rather alarming trends.

often at a huge stretch,

Points which I think are a stretch are labeled as such. If I don't think they're a stretch, then they're not to me. If they are a stretch, then either I think it's personally valid but understand why others won't believe me, or I drop the point and think that the simpler explanation would be more likely in that case. Point out specific points you think are a stretch, and look for my wording on them. I can clearly define which points are which of the four categories--1: Not a stretch at all, 2: Not a stretch to me and not marked as a stretch, 3: Not a stretch to me, but I recognize how others can see it as a stretch, and 4: A stretch even to me, so I drop the point as invalid.

I bet you'll find I quite consistently show my thought process on these things.

The second one is saying 'if Trendall's opinion is this, then he should be acting like this', which is a massive leap of logic and isn't anywhere near true.

Heck no. That's a perfectly valid jump. I see your opinion in your earlier posts, and it contradicts what you say in your later posts. That's scummy, simple as that.

The third one just baffles me. Are you seriously saying that I thought to myself, 'Hmm, I might need to buddy Nacho in the future. I'll just post a thing now about how buddying with people is sometimes okay so that I can clear myself later'? That's just ludicrous.

'Course not. I'm saying you had the foresight to anticipate you'd need to buddy with

someone

. It doesn't have to be a specific player. To me, it's often the person who's most guilty of buddying who's most likely to be scum. I felt that you were far more guilty than Lat/Nacho were, contrary to Mute's belief of the opposite.

Again, when you make an argument about me, minor details are crucial. When I make an argument against you, you write it off as a 'minor detail'.

This gets into semantics, again. "Minor details" is extremely subjective. When I saw the broader picture of your posts and noticed extremely scummy trends, I found quite the list of details in there which confirmed my suspicions, and you've not laid those suspicions to rest; in fact, your continued arguments if anything are making them worse.

I was looking over most of your posts a little broadly, looking for those details which stuck out to me. The details which stuck out to me most were things which I thought were scummy. (Mainly, things which supported my case.) Small details mentioned once in the posts and not again for a long time, which seem insignificant? Far easier to miss. There's a difference between small details in a case, and small details in an overall read. The two are completely different, which is why--again--this will become another long, boring semantics argument which I would rather not have cluttering up the thread.

When you use evidence against people, it can be from another website. When I use evidence against you, it's irrelevant because it's from another site.

There is no hypocrisy, because you're taking those things out of context, Trendall, and twisting them to your cause. Your evidence against me from another site was invalid because it was an out of date relic from my past. It was from a site which I was playing on before I got into my meta. I became a completely different person, so the point against me did not stand.

The point against you, does. It's far more recent. It's knowledge you've admitted you've been exposed to: you've gone from basically denying you know the Burden of Proficiency (possible, given the terminology, but I find this a stretch) to admitting to using it, but denying it's a scumtell. I've given evidence that shows that most people disagree, and consider it a scumtell. Heck, even those that don't still consider it invalid. *A point which I really want to bring up from EM from games I recently played in but should get Mod permission to post first, just in case, 'cause I consider this piece of evidence roughly equivalent to making an MD thread due to how concrete it is against Trendall*

When you use evidence against people, it doesn't matter how old it is. When I used evidence against you, it's irrelevant because it's too old.

Oh? How have I used evidence against you which is too old? I see none which I use against you which goes back (so far) further than the beginning of this game. That's not old. That's quite recent. Heck, the furthest I'll go back is probably your first game on this site. Unless your two previous games were insanely long games, that's not too old. It's older, but still recent history for you. Unless you tell me you stopped playing EM, that's not old; that's current.

Your evidence against me is over 18 months old. (Yes, I checked.) OVER. It's probably closer to 19, if not more. That IS old.

When I say that you should have known better to act a certain way, you write it off as a fallacy. When I act a certain way, you say that I should have known better.

Again, out of context, Trendall.

I used proof from my previous games and my overall record to prove that I am a mediocre at best scum hunter, therefore proving your attitude was a fallacy.

You denied knowledge of said fallacy being a scumtell, and I give evidence which shows you were well aware of said fallacy.

See the difference? You haven't given me proof that I should be a good scum hunter. I HAVE given proof which shows I'm NOT. I have given proof that you have knowledge about the fallacy. You have not given proof that you

haven't

.

The difference between us is quite simple, Trendall: I give proof, you do not. That's what's separating these. You're taking them out of context, which is perhaps the most scummy thing you've done so far this game.

When I make any other point, you say that it's a personal attack on your character and integrity, which makes me very uneasy in bringing up further points against you.

You've made a grand total of two points against me which I took personally. The first was that I was using my position as a teacher to take advantage. That's accusing me of teaching wrong intentionally. That's attacking my integrity, showing that I'm willing to manipulate my students (of sorts) to do my bidding, effectively. You accused me of basically doing one of the things outlined in the Being a Good IC which you are never supposed to do.
...How am I

not

supposed to take that personally?

I don't off the top of my head remember the other more recent one, but I'll get to it.

Plus, everyone is often accused of buddying when it turns out to just be 2 town who agree (or sometimes 1 town who agrees with 1 scum). It happens all the time, in fact i can't think of a game where hasn't happened.

You and Kayi agreeing I currently see as just that, agreeing, when at first, I saw it as buddying, until it was proven to not be.

Trendall (and to some extent, Nacho) has not shown me why what he's done isn't buddying.

The difference is--quite simply--proof. I've given the proof to show why it is. Trendall hasn't given proof of why it isn't.

To address Trendall's next point against me, the difference is, again, proof, or rather, explanation. I wanted Beef to explain why it was a valid point, why it wasn't nothing.

I HAVE explained why my points are valid.

I'll have to look into it tomorrow, but it looks like you are using the relativist fallacy, Mastin.

I'll need this explained. I've seen that fallacy before, but I've forgotten its meaning.

---

Sorry for the length. I just finished page 17.

[Mastin]

For reference, when I said "Kayi's Points" above, I was--of course--referring to her Trendall ISO.

Spoiler: Response to Kayi's ISO of me

Analyzes the RVS (a little too much for my taste) even though he said he doesn't like the RVS.

This might need clarifying. I HATE the RVS. It quite frankly makes me sick. However, I feel like--even though it's the RVS--information can still be gained from it. Did you know in my second game on-site, I nailed both scum on page 2 using just the RVS? Yeah, it was mostly by luck, but still, you get the idea. I hate it, but it's still useful, contrary to what many believe. ("Oh, the RVS is just the RVS; everyone knows it's invalid." Nope, not to me.)

At this point he seemed almost certain I was town,

Well, you

are

, aren't you? :P I think that "almost certain" is far too strong a word for me. If I actually used that, it was probably my arrogance getting through. When I'm arrogant, I tend to make things seem better about me, and make all my reads far more confident than they actually should be. "This person is CERTAINLY scum!" "There's no way this person is anything other than town!" "Look, I'm a good scum hunter! *waves the best examples of my scum hunting for all to see*." Arrogance is another weak spot in my style I need to work on, 'cause as you can see from those extremes, it's far from true. :P Arrogance and Humbleness are largely day-dependent. On a good day, I'm most likely humble. ("This person I find far more likely to be scum", "This person reads town to me", "I'm a mediocre scum hunter at best *waves the average example of scum hunting*.") On a bad day, I'm arrogant. :P It's something I must apologize for, so I'll try to control my attitude so far. (The above post, I was in a sorta bad mood, 'cause I thought I'd have access on Wednesday but didn't.) How am I doing so far? :) ("Not so good, Mastin." Okay, in

this

post, ignoring the above one? :P)

He says that multiple people defend me and that I defend multiple people. There's no analysis attached to this, which makes me wonder why he brought it up.

Broader observation. I thought I did bring up points of it either before or after this, but dropped the idea when it was shown to not be true.

He mentions that he had brought my "not liking the RVS" as a possibility I'm town. May I ask what has to do a personal preference with my alignment?

I think you misinterpret. I was saying that I don't like the RVS, and that my viewpoint on you might be biased towards town because you share that belief.

Also, you mention SEssions as being fluff. I have never said they weren't. SEssions are supposed to teach, not supposed to be used as play content.

At this point he admits relying a great deal on his gut to choose a suspect.

I stick by there being nothing wrong with this, by the way. Instinct and intuition should work together. If instinct is tied between two suspects, try using intuition between those two. If intuition shows two people as roughly equal, use instinct to determine a vote. It's simply good play to me.

To address 191: I don't believe I was attacking Mute. (I don't remember that well, but I don't believe it was one.) I think that was a furthering of my SEssion to Mute about lurking and how it's a bad idea, and how if he continued to lurk for much longer, it would be suspicious. Not that he was suspicious currently for lurking.

196 was--similarly--a warning on Mute to try and not follow down my path. :P

His defense? ...He says he doesn't have much time at the moment but writes a lengthy paragraph that could have been summarized by a "you're wrong."

Well, that doesn't sound nearly as impressive... :P
More seriously, I didn't have much time at the time, so I wanted to briefly put to rest people's concerns, before later elaborating on it, which I did.

but I find it worthy of mention that he states he thinks Trendall is town, despite having found his reluctance to hammer scummy, and attacking him a bit on that same post.

This was because I saw several other players as more suspicious, at the time. Beef, You, Jay, might've been one or two others as well. Trendall was near the bottom of my suspicions, because--again--I was looking elsewhere, mostly. You can think someone's scummy while still thinking they're town. In this case, Trendall had a few town points I saw and I was focusing elsewhere, so didn't really notice a great deal of what Trendall did which was scummy at the time.

It's worthy of noting that a lot of my stuff which is fluff is either a SEssion--teaching--or debating over semantics. I've since tried to fix the latter and not discuss things I see as semantics-only. If they're semantics, there's almost no way either side will be convinced otherwise.

[1]Reads as an ISO, not as a case. [2]The "random-voted the doctor" is a bit weird, as many others have pointed out.

[1]Yay, finally someone gets it! :D 2: ...But not this part. D: As I've explained in the past, "random-voting the doctor" can't possibly be scummy by logic, and in no circumstances could it be a tell. But a gut read (what I had) acted up, anyway, because gut doesn't operate by logic, which tells fall under. There's no briefer way to explain it. (Okay, there is: "Gut's gut." :P But, you know, no briefer way to explain it well.)

Is it me, or his playstyle is heavily influenced by his gut?

Ironically...?
...Yes. :P

I'm far more well-known for 'logic' (if one can call it that) than gut, and I

prefer

intuition over instinct, but by irony, I use gut more often. I've never denied this to be the case.

I would like to point out that every single point in my follow-up on Jay was a question. (Well, other than the gut part.) I was asking for clarification. Jay gave it, I found him more town because of it. No case being built. Just simple inquiries to get a better read on him.

Brings up that Trendall is using Burden of Proficiency against him (personally, now that I'm more into this case, I don't see it.)

You don't see it?!?

Trendall

admitted

he used it!

I'll have to track down the exact post, but he definitely has said that, yes, he used it.

Admits that often his arguments are weak.

They're stronger in my head... :P
Really, I'm not going to lie and say my arguments are the strongest out there. Quite frankly, it wouldn't matter if I brought out some of the best points in the game; I'm so bad at conveying them, they're instantly weakened. It's something I've always known to be a problem, and have constantly tried to fix. (Obviously...not with much success. :P)

And what? Did he just say that Trendall saying he was being over-defensive was a personal attack?

Huh? Was that the other one? *checks the post*

Ah, Kayi, you misinterpreted. I was not taking offense to being called over-defensive. I was admitting to being over-defensive. I was taking offense at something else, which Trendall saw as me being over-defensive, and I explained why I was being so defensive.

I don't see where I used this against Trendall, either; mind bringing it up? (You seem to think the next post, 364, is me accusing Trendall of being over-defensive. I don't see that at all; was that what you meant?)

And after all those long-winded posts, I'd expect you to come up with more than pure gut.

I have. My case on Trendall would be AT LEAST 80% intuition, not instinct. It could go as high as 95%. My gut defense was almost entirely about my read on Jay. My gut acted up, I questioned him. He responded, and logically, he looked better; by logic, he dropped down on my suspect list. So, nope, not pure gut anymore.

Why do you keep walling about things you've clearly stated before? At this point, your walls even seem anti-town.

'Cause I was being irrational, of course. I was suffering from the very explosion I was trying to stop, but I think--right now, in this post, at least--I have gotten better. It WAS anti-town. But key note, there's a difference between anti-town, scummy, and scum-tell. Anti-town is counterproductive to the town, but not an indicative of alignment. (I had--and apparently still have >_<--an anti-town playstyle, for example.) Scummy is something suspicious. Scum-tell is something more likely to be done by scum, and therefore, more suspicious. (Scum-tells are almost always scummy, but scummy things are very rarely scum-tells.)

The immediately next post is... again on gut? What the...? I don't even...?!

Summarized the whole rant on gut, with my intention to never return to the subject again, because by that post, I was beginning to become more level-headed. (Not entirely, though; that'd have to wait.)

Not a bad explanation, but it still leaves me wondering.

Can you explain why?

...How is the Burden of Proficiency thing scummy again?

It's a logical fallacy. By itself, that wouldn't be scummy. That Trendall admits he has experience with it (and yet, still uses it) is what makes it scummy. The contradiction is more scummy than the fallacy itself.

[1]You say you're not a good scumhunter, so what am I supposed to think of your case against Trendall? [2]And if you think you're good at getting town reads, why don't you focus on that?

[1]It's my best effort. I'm not the best scumhunter, but that by no means means I'm automatically wrong. It simply means I'm bad at presenting my cases in a matter which seems logical to others, even though they make perfect sense to me. [2]'Cause it's generally frowned upon to give a long list of town reads. (I think I can pull up the logic from previous games which explains it. [This was another ICs logic, not mine, but I remember agreeing at the time.]) More than that, most of my best town reads were on gut, actually, and I don't like relying on it too much, as I prefer to use logic. It's also harder to find three town than two scum. (Eight alive, three [including self] eliminated, five left, two of them scum.) Town-hunting works by Process of Elmination, and that's generally far more time consuming and often less reliable than simple scum hunting. I might be better at getting town reads reliable, but they're not easy to get said town reads.

...Ack. That's another example which made more sense in my head. >_<

So wait. What you previously said was your case is not your case now? What? When? And again with the Burden of Proficiency thing. Jeez.

Huh? What the heck are you talking about, here? :/ I honestly have no clue what you're saying; I don't get that at all from my post. I was explaining why my case was valid, not invalid.

Post #412: ...Again with the Neruz and I agreeing thing. This is unbelievable.

Yeah, I'm currently not very happy at my gut. :P
I mention that it made me uneasy. I ignored it, 'cause logic shows that it's far more likely to be false. In hindsight, I suppose it was fluff and didn't need to be posted.

---

An ocean of fluff with a short intermission of fencsitting in between. I can't live with that.

My, my, looks like you're combining the main features of two other players! :P
(Fluff-->common accusation against me. Fencesitting-->One of my key points against Trendall.)

For reference, this is not doing Nacho any favors; he seems to ignore these things in me and Trendall (though that might just be that he didn't mention them there--will need to refer back to his previous posts). 'Sides, I have a town read on Neruz.

Spoiler: Responding to Neruz

Severe lack of content. Mastin doesn't seem to actually be posting anything of worth until about page 14 - 15. His prior posts contain one or two points here and there, and the rest of the posts are primarily meaningless fluff.

I admit the SEssions and semantics are fluff, but whenever I ask a question, it most likely is NOT fluff. (Okay, too general. :P When I ask a question directed at a specific player, it means I want more information from them, ie, to get a better read from them, as in, to better be able to scum hunt. And that's not fluff.) I ask a lot of questions in quite a few places, throughout the game. I give my opinions on a great deal.

However, I do admit that my first true case was on Trendall, and that probably did start at around 14-15. But just 'cause I didn't have a case didn't mean I wasn't scum hunting.

For Neruz's point about gut, I would again like to point out that my case on Trendall has a MAXIMUM of 20% gut in it. So it is not, in fact, my defense mechanism. Gut's one of a good scum hunter's tools which I admittedly use a bit too often. There's nothing more to be said on the subject, however; I have concluded that Gut is a semantics argument, and only fluffs the thread up further.

Third: Hypocrisy.

As much as my post above might've gotten emotional, I still feel that I defended against this one quite well. There's no hypocrisy when you take things into context and see that I've backed up my points with evidence, where I believe that Trendall has not; that difference is what makes it not hypocritical.

Hypocrisy IS a scum tell. But I have shown why I don't think what I did was hypocritical.

Finally: Escape routes. Mastin is constantly leaving himself escape routes.

Not intentionally. I hate defending myself with Meta, but it's an emotional reflex of mine to do so. If someone questions my natural play, I naturally--without thinking--defend it as me just being me, but because I feel I need evidence and people won't believe me, bring up previous examples of the behavior--meta--to back it up. Call it a bad habit. (I don't

think

I've done so in this post, so progress? :P)

I saw Neruz's vote on Nacho, and my first thought was "OMGUS", but upon reading Neruz's case, I feel it is not. He basically sums it up here:

You're looking a lot like an opportunist here Nacho. Rather than poking the lurkers to try and get them to post more (and thus contribute to town discussion), you pull up a case on me, based on two days of discussion after i had already admitted i was losing interest in the game. This seems to be contrary to my prior experience with you, and is definitely contrary to any form of town logic.

You sir, are scum. You're not looking for scum, you're looking for targets.

I'll look at Nacho's response, and it looks like a read of Nacho will be needed before I form a more solid conclusion, but right now, I'm agreeing, and think Nacho looks more like scum.

Now, of course you might argue "lat isn't playing anymore, it's nacho now;" to that I say "that may be the case, but it's just another player underneath that role.

This is a GREAT attitude to have. You'd be surprised JUST how many people are willing to excuse a previous player's actions when a new player takes that slot. It seems the logic behind this is generally, "the replaced was just a newb/VI; we should discount all these scummy things and judge by the new player", but 1: Lat wasn't a new player; he was an SE, and 2: Even if Lat was a newb/VI, there'd be ways to read him.

So, Mute, I approve of your attitude. :)

Mastin stated doing an ISO read of kayi here, even though in my mind Kayi is town.

This was 1: While I was away and didn't have access (but did have the page loaded, on a Kayi ISO), so I did a read, and--at the time--I didn't like what I saw. And 2: Done during the night. Upon further revelations, I realized I was almost certainly wrong.

This post by Trendall seems oddly scummy to me. Maybe my logic isn't in line with the norms of the site here, but I see this as a minor scum-tell.

I think generally it isn't, but I'm probably not the best one to ask. My only experience with someone asking about the standoff was me, when I was scum, and there were four alive and it didn't look like I'd be able to lynch anyone and was at risk of being lynched, but I asked by PM.

Point 2: If I was making a case, I would have made a case.

Hmm...
I know Trendall didn't believe that when I made my ISO, it wasn't a case, but I seem to also recall Nacho not believing it...

If so, blatant hypocrisy, anyone? (Though, again, I haven't read Nacho; it's obvious I need to.)

In case you don't see what I am getting at here, you've posted NOTHING in this post. Absolutely nothing whatsoever. All you've done is gone 'I think X is scummy. Here is a post that X is made', and expected everyone else to make the link between those two things.

Hmm, sounds familiar...

I seem to recall similar accusations against me, though slightly different.

In a nutshell, Mute fosses everybody who disagrees with him about anything, and thinks that anybody who agrees with him about anything is town. That's the sole basis of every single one of his 'arguments'.

Yeah, this is DEFINITELY familiar. :roll:

Basically, you've fossed everybody who considered no lynching.

Didn't both Neruz and Yenros support No lynching as well? I don't see suspicion towards those two.

Now, is anybody still considering no lynching here? I still think it's strategically the best option.

Nonononononono! This is wrong on SO many levels. (Okay, only two, but who says "wrong on two levels"? :P) 1: What are you voting for, Trendall? Is it a No Lynch?

...No. It's me. You're advocating for a No Lynch, while voting for me.

2: We've already given the stats as to why No Lynching today is statistically identical to lynching today. The only difference? Today, we have an extra opinion: Mute. And who's Mute suspect?

...You. Nacho, first, obviously, but you're a HoS, Mute's second vote.

See the problem with this, Trendall? I do. You argue that Mute hasn't contributed anything. Perhaps he hasn't explained things in a logical manner, perhaps his case isn't that strong, but he's made his opinions quite clear, suspecting you and Nacho, and has given all the evidence he can to support it.

I definitely want some answers from Mastin.

And I hope I have provided them, here. :)

If I wasn't so worn out by the Mastin ISO (took hours, no joke) I'd do it right now.

Sorry! D: Really is quite the pain, overcoming bad habits. >_< I do appreciate the effort you put into it, though. The fact that you managed to basically summarize a lot of what happened accurately also allows for me to far better summarize my answers. :)

The link between Trendall and Nacho continues to grow...
[hr]90][/hr]
Again, I must apologize for the length, however, I hope it's 1: readable, and 2: puts doubts to rest. This has taken me since 10:30 (it's 1:40 now), including my above post.

[Mastin]

Alright, some new stuff came up obviously while I was typing my post. People, keep in mind, if I say that I'm done with one page, I'm probably going to write another post of roughly the same length for the next.
(Actually, last post was probably longer, considering I exceeded the 12-smiley limit. )

[1]Why no comments on my ISO on Trendall, considering that he's your main suspect? [2] (Also considering that you like to teach, and I'd also appreciate comments as a SE.)

[1]I did. See the "Kayi Response" part I have spoilered. [2]I am very reluctant to teach when I've shown in recent history that I've become emotional. If I manage to keep a cool head for a prolonged period of time, I probably shall resume if the need arises. (Less teaching is needed as a game wears on, because the players get better.) In ways, you'll note that I do teach here and there in my posts, but it's not nearly as concrete and I'm not going to mark it as a SEssion until I'm confident I'm not being emotional or throwing heavy opinion into it.

As for that part about not commenting on outdated stuff: How was I supposed to know you had a huge ISO on me on the next page? I thought it was still up to date, and that page 18 would most likely be short. (Previous times I've been on the second-to-last page have shown that the next page generally only has around 5-10 posts which tend to be a few paragraphs maximum.) 'Sides, I don't see how that can have any indication on alignment. Anti-town, perhaps, but anti-town!=scummy.

I don't appreciate the fact that you waste time and space defending yourself against petty... well, not even accusations... when you could be doing something more useful. Like scumhunting. Or "getting town reads" which is what you claimed you're good at.

The latter explained. I've got a narrowed down suspect list, sure, but it's still a lot of work and not very accurate. (I believe--thinking off the top of my head--that of the five possibles, two I have down as solidly town, narrowing it down to three suspects. Trendall is one, and Nacho is the other, but that's mainly due to the association of the two.)

As for me defending myself...well, there are basically three kinds of defenses--1: Personal defense. Defending against personal attacks and semantics arguments. Worthless. THIS, I admit, should be avoided. 2: Defense against people's points against me. This needs to be addressed, because if I leave something unanswered, then people will bring it up, only more suspicious than before because I ignored it the first time. I don't like wasting time on it, either, but it's a necessary evil. 3: Defending my offense. This is the most critical of all. A defense of my offense is itself an offense. If you see this, it's not a waste of time. It's rather a furthering of my attack. Granted, I'd rather be scum hunting by bringing up fresh arguments, but this is still scum hunting, albeit almost always not as good.

---

I think that answers everything. Now, if you don't mind, my mouth is dry from typing these all up, so I'm going to get a drink of water and resume afterwards, hopefully, FINALLY, continuing things on. >_<

[Mastin]

EditBWOP:
"Trendall is one, and Nacho is the other, but that's mainly due to the association of the two.)"
"another", not "the other". I have three (as mentioned, 8-3 = 5, -2 town reads = 3 possibles), and Trendall and Nacho are the stronger of the three, but the third could (in theory) be scum.
Just in case that'd be confusing.

[Mastin]

For reference, I've got Trendall's posts in ISO (both pages), as well as both his previous games. I might not get a lot out of it (well, other than what I have already), but I'll see what's there.

[Mastin]

3.) Logical fallacies. Read them. Learn them. Love them. Lynch people who are guilty of them, especially if they are guilty of a few of them in rapid succession. Be aware that some of them are scummier than others, though, and as human beings we are all occasionally guilty of logical fallacies, no matter how towny we are. It is not so simple as, "OMG, you used Appeal to Authority, you are DEFINITELY SCUM," although that would make things easier.

You need not read further to understand this. Trendall claimed that Burden of Proficiency never came up. When I said it would have, he instead said that it had, but that he didn't think it was a scum tell. Yet the IC in this game linked Logical fallacies in her first post. I dunno about you, but when the IC posts links, I read every one of them because chances are, they're common newbie mistakes which should be avoided. I shall continue my reading, in the off 1/100 chance that Trendall has a valid reason for this being excused.

[Mastin]

...Actually, read that whole post, everyone in this game, and look at Trendall's play this game. It pretty much violates half of those. Perhaps others here are different, but me? I took the lessons of my first few games REALLY seriously.

Especially

from the IC. Trendall's either completely forgotten the fundamental lessons of his IC there (I find it hard to forget earlier games than later games), has a valid reason to disregard them (why I shall continue reading), or is intentionally ignoring them. (As in, is scum.)

[Mastin]

Huh? What in the name of--
That vote makes zero sense at all. (Seems quite similar to Nacho's Neruz vote, actually. Hmm...)

I'm not sure I'm fully understanding points on both sides by Nacho and Neruz. So, uh, forgive me if these are either 1: misinterpreting, or 2: already addressed.

Spoiler: The Massive Neruz v Nacho Debate

Everyone lurks, but it's usually in scum's best interest to post a lot and say a little.

Hmm, and who else has done that, Nacho? Why are you not voting me, instead? Especially with your earlier suspicions of me.

In other words, his "meta" point doesn't actually make sense and is weak padding to his case.

It does to me. If you lurked as town and aren't right now, chances are with such a small window between the games, you're scum this time. Makes sense to me, that logic.

So why not push someone else while the Mastin wagon develops?

At the beginning of the day? Sure, why not?
A few days before deadline when we need a lynch?

HECK NO. That's the

last

thing we need, another wagon forming near the lynch date. It only decreases our chances of getting a successful lynch in.

And am I reading this wrong, or are you seriously trying to call me scum because I didn't call YOU out on fluff?

Yes, you read that correctly, Nacho. If you were town, I would expect you to have called me out on more than you have.
You haven't.

Your hypocrisy makes me think that you're far more likely to be scum.

Right. So you agree with him without reading the posts he's talking about?

For the moment, yes. His case is more convincing than yours, going on just the posts alone. I'll need to go and actually check for myself to make sure, though.

What? I think you're taking that line out of context. (You really seem to like doing that),

For reference, this is something I consider to be a scumtell, nowadays. (Okay, I used to do it myself all the time regardless of alignment, but hey, it should be obvious I wasn't exactly the most popular player. ) Of note is how both Nacho and Trendall have done this, in my opinion.

you cannot find scum tells if a player is lurking.

Actually, it depends on the type of lurking. There are three. 1: Casual lurking--on the site, elsewhere, and commenting, but ignoring the thread. 2: Active/Normal lurking--Not posting at all, but reading the thread. 3: Passive lurking, posting, but not giving content. If you can identify which type of lurking it is, you can learn to read their inactivity. It's hard, but possible.

Perhaps you should venture outside the wiki every once in a while. OMGUS doesn't have to be "you're voting for me, so I'm voting for you"; it can also be "you're voting me, so here's my case on you".

For reference, OMGUS gets thrown around pretty much every time someone makes a case against someone who suspects(/ed) them. Does that mean that their case is automatically invalid? Heck no. They often bring up perfectly valid points against said person, and it's a BAD idea to ignore it all as "OMGUS". I saw Neruz's case against you, and my first thought was OMGUS...then I read it, found there were valid points in it, and concluded that it was not. It had many points perfectly valid in my mind, therefore, not OMGUS.

And I scumhunt by prodding first and making cases second. Remember, when I made small general points for why you were scum and asked you a few questions, then dropped the case completely?

Hmm, sound familiar? It should. It's a good strategy, but I need to check to see Nacho's attitude on my ISO on Jay, again, because if he was against it (like I seem to remember off the top of my head), this is hypocrisy.

[Mastin]

Also, I have to leave at 2, today. It's 11. I won't be on tomorrow, so if I need to change my vote, it needs to be done within that timeframe.

[Mastin]

Whoops, got the two reversed. "Active lurking"-->Posting, but not posting content. (This is more commonly seen as posting one-liners such as "sorry, will catch up", "x is scum", etc., rather than a lot of words but all fluff. Both

technically

fall under this.) Passive Lurking (something I came up with 'cause I was guilty of it a lot)-->Posting elsewhere, but ignoring the thread. (Different from Normal Lurking, in that they really haven't checked the thread.) Normal lurking-->Reading the thread, but not posting anything.

Anyway, do you think I should continue my Trendall read, or switch to a Nacho read? (That 2o'clock deadline is only an hour and a half away.)
(Remember, at 2, I have to leave, and won't be back until...actually, probably Tuesday. :/)

[Mastin]

Vote Count 8

Nachomamma8 (Neruz - Mute)

Kayi and Jay have both voted for Nacho, so that's 4/8. Nacho, you're at L-1.

[Mastin]

Hey, Nacho, could you do me a favor and give me a link to a recent game of yours as both town and scum?

[Mastin]

Preview response to Trendall: Right now, I'm still highly suspicious of you, but feel like Nacho is AT LEAST equal to you, if not surpassing you. I'd probably switch my vote, if it weren't the hammer. Anyway, partial collection of your first game below; I have not finished it.

Spoiler: Trendall's First Game Continued

Just a warning, this'll probably contain a lot of info, but not much analysis; I need to compile it all in one place before I can form conclusions from it. Also, once I post it all, I can have a good comparison to his play this game.
I noticed Trendall accused someone of twisting words here. Has relevance. He defends against a general note on the same subject here. He continues to push Beanman in that game, and also agrees with the active lurking suspicion, something which he was--for a while--guilty of this game.

So far, I've noted He voted early (Beanman for being lazy), but after the RVS, didn't vote as much.

Cleared up a previous misconception here, so it makes me wonder why it was so hard to do so this game with him. He was mentioned positively in this post

Trendall - I like how he's not sheeping on foilist's case and is trying to sort of mediate the argument, and I can't find any blatant scumtells.

...Showing how he was in the middle. I recognize not all fencesitters are scum, though there are different types of fencesitting. (I would explain, but, I, uh, am not sure I can. :/ It makes sense in my head, that there are subtle differences between town-fencing and scum-fencing, but it's very difficult to find the words to show the difference.) Very subtle, but existent; I need to determine which type Trendall was in that game compared to this game.

Trendall posts this at least three days after his last post, and says he's reading through the posts, but hasn't had the chance to post. (AKA, lurking, somewhat.) He also mentions thinking Bean is flipped-out town. This doesn't quite fit his attitude towards me this game, I don't think, but I'll need to check this later to make sure.

Here, Trendall expresses that he doesn't see AGM and Friend's, well, friendship, to be suspicious. Interesting.

He shows up days later and posts almost nothing. An alarming

Trend

, eh?
More seriously (without the puns), Trendall, this might be a style thing for you, but considering I recall that attitude in this game--if it proves to be consistent--you may want to consider becoming more active. (But, again, I only recall this info from the top of my head; you might be posting more frequently than I'm remembering off the top of my head.)

Takes the middle (fencing) in the scummy vs newbie debate. It would appear Trendall wasn't lying when he said he fencesat a lot. However, again, I feel like I can tell the difference between town-fencesitting and scum-fencesitting, so I'll be comparing his fencesitting in that game to his fencing in this game.

Furthering his "in the middle" stance, Trendall calls out Black and White logic on a robot. Recognizes that someone can be scummy without being scum. He defends fallacies as not being 100% fallacious and that they occasionally have merit. (True. They're not 100% accurate...they're only, oh, say, around 90-99% accurate.)

Town players change their opinions on things all the time.

This is interesting, considering his stance on Beefster this game...
His last vote in that game at this point was still his RVS vote, so indeed, he was being cautious.

Places his first vote, outside the RVS.

Of course it will change my mind. By pointing out these things, I'm inviting you to say 'no, you've got it all wrong, this is how it actually is'. That's how you find out information in this game.

This quote seems to have relevance. I recall thinking this sort of thought applied to Trendall, but off the top of my head right now (braindead), I can't remember if this works in his favor or against.

I had something in mind for 413 and 414 from Trendall in the game I'm reading, but I seem to have forgotten what at this moment.

Trendall takes an interesting stance, which 1: would explain Beefster suspicion in a way (we should be suspicious of everyone, if I read that post correctly), and also, 2: Just because people make the same conclusions doesn't mean they're actually linked, essentially. Interesting.

Unvotes later. Does not replace it.

Trendall is not fond of self-preservation voting.

Ack, it's 2. I have to leave, but will continue this later. I feel like I can learn a lot about Trendall from this game, so this has to be continued.

[Mastin]

...Huh? Not Mute?!?

Anyway, I've been working on Trendall's past games. The results are definitely intriguing; I'm on the last two pages (post-game) of his first game; I'm looking for issues to be resolved in there, 'cause I'm seeing some things which make no sense compared to Trendall's current play, in my mind.

[Mastin]

For reference, Trendall's play this game isn't making much sense to me right now with his first game in mind. *irrelevant stuff about timezones and waiting for day to dawn deleted*

To answer Trendall in 473, I am referring to it seeming like you and I haven't been seeing eye to eye, and it's been that way for quite some time. Hence, the line about it being hard this game, and the curiosity which ensues.
Anyway, I'm resuming my Trendall read. (In Notepad. >_<)

Spoiler: Trendall's Past Games Continued

Trendall claims to be doing a reread here.

Is hesitant to vote, claiming to be unfamiliar with theory and strategy at that point. He fears mislynching. Says that he's suspicious of Esurious (expecting her to have played better--a familiar fallacy to this game [EDIT WITH BELOW INFORMATION: Given esurious's role, Trendall's stance this game is slightly more believable--what I don't get is his reversal]), and thinks information can be gained either way.

Hmm...I wonder,

Trendall:

Are there any players this game which you think valuable information will be gained regardless of their alignment if they are lynched? (If everyone, who would you say would gain the most information, regardless of their alignment?) If so, why?

Apparently, I have a lot in common with esorios, based on that rant of a wall. This is relevant because if Trendall has seen this kind of play before, he should know how to better handle it, logically. (Things you've encountered before, you're far more likely to be prepared for. Makes sense to me.) (EDIT WITH BELOW: Her alignment explains Trendall's view.)

Hmm...what was esurios's alignment? *checks the first po--* Oh.

That

explains a lot. I thought the scum was someone else. (Note to self: When reading games for meta, stop reading them from the viewpoint of a spectator [trying to be a player] [I read a lot of games {mainly, to keep my skills up}] and put a note as to who the scum are--in this game, Foilist and esurious.) It being esurios actually *does* explain Trendall's early view on me, though it now makes me wonder why he switched from seeing me as scum (like he [correctly] did esurious) to seeing me as town.

Trendall:

What caused your change in opinion about me? From most likely scum to very likely town? (I think that was your wording, roughly. I'll get the exact phrasing if necessary, but you get the idea; I want to know what caused the reversal.) I don't see it. I can't see anything in your past games (so far), so it must've been from this game; what was it?

Interesting note: In Trendall's first game, the scum both advocated for a No Lynch, with no discussion (after a failed NK). (This is how I was taught to play those situations too, by the way. The logic of the No Lynch has been explained this game as well--even numbers have worse odds for a successful lynch.) To me, this seems to show that Trendall--if he followed the logic of most (newbie, at least) players--would be weary to no lynch after a No Death night.

Also interesting: AlamasterGM brought up pretty much exactly what's happened this game (only a day later): The doctor claimed with their protect, meaning said protect (Kayi) is more likely to be town, and the doctor (Mute) is confirmed, and will almost surely die due to the No Lynch, when we should've lynched. The first post says that Foilist (scum) was lynched Day 3 (the day after the no-death), with a setup pretty similar to what's gone on this game.

Trendall:

What's changed since your first game that makes your opinion on the matter nearly identical to the scum of your first game? (You advocated a No Lynch on even numbers, like Foilist and Esurios did in your first game, instead of AGM's/Friend's strategy of the doctor claiming.)

(In my experience, newbies tend to think that play from scum is play to think is wrong.)

Anyway, this is (hopefully) part 2 of only 3 on gathering Trendall's Meta into one location. Then, when the final picture is assembled, I'll put it all together in one spot, and compare to Trendall's play this game. So far, I'm getting a lot of conflicting data.

[Mastin]

Ack, I have to leave sooner than expected. Be back soon. :/

[Mastin]

Side-note:

Spoiler: This Is Just a Mild Off-topic Ramble

I feel like IC's aren't what they used to be. (Edit: I don't think it's their fault--they know HOW to teach due to the Being a Good IC article, but not WHAT to teach.) IC's used to be the beacons of light in Newbie Games. I feel like nowadays, they put far too much opinion** into their posts about teaching. This furthers my need to write that guide I want to, for Newbies. I'm thinking of making an abridged version of that guide, basically a guide list of things every IC should tell their Newbies to do, to give a standard baseline for them, to take a lot of the opinion out of it and give ICs a great way to, well, teach.
How I'd do this, not sure, but I'm thinking that I should take the best pieces of every IC's lesson in every game*. (It's not so hard, 'specially with ISO and Ctrl+F to find their lessons.) Combining the best of the better ICs gives you an excellent starting point. People who SE the way I do (as in, acting like a second or [in lucky cases] third IC) would also be included.
(I plan to do this for the more extensive version of my Newbie Guide, too, but even BETTER done.)

*Obviously not every Newbie Game Ever; basically, every game in the last hundred or so, plus games in the 500-800 range (particularly, the 700's), where I used to play.
**Heck, just take a look at me. I had to stop labeling my SEssions as SEssions 'cause I feared they were beginning to have too much opinion in them. It's not something an IC would EVER do intentionally; that violates a clause in the Being a Good IC article, which--contrary to the article saying it's for scum-aligned IC's only--I feel applies for all alignments. It just happens, without them noticing. This needs to change.

When I get around to actually doing the guide--if this game is still ongoing--I'll probably need mod permission to post it, though. :/

Anyway, with that small side-thought out of my system, it's time for me to address the points. (I have an hour.) Maybe I'll finish the Trendall Meta, too, depending on how long this distraction lasts.

---

Well, in light of the events in a game that just finished,

Do link me. I cannot defend against a game I cannot see.

Mastin had a choice. He could either hammer on Nacho, who was apparently equal with me at the top of his list of suspects, or he could not vote for Nacho and have the day end in a no-lynch.

My data was not finished, Trendall. If I had voted Nacho, that would've been the hammer. So, obviously, I wanted to do my analysis. I did, but wasn't finished when I had to leave. Considering I had to leave five minutes before I posted that, obviously, posting that was a bit rushed. Naturally, I didn't hammer. It was a day before the deadline. Others probably would've chimed in, I figured. Others would have hammered, so I shouldn't end the day a day before deadline, even if I wouldn't be online at the deadline, to let others talk. Like, oh, say, YOU, instead of making a last-minute vote for Yenros who you had no chance of getting a lynch on.

My data's still inconclusive, because I haven't had the chance to finish my reads. Nacho, for example, hasn't given me a link to his meta, like I asked him to yesterday. He didn't claim, despite being at L-1, either, and he deserved that chance.

Give me the time I need to finish my reads; I'm almost done. Then, I'll form a conclusion. I'm so close. Just need a little more time to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Once the last pieces of data are strung together, I can look at it all put together, to form a solid view. I've got a lot of info. I'm this close to finishing the last of it, and then I do the analysis half. And when I do, I'll have it. I'll have the scum; I'm sure of it. Off-site, this stage in the game is my specialty. Off-site, when we're this late in a game, when I have all the evidence ready, I'll be capable of stringing it all together, to weave the small hints here and there together, and find the scum. So, just you wait, Trendall. I will not stay inconclusive for long. No more gut reads. It's all information, from here-on out.

So, that should adequately explain why I didn't hammer Nacho. 1: Inconclusive data; too late into the game for me to use my gut between the two. 2: A day before deadline; people still needed to talk. 3: Nacho hadn't claimed. 4: Related to two, it was a whole day before deadline. While I knew it was MY last day of access, it was not the whole town's. Others should've had the chance to talk, and more than that, there were two other players who could've hammered. (Three, if Nacho believed that his lynch would be more valuable than a no lynch. It's something which a town-player at L-1 on the day of the deadline would consider.) Essentially.

Now, correct me if i'm wrong, but i'm fairly sure that kind of 'surprise' type reaction after the night is a relatively basic scum tell.

You're referring to the classic scum tell which is basically Congratulating the Doctor, cursing at the death of a PR, etc. It's outdated, to say the least. No, I was honestly surprised. If you look at the post I made (the spoilered stuff), you'd notice that I was saying that Mute was almost surely going to die. I was typing that up Tuesday, before day dawned. When it turned out Mute was alive, I truly was shocked, because, well, quite frankly, Mute SHOULD have died. Mute's clear, to me. Why SHOULDN'T Mute have died, Neruz? I am--by nature--quite analytical. (Which is why I hate by irony that I use my gut so much.) And by analysis, Mute was the logical choice of kills. It makes no sense to me for Mute to be alive.

---

Anyway, I've got 40 minutes left. If you don't mind, I'm going to ignore any further attacks on me for a while. "WTF?!? WHY?!?" Simple: If I continue to defend myself, I might convince people I'm telling the truth...but, well, quite frankly, I suck. More likely than not, I wouldn't; we'd stalemate, and my time would be wasted.

...Instead, I'll actually use my time productively, and try to finish gathering the information on Trendall. (Also,

Nacho:

Please give me a link to your latest scum game and your latest town game, like I requested of you yesterday.) That way, I can analyze it. It'll be there for everyone to see, so that when I'm dead, everyone will know where I stood, will have that information available, and will understand why I came to the conclusions I did, and they might make the most of it. In other words, right now, I really need to scum hunt, not waste my time defending myself.

[Mastin]

I finished my read (albeit a bit rushed) on Trendall's second game.

Spoiler: Part Three of Trendall's Meta

989. (Haylen Modding, heh. I was the mod for one of Haylen's early games, and quite enjoyed seeing her play. In ways, she has a lot in common with me--she had a very bad streak, almost retired, and wanted to better her record.)
Mallowgeno one scum. (SE? Apparently. Trendall must have terrible experience with his experienced players being scum. )
The other, I'll find out eventually.
Presumably, it's Goon+RB+VT's.

Trendall picked up two of his questions from the IC of this game.

Trendall places a (somewhat late) random vote.

Another player points out some early symptoms of fencesitting. (Symptoms, though not a case. Having nothing on anyone screaming mafia or scum is a warning sign that a person will probably fencesit. Trendall, you need to change that part of your meta. Even if it IS null, it looks bad.)

The IC clearly disagrees with me about SE's. I also interpreted this to mean that he didn't really put much weight into the "SEs should know better" part of the post. (AKA, he does not approve of the Burden of Proficiency fallacy.) Trendall picked up part of this, obviously (SE's are just people with more games), but not the other part I see as implied (though not stated)--SEs shouldn't be expected to be at a certain level of play. (As in, no using Burden of Proficiency against them.)

*deleted side-note*

Of note: Trendall's early play this game has a lot of Walling, contrasting his first game which had a lot of one-liners. (This makes it a bit harder for me to pick up any specific points from Trendall in that game. Heh, go figure, the guy who posts walls has trouble reading them. There's irony for ya... )

This game, he posted Walls as well, but stopped around the Beefster lynch. (He resumes--obviously--when talking to--who else--me. )

Three pages later, Trendall removes his Random Vote and places a serious vote.

No, there's nothing wrong with anybody changing their mind.

Hmm...
*thinks about this*
*thinks about Beefster*
*thinks about this quote*
*thinks about Trendall's view on Beefster*

...Will need to look into. Especially with this followup. I'll need to double-check on Beefster's play, to see if this applies to him.

Scum hammered early--this is interesting, given how Trendall hammered, but it was close to deadline. (I'll need to double-check to see how close we were to the deadline.)

Trendall comes out immediately voting. Something tells me that Trendall's first game will be far more relevant for Meta purposes than his second game, due to the unique situation he faced in the first being nearly identical to our own.

He acknowledges hammering early is antitown. I know Trendall waited to hammer, but I also seem to remember him having thought about it earlier; I'll look into the exact wording later. (That might hold the key between it being town and scum: his wording on the subject of Hammering.)

And I see further evidence that shows why Trendall has used The Burden of Proficiency, due to mallow. (It could be that Trendall honestly doesn't know the difference between using it baselessly [like, say, "he hasn't caught scum despite being experienced!", and valid. "He did that thing which you are taught not to do!"] Further observation, however, is required.)

[Resumed 12/15 after my post]
Another player uses the Burden of Proficiency on the IC; they were wrong. While Trendall has a great deal of reasons to use the BoP Fallacy, Espeonage should've (consistently) given him reason to doubt it, considering how (see above) Esp had almost always consistently said it was a fallacy. (Though, again, I'm beginning to take some interest in the BoP. This subject seems like it is something often brought up, and I think we need a better explanation of it. Heh. Another thing for me to ponder.)

Trendall fencesits...again. Yup, Trendall, I must apologize: Fencesitting IS part of your Meta; I'll consent to that. But again, you need to change it; people do not like fencesitters on MS.net. (Also, again, I feel like I can find the difference between scum-fencesitting and town-fencesitting if I look hard enough.)
Not only does he fencesit; he basically defends a fencesitter:

Funky feels very town to me, because I don't think a scum player would use the whole 'I can't vote for anybody until I am absolutely certain they're mafia' thing.

So, yeah. Trend fencesits. (I just need to figure out the difference between town-sitting and scum-sitting, and see which Trendall fits under this game. It IS possible; I know it is, and I know I have the skills to determine the difference...I just need to work on it really hard.)

Promises a reread. Note to self: look at Trendall's posts this game and see how often he promises a reread--he's done so often in both games he was town; if it's absent from this game (no examples come to mind off the top of my head), it'll be a huge indicator of Trendall's alignment.

Trendall: I'm most confident in my read that he's town. He seems like he's trying to think from both perspectives to find the motivations behind peoples posts instead of just jumping to conclusions.

I will keep this quote in mind when I look at Trendall this game.

Unlike this game (off the top of my head), Trendall delivers his promised post, and boy, is it a beautifully detailed post.

Trendall is not fond of absolutes.

This post is of interest. If I were Trendall, I'd take this post with a grain of salt in future games, considering gandalf was right before he replaced in.

Alright, I've got all the info, now. All I require is the time to analyze it.
(Off the top of my head, I'm seeing a great deal from Trendall which seems consistent with his Meta. However, I'm also seeing a lot of inconsistencies as well, and those are sticking out a lot more to me. Consistencies can be part of a meta, town or scum.
Inconsistencies which aren't just from game to game, however...those, they are far more condemning. So, right now, it's not looking so good for Trendall. Again, I'll need to analyze all this, but I have to leave, right now, sorry.)

[Mastin]

I think that we deserve some fair warning on this:

Mod:

You already know I'm a bit V/LA, right now, however,

Extreme V/LA until Christmas Day

, while I'm preparing for my trip. When I arrive, I'll have unlimited (albeit super-slow) access 'til New Years' Day.

If you feel this is too long of a wait, feel free to replace me, however, I personally recommend against it, for a few reasons I'm about to explain in a PM to you.
Also, if you do decide to replace me (I hope not, but your choice), I'll still be available almost all of today, and maybe Friday as well, so if you decide that it's too long without my playerslot contributing, at least let me have today (and preferably, tomorrow) before having a replacement.
Anyway, with that out of the way, I've already begun work. (Did you know I have nearly a dozen tabs devoted to this game? I've been consistently five minutes late leaving. I've consistently been putting my personal life on hold for this game. I've been suffering, but I'm not giving up. I have gone through a lot of trouble to still get on, because I really want to give this game my all. Real life just happens to be conspiring against me. >_<)

[Mastin]

I've seen this used before by scum from the site I play on. The "I've got useful information for the town, and I'm pleading with people to not vote for me despite my being questioned and suspected because I'm important to the town really truly" line has more often than not been a scum saying.

Ah, you're thinking of softclaims, I believe. Basically, softclaims are claims where people say they know more than the town does--this is a blatant hint that they are a power role. From what I've seen, most people when they see a softclaim take the policy "hard claim or die", that is, unless they spill the beans and explain everything about their role instead of just hinting at it, that they'll be lynched. The reason is because--just like your site, apparently--this is used far more often by scum than it is town, used so that they don't have to be very specific about their roles and can leave it up to the imagination of every player.

I assure you, this is not the case. (Particularly 'cause we're in a Newbie Game, which is a semi-open setup; softclaiming is suicide. )

Rather, I have no problems if people decide to lynch me. I'm actually expecting it, which is why I'm not going to defend myself a lot.

Instead, I'm merely asking for the rest of the town to wait to lynch me until I've gotten all my thoughts in. Seems reasonable enough to me. We've got three weeks. I intend to use them. (Preferably not cutting it to the last minute, but not cutting it insanely short.) I'm asking for time to gather all the information in one place, and piece it together in my mind, and post my thoughts. To give my analysis. Basically, to contribute, to scum hunt. So that my death will have meaning, so that I will actually have given my thoughts to the town before my death.

It's nothing new, to me. In my first game off-site, I was actually lynched day three. I knew it was coming, so I went overdrive. I abandoned defense and went pure offense, gathering all the information together on the game, discovered mistakes I had made earlier, and nailed one scum and was on the trail of the other. (I, uh, falsely nailed a townmember, but said townsperson was lynched the next day and immediately after that, I knew the second scum. So close!) Basically, the information I gathered helped the town win that game. I am hoping to do much the same, here.

When I die, you'll know I was town. You'll know my intentions were noble and pure. You'll know I really meant everything I said, and you'll have it all at your disposal. So, my hope is to gather all the information together and correctly weave together the pieces of the puzzle. To find the scum. There's MORE than enough evidence in this game to find both of them, and I think I can do it. So, after I'm gone, you'll have that info to use, and can use it to nail the scum.

When a mafia uses it, I've seen, they tend to ramble/repeat themselves,

Sorry. Did I ramble? I ramble a lot. >_< (I like rambling a lot more than ranting. ) I've rambled so large in the past as to break forums' character limits. (Yes, that's plural, as in, multiple forums' character limits.) You should know by now I'm not good with words.

but I'm reserving my vote til I see your info Mastin.

Actually, you have most of the info, already. You have my Meta's three parts on Trendall. If you wanted to, you could cross-reference it yourself with his posts this game. What you don't have is my analysis: me basically doing that for you, looking at Trendall in past games compared to this game.

The only information you're missing is me on Nacho, 'cause Nacho hasn't given me any links to look at. And when I compile the information from that, I'll be able to analyze it as well. I'll thrown in Lateral as well, for good measure.

...Okay, so I suppose that is a lot of missing info, but, eh, I'll get around to it. Trendall analysis first, then I get around to compiling the data on Nacho/Lat, then I analyze that, then I find my vote. It's a lot to do, but I'll get it done. (I have to.)

Spoiler: This is a bit long for basically a MD topic

To answer the part about metagaming: I'm looking for things that don't add up. For example, you used the example of my posting style. It's (albeit highly despicable--even by me. ) part of my meta, and by metagaming logic, not very suspicious. This also applies to Trendall. I have seen (so far from observation) that Trendall is, indeed, a fencesitter. That's (albeit--again--negative) part of his current meta. The idea in metagaming is to look for indicators of alignment: if someone is doing a lot of the things they do as town, they're more likely to be town. If they're doing a lot of the things they do as scum, they're more likely to be scum. If they don't do a lot of the things they should do as town, they're more likely to be scum, if they don't do many of the things that they often do as scum, they're more likely to be scum, and if they (don't) do things they do as either alignment, it's unusual, but null.

With Trendall, I only have half of those. Trendall has no scum meta. So, I'm looking for things he's done often as town--those are either null, or town indicators. (Hard to tell without a scum meta.) I'm also looking for things he shouldn't do as town which he has previously consistently done as town--those are indicators that something is different about him THIS game which was previously stable: in other words, indicators that he's not the same as he was, ie, he's scum.

...Uh, that's the best way I can describe it. Metagaming is a complicated subject; a lot of people hate it. (I hate excessive use of it; I like to use it as a tool. It helps me get a more solid grip on people.) Some things change with every game. So by looking at multiple games, if there's consistencies, it's an indicator that that particular thing is constant. If it's consistent, but suddenly changes, that means something is different. I think that explains it. (Ack, I suck at this.)

It's something which is (yet again!) something worthy of looking further into. (Wow, this game's given me a lot of those. Amazing, how playing once can give you dozens of ideas.)

There've been MD topics on metagaming before, but like everything else, I believe I have the capability to flesh it out even more. (Heh. I'm a far better player in theory than I am in reality. )

Anyway, with this out of the way, I'll resume my work. Sorry for the length; I find it a bit hard to be concise, right now. Call it a bad habit from the mid-to-late-game-crunch I've had in the past, combined with my rambling nature.

[Mastin]

For reference, it's kinda hard for me, right now, to navigate through Trendall, 'cause I broke his Meta into three parts, which is three different pages. Four parts, if you include my partial isolation on him, which was the beginning of my case.

My read of Trendall's past games started with this post, on page 19. It continues in the post below it, 455. I continue with the bulk of the first part in 472.

Part two is 480 on page 20. Part three is 500, on this page, 21.

I've got all three open, for reference, and also have all three pages of Trendall's Iso.

(As a warning, I don't think the link for the first works, for some reason. Don't ask me why; I have no clue.) Comparison time, begin!

[Mastin]

Hmm? I seem to be having trouble posting.

[Mastin]

Oh!
Oh!
I, uh, think I might've exceeded the character limit.

---

I'm going to try something: a point system. +1-->Consistent; more likely to be town. -1-->Inconsistent; more likely to be scum. +0-->Inconclusive due to not enough data (as in, Trendall has not played enough games), but probably part of his meta. -0-->Inconclusive due to not enough data, but not something which seems to be part of his meta.

The final score will give me a rough idea of Trendall's alignment, in theory. (I've seen others use similar methods, but I quite frankly have no clue if this will work or not; it's something new to me.)

Spoiler: Trendall This Game Compared To Previous Games

Trendall mentions his unusual schedule. It is consistent with his post in his last game: He has x amount of games on this site, goes on epicmafia, has played in rl and forums with friends, and has an unusual schedule and will be on at crazy times. However, his wording on the unusual schedule is different. In the previous game, he mentions that he'll probably be on at the same times as everyone else. This game, he says that he has those unusual times, and will likely have no time where he is without access.

...It's close enough to me; it seems rather consistent, basically saying the same thing in a different way. (This is a case where on the surface, my first instinct says they're saying two different things, but by looking beyond the literal meaning of them, I saw the exact same message, giving consistency.)
+1.

It's very helpful to know if something that could be perceived as scummy could also be down to lack of experience.

This upon further review hints at Trendall's Burden of Proficiency view on the game. It basically says that if something which might be scummy comes from a more experienced player...it's going to be scummy. AKA, Burden of Proficiency.

This one, I'll need to score differently. My post here Gives reasons why Trendall should know better. -1.
The IC that game was scum, and wasn't living up to Trendall's expectancies. +1.
The IC posts this, hinting at a disapproval of the Burden of Proficiency. -1.
Mallow, the SE, did something. Burden of Proficiency was used, and they were right. +1.
Burden of Proficiency was used against the IC, and was wrong; the IC was town. -1.

Three negatives, two positives, final score: -1. Trendall has had more reason to doubt Burden of Proficiency than to use Burden of Proficiency.

(Trendall's current score: +1, -1, 0 total.)

This post doesn't read as fencesitting: it actually reads as Trendall leaning

against

Beefster, and towards Kayi. This early in the game, that goes against everything I know of Trendall; by meta, he

should

have been in the middle. It reads like slight "confusion" (making it almost look like fencesitting), but it definitely seems to be leaning towards Kayi. That's a definite -1.

In this post, he makes his Beefster suspicion public. This is ~6 days into the game, on page 4. His first suspicion that strong in previous games was July 7th, which means ~9 days into the game, on page 10. And in his second game, It was ~6 days, on page 4. Inconclusive. -0.

From that same post:

Surely every scumhunting technique is [inconclusive]?

This relates to fencesitting. Again, to me, this quote (if he believed it) implies that Trendall should be voting more often ("why wait until you're as sure as you can be when you'll never be positive?", essentially). I know now that doesn't fit with Trendall's meta (fencesitting), so this gets a -1.

This simply happens sometimes. I'm often being accused of being scumbuddies with someone else, when it turns out that me and that person are both just two town players who happen to be on the same wavelength.

This is consistent with his view on Friend and AGM. (I can't find the link for that post, though. :/) This is a definite +1. (Especially considering that if he was scum, he'd want me to focus on those two, most likely.)

Trendall's score (I think) is -1, right now.

Promises content "tomorrow". "Tomorrow" turns out to mean "three days later". His follow-up post doesn't contain much (mostly things directed directly at him), and he once again promises content, stating the following week is his good week. It does come, three days later, but--while stronger than his previous post--is quite weak.

This is not the first time Trendall has promised content; it's happened in his past games, too. This is an example, which he delivers, and it's a nice, strong post. Promises a reread, posts the next day, and then, a day later, delivers quite beautifully.

To give examples from his other game, Says he's reading, and this is the result. It's short, sure, but 1: it conveys a broader picture (without giving specifics), and 2: this was Trendall's first game. I feel if it was a more veteran Trendall, it probably would've contained more details. Not to mention, 3: It's on the same day, not three days later. Other examples in that game are that he's been following, but not posting; every time I can see a line like that, it has significant content in said post (generally, a good length of time between posts, too).

...This doesn't match with what I've seen this game. In both previous games, when Trendall said he was going to deliver content...he delivered content, and within a day or two. Definitely a -1.

Part one. Of who knows how many. >_<

[Mastin]

...By a lot. That was, like, only a fraction of the post. >_<

Spoiler: Trendall Continued, Part two

Although it might not seem like it from what I've posted so far, I'm still in the process of reading the game carefully, checking people's previous games, making lots of notes, etc.

Hey, I think I completely missed this before. I've not seen any of it.

Trendall:

Would you please give everything you've done on this? Every note you have, everything you've observed from people's past games, and your thoughts at the time when you were reading the game?

It's also another example of content he didn't deliver, when doing a reread.

I don't feel like I've done everything I can to work out who the mafia is yet, so I'm not going to hammer on anybody until I've got that done.

This is another thing I think I missed before. I find this

very

interesting, given his view of me today. Seems pretty hypocritical.

I've gotta say, I'm going off the idea of a Beefster lynch a bit. I find it hard to believe that a scum player would act this out of the ordinary when the pressure's on them, especially on day one. I'd expect mafia to be trying to get votes off of themselves here, which Beefster doesn't seem to be doing. Instead, he's still relentlessly trying to get reactions out of people and work out who the mafia are. I originally thought that Beefster's vote on me was to try and get votes off of him and onto me, but I'm starting to realise now that that may not necessarily have been the case.

This

is

fencesitting, so technically, I have to give Trendall a +1 for this. However, this reads to me as a definite example of scum fencesitting. It's pretty much word for word what I've seen in multiple past games of mine, how the scum word their fencesitting. (Unfortunately, I forget which games I know of this on this site, and I can only give examples from off-site, which instantly makes it less reliable.)

I'll compromise and give him a +.5.

This is an important post. I know OMGUS has been brought up in Trendall's past games. I'm too lazy to track down an example from Trendall's first game, but here's something interesting about Trendall's second game: He's

used

OMGUS as an argument against someone, before! -1, oh, so, -1.

Votes for the No Lynch. This is

technically

the correct move, however...Trendall's experiences in his first game should have taught him better. Both the scum in his first game advocated a No Lynch. Two townspeople did not. They were correct, and it ended up helping the town a lot to have the doctor claim after that save; it confirmed Trendall as innocent. That's basically, like, -1 -1. >_<
However, in his second game, scum fakeclaimed doctor and no-killed; he confirmed bob as town with the fakeclaim. This does counter the above. So, I think that it's actually inconclusive. (I thought that this would be one of the largest points against Trendall, but then, with his second game in mind...) -0.

I could've sworn Trendall used a little Burden of Proficiency against Beefster, but as I cannot find it, I must've been wrong. Instead, it's looking like the first official use (see above where I mention he hints at it) would be against me. As mentioned, the Burden of Proficiency is a negative point, but since I gave him that negative point above, no point in placing another negative point here. (That only happens with continued uses of it beyond reason.)

That's all on his Page 1 ISO. I don't think I can get anything more out of it. (Not without context, anyway. The greatest thing about ISO-reads: it brings a user out, shows you everything they've done without distraction, allowing you to get a far better feel on them. The worst thing about ISO-reads: to do so, you have to remove context.)

Let's see...currently, Trendall has...

+1.5, and -5; that means he's at -3.5. Trendall does not seem to be living up to what I've gathered his town meta should be.

I don't know if that's the behaviour of mafia putting up barriers, or a genuinely offended townie, but once again, I'd like to take the time to think about that, no matter how much you see it as 'fence-sitting'.

This is fencesitting, and it seems like town-fencing, too. +1.

Also, if you fancy reading through the whole games, note that this 'burden of proficiency' thing doesn't come up at all.

Referring to his past games. Guess what, Trendall? I read through all of both games.

...Burden of Proficiency

did

come up.

No point against him, 'cause his defending the BoP at this stage is still reasonable enough.

A lot of his page two ISO seems to be taking things I say slightly out of context and using them against me. I can see it being done unintentionally, so there's no worry, there. What the worry is, is how it continued even after I pointed it out, and how Trendall had a concern about it in his first game, against Beanman. However, he mentioned in a later post in his first game that he often does it accidentally. I believe this is a -0. (Funny, this is another thing I thought was a huge point against Trendall.)

Now, is anybody still considering no lynching here? I still think it's strategically the best option.

I know I've pointed out why I hate this quote, as it seems like it really works against Trendall. However, I've been thinking about it, again. The point about no-lynching didn't really come up in his last game, whereas it had a huge amount of debate in the first. While I can see his opinion earlier as being reasonable given his last game (he even brought up, "scum no-killing to fakeclaim doctor"), but this, I don't see as much. AFTER Mute's doctor claim, I would expect him to use his experience from his first game. I feel that this is a very strong point against Trendall, but I promised I wouldn't use my gut at this stage as much. So, it's still a point against, but only a -.5.

This is a point against Trendall in multiple ways. First of all, he went off of a possible-lynch (me), and onto an impossible lynch (Yenros.) He also fails to hammer Nacho, another possible-lynch. Second off, he finds me likely to be town. Given how there was a similarity between esurios's playstyle and mine, I can see him thinking I'm scum. I can't see anything in his previous games which would answer, why did he change his mind and think I was probably town?

I asked him, but have not received an answer. -1.

That's page 2 of Trendall's ISO. He's at -4, by my count.

Part two.

[Mastin]

Spoiler: Trendall Part Three

Here, Trendall brings up that I did not hammer. Guess what?
...Neither did he. More than that, this change of opinion came AFTER I had started my case, which was three posts above him, and after Neruz had also voted me. Seems a bit convenient, no? Does to me.

And I still don't have that answer, by the way. This does not match the cautious-voting Trendall I know. Trendall has never voted for such a weak reason in his past; he always had a case, aside from the RVS votes, obviously. I don't buy that was his reason for voting. It makes no sense. Particularly so close to the deadline, when it likely wouldn't even work. Also, for the "vote for pressure" thing to be effective, you have to say you're voting for pressure in the post you vote; otherwise, it has a very slim chance of working, and when brought up later, reads as an excuse. Like it is, right now.

Here, he reserves his right to change his mind. This is consistent with his past games; +1. I

thought

that he used changing one's mind against Beefster, here, but upon reading that post, I don't see it anymore; his suspicion on Beefster is that he doesn't think Beefster has voted anyone he really thinks is mafia, which is a different thing.

Okay, that's it. Final score: -3. That seems rather bad, plus there's the stuff which I've pointed out which I haven't placed in the point system. However, I need a comparison to Nacho. Nacho's score will be a huge determinant on how scummy Trendall is. (-3 might turn out to look rather angelic.)

(Oh, dear, I hope there's no coding errors; Preview button seems to be broken right now.)

(That was due to length.)

Sorry that it's broken up, but, uh, I had no choice. >_<

[Mastin]

I don't know why I was having trouble with that post. No smileys at all, and it's only* 6 pages in Microsoft Word. (2,321 words.) I've done a LOT more than that in my posts and had it be fine; maybe a spoiler tag just wasn't meant to handle that much? Anyway, I think I've done as much on Trendall as I can in ISO. There are still some things I need to read in-context. However, I think right now, it's far more important that I get my Nacho read done.

*"'ONLY'?!?" Well, for me, that's actually not so bad; I've done 30 before. Like I said, I don't know why I was having trouble, 'cause it's actually quite short. Okay, for me, at least.
Anyway, as Nacho has not given me links, yet, I'll have to work from his Wiki. (And Lat's, too.)

[Mastin]

Snap, Lat's only scum game listed on his wiki is Hydra mafia; obviously, the results of that would be a bit off, due to the extra head. Guess I'll go for the two which he actually has explanations on: Mini 1021, and Newbie 1020, vanilla townie in both. Mini 1021 first, as its apparently his first game. Unless Nacho tells me differently, his games will be Newbie 940 (scum), and 970 (town).

[Mastin]

Okay, that's it. Final score: -3. That seems rather bad, plus there's the stuff which I've pointed out which I haven't placed in the point system. However, I need a comparison to Nacho. Nacho's score will be a huge determinant on how scummy Trendall is. (-3 might turn out to look rather angelic.)

That's my basic short version, right now. I'll highlight specific points about Trendall I find to be scummy later, but as I mentioned, getting done with Nacho is more important.

And, hey, at least I used spoiler tags so that it isn't constantly elongating the page. Not to mention, it does have a lot of valuable info in it, though admittedly, the valuable info probably doesn't stand out too well, which is why I'll need the highlights, obviously; I'd be insane (well, more so than I am... ) to expect everyone to read it all, so, yeah. Have patience, and I'll summarize it.

Right now, I'm starting my Nacho read. Since Nacho hasn't objected, it'll be Newbies 940+970. I've also got Lat's games open, too, and shall start with those, first. (This'll take a while. I have 'til 2:30, and it might take me that long.)
Just a note: As with gathering the data on Trendall, these won't contain a lot of analysis from me, so you're free to skip over them unless you really want to read it all. As with Trendall, gathering the Meta is just step one; comparing to the current game and analyzing it is step two. (I really hope I can get it done today.)

[Mastin]

Spoiler: Lat's Summary of Mini 1021

My first proper game. I managed to find scum and get a solid case on Prana but this ended up as a huge WoT war or what fitz called Prana-Lat chronicles. This isolated the rest of the players and this was wrongly dubbed as town on town fighting, and with the consecutive no lynches/lack of discussion ended up really stalling the game and hurt the discussion. My death caused a whole lot of WIFOM, so much that Sotty did a complete 180 and considered Prana as town despite being one of the few that supported my case against him. Thankfully, after my death Prana was lynched, with a grand total of 2/7 votes. IAU managed to give a pretty awesome buddy analysis laying out Leech/Nightwolf as the two possible buddies for Prana, and Nightwolf was mod-killed the next day for inactivity.

Lylo was a load of WIFOM laid out by Leech, in fact the whole time he was WIFOM'ing the hell out of everyone with his plan to nk the most suspicious players. In the end he ended up getting his win with convincing Sotty to vote fitz, who was pretty much MIA the whole phase/game.

This was a pretty good learning experience and more or less fun. Lesson learned, stay away from WoT's/WIFOM and things should turn out better.

Wait a sec:

in fact the whole time he was WIFOM'ing the hell out of everyone with his

plan to nk the most suspicious players

.

This...this would actually explain a possible reason Lat would NK Kayi. Hmm...

Let's see if that holds up, shall we?

Spoiler: Actual Points from 1021

Lat replaced commieb, Leech and Prana were the scum.

Lat replaces in.

This is his first post. This game apparently has a lot of Walling in it. (Oh, boy. >_<)

Asks a lot of questions, and votes for Nexus, something which he seemed to be leaning towards in his first post.

I'm having trouble getting anything useful out of Lat this game, so far. Most of his posts are Walls. He seems to stubbornly stick to Nexus and Xite beyond reason. (Maybe I can pay attention to the reasons. There's usually a subtle difference between town tunneling and scum biasing, and if memory serves, he was going against both Kayi and Beefster rather hard.) Also sticks by his town reads equally as strong.

I consider calling scum teams to be very important, there was one point in the game I even asked you who my scum partner would be if I was scum.

Funny, that he mentions this, considering I asked much the same of him on day one, with his view on Kayi/Beefster.

I like iamausername's analysis of Lat's play to that point. It seems like an accurate enough depiction: basically tunneled a little on town for mostly invalid reasons, pointed out bad behavior (from a player who eventually turned up scum), and didn't hop on a lead wagon, staying by his (albeit incorrect) scumreads. Will need to compare to his play this game.

Mafia is not a game of mathematics.

This is interesting, given Lat's stance on the No Lynch.

Half-through the game, at 22. I need to read faster. >_<

Lat nails scum here, for 1: Opprotunisticism, 2: Not scum hunting, and 3: lying/not having a strong read on someone willing to lynch. And gut. (And that it made so much sense to him.)

Making assumptions is part of any investigation so let's make a few.

This might have relevance; I seem to recall the topic was around in this game at some point.

It's understandable that someone would get mad if they constantly had to repeat themselves.

Will need to look at Lat's posts this game in regards to me.

General Note: He was tunneling quite hard on Prana, though was right, this was of a similar nature to his earlier tunneling. This is important, 'cause it shows consistency. (The only difference from his D1 play is that his posts D2 were longer due to his target fighting back

hard

.) I'm getting a general feel for Lat-tunneling-town. Other than the earlier link I gave to iamausername's post, I can't really explain it well, but I think that--if necessary--I can compare his attitude to help determine if it's town-tunneling or scum biasing.

His view on his tunneling:

Tunneling - I am having a conversation with you am I not? I have about 3 or 4 posts against you for the day, now since you're using tunneling as a point against me what do you think about the nexus situation? From your viewpoint you can argue that I tunneled Nexus there so why did you not point it out?

Basically, acknowledges that he has tunneled, but still thinks he's right.

Asks for support from someone who had expressed interest in his lynch target, and mentions that the scum will likely use his argument to their advantage.

Finally wraps things up near the bottom of 28, for the most part, managing to summarize the important parts of his argument. He later stops tunneling (this makes a good example), but still thinks he has scum. (He does.)

Another example of him looking elsewhere.

He wasn't sure at first about the "No debating" stance, but later seemed to accept it. When Prana called out the no lynches as being pointless, Lat offered up him as an alternative; it read to me as a semi-joke about Prana's stance.

I think that's all I can really get from Lat's game, there. If you're crazy enough to read all of it, it probably doesn't look like much, but I actually think that this will be a tremendous help to me on my analysis.

[Mastin]

Spoiler: Lat's View of Newbie 1020

I went pretty crazy against Blackcloak early on, pushing very heard for his lynch. I felt pretty bad about that because later on in day I changed my mind and considered him as town, but I still wasn't able to notice the town tells fast enough. Looking back, most of the stuff I came with weren't really valid and in general most of the town didn't agree with what I was saying. Vas made a pretty scummy move and began to gun after me towards the end of day 1, but we ended up lynching ilikemusic, who posted no content at all.

Things began to turn around, and eventually Vas was lynched, though he outed the cop before he left. This whole time I've been REALLY underestimating how strong town reads can be, in Incognito was able to deduce half the players in this game were town (with good reasoning) thus establishing a better sense of trust and town unity, really leaving Scum's options low. The game was reduced to PoE, and in the end Leech and Rufflig got to slug it out with Powerrox hammering for the town win. Lesson learned, find town tells sooner, and town reads are actually pretty tech.

Oddly enough, I just remembered, (while typing this) one of the actual reasons I joined this game was because I saw Leech and moose going at each other day 1, and in Lylo moose's replacement got to finish that fight with Leech.

I only have fifteen minutes, so I doubt I'll finish it (I think I was rushing 1021 as it is, already), but I'll start the case.

VasudeVa, The Rufflig / [moose200x] scum, Lat replaces xo L3MON ox.

---

And, yeah. We need to lynch today.

(Which is why I've been trying my hardest to finish this up. It's time consuming, reading pretty much an entire game, and putting together data which I can only hope is useful together (but have no guarantee on). Think about it, I have to read six games, then do an ISO of three players (for two slots), then compare it, compare the two, then do a read outside of Isolation to put things back into context to confirm everything...
Man, I can feel the time draining away. D: Why aren't there more hours in a day? )

[Mastin]

Again, apologies. I tried to get access, but really, really couldn't. I really wanted to continue playing, but I understand why I was replaced. As sad as it is, I'll have to live with it once again, that I couldn't follow all the way through on my game. Good luck, all; see you in the post-game. Ah, well. It does give me time to work on all those theories this game has given. (Which'll be posted 1: after they're finished, and 2: if I get Mod permission.) (What? Can't a replaced player get a Bah post, too? )

[Mastin]

I'll be polite and hold back on my commentary until it's officially post-game. I still feel like I owe you all some explanations. Not to mention, I have a lot to say on matters relating to this game.

[Mastin]

Nope, Trend. I thought you were the one person who COULDN'T be the cop.
(If memory serves, anyway, you were at the bottom of my list. Certain individuals were near the top.)

Games not over yet, technically.

Which is why I am refraining from posting my thoughts.

[Mastin]

As Mastin spoke with me a little after you had been lynched noting how relived he was that you were taken out of the picture.

This is both entirely true and completely wrong. I obviously don't consider this game a win. That should be obvious, but the reason FOR it isn't.
You'd expect the moment I replaced out, I could no longer call it a win. Normally, yes, but I was still reading along with the game, and I still intend to read 1020, 940, and 970, even though I have no obligation to; I'm just that kind of a guy, who wants to continue playing to the end.
It also wasn't that DLG played so good; that was actually the bridge between the above, and the actual reason. DLG's scum play was incredible, don't get me wrong. It's an impressive feat. For starters, most players tend to panic when they're scum. When they replace into a heavily-suspected slot, that's pretty much doubled, if not tripled in the pressure. The fact that DLG handled it so well is something which--as RC said--made DLG the MVP for the scum. But that's not why I can't call this game a win for me.
The actual reason that I can't call this game a win?

...The town lynched Mute, the one player that I would NEVER have allowed to be lynched. Mute correctly guessed

two scum kills

in a row

. That's quite frankly incredible. More than that, he was the first to nail Lat as scum, and was in a strong position to get both Nacho and myself lynched in later days. Quite frankly, I would have had no problem losing to Mute, because he played so well, I felt that he almost

deserved

that win. (Heck, had I been replaced and Mute wasn't lynched, and the scum lost, I'd still count it as a loss, even though I was no longer a player.) When he got lynched, I 1: knew the scum were most likely guaranteed a victory, and 2: that--while DLG certainly earned it--I could no longer call the game my own, because that was the one thing I advocated strongest against. Mute was 100% confirmed town to me--and that was even from a town perspective. I thought he played his given role to the best of his possible ability, so it really was disheartening to see him lynched. I was relieved my faction would win (as RC mentioned)...but I was saddened that I'd never be able to call it a win in good conscience.

As mentioned, the replacements killed the game. Had DLG not replaced me, I might've been able to defend against the accusations against me (I had responses in mind to all of them), but never would there have been that guarantee. (I was thinking that a stalemate was a real possibility, and considering the amount of suspicion me and Nacho were under, came to the conclusion that--if a no-lynch had happened again--we should've no-killed for a draw, because it was possible we could survive, but not probable.) Even if people tried to keep at a conscious level that DLG had my playerslot, at the subconscious level, they want (and gave) a clean slate to DLG.

DLG, Ghostlin, and Concission all came in with pretty much identical opinions. That'd be a super-good, super-strong thing if all of them were town. The fact that one of them was scum condemned the game to be a scum victory, because when those three began to trust each other, it created a bond which is hard to break, meaning that no matter what, the scum had the third vote they needed. Worse, both Yenros and Kayi were on the right track, too, so when their replacements took a different stance than the predecessors, it completely tipped the balance of power from the town side to the scum side.

Now, as for why I didn't hammer Nacho?
I felt that too many connections had been created. Mujex early-on asking Heather (me) specifically, me forgetting to put Mujex on my suspicions, Nacho's weak distancing which he backed off too quickly on, etc.
More than that, we were both individually suspected by at least a few players.

Not to mention, because I had no weekend access, I felt that if I hammered, I would not be able to pull off the win on my own. That'd require a Trendall lynch, followed immediately by a Jay lynch. I might've gotten one of those (Trendall, obviously), but both? I just didn't think I had it in me to do the solo win, so--as Nacho pointed out in the QT that night--I simply didn't have the guts to do it. I still thought Nacho would be dead, though, because, well, I was leaving a full day or so before deadline; surely, someone else would hammer.

When nobody did, that created the only link between Nacho and myself that anyone actually noticed, that I didn't hammer him. I felt my excuse was valid as town, and it did give me extra ammunition against Trendall, but overall, it was worse for me than hammering would have been.

As for the PM I sent explaining the reasons why I didn't want to be replaced, well, most of them, I would've said in-thread if I wanted them to be public. The first was fear of cluttering the thread further. Technically, that'd benefit the scum. (It did. We got three new replacements, throwing the previous game balance completely out of normal.) But I didn't want that kind of an advantage. The fourth was that I was expected to be an SE acting as an IC. I'd prefer not to elaborate on this one. Those are the only two which I'll reveal, though.

Frankly, and I think even those who participated in your lynch will agree with this, you were too good at being a Doctor to be believable. I really can't blame them for feeling compelled to lynch you, although it's really hard to shake my own bias of being the Moderator and knowing that you did protect two nights in a row and you were the Doctor. If you retain that ability of scumhunting, then all you really need to work on is your ability to communicate yourself as a townie with these skills and you'll certainly be a force to be reckoned with.

I also had that biased perspective, but every word I said to you in my PM was honest, Mute. You really are that good, in my opinion, and did the best doctor job I'll ever see in my career.

All that said, I felt EVERYONE did the best they could, under the circumstances. Beefster felt too stressed as the IC. DLG is correct, in that I had trouble separating teaching from playing; I'm a good teacher, and instinctively, I want to teach. I've taken the stance where even if the person did something scummy, even if I were town and thought they were scum, that it'd be down-right dishonest of me if I DIDN'T try to teach them to the best of my ability. I'm not as good of a player--which is why I can say I took no offense to Trendall saying as much, because--quite frankly--he's right. I'm far better at theoretically playing than I am at actually playing, but, eh, it's something you just have to work on with time, I suppose. I know my flaws; it'll take time, however, to correct them.

Kayi played well, in my opinion, despite having garnered suspicion. (By the way, the reason I chose Mini 1024 is because Lat brought up how us killing Kayi would be similar to that game. I later used this point in my

case

Private Investigation [yay, this game helped me define the term!], against him, if you recall. The actual reason is that I saw PR tells from pretty much every player; Trendall was near the bottom, with--I believe--Neruz the second-least-likely. Kayi, Mute, and Jay were all near the top, and Lat agreed on Kayi.) Ghostlin did very well in entering, but can't be blamed for the loss, due to DLG doing well to set himself apart from me.
Mute played one of the best games I've ever seen (as mentioned),
As did DLG, particularly with the circumstances.
Neruz gets credit for being among the first to read Nacho as suspicious, and was on the right track with me, too.
Yenros was a bit off, but overall, was quite a good player; I considered Yenros for a kill due to him being one of the most pro-town. Lat convinced me Yenros would help us lynch town players, essentially, because that's the direction Yenros was headed. Through Yenros's replacement, I suppose he kinda did. Concission came to the wrong conclusion, but considering the circumstances (Having an MD article pretty much discussed in-thread rather than in an MD thread quite hurt the game, but I didn't realize it until too late, sorry), it was a noble effort.
Lat was an amazing partner to have, as was Nacho. They both played excellently, though I felt Nacho made a few too many mistakes, and that if I had the chance to finish the PI into him, I probably would've supported his lynch over Trendall's, despite me knowing I likely wouldn't be able to pull off the win by myself. (That was not one of the reasons I replaced out, though. Rather the opposite, I was afraid someone else might have the same opinion when replacing me, that they couldn't win, so I wanted to make sure I was in the game so that someone else didn't have to suffer. DLG apparently didn't mind that much. )
Jay did better than you could expect. While Jay didn't start off strong, he gradually improved as the game went along. As he progressed, he legitimately tried to scum hunt, and if I were town, I don't think he would've been a suspect of mine. (As I was scum, I needed to have him be my #2. But not my main suspect, which is why I backed down; I thought it'd be pro-town to do.) And then, he fought back hard at the end, showing significant growth from the short posts he had at the beginning, to matching anyone else's posts at the end.
And Trendall...well, if you didn't notice, I was actually heavily coaching you--despite actively trying to lynch you--heavily on how you could improve your play. Part of my guide is why you should always vote (except for when you shouldn't, like lylo. ), and that's advice I'd encourage you to follow. More than that, being a diplomat is admirable, but try to not be TOO distant. And when you began to contradict yourself a lot, you were making it easier to lynch yourself.

Not sure if I had more to say. I didn't write down my thoughts. (Oops. )

Me vs Mastin might have turned into the site equivalent of "War and Peace" - a massive work of words that garners much critical acclaim, but no one really has the stamina to plow through!

Actually, I would've been more concise after my PIs were finished and I turned the more dominant one into a case. I know how anti-town walling can be, with this game being a prime example. I don't like the feeling that my very presence could potentially ruin the game, due to my nature, so an effort to be more concise is going to be the main focus of improving my play. (The other being, not to get emotional. Trendall really did offend me, particularly because I was scum, because he was accusing me--in my view, anyway--of using my status to the benefit of my own alignment [which was scum], which goes against the Being a Good IC article.)

I hope you were happy with how I played your slot.

Quite. You did excellently, and I felt you deserved the win. (I don't, you do.)

I was simply trying to muddy up the waters regarding you as a player in this slot and establish a new identity for it. I think your teachings are extremely valuable for the Newbie Queue. I think you were right when you pointed out in the QT that when you play scum, you do too good of a job of teaching the newbTownies and it backfires on you.

Yeah, you did a good job; it worked. I do like teaching, but as you correctly pointed out, I have trouble separating it from playing, ESPECIALLY as scum. >_<

@ Jay: I think you could turn into a very good scum-hunter if you just let yourself do it. You spent so much effort apologizing and worrying over making mistakes that it was fairly easy to put you on the defensive. Once we had you pinned there, your contributions were easier to make seem scummy.

/Agree.

Anyway, I think that's about it. Heh, sorry, I just have that temptation to post one more wall.
I hope ALL of you continue to play after this game, and take the lessons I gave to heart, 'cause they were all honest.

[Mastin]

Worth mentioning: I wouldn't have revealed your role Day 2.

This is true; claiming WAS a mistake, overall, but not as much as you'd think.
1: Scum to my knowledge have never taken such a gutsy move. That makes it a huge town-tell.
2: Mute was right, on all three accounts. He did everything right, was doing the what I felt was good (albeit slightly unorthodox and not necessarily correct) play...and then, you lynched him.

First off, I knew that the odds of anyone being that good were small;

It's funny how I was scum and I was the one most strongly advocating that the move would never be a scum gambit. I found the odds of it being genuine to be quite high. Unorthodox, and not recommended, but not bad play, either, rather, conclusive proof Mute was town.

Town was going nowhere and no matter how brilliant Mute had been in his protects, the game would of been a scum win due to attrition than anything else.

Eh, it depends on what Nacho and DLG would aim for had their been a No Lynch. Like I said, I would've no-killed, but they might not have.

I've gotta say I didn't like that Nacho wasn't lynched D2 as well, but that's mostly my fault, as has been pointed out, that my ability to make arguments and defend myself is, for lack of a better term, bad.

Don't worry, it does improve with time. (Well, most of the time. ) I'm quite bad with words, myself, but I improved over the course of the game, somewhat. Also, you became more active on day three (or was it day four?), and that was a great thing to do.

and from what I've seen off-site, usually the first people to post in a thread, after the start of a new day, where they begin with a vote for someone, is 2/5 times scum.

Not true on-site, though you did have other valid reasons for suspecting Lat.

I understood I was going to be lynched D3, or 4, whichever it was, because I had no way to defend myself, as I had all of my evidence out on the table already from my POV and couldn't think of a new way to present it in a clear manner.

Sometimes, it helps to summarize things. Like I used a lot of evidence to defend you; you could have brought up my quotes on the matter.

Mastin was scum the whole time?!?

Sadly. Remember one of my first posts in the game? Where I so strongly said I hated being scum? There's a reason for that. I know I'm not a very good player, and as town, that's an issue which does need working on, but it's not nearly as large of a problem as when I'm scum, because then, it's a huge problem. I was not amused--to say the least--to learn I'd be scum this game, 'cause I have that 0% win rate as scum. (Still do. This is the third game I've been replaced as scum, where my team won. The other two are Newbie 688 [my first game, though I consider 735 to be my first true game], and Open 155 Jungle Republic. I contributed nothing to the former, and was...well, pretty much suspected around the same as I was this game in the latter, if memory serves.)

Every player when I was in the game had me in their top-three suspects by day three, whereas I was seen as town for most of day one by almost everyone. That kind of turnaround is proof that I need to severely increase my skill in the mid-game play.

I was honestly shocked when I saw that. Nacho/L22 I knew was scum, but I always suspected Trend was his partner before his hammer on me, just because he never hammered Nacho.

Neither did I. But as you can see above, I was honestly afraid I'd never pull through without him, and as I was leaving before deadline, that gave me a nice excuse to use the next day. It didn't work very well, sadly, but yeah, at least I could use the same logic on Trendall, and I thought I could do it without being hypocritical by using the excuse, which Trendall didn't have.

Finding out that was the case after all and not "scum didn't NK anyone" is a kind of boost for my ego.

Heh, heh, don't let it get to your head.
(Uh, trust me on that, don't, just don't, let early successes like this boost your ego. It happened to me when I got back-to-back cop roles in my first two true games, and caught both scum in both of them. It, uh, had a very negative influence on later games, to say the least. )

I found him incredibly scummy, but I wasn't sure whether that was down to his being mafia or just his playstyle, and I spent ages debating over it.

Honestly? I can't tell you if it was me being mafia, or if it was my playstyle. I *think* it was my playstyle, so it definitely needs to improve (greatly), but, eh, won't know for another game or two for sure.

I was wondering, though, do games usually have these many replacements?

I've seen some without even so much as a single replacement (And BaM practically requires it, though the players can ask for replacement), and some which have had something like ten. (In a Newbie Game. Most replacements I've ever seen would probably be a dozen or so, in a large, but they're probably some which have more.) There's no way to predict it. Ideally, no, they don't have that many, but one of the things which killed the game was the holidays, so I think that had a huge influence on it all.

If only people had believed me!

As mentioned, Jay, you became too defensive. Your scum hunting was there, but it was hidden by you defending yourself too much. If you had made more arguments against your suspects, instead of defending yourself, it might work better.

[Mastin]

1. Never wanted to replace out

Nor did I.

2. Everything Mute said was wrong other than I was scum,

Yeah. Mute was right, but for all the wrong reasons. I wouldn't mind. I, personally, use a very unusual brand of "logic" when I scumhunt, so I often have this said of me. That said, it is something you need to work on trying to minimize, Mute. ;)

I had a rather methodical plan thought out until end game and even calculated what I'd need to do and even prepared some Cop bread crumbs in case I needed them.

I, on the other hand, had none, 'cause I hate extreme planning ahead. Far too easy for a single thing to go horribly wrong, and all that. :P
Speaking of which, Trendall brought up in my replaced-bah-post, that I couldn't follow through with my game. That was NOT referencing to a plan thought out, which I couldn't finish, as Trendall thought. It was me, saying EXACTLY what I meant.
I couldn't follow all the way through on my game.

That is, I couldn't finish the game I was in. That is, I was replaced, despite my effort, despite me wanting to continue. This is not the first time this happened; when I was in a dozen games, I was mass-replaced in half of them, mass-should-be-replaced-but-somehow-died-before-then in the other half. In one particular example, I had figured out both the scum, and had a strong town read. (On Shikahake7, who had a similar style to me.) When I got replaced, my replacement--Starbuck--ignored everything I had said on personal policy (Starbuck's blacklisted me due to my posting style) and went incorrectly, costing us the game where we had a chance of winning before that. To give the worst. Another one was Open 155, which was similar to this game. I was average in the suspicion list, not town, but not scum, I nailed two of the three mafia immediately and was well on my way to the third, but I got replaced then, before my faction pulled off a huge win. Those were ALL examples where I didn't want to be replaced, because I wanted to play, I so badly wanted to finish my games. But I couldn't, I didn't, I got replaced, and I can't count any of them as wins. (Though there are some which I can definitely count as losses.) And because I was extremely disappointed I was repeating my history, I pointed it out. (The PM itself I've already explained.)

I'm not some grand master schemer. I've tried being one off-site, and while it starts off well, a single unexpected factor can really screw you up. :P And this site being different and more complex than most, I can't plan as well, anyway. So, I don't. :P Okay, I predict the general way the game's going to go, but never anything too complex.

3. Mute's claim actually wasn't that bad. Here's why, Kayi and Mute were of the two most suspected players of the game. That claim should have cleared them both, and allow the players to lower down the lynch pool. Was the timing bad, maybe, but it was a decent move this game.

Yeah. I think in most situations, the claim wouldn't have been good. But in this case, it wasn't bad, either. Not necessarily good, but it definitely worked well enough. The town forgot Occam's Razor and got into a WIFOM battle that they lost. The simplest explanation was that Mute's claim was correct, he protected Kayi and believed Kayi's NK was stopped.

The explanation that Mute fakeclaimed doctor--not knowing if there'd be a counterclaim or not, under zero pressure--and stopped a probable mislynch, claiming a protect on a serious suspect, and had purposefully no-killed to set it all up...yeah, definitely not as simple to me. :P

Trendall actually made a very good point about Mastin not lynching Nacho.

Aye. Unfortunately for Trendall, the same applied to him as well, so his point against me was weaker. Especially considering I had justification. (Poor, yeah, but enough to buy me enough to not get lynched immediately.) He did not.

Speaking of which, I think I'll self-reference his case against me and see what is there.

Spoiler: Trend's Case Against Me Was This

* Didn't hammer on Nacho, despite how Nacho and I were equal top of his suspects list. By his own logic, this should mean he is scum, as he is being cautious/fencesitting.

<<<Yup, Guilty, biggest scumslip, though my excuses were pretty good for them mostly being improvised.>>>

* Tunneling HARD on me, and only switched focus to Nacho when it became clear that other people were wanting to vote for him.

<<<Tunneling was originally something I was well-known for doing, especially as town, particularly as the cop. I tried to stop it, to keep an open mind, but this takes a lot more work than you might think. This game, I attempted to fix it, but obviously, it didn't work. It's part of my meta, but NOT something I want to continue doing.>>>

* Lots of inconsistencies in his arguments

<<<I suck at consistency. My brain is wired in such a way that sometimes, I'll say something, then change my mind about it when I think about it in more detail. It's more noticeable when I'm scum, though, so I suppose this point has merit. My revised Insane Tells do touch upon the subject a great deal.>>>

- Says that he pulls examples from off-site if necessary. Says that my argument based on another site is irrelevant.

<<<Speaking of which, I used to say "Metagaming me [in offense] won't work, Metagaming me in defense does." :P That's just how bad I was. Obviously, I tried to change it. However, I don't think this point actually holds (though it does have some valid truths behind it), because I explained why my epicmafia profile was so out-of-date, whereas my play from the site I would pull from was far more recent, and more similar.>>>

- Says that he uses examples from past games no matter how old they are. Says my argument based on old data is invalid.

<<<This was mainly due to the fact that I haven't played for so long, and the only meta I could give was out-of-date, but even so, the older games would have aspects of my current personality, hence, why I was willing to bring them up. On-site evidence. Off-site, older evidence even MORE out of date, where I had a completely different personality was less valid to me. All this said, now I can at least give this game as a current scum meta. Unfortunately, I haven't completed a game as town recently, so that's still worthless. :P>>>

- Says my 'you should know better' argument is invalid. Uses the argument 'you should know better than to play like this' against me.

<<<I felt I explained this one well enough. Trendall was thinking I was a better player than I really am as his reason for "you should know better". MY argument was that I actually gave evidence which SHOWED that Trendall should've known better. And, Trendall, I still hold that true, that the Burden of Proficiency is not the scumtell you think it is. Maybe on some level, it applies, but it's so subtle I don't think anyone [not even myself (at least, not yet)] can accurately tell the difference between scum-BoP-is-valid, and town-BoP-which-isn't.>>>

- Says that my 'fencesitting' is scummy. 'Fencesits' himself when it comes to Nacho.

<<<Actually, I mostly dropped the fencesitting point about Trendall, when I pointed out there's a difference between town-fencing and scum-fencesitting. There is, albeit subtle, and I'm still working out how to tell the difference. Though the point about me not hammering was definitely valid. I had town-reasons not to hammer Nacho, but I had a heck of a lot more reasons not to hammer Nacho as scum. :P>>>

- Uses minor details in his argument. Writes one of my arguments off as a 'minor detail'

<<<This was my fault for terminology differences. I was using details to point out the broader picture, whereas I felt that Trendall was bringing up an irrelevant point which wasn't important. It's difficult for me to explain.>>>

- Uses the argument 'Beefster seems to be making a lot out of nothing'. When I use a similar argument against him later on, he says it's invalid.

<<<This one was actually valid. I had forgotten about saying that about Beefster. I had a defense in mind which was also valid, but since I can't remember it, I suppose I have to call it valid. Making a lot out of nothing is something which has always been part of my style. It's something which is both a great gift and a serious curse. It allows me to look at the game from a non-standard perspective, but also limits my ability to persuade others. Sometimes, the 'nothing' actually turns out to be "Seriously Something", but just as often, it really is nothing. There's a difference between the two, and it's subtle. In future games, I hope to refine this. Lessen my uses of it, but when I do use it, to try and see those finer details in the post, to determine the difference between town and scum, even if it appears to be nothing.>>>

* Says that Mute would die in the night for sure, despite the obvious possibility that mafia still have reasons to leave him alive. Does the classic 'omg the mafia did that? I can't believe it' when Mute doesn't die during the night.

<<<I was advocating for Mute's death [I wanted him NK'd], and had to be convinced otherwise by my partner. Of

course

I thought Mute was going to die, the only reason he didn't is 'cause I was convinced differently! :P I don't think this one was really valid, because I would've done it as town. I was so confident in Mute being town, had I been town, I would've been shocked, because I was that sure.>>>

* Few if any actual solid arguments against people.

<<<This one's extremely subjective, so I can just as easily say that they were solid to ME. That said, I need to make sure I can improve my communication skills, so that I can show why it should be solid to OTHERS as well. I'm good at Personal Investigations. I'm not so good at making said PIs into cases.>>>

- Arguments based on gut

<<<Are meant to get initial reads. I hate using my gut so often, but it works so well to get me into the game. After that, I tend to look at my gut reads closer, and either have them invalidated, or made valid.>>>

- Arguments based on Meta

<<<As I have said, Meta is a tool to get to know a player, get a feel for their general style. It was never meant to be my entire argument, just a part of the whole, a piece of the puzzle. Metagaming is a great way to find out about a player, like after this, I was able to better [albeit subtly, as I was still trying to lynch you. :P] coach you, Trendall, for example.>>>

- Arguments based on totally inaccurate and baseless leaps of logic (eg. if Trendall said this, this means he should have acted like this)

<<<This is definitely part of my style. I am fully aware I use an unusual brand of logic, but it's just how I think. I'm trying to change it so that I have a more normal thought process--if for no other reason than to make sure my arguments make any sense :P--but it's part of who I am, and will always remain with me. It's not necessarily bad; I can be right with it. Just like Mute was right, for all the wrong reasons. It's just that I can never convince someone else by using it.>>>

- Arguments that are just weird (Jay random voted the doctor)

<<<That was a gut read. >_< Well, a would-be gut read if I was town.>>>

* Posting lots of information, and far less analysis.

<<<And I informed you of this fact in the posts themselves. Simply put, I made it clear that I was posting the information for MY benefit. I needed it in a post, not as raw text, because as raw text, I can't see things as clearly. The analysis was to come. I got replaced before I got the chance to do my final analysis. It's part of my style, and I think it actually works well, when I have enough time to follow through. Only problem is, I often don't; you'll notice these ate up HOURS of my time, and I was already on a tight schedule in RL. I don't consider Information instead of Analysis to necessarily be a scumtell. CONSTANT information without analysis, sure, but when the analysis is promised (and delivered, even if it's later), then I think it's actually quite a good tactic. Needs some refinement, obviously, but Information gained this way is a good start for a PI; the analysis is how said PI would finish.>>>

* Uses a lot of semantics arguments to worm his way out of accusations ('that thing I said against Jay wasn't a case so you can't criticise me for it', 'Anti-town, scummy, and scumtell are all separate' etc.)

<<<These were all different. Semantics WERE semantics. There was no point in discussing, say, the definition of Gut, yet people were using their own definitions which differed from my own as evidence against me, so I was compelled to defend my viewpoint, because I was being suspected for a reason that to me was totally invalid. It was, because we were discussing semantics, not actually scum hunting. In the future, when I see something as being a semantics argument, I might make the mistake of not recognizing it immediately, but once I do, I'll make one post at MOST about it, and then stop immediately, and just ignore those who want to continue the MD article in-thread.
And for reference, my Jay post was a Personal Investigation, not a Case. I wasn't trying to persuade others to lynch Jay, I was trying to get a better read on him. [Well, town-me was, anyway.]>>>

Heh. Like most of my spoilered content, this is mainly for my personal reference later-on. ;)

8. Stop posting walls, they are very anti-town.

Mmm-hmm. I used to have the delusional opinion that posting walls was pro-town, because that's more chances for scum to scumslip, as well as more information on the table. In a perfect world, it would be. If everyone read every word of every post, it'd definitely be true. Thing is, we don't. :P Because not everyone likes to--or sometimes don't even have the capacity to--read walls, that means they're extremely anti-town. I warned the town very early-on about walling, and tried to limit myself, but again, wall-posting is how I got my title; it's so drilled into my nature, I find it hard to stop.

but he did make a good job seeming like he cared which is why I suppose he wasn't lynched.

I treat games as a serious devotion. When you flake from ten games, there's just no way you can't see the damage you caused, and not go "...is that something I WANT to continue?!? NO!" In many, I lurked until I was seen as suspicious, because the game wasn't fun to me if I was considered town or neutral. I had to be considered scummy, else it felt boring. I simply can't NOT devote everything I can to a game, because after those failures, I realized the damage I had done with my carefree attitude and lack of commitment. Instead, I vowed to never again let myself get into that situation, that I would play EVERY game through until the end, that I would devote 100% to the game.

...Which is why I was quite upset when I had to be replaced, due to the holidays, because I KNEW I could continue playing. I might not have won (probably would've lost, actually), but I would have been able to say, honestly, that I never quit, that I did the best that I could under the situation, that I honestly lost the game as scum. Nope, can't say that anymore. :/

Oh and by the way, I still have 1020, 940, and 970 in my tabs. :P

[Mastin]

heh. I was kinda annoyed you didn't read my C++ game, that was my favorite game where I actually broke my wall posting habit.

I looked at your wiki, and knew I wanted Mini 1024. But I needed an excuse to read something I had already read.

It had a lot of information.

So did 1020.

Fit well enough for me!

I also lucked out that you had no completed games as scum, 'cept for the Hydra game, and I don't consider Hydras to be part of the main; they're effectively an alt, and people play differently (most of the time) on alts.

The main trick to avoiding walls (i've found) is to read your post again after you're written it and carve off all the bits that aren't absolutely necessary.

Yeah, sometimes I do it, but I have trouble deleting stuff. Feels so unnatural, after putting in the effort to write it, that it should all disappear. It should be recorded, somehow, is how I naturally feel.

RC: Excellent modding job.