Open 10 -- C9: Game Over! - before 400

[Ripley]

/confirm

[Ripley]

Hounded by Greek and Latin. Classic.

Is lazarusmoth even playing?

Vote: lazarusmoth.

Maybe I'll find out.

[Ripley]

I suspect I'm going to regret asking this, but...

CES, has there been any reason behind any of the votes in your lively voting history in this game so far?

[Ripley]

This is very strange, because not only is CDB an experienced player who's played in lots of newbie games with this setup, but while I was checking that, I found he actually has a set of CDB's Lessons for Newbies, the Second Lesson of which is:

While it might seem like a good idea, voting for No Lynch is almost always a bad idea. The common reason that newbies use for a No Lynch is that we can't be sure of lynching scum. While that's true, the lynch is our only weapon to fight the scum - especially if there's no cop or, to a lesser extent, no doc. The best way to use it is therefore to take our time on Day 1, exploring all avenues of discussion, until we're confident that we're lynching scum.

I'm wary of voting CDB right away when we apparently have a couple of quick-lynchers in the game, but his vote of No Lynch will need a good explanation.

[Ripley]

I apologise unreservedly.

[Ripley]

I can understand someone wanting to get discussion going, but this does seem like a weird way to go about it. Whether CDB is scum or town, I can't see what he hoped to achieve other than a load of people yelling that he was scummy.

But don't you think this game could use 5 pages of serious discussion? That's why I did that, to stir up discussion.

Yes, but surely the whole issue of no-lynch on Day 1 with this particular setup has been discussed to death already? It's one of the standard things discussed on Day 1 of newbie games, why no-lynching is a bad idea. So was anybody ever going to support it in this game? If not, what kind of discussion would you expect?

So while I expect to get some votes for this, it should at least get us going.

"I expect to get some votes" - seems a very casual attitude to be taking in a game where you only need 4 to be lynched. Especially if you're pro town, it seems reckless to be presenting scum with a soft excuse to vote you.

[Ripley]

I don't know about Ripley just offering up his opinions like this. I don't see to much actual... suspicion or whatnot, just wanting to know what he thought he would accomplish.

You're voting me for

offering opinions

? Well, that's a first...

What exactly is your problem with my post? I have reservations about CDB's use of the No lynch issue and about his somewhat casual attitude to picking up votes in such a small game. So I posted these reservations. What on earth am I supposed to want to

accomplish

, other than contributing my thoughts? If you disagree with what I said, ok, let's discuss that, but you seem to be objecting to the fact that I said anything at all.

Would you have objected less if I'd voted for CDB? A bit hypocritical if so, since you yourself were unwilling to risk putting CDB at lynch -1.

[Ripley]

I totally didn't understand his post, which is very un-IH.

Actually I've seen this in other games lately, IH making posts that are hard to understand and being wildly incoherent and voting for what seem like absurd reasons, and in one at least he turned out to be town.

So although I think his reason for voting me is

totally

absurd, I'm not at this stage going to vote him back. Though if he keeps on dropping hints like "it's more than a random vote" without actually saying why, that may change.

I like my vote on Fritzler, because he's contributed absolutely nothing.

[Ripley]

If what Patrick is saying is that in his

experience

, not just in his mind's eye, IH as scum goes for easy targets, then that's a valid and possibly useful comment.

I don't think IH can be metagamed. I've played many games with him and I can't say he has a consistent playstyle.

Just because you personally haven't found a way to distinguish between IH-as-Town and IH-As-Scum, I don't think that's a good enough reason to dismiss the notion altogether.

Every completed game I've been in with him (3), he was town. Patrick seems to have had the opposite experience. It's not out of the question that we might learn something useful by comparing notes, though it's an approach that should be treated with caution.

One more thing about IH is that when I (and you, spectrumvoid) played with him in that first newbie game, it was his first game and he devoted a lot of time and care to it. Now he's in a

lot

of games and spreading himself very thinly, and it shows. So some differences in playstyle I would attribute to that.

[Ripley]

Patrick, can I ask you to remove your vote on me - still a random vote as far as I can tell, you haven't backed it up with any subsequent suspicion - in case these two clowns are serious.

I'm not moving my vote anywhere as long as Fritzler continues to post no content, though CES has been almost equally unhelpful, and IH is definitely on my radar because of his weird vote on me and the accompanying weak argument.

[Ripley]

This day looks hopeless. Here is Fritzler's entire contribution since he joined the game two and a half weeks ago:

CES, whose the play?

unvote, vote: delibird

CES, we could jump on ripley

unvote,vote:scumvoid

If Fritzler is protown the best move he could make would be to request replacement so the town might gain a player and lose a deadweight. I doubt he will do this so I suggest we lynch him. Maybe he's scum - if not, we lose a completely useless townie. There

are

players in this game - Patrick, IH, spectrumvoid, myself - who I know are willing to play properly, and it seems ChannelDelibird would too though I only know him from this game, and maybe the game could get going on Day 2 , giving us the chance to actually turn it around despite Day 1 being this total write off.

Let's lynch Fritzler.

[Ripley]

I'm always hesitant to lynch Fritzler because it's always based on his lack of meaningful contribution, which is what he always does, meaning it's not a scumtell for him. I guess we could lynch him but I do feel that we'd gain more information for use tomorrow and afterwards if we lynched someone who's actually been saying things during D1, so that we can try and make connections.

By that logic Fritzler's non-play would always gain him a free pass to Day 2 because there would never be enough to be learned from his death. I think that aspect of it is outweighed by the benefits of not having to carry a non-participating player on Day 2. There will probably be only 5 of us left and Fritzler would be a significant handicap. Plus, if Fritzler's alive we'll probably have the exact same play as we got from CES today once Fritzler arrived, making at best 3 players out of 5 posting anything useful. Let's maximise the chances of a decent debate, and to do that we need to get rid of Fritzler. It's not even as if there's anybody else looking particularly scummy today. Nobody has more than 1 vote.

[Ripley]

A lot of ifs.

If

Fritzler gets enough votes that claiming becomes appropriate, and

if

he can be bothered to do so, and

if

nobody counterclaims - time enough to talk about that if it happens. Why make his life easier by discussing it in advance?

[Ripley]

It's hard enough for the town in games of this format even when all the protown players are trying. When you have someone who's not only protown but a power role, and they refuse to participate or to request replacement, the whole game is tainted as far as I'm concerned. And it leaves me unwilling to invest much of my own time in the game thereafter. If you want to lynch me, I'm not going bother struggling much; I'll be prioritising my time for those games where the town hasn't been crippled by a player supposedly on our side.

I'll say this: even though Fritzler was the doc, and even if CES turns out to be scum, I think it was right to lynch Fritzler, claim or no claim. Seems that Mafia routinely claim doc when cornered on Day 1. With 2 Mafia in the game and only a 50% chance of a doc, in the long run the best play is to lynch them. The fact that it didn't work in this particular game doesn't mean that it was wrong. And obviously it would also help if genuine docs actually attempted to play the game rather than leaving themselves an obvious lynch target.

How close were we to deadline when CES hammered?

If the issue is sufficiently interesting to you that you would bother raising it, why wouldn't you take the trouble to look up the answer? It took me about 30 seconds, probably less time than it took you to post the question. This kind of behaviour makes me suspicious.

FOS IH

.

Let's see what the answer was.

The deadline was Saturday, February 24, at 10:30 AM EST. And it was specified that it was tentative and could be extended either by request or by activity picking up.

CES hammered at Mon Feb 19, 2007 3:07 pm.

So, there were the best part of 5 days remaining. Which makes spectrumvoid's reply:

More than 2 days away.

... very misleading. Technically true, I grant you, but 5 days is quite a

lot

more than 2 days.

So

FOS spectrumvoid

as well.

I prefer IH of the two because of his awful vote on me on Day 1.

[Ripley]

Alright. 1, how does me asking a simple question make it scummy?

I thought I explained why I didn't like it pretty well already, but OK, let's go through it again.

You asked a question where the answer was a fact (i.e. not an opinion) and where this answer was clearly and easily available to you. This is unnatural behavior. You just needed to scroll up the page to see when CES hammered, and to click on Page 5 to see when the deadline was. As I said already, the whole process of finding the answer to your question takes less time than writing a post asking it. If you really thought the matter was of interest, why would you not just

look

? That is the natural thing to do.

It is normal to ask questions when one doesn't have access to the answer. It is normal to ask questions that have no definitive answer but to which you want to hear other people's opinions. It is odd to ask a question of fact where you do have access to the answer. I hope this clarifies things sufficiently for you.

Ripley, please explain your logic on how I am scum because of the so called "awful" vote on you, in a dead game....

Look, people get away with voting for all sorts of dumb reasons so when a vote attracts as much negative attention as yours did it has to be especially weak. It's not just my opinion, it got you a vote and a FOS from other people:

FOS: IH.

I totally didn't understand his post, which is very un-IH. It smells to me like an excuse to vote Ripley. I don't think discussion is a scum-tell, it's lurking/non-commitalness which is a scum-tell.

Hmm yeah weird move by IH. Not necessarily scummy as I usually see IH in my minds eye going for the easier targets as scum, and I don't think Ripley has done anything to make himself an easy target, but still needs explaining better.

I don't think I've played enough with IH to have my own metagame read on him yet, but frankly I think his Ripley vote was weird. By my read of it, the post by Ripley that he was responding to contained a couple of well-made points (that I don't necessarily agree with totally; I'll expand on that in a moment) and IH's vote really stuck out like a sore thumb.

vote: IH because it's easily the scummiest thing this game, but I'm still trying to decide just how scummy it actually is.

I've included Patrick's post which is not wholly unfavorable to you out of fairness, but notice how even he found your vote weird enough to be worth commenting on. So, basically, there are other people found this vote at best commentworthy and at worst scummy.

[Ripley]

I'm inclined to believe this claim since IH/SV were my two picks for the day anyway. Not that I have the greatest record for picking out scum, admittedly.

[Ripley]

I also like how Ripley is very accepting of this claim... but still hasn't responded to my 152, and the resulting 154.

What has the first part of this sentence got to do with the second part? Nothing whatsoever that I can see. And I explained why I tend to accept the claim. It leaves the 2 people as scum I thought most likely to be scum anyway.

What do

you

think of the claim?

Anyway - in the parts of these posts (152 and 154) I understood, there wasn't anything to respond to where I wouldn't just have been repeating what I already said at some length in 147 and 150.

Sigh, All right. One more time.

My point was not simply that you were lazy, but that a person who

genuinely

wanted to know the answer to something would probably look, when the answer was just a scroll and a click away. Therefore I was left with a feeling that the point of asking the question was, at least partly, for effect. Which gave it the air of insincerity.

ChannelDelibird is correct however when he says that my main issue with you is your vote on me yesterday. About which you had this to say:

Look, people get away with voting for all sorts of dumb reasons so when a vote attracts as much negative attention as yours did it has to be especially weak. It's not just my opinion, it got you a vote and a FOS from other people:

My vote got negative attention, so it must have been weak. If you don't believe that it got negative attention, look at this, where some people said so!

I haven't the slightest idea what the point you're trying to make is here. Paraphrasing me, mocking me? I'm afraid you'll have to be clearer if you want a response, though what more can I say? I thought it was a weak vote and several other people agreed sufficiently to comment on it. You see - there really isn't anything more to say without repeating myself.

I think I'll look into doing a pbpa of Ripley myself. Some of his logic has been off today (as I have already expressed).

Well, I missed that altogether. I just don't see where you've said anything about my logic, but as I said already, I found it hard to tell what the point of your posts 152 and 154 actually was. Try again; if I understand what you're saying I'll respond willingly.

[Ripley]

Really, if spectrumvoid were innocent I think she would have seen instantly that if she accepted the claim the scum group would have to be me and IH. That is the way you think, when the only question facing you is "who are the scum in this game?" Certainly my first thought when CDB claimed was - so, IH and SV as scum? Yes, I can see that, they were my first choices anyway.

As scum, however, you have other pressing questions facing you, like, "How damaging is this claim to our cause?" "Should I pretend to disbelieve it?" "Should I be considering a counterclaim?" Which maybe distract you from the obvious.

So, the IH/SV pairing looks better to me all the time.

Incidentally, SV has painted herself into quite an awkward corner here. She's either going to have to backtrack on accepting the claim, or backtrack on not seeing me and IH as a scum pair. And really, IH and I make a most unlikely scum pair given his bad vote and attempt to make a case out of nothing against me yesterday, and my starting off today attacking him. Oh, and him accusing me of poor logic today (he's yet to clarify what he meant by that so I haven't been able to respond).

[Ripley]

Nope, I still buy the claim. Testable claims = good. Contrary to what Ripley said, I've never doubted it.

Misrepresentation. I said nothing of the kind. Either you are innocent, in which case you were speaking the truth when you said you believed it, or you are scum, in which case you most definitely believed it.

Complete wifoming here, but scum would probably have unloaded the heavy guns on either IH or Ripley, since the 3 of us are on the hot seat.

No, an

innocent

would, while not necessarily wheeling out the rocket launcher on the spot, immediately have known the other 2 (in your case, me and IH) were scum. You did not see this, even when prompted.

What I did say was that you were now obliged to backtrack on one of two statements you had made: that you believed the claim, and that you didn't see me and IH as a scum group.

I think spectrumvoid has simply made a basic scum mistake.

Actually, I'm not sure IH immediately grasped the situation either. His reaction has been a bit more dithery. It's harder to tell with him because he never actually said he believed the claim (I asked him what he thought of it but got no reply), but equally, there's no sign of "spectrumvoid and Ripley must be the scum then". I think he's just playing it by ear and avoiding committing to anything.

I'm about 90% sure the scum are IH and spectrumvoid. I've maybe even been slightly generous in allocating 10% to the other possibilities, which are that CES and CDB are scum together, or that CDB is scum who has correctly identified CES as innocent. The timing and logic of CDB's claim are completely believable (he was on 1 vote, which he knew to be from an innocent, and was therefore afraid of a quick lynch by scum).

[Ripley]

Again, I reiterate that the posts were only 1 min apart.

You seem to be missing the point. It's not the 1 minute interval between those posts that's significant, it's the 17 hour interval between post 175, where you accept the claim, and Post 179, where you still haven't realised that in that case the scum would have to be me and IH. I still maintain that an innocent would realise that straightaway, and the reason you didn't is that you are scum who just didn't see the implications of accepting the claim.

Note that Ripley's 90% 10% assessment is rather obviously heavily weighted in his favour.

Huh? You seriously expect me to allocate a percentage to the probability that I'm scum myself??? If not I can't see what you're saying here.

he'll have a hard time convincing me to disbelieve it (I believe that's where he's 'backtracking' bit comes from.)

On the contrary, I have no intention of trying to convince you of anything at all, since I think you're scum. The backtracking I expect you do is from your statement that you don't believe IH and I are a scum pair.

So he has no choice but to go after SV/IH scumpair.

I'm going after IH/SV scumpair because I tend to accept the claim, which I've said consistently, and if I accept the claim there is no other scum possibility.

I'll go do a PBPA on IH then since CDB and IH have already promised a PBPA on Ripley and have yet to deliver.

I'm not a great fan of PBPAs myself. In my experience they tend to be massive posts 90% of which are unedited quotes, all too often wrongly tagged, and in which any point of interest is so buried within the whole mass of words as to be virtually impossible to find. I've never seen a PBPA that wouldn't have benefited massively from the writer simply picking out the very few of a player's posts they actually found significant, quoting the significant section rather than the whole post, and then stating their observation concisely. I also think that these posts can be used by scum as a way of giving the impression that they're really working hard at the game, since it's easy to be so overwhelmed by the sheer length of the thing that you don't even notice how much of it is actually quotes and how much of the rest amounts to vague insinuations rather than precise argument.

In this game relatively little happened on Day 1, with the result that everything that did happen - CDB's no lynch thing, IH's vote on me, my suggestion when a deadline was imposed that we should lynch the inactive player, CES's lynch vote -has already been discussed. If anybody has anything new to say about these matters or any other, then fine. I'm happy to answer any questions about my play.

[Ripley]

Why aren't you voting for spectrumvoid?

Because of the 10% of me that doubts the claim and is quaking in fear of the thought of a cackling Delibird (who has been spookily silent since claiming) descending to lynch her.

The 10% has gone up maybe to about 12% because of you pressing people to vote

now

(why?), and also because, reading back, I couldn't help but be a bit worried by the thinness of your reasons for voting CDB (a vote based mainly on gut feeling, in lylo, early in the day and therefore with no deadline pressure). If the whole thing

was

a stunt, this is the weak link. But as I said, I think it's far, far more likely that IH and SC are scum. I'm just not ready to vote yet, and you pushing it is actually making me more reluctant, not less.

[Ripley]

CDB, are you intending to write PBPA's on anybody else or are you done? I'm getting conflicting messages from you and CES, one wanting to go ahead and lynch SV right now, the other wanting to take more time and decide about tomorrow.

[Ripley]

Okay. I'm much more reassured by CDB's posts than by CES's last few posts, and have reached a level of confidence where I would normally vote for spectrumvoid. However, since CDB wishes to have another day or so to cogitate before the game day ends, I'll hold off voting until after he's said anything he wants to say. This prevents IH from getting in a third vote on spectrumvoid that would silence CDB.

[Ripley]

You seem to ignore the possiblity that CDB could be scum claiming cop

Notice how it's either CDB and CES are scum, or me and SV are scum (His original call of course). There is no possibility apparently that CDB and SV could be scum together...

Lies. I have clearly acknowledged

both

these possibilities:

I've maybe even been slightly generous in allocating 10% to the other possibilities, which are that CES and CDB are scum together, or that CDB is scum who has correctly identified CES as innocent.

... and in any case your second statement flatly contradicts your first.

when CDB claimed, whether he realized it or not, he drew the lines if we make it to day 3.

Ripley seems to be trying to define the lines to early, forcing the choice of choosing a scumteam.

Make your mind up. If the lines were already drawn by CDB when he claimed, it's nonsense to say that I am trying to define them now.

IH's post is a woolly mess of muddled thinking. He seems, as scum, to be completely lacking the ability to feign a townie mindset. My guess is that we've heard little from him since the claim while he figured out what to do, and he has gradually accepted that his only real option is to turn on spectrumvoid.

[Ripley]

I really don't understand your argument. Are you talking about two different sets of lines? Nor do I see what you mean by saying I'm "forcing the choice of choosing a scumteam." (The

choice

of

choosing

? Wording does make a difference, as you, say, but I'm not sure you use it so wisely as you would have us believe.)

I'm not forcing anybody to choose anything, or even asking them to, and my own choice was the result of my accepting the claim. I have no idea what else to say in response to you, and I doubt that it matters much.

ChannelDelibird: I'm leaving you to place the lynching vote on SV as I said I would. If there are any questions you'd like me to answer, please don't vote until I've done so. I have a suspicion there won't be any chance to say anything tomorrow; CES is going to come straight out and vote, BANG, without hearing final arguments.

All this is obviously on the assumption that CDB is innocent; if not, then well played, you had me totally fooled.

[Ripley]

Bah. Well, for what it's worth, I think I was leaning towards IH, but good luck guys.

Discussion in twilight is permitted so... you'd have been right, and although you were against me at the start of the day I did think you would get it right. And I'm pretty sure IH and SV did too, which is why they've tried to shut you out.

[Ripley]

Vote: IH

[Ripley]

Surely you're not doubting me, Patrick?

Give it up and confess, IH. You can always say you're a good guy at heart and that big bad spectrumvoid led you into a life of crime.

[Ripley]

Aww - thanks Patrick, but I don't think I was especially heroic. It was really CES who trapped spectrumvoid in post 178. All I did was to perceive the claim through townie eyes, which wasn't difficult obviously, and that showed me how untownie the other reactions were. An unexpected claim like that is clearly difficult for scum to handle.

I think it counted for a lot that all 3 of us protown players alive on Day 2 were active and trying hard to win. Maybe in these small games an active townie is worth more than an inactive doc.

[Ripley]

A couple of things I'm curious about.

CES, was your vote on CDB 100% serious? I noticed you were still around to unvote when CDB claimed an hour later, and I wondered if you were actually waiting to pounce on anyone placing a second vote on CDB. Would you actually have gone away and left your vote unattended, so to speak?

spectrumvoid - were you serious when you said IH can't be metagamed, or was it a bluff intended to divert anybody from trying?