Mini 1035 - Devil's Town - GAME OVER

[Incognito]

Hi. I'm here and reading. I'm gonna try not to lol too hard at my predecessor's sig considering the fact that he, uh, ya know, replaced out.

[Incognito]

Replacement gig #13. That's gotta be kinda lucky, right?

All right, so I've given the game a good once-over already. I'd like to read the game at least once more to do some targeted reads on certain people before I vote anyone or give complete reasons as to why I think certain people are scum.

First, a bit of housekeeping: Since this game began with 9 players, I'm almost positive that we're dealing with a scum team of 2 people due to balancing reasons. Watcher is a pretty strong town role especially for a 2-man scum group to handle, but I'm still thinking 2 scum due to the numbers.

Secondly: Do you guys remember how you lynched ABR without a claim? Yeah. We won't be doing that anymore, got it?

Quick initial thoughts: podium <-> Dr Pepper looked really town on town to me, especially after Dr Pepper went so far as to "rage-quit" out. I was shocked that people thought his so-called rage-quitting was scummy. podium's posting throughout the game in general has struck me as townish, so I feel even more confident about this determination.

Early bad vibes coming from Untrod Tripod and Zodiark. I feel like I need to reread those two along with LynchMePls and Tazaro though to place them into the whole big picture. Will do ASAP.

[Incognito]

Actually, can someone just unvote Zodiark please? He's at L-1 right now, and I don't think we're ready for that yet.

[Incognito]

Thank you.

And possibly, yes. My main reason for wanting the unvote is to prevent a possible self-hammer in the event that he's actually scum. I want my thoughts down and a bit more discussion before having any kind of a lynch. I do think Zodiark has done some scummy stuff, but I've got a pool of about 4 people (him included) who are giving me conflicting reads, and I want to get in the game and get better reads on them before we move on with any kind of a lynch. I'm an in-the-moment kind of player.

[Incognito]

Pre-post edit: I was going to post my thoughts, but after preview I noticed how lengthy the entire post became. I think I'll just separate them into smaller blocks. These are thoughts about my two biggest suspects (Zodiark and Untrod Tripod) followed by major conclusions. Other thoughts about the other players will hopefully follow. Feel free to ask questions and point out stuff I might have missed.

Zodiark:

I feel like anything I say about his hammer would be a re-hashing of stuff that's previously been said about it. It was bad. Not because it landed on a townie but because he really didn't give ABR much time to claim. Also, I don't particularly like the prefacing of the vote with his "reasoning" which just so happens to come to the final conclusion that ABR is scum. Zodiark didn't question ABR or anything of the sort; he just stated his reasoning for finding him scummy and then hammered him. I'd expect town to prod and probe a bit more before hammering. Zodiark didn't do that.

Prior to that, I wasn't crazy about his persistent insisting of hammering Dr P before a replacement could be found or before Dr P and/or his replacement could get a chance to claim. There was nothing scummy about Dr P's rage-quit; it looked like he was just frustrated, and imo, frustration tends to be a town-tell. Trying to pass off that "rage-quitting" as this major major scum-tell just to get that hammer makes me believe that he was possibly becoming impatient and eager to just get a poss-mislynch already.

Also:

tl;dr, Dr P. and Blaze are scumbiddies, and I found possible evidence.

Blaze comes across as a town learning the ropes for now, I don't have much suspicion for him yet.

TBH I've actually been thinking this myself. The fact that he joined the site 10-ish days ago doesn't help.

This change in opinion on Blaze is pretty drastic considering only a day had passed since you called him and Dr P scum buddies. I mean, it wasn't like Blaze posted anywhere within that timeframe either. Why did this change occur? When did you begin thinking that Blaze could be town learning the ropes?

[Incognito]

Untrod Tripod:

Untrod Tripod has bugged me because I've gotten the impression that he isn't really pushing the game along. Post 60 is a major major fence-sitting post; this was pointed out by LynchMePls, and I agree with him - it doesn't do much more than state the obvious, it doesn't take a stance on the possible alignments of the two debaters (Dr P and podium), and lastly, it doesn't do the "looking into" that you suggest we do here:

although I agree with what people have said in that we will probably find scum on the blaze wagon.

If you thought scum was likely on that wagon, why not try and figure out who that scum is? Why throw a side comment like this and not follow it up?

There was an obvious disconnect, too, with his own description of his play and how he played here towards the end of D1; he claimed to be this cautious player who doesn't like to jump to conclusions so fast, but he was rather quick to throw the first vote out on ABR when he concluded with stating that he found ABR's play to be "anti-town". Not scummy but anti-town. I believe it was podium who pointed out the problem with UT's 6th post too; the question along the bottom had already been answered, so I don't really see the purpose of it there. And considering the fact that it came only

after

being interrogated/voted by LynchMePls, it gave me the feeling that you were trying to appease him by "appearing active".

Can you go into more reasoning as to why you don't think Zodiark is scum too?

[Incognito]

Major conclusions:

Now, my issue right now is this: After reading both Untrod Tripod's and Zodiark's play individually and then trying to put their play together in the big picture, I really thought I saw a strong potential for the two of them to be scum with one another. Their interactions are pretty textbook "two-scum in a game" behavior; they barely mention each other, they haven't voted for one another (aside from Zodiark's RVS vote on UT), and they've had similar suspicions on people who I think stand a stronger chance of being town than scum at this point. I'd be fine with this except Untrod's latest post where he states that he doesn't think Zodiark is scum worries the shit out of me - I'd kind of expect an Untrod-scum to go into hyper-bus mode at that point considering the fact that Zodiark is at L-1 with seemingly no way out of it. If they're scum together, he

could

be going for the "oh shit, I was just wrong about him" route, but it's still something that concerns me.

And that's another part of the reason I want to extend this Day a bit - I don't think LynchMePls and Untrod Tripod are scum together considering their interactions, and I don't think Zodiark and Tazaro are scum together either for similar reasons. I'm not very much interested in TDC or podium as scum right now. LynchMePls hasn't been the paragon of townieness in my eyes, but I've liked his Untrod Tripod-hate. And Tazaro's been a bit of a null tell for me. So for me, I'd like to try to figure out my two major unknowns, and my two scum reads before we lynch anyone. And I'd also like to see if my "townies" still hold out too. Hence, my in-the-momentness.

So let's play.

[Incognito]

I knew I was forgetting something.

vote: Untrod Tripod

[Incognito]

Why is that bad? What do you think of the stuff I pulled up about Untrod Tripod or your thoughts about him in general?

[Incognito]

I could respond to that whole post in great dealer than this, but I get the feeling most of you wouldn't read it.

To summarize though, UT, you've mischaracterized a lot of points in your response to me. At the end of the Day, the thought wasn't "we shouldn't have anyone else claim even if we lynch them", which is what you seem to be insinuating; it was "we should probably just lynch TDC because he already claimed Vanilla and having more people forced into claims might expose PRs to the scum". Since the majority of the town clearly wasn't buying into that argument, the correct thing to do there was to wait for the claim. IIRC, ABR was only asked to claim once on that page that Zodiark decided to hammer him. There wasn't a deadline, there was plenty of time to gather more info, so I don't see the need to hammer without a proper response to a claim request.

As for the part about Zodiark considering the possibility of Blaze being town learning the ropes, yes, I did read what he said there. But that goes completely against what he said prior to that (I mean, the guy pretty definitively said he thought Blaze and Dr P were scum buddies). If I see that dramatic of a contradiction, I'm obviously going to inquire about it. I don't think it would be very wise to just take him at his word; I'm trying to figure out if he's being genuine. I find it more odd that you're just willing to accept his response of "considering it" in the face of that dramatic of a contradiction in that short of a time span.

A lot of your other responses and questions can be explained by probability and my thoughts on how I'd expect scum to act in certain situations. Obviously scum can act contrary to my expectations, but I'm just putting out my thoughts with respect to it and explaining why I think that way. Dr P's playstyle and his "my way or the highway" kind of attitude made it seem perfectly reasonable to me for him to request replacement in that kind of situation. The content of his posting didn't necessarily raise any huge flags for me either, so I'm going with the idea that he genuinely was frustrated and was likely town as a result. Could scum get frustrated too? Yes, obviously. Contextually though, I think his replacement request rings more town-sided than scum-sided there.

Other thoughts:
Incognito, I find it kind of suspicious that you came in and buddied up with LMP. As you could read in the game I posted for LMP to read, I used this as a scum tactic in my last completed game to get on the town's good side.

Even if we ignore the fact that I haven't even buddied up to LMP here (I mean, I agreed with his suspicions of you, but I've also clearly said that he's currently one of my unknowns; buddying up would require me to call him town and everything), I have a tendency to buddy up regardless of my alignment.

[Incognito]

sorry for triple post, but I would like to say that I agree that it's interesting that Incognito came in, called a guy with a wagon on him scummy and then promptly tried his darndest to derail the wagon. goodposting, Taz.

If Taz is being genuine here, I could see why he'd become suspicious of that but you? Why would you find that interesting when you've mentioned a few times now that you think Zodiark is town?

[Incognito]

Well then explain why. I don't see what's wrong with me expressing multiple suspicions; it's not like we're dealing with a single scum here.

And I'd like thoughts on UT plz.

[Incognito]

What, is it scummy to think about games when not posting, without posting such thoughts, and arrive at a different conclusion a few days later?!

It wasn't a few days later. It was literally a day later. You went from "they're scum buddies!" to "I'm thinking town" rather quickly. Yes, that's scummy because it looks like you might have just been attempting to follow the popular opinion, and it looks like your thought process wasn't actually genuine.

By this logic, you could also be a possible scumbuddy with me, because I have had no suspicions of your slot, and, IIRC your slot has had none of me. I'm not saying we are, I'm just trying to point out that just because we have had little interaction, doesn't make us scumbuddys

Christ. This isn't hard, people, which is why I don't get why you and Untrod can't figure this out. As I said, I found you both scummy

individually

. The typical thing to do when you find people scummy individually is to look and see if the people make sense as buddies together, and imo, you did for the most part because of your lack of interactions. The only thing that gave me pause on that was Untrod's recent thoughts about you - my expectation was that if he was scum with you, he might just bus you at this point rather than defend you considering the fact that you already reached L-1, etc. So at this point, I'm thinking either you're both scum or one of you is scum. Given what I've read, I feel pretty confident that there

is

scum in at least one of {Untrod, Zodiark}, and I'm trying to figure out which is the more likely.

-~-~-~-~

Can I get your thoughts on Untrod Tripod?

[Incognito]

My point still stands. If you find me and Untrod scummy due to lack of interaction, then you must find yourself scummy by the same reasoning.

In response to the other stuff: please do go back and have a look at him, yes.

LMP's tunneling Untrod Tripod, but I don't agree with that tunneling; it's to easy to tunnel.

I don't understand the point of this. Whether or not it's easy to tunnel is irrelevant; what

is

relevant is whether or not said tunneling is founded or not. I don't get why it's so hard for you to just give me a simple "yes, I think UT is scummy" or "no, he looks town to me" and a reasoning for your answers.

[Incognito]

PROGRESS!

Now if I could just get some reasoning out of you, I think I just might be able to sleep tonight without the use of diphenhydramine.

[Incognito]

Ok cool. So it's meta. I've glanced over that game, and I see that he was scum. What did he do differently there that he hasn't done here? What should I be looking for?

[Incognito]

All righty. I'll give it my own look when I get a chance too.

[Incognito]

TDC:

Can you explain this:

Can't wrap my mind about how much that came out of the blue.

I don't really get what you're referring to here.

As for the Taz and Untrod Tripod meta thing, I didn't see it from the logical fallacy angle like you pointed out. I was confused by the smiley, yeah, but I thought he was trying to say that he just was getting a different vibe from UT here than he did in that game. Whether or not a description of UT's play was given by Taz, I was planning on looking into it for myself anyway because getting that answer from Tazaro has literally been like pulling teeth. So when he said "UT would be the better person to go to" I was pretty much disregarding that anyway and saying I was just gonna check into it myself regardless of whether or not UT actually said something about it. Me looking into that is still in the works.

-~-~-~-~

I don't at all see what Zodiark is getting at here with LynchMePls. He seems to effectively be calling LMP scummy for tunneling, then when LMP has stopped "tunneling" and moved onto another target (Zodiark), he's scolding him and calling him scummy for not continuing with his... tunneling?

Zodiark, why do you think LMP's targeting of you was half-assed?

-~-~-~-~

Untrod:

As you can see, pretty much everyone glazed over your entire post. So I think I was pretty much right when I said I'm not going to respond to all of that because nobody will probably read it. My case is out there for all to see. Your major defense against my case has been that you think I'm trying to have it both ways by calling you scummy for being wishy-washy and scummy for not being cautious with your votes. The point I've been trying to get at is it looks

really insincere

when you defend yourself from LMP by saying "I'm just this naturally cautious player, and I'm not going to change for anyone!" but then you completely go against that and vote ABR the way you did there. Sincerity is the key.

If there's anything else from your post that you really really really want me to respond to because you think I'm scummy for it, then please point it out. Otherwise, I'm just not gonna.

[Incognito]

Hammer. That makes infinitely more sense.

And yeah, I still think he was referring to meta and not a logical fallacy. I mean, if he wasn't referring to meta, wouldn't he have just said "no it's not meta?" when I said that I thought it was?

And I was pretty annoyed when he wouldn't just give me an answer, but I was planning on just putting it on the backburner for now until I looked into the game myself. If I found no difference between UT here and UT there, I would've pursued it more. I don't see why UT wouldn't be able to describe why Taz thought that though; if UT is town here, I think there's a good chance that he might know what he does differently as either alignment. And if he's scum here, I doubt he's gonna tell Taz to think otherwise or point out why he's wrong. So again, no point in really considering UT's interpretation.

[Incognito]

Zodiark, I guess I'm just not seeing what's convenient about his vote switch. Calling something "convenient" in that way implies spin; to me, LMP's vote switch just looks like a continuation of his feelings about UT from Yesterday. And actually, let's just go ahead and make the assumption that you're town. You were already at L-1 before I came into the game - what would be convenient about an LMP hypothetical scum removing you from L-1 just to switch back to a target that already had proved unpopular? Why would he just not continue riding you for a mislynch?

-~-~-~-~

I got a chance to read through Untrod's isolation in that scum game, and I'm really not seeing much of a difference between his play there and his play here. His stances in that game still didn't seem firm like they haven't seemed here. An interesting tidbit that I did notice though: Untrod didn't seem like the bussing/distancing type there.

Sooooo going back to TDC's thing -

@Tazaro:

What did you have in mind with respect to Untrod in that other game you mentioned?

[Incognito]

lol seriously? I guess TDC was right haha.

read please.

[Incognito]

podium, when did you first start feeling you couldn't get into this game?

[Incognito]

What?

[Incognito]

Sorry. Having a mind drunk with whatever makes me do weird things.

Vote: Zodiark

Looking through your history, you posted about 5 separate times in all of your games when you placed your vote on Untrod Tripod. You're trying to say that you were intoxicated while making all of those posts?

[Incognito]

Tazaro's strange, but I really don't see him as scum at this time especially with that meta evidence provided by podium.

Since it's looking like not enough people are seeing Untrod Tripod at this time, I'll switch to my other suspect who seems like he'll get more lynch support.

unvote, vote: Zodiark13

I'd like to see a claim.

[Incognito]

Tazaro, maybe you can shed some light on this. Did you ever notice in your last game with UT if he had a tendency to hover the forum where the game is a lot without actually posting?

[Incognito]

It just gives me the continued feeling that your play has been extremely

re

active and has been lacking a lot of

pro

activeness. I mean, I could say with 100% sincerity right now that I have absolutely no clue who you suspect right now not only because you haven't voted anyone but also because I just don't see you making any kind of effort to ask people questions and feel people out. And deadline's on Wednesday which means

it's almost the close of Day 2

. Would you agree with my assessment of you in the slightest? I mean, your most recent two posts only further exemplify this.

Your comment that I've been tunneling makes me laugh too; I actually made a conscious effort to back off and avoid posting anything about you the past two or so days because I was afraid that if you were town, maybe you were being reactive simply because you were spending a good portion of your time defending yourself from my posts. And even

after

backing off of you and everything, I'm still not seeing any prodding and probing from you. No investigating suspects. No commenting on situations unless asked about them. Zilch. Nada. Nothing.

Do you see now why this is problematic and could be seen as a scum tell? It seems like you're just riding the Day out; to borrow a phrase from PJ in one of the old invitational games - you seem like you're on a basketball team, and you're holding onto the ball instead of shooting it in the hopes of running out the shot clock.

[Incognito]

UT, in your very next post, I'd like you to place a vote down on someone (unless of course it would result in hammering Zodiark right now).

[Incognito]

^

No matter what Zodiark flips, this guy is so scum.

[Incognito]

Very nice job, TDC. Watching along from the sidelines, I definitely thought you had to make a very tough call. I thought podium seemed more genuine than LMP throughout the game, but LMP had the UT/podium interactions on his side, which made for a very tough decision. Glad we won in the end.

I really enjoyed this game even though I was only involved for a short amount of time. I was fairly happy with my reads here - I just wish I was able to figure out more quickly that Zodiark was likely town.

Nice job with the modding, PranaDevil.

[Incognito]

btw, was there a scum QT?