Newbie 1131 - Game over

[VitaminR]

Hello, I'm your IC for this game. As such, you should feel free to ask me questions about the game, site culture, common tells, etc. I will answer all such questions truthfully, as if I were a neutral observer. Just make it sure it's clear that you are asking me a question as an IC.

At the start of the game, the common thing to do is to place a vote randomly to try to initiate discussion. Putting a little bit of pressure on someone makes them easier to read.

Vote: StefanB

Question: Do you like being a vanilla townie? Why or why not?

Yes, this is my favourite role. I don't really like to lie or manipulate, so being a vanilla townie allows me to just hunt for scum without feeling any pressure. Being scum is stressful, since you have to plot and scheme. Being a PR also comes with responsibility, though it's fun if you make the right choices.

[VitaminR]

Hello, friendly neighborhood IC!

Or perhaps

unfriendly.

*makes the "watching you" motion* :p

Good, don't trust anyone, especially me.

Vote Sooky.

Who's Sooky?

[VitaminR]

Post 16 makes me nervous, that don't trust me reminds me to much of a certain character in a book. I don't want to "I told you you should have trust me!", moment later. (Perhaps I read the wrong book in the moment)

Really? It was obviously tongue-in-cheek.

What????
The mafia would ask you to play the game???
What is so different from my thinking and this point:

I wan't you to make seens.

And if you think I am mafia, why no vote?

You seem very nervous.

[VitaminR]

Well nervous is not really what I would call myself. Confused by LegendofMafia (who I know is from another side an wanted to invite players from here for a challenche) is more like it, correction by exactly four of his five posts. Overeager, yes! Nervous because of one post I don't even understand, (And that is not the first one from Legend) and your vote on me. I fully admite that is more than I have gotten in other games, that's true, but why do you call me nervous.

I called you nervous because the moment legend called you mafia, you took it seriously. It seemed strange to take such a jokey accusation seriously. It reminds me somewhat of myself as scum. As scum, I tend to take accusations too seriously, because I know them to be correct, when, as town, I know them to be baseless and I don't worry about it.

And what do you think about Legend of Mafia?

Not much, so far. Seems a little paranoid.

[VitaminR]

This question will make me seem dirty but I feel I need to ask it, how do the mafia communicate off-thread? Is it a PM conversation with all of them in it or is there a private board for them?

Well, forehead7 is probably town.

It strikes me that this is his personality, and that his actions would be the same Mafia or not. That being said, FOS on LOM.

I will however

Vote AndroidDreams

,
him/her being the first inactive I see. Are you with us?

This is scummy. Why the FOS if you think his actions would be the same, scum or not?

Demyx, you are one of the people not voting, yet you are one of the more active players. Why is this?

[VitaminR]

Re forehead7: Most town tells are subject to WIFOM. Still think his question was more likely to come from town.

Other than AndroidDreams, for the same reasons as others above, I suppose my only minor scum read is VitaminR. Call it OMGUS if you want, but his point on me post 56 struck me as little more than StefanB had already said, and his comments about StefanB post 26 seemed intended to cause us to doubt StefanB, without much justification (until post 33, which I thought was a bit weak as well). Other than that, he doesn't seem to have done much.

Where does StefanB say the same thing? I thought we made different points.
In any case, I am relatively happy with my StefanB vote still. His reaction to LoM was strange. And his Gingy vote is quite random.

Then he can't provide links to the past mafia games, why not? If it was on this site then you'd be able to search for all your posts surely? Or on another site.

Do you think Gingy is purposefully trying to hide his past games?

[VitaminR]

StefanB: They are a bit different, come to think of it. You were calling me more on my vote, and he (VitaminR) was more on what I said to go along with it. Still strikes me a bit scummy though, like he was looking for something to say, and found your comment. I certainly wouldn't lynch on it, but I'll keep it in the back of my head.

I just thought the FOS was scummy. I don't think I was even thinking of what Stefan had said about it. I don't see why these things are related in your mind?

Possibly, either that or he's just lazy(I can relate)

Which do you think is more likely?

[VitaminR]

I do not support a policy lynch of legends of mafia. In general, I think policy lynches should be reserved for extreme circumstances. We're on page 5. We can hardly conclude that legends of mafia is not going to play the game seriously or is going to be a liability in an endgame situation. In addition, there are still things that can be analysed when players are barely scumhunting (voting patterns, for example).

An easy policy lynch can really play into the hands of scum. If legends is town, it gives us practically no info and we lose a lynch. I'm somewhat suspicious of the people pushing this idea so early.

[VitaminR]

Alright, this is the point where I think you should be feeling uncomfortable with this. You can't seriously want to policy-lynch a newbie who doesn't know what a policy lynch is.

Unvote, Vote: Demyx

Legends, it's basically a lynch not for the purpose of finding scum, but for the purpose of eliminating certain behaviors from the game.

[VitaminR]

Honestly, it's not about your strategy concerns. It's that I don't buy that you really want to policy lynch LoM. It's Page 5. You're going on a few pages of non-activity plus maybe the fact that one player said he lacks common sense (btw, he has hardly refused to contribute, he doesn't seem to be saying much, but nowhere have I seen a stated refusal to play the game). And he's such a newbie that he doesn't even know what a policy lynch. I don't understand at all how you could think that's enough for a policy lynch. This feels like scum picking a player who looks vulnerable and trying to set up an easy lynch.

[VitaminR]

I might point out that on my home forum, I take it easy on newbies and don't vote them first day. That's because we usually don't have more than two newbies in a single game, and on that forum I'm considered one of the "advisors", so I act differently. In this game, I'm just another newbie. I don't have the authority or experience to act in an advisory capacity in a new environment. And so I'm not applying my usual policy of not voting those who clearly need help. That's your job :p

It's nothing to do with being in an advisory capacity. You're going for an easy target on the basis of very little. We don't have real evidence that LoM is not going to be readable.

And, actually, for the record, I'm not going to spare newbies because I'm the IC. I wouldn't support a policy lynch on LoM normally either. If I think you're newb-scum, I will lynch you. You should get a real mafia game so you will learn from the experience.

[VitaminR]

I don't seriously want to policy lynch him. I wanted him to seriously THINK I want to policy lynch him so he's spurred into contributing. Surely you're familiar with the concept of a pressure vote? I've said repeatedly that I don't want to see anyone actually hammered this early, and I mean it.

So you are saying that this was all a pressuring gambit? Because it sure looked a lot like you want this policy lynch to be an option. Just not wanting to actually see someone hammered yet does not make a vote a pressure vote.

He hasn't refused to contribute in the sense that he came out and said "Guys, I'm not going to contribute to this game." But he has not contributed anything of substance despite the pressure on him.

Yes, but it's also very early in the game and we have no idea of his playstyle. There are plenty of players who barely post in the first few pages of the game and become more active when more is going on.

I mean, imagine he IS mafia. How long are we going to let him coast by like this if he doesn't improve? The more that helpful people die and unhelpful people live, the less town-friendly the environment gets.

They haven't been any real wagons. I don't think it's really meaningful to speak of coasting. Look at Gingy, look at AndroidDreams. These people have also hardly contributed any original scumhunting. It doesn't really mean anything yet.

[VitaminR]

What is your view on policy lynching in general?

I don't think I have ever agreed with a policy lynch that I've seen. I've never participated in one. In theory, I will admit that there may be acceptable circumstances for it, but, most of the time, it's pushed by scum and lazy town, in my experience.

What do you think of the arguments against AndroidDreams from earlier?

AndroidDreams doesn't really worry me. It's obviously a bad idea to just follow the most advanced-seeming players, but I can see newbie-town coming out with something like that.

[VitaminR]

Where to start. IC I think this would be a wonderful moment for a little gametheory about scumhunting. (sorry I hope you have somethink prepared)

I can talk a little bit about scum tells, if you want, though I don't think AndroidDreams really needs it. He seems to have perfectly legitimate suspicions. Putting a vote on Tajun because he had the most votes was not that bad of an idea. It's good to get a little wagon going early in the game. I mean, that's how you find scum. You put a vote on them, interrogate them, see how they respond. If it feels legitimate, then you look elsewhere.

[VitaminR]

It's a mix of pressuring gambit and wanting to discuss the option a bit. What I wanted to happen is for him to realize he might be in danger of getting lynched and to start contributing. If that didn't happen, then I think it's a discussion we should have.

Okay, fair enough. How common were policy lynches on your home forum? And how quickly do people resort to them? Is it seen as a last resort?

It's seven days. You think seven days is not enough time to post

one

reasonable post?

It's been seven

slow

days. It's clear he's not a standard player, but it seems pretty early to draw conclusions. Plenty of time for him to adapt to the game environment.

I think we might have to agree to disagree there. Perhaps it is a difference of the forum environment, but I've seen similar lynches both discussed and enacted in some games I've skimmed, so...

No, it definitely happens. Might more be frequent now than from when I used to play, but it has always been a part of the MS game.

The reason I found that statement questionable was that the only other vote on Tajun at the time when AndroidDreams voted was Gingy. AD and several others had already pointed out Gingy as someone who wasn't contributing much. So when AD said he was following more experienced players, it was unclear who he was talking about. If the only vote on Tajun had been you or one of the SEs, I wouldn't have questioned it.

This is not true. StefanB was also voting Tajun at the time. And Gingy had not been called out as someone who wasn't contributing much yet (and one of the things she had posted detailed her extensive mafia experience on another site). Preview-edit: As you've since realised.

[VitaminR]

Alright, that was instructive. Your responses feel pretty town.

Unvote, Vote: StefanB

For the record, policy lynches are not so much a common Day 1 play here (people look at them with a little more suspicion perhaps). It happens, but it's generally considered suboptimal for town.

[VitaminR]

Alright, something needs to happen.

Unvote, Vote: Gingy

[VitaminR]

VitaminR was voting Stefan before we had the dust-up so he was just going back to his previous vote. A better question is why a Gingy vote to make stuff happen. Especially since one of the reasons VitaminR was voting Stefan was for a random Gingy vote.

Yes. Eh, I didn't like Stefan's lack of conviction, so that doesn't really say anything (though even if it did, I don't have that much confidence in my page 4 or 5 read or whatever). And Gingy's ISO does look scummy.

I'm busy just now on a game I'm hosting elsewhere. Sorry, I am town though so don't waste a lynch on me.

You're co-hosting it. And you find the time to come on here and post useless things.

Hosting a game takes very little time, outwith the hour or so around the time of the deadline.

Very poor excuse.

unvote Gingy
vote Legend of Mafia

Just for the record, I still find Gingy scummy but this is the straw that breaks the camel's back for LOM.

This sets off alarm bells for me. Hosting a game is totally a valid excuse. We get the first sign that legends may actually contribute and that makes you vote him?

FOS: forehead7

[VitaminR]

*sigh* Did that really just happen? Don't think legend was even at L-1, since Demyx unvoted.

However, I get scum waves from him
a) Being the IC
b) defending the player who is too dumb to live (and therefore an easy lynch and therefore fun for the scum to have around to redirect attention to.)
c) Being the IC and defending the player who is too dumb to live. If either weren't enough alone, Vitamin really should know this by now, so that he's doing it it extra terribad.

This is baffling to me. I'm suspect because I believe it's lazy to lynch a player just because they're harder to read? Go and see if you can find a single example of me participating in a lynch because I don't like someone's playstyle. I doubt you'll find one in a few years' worth of games (though I may have done it as scum, I suppose). The fact is that legend hasn't really done much that is unambiguously scummy (his penultimate post is the only one in which he really drops a scum tell - acknowledging that there's a lot of evidence against him without explaining why that would be the case is kinda scummy).

AndroidDreams, forehead7 hasn't done any defending of LoM, I have.

While hosting a game is totally a valid excuse and forehead's dismissal of it is a little... dismissy... I'm not sure we have any sign that LoM will contribute yet. That looked like an excuse and non-content to me. Putting down a FoS instead of a vote when you admit in the same post that your previous vote lacks confidence is a little hinky.

It's at least a promise to contribute more. As for why a FOS, I didn't want to relieve Gingy of pressure quite yet.

His game doesn't have that many game mechanics though, pretty much just entails keeping up with the posts and posting vote counts, and he's hosting it with his brother so it's not as if he couldn't slack off to give us something, I'm not expecting him to the highest poster or anything but just give us a couple of suspects or something, ANYTHING!

You can finger me all you like(dirty, lol) but it still doesn't change the fact that LOM has given us nothing, at least Gingy has given us something (albeit not very much)

I guess this is legit, considering that you cited some meta-related reasons for thinking legends is scum. Just the timing of your vote felt bad to me, like you'd been waiting for legends to post so you could go "Aha! That's the final straw. Now I will join your wagon." so you could sneak your way onto the wagon.

Well I think there's ten of us right, and 2 of us are mafia. Tbh I have a lot of evidence against me, if I wasn't Legend of Mafia then I would think that Legend of mafia was scum but I am Legend of Mafia so I have some inside information, he's not scum. Hope this helps.

Legend, why do you think there's a lot of evidence against you if you are town?

I'm going to go back to

Unvote, Vote: StefanB

. I had suspicions of him before and he seems very non-committal on the legend wagon. He seems to be shying away from giving any real opinion on it. This post in particular is pretty scummy:

And now Legend is on L-1, don't vote him fast.
Legend don't dare to selfhammer!!!!!!!
If someone want's to hammer, ask for a claim first. (If someone should claim at L-1 without it is a grey think, I would and start to defed yourself, LOM!!!!!!!)

He's scoring townie points here by indicating that legend is at L-1 and telling him not to self-hammer, but, at the same time, there is a conspicuous absence of his opinion on legend and the legend wagon.

[VitaminR]

First off, I don't really understand your last paragraph and what you are trying to say about StefanB (StefanB isn't voting legend of mafia...). If you could clarify, that would be great. If you want why I'm voting him, you can look at my ISO. But in a nutshell, it's a few scum tells (taking legend's accusation of him too seriously, not giving a read of legend but being very non-committal about whether a policy lynch is a good idea) plus a gut feeling I get from his posts (I don't know how to best describe it - he's asking a lot of questions and posting a lot without really committing to reads, just feels like he's making a lot of easy posts to seem active and not really furthering the game).

I'm not saying your unwillingness to lynch lom is inconsistent, I'm saying that it's sick and wrong. At least in this case.

Sick and wrong? Dude, you are the one trying to quicklynch someone you don't think is scum.

Look, I get that legend pisses you off and that his attitude is annoying. But he's not unreadable (you yourself have a read on him as town!) and I strongly disagree that nothing will get done if we don't lynch him. There's plenty of material in this game for some actual scumhunting. I don't think legend is even that egregious of a VI. Believe me, I've seen way worse.

Could you expand, btw, on why you think that legend is town? I don't think he's done anything superscummy, but I don't exactly read him as town either. I'd be interested to hear what your read is based on.

[VitaminR]

Haoala, what are your opinions on the legend wagon and the way it developed?

[VitaminR]

Sorry guys, have been a little busy with work. Will catch up soon.