Mini 486: GAME OVER!

[TheHermit]

I'm here! I'm alive! Nobody vote me off for being inactive!

However, it IS 7:30 in the morning where I am and I haven't gone to bed yet, so I'll have to wait until tomorrow morning (uh, afternoon?) to read through the thread.

[TheHermit]

Of course, having only 6 to lynch makes it a little different, which is irritating and seems to be a handicap to the town in my opinion.

I disagree: I see it as both a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing because you need to convince one less person of another's guilt in order to get them lynched; it's a curse because you need to convince one less person of another's "guilt" before you get the lynched WRONGLY. So it really comes down to, "How confident are you of your deductions?"

As for OJ/DFN, I don't find anything particularly scummy about them. Yet.

[TheHermit]

Most scum wouldn't be stupid enough to start a bandwagon that openly. Also, note that the vote was oj's first and only post in the entire game. I can't claim to know why he unvoted when he hadn't voted before, but that doesn't automatically make him scum. Some of the comments made about him here suggest that he's anti-town no matter what side he's on, though, which leads me to think we're better off lynching him sooner than later.

Also, I fail to see why DFN is being so heavily suspected for NOT voting. I see his reluctance to vote as timidity; he doesn't know whether he's right or wrong, and wants to hear more before he DOES vote. We already know he reacts badly under pressure, but that's a player issue, not a role issue. Other than that, people are basically dogpiling him... why? Because he talks of hypotheticals? We aren't going to catch scum with "what if" questions this early in the game, true. However, calling him scum based on that? I don't really follow that logic.

So no, I don't see anything particularly scummy about those two. It's the bandwagoners I'm more concerned about.

[TheHermit]

I'm starting to think we're best off killing ojpower immediately so his lurking, random-voting self can't kill us later when we're at LyLo. At this point I don't even care whether he's scum or not, I want him gone.

Vote: ojpower

[TheHermit]

Yes, I realize it's a scummy thing to do. No, this won't change my opinion. I don't want some lurker coming in at the eleventh hour to drop a stupid, senseless vote that the scum all jump on for the win, or even worse, stay hidden so that it's impossible for the active towns to get a lynch on the active scum for want of a single vote.

My vote comes off when he contributes something meaningful or he gets replaced. Not a moment before. Unless somebody does something very scummy.

[TheHermit]

Unvote

Alright then.

[TheHermit]

And over here on the opposite side of the map we have pulsewidth trying to make a big deal out of a non-issue.

So, in the same post he says that ojpower hasn't been scummy, but maybe we're better off lynching him.

Anti-town play can only hurt the town, whether the person is mafia or not. I explained my reasoning in post 101, which I notice you utterly ignore precisely because it hurts your argument of painting me as scum. Considering how extensive your search for "dirt" on me is I cannot believe you didn't find it.

Ok, scratch that. It's the bandwagoners we should be concentrating on. He doesn't mention anyone in particular though.

None of them had done anything that really stood out from the others in my mind. They were all just scrambling for an excuse, any excuse, to lynch someone. Either there is a very skilled scum in that group, or they're ALL poor town players.

Unless somebody does something very scummy?? What happened to those bandwagoners you were talking about? What about DFN or Nelly? Don't see anything scummy about them? I want to see your thoughts on those two players. I also want to hear your suspicions on some of these people on DFN's bandwagons that you were talking about earlier.

"You don't parrot the majority, so you must be scum ARRRRRRRGH!" Funny, I'd think that is exactly what mafia would do; follow everybody else so they can blend in. Obviously there are different styles of play, and then there's the WIFOM, but you seem to have very bad reasons for focusing on me. Disliking inactive players and being suspicious of everyone is a scumtell? News to me.

Nelly's first vote was random. He has since decided that he wants to be flippant, rude, and basically a very poor player. Scummy? No. Anti-town? Why, yes! I'd be voting for him if I didn't hold out a glimmer of hope that he will come to his senses and/or be replaced.

[TheHermit]

I need to reread the whole bandwagon fiasco again to collect my thoughts.

[TheHermit]

I said he his town in my book until DAY 2...but if I had money, I would put it on vollkan being NK tonight.

Oooooor the mafia could simply pick somebody else to kill tonight and laugh as we lynch the townie dayvig tomorrow. If they're really crafty, they'd worm some way into making his survival looks suspicious so that the dayvig would be forced to lash out at one of his attackers, possibly killing another townie. Hey! Sorta like what you're doing!

FOS: curiouskarmadog

He's confirmed as the dayvig. He's not confirmed scum or town. Even the night won't change that... well, unless he turns up dead in the morning.

[TheHermit]

I don't like the way Elias is trying to misrepresent me. It's good that the town's not buying it (as I clarified my position seconds after voting oj), but I get the feeling he thinks if he repeats an argument often enough people will believe it. I find the points against him logically sound given the information we have.

Vote: Elias_the_thief

[TheHermit]

Okay, there's a lot here for me to digest. MAN, you guys post novels. After sleeping on it I'm not as confident about my vote; I'll need to read through the latest developments in the thread. If my opinion remains the same I'll put the vote back on, but I don't want the day ending before I've finished catching up.

Unvote

[TheHermit]

I have a question for Hermit:

Why did you vote Elias?

You spend three pages making someone look bad, and then wonder why people people vote for the guy you're yelling at? Most people would take that as a sign that you're doing your job well. Either that or you're very skilled at propaganda. Point is, I briefly skimmed the contents of your diatribes, picked up the relevant points (those being, "Elias is being shifty and suspicious as heck"), and acted on them only to find you biting and snarling at my heels for reasons I'm still not entirely clear on.

Additionally,

I don't like the way Elias is trying to misrepresent me. It's good that the town's not buying it (as I clarified my position seconds after voting oj), but I get the feeling he thinks if he repeats an argument often enough people will believe it. I find the points against him logically sound given the information we have.

Vote: Elias_the_thief

Clarifying your position does not change what you said. You said you wanted OJ "killed off" and "gone".

There's very little I can add here that I haven't said already. If he wasn't going to be an active part of the game, he could only hurt the town. If the same situation shows up again, I'll have the exact same opinion. Grievously bad anti-town play needs to be taken care of sooner rather than later. It's entirely possible (in fact, easy) for a townie to deliberately sabotage the towns efforts while still making "token" contributions to the game to avoid getting replaced. Me? I'd say to get rid of them. You think it's scummy to want to lynch people who undermine town efforts and whose thoughtless play could lose the game if you let them stick around to the later stages. I think we're going to have to agree to disagree here.

You did NOT clarify "seconds" after. It was an entire hour later and, in the meantime, Tornado had FoSed you for your scummy vote! This is an outright lie.

When you were young and your mother called you to do the chores, what did you tell her? "Be there in a second", maybe? Now, everyone knows you weren't going to literally teleport down there and do whatever needed doing, but most people wouldn't call you a liar to your face for saying that. Apparently, you take everything starkly literal. This makes me wonder whether you reach for a thermometer whenever someone mentions something is "really cool".

Couple that with the vague explanation of your vote, "logicaly sound given the information"...what is with the "given the information" bit? It is almost like you are saying the arguments I have made only look reasonable based on me not knowing who is scum.

I was pressed for time when I made the post and didn't have the leisure of writing a novel to explain exactly how you convinced me that he was up to no good. The "based on information given" was noted because, obviously, we don't have all the information at our disposal. Kinda what makes the game. In cases like this, where this is any room for doubt, I tend to answer in this manner. It really ticks my older brother off because he wants a straight yes or no answer, and I often don't give it to him. :p

Long story short: Yes, I left myself an out in case new information came up that cast my previous observation in a different light. My rebuttal: What's your point? What does this prove? These are some mighty fine mountains you're making, but I wonder how long it will take you to figure out they're molehills?

Huge FoS: Hermit

Love you too.

[TheHermit]

1) No matter how much content I post, it shouldn't form the basis for your own suspicion.
2) I'm either skilled or a propagandist (I assume you mean a scum making a crappy case)? This is a false dichotomy. You are saying either I am scum or Elias is scum. The problem with this is obvious.
3) The only example of a relevant point you give is the "shifty and suspicious as heck" thing. I never said that or ANYTHING to that effect. This looks to me like you simply gleaned the perception that I found Elias guilty and voted on that basis, possibly taking advantage of the fact that I am appearing protown in light of Oman's vigging.

1) I've no defense prepared for this. You are right, of course. I'm a bit ashamed of myself for forgetting that.
2) People seem to love putting words in my mouth. Perhaps some of this is my fault, as I realize I've been somewhat more brusque than usual in this game. I said I thought you had good points. Besides, there's no dichotomy here. It's perfectly reasonable to suspect that you're both scum.
3. As I said before, I only had the time to skim the relevant posts, and I got the impression that Elias was dodgy, shifty, and suspicious. That's what I picked up off of it. Also, nobody's protown until proven by a confirmed cop. Until then, there's "unconfirmed" and "possibly bussing scum".

Plus, you are just admitting that OJ was a sitting duck for scum.

When did I say this? If anything, the scum would keep such players around to stymie town efforts in the mid-late game. It's one thing to glean hidden meanings in my words where none exist, and another entirely to attribute the exact opposite of what I said.

Well done on ignoring what is obviously the most important thing. I wasn't being a pedant about the timing; one hour is not too much. What is important is Tornado's post. You backtracked when you realised your actions had been perceived as scummy.

I suppose, then, that the right thing to do would be to just let you make whatever assumptions you want about my motives rather than clear things up when I saw myself being misunderstood. Obviously the smartest thing to do would have been to make myself perfectly clear in the first place, but that ship had sailed.

[TheHermit]

And you just extended it to a trichotomy. Why is it that you don't concede the possibility that both Elias and myself are town?

What, you don't understand what a smiley face means? Geez, remind me never to crack a joke around you. Chill out for a second. It seems like you're just throwing anything you can find at me, regardless of whether it means anything or now, in the hopes it'll stick and get people voting for me.

But, moving back to the contradiction, in the earlier one it is one of MY points whilst in the later one it is YOUR impression.

I thought that's what you said. When you claim it wasn't I can't very well continue saying it was, now can I? Again, you're grasping at straws.

WIFOM ahoy.

And now you're not only intentionally missing the point, but you're misusing the word. I was explaining why I considered leaving oj alive dangerous in that specific situation, not saying, "If I were scum I wouldn't vote for oj". This was, if you recall, your response to why you made up a claim and attributed it to me, a clear case of dodging the question.

Now, if you were actually arguing with decent logic, you might have said that I did make that claim off-hand in one of my first posts, though it has been far from my primary concern. Instead you use "WIFOM" like a magic spell that can dispel any suspicion as soon as it's uttered. I'm not impressed.

In brief, to save massive quoting

Way, way too late for that.

1) So you admit you voted based on how much I had said?

Quality, not quantity. I thought your points were reasonable, but apparently your entire strategy revolves around throwing ancillary points around in the hopes of... what? That they'll crack under the pressure? That someone else will do something stupid so you can go throw everything including the kitchen sink at THEM? Had I noticed earlier that this is what you were doing, I wouldn't have voted for him. Is that what you wanted to hear? That your style of investigation is counter-productive?

Suspicions, Mr Volkran. In all your attacks, you have yet to make a clear case for why I'm scum. If your entire reason for attacking me is, "he hasn't had the time to read every mammoth post in the whole thread in excruciating detail every day", I think you need to get some new logic. Yours is broken.

2) Saying I had "good points" is just a weak way to justify voting on the basis of them.

As weak as attacking me on the basis of "how DARE you make a joke in this soopa-sirios game of mafia!"?

3) You just made a trichotomy. You are ignoring the possibility that both Elias and myself are town.

I thought it was perfectly clear that I was semi-joking; you're just humorless. And now if I say, "Of course it's possible you're both town", you'll accuse me of backtracking. Like I said earlier, broken logic. This time your entire attack revolves around you not knowing what a smiley means.

4) Earlier, you said "shifty and suspicious" was one of my points, now it is your general impression.
a) This is a contradiction
b) So you voted on a general impression?

It is not a contradiction, it was a refinement of my view in light of new knowledge. People who use sound logic change their viewpoint when new information becomes available; it's called "deductive reasoning", you should try it sometime. And aren't you always voting on an "impression" unless you know for certain what someone's alignment is? Again, there is no merit in this line of questioning.

5) Your OJ argument is a WIFOM

I don't think that means what you think it means. Look it up. I don't want to hear you say it again until you can use it in a sentence.

6) Earlier, your clarification was "seconds later" as though it were a response to you realising of your own accord that you had made an error (I am not taking "seconds" literally) but now it is in response to Tornado.

What kind of point are you trying to make here? Whether I realized the error myself or whether I only noticed it when it was pointed out to me, is there a difference? Are you seriously attacking me on the basis of "if you were town you'd be perfectly clear and not ever make mistakes, ever"? I don't think I need to tell you all the holes in that.

[TheHermit]

When you yourself admit that your points are garbage, what else am I supposed to say? I thought they were compelling at the time, but they lose a lot of weight when you yourself say, "By the way, I don't believe in that".

You have yet to point out a single "contradiction" in my oj vote. All you are doing is twisting my words, inventing scenarios, and then calling your resulting mess a "contradiction". I think this is another term you should look up in the dictionary. As I've explained to you many times and I am getting tired of repeating myself, I wanted him gone as long as he maintained his present playstyle. If you're going to continue twisting my words into saying I'm "contradicting" myself be my guest. Just be aware that what you're doing has no basis in reality, and that voting me because of that is poor logic.

My explanation for the Elias thing remains as such: I did not have the time to fully read the interrogation bit by bit, and I didn't like how he was constantly misrepresenting my oj vote (you understood my reasoning at the time; what changed there?). Your entire argument with your vote is, "If you were town you'd play perfectly and you would automatically notice everything and it's not my fault if you've been looking for a job and had dentist appointments and a death in the family, you should read four pages of posts that appeared overnight without getting bleary-eyed and resorting to skimming because only scum would do that". If I come up town no crying to me later. I've done nothing but give my honest explanation and my honest opinions even if it makes me look bad. I wash my hands of this if the town ends up losing.

For that matter, being on the receiving end of your witch hunt has given me a new perspective on your investigation style. Now that I am forced to read it in detail, I have become disillusioned of it and find it lacking. I suppose next you'll say, "Changing your mind when you receive new information is scummy"? And if I'm noticing it for the first time, YES, it's new to me.

As for the ad hominem thing? 'Ad hominem' means 'against the man', basically heaping insults or attempts to damage character in a way that has no bearing on the case. If I say your logic is bad, it's because it's your LOGIC that's bad. If you're using bad logic, that is immensely relevant. I never said, "You must be wrong because you smell bad," I said, "Your logic makes no sense, and you used 'WIFOM' wrong, which is bad if that's your entire point". How is this ad hominem? Please learn what words mean before you use them. I don't know about you, but I have difficulty believing someone's logic when he doesn't seem to know what half the words he's saying means. Is he intentionally trying to obfuscate? Is the logic I'm hearing actually what he meant? This is not ad hominem, it is a legitimate concern. If you and I don't have the same understanding on what a word means, any communication involving that word has the chance to be misunderstood.

[TheHermit]

I'm only going to explain this one more time.

Me: "Those are good points."
volkan: "No they're not!"
Me: "Well, I thought they were good."
volken: "AHA! First you say 'they are', now you say you 'thought they were'. A contradiction! You must be scum because scum contradict themselves!"

This is why I attack your logic. You spin a "contradiction" story out of whole cloth and vote me on the basis of that. It's true that scum contradict themselves by necessity, but if I were town wouldn't I be making the exact same statements? You have proven that I don't use the same words every single time, and you have proven that I have the ability to change my mind. You have not proven why either of the above is scummy.

[TheHermit]

1) Hermit: "You made the point that Elias was sas" -> I said it
2) Hermit: "No. sas was just my general impression" -> Hermit impression
3) Hermit: "No no. I thought you said sas." -> Hermit THINKS I said it.

Can somebody explain how that is NOT a contradiction.

Gladly. Although I am getting very tired of repeating this to you so many times. Allow me to walk you through my thought process step by step. Maybe then you'll finally, FINALLY get it.

1) I read through your posts. There's a LOT and I'm in a hurry, so I skim through it. You're really riding Elias, and I (reading between the lines) pick up that you think Elias is lying and is being suspicious. I've heard enough; I say as much when I vote for him, because I have little tolerance for talking in circles (part of the reason this whole spectacle is starting to get under my skin).

2) You say "I didn't say that." I double check, and sure enough you didn't. Oops. I explain that you may not have said it directly, but that's the impression I got from you and that I merely thought you said it out loud.

3) You whoop like a howler monkey over this "contradiction". I attempt to point out that it's not really a contradiction, to which you respond by screaming "I'M NOT LISTENING LA LA LA LA LA" in my ear. And before you call that an ad hominem attack, bear in mind that I've explained this to you four times already and you clearly aren't paying attention. Why are you interrogating me if you're going to ignore my answers anyway?

[TheHermit]

And yes, there is a disturbing amount of lurking going. I'd start a lurker hunt, except we're close to deadline and more than likely time would run out before everyone responded.

Or is vollkan going to point at my oj vote and call the above another contradiction?

[TheHermit]

Hermit

1) “Were best off killing ojpower IMMEDIATELY” now it is the immediately part that concerns me the most. I cant help but feel like he is rushing the game and making it seem like we urgently need to do this.

2) Then obviously there is the scummy comment about not caring if he is SCUM or not, to me this is classic signs of scum.

1) In this game of Mafia, TheHermit has learned that not only can he never make jokes but that every little word he says will get zoomed in on like it's the entire point of his post. I meant "immediately" as opposed to "later, when lynching a townie puts us in a really bad position".

2) For the record, not every "classic sign" is going to be accurate 100% of the time. Just, you know, FYI.

Post 102 is a comment from Oman saying that he believed Hermits comment to be scummy but it makes sense now that he explained it. Since Oman has proven to be Scum we can look back at this comment by Oman and analyze it a little further. If Hermit is town why would Oman defend him, why would he just allow another townie to come under attack? Is it possible that Oman was trying to gain the trust of a townie? Unlikely, seeing how he doesn’t continue to sway Hermit as we go along as a matter of fact the two avoid each other for the remainder of Omans stay in the game.

Or, more obviously, perhaps his plan was to make a townie look bad if he ever got lynched and his card got flipped. Or perhaps he was supporting the vote without actually following up on it hoping it would lead to a bandwagon. I don't know what Oman was planning, but neither do you.

Post 114 comes around and Hermit unvotes OJ Power, why you ask? Is it because OJ finally stepped up and responded? NO! Is it because he was replaced and the replacement stepped up? NO! It is simply based on his replacement, once OJ was replaced and without a word from the replacement Hermit changed his vote without a second thought after taken such a stand and refusing to change his vote unless OJ talked or someone else came up scummy… Well neither of the two happened and you changed your vote which remains odd because Elias said right before you posted Paradoxombie inherited the OM of OJ so in a sense if you suspected OJ you should still suspect Paradoxombie atleast until he says something…

My vote comes off when he contributes something meaningful

or he gets replaced

. Not a moment before. Unless somebody does something very scummy.

Emphasis mine, because it appears we have another person who fails at reading comprehension. I said I would remove my vote if he gets replaced, he was replaced, I remove my vote. I understand there are other aspects of my vote that are suspicious, but there's nothing odd at all about unvoting exactly when I said I was going to. Build a better straw man next time.

Post 257 beings the entire “Hermit voting scandal” lol atleast that is how I refer to it. He comes out of the blue after casting a FOS on CKD on Thursday around 4:42 pm (Post 225) he makes another post on Friday at around 11:41 am (Post 257) casting a vote on Elias without even trying ONCE to pursue his FOS on CKD. To me this reads as a big 180 in such a short time and more like a person jumping on a bandwagon then really thinking Elias is guilty.

Point out one thing, ONE SINGLE THING, that CKD said between those two posts for me to "follow up" my FOS on. I'll save you the trouble of looking: he made two posts, both of them essentially contentless. It also reads here like you're saying if I suspected CKD I could not also suspect Elias, like only one or the other would be scum. Uh, multiple scum? Multiple suspicions? This argument has nothing to stand on.

Post 295 is where I really start wondering what the hell you are doing, instead of just sticking to your guns and taking a stance on a vote you flip flop and unvote within another 24 hours and give no real reason why the vote was cast and why it was taken off…I think this was a attempt to get people like Elias & Volkan to ease off of you but ofcourse it didn’t work out like you wanted it to…

Honestly, I hadn't even read the posts after my last one when I unvoted. I simply thought a lot of things could change when the thread grows by a page or two overnight and didn't want to leave a potentially dangerous/stupid vote, and I could always vote right back if nothing really changed. Of course, things had changed, so I didn't bother putting the vote back on.

Post 321… WOW… you basing your vote off of someone else’s opinion is not bad in my eyes, but basing your vote off of someone else’s opinion after only SKIMMING through their post is horrible… The main thing you say in this post and throughout the game is that you are searching for BAD-TOWNIES and not SCUM… You make it clear that instead of using day one too find scum we should just end it and lynch a bad townie before they become a problem… Well doesn’t this in fact make you the bad townie!

Wait wait wait... you say that it's not good town play to vote for bad townies, that much I understand. But then you call me a bad townie as you vote for me? Wheeeeeeee! I don't argue that it was a bad pro-town play (I think the last couple pages prove that quite adequately). But for you to at attack me for voting bad town instead of good scum while at the same time voting me for being bad town is hilarious. "Do as I say, not as I do", is it?

A) Your continued attitude and determination to vote of BAD TOWN PLAYERS and your lack off effort to find and vote off SCUM players.

The only bad town player I wanted gone was oj, because he wasn't merely bad he was potentially disastrous. I voted Elias because I thought he was scum. I stand by my reasons for voting oj; I don't want an idiot hanging around on LyLo.

B) You constant back tracking and vote shifty during the game in order to prevent heat from coming down on you for your vote.

*rubs temples*

The only time I have backtracked in the entire game is when vollkan informed me that he did not actually say what I mistakenly attributed to him. Yes, that was my bad. I accept this. I fail to see how this makes me scum.

C) Your change of heart toward your OJ vote after taking a firm stand then removing your vote without any real evidence to remove it.

Covered this. Groundless accusation.

D) Omans defense of you in post 102, while this is not directly your fault it is unfortunate for you that the one confirmed Scum Player defended you.

Covered this too. Other, equally likely possibilities exist besides the one you cherry-picked.

E) Your vote for Elias without any real proof or basis besides your loose read of Volkans post and a gut feeling…

I get the feeling I've gone over this one ad nauseum.

[TheHermit]

I was going to write another fuming defense, pointing out how what Elias pointed out aren't really backtracks and how Nelly is once again misrepresenting me, but I decided to take a walk instead. It gave me a view to the other side of this whole situation. So, lemme try this again.

I'm a new player to mafia, and I haven't been subject to the suspicion I've been the target of in this game before. From my point of view, there are explanations for all the things that have been pointed out. But you don't believe me, and I can't prove them. Honestly, I know I look bad; I'd probably be right along with you if this were someone else. The only way to prove I'm telling the truth is to die and get my card flipped. It sucks that my death will probably not help the town catch any scum, but I've no one to blame for that but myself. I only hope lynching me doesn't lead to the town losing.

I dislike repeating myself, and I admit I got more than a little heated over the last few days. I apologize for losing my temper. I hope that if we are in any future games together we will be able to start with a clean slate.

Well, time to stop beating around the bush and get this over with. Go town!

Vote:TheHermit

[TheHermit]

Why are you selfvoting...are you honestly giving up?

I've been trying to defend myself for four days and watching my attempts fail while my anger rises. Rather than continue with this song-and-dance I'm doing my blood pressure a favor and helping you lynch me, which is clearly what you all want anyway.

Well before you give up and try to lynch yourself, do us all a favor and roleclaim...

Vanilla townie. No powers, no masonry. Does this change anything, seeing as how you don't trust me anyway? Didn't think so. Let's just move along and execute me.

[TheHermit]

Who's playing anything? I really

am

sick and tired of this. I explain myself, you don't believe me. That's fine. Not trusting people is what the game's about. You refuse to listen to me and refuse to see my side of the story. But now you want me to go back to screaming at people who obviously don't care about anything I have to say? Forget that. It's a waste of your time and mine. There's no point in arguing with a brick wall, so I'm stepping back and letting you all knock yourselves out.

Just two quick things that occurred to me while writing this.

Your last post sounds like you're trying to say you're not at fault that I'm getting lynched. This sounds like you KNOW what I'm going to turn up as and are trying to say it's all my fault. After you've done so much work pushing me into a corner, I think it's rotten of you to claim that you had nothing to do with it.

Also, vollkan, you never unvoted Paradox so your last vote against me doesn't count. And we still have a week before the deadline... we're not "so close". Look at all that's happened in the past week, and you'll see how quickly things can change.

[TheHermit]

Uh oh! Look out everyone, TheHermit is backtracking again! Everybody bandwagon!

Unvote

I'm still not sure exactly what it is you intend for me to do... I can't attack (you'd accuse me of deflecting suspicion) or defend (because I don't get the sense that any of you are really listening). And I'm certain that Elias or vollkan is going to point to this and call it another backtrack or contradiction or whatever. Hell, if I were in your position I'd be voting for me on the basis of me being idiot town at best. But after sleeping on it I've calmed down a little and realized you're right. The worst thing a townie can do is get lynched and not leave their suspicions behind as clues, so I'll get right on that so at least SOME good could come of my death.

Unfortunately, I'll be very busy IRL today. I'll check up on my suspicions tonight and post them on the morrow.

[TheHermit]

The people I'm most suspicious of right now in order of scumminess:

Elias - I find it hilarious that the same guy who claims my vote for oj was poor was going to lynch Nelly on page 6 for no other reason than because he self-voted. And was going to lynch him over me, even though he claims to be more suspicious of me! Can anyone else see the inherent contradiction here? It seems to me like he jumped on Nelly's wagon because it looked like a convenient ride to a lynch even though he knew there was probably a stronger case against me. I don't like the concept of voting in favor of convenience over legitimate suspicions AT ALL. That's a huge scumtell in my mind. Even after rereading vollkan interrogating him my mind hasn't changed on this, especially given how he continually avoided questions (see vollkan point this out in post 253, which is probably where I got the "shifty" impression from).

paradoxzombie - I still have a hard time believing he merely miscounted the vote. His language is curious, in that vote as well: in post 154 he claims he should be exonerated because he tacked the words "I believe" to the end of his unofficial votecount. Still, Oman came after him pretty hard... he even objected to the idea that para being town meant he was scum in post 167, implying that Oman knew what Para would cardflip as. Of course, Oman being scum, I can't entirely trust that reasoning as he may have just been distancing. Only reason para's not number 1 is that a lot of the people after Para are basing it off of Oman being tricky with his vigging preferences, and I simply don't think Oman was that clever. He fell right into vollkan's trap, after all.

Nelly632 - Maybe not as obvious as the other two above, but I find it odd that he had no stated reason that he voted Elias (post 249) yet I got grilled and he quietly unvoted once vollkan's attention was on me. After that he started focusing on me because I was the center of attention, or at least that's what it felt like. It's possible that his self-voting gambit was just to see if any townies would be dumb enough to vote for him, giving him and the other townies an excuse to go after them, maybe even get a lynch. The odds of accidently getting lynched are rather low, given the town's intense displeasure with ending a day before discussion sets in. I didn't get the idea for this until I reread 293, in which he reasons that his reasons for suspecting everyone who voted for him was on the assumption that he was town, which has yet to be proven. Yes, this is a hypothetical and therefore unprovable. It does, however, dovetail nicely with his sneaky vote on Elias as well as voting for me for "contradictions" that I had already discussed and squared away (MANY posts, 353 says it best). As vollkan explained immediately after there are other problems with my play but being contrary isn't one of them. Come to think of it, he's been following vollkan a lot... Hm. Not sure what I think about that. Call this suspicion a distant third.

(Side note: I'm not sure whether to be happy or not that Nelly has eased on me ever so slightly. On the one hand, yay! Less pressure, I can breathe again! On the other hand, I don't think the given reason for easing his suspicions is a very good one. I probably shouldn't be looking the gift horse in the mouth, but that's what I think.)

Although I have no serious objections to a para lynch,

Vote:Elias_the_thief

for now.

Also: Haven't found anything to justify my suspicion of CKD other than Nelly defending him for unknown reasons, but unless/until Nelly comes up scum there's no use in focusing on this. He has also been hounding after para for a while, but that isn't suspicious until we're more sure about Para (and maybe not even then, depending on the circumstances).

unFOS:curiouskarmadog

for now.

[TheHermit]

Elias remains the person I'm most suspicious of. However, for now I'll withhold my vote because I don't think we need to be in so much of a rush to end the day. Samael brings up a good point: I find it odd that SPAG hammered immediately after two or three people said they would like to hear from Para before they finished him off. He hasn't been the most prolific poster here, so I'm going to have to look back through the thread to see what I can dig up on him.

[TheHermit]

Alright, I've decided to skip the random vote at the beginning. here's what my analysis of SPAG shows...

Post 31: Puts an FOS on ojpower following his one and only post.

Post 50: Reiterates accusations against DFN and oj without adding anything meaningful or making any sort of judgment against them.

Post 54: Removes his random vote. Curiously, he thinks that DFN deflecting questions will cause the bandwagon to die off rather than intensify.

Post 74: Rips on ojpower. Notes that DFN's accusation was concluded with a FOS rather than a vote, and that this is not a scumtell.

Post 85: Asks Oman (proven scum) why Nelly is high on his list of suspicions when he has posted twice.

Post 87: After gorckat points out Nelly's comment about quicklynching, he muses that it might be a bit too reckless for mafia.

Post 90: Agrees that DFN changing quoted text looks a bit shifty.

Post 166 + 324: SPAG claims to have real life problems and has trouble posting. Supposedly updates all other games he is in during this time.

Post 368: Notable because the mod comments that SPAG has asked for a replacement.

Post 478: SPAG returns, asks for the Cliff's Notes version of the case against Para (but not Elias or me, the other two frontrunners for suspicion at the time perhaps he's already made up his mind?).

Post 481: After getting a very brief mention of the relevant points (NOT an explanation of them), SPAG votes for Para.

Post 490: Insists that CKD meant no harm by PMing him.

Post 521: Unvotes in response to the extended deadline.

Post 523: Deflects gorckat's question about what he saw scummy about Para, implying at the same time that he hasn't read through the evidence. vollkan immediately points out that, while this is a really bad idea in normal circumstances, a looming deadline is not normal circumstances.

Post 527: Promises to educate himself in the following few days so as to make an informed lynching decision.

Post 532: Waves off gorckat's questions. Implies that he read through Para's posts before voting, which he claimed he had not had the time to do in 521.

Post 534: Puts an FOS on Satael because he thinks he's forcing him to vote.

Post 537: Says that the case against Para is strong without really explaining anything about. Explains that Para cardflipping as town would make gorckat and Satael look suspicious, though I'm unable to follow his logic as to why. Insists that he'd like to hear from Para before voting.

Post 539: Agrees that the lack of any defense from Para's corner makes him curious.

Post 541: HAMMAH! Note that Para has said nothing between 537 and now.

So we have someone who coasts through early day 1 without posting much of anything, then comes in at the end of the day with a hammer vote after assuring that's what he WOULDN'T do. I think we need to hear from SPAG a bit.

Also:
[quote=curiouskarmadog]HUGE SCUM SLIP UP HERE!

No Para, if I have anything to do with it, we are not going to lynch some random guy. We are going to lynch the scummiest guy in this thread…you.[/quote]

[quote=curiouskarmadog]My god...you just slipped up and told us your alignment..not to mention you are arguing for a short Day 1...this is a huge red light..flashing...with sirens...and a small fireworks show.. [/quote]

CKD was probably the biggest pusher for Para's lynch, and he eventually won over most every other member of the town with this. This makes me curious about his motives.

[TheHermit]

A vollkan NK doesn't make anyone in particular look scummy. He was intelligent, very pro-town, and the vig. Would he get another vig attempt on Day 2? I'm not sure if the mafia knew, but they obviously didn't want to take that chance. He's such an obvious choice for a NK that I'd be seriously questioning the intelligence of any mafia that DIDN'T kill him.

I'm not implying that only scum would say that a vollkan NK incriminates him. It is, however, bad/overparanoid logic to say that it does.

[TheHermit]

This sounds to me like someone sees rumblings against him, and he picks the most publicly dubious of his attackers to make a case against him solely so he can throw back a "But you're scummy!" claim and deflect suspicion back to me. Fine, Elias, I'll bite. But just so you know, I don't think this is going to go your way.

For starters, there's the double-talk. Elias has claimed over and over again that he shouldn't be suspected for voting Nelly because he had no intention of lynching (an unprovable statement), while at the same time claiming that my lone vote on oj is worthy of stringing me up. Let me put that another way: according to him, putting the third vote on a non-contributor (decent chance of turning into a lynch) is less scummy than putting the first vote on a non-contributor (almost no chance of turning into a lynch). I shouldn't need to explain why this makes him look scummy: his viewpoints change depending on whether it puts suspicion on him or not.

Right about now, Elias, you're probably thinking of deflecting suspicion by saying that I wasn't voting for pressure, I was trying to lynch him. I shall ask one question: "How dumb do you think I am?" Do you assume that, if I were scum, I would vote an anti-town (but not yet proven scum) player while admitting it was scummy to do so? How would that accomplish getting him voted out? It would not. No town is collectively stupid enough to follow a bandwagon like that. So in exchange for drawing attention and making myself look suspicious, Scum!Hermit would have achieved absolutely nothing. This doesn't exclude the possibility that I'm scum, of course, and I've no intention of using WIFOM logic to prove that... just pointing out that if I were scum, I would have to be either really dumb or really clever to try something like that. I have my suspicions about what you would find more likely, but it's just something to keep in mind.

Also, pay very close attention... these are the exact reasons I gave for being suspicious of Elias yesterday:

Elias - I find it hilarious that the same guy who claims my vote for oj was poor was going to lynch Nelly on page 6 for no other reason than because he self-voted. And was going to lynch him over me, even though he claims to be more suspicious of me! Can anyone else see the inherent contradiction here? It seems to me like he jumped on Nelly's wagon because it looked like a convenient ride to a lynch even though he knew there was probably a stronger case against me. I don't like the concept of voting in favor of convenience over legitimate suspicions AT ALL. That's a huge scumtell in my mind. Even after rereading vollkan interrogating him my mind hasn't changed on this, especially given how he continually avoided questions (see vollkan point this out in post 253, which is probably where I got the "shifty" impression from).

And what was your response then?

I went over time and time again how I never intended to lynch Nelly, only pressure him. You do realize that voting someone does not necessarily mean you want them lynched right?

What a comeback. I'd like to point out that he didn't actually address

any

of the points I made, those being:

1) He accused me on the EXACT same grounds that he has been accused (voting a non-contributor), yet feel that suspicion against me is warranted and suspicion against him is "BS".
2) Even though he was more suspicious of me, he voted Nelly because Nelly had more votes. (He admits as much in post 211) Come now, who but scum would benefit from actions like that?
3) He has a history of dodging questions and suspicions instead of answering them. Kinda like he did just now.

That is why

I

am suspicious of you, Elias. Although I'd love to hear from everyone else why they are suspicious of you so I know whether I'm on the right track.

[TheHermit]

The thing is, every one of SPAG's posts up to that point he either meandered nowhere or just repeated what had already been long deduced by everyone else. How do you go from this to "officially town"?

[TheHermit]

I read the rest of Elias' posts, and nothing else jumped out at me. He's refuted the arguments against him, and the only reason I found him suspicious is a playstyle thing. This guy is probably town.

It's odd how two people can read the same things and come to completely opposite conclusions. I'll need to refresh myself with a re-read to make sure my suspicions of Elias are well-grounded. I don't want to go after someone strongly unless I'm sure they're scum, because if I'm wrong I don't think anything will save me from getting lynched (and town can't really afford that many mis-lynches).

Also, I'm a little surprised nobody's picked up on this yet:

I think it's very possible that SPAG ignored the suspicion on you and Elias because at least one of you are mafia. Personally, I don't think it's Hermit - I'm getting a very pro-Town read on him.

This is a somewhat unique opinion, considering I was close to getting lynched yesterday and am still considered to be one of the most suspicious players (I'd wager most people have me just behind Elias and SPAG/Yagami in lynch preferences). Obviously people found something scummy about my play... Setael, what have I said that has given you a strong town read? I'm curious how you arrived at this conclusion, because you might have found something about me the others missed but also because it's just as likely your reasoning might be wrong.

Finally: Nelly, we're a little bit past the random stage. I know there are plenty of reasons to be suspicious of me, but I think I speak for all of us when I ask why you find me more deserving of a lynch today than SPAG or Elias? If your reasons are good, they can only help your cause. If they are not, then why vote for me?

[TheHermit]

A couple things that popped into my head during a reread:

Elias' vote for Nelly I can see as a difference in playstyles. I still think it could be scummy, but other equally likely possibilities exist so it's not enough to build a case on by itself. I'll file this away for now.

As far as Oman's vig list goes... there's not really a whole lot to say. It's absolutely impossible to know what Oman was thinking; all we have our guesses and hypotheses based on what he was trying to accomplish. While it does paint Elias in a bad light, I don't think it's damning by itself.

All in all, I'm finding a reread very enlightening. I'm no longer as confident that Elias is scum. That is to say I'm still suspicious of him, but I'm unconvinced he should be today's lynch.

Oh, and while I'm shooting my own defense in the foot by digging at Setael, I'm going to mention that just because I didn't hammer Nelly or Para when I had the chance, it doesn't prove I'm not scum. It doesn't even suggest it. As Elias points out (correctly) in Post 149, most scum won't carelessly hammer at the first opportunity. It sets off all sorts of warning bells and provides a clear Day 2 target for a lynch, and scum can't afford a 1-1 trade. So it's possible, and in fact simple, for me to be scum even if I didn't hammer. It doesn't speak either way to my townness or scumness.

It took me some time to dredge up Nelly's arguments, so I'm going to have to get to them tomorrow. It's late now and I need my sleep.

[TheHermit]

I think part of the reason Yagami got called out on giving me a neutral verdict and


I have a problem with this, though:

if Elias is scum, I would believe that TheHermit is too

I don't follow the logic here. We both have earned ourselves a fair amount of suspicion, but how does one of us being scum = both of us being scum?

I see three possibilities here:

1) Yagami = town
Perhaps he feels the various tells cancel each other out, or just can't read me. Either way, if he's town he has no ulterior motive for lying and he honestly doesn't know my alignment so it's nor a concern.

2) Yagami = scum, TheHermit = scum
When one scum is drowning it's generally understood that he's on his own; he doesn't cling to his buddies and drag the whole team down with him. I assume Yagami has been on the boards at least long enough to know that, but I leave open the possibility that he either thought a "neutral" verdict would be a light enough defense to not draw suspicion or he just decided to play against type for whatever reason (maybe he thought a "surprising" move would catch people off-guard).

3) Yagami = scum, TheHermit = town
He sees the writing on the wall and knows he's going to die today, so he "defends" a town that everyone is already suspicious of to plant the scumteam idea in their heads. Yagami still dies today, but since he's given the town another good reason to lynch someone they already don't like tomorrow he doesn't go down alone.

Also, one last thing I'd like to address:

Why did he feel the need to post this? There was absolutely no reason to post this. I read the quote, Elias is talking about Nelly and quick lynches in general. Para was not a quick lynch. So if you hammered him and stated a case, you would not have had that much heat. Now, I cant figure out your motivation for this post. Is he trying to look more town by posting this? Why does he feel like he needs to look more town? Is he trying to give Elias some creds? Is he trying to cover for SPAG’s hammer(doubtful)? This post is suspicious looking if you start to think what prompted him to say this.

It seems that you're confused about my motives. Allow me to explain:

If I am town, I feel confident that good logic will reveal that I am town. I do not need to rely on shaky logic to prove this, and in fact doing so will only hurt me in the long run. This is founded on information you don't have (namely, absolutely correct knowledge of my alignment), and it's easy to twist this explanation as an appeal to emotion by a scum, but that's the official explanation.

Hammering Nelly in that situation would have been a quicklynch, and only very bold scum would hammer there. The Para hammer not so much, both because we were nearing a deadline (and thus a hammer was growing increasingly necessary and not-scummy) and because I had already promised to finish Para off on the last day before the deadline. It does, however, fit with the analysis I already declared; not hammering doesn't necessarily make me town.

What makes the Para hammer scummy is that it wasn't just a hammer, but it came almost immediately after SPAG said he'd wait for Para to respond before hammering. Besides, I was explaining why it doesn't make me town, not why it doesn't make me scum; Yagami/SPAG wouldn't find much use in an argument like that.

[TheHermit]

I think part of the reason Yagami got called out on giving me a neutral verdict and

Whoops.

Should have read, I think part of the reason Yagami got called out on giving me a neutral verdict and Setael got a pass was because everyone was already prepared to scrutinize every word Yagami said, to see if it was a lie or not. Without much of a reason to suspect Setael, there isn't as much merit to grilling her.

[TheHermit]

I still don't understand why Elias being scum means I'm scum too. Your last post doesn't answer this.

[TheHermit]

Who are you directing that question to, Hermit?

I was directing it at Yagami, although I suppose I can now ask it of gorckat as well. What gives the the impression of a connection between Elias and me? I'm trying to understand how you got this idea. I don't want Elias to get lynched, come up red, and then having the town waste their good fortune by coming at me next.

As for why I'm not voting Yagami, I want to let the day play out a little more. See if I can learn anything new.

[TheHermit]

I'm saying "if" he gets lynched and "if" he turns up red. I brought it up because it was on my mind, not because I thought it was imminent. I'm not voting for him because I've lost a little confidence in his scumminess.

[TheHermit]

Two scum down. That last one's gotta be shaking in his boots. That also means he's probably going to play very conservatively now, to avoid making an accidental slip-up.

Now things are going to get tricky.

Elias is still my front-runner for suspicion, mostly for the reasons that Setael went into concerning vollkan's dissection of Oman's list. His Nelly vote may have a townie explanation, but it's hard to defend against what seems to be scum sticking their neck out on his behalf. Yet, I'm not entirely convinced and won't vote unless I or someone else can bring some better evidence to the table.

A couple posts by gorckat seemed odd, if I recall correctly. Nothing that jumped out at me as a strong tell, though. Another reread seems to be in order.

Nelly is someone I'm going to need to take a closer look at as long as I'm rereading. Why? Because I showed suspicion for him at the end of Day 1 and I haven't gotten around to pursuing that angle yet. He hasn't been the most prolific poster, but I think I should be able to get a good handle on him with two days of posts to sift through.

I'll let you know what I find.

[TheHermit]

To make sure all the relevant evidence is here, I'll do a post-by-post on gorckat. I'll follow up on one for Elias, followed by one for Nelly. My comments are

underlined

.

34: Mirrors vollkan's thoughts on oj's strange vote and DFN's heated language.

45: In response to DFN claiming that any defense he makes will only prompt more questions, wonders whether asking DFN questions is really such a bad thing.

82: Points out that a third vote with six to lynch isn't scummy, and that his real suspicion was a lack of content on oj's vote. Again agrees with vollkan that DFN's actions could be scummy, or they could be newbie.

83: Points out that Oman was questioning his use of dramatic words to describe DFN's actions, even though Oman was doing much the same thing.

86: Explains that he's leaning slightly toward scum for DFN. Refers SPAG to Nelly's quicklynch comment, to explain why Oman thought Nelly was scum.

106: Understands my reasoning for voting oj, but remarks that it won't make a replacement any faster. Votes Nelly for unvoting DFN at vollkan's request without adding content and because Nelly's quicklynch comment is very similar to Hermit's.

I don't think content was necessary, considering all Nelly did was remove a random vote. Now, the case could be made that it was left on for too long, but that's not the case gorckat made. He may be onto something with the quicklynch comment, though. I'll take a better look at it when I scrutinize Nelly.

108: Doesn't see where vollkan used rudeness in his questioning of DFN.

121: Pokes pulse. Waits for Nelly to respond to his comments.

126: Votes for Nelly (although he never unvoted from 106) in response to his self-vote.

Pay attention to the context here; gorckat has asked Nelly to respond to his suspicions about making quicklynch comments and unvoting without providing content. In response, Nelly votes himself. Town!gorckat might have read this as "I have no defense and am giving up". Of course, it's just as likely that Scum!gorckat saw a quicklynch in the making.

181: Explains that his second "vote" was to make sure he spelled Nelly's name correctly, since he was in another game that strongly enforced this rule, and also because he saw Nelly's actions as avoiding the questions.

183: As an afterthought, unvotes.

187: Claims that Nelly is contradicting himself by saying the scum would react more calmly to his gambit than townies, then saying ckd is town because he questioned him instead of voting. Says that vollkan surviving the night does not automatically make him scum, following it up with accusing vollkan of delaying the kill so that it will look better for him if Oman turns up town.

194: Expresses mild shock that a scum dropped on day 1.

197: Feels that one of para's comments sounds like "Crap, we're caught." Votes para.

199: Remarks that Oman was pushing hard for Para to go down, and unvotes. Says that he considers his lynch vote between Para and Elias.

213: Asks ckd why scum would kill vollkan.

215: Re-asks ckd, and also asks Nelly why he thinks doctor protection is forthcoming for vollkan.

217: Remarks that Elias' record as scum does not prevent him from making a mistake in this game. Asks Elias why he is afraid of placing a "distancing" vote on Hermit.

227: Concedes that he may be misinterpreting Elias. As an aside, says that the mafia has too much WIFOM at its disposal in this game.

236: Claims he is suspicious of Elias because he thinks Elias' strategy of not making a "distracting" vote means he would make a play he did not agree with to avoid being seen as scummy.

I'll go into this in more detail when I dissect Elias' posts, but to make it short after this game I am convinced that being mindful of avoiding scum moves is NOT a scumtell.

256: Again asks Nelly why he said ckd is town. Feels that Elias' defense is not enough in the face of vollkan's attack.

268: Feels that townies should play fearlessly.

This is a worrying quote, but can be chalked up to a difference in playstyles.

Doesn't like how Elias lost his temper. Votes Elias. Again questions Nelly on why he proclaimed ckd town.

275: Repeats that he thinks vollkan's attacks have been stronger that Elias' defense. Once again questions Nelly on why he proclaimed ckd "cleared... as scum". Unvotes Elias.

282: Defends his reasons for seeing Elias as scummy. Thinks that Oman putting Para on his list might be distancing, but admits he hasn't read about that in depth.

289: Feels like the game is slowing down enough to read things more carefully now. Admits that part of the reason he was pushing Elias was because of Elias' tantrum.

380: No content post. Says he is back from vacation and needs to read up.

436: Votes Sir Tornado to prod him into posting.

438: Claims that he is in favor of lynching Hermit under the "Lynch all Vanillas" rule. Wants to know what everyone expects to learn from everyone's lynch.

442: Puts an FOS on ckd for his pushes against Para.

447: Explains that he feels ckd has made a show of leading the town, and sees this as a newbie scumtell.

451: Says that he will remove the FOS if Para comes up scum.

466: Votes ckd with no explanation.

479: Asks vollkan why he thinks he will lurk through the deadline. Calls ckd noob scum, and implies his reason for voting was the PM to SPAG.

482: Although he is not convinced of Para's guilt, says that he will hammer Para when the deadline approaches. However, he will continue searching for other leads.

484 and 487: Again wonders why ckd PMed SPAG.

489: Wonders why, if ckd PMed SPAG in order to ask him to come back to the game, why he didn't PM pulse.

494: Says he was suspicious that one scum had PMed another, but the lukewarm reaction of the town convinced him this wasn't worth following up on. Unvotes, and says that he will hammer in 24 hours.

501: Asks SPAG why he thought Para was the most suspicious.

506: Delays his hammer in reaction to the extended deadline. Wants an answer to his question from 501.

508: Expresses uncertainty of what the votecount is.

522: Reposts his question to SPAG from 501.

524: After SPAG replies that he thought Para was scummy from vollkan's points, gorckat rides him by saying that SPAG earlier claimed he read Para's posts, and asks him what he saw. Note that SPAG just claimed that he has not read Para's posts yet.

I think that gorckat is becoming more sure of SPAG's scumness. With one scum gone already gone before Day 1 ends, a distancing move is too dangerous so I don't think it's that.

528: Defends his questioning of SPAG and ckd. Explains he advocates Lynch all Vanillas because a person got enough votes to force a claim out of them, and at worst is JUST a vanilla.

This one's a bit long to pick apart, so I've linked to the whole thing. Click the post number!

533: Can't remember where he's read the Lynch All Vanillas rule. Admits that he might be jumping at shadows concerning SPAG, and votes Para.

550: Now that we know Para is town, Oman's actions look like they were trying to protect Elias. Votes Elias.

554: There are now two "paths" for the day's discussion: ckd/SPAG and Elias.

557: Asks for confirmation about where Oman pulled the names for his list from. Weren't they all on Nelly's wagon?

559: Actually, DID pulse vote for Nelly?

561: Says that something about Oman calling Elias town doesn't "jive" with him.

562: Seems like the only things that happened with pulse is that Hermit and Para got on his case a little. vollkan didn't even mention him until Oman did.

569: Says that the things that made him think Elias were scum before still make him think he's scum. Notes that the way Elias finds SPAG town feels a lot like Oman calling Elias town.

588: In continuing his read-through, he finds Elias' answers to vollkan's questions again satisfactory. Says that he's more inclined to go with his gut on how the Oman list makes him look.

592: Compares Elias' opinions of SPAG, SirTornado, and Pulsewidth. Thinks it odd that Elias had no strong opinion of Pulse and a town read on SPAG, despite there being less content for SPAG than Pulse.

Note to self: One scum has called Elias town and Elias has called the other scum town. Look into this harder while doing a PbP analysis of Elias.

608: In response to Elias' assertion that he doesn't make judgments on content, he says that Pulse posted nearly the same amount that people he declared town posted, but gave him a "not enough to make an opinion, slightly scummy" view on Pulse. Concedes that he is not sure of Elias' guilt (he gives it an arbitrary value of 20% chance of Elias being town)

621: Feels he's read the "I want to vote for him" line from Yagami before, and muses whether it's a scum or a town tell.

627: Agrees with ckd that Yagami's read of Hermit as "neutral" is surprising.

638: Feels that either Yagami or Elias would make good lynches for today.

640: Laments that Day 2 hasn't been as active as Day 1.

642: Picks apart ckd's read of him.

Lots of points in a very dense format again, so I'm linking to the post.

663: Asks whether ckd has any response to his defense. Thinks Yagami and Elias are the scumpair.

669: In response to Hermit's question, clarifies that he meant a Yagami/Elias scumteam.

674: Thought he was creating a dialogue with ckd, and now wonders why ckd has to look up relevant points again. Explains to Yagami that if Elias doesn't think he's scum, than he thinks he's town. Asks for a votecount.

690: Attacks Elias' claim that lynching him creates a "near LyLo" scenario".

VERDICT: I see a lot of hunting here; looking for leads, asking questions, going after people who look suspicious and changing his mind when they satisfy him. This is textbook good town play. In my humble opinion, gorckat is

probably town

.

[TheHermit]

Geez, it took me three hours to do that. I hope you guys don't mind waiting until tomorrow for other two...

[TheHermit]

Before I continue with my analysis, what do you all think of Jordan being the mafia's choice for a NK? Considering how quiet he's been, I'm a little confused about this decision. Why did the mafia consider Jordan the most dangerous person to them?

[TheHermit]

I'm in the middle of my Elias read right now. Lots of posts to go through. A LOT.

I'm really trying not to let his rampant swearing influence my decision, but his temper is making me want to vote him just so I don't have to hear it anymore. He is apparently thinking that people will listen to him if he says the "f" word enough times, and if that isn't an appeal to emotion then I don't know what is. He's been warned once about this already; if he continues verbally abusing other players, I am going to ask the mod to kill/replace him.

[TheHermit]

There's a very large difference between saying "fuck" and telling someone to "shut the fuck up".

[TheHermit]

Also, this?

In addition, I simply cannot believe that you would consider voting me or asking for a modkill based on this. Are you just openly saying that admitting youre antitown at this point?

If you are disrupting the game or offending other players, that is completely different from "just playing the game". There's a line, Elias. I'm asking you not to cross it. How is this anti-town?

[TheHermit]

Let's look at Elias today!

17: Asks why oj has shifted his vote.

oj did actually unvote before putting on his first vote, so I could understand the confusion.

25: Reiterates his question.

29: Asks DFN why bandwagons are bad.

44: Explains why bandwagons are good on Day 1; they create discussion and create links between players, which makes it easier to find scum. Posits that only requiring 6 to lynch is a town handicap.

48: Notes that LyLo will come a day earlier (this assumption is corrected by a mod edit), and that there is less margin for putting pressure on others.

49: Votes to pressure kerplunk into speaking.

52: Asks the mod to prod kerplunk.

63: Believes oj is scum

(after just one post!)

, and notes that DFN isn't so great under pressure but could go either way.

69: Notes that he may have worded his previous post a bit strongly, and merely meant that oj was his top suspect because of his quick vote and lack of comment.

113: Thanks Para for replacing, then adds that he's suspicious because he saw oj as scummy.

120: Argues with the mod about his decision to ban contentless posts.

122: Feels the mod praising Para's skill is a town handicap. Claims his post attacking Para's former player was deleted.

132: Claims that he's leaving behind evidence for later when he declares Para as scummy. Feels that both Nelly and Hermit are "playing weirdly" and votes Nelly.

142: Says that he would like Nelly to remove his self-vote. Explains that he will use his suspicions in later cases.

149: Even though Nelly is at -1, he refuses to remove his vote because he feels Nelly will remove his vote in due time if he's actually pro-town, and also because a town wouldn't hammer and scum would be stupid to. Feels that keeping his vote will sustain pressure.

201: Responds to Para's claim that oj did nothing scummy by saying he will keep his suspicion of oj in mind when deciding on Para.

Note that he doesn't actually answer the question Para asks him.

Expresses disbelief that he's being looked at as scummy.

206: Finally gets around to answering the question; says that oj wagoned with no content, and this makes him scummy even while admitting that oj randomly votes in all of his games.

IMHO, this is BS reasoning.

208: Claims that the burden of proof is on para that oj didn't randomly vote, then asks again why he is being suspected.

For future reference, the burden of proof is always on the person who makes the claim. Elias said that oj's vote shows that oj is scum, he must provide the evidence to say so.

211: Explains that vote pressure is more effective when concentrated rather than split. Feels that if Nelly came up as scum later and he had voted for Hermit, it would make it look like he was distracting from the Nelly wagon to protect a scumbuddy.

216: Notes that vollkan is not cleared as town, and that this could be a gambit to clear a scum-aligned vig as pro-town. Claims to have not read Nelly's content until just now and finally removes his vote.

He has posted four times since Nelly provided his content in post 155, yet noticed just now.

Pulls out his 6-1 win record as scum, and asks why he would make a silly mistake like that if he were scum? Explains that his post 149 is NOT a backtrack.

He's right, it's not.

220: Says he brought up his record to prove that he is not stupid scum. Points out that "distancing" and "distracting" aren't the same things. Defends the avoidance of common scumtells as good town play. Again brings up the possibility that vollkan is scum.

223: Clarifies that he does not think vollkan should be lynched, but that the possibility of him being scum should be kept in mind.

228: Clarirfies that in 220 he was responding to Nelly's point that he was going for a quicklynch. Asks ckd where his vote is and, if it's on him, to explain why.

230: Calls vollkan "either an idiot or scum". Claims to have refuted all points against him and that there is no evidence against him. Points out that for him and Para to be distancing instead of debating, they'd have to both be scum.

232: Explains that hopping on a bandwagon and hoping for a quicklynch is not a strategy he uses as scum.

He ignores that vollkan also pointed out that his justification for the vote, "pressure", is very convenient.

Feels that Oman's list is the only decent evidence against him, but it's not a good idea to lynch just based on that. Asks again for proof that Para is scum.

235: Doesn't understand why there should be at least one more scum on Nelly's wagon. Again misunderstands vollkan; vollkan says outright that he doesn't think he was going for a quicklynch but rather just quietly letting his vote stack with others, but Elias acts like a quicklynch is the only way his vote could be scummy.

238: Argues there can be more than one reason to vote someone. Claims that Oman's list will screw town if he didn't put another scum there. Claims he had three reasons for voting Nelly, and all of them have to be proven false to call him scummy.

243: Repeats his defense from 238. Insists there is a huge difference between voting for pressure and advocating a lynch, and that Hermit was guilty of the latter.

So, he's basically saying that he should have voted Hermit... but didn't? Also, he's stating his opinion as fact.

He also asks us to take as fact his explanation that he just wanted to pressure Nelly.

Still that "opinion as fact" he hates so much... I guess he only hates it unless it supports him.

Says that it would be bad if people noticed a vote on me in the late game.

Why?

244: Attacks gorckat for parroting vollkan's accusations. Asks vollkan why his reasons for voting Nelly are scummy.

246: Admits that he has no defense against Oman's list.

250: States his opinion of Hermit's vote on oj as fact. Claims that vollkan makes a contradiction by saying there was already suspicion on Hermit. Explains that a post on Hermit would have stood out.

This is a bad thing?

251: With two votes on him and six to lynch, he requests that someone warns before hammering him so that he can make a final defense.

259: His first instance of abusive language. Continues to state his opinion as fact regarding Hermit's oj vote. Finally acknowledges vollkan's point that there are other results in a vote besides "bandwagon" and "quicklynch", then promptly ignores it. Reiterates his defensive points.

Linky.

261: Defends his use of swearing and abusive language, basically saying he'll do anything to be seen as town.

263: Says he's still pissed off at other players. Wishes mod a Happy Birthday.

265: Explains that he's been too busy defending himself to look for scum.

To provide context, every post from 201 to here was made within 24 hours, most of them being very long.

Claims that he does not believe Hermit's backtrack and that Oman and vollkan made up the list as a scum gambit.

272: Asks why it is bad for a pro-town player to avoid looking scummy.

After this game I agree with him.

Gives his town record as 1-4. Considers his anger justified. Asks gorckat why he voted him after reading his latest defense.

274: Says that he'll get right on digging for scum.

284: Elias posts his opinions on all players. He thinks of vollkan as town even though he just claimed the vigging was an orchestrated scum play, and SPAG as town.

286: Thanks vollkan for taking a look at the people voting Elias based on his arguments. Wants to hear his thoughts on his latest defense.

287: Wants a clarification from gorckat. Also wants Nelly to explain his vote.

292: Says that town will listen to vollkan. States his suspicion of Hermit. Claims that his vote for Nelly and Hermit's vote for oj are completely different.

They were, however, similar enough for both vollkan and me to make a connection.

Details the pros and cons of bandwagons, and makes the judgment that the good outweighs the bad.

298: Repeats that noncontribution was one of the factors that made him vote for Nelly over Hermit. Admits his suspicion of Hermit is based on opinion.

301: Described Nelly's "weird" play as suddenly voting himself for no reason and then claiming with only three votes on him.

303: Defends against Para's accusation of making a big deal about the possibility of vollkan being scum. Takes a single one of the three times he's made this claim and wonders if that's really such a "big deal". Thinks Para and Hermit are scumpartners.

304: Posts his opinions on other players. Of note, he calls pulse "scum" although he admits he doesn't have enough info to go on. Puts an FOS on Para, ckd, Pulse, and gorc while voting Hermit.

309: Explains that he sees a sudden shift in playstyles as a scumtell.

310: Claims that Oman might have known he was about to get vigged, and made a list that would hurt the town.

WIFOM. Especially since Oman blundered right into the trap without dropping a hint that he suspected something.

Claims that he doesn't think vollkan is scum anymore. Says that the town's time would be better spent looking elsewhere.

311: Rather sarcastically calls Nelly the best pro-town player he's ever seen.

313: Repeats that he thinks Oman knew he was about to get vigged.

315: Says his change of opinion of vollkan was due to the three page conversation, and not suddenly between 272 and 284. States his opinion that Para went looking for dirt on him as fact.

Lots of other points made, so click the link to see it in all its glory.

318: Calls Para's FOS on Hermit a backtrack.

320: Stands by his opinion that Nelly's behavior was a scumtell. Dismisses all argument by saying it doesn't matter what different people see as a scumtell.

322: Attacks Hermit's stated reasons for voting Elias.

327: Continues to attack Hermit.

337: Says his interpretation of Hermit's oj vote reveals a backtrack. Admits that he doesn't care for vollkan's interrogation style.

334: Admits that Hermit is not making contradictions, but they are suspicious in other ways.

346: Thinks vollkan has created enough evidence for a lynch, but still doesn't like his methods. Hopes for Nelly to post soon.

352: Claims vollkan pulled a "contradiction" out of thin air while he was questioning him. Notes that Para has begun to lurk. Wants to know why he's more likely scum than Hermit.

370: Points out three "backtracks" by Hermit.

1) is actually just a clarification of intent, 1a) is total garbage, 2) I can easily explain in a separate post assuming you still want to hear it, and 3) isn't a backtrack.

373: Admits backtrack 1a is a misread.

Points for noticing it before it had to be pointed out. Negative points to Nelly, who called it a "great post" regardless.

375: Asks Hermit if his self-vote means he's giving up.

381: Maintains that his previous points are backtracks.

394: Says that he's been suspicious of Hermit far longer than vollkan. Feels that vollkan's suspicions of him are not well-founded. Is mad at Para for lurking.

404: Debates minor points with Jordan. Is very emphatic when he says that no one should hammer Hermit before he says something.

411: Requests a deadline extension.

414: Expresses his displeasure about how a deadline should not have been placed, and that there have several rules that he feels "handicaps" town.

416: On rereading, thinks Para looks VERY scummy. Unvotes Hermit while he looks for more info.

Here's where my Scum!Elias model starts to break down. There's no reason for him to unvote; Hermit is still the popular lynch, barring a few stubborn hangers-on, and it would have been easy to say, "We're running out of time, lynch Hermit today and get Para tomorrow", but he does not. Instead, he takes a serious look at para, following up on the suspicion that he's had for several days. I like this post. Very town. That Para later came up town is unfortunate, but I appreciate that he ditched the "popular" vote to follow up on his own suspicions.

418: Berates himself for not noticing Para's comment earlier.

420: Explains that he unvoted to mull things over.

422: States that para's Nelly vote appeared to be a random quicklynch. Taken in this light, it appears very scummy. Repeats that para has never posted a case.

425: Explains that random lynches nearly always hit town, and thus are a very bad idea.

427: Doesn't think para using "you" instead of "we" is a strong tell.

434: Again objects to Para's claim that he called sticking to his guns scummy; rather, he is pointing out that calling replacement "unethical" is questionable.

440: Thinks para is scum because he advocated too strongly and too quickly for a lynch.

441: Asks for a votecount.

470: Votes Para to put both Hermit and Para at 3.

472: Not game related.

492: Objects to Hermit's suspicions. Calls Jordan's view of ckd PMing SPAG as WIFOM.

497: Thinks Hermit's play could be newbish and para being first on Oman's list a towntell, but still feels their scum signals are pretty large. Requests a deadline extension.

499: Is pleased to hear of a deadline extension.

505: Is content with a Para lynch.

509-10: Requests a votecount.

549: Defends his avoidance of scumtells. Thinks vollkan being NKed makes him look bad.

565: Clarifies that it's his interactions with vollkan that makes a vollkan NK look badly on him. Feels that everyone posting on his views about how he might be making them as scum is "getting on his nerves".

566: Says he is looking primarily at ckd and Hermit in his reread. Wants Hermit to restate why he is suspicious of him.

571-5: Says he never wanted to vote Hermit based on just his oj vote.

304 ringing any bells? Not much more than that in his justification.

Other than that tiny point, defends himself well. Clearly starting to lose his temper again. Starts attacking "statement of opinion as fact".

Another series of massive posts. I'll link them because there's a lot to digest and subtle word choice may be lost in the reviewing.

579: Asks ckd why he was going to vote for him on Day 1 if he didn't think he was scum.

580: Claims that an accusation against a party opposed to the NK always happens, so he wanted to get the argument out of the way.

583: Quotes where vollkan admitted that his interrogation of Elias comes down to Elias voting on something vollkan didn't think was a scumtell. Promises to post his thoughts on Hermit tomorrow.

586: Promises to take a better look at ckd if Hermit comes up as scum. Calls the Hermit wagon "better", but didn't need much convincing to switch sides.

I wonder what he thinks of ckd now that he knows both of us can't be scum?

595: Defends his opinions on other players made on Day 1, insisting that there was more to his consideration than post numbers and post length.

605: Explains that two posts were made because he forgot some players the first time.

606: No game content.

626: Strongly disagrees with Yagami's interpretation of Hermit as town.

633: Asks for a PbP on Hermit and gorc by Yagami, but would like to hear his thoughts on Setael and Shanba first.

647: No game content.

659: Still says he'd rather lynch Hermit than SPAG.

665: Explains that it is unfair to ask him to explain why he is not voting Yagami when he thinks he has a much better case against Hermit. Asks why its weird that he doesn't think Yagami is scum.

687:

Ho boy. I'm going to get to this one later, because I'm still so steamed about his blatant disrespect for other players that I don't think I can look at it objectively right now.

VERDICT (thus far): Looking at isolated points, Elias looks bad. There are parts of his playstyle that I don't agree with. However, taking a longer view of his play shows that he has solid suspicions for his votes and a great defense. If there's any scum that could come back and win this, it's Elias. But I'm saying that because he's convinced me that he's

possibly town

. My view of 687 might change this, but I don't feel right making a judgment call like that until I've cleared my head.

Those small points do nag at me though. When you're calm, I'd like to ask you a few questions:

First: Since you knew that oj voted randomly, why did you think his single vote was scummy?

Second: You mentioned that a vote on me would "stand out" when people were picking through the game. Why did you say this?

Third: Now that you know both ckd and I cannot both be scum, what do you think of his strong push for para in the closing of Day 1? More to the point, given the choice between me and ckd, who do you think is more likely to be scum?

And a question for everyone else: Oman's list. What are your thoughts on it? Is Elias right in calling it WIFOM? Do you think Oman poisoned the results because he knew he was about to get vigged? Or do you think vollkan's assessment of the situation, that his play can only be explained by attempting to protect Elias, makes more sense?

[TheHermit]

Also, what in hell is the difference between asking someone to "shut up" and "shut the fuck up"?

First, that's not the comparison I made. Second, one carries a lot more invective than the other. I don't think taking out your aggression on other players contributes to a good game environment. THAT is my primary grievance with your behavior. It has nothing to do with whether you or I are scum.

[TheHermit]

I guess we have different interpretations of the context. I saw myself as needing only a few more votes to get a lynch, picking up two votes in a short time and with only a little bit to go until deadline. Although yes, I was focusing overmuch on Elias. I missed vollkan's voting patterns, though I was well aware of ckd's pining on Para. I just thought he was alone in this.

I find it flattering that you think I'm capable of such foresight. Although I haven't totally written off Elias yet; I just think it's more likely that he's town than scum. If he answers the few questions I have to my satisfaction, I don't think I'll have any more suspicion against him.

While we're on the subject, Elias has made the claim that the only bit of evidence you have that he is scum is Oman's list, which he denounces as WIFOM. While I'd say it does look like Oman is trying to protect him, who's to say he didn't simply list three townies randomly? Remember, in order for the Scum!Hermit strategy you outlined to work, Elias has to get lynched today. But on what evidence is this going to happen?

Finally, I'd say that Nelly is more convinced I'm scum than Elias is. Nelly opened up Day 2 and 3 by voting me immediately, only changing on day 2 when it was obvious someone else was going to get lynched. I'm going to take a look at Nelly next.

[TheHermit]

If he's too young, then so am I.

I'm wondering what makes ckd want me to do a PbP on him? Well, if he says so I guess I can. Gonna have to be tomorrow, though... doing Elias wiped me out.

[TheHermit]

Why would you push one townie over the other if you were mafia? Seriously you are asking that question? Wow. Well, because one was close to being lynched, and the other wasn’t. Last time I checked, mafia wants to kill townies, they don’t care which ones.

I find this especially odd considering Elias' track record as mafia... 9 wins and he's never learned that mafia don't care which townie gets lynched?

[TheHermit]

1) WHAT EVIDENCE IS THERE BESIDES THE HAMMER? ANSWER GODDAMMIT!?!

It wasn't JUST a hammer, for starters. It was a hammer that he slammed almost immediately after saying he'd wait for Para to say something before hammering. As soon as vollkan said something that even hinted that he might avoid suspicion if he hammered, he gleefully took that invitation. The correct answer was, "Even so, I'd feel better if we heard from him first." Even if that isn't the way vollkan intended it, it became a trap that SPAG fell into head-first.

Also, as I pointed out, when SPAG came back to the game he asked for the case against Para. NOT Elias or me, even though all three of us were being heavily suspected. He sounded like he'd already made up his mind. I suppose if you were being generous you could say that he was just making sure there was a good case for the most popular lynch because deadline was nearing, but after the deadline was extended he claimed to want to take a look at other players. He never did.

Finally, the way he defended his Para vote was just bad. At the end of Day 1 he claimed that he'd picked up a scum vibe from Para's posts, which he claimed to have read, then later claimed he hadn't had time to read through yet (Posts 521-524, pay particular attention to the bit gorckat quotes in 522). You want your contradictions and your backtracks? Here they are, in neon lighting!

We didn't get lucky with SPAG. He gave himself up at the end of Day 1, but most of the town didn't recognize the signs until Day 2.

2) WHY DID YOU NOT ATTEMPT TO TELL ME THE CASE YESTERDAY, YET TRY TO USE IT AS EVIDENCE TODAY?

We discussed all of these points yesterday. At length. Not our fault if you can't be bothered to read any of them.

It was not a mischaracterization, it was the facts.

No, it was a mischaracterization. You presented it as if I was attacking Hermit all day, while simultaneously voting Para. The fact was, I voted Hermit, and attacked him most of the day, WHILE there was all that pressure on Hermit. Why would I even begin to vote and attack Hermit at all if there was already pressure on para that I could have easily jumped on?

Because at the time there was heavy pressure on me. Even ckd, who didn't like the lynch, thought it was inevitable. As soon as that pressure went in a different direction, you went off with it. And before you even bring up backtracking, realizing that the context of your vote switch might have been different than I imagined it makes it not as strong a town-tell as I thought. I still don't think it's a grade A scumtell, as you were clearly suspicious of Para before (although IMHO you had crap reasons for being suspicious of him the second he came into the game).

Also, I ask the town to look back to his push on Para: a supposed slip up that let him push his way to a lynch. He seems to be doing the same thing here. This doesnt make him scum, but when he did this last time, did para come up town or scum?
Just sayin.

He'd been pushing for the Para lynch all day. Pushing that hard for a lynch that you know is bad... that's pretty gutsy scum play. Not impossible, I realize, so I'm still a bit wary of it... but I don't think most scum would stick their neck out that far when it has the potential to go that bad. I'll go into this in more detail when I'm finished my PbP on ckd.

[TheHermit]

I don't think it was necessary to claim; I don't think anyone would hammer you. I know *I* wouldn't have, because in my read-through I was becoming increasingly sure that you were a mason.

Other mason: DO NOT CLAIM. If ckd really is the second mason (and I don't see why he's not, since it would be absolutely retarded for the last scum to claim mason at this stage), we'll take your silence as confirmation. I repeat: to the third mason, STAY HIDDEN!

[TheHermit]

It could just be a ploy to get the masons to counterclaim.

It would be absolutely stupid for scum to do this. Play it out: a scum claims mason. Another mason counterclaims. BEST CASE SCENARIO, we lynch the actual mason, then lynch the fake-claimer tomorrow. Game over.

Don't try to put suspicion on him. Unless a mason counterclaims, I have every reason to believe his claim. That you didn't think of this casts doubt on either your reasoning abilities or your alignment. I'll let you pick which one.

[TheHermit]

Is a PbP on ckd necessary anymore? I'm only in the 300's, and we know his alignment already.

[TheHermit]

Also, and I feel bad stringing this many posts together, how about our lurkers come out to play. Shanba? Setael? It makes me very concerned, seeing this much lurking with a deadline around the corner.

[TheHermit]

If there's no change in the situation at deadline, I'm voting Elias. I'd rather lynch a townie who might be scum than no one at all, and certainly rather than a mason who is NOT scum. Note that this only applies if there's no change in the voting situation over the next three days.

[TheHermit]

Kerplunk:

Never posts.

Sir Tornado:

75: Enters the game!

77: Prophetically questions Oman googling SPAG's name. Thinks Nelly's quicklynch comment is HORRIBLE. Briefly comments on the other posters, with little of consequence. Can't decide whether DFN or the bandwagon on him is scummier, settles for an FOS on DFN.

100: Puts an FOS on Hermit following his vote for oj.

148: Is disturbed by Oman putting Nelly at -2 and leaving.

193: Is surprised following the vig. Thinks Oman's play wasn't good, but wasn't scummy either.

195: No game content.

241: Agrees with Hermit that the scum could leave vollkan alive as a strategy. Explains that it's not proper to discuss the nightkill during the day, as it lets scum alter their strategy based on the town's deliberations.

247: Puts an FOS on ckd after his rhetorical question of whether to lynch vollkan.

254: Argues that he's not really putting pressure on ckd; he's not even voting for him.

333: Apologizes for lurking. No game content.

464: Says he will need to be replaced for Day 2, but will finish the day.

554: Is replaced by Shanba.

Shanba:

548: Enters the game! Votes Elias for playing with a "scum mindset".

590: No game content.

601: Promises to look at other players.

602: Analyzes SPAG. Finds him VERY scummy.

Be linked!

603: Analyzes Elias. Doesn't agree with his playstyle, but finds him town.

[TheHermit]

Crap, posted that early. Gimme a minute to finish up.

[TheHermit]

That you didn't think of this casts doubt on either your reasoning abilities or your alignment. I'll let you pick which one.

I forgot that there was only one scum. But if he is lying, why not have the real mason claim? Lets change it around, either real mason claims, or scum counterclaims: we lynch one today, one tomorrow, we win. Worst case scenario is a win tomorrow. This isnt to say CKD is lying, I just dont understand why you wouldnt want the masons to claim if they know that CKD is not a mason.

I meant to imply that if ckd is telling the truth than the other mason should hide. The second sentence explains this part: "We'll take your silence as confirmation." Obviously, if he's lying there's no reason not to expose him. Woo-hoo, we win!

[TheHermit]

Continuing my look at Shanba, which I hadn't meant to post yet...

604: No game content.

651: Asks Yagami what the conclusion of his PbP is.

653: Has clearly heard enough from Yagami. Votes him.

691: States his opposition to an Elias lynch.

699: Analyzes ckd, votes him.

Link'd!

VERDICT: Sir Tornado wasn't very posty, but his posts give off a town vibe. Shanba? Not so much. Not a whole lot to form an opinion on, neither town nor scum. For now,

possibly town

.

[TheHermit]

Considering that unmasking the third mason means that they'll die tomorrow night, and thus we'll have three unconfirmeds on LyLo day, I don't think it's wise to talk about who it might be.

[TheHermit]

Considering that unmasking the third mason means that they'll die tomorrow night, and thus we'll have three unconfirmeds on LyLo day, I don't think it's wise to talk about who it might be.

I JUST made this comment, gorckat. Why do you think having three unconfirmeds at LyLo is good for town?

Even with all the distancing going on, I'm quite certain who the last mason is. If someone tries to claim against them, I'll call them out even without breadcrumbs. So I'm not too worried right now.

[TheHermit]

Mind explaining that vote, gorck?

[TheHermit]

Obviously most of my suspicions are on Gorc and Hermit, and I've provided a bunch on Hermit, not too much on gorc. Others have covered him. I might try to write up a case on him tonight, though I dont have too much free time.

Please do, if you can. I have an awful feeling in my gut that I've overlooked something about him. My gut is usually wrong (except when I try to ignore it, in which case it turns out to be right), but I'd like to have my bases covered.

[TheHermit]

I'm going to start analyzing Nelly now. I think it's kinda weird that he always seems to shift his vote to whoever has the most pressure on them, and I think it's REALLY screwy how early in the game he clears ckd several times (and he's so steadfast about it that I pegged the two of them as masons at first), only to drop a vote on him to force him to claim today. It's either sloppy town or sloppy scum, and I think a closer look will tell me which it is.

[TheHermit]

Let's look at Nelly today...

28: Doesn't have a problem with quicklynching oj for his very odd behavior.

As was pointed out, this is a rather scummy comment... however, it should be noted that wanting to lynch inactives or "strange" plays is common newbie behavior.

92: Pulls off his random vote on DFN without a word.

124: Self-votes.

129: Flippantly tells ckd that this is all he's going to produce on Day 1, and that people should either vote him or leave him be.

133: Says there isn't a Jester in the game. Claims townie.

140: Asks everyone if they would like him to pull his vote off himself.

145: Unvotes. Promises content.

155: Says he suspected gorckat because he did not put a vote on Hermit even though Hermit's post 99 was rather similar to Nelly's 28. Explained his self-vote as a trap. Calls ckd town. Puts an FOS on everyone who voted for him, and votes Para.

158: Jokingly calls Oman scum because he was fourth to vote on both DFN, Nelly, and now Para.

162: Asks Para if he's going to roleclaim before vollkan uses his vig on him.

203: Congratulates vollkan. Asks a doctor to protect vollkan.

No doctor, though...

224: Explains he didn't know what the "x" after the numbers meant in the game setup.

249: Explains that vollkan has swayed his opinion. Unvotes Para, votes Elias. Thinks Sir Tornado is putting a lot of pressure on ckd, and wonders what his opinion is on Nelly's town read on him.

258: Gives an example of the "calm" and "not calm" that he was looking for.

Honestly, this makes no sense. ckd was very calm, and yet he was cleared as town?

279: Doesn't understand the previously mentioned objection to his analysis.

293: Reiterates that he thinks ckd is town. Makes a case for Para and pulse being town based on Oman's play. Thinks another scum might have been on his wagon, and that his Elias vote is placed wisely.

305: Gender issue. No game content of note.

342: Claims to have a theory he will post later.

356: He is tired and will post tomorrow.

367: Unvotes. Claims his previous theory was wrong. Analyzes all the players. Thinks SPAG and Hermit are the two scummiest players, votes Hermit.

371: Pressures Hermit.

372: Calls Elias' history of Hermit's "backtracks" a "great post".

vollkan demonstrates the problems with Elias' post in 377.

376: Asks for Hermit to roleclaim.

395: Explains that, assuming that Elias and Hermit both turn out to be town, of the two he would prefer lynching Hermit anyway.

473: Thinks SPAG and Hermit are the two scummiest players. Despite this, he jumps on the Paradoxzombie wagon that's rapidly gaining speed.

I can almost understand this action because there's little time until deadline. He also continues in his blind following of vollkan.

547: Isn't sure whether para was scum or town. Mod assists.

577: No game content.

584: Thinks ckd was town that believed para was scum. Still thinks SPAG and Hermit are the suspicion frontrunners.

613: Votes Hermit with no explanation.

617: Wants people to read his previous posts for his reasons for voting, and adds that he has no problems with a SPAG lynch but finds Hermit a better lynch.

635: Unvotes Hermit to votes Yagami. Thinks the two might be scumbuddies.

672: Restates that he thinks Yagami is the best lynch for today.

681: Acting on his "Hermit/Yagami scumteam" suspicion, votes Hermit right out of the gate on Day 3.

755: Unvotes, votes for ckd while intentionally giving as few reasons as possible, claiming he doesn't want to get his words twisted on him. Cites the Para lynch and his actions toward Elias.

772: Implies that Hermit is the third mason, although it later seems that he forgot vollkan was the first mason. Posts his deductions on who he thinks the final mason is. Narrows his scumlist down to Elias, gorckat, and Shanba. Unvotes.

782: Realizes his error in 772.

810: Says he puts very little thought into it when he votes

(!)

and that he believes his initial impression of Hermit was in error. Thinks the final mason is either Setael or Hermit. States that he is more likely to vote Elias than gorckat.

811: EBWOP.

813: Thanks Elias for his contribution, cryptically adding that it has "helped me in my choice".

VERDICT: Nelly plays loose, and is easily swayed by arguments. If someone says someone else looks scummy, he finds himself believing them. This is indicative of either a town who has a loose grounding, or a scum who doesn't know that flittering to the person with the most pressure on them over and over again is going to raise some eyebrows. At first I thought his self-vote was a mafia ploy, but on reading through the rest of his posts I'm inclined to think he's not clever or brave enough to pull that off as scum. So yeah, I'm thinking

probably newbie town

here.

[TheHermit]

One day left until deadline and everyone is lurking. Excuse me while I panic.

We have both Elias and gorckat at -2. gorckat has already said he will vote for Elias, and Nelly is deciding between the two. After reading through the points of Elias and ckd I simply can't shake the feeling that I've grievously misread gorckat in my analysis. I'm going to take one more look today and make my decision this evening.

[TheHermit]

gorckat, looking over my notes, I'm noticing a very disturbing trend where you're always at the cusp of every lynch. Every time, and I do mean EVERY time, someone starts getting pressured, you're there with a vote. Do you know you've been on just about every single bandwagon in this entire game? DFN. Nelly. Elias. Hermit. Para. Yagami. You looked ready to jump on ckd, too.

[TheHermit]

Wow. That pretty much mirrors what I was thinking. On top of the whole "on every bandwagon" thing I pointed out above. These make me feel more assured of gorck's guilt than of Elias'. I would honestly like to hear from him before I hammer, but we're very quickly running out of time.

Two hours. That's all I can spare. At 1900 EST, I'm dropping the hammer on gorckat.

[TheHermit]

Alright, it's 1900 EST. We can't wait any longer. Time to drop the hammer and hope for the best.

Vote: gorckat

[TheHermit]

Agh, the suspense is killing me!

[TheHermit]

Nelly: When is the confirmed innocent more valuable? When there are four people who might be scum besides him? Or when there are two? Saying the mason's life is just as valuable as your own ignores that they are CONFIRMED innocent, while you are not. And I'm with Setael; ckd must have left a few breadcrumbs so that we can identify his partner.

Although I haven't done a read-through on Setael yet, right now Shanba is my best bet for scum. Why? Because I can't get a good read on her, and I get a pretty good town read from everyone else. In this case, the most suspicious person is suspicious only because everyone else is not. The logic isn't strong enough for a vote, but hopefully you all can see where my concern lies.

[TheHermit]

Nelly, you're seriously stretching the applicability of the newbie card. So your entire case rests on that he didn't immediately claim he's a mason (he wondered who it might be, but note that isn't confirming or denying that he's a mason), and that he's suspicious of you? It's way, way too late in the game to make an OMGUS vote unless you've got something else to back it up with, and you don't.

Congratulations, Nelly. You have earned my attention.

[TheHermit]

It's not a matter of finding and understanding them. It's a matter of ckd leaving them and then saying last night to his other mason buddy, "When you claim, point them to this post I made; I left clues there to help you." This is basic, basic strategy... do you really think it eluded him?

In any case, we've all posted and there's no claim in sight. Looks like our mason's done the smart thing and is clamming up.

[TheHermit]

pulsewidth...

40: Laments that the random voting part is over. FOS's oj and DFN.

78: Says that he's not ready to put DFN at L-1. Asks Hermit about the oj/DFN situation.

123: Thinks DFN hasn't done a good job defending himself. FOS's Nelly because he suspects oj yet only votes him, then votes Hermit to force him to expound on his thoughts.

130-1: Wonders if Nelly is playing so badly because he's a Jester, although he's skeptical of this possibility because the open setup says there isn't a Jester.

143: Explains to Nelly that if he really is town, he would pull the vote off himself to prevent the town from lynching a green.

153: Doesn't really buy Hermit's explanations, but thinks Para is more scummy anyway and moves his vote.

196: No game content.

312: Apologizes for inactivity. Doubts that Oman suspected vollkan was targetting him, and thus the list is valid.

502: Is replaced by Setael!

Setael...

503: No game content.

530: Thinks vollkan is being silly for suspecting players who vote for reasons he brings up. Thinks Para is playing a little too poorly for an "old school" player, but won't vote for him because he wants to follow up on gorckat and SPAG first.

545: Becomes furious at SPAG for hammering Para just after he said he would wait to hear from him. Votes SPAG.

556: Spots something in Hermit's analysis of SPAG that is extremely suspicious. Thinks Hermit is town, but is quite suspicious of Elias.

563: Thinks both SPAG and Elias are scum.

570: Thinks it's scummy that Elias pointed out that a vollkan NK made him look scummy.

576: Clarifies that scum are more likely to argue down points before they're even brought up.

593: Asks the mod to prod SPAG.

612: Thanks Yagami for replacing, adding that it will be next to impossible for him to convince him that SPAG wasn't mafia.

619: Explains that he gets a town read from Hermit because of his exasperated self-vote on Day 1 as well as his belief that SPAG and Elias are the two scum.

623: Feels his opinions are further justified by Yagami's posts.

630: Would rather hear his opinions of Shanba and himself from Yagami rather than a PbP on Hermit.

643: Admits that he's not entirely sure who Yagami's partner is, but is pretty sure he's scum.

646: Thinks Hermit's idea of Yagami setting up Hermit to get lynched tomorrow is an interesting theory, despite it being very WIFOM. Thinks there might still be a chance for Yagami to turn it around.

654: Requests that Yagami claim, and that no one should hammer him until he does.

661: Asks everyone not voting for Yagami to say why.

676: Thinks that Yagami would be fighting harder if he was town.

684: Does a brief re-read, and as a result votes Elias.

689: Attacks Elias fro trivializing the case against SPAG.

692: Explain to Shanba that only one mafia is left.

695: Posts a list of arguments against Elias.

718: Disagrees with Hermit's analysis of Elias' post 416.

774: Thinks Elias' reaction to ckd's mason claim was scummy.

801: Expresses skepticism over whether he's on the right track with an Elias vote, and unvotes.

809: Says he is wavering between gorckat and Elias being scum.

818: Votes gorckat in case he can't make it in time tomorrow.

820: Outlines his reasons for voting gorckat.

829: Thinks giving Nelly a pass may have been a mistake.

831: Is confused about Nelly's vote for him.

834: Is confident ckd has breadcrumbed the identity of the other mason.

VERDICT: pulsewidth was pretty lurky, but Setael's

So now I've gone over all the players... My top scum hopefuls are Elias and, after his stunning display of scummery here in on Day 4, Nelly. The problem being, I'm not confident enough with either of them to place a vote. I suppose you can write in Shanba at the bottom, who's only on my suspect list because I can't get a good read on him.

[TheHermit]

ARGH!

VERDICT: pulsewidth was pretty lurky, but Setael's been acting pretty solidly town. He was chasing after SPAG before it became in style, and I find I agree with him more often than I don't. I don't see anything really suspicious about him at all. So in my eyes he's

probably town

.

[TheHermit]

Also, about the SPAG case. I've asked you AGAIN and AGAIN to present me with evidence OTHER than the hammer vote. EVERY SINGLE TIME that I ask you've simply said "Elias is downplaying the SPAG case" and ignored my request. STOP PRETENDING THIS IS A POINT AGAINST ME, YOU HAVE FAILED TO GIVE ME ANY EVIDENCE OTHER THEN THAT VOTE AND YOUR ANALYSIS ON THAT VOTE.

Elias:

It wasn't JUST a hammer, for starters. It was a hammer that he slammed almost immediately after saying he'd wait for Para to say something before hammering. As soon as vollkan said something that even hinted that he might avoid suspicion if he hammered, he gleefully took that invitation. The correct answer was, "Even so, I'd feel better if we heard from him first." Even if that isn't the way vollkan intended it, it became a trap that SPAG fell into head-first.

Also, as I pointed out, when SPAG came back to the game he asked for the case against Para. NOT Elias or me, even though all three of us were being heavily suspected. He sounded like he'd already made up his mind. I suppose if you were being generous you could say that he was just making sure there was a good case for the most popular lynch because deadline was nearing, but after the deadline was extended he claimed to want to take a look at other players. He never did.

Finally, the way he defended his Para vote was just bad. At the end of Day 1 he claimed that he'd picked up a scum vibe from Para's posts, which he claimed to have read, then later claimed he hadn't had time to read through yet (Posts 521-524, pay particular attention to the bit gorckat quotes in 522). You want your contradictions and your backtracks? Here they are, in neon lighting!

We didn't get lucky with SPAG. He gave himself up at the end of Day 1, but most of the town didn't recognize the signs until Day 2.

You wanted a case? This is a case. Now can you please stop trying to brainwash everyone into thinking there was no case against SPAG? Thanks.

[TheHermit]

To answer Setael's question:

I have a

question for the mod

- On page 1 you say:

With 12 alive, its 6 to lynch!

Can you just confirm that is correct? In most games I have played it is usually 7 out of 12 needed to lynch (or the equivalent sort of thing like 4 out of 7, 3 out of 4 etc.).

Yes, this is correct. This game will move at a slightly faster pace than most games, and it will always take half the players to lynch when the number of total players are even, and above half when the number of players are odd. At deadline, it will take the same number of players to lynch as now. If you do not reach half or over(even or odd) by that time, there will be a no-lynch and we will move on to night. I wouldn't let discussion slow down if I were you, because deadlines will not be extended.

So if things remain as they are, there will be no lynch today at deadline.

That said, I am NOT willing to hammer Setael. Nelly's vote is completely baseless, and Shanba's isn't much better.

Also, yes, Elias has deflected all suspicion. However, much of his defense revolves around all the suspicions being not critical in and of itself. The reason I'm suspicious of him is that, even if they have a "well, maybe he's town and it just seems bad" explanation, when this many suspicious things pile up it looks less like "coincidences" and look more like a "pattern". Finally, his "I'd be playing better if I were scum" is such WIFOM that I can't believe he can say it with a straight face.

No, I'm not convinced that Elias is scum. But if it comes down to a choice between Elias, Setael, and NoLynch, I'd push for Elias to hang with no second thoughts.

[TheHermit]

Never mind. Guess I was wrong about the lynch thing. :/

A more recent announcement:

viewtopic.php?p=757887#757887

-Mod

[TheHermit]

If Shanba's best reason for voting you is because you had other suspects in mind if your first choice didn't turn out scum, I'd say he's using crap logic. I don't know whether this is a case of him not thinking very hard or trying to hide a scummy vote. As I've said before, I'm having trouble getting a good read on Shanba simply because he's lurked ever since he got here. This is classic scum strategy, which doesn't endear me to his latest caper at all. Between all the players, I'm most comfortable with a Shanba vote.

On that note,

Vote: Shanba

. Ordinarily I wouldn't place a vote without something more substantial, but we're running out of time. Setael isn't on my suspicion list and there is absolutely no good case against him. I hope you Unvote, Nelly, because otherwise this is going to be the saddest mislynch in a long time.

As a final note: Elias, quit stalling. We had a case against SPAG, which both I and Shanba have outlined, we pursued it, and he came up red. What more do you want? What qualities do you believe are present in a "good" lynch?

[TheHermit]

Without even giving him a chance to claim? I'm disappointed in you two.

[TheHermit]

I KNEW IT! I knew Setael was the last mason! The way pulse/Setael, vollkan, and ckd ignored each other was a dead giveaway. I was hoping that my "I know who the last mason is" comment a few pages back was a subtle hint that I was the mason, too subtle to be mistaken for the claim but hopefully enough to fool the scum. I'll never know if it worked now, unless Shanba offers to let us know what his next move was.

I bet Elias is surprised to find out I was town, especially since I never quite shook off my (admittedly awful) Day 1 play. To be fair, I'm a little surprised myself that he was too.

The death scenes were great fun to read, and it was pretty tense knowing that there wasn't going to be a doctor or investigator to swoop in and save the town.

[TheHermit]

ckd/Setael: Can you point out the breadcrumb? I don't see it.

[TheHermit]

This was my "coming of age" game. I was definitely a newb when I started, but I can use the newbie excuse no more.

Same here. I think my town play improved a lot this game.

[TheHermit]

Well, you already knew you were town so you don't count. 8) j/k

[TheHermit]

I don't think anyone can disagree, though, that being caught it a lie looks really bad. Obviously there are extenuating circumstances, but townies in general don't need to lie as much as scum do. It certainly doesn't work as the "zero tolerance" crew would like to believe, but I think the town should rightly be very suspicious of anyone who knowingly tells falsehoods.

What it comes down to is, at times it may be necessary to lie to the town in order to lie to the scum. Anyone who tells a lie, though, should have a backup plan prepared for if they get caught whether they're town or scum.