Newbie #228 - The Doom of Tinytown (Game Over!)

[ChrisV]

Ready.

[ChrisV]

/confirm

Since that seems to be the way its done around here...

[ChrisV]

Vote: viper0933

[ChrisV]

Change

vote: Erotomachia

[ChrisV]

viper: That would be a bit of a dead giveaway. I take the point that we have to be careful in a small game, but there's still a pretty good chance we'll be lynching a townsperson on the first day.

I should probably say that I'm not a complete newbie to the game, having played a turbo game (of the Werewolf variety) and read through a number of other games. Not sure what the status of the other newbies is.

MeMe: Unless the Mod says otherwise, I'd assume they count. In the initial post the Mod said the game began as soon as everyone confirms, so as soon as I confirmed my role it should have been game on.

[ChrisV]

I agree Arvadite looks a bit suspicious but whether it's noobness or scumminess (or both) I can't say. I'm certainly not ready to lynch him just yet.

What I would like to do is

FOS: Iammars

. He's been pretty quiet in the thread so far, and the posts he has made just seem a little TOO eager to seem like a townie (i.e. making a big show of random voting, and making a big show of unvoting... rather than just doing it).

Meh... it's not much, but what else is there? I'm not a huge fan of the structure of these games, Day 1 is pretty random and then suddenly if you guess wrong you're at Lynch Or Lose on Day 2.

[ChrisV]

In the games I've read through or played so far, there have been more players and there has been an automatic time deadline on Day length. This means that the attitude to Day 1 was that a villager would most likely be lynched, but in exchange the village would gain information. Typical strategies involved piling up on a couple of different people and seeing if anyone had an aversion to one of them being lynched. If a wolf and a villager are tied for votes with the deadline bearing down, the wolves may feel compelled to get the villager lynched.

In this structure the attitude seems to be that the village can ill afford to guess wrong on Day 1. I understand that attitude, I guess, but it means that the game drags on in Day 1, with the villagers scrabbling in the dark with very little to go on. Iammars' explanations sounded reasonable, so there's not much to go on there.

If I had to guess right now, I would say Arvadite is a townie, but it's a very slight preference, only a few percent.

I'm going to change vote to MeMe for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I find it odd that after all the song and dance about not speedlynching, she's left Arvadite hanging one away from a lynch for ages. I know she's experienced enough not to only be concerned with self-preservation, if she's a townie. But as with Arvadite, that's a very small thing. More importantly: There's a bandwagon on Arvadite; fine, I personally am leaning towards townie, but we have to lynch SOMEBODY. But I'm going to stick to what I know, start a second bandwagon, and see what people's reactions are to that.

Vote: MeMe

[ChrisV]

For "wolf" above read "mafioso". I'm used to the "Werewolf" variant of the game.

[ChrisV]

viper's numbers aren't right. The number of ways to choose two scum from 7 players is C(2,7) = 7!/(2! * 5!) = 21. So the chance of any two particular players being scum is 1/21.

As Iammars said though, that doesn't really help.

[ChrisV]

First, I'm interested in the prejudicial use of "song and dance" here. Wonder why you feel the need to ridicule posts that make valid points about what's good for the town?

I'm not. Self preservation is a good idea. I was just drawing a distinction between your strong self preservation and your willingness to hang someone at three votes for ages, on the evidence that he cast a third vote for you. Don't forget that before he voted for you, viper posted about the possibility of scum speedlynching, to which Arvadite responded "yeah that would be kind of an obvious thing".

The above is why I lean towards townie, though I do find it curious how long he's been sitting at three votes now.

[ChrisV]

Here, for each player, is a list of players they've expressed some kind of opinion on. I'm not counting random votes.

Arvadite: MeMe, viper0933, RandomActs
Iammars: Arvadite, viper0933
Erotomachia:
ChrisV: Arvadite, MeMe, Iammars
MeMe: Arvadite
viper0933: Arvadite
RandomActs: Arvadite

Lying low and not expressing opinions is a common scum tactic to stay off the radar, so I'd like to see some more opinions from some people, especially Erotomachia.

OK, look. I'm not thrilled about lynching Arvadite, but it does seem to be the best way to proceed to get information. If we lynch MeMe this round, say, and she turns out to be a townie, then what? We have exactly the same problem on the next round - is Arvadite just a noob, or scum? If we lynch Arvadite and he's a villager, that gives us most information. You can see in the list above that everyone except Erotomachia has expressed an opinion on Arvadite. If he's scum, then we killed scum.

So that I don't get accused of running some kind of scum pretence of not wanting to lynch Arvadite and then bam! casting the final vote, I'd like agreement from either Iammars or Erotomachia before I start thinking about doing that.

I'd also like input from others on how Arvadite's "yeah that would be kind of an obvious thing" post fits into their theory that he then attempted a speedlynch of MeMe.

[ChrisV]

Well, I don't think anyone should be at 3 votes for now, so I'll

Unvote

.

Ha. There's a spanner in the works.

Not sure what to make of this development. Will have to think on it.

[ChrisV]

MeMe: Any thoughts on that post of Arvadite's I quoted?

[ChrisV]

btw MeMe, I found that post of yours where you said you'd never been lynched as villager rather interesting.

Since in any game of Mafia there are many more villagers than scum, this basically means you're good at avoiding being lynched. Your persuasion skills on Day 1 ought to be the same no matter what.

[ChrisV]

I'm now pretty certain that viper0933 is a townie. The unvote on Arvadite after I started talking about lynching him would be a very strange, deep scum move unless Arvadite were also scum. But Arvadite's heated argument with viper0933 has convinced me they can't both be scum.

Kelly Chen (nee MeMe) and Arvadite are both so all-out aggressive, starting bandwagons left right and center, that I don't think either of them is scum either, although I'm not so sure as I am about viper0933. Certainly both of them can't be scum.

I think there is at least one scum amongst RandomActs, Erotomachia and Iammars. The fact that nobody put the fourth vote on Arvadite doesn't convince me that there weren't scum who could have done it (if he's a townie). I think if I was scum I would judge that an unnecessary risk, and there wasn't time between my inquiry about lynching Arvadite and viper's Unvote for either of them to come forward in support.

I'm still suspicious of Iammars. I've seen too many scum fly under the radar in this fashion. For now I'm going to hop on board Kelly Chen's bandwagon and:

Vote: Erotomachia

[ChrisV]

My current ranking, from scummiest to towniest:

Iammars
Erotomachia
Arvadite
RandomActs
Kelly Chen
viper0933

I'm finding it pretty hard to rank Arvadite, RandomActs and Kelly Chen. Kelly's point about the scum chatting rules is a good one, but doesn't wholly convince me of RandomActs' innocence as it's quite likely he simply didn't know he was allowed to chat. However Kelly making that point has moved her up townier in my eyes.

At this point I'm almost certain that at least one of Iammars or Erotomachia is scum, simply because it's almost inconceivable to me that some combination of two of the others are both scum. The only combination I think is possible is a RandomActs/Kelly Chen double act (that would explain Kelly trying to exonerate RandomActs). Can anyone give me a plausible scenario in which some other combination of those four are both scum?

My recommended plan of action is to go ahead and lynch either Erotomachia or Iammars today, and for our cop, if there is one, to check out either the other of those two, or RandomActs or Kelly Chen. Doctor, if you're out there, you should make up your own mind as I don't want to influence scum picks.

That's my opinion. So are we going to kill someone, or what? My lynchin' fingers are getting itchy.

[ChrisV]

Chris, why do you consider viper the towniest? I'm not very confident about that.

His actions with respect to Arvadite make no sense otherwise. If viper is scum, then Arvadite can't be scum, otherwise viper would not have thrown so much suspicion on him, bandwagon jumped, and then left him hanging at three votes for so long. But if Arvadite is village, then viper's Unvote makes no sense, especially not just as I started talking about garnering support to lynch Arvadite. I mean it's possible he's just playing a really deep game, but I seriously doubt it. Also posts like "Oh my gosh. I don't know who to vote for anymore" strike me as town. Would you think to make a post like that if you were scum?

[ChrisV]

I'm reading with curiosity some of the suspicions tossed about. I'm trying to keep an open mind, considering all the arguments. But it seems to me that many of you are giving Arvadite a pass for the unfathomable vote he casted early in the game. I can't explain it. He can't explain it eather, not in a way that makes sense for town. But apparently some of you can explain it, since he's not high on your scum lists.

Tell me if I'm wrong here, but that kind of outright speedlynching attempt is not what I expect from newbie scum. On the other forum I've played on, there's a maxim that you shouldn't expect first level thinking from newbies. In other words, newbies will not just come straight out and start acting straightforwardly according to scum motives.

So that's already my default thinking, and it's given further credence by the post Arvadite made before he voted, indicating that he understood that speedlynching was scummy and would be "kind of an obvious thing". Also if I hadn't read through a couple of other games here before starting to play, I might have done the same thing Arvadite did. In the games on the other forum, putting someone one away from a lynch isn't considered particularly scummy because a bad Day 1 lynch isn't that big a deal and the whole idea of Day 1 is to try and stir up trouble. You can see in this game, for example, how Arvadite's vote precipitated a whole lot of counter-voting, commentary, alliances, etc etc.

[ChrisV]

Well, OK. We'll sit tight for Iammars post and hopefully another one from Erotomachia. But I hope it doesn't make me look scummy to say that I'm a bit over this Day - there's been 8 pages of discussion so we've probably said just about everything that can usefully be said in one Day.

[ChrisV]

It's odd that Erotomachia is going after Arvadite in this post, because in post 129 he was trying to take the pressure off Arvadite when I was asking for support to lynch him. On the surface this looks town, because if Erotomachia is scum, then if Arvadite is town Eroto would have no reason not to pile on the bandwagon earlier, while if Arvadite is also scum, it would be a risky move to hang him out to dry now. It's possible Eroto would choose to do that, because as things stood, if those two were scum they were going to lose.

I dunno though... it's somewhat towny... I'm going to wait for Iammars' post.

Unvote

[ChrisV]

Here are the two most pertinent quotes from Erotomachia:

I've been wary of Arvadite since the very beginning of the game; unfortunately he's been quiet since page 4 and hasn't attempted to justify his actions. I don't think it's fair to move so fast, however--you're pushing for a lynch too hard, ChrisV. Can't we at least hear what Arvadite himself has to say to all this?

and

Frankly, I'm quite surprised that MeMe thinks I'm scum with Arvadite. Just because I didn't lynch him isn't evidence that I'm being soft on him--it's simply evidence that I don't favour a rapid killing off of other players.

I don't think this is actually inconsistent with an attack on Arvadite now. After all, I'm quite willing to switch my targets of attack around (I do it both because my opinions change and to see what people's reactions are) and that isn't considered scummy, I hope. I think it's odd behaviour as both town and scum, though.

The possible scenarios are:

(1) Erotomachia is town and was honestly concerned with not lynching a player too fast, but has decided to re-target that player now that he's under the hammer, or:

(2) Arvadite is town, Erotomachia is scum, but having observed that a propensity for speedlynching was considered scummy, decided to act all concerned about not speedlynching, figuring that Arvadite would get lynched eventually anyway, because:

I am honestly astonished at how quickly everyone has forgotten Arvadite's 3rd vote on MeMe that came with no explanation at all.

He may have figured that if he took his time he could blame MeMe or me for the lynch later.

(3) Arvadite and Erotomachia are both scum, but with the scum massively under the hammer, Erotomachia has decided he has to sacrifice his partner.

I don't really buy scenario 3 because Erotomachia is a newbie. I could buy either scenarios 1 or 2.

So what info do we get if we lynch Erotomachia or Arvadite? I think lynching Arvadite and finding that he's scum would clear Kelly Chen, RandomActs and Erotomachia. I think viper0933 is clear already, so that would just leave me or Iammars as the other scum. However, if Arvadite turned out to be town, we would get no information whatsoever. This is because Arvadite's actions were openly incriminating, so that jumping on his bandwagon doesn't really mean anything. So if Arvadite were town, where to next? Iammars, maybe, but more by default than anything else.

If we lynch Erotomachia, however, we get a fair bit of information no matter what he turns out to be, and if we couldn't decide what to do on Day 2 we would always have an obvious "backup" next lynch (Arvadite) if Erotomachia was town.

Note that in neither case do we get any information about Iammars, which is why I'm so suspicious. Looking forward to that post of his.

[ChrisV]

I think it's odd behaviour as both town and scum, though.

By this I meant Erotomachia's behaviour in particular, not switching votes around in general.

[ChrisV]

Vote Iammars

[ChrisV]

OK so I was going to be dramatic and just throw the vote up there... but I guess I should explain myself. Iammars you're not a newbie so I feel I can give my thoughts without toning it down at all. So...

Are you kidding me? Is this your idea of pro-town behaviour? Not posting at all for like 9 pages of discussion and then throwing up some godforsaken uberpost which doesn't talk about your suspicions of people, but instead makes detailed references back to specific posts inamongst 9 pages that nobody can be bothered looking at. And then, after this gigantic essay, your conclusions... are that you suspect the same people everyone else suspects and have nothing on anyone else? WHAT???

This is just town-confusing behaviour and makes me want you off the team whether you're scum or not.

Even though I like Mafia and am still playing it on other sites I won't be playing here again because these games are, sorry guys, horrible. Any game where it's lynch-or-lose day two if you lynch a villager first and where the seer hasn't got a free pick on the first night are badly structured, period. Also I think they give newbies a really bad impression of what Mafia is actually about.

Since I doubt I can raise a bandwagon for Iammars, and since I still think Erotomachia is a reasonable pick and just want this day to end....

Vote Erotomachia

[ChrisV]

Also, the prevailing theory around here that you can identify scum via the bad quality of their logic is ridiculous. All that does is get newbies who don't know how to mount an argument lynched, while giving a pass to erudite scum.

[ChrisV]

Majority to lynch, which would be 4.

[ChrisV]

er, ignore me. Deadline in force, so 3.

[ChrisV]

OK first of all the formalities. In the games I've played a vote is also sufficient to unvote the previous vote. That not being so here:

Unvote

Vote: Erotomachia

Viper, use your head. Am I scum, or an exasperated townie? Your call. Saying that "my logic" is bad is the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

The reason I blew up in Iammars' face is that his long-awaited post was a complete waste of time. I could have written it myself since it imparted zero information that was not already town wisdom.

I wasn't aware that you could play other games as a newbie. My understanding was that site rules were to play 5 newbie games before playing anything else.

A better structure to introduce newbies in is extremely easy. It's one that, as I said, doesnt involve lynch or lose Day 2 with no cop peek. Examples: 7-2-1 with no peek. 6-2-1 with a peek. etc etc. Also, a game with less than 10 players should never, ever take 2 weeks to play out.

The reason I am uneasy with Erotomachia, who otherwise I'd be fine with, is that the whole town seems keen to lynch him. This suggests that the scum are fine with the lynch.

Arvadite's post: tl;dr.

[ChrisV]

If you want to see my idea of what a game should look like, check out: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showf ... &fpart=all

Days in this game are half an hour, yet we still were able to pick out the wolves.

Be amazed at [censored]'s wolf sniffing abilities!

[ChrisV]

God. Look, this much is abundantly clear from the thread. viper and Arvadite are both village. That or they're playing the weirdest scum game ever. This bickering is achieving absolutely nothing. The scum must be giggling watching you two squabble with each other. The thread is jammed full of your back and forth. It is not pro-village to turn out pages and pages of posts about the exact wording some guy used in a post 4 pages ago. It is pro-village to state clearly and succinctly who you suspect. Normally you shouldn't even say why. Apart from anything else, there's useful information to be had seeing if anyone actually wants to know why.

Discerning Day 1 trends on Day 2 is going to be next to impossible given the amount of filler choking this thread.

Also, as I said the other day, the idea that you can identify scum by pulling their logic apart on Day 1 is ridiculous. Scum don't win the game through logic. They do it by voting villagers off. Therefore voting patterns identify scum. I share Arvadite's frustration at this, although he shouldn't have risen to the bait in the first place. By the way Arvadite, it's true that I don't agree with anything you say. This is because I HAVENT READ IT, NOR HAVE I READ ANYTHING WRITTEN BY VIPER IN THE LAST FOUR PAGES.

So it's like this. I am town. If I was not town, I would carry on with my "I'm fed up" act and just lynch Arvadite right now. I'm not super thrilled about lynching Erotomachia but he is a better bet than Arvadite, plus I'm heartened by the fact that we can't seem to raise enough people to lynch him. If you are also town, switch your vote to Erotomachia now and let's finish this day. If you don't, I'm going to start assuming you are the other scum and voting for you.

That is all.

[ChrisV]

Cliff notes of thread:

Arvadite takes MeMe to three votes
In response, MeMe, viper and RandomActs take Arvadite to three votes
viper and Arvadite argue for a while
ChrisV votes MeMe, to start a competing bandwagon
ChrisV asks for support to lynch Arvadite (from Erotomachia or Iammars)
viper Unvotes Arvadite
Erotomachia tells ChrisV he's "pushing for a lynch too hard" and leaves his vote on MeMe (this should put paid to the idea that scum are always trying to speedlynch).
MeMe accuses and votes for Erotomachia
Arvadite theorises that MeMe and viper are scum
Kelly Chen replaces MeMe
ChrisV votes Erotomachia and calls viper definite town and MeMe/Arvadite probable town
ChrisV says he is "almost certain that at least one of Iammars or Erotomachia is scum".
Erotomachia now calls for everyone to vote Arvadite again.
ChrisV unvotes to wait for Iammars' post.
Iammars posts, suspecting Erotomachia and Arvadite
ChrisV votes Iammars then switches back to Erotomachia
Arvadite and viper squabble some more
ChrisV tells everyone to switch to Erotomachia
viper and Iammars answer the call and Erotomachia is lynched

OK firstly and most obviously I'm awesome.

Secondly. I still think Iammars is the other scum. Firstly because he still hasn't brought any unique opinions to the thread. Secondly, because he killed Erotomachia apparently in an attempt to exonerate himself (Erotomachia was going to die anyway because Arvadite would eventually have voted for him). There's an argument that Iammars might have had time to jump on Arvadite after he self-voted and lynch him. However that argument could apply to Erotomachia as well and he was scum.

viper for various reasons I think is town.

Arvadite could be the other scum. That would explain his self-vote (no point trying to kill Erotomachia instead) and it would explain why Erotomachia was never that keen to vote for him. It's definitely possible.

RandomActs didn't know scum were allowed to talk pregame and hasn't said or done anything scummy that I've seen.

[ChrisV]

I was thinking about asking for a doc roleclaim, but scum could so easily false claim that I've decided I am not going to accept any doc roleclaim.

[ChrisV]

RandomActs: Before we finish off this day I'd just like you to explain why you're voting Iammars here. You were pushing for Arvadite a lot on Day 1 and Erotomachia's death hasn't really exonerated him, so why Iammars now? Not that I object but I'd like to hear your reasons.

[ChrisV]

I think you're overthinking things re the Kelly Chen kill. She was killed simply because she set the whole Erotomachia lynch in progress in the first place, while a lot of people were still itching to lynch Arvadite. She's therefore confirmed townie and as such had to die. None of the rest of us are confirmed townies. I'm close, but I'm not as confirmed as she was.

OK so at this point I am going to try to kill Iammars. If he isn't the scum I'm going to try to kill Arvadite next round. The battle lines are pretty well drawn at this point and I don't think anyone is going to be able to dissuade me.

Vote Iammars

[ChrisV]

"Idiots"? Not really a "gl town", is it.

Maybe if you posted anything useful in the first eight pages (or in fact at all), we wouldn't have had to kill you. Sorry we didn't buy your brilliant "omg guys I am vanilla townie" defence.

Anyway, night.

[ChrisV]

*** DEAD ***

Saw that comin'

"The best fate for human beings is not to be born at all. The next best thing is to die as soon as possible."

-- The satyr Silenus, disciple of Dionysus.

Go get em, town.

*** DEAD ***

[ChrisV]

Well, no wonder I couldn't decide who out of Arvadite and RandomActs was scum. I kept thinking and rethinking since I was killed and neither of them stood out to me.

I tried to set up RandomActs and viper by pretending to be super keen to lynch Arvadite after Iammars, but obviously viper correctly figured killing RandomActs would be too suspicious. If he'd done that I would have almost certainly voted viper.

gg viper, gg all.

[ChrisV]

It was unfortunate that so much suspicion fell on Arvadite on Day 1, because viper was able to use him as a foil for the rest of the game, spewing out a bunch of sound and fury that signified nothing. Arvadite, for future reference, it is better not to respond too furiously to accusations against you. Just give a couple of sentences of refutation and then move to the subject of who YOU think is scum.

viper's switch to Erotomachia was very well timed, though.