Mini 523 - Game Over!

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Vote: No Vote

Everyone else is voting so far, so I'm gonna cool my heels and read what people have to say for now. Besides, I got lynched in my last game for trying to figure things out.

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Sorry for being quiet, guys; this is only my second game, and I'm trying the "How to be a good townie" strategy from the article someone posted around here. I'm not encouraging other people not to vote, I'm just not going to throw mine at someone until I have a reason to yet.

And yes, I am watching a couple of people, but there's no reason to jump the gun this early. Better to cool your heels and watch than open a possible scum-jump lynch, eh?

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Hey, I got L-1'd on the first page of my first game. Sometimes people just have a brain fart when they're setting the random votes. I'm still not convinced of anything.

The corollary is that I got lynched on the top of page 4, so maybe that just means that my first game was screwy.

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Here's the link to the article:
http://www.mafiascum.net/cgi-bin/wiki.p ... ood_Townie

And, for the record, I am of the opinion that 3 votes in a game this large does not necessarily make a scum. OTOH, it is somewhat suspicious. For now, I'm willing to write it off, but it did put Shaiann a little higher on the suspicion tree than most.

And I am beginning to realize that I may not be quiet enough to be a good townie right now. Pardon me if I lurk for a day.

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I would have voted for him earlier, but to be honest I didn't even really know he was there until some one else voted for him >_< I just thought it would be kind of on the funny side......

unvote

I find this statement to be both confusing and suspicious. Allow me:

"I would have voted for him earlier," Earlier than you did? You voted pretty early, but I can buy that explanation, except for...

"But... I didn't even really know he was there until come one else voted for him," Wait a sec. You just said right there that you were going to vote for Nikon regardless, and that other people just beat you to it. Then, in the same sentence, you said that no, it's not your fault, you're just bandwagoning. This is what is known as a contradiction in terms; both of your statements cannot possibly be true.

Dark Lady Shaiann, consider yourself FOS'd

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Vamp, did you miss this post?

I would have voted for him earlier, but to be honest I didn't even really know he was there until some one else voted for him >_< I just thought it would be kind of on the funny side......

unvote

I find this statement to be both confusing and suspicious. Allow me:

"I would have voted for him earlier," Earlier than you did? You voted pretty early, but I can buy that explanation, except for...

"But... I didn't even really know he was there until come one else voted for him," Wait a sec. You just said right there that you were going to vote for Nikon regardless, and that other people just beat you to it. Then, in the same sentence, you said that no, it's not your fault, you're just bandwagoning. This is what is known as a contradiction in terms; both of your statements cannot possibly be true.

Dark Lady Shaiann, consider yourself FOS'd

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I have to agree with Nudude's sentiment. It's gotten very quiet in here of late, and I'd like to hear from several of the lurkers. Not necessarily a defense ro anything, just your thoughts on what's going on.

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Be careful a bandwagon doesn't form here, people. If nothing else, it's foolish to become suspicious of someone because they haven't posted recently, and then to lynch them before they say anything about the increasing number of votes against them.

I want to hear from Shotgun Kitten, if at all possible, before we get any closer to a lynch. Right now, I'm still more suspicious of DLS, but SK does need to explain him/herself. OTOH, lunching a possible townie because of impatience is very dangerous.

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Okay, I've kind of had it here. Nobody's posted for the better part of a day.

Come on, guys. Let's have a little action, hmmm?

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No need to be rude, DS. This is a game, have a little fun.

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Serious side: I am agreeing with the general suspicion of Deepthought at the moment. If you pay attention, the logic (s)he uses is frequently specious; HEH has highlighted what I agree are the most out-of-place items he's made. Further, his continuing defense against those accusations are, to me, unsatisfactory. It strikes me that asking for a modkill when a replacement is quite realistic (given that this is day 1) is not exactly a townie move, regardless of which forum you play on.

Sorry, Deepthought, but I'm

FOSing you.

Also, DLS, you've kind of ducked under the table as the general strain of discussion has moved along. You have explained yourself adequately, but unless you join the scumhunt again, my suspicion will begin to grow. Do you have any insight into anything at the moment?

And liamcool, please post more. Lurking is no fun for anyone.

On the light side: we seem to be a remarkably levelheaded and calm group of people for a lynch mob. Just an amusing thought.

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Sorry for the DP, Gorgon Sarnath'd me.

Gorgon, as a quick question, how (do you feel) that post #101 is townish? There honestly isn't very much in that post at all, much less anything to strongly indicate a town affiliation. I'm not FOSing you or anything, but I'd like to hear your reasoning.

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Since a couple of people have asked about my FOSing, I'll explain.

Last game I was in, I threw out my vote early, played actively, and got lynched on page 4 for it. I'm trying a different strategy here; I'll use my FOSs to provoke responses where most would use outright votes. If I FOS you, I feel that your statements and/or actions have been somewhat or suspiciously scummy, but that I am not yet convinced 100% that you're scum. I FOS'd Deepthought this last time for the same reasons as everyone else- asking for a modkill with apparent confirmed knowledge of the town/scum split seemed suspicious to me, and it still does. I wanted and still want to hear more from Deepthought before I vote for him, but he's really done nothing thusfar to assuage my suspicion.

When I do vote, don't expect me to unvote. A vote out of me means I'm pretty well convinced that you're scum.

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I find this back-and-forth interesting.

But.

Here is an observation: the extensive questioning of Deepthought is interesting and educational. Even now, at L-3, he has done nothing to dissuade my suspicion of him. In fact, and you might want to note this, DT, your snippiness is actually deepening my suspicion. However, this conversation mostly includes Deepthought, myself, Hang 'Em High, and Thanatos. DLS and Nudude have each dropped in once, and Gorgon has said a couple of things about the mess. Liam popped up to defend himself but, I don't think, said anything about Deepthought (I'm stuck on observing page 6 right now).

I want to hear from other people, if possible. Hang em High is clearly leading the charge here; if DT is lynched and turns out to be a townie, HeH will jump straight to the top of my suspicion list. That being said, DT's statements are clearly the most suspicious activity thusfar in the game. I'd like to hear what other people are thinking right now in regards to the situation and why. If you have reason to assuage suspicion on DT, where does it come from and why? If you see something incriminating that we've glossed over, would you mind pointing it out for us? If you're ambivalent, what's keeping you on the fence?

Note for the mod: I'm leaving for a D&D convention tonight, and as such my posting will likely be intermittant at best until Monday.

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Hokay... I take one 4 hour drive and the game assplodes. Allow me to try and sort things through.

First, in regards to D_S: Please, stop with the ad hominem attacks. It makes the game less pleasant for all of us, and it doesn't actually help us to gain any useful information. If you have any ideas for prodding those you feel are scummy, please by all means do so. However, calling people names only makes us view those you're fighting with in a kinder light.

Second, in regards to Liam: I agree, this seems like a suspicious way of voting for someone. Liam has been pinging my scumdar, so to speak, for a little while, but not in a major way (I'm pretty sure I've been mentioning him before). This vote seems odd; I'll come back to this later.

Thirdly, in regards to Deepthought: Frankly, I don't believe you. For reasons that others have posted, Doc is a very convenient role to claim in an attempt to avoid getting lynched. I'm not familiar with the Bulletproof or Miller roles (I suspect that Bulletproof people don't get shot at night by Mafia or Vigs, but that's just a guess), so I can't comment on your counter that those would make a better scumclaim. Simply put, DT, you're acting like scum, and every claim you've made in your defense makes very, very good sense if you're playing mafia. This leads me to...

Observation:

Deepthought seems rather scummy in general, and it also seems like most of the game agrees on this point. By page 6, in the face of mounting suspicion and a growing bandwagon, Liamcool jumps on "with reservations" and puts DT at L-1. Now, whether Liam is being genuine or not, here's what read I get off of the way he voted: If DT is town, this is, as others have noted, a very good way to jump on the bandwagon while keeping yourself from looking like you're pushing for a lynch. If DT is scum, then this is a great way to deflect potential suspicion in Liam later in the game, as he would have knowingly participated in the lynch of one of his teammates.

If Liam were town, I don't see a reason for, in combination, his lurking, his voting, and his contributions in general. In fact, aside from his vote, I don't think that he has mentioned DT in any way, shape, or form, which would be a good strategy for two scumbuddies.

FOS: Liamcool

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Wow... I've kind of had it with this bickering. DLS, DS, you have both participated to make this game suck, as far as I'm concerned. Before the two of you started to bicker, I was having a grand time, and I felt we were getting somewhere. Now the game's a mess and almost everyone but you two, Thanatos, and Deepthought have stopped posting. Screw this. I don't care if I get lynched or anything anymore.

Vote: Deepthought

I've said it before, and I've given my reasons several times over: I'm pretty sure Deepthought is scum. If I'm wrong and he was telling the truth, so be it, but nobody around here is acting scummier, IMHO.

Now I'm going to sit back and wait for the night. If we're lucky, one of the two will get nightkilled to end this damn bickering.

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Holu crap!

Unvote

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Ok, sorry for the trip post. Allow me to explain.

I hit the quick reply field on page 12, thinking I was on page 13 (when i hadn't read page 13). I had figured that the mod here wasn't going to do anything about the massive bickering that was going on between DLS and DS, and on top of an already terrible day (my D&D module, which premiered today, was ripped to shreds in front of me as I sat there and DM'd it. By the time I left the con, I was pissed and miserable... and last night my favorite character got eaten by an alligator AND the zipper on my pants literally exploded. I shit you not.), I just checked out emotionally. I came back here a little while later to see if anyone else had said anything, and page 13 looked a whole lot different than I had thought it was.

Sigh. Now I'm gonna get lynched for this, I just know it. This weekend can officially go sodomize itself with a chainsaw.

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Deepthought, I mentioned a while ago that I was going to be at D&D con this weekend, and as such my posting would be intermittent.

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Wow, I really hate this weekend. My PSP is now a fancy, expensive paperweight. I didn't even screw around with the firmware. It's outside of the warranty too; I got it secondhand.

Goddamn it.

Anyway... it seems to me that the proposed strategy regarding DT is thus: Either we lynch him now or lynch him tomorrow. I'm not saying that it's the right thing to do yet, even though I am inclined towards DT over anyone else in the thread (as noted by my rather exasperated previous post). Here are the scenerios I see:

Option 1: We don't lynch Deepthought. In this case, one a couple of things happens: One, he's not scum and the real scum see a claimed doc as being tempting enough to not take any chances (nightkill, which he doesn't seem too worried about, oddly). In this case, we lynched someone else and are down a doc, which is probably (unless we got lucky otherwise) not very good for the long game. Two is that the scum don't take the bait and try to get a fortunate lynch out of us on day two, presenting the town with a classic wine in front of me (<3 Princess Bride) situation where we have little choice other than to lynch him, as he's been scummy in general and survived the night. Three is that he is in fact scum, in which case the solution to possibility two applies, for the same reason.

Option 2: We lynch him. In this case, he's either scum or not, and the Mafia chooses who among us is cutting through the BS best and NK them. On day 2, we're left with some ground-level suspicions on several people for scummy activity, as well as suspicion on myself, Thanatos, and HEH (and POSSIBLY a little Nudude) for spearheading the investigation against Deepthought if he was, in fact, town.

Option 3: We don't lynch Deepthought and then leave him live on day 2; after this point, it is unlikely that he will ever be lynched. If he is actually scum, it will likely lead to a loss for the town. If he's actually a doc, it may prolong the game for a further day if he gets a lucky protect.

I don't really know which option I prefer... I'm not a terribly big fan of option three, if only because the consequences if he's scum are so incredibly high. OTOH, options 1 and 2 are also bad at this point because if he IS doc, despite the scummy read we're getting off him (I dunno, maybe he's played scum in 80% of those games he played on the other site). I'm not sure, but I'm leaning towards action over inaction, especially as I do not yet see a seriously viable alternative (liamcool is an alternative, but it not yet very close to DT on my scumdar).

Someone wanted me to talk about my vote somewhere; sorry, it's midnight after a seriously long day, so I'm not gonna go hunt down. I knew/thought it was L-1 (the post at the top of page 12; I scrolled up, said 5 votes, and I'm just glad nobody voted for him on page 13 or I woulda seriously screwed things up). I said what I said because in both the games I've been in, anyone who puts someone at L-1 on day 1 gets everyone on them like s*** on velcro. Like I said there and said since, I was tired and pissed for several reasons, and didn't think things through as well as I should have before posting.

On a side note, screw high level rangers with Arrows of Slaying at a DC27 Fort or Die. The last combat of my module (D&D adventure) literally ended on the first turn of combat; the guy fired four of those damn arrows into my mounted hobgoblin chargers. The very next person to go Baleful Polymorphed the only remaining person on the field into a small black kitten, which they named Old Wicked (after her god). She even passed the save to retain her mind, but there were two frickin' Fatespinners in the party, and they kept forcing rerolls till she became a kitten in mind and body. Argh.

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I'm not a fan of your plan, Thanatos, because I think that Deepthought's analysis is dead on. If DT is actually town, it's a very good move for the scum to NK him. If we have a cop investigate him (and SAY that we're doing so), the scum take their nightkill and get a free roleblock on the cop for a night, as the target of his investigation croaks. Then we're sitting on day 2 with very few leads and a dead doc. That is, of course, if DT escapes the noose. Not the best plan IMHO.

I really think that the cop, whoever (s)he is, should at this point choose a plan of action carefully and not tell anyone about it ahead of time. If the scum know what the cop is gonna do, they can work around it. If he has to claim later, okay. I don't care for the cop-for-a-scum trade one bit, but if we can lynch a scum today, it might be worth it.

And remember the part where I mentioned Fatespinners at the table? Yeah, when there are three fatespinners using all their spin up on save-or-die effects, the game ends awfully quickly. In addition to that, the arrows were crafted and carried around by a specialist Necromancer with GSF in that school, to be handed out to whatever archer-y type he happened to bump into. Since they only cost the guy 50 gold apiece to make...

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Gorgon, in response to your theories about the cop... I don't like the idea of him coming forward on day 2 (presuming he finds a scum), especially if we didn't lynch a scum; that leave us with, presuming Deepthought's stated rations are correct, 2 scum left and pretty much certainly no cop. I'd much rather the cop note that he's found scum and keep hunting, then post who at the last possible moment (either in lynch or lose or when he's found all the scum, or when he's about to be lynched by the town anyway). Maybe it's just me, but that seems like a better deal for the town than the cop suiciding on d2.

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Hey, Gorgon, I have yet to make it out of day one. I'm kind of playing it by ear right now.

And my PSP is unbricked! Yay!

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I feel uncomfortable saying this (j/k), but... I agree with Deepthought for once.

Liam has been rather scummy and flew right under my radar. He seems, to me, to be about as scummy as Deepthought is. However, I'm going to stick on DT for the moment because, given that the two of them are more or less equally scummy in my eyes, there is rather more public scrutiny on DT right now.

I WOULD really like a cop investigation of either or both of them, but I suspect that I'm probably not going to get my wish.

As a final note, I agree that we need to step away from cop strategising and figure out who the lynch target is going to be. I haven't really seen any new information pop up in the past several pages, so it might be time to make our choice, and then use that information to move forward (if nothing else). This is, of course, contingent upon the presumption that nobody else is getting any useful information that I've missed; if so, I'd really like to hear it.

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We know what you think of him, Than- what about everyone else?

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I think he's bluffing too.

Problem is, as I go back and read some of his posts since he claimed doc, I'm getting a weird read off of him. I don't want to say anything right now because it goes against everything I've said thusfar in the game, but I just wanna give people the heads up that i need time to stew for a bit.

I'm pretty sure he's not doc tho.

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I know, I know. Mostly, I'm trying to decide whether to vote for Liam or DT right now. I'm just about certain that DT is scum, except for one nagging thing at the back of my head. The problem is, I've heard several times about people getting very close to being lynched day 1, getting passed, and then not getting lynched even when they should because people feel reluctant to start the bandwagon up again. As I'm 90% sure that DT is scum at this point, I don't want him getting away if he is.

Okay, here's the thought at the back of my head, and apologies if I screw anything up or whatever. For this to work, we have to presume that DT is town and liam is scum (which is, as I've noted above, only a possibility). Now, what if he's a generic Townie, with no power whatsoever? Further, he gets a read on someone scummy (Liam), and pushes on him, pointing out to the rest of us that he IS scummy, while at the same time making himself look a little suspect. Then, as a bandwagon forms, he roleclaims Doc at the very first opportunity presented to him, a maneuver that, with his experience, he knows will make the town reluctant to lynch him on day 1. On the other hand, he's pushing for another scummy person and has claimed Doc, so the scum almost HAVE to nightkill him on night 1. If we've lynched Liam, then we're one scum down and have lost only a generic Townie, while almost-but-not-quite roleblocking the Scum kill for that night. The downside to the plan? If we lynch DT, the town has in reality lost only a generic Townie, not the doc, and the scum have to scramble come nightfall to figure out who to shoot.

This is something that I wouldn't even think of for a less experienced players, but the thread seems to have confirmed that DT is more or less the most experienced player in this game. Sorry to start confusion up, but his posts since about page 12, while not very good at allaying suspicion, have been troublingly good at pointing out discrepancies, and that just seems out of place for a scum player.

Like I said, it's something that's been niggling at the back of my head. It might just be a very good scum ploy to survive a day.

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Deepthought- The pink gorilla in the room being...? I suspect that you're referring to Liam, but I want to hear these things out of your mouth.

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Frankly, I agree. I have reservations about letting DT off today, but after re-reading posts a few times, Liam seems to be more genuinely scum. Further, DT has done what appears to be genuine scumhunting, while Liam has only leveled accusations and/or votes against everyone that calls him out on shifty behavior.

DT might be scum. I'm pretty sure he's a liar. But I'm dead sure that Liam is both.

Vote: Liamcool

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TBH, I was looking to cast my vote last page. As I've noted in my past couple of posts, something just doesn't strike me as being right in regards to DT at the moment. Further, the town has a plan to deal with him on a going-forward basis and, finally, he seems to be participating quite actively in the general scumhunt. He's said and done scummy things (which we've thoroughly hashed through), and I am still suspicious of him.

But, frankly, Liam's been shiftier, less helpful to the scumhunt, and much more random. We're on page 18-19 on day one, and there really hasn't been any movement anywhere recently.

I noted before that I'd sit around asking questions and FOSing people until I was as sure as I could be that I knew someone was scum, and then I'd vote for him. As I noted above, I'm pretty sure that DT is scum, but after examining Liam, I'm really sure he's scum (or acting like it for some unfathomable reason).

To clarify, I'm not trying to form a bandwagon here, nor jump on one. Check my posts on the last page or page and a half- I've been debating Liam and DT for a while (and my last post specifically said that i was going to sleep on the choice and post in the morning). I can conceive of a reason for DT to act as he has been (even if that reason is somewhat silly, if possible). I can't conceive of a reason for Liam to act the way he is. If you have any questions at all regarding this whole mess of text, I'll be more than happy to answer; I know that 2 posts in a row voting for someone looks suspicious, but I felt it would be equally suspicious/disingenuous to artificially delay posting my vote once I'd decided on it.

BTW: Insurgent, welcome to the game; if you could throw out a few more posts so I could get a better idea of who you are, I'd appreciate it. Dropping in late for someone who posted what, 2 times (?) makes you kind of the invisible man. More info, please!

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I'm on the list for an examination over DT. I may not have voted for him in the end, but I was pushing hard all through day 1, and I frequently questioned his roleclaim.

2 nightkills is very bad tho. I think the most likely possibility is Scum & Serial Killer, but there could be some weird bizarro double-mafia kill.

Regardless, if it's one town lynch per day and two whatever kills per night, we have very little leeway. Time for careful consideration, IMHO. If we mislynch again, it could very easily be lynch or lose.

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I'm right there with Gorgon's analysis on this- Hang 'em High, out of everyone playing the game, was pretty much the only one that everyone could agree wasn't scum. Especially with him getting back into the game after the flamewar, I would guess that he'd be THE likely target for a scumkill.

I had forgotten about vig's, and a vig kill seems to be a decent explanation for Insurgent's death; Lord Nikon was a hardcore lurker, and Insurgent didn't really post anything about his thoughts before the day ended; that might have been taken for a scummy person, rather than one that just hadn't caught up through all the pages we had waded through. I really hope we've got a vig out there, rather than a SK.

Okay, continuing thoughts on various people that need to be examined:
Liamcool: for all the stuff that we were talking about yesterday; we now know that DT was town, and he was MAJORLY suspicious of Liam. I think Liam deserves going over with a magnifying glass, but that's just me.
Me: I pushed hard on the DT bandwagon, and even though I backed out at the end, the fact remains that I didn't buy any of DT's explanations till it was too late.
Thanatos: Thanatos kind of took over the lead on the bandwagon from HEH when he dropped into the game. From there, he posited a number of theories that turned out to be false, all of which served to make DT look scummy. I think Than deserves a very close examination.
Disciple Slayer: For someone who's posted so frequently, I can find very little to any of his posts aside from bluster or accusations that are based on things other people have already said. This is someone who, I feel, is not really helping the scumhunt. It's worth looking at him. To paraphrase Darth Vader, I find his lack of content disturbing.
Nudude: I've been getting a vaguely scummy vibe off of this guy for a while now, and I can't quite put my finger on why. It may be in part because he's rarely been voting for or doing anything that anyone else is doing, but I can't remember when Nudude has ever been at the center of anything, really. Again, though, this is mostly impressions, so feel free to ignore me on this one.

People I feel ambivalent about:
Gorgon: A big part of me wants to say that he probably isn't scum, just because he's been hunting so hard, and has made calls that have been, in retrospect, quite good. However, another part of me wants to say that if he WERE scum, those same predictions would be very easy to make, and would put him in a favorable light. I'm not sure what to do on this one, other than wait for more info.
DLS: She's lurked ever since the flamewar; despite the fact that she seemed to clear herself a while ago, the fact that she's just lying low and watching makes me wonder whose team she's playing for.

In regards to the Thanatos asking to be looked at, I am in fairness doing the same thing, Gorgon. I can't speak for Thanatos, but I am putting myself on the list of people to be looked at because of what i did do, and because not putting myself on a list of people that pushed for DT's lynching would be scummy. I have no fear of people reading my previous posts. It MAY be that Than is of a similar mind, but it may also be something else.

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Uhh... Than, I think you just voted for yourself. Maybe you messed up on the vote tags? Just an observation.

And Charter, I keep neglecting to put you on lists because you somehow manage to fly under my radar no matter what you do. I think this is the third time I've had to do a double-take to realize you're even in the game. Maybe an avatar would help that some. Anyway, Charter probably deserves some examination for his participation in the bandwagon, but I honestly can't remember a thing he's done. I need to go back and read some more before I start pushing people again.

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Ok, just for the collective info, I'm going to assemble PBPAs for the four people I listed in my last big post (Nudude excepted, because I'm running on a vibe there, not really any real info yet) and post my thoughts attached to those. They'll be up in a bit.

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Well, this took way the hell longer than I thought. As such, I just compiled the first 9 pages of posts from the various and sundry people involved; I edited out the flamewar and anything that seemed utterly unrelated to the actual playing of the game (such as talking about House, the TV show) Thanatos/Shotgun Kitten is up first:

(Shotgun Kitten):
Vote:Lord Nikon

Sorry. Started a new job. Work 40 some odd hours a week. By the time I get home Dad's on the computer...so I can post once or twice in the mornings, and that's about it. So sorry for the slowness guys.

(Thanatos):
Hello Everyone. This is my first game on Mafia scum, though I've played quite a few games on other places in the past. I'm glad I managed to get into such a small and fresh game so quickly. So, I suppose I should hop right into it with a page by page...Now then, let me see...
1. hmm. It's interesting that I see a weird relationship between Nudude and charter. It's true that moving her vote like that was awkward, but I wonder if he's looking too strongly for evidence. Then again, scum would, likely, want to lie low in the random voting phase, though I suppose the best ones try to take charge. Dark Lady's vote is pretty awkward as well...
2. Eh, kind of an uneventful resolution to the previous pages mini-drama. Deepthought shares my opinion, it seems, though his argument was a little off the mark.. I'm starting to both love and hate Nudude for his somewhat overly poetic language. It amuses me. It also makes me suspect him a little more and a little less, for the same reason. Mainly, it makes him hard to read. which means, A. I could easily misread him, and B. he could be using it as a cover.
"Is it coincidence that your comment comes after I propose we start having a look at lurkers?" Oh, I missed that one. FOS Deepthought
Gorgon, it should be obvious that scum, more than townies at least, would not want a vote, giving them a free night. It's true that they want votes on townies, but that's mostly a distraction to by time with as well as speed up something that is mostly carried out by the Mafia. Charter's story bugged me..can we get a link to that game to confirm it?
*sigh* long page, that was. I'll continue in the next post.

Page 3: Funny and Random arn't mutually exclusive. Nudude backed down, but that's a really odd string to pull. H'emH's comment about Nik's responce to D_L_S's vote (*pause for breath*) was really over the top, I think, since it should have been an obvious joke. Deepthought's vote on well, me, is annoying since it looks to me like he's trying to push a bandwagon on a lurker. Remember, she herself said she couldn't come often, so the lurking itself isn't suspicious. It's the reaction to the lurking. Of course, I know what her role is, so I guess that helps. *shrug*
Oh wait, SK didn't have any votes at the time. I thought she did. Nevermind. Still, my point on what's going on here is valid, I think. H'emH's vote, however, seems to be exactly what I thought Deepthoughts vote was. FOS
Oh, but I thought it was 5 to kill, not seven. That lessens it quite a bit.
Page 4: I am liking DLS's response to her accusation. If she is Mafia, she's not new. Most would panic at least a little.
Well, since it looked like SK never responded, I guess I should try and explain her actions, but I really can't. She most likely did a random vote and then had to leave the game. Hopefully, my own activeness will dissolve your suspicions of her, since she obviously didn't have the time for this game regardless of her role.
Liamcool's post was downright stupid. and Scummy. I mean, why waste your lynch on people just because your annoying. Mini's don't usually get more than 3 votes. Deepthought ignores this fact, which I thought was obvious...
Page 5:Nudude has pushed me further onto Deepthought.
Disciple going along with this plan, without adding to it, makes him look scummy, I think.
All I can say about this page is that it strengthen my feelings about Deepthought. I'll vote for him if he's not in danger of a lynch.
Page 6: And he's Not. I'll put him at L-3, though I would recommend against bringing it any higher than that for now. Vote:DeepThought for recommending Modkill, not speaking against Liam's plan to kill off all the lurkers, and obviously irritated reasponce.
Oh, and I also like Infinitive's explanation.

Oh, I should sum up my Opinions, Shouldn't I?
Dark_Lady_Shaiann: Seems innocent enough, so long as she doesn't slink back into the corner now that the heat is down. Neither Obvious townie nor FOS'd.
deepthought: I voted for him. Nuff said.
Hang 'em High: Is drawing my other FoS, but I'm not as suspicious as he once was to me. Still, I need to keep my eye on him.
Disciple Slayer: No clear reads, though his last post is disconcerting.
Liamcool: He fits the bill of a Scum Lurker pretty perfectly. He's here, but not often, and his posts don't accomplish much. And trying to get people to kill the Lurkers is odd, to say the least. If the DT bandwagon dies, I'll look at him next.
Lord Nikon: MIA.
Infinitive: I'm getting a good vibe from him.
Nudude: Same for him, but...it's almost too good. It's hard to describe the feeling I get from him, it's almost like...I think he's acting like I would if I was scum. Too in control. Still, he's under the protown list for now.
VampyreLord: Not sure yet.
Gorgon: Leaning to pro-town, but not certain by a long shot.
charter: I still want a link to the game you mentioned early on. If it checks out, I'll probably consider you Pro-Town
So there you go. Now then, introductions are over. Let the dance begin!

Not at all, actually. I've seen it happen quite a bit, after someone screws up, everyone turns on him. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
Though your right, we can't vote for you just because we disagree, and your right that 3 is the standard. However, more than just disagreeing with your views on modkills, I find it downright Scummy. Theres more to the vote than that, but don't say I'm voting for you because of a simple difference of opinion.

Well, DT, let me ask you a question. What benefit does the town get from a random Modkill. Worse, what do they get by doing all but wasting a lynch as Liam suggested (and you seemed to help incite after he suggested it). We know how it helps Scum. How does it help US?
I don't think there is a reasonable reason (<_<) for you to do that. That is why I voted for you.

I saw this, and didn't ignore it. I just didn't really care.
Isn't it kind of unfair of you the claim that you should be let off the hook on the excuse that you learned to play differently? I suppose it explains your actions, which is why I wouldn't want you voted off right now anyways, but it still doesn't completely clear you...Most than anything, you've still failed to respond to my question. What does it do for the Town?

Fine then. It's a difference of opinion. My opinion is that someone you says that is acting in a way that helps the scum.
just so I understand completely, how does it play off of peoples unwillingness to kill off lurkers?

DT: hmm..alright then. Nothing i can really say one way or another at the moment.
Infinitive: Actually, I was just thinking that I wanted to hear Nudude's opinion on this.

I disagree. On the chance that DT is actually giulty, I'm willing to bet that new imput from other people will make or break the bandwagon...Besides, I don't see any other strong leads at the moment, to be honest. Except for Liam, but even that I don't consider strong at the moment.

LN's vote on the first page? I thought it was obviously a joke vote. No more, no less.
As for the other thing, you're right, it's not really pertinent to the discussion. That said, I take back what I said to this particular situation, as he wasn't arguing for no vote, he was just not voting himself. Not really scumy. Actually, it's a stupid scum move, but thats just WIFOM...
I disagree on moving on from DT on the basis that we've hit a dead end.
Charter: Thanks. Seems to look good enough.
Oh, and on a side note, I hate to ask this, but are you male or female? I ask because your name reminds me of Carter, a girl, so I apply that gender to you, and It's kinda baseless, but confusing for me.
And frankly, DT has been quite irritable lately. Of course, when prodded, I find it difficult to remain completely cool, so this doesn't really mean anything. DS, don't vote him because of an attitude. Vote him for completely different reasons.

*sigh* I don't want a lynch like that, DS. What have I been saying? Lets not lynch a guy for his attitude, lets lynch him for being scummy. That said, the evidence does seem to be beginning to pile...

unvote Cool it, kiddos. I don't want a lynch on the first day. I want more time to think. If nothing else, get a roleclaim out of him before you kill. (and frankly, I think it's too soon for that as well)
It's not that Deepthought hasn't done alot to make me suspicious, but this is moving way too fast.

Interesting claim..it makes me happy I unvoted. Not because I believe you, but it's sure to spice things up enough to get a clear answer.
Awsome. I wasn't the only one. He just claimed Doc.

Don't assume he's telling the truth.
Vote:Deepthought
L-2 is good for now. (yes, I will add and remove my vote as needed to keep it around there)
All I can say is that Doc is one of the best claims a scum can make. I want to see what happens for now.

Oh, sure it is. Millers arn't usually told they are such, and I've never even heard of a bulletproof, but a Doc...well, thems a standby of mafia, arn't they?
Good false claims would be vig, cop, and doc, and maybe some others if I've forgotten. Of those three, Doc is the best. Vig will stop and make people think, but come night, there either is no vig, or you're shot dead. Cop is perfect, unless you're counterclaimed and then its a quick night and the real cop gets a medic...
But claiming Doc...people want to believe it, because a Doctor is thier protection. Even though this is a team game, nobody wants to die. It ends their fun. The fear of losing a doc, maybe even more than a cop, is enough to freeze all but the most hardy of bandwagons. But the best part, even if your counterclaimed, the scum have an easy kill the following night. It's a win/win.

How can you detect lies if you don't ask him questions?
Besides, I hope I havn't given the impression that I do not think he is the Doc. I'm saying I'm not ready to take his word for it. It is quite possible for him to be lying.

He's at L-2, first of all.
I wanted to know what his claim is. That does not excuse or condemn him in any way. I didn't even ask him for a role claim, as you should recall.
Either way, he gave it, and I explained to him why it does not clear him. What did I do that was wrong there?

alright. I'm calling it quits for the night (and I want to get other peoples input anyways) but just so we're all clear on what I've been saying for the past page..
1. He claimed before I even mentioned him claiming.
2. When I mentioned it, I was not calling for him to do so, but for the people who had him at L-1 to get a claim out of him first, and I didn't think it was a great plan anyways.
3. When he claimed, I never claimed he was a lier.
4. My responce to D_L_S's unvote was that she shouldn't just believe him because he says so. I also claim that Doc is a good Scum claim. DT disagees.
5. I give my reasons, namely the inability of a doc to safely counterclaim and the psychological security a Doc brings.
This is what I have said tonight. I hope that I have not been misunderstood, and that people do not put words into my mouth.

Okay, here's my impressions. SK was basically a submarine; she surfaced twice then disappeared forever. Then Thanatos burst onto the board and quickly took over the DT bandwagon from Hang 'em High. He originally published the primary justification that most of the bandwagon gave for disbelieving DT's Doc claim. Later, he goes and proposes plans for a day 2 lynch of DT if everyone decided to pass on him for day 1. He also called for a plan on the town cop. (Later bits of this were after the quoted posts.)

I find this rather interesting; Thanatos has clearly been a leader, and the choices he's called for have all turned out to be to the detriment of the town. The cop plan, in particular, would have been an excellent orchestration to roleblock the town cop for a night as the scum nightkilled DT, which would have very likely happened.

As an impression, Thanatos could be acting in a classic false-leader role (and one that won my other game): by pretending to lead the town's scumhunt, he can carefully direct the efforts of most of the town to be at best marginally successful, and confuse any lynches/vigs/cops/SKs into acting against the town's best interest.

Thanatos could have been acting in earnest throughout all this. However, I'm seeing too many coincidences in this chain of events ATM.

FOS: Thanatos

[Infinitive]

Vote Count

Thanatos (1) - Gorgon

Not Voting (8) - Dark_Lady_Shaiann, Thanatos, Disciple Slayer, liamcool, Infinitive, Nudude, VampyreLord, charter

With 9 alive, it takes 5 to lynch.

Second up is Disciple Slayer:

vote = Lord Nikon

charter, better post an explanation fast.
FOS: charter
I don't know what to think of Lord Nikon/Dark Lady Shaiann yet.

Speaking of inactivity, I'm going to be away for three days.
unvote VampyreLord

FOS ShotgunKitten for voting Lord Nikon for no reason and for not talking much.

Ho-hum. Need more information here.

Gave Charter an FOS because I didn't like how he voted me. OMGUS voted VampyreLord. I really can't say which of the two seem more suspicious at the moment. I was waiting for Shotgun_Kitten and Lord Nikon to post before posting more.

Go stuff yourself. I'm not still clinging to that. I was asked why I gave you a FOS and I explained. Give me a break.

If not, SK's dead weight at best and I don't mind lynching her.
/quote]
Why is dead weight better than a possible townie/pro-town powah role?

I really don't like deepthought's attitude. That alone pisses me off. I tend to agree with HeH when he talks about how deepthought wanted to modkill lurkers and how he said he knew that there were three mafia in the game.
deepthought, why don't you come up with some good rebuttals instead of being an asshat about it? I'm giving you another chance. For now,
FOS deepthought

Vote: deepthought
Go to hell. I've had it with you.

@deepthought: Nice attempt to label valid arguments and suspicions as a bandwagon. Just so you know, I always vote assholes first.

It means that in addition to his suspicious activities, he is also an asshole. Therefore he gets my vote.
Did I forget? No. Did the others post them already? Yes. Nice try at skirting the issue.

Actually, I think that is a good idea.
DT, what role are you, exactly? I want you to roleclaim. I think others do too.
unvote
How in the world did we get such a belligerent doc? Hahah, unvote for now.
You want more clarification? Let me give you an example.
Person A and Person B are both suspicious. Person A is an asshole. Person B is not. Guess who gets my vote.
Just because I ask for a claim doesn't mean I'm going to believe it right away.
Take another example, because you seem stupid tonight.
Person A claims he can walk on water. Should I believe him without seeing any proof?
I can provide pictorial evidence showing that I am, indeed, the Lord Jesus Christ and savior of mankind and it wouldn't do shit in this game. Once again, stop trying to skirt the issues at hand. Deal with it directly and don't try distractions. I still don't want to put you at L-1, but I want some good answers soon and you're not providing them.

FLAMEWAR EDITED OUT

As should be evident, there's very little here, compared to Thanatos' postings, despite a 3 1/2 page head start. DS seems to move around a lot, and never gives more than a little justification for any of his FOS's or Votes. From the very beginning, he seems very argumentative, almost as if he's looking to pick a fight, and when DLS finally engages him, he escalated it very quickly (though she's to blame as well for the flamewar). He repeatedly demands that we ignore distractions, while issuing a few himself.

I find this to be suspicious; it could be a scum ploy engineered to get people annoyed with him, but to also give the impression that he's being too highly reactive and thoughtless with his actions to deserve real scrutiny. Alternately, his votes, FOS's, and words speak for himself. There's very little content here for the actions he takes. I'm not sure if I think that DS is scum, but he hasn't seemed to do us much good.

[Infinitive]

And now, Liam:

Vote: Charter
Might as well get on a bandwagon, I suppose, considering we really don't have anything to go on yet.

Actually, in regards to your post, Nudude, it's made me kinda suspicious about Infinitive. Not wanting people to vote means the scum get an obvious advantage. Yes, I know, this probably doesn't make a ton of sense, but eh.

If people don't vote, the people who are voted against can't defend themselves (because they're not voted for, obviously), and then the town doesn't have as much information as they might possibly have.

Question (which may show my ignorance): How many Mafia are there? Do we know?

Couldn't we just vote the people who aren't posting at all out or something, if it's bugging you all that much?

@laimcool. You haven't really done any scumhunting and I'd like your opinion. Who do you find most suspicious? Why?
Based off the last page or so (the new conversation), I have a fairly strong suspicion (about 60%) or so that deepthought is scum. He seems to want Shotgun Kitten to be killed rather than replaced, which is kinda suspicious. Also, he apparently knows that there are three mafia. He stated that with a lot of convinction and knowledge. For all we know, this might be a non-standard game with 2 or 4 mafia, or even a bastard mod game with screwed up roles. Highly unlikely for the second instance though.
Not neccesarily. Speculating might bring up more conversation which brings up more leads which helps uncover scum, which i highly suspect you to be right now.
I know, I don't have many leads right now but I'm trying the best that I can.
Unvote: Charter
FOS: Deepthought

Okay, it seems blaringly obvious due to his nature and all the evidence piling up. I'm probably going to regret this, but I'm going to join on the bandwagon..
Vote: deepthought

Right. You all know that I am and have been suspicious of Liamcool. FWIW, DT was as well. I find it very interesting that Liam attached himself to every nascent bandwagon that the town formed, and hedged each one of his votes with a caveat. When the DT bandwagon began to pick up, he spoke fairly strongly against DT, but never gave any original reasons of his own, and never really pushed anyone what wasn't already being prodded by others. Later on, he was highly reactive, and FOSd at least one or two people for prodding and voting him.

Simply put, Liam reeks of sloppy scum to me. He was on the DT bandwagon, though he didn't lead it. He never contributed anything new to the conversation. He hasn't really offered any defense of his statements or actions since coming under scrutiny.

FOS: Liamcool:

[Infinitive]

Aaaaand, Charter:

vote deepthought
never fails! (With a d12 random roll)

Where did I say I don't really care who we lynch? I most certainly do care, I want to lynch scum. However, in case you haven't noticed, none of the people I've voted for were in any danger whatsoever of being lynched.
I don't really find Infinitive not voting to be that suspicious. It doesn't look like he's anti lynch, just anti random voting.

Yeah, I put someone at L-1 because I wasn't thinking and I was the prime suspect for scum for the rest of the game. (when I was in fact the cop)
I agree with you Nudude, that we need people to post regardless of if they have something to post about, else we won't ever find scum. However, I don't think you have to vote if there isn't someone you wish to vote for, but you should be looking for someone to vote for.

Where am I "sticking up for" let alone even talking about/with Dark lady shaiann? I don't see where Infinitive does this either. Care to explain your statement?

There's nothing saying quiet people are good townies. Quiet people can also make good scum, and vocal people can make good townies.

I really think you guys are making too big of deal over this. I think it's enough to say the vote was random because she didn't have any information to base it off of. If there's a reason, totally unrelated to the game, I think that's just as random as rolling a dice.

That's a good way of putting it. I'm trying to learn from my past mistakes. I'm not quite sure I want to vote for vampyrelord, but if his explanation isn't good I might be inclined to.

Perhaps I can help prod SK into contributing.
unvote disciple slayer
vote shotgun kitten

I'm merely voting for SK to try and get him/her to talk. When they post something (assuming it doesn't give me a reason to keep my vote on them) I'll most likely take it off.
I agree, a bandwagon when we have nothing to go on is a terrible idea.

It's quite difficult. We have SK and lord nikon who haven't posted in entirely too long.
I don't get this. You need more information about what? About who you think is scum. This sentence confuses me a lot and is unacceptable as your only post in a long time.
I don't really see how my voting on you because it took you three posts to put up a random vote (a joking vote on you in case it wasn't obvious) makes me suspicious. Also, this all happened in the first couple of posts. I don't like how you're still clinging to that. It seems like a very weak argument to say the least.

I don't like how you vote for liamcool and then immediately make a new post after unvoting him and then voting deepthought. Personally, I would have kept my vote on liamcool and just stated the reasons why you suspect deepthought. I think its very suspicious that you are switching your vote around like this this far into day one.
I don't think deepthought is scum. I think he has some seriously flawed views of what's good for the town, but he isn't really arguing them and trying to convince us that he's right, which I would expect scum to do. Also, I think it would be too obvious if he's scum and he's saying we want a mod kill. He would have to know that all fingers are going to point to him afterward, and I don't think he'd draw attention to himself like that if he was scum.
liamcool on the other hand, I am getting a scum feeling towards. I have to go now, so I'll finish my thoughts on him when I get a chance (few hours from now hopefully).
With deepthoughts last post, my view towards him has changed, so most of my last post isn't necessarily true anymore.

He seems fairly adament that we get rid of her by any means necessary. I think this is dumb because we have virtually no information on her, and I don't see how you can come to the conclusion that she's scum based on almost nothing. It certainly isn't enough for me to lynch someone on. All I can go by is probabilities, and there's a greater chance, she is in fact, a townie.
liamcool is here and participating, but not helping the town out any. The only explanation I can come up with for this is that he is scum. I think he's purposely not joining the discussion very much, because he hasn't said he's been busy in real life.
HEH, makes sense.
I agree with gorgon. If you weren't scum, you would have said something like there's probably a 75% chance she's town. You however, said definitively there's a 75% chance she's town. No one in the town, other than mafia, would know this.
Regardless of what the percent chance she's town is, I still can't imagine a townie would want her flat out killed, when you can continue to play the game (to a certain extent) without her. So what if she's mafia? There's probably two more other ones out there that we can find and lynch instead.
Since SK is getting replaced,
unvote shotgun kitten
You pretty much reiterated what everyone else has already deduced. Still haven't been actively looking for scum, just latching onto other people's suspicions.
http://www.mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5939
I just completely didn't think anyone could be close to a lynch when I made my vote because I made like the forth vote overall. A mistake I'm not going to make again (why I ask for vote counts and 'did I add these right?' before I vote) because we spent a while arguing over it when I was the cop and didn't need any extra attention.
How were you so positive SK was scum that you wanted her to be modkilled? She had like two posts and neither said anything. I had no inkling as to whether she was town or scum. Wouldn't you rather try and find and lynch another scum who you can be more sure about?
@mod, I'm currently not voting for anyone thought I'm leaning heavily towards liamcool because I don't believe he's helped the town out at all.
Nudude wrote:
Ok, my thoughts.

deepthought, I believe everyone is aware lynching a townie D1 is not the end of the world, however we want to do everything in our power to make sure we nail scum if we can.

You've made it quite clear that it's not really a big deal to you if we lynch scum or town on the first day. Now to be fair, if a lynch turns up townie that does give us more insight into who is scum. We can better analyse the lynched townie thoughts and know for 100% that it was a townie's thoughts, and who pushed for the lynch ie. who seemd to know they were lynching a townie? So yes, I'm willing to concede it isn't game breaking.

Completely agree with this. This, to me, means "I'm mafia. I'm going to roleclaim to try and save myself. The fact that he was thinking of impersonating the cop is ridiculous to me. There's no possible way lynching you is the wrong course of action. In all likelyhood, you're scum, because you're doing a great job of acting like it. If you are a townie. I highly doubt you're the doctor, and you're lying to the rest of us, and you'll make the town self destruct.
I wasn't really thinking you were scum until you posted that. I don't really believe the claim, and I certainly don't think you're a townie.
vote deepthought

Okay, this is kind of interesting. Like Thanatos, he's on the DT bandwagon, and he buys Than's ati-docclaim argument. However, he contributes to the scumhunt in addition to being a follower, and later confronts Thanatos on his cop-investigation plan. He pushed DT for info, then considers it, probably more than most of the rest of us did and, though I wince to say this, certainly more than I did. He's skeptical of the initial bandwagon-forming on DT, and it's only DT's own admission of a considered fake copclaim that puts him on.

Simply put, Charter hasn't even blipped on my scumdar this whole game; hence the fact that he keeps escaping my notice. He seems to be the right mix of asking questions and following others' lead that I would think is indicative of a vanilla townie. Maybe this reflects poorly on me, but I just don't see any real reason to suspect Charter right now.

[Infinitive]

DLS, if you have suspicions, voice them. If nothing else, closer examination of anyone can't be bad for the town. Given the history between you two, I'd go out of my way to be polite about it tho.

I, for one, will look at any evidence or theories that anyone posts about anyone. We're in a bit of a spot at the moment, and more discussion is a good thing.

[Infinitive]

Please, DLS, post what you think. The game is stalling a little bit right now, and if your thoughts are not damning on their own, we'll question DS and see how he responds. So long as you don't pick a fight, I don't think he will this time, since Numenorean has stated that another fight between you two would be a Bad Thing.

I mean, I went and posted pretty comprehensive stuff on four different people, and it's garnered like 2 paragraphs of discussion. If that's not gonna spark something, let's see someone else go for it.

[Infinitive]

Okay, Thanatos, I think it's pretty clear right now that the most troubling factor against you is your suggestion for the use of the cop on night 1. Even on day 1, a chorus of us were arguing against it because it was simply bad tactics, and I think we can say now that it would have been quite bad for the town had the cop agreed to it; DT would have almost certainly been nightkilled and the investigation wasted. Further, if you ARE scum, it would have been a very good way to stall the cop out for a night, and prevent him/her from investigating any scum.

In short, you proposed a plan whose only beneficiary, as far as I can see, would be the scum.

I would greatly appreciate an extended conversation about the thought process that lead up to the formulation of that plan, and why you stuck with it even after several people, myself included, told you why it was a bad idea to plan out the cop's investigation in public.

I'm not saying i think you're scum yet, Than, but you've proposed and spearheaded several things that would have/have benefited the scum.

[Infinitive]

Sorry for double posting.

Liam and DS, would you mind responding to the thoughts I posted about you guys in my PBPA above? I was somewhat condemnatory therein, and I'd like to see what you have to say in rebuttal.

[Infinitive]

I'm not trying to make you into a false messiah Than, but exchange places with me- if you saw me lead a charge like you did that turned out so bad, wouldn't you want a healthy discussion on the matter?

Speaking of which, would someone else please post regarding SOMETHING? I feel all on my lonesome out here.

[Infinitive]

Beg pardon, Charter, i just want a little clarification, because I'm not sure if I need to explain myself or not.

Around 430 when infinitive votes for liamcool, I think he liamcool thought that DT wasnt actually going to end up lynched, and he switched right over to liamcool when he even admitted to not finiding liamcool very suspicious. He just wanted to be on the next bandwagon early enough so as to avoid suspicion.

Are you saying that I switched over to the next bandwagon or Liamcool did? Meh, regardless, I might as well explain myself, even though I'm pretty my vote post did that pretty well.

I voted for Liam because, as the day progressed, my suspicion of DT was gradually and progressively reduced. Part of my suspicion was based on DT's kind of not-defending-himself, but rather doing other things (like scumhunting which, in retrospect, was the right thing to do). Part of it was based on his belligerance, which I'm now pretty sure was based on him being DT. And most of it was based on the scumhunting he did; as I went back and re-read peoples' posts, his stuff made sense to me. I still thought he was likely scum, but by the time we were winding to the end of day 1, I felt he was not the scummiest person in the game, so I didn't vote for him. As my vote post said, I was pretty sure DT was scum, but I was dead sure that Liam was. As has been shown to be the case, I was wrong in regards to DT, and I'm glad I didn't vote for him (except on the day where I got eaten by a crocodile, but I revoked that as soon as I calmed down).

I'm going to come right out and say it here: I jumped on the DT bandwagon too early and didn't start to listen to his explanations until far too late. Along with Thanatos, I pushed pretty hard on that whole mess for a good long while. This is the first time I've made it to day two, and I'm trying to be rather more careful now before I jump any bandwagons; this is why I'm questioning people about their scumminess before I start pushing Liam again- I'd like to hear about other people before what will likely be the day 2 bandwagon forms (because I'm still certain that Liam is scum, but that only gives us one out of however many scum are out there).

I'm trying to push Thanatos here because he is and has acted as a leader for the town, and the potential fallout if he's scum could be catastrophic. As such, I wanna try to either condemn or clear him before we move on, for reasons I have listed above.

Is that clear enough?

[Infinitive]

Okay, sorry for the absence, but my family's Thanksgiving kinda assploded all over me. There's something else going on, but I don't feel comfortable discussing it on a public message board. Sorry.

Anyway, the corollary to that is that I came home and got to read the last page and a half in one fell swoop. If anybody else out there feels like it, give it a swing, because a couple of things stick out to me.

First is that, as DS has noted, Than and DLS are acting a bit odd, compared to how they normally have behaved. Whether that is a result of either being hammered on repeatedly by DS or because they're scumbuddies is up to anyone's interpretation, but it's certainly worth noting.

However, the really interesting thing to me here is the progression of Disciple Slayer's rhetoric over the past little bit. For someone who has made a reputation for himself of posting short, inflammatory posts, DS has suddenly busted out with a few very verbose, aggressive quote-and-analysis posts and several accusations. I'm quite happy that he's working with quotations now and giving a more in-depth view of his thought process, but I just can't yet agree with the accusations he's levying or with the assumptions he's making.

One thing that really sticks out to me is that he claims that a Thanatos lynch is imminent when there's only 2 votes on the man. I don;t know why he said something like this, because it is on its face untrue as of now; I don't feel anywhere near comfortable enough in any spread of information to vote as of now, even on Liam, who I have talked about previously. Pushing for a quick lynch after a bad day 1 seems very odd to me, and DS seems to be trying to form up a bandwagon right now. Makes me wonder why.

Another interesting connection that DS has made is a possible connection between DLS and Thanatos, and his reasoning behind that also seems rather odd to me. As I recall, DLS was the only person not voting for anyone on day 1, and most of her activity in the thread was directed at DS. OTOH, Thanatos was an active part of the DT lynch, and had very little to do with DS. Neither DLS or Than had much to do with each other. Yet DS connects the two, and when they deny being scumbuddies (Big surprise, whether they are or not), DS takes that as immediate confirmation of his theory. Allow me to quote from Liam at the top of the page:

Disciple Slayer wrote:
I just gave a PBPA and you FOS me for quoting the words of a dead townie? I think your reasoning is flawed. Here's a vote to pressure you into more information.

Vote: Thanatos

Now watch as DLS rushes to defend him in her next post.

I'm actually pretty suprised nobody picked up on this, while it's true we need more information, this seems a little drastic.

I may not be Liam's biggest fan, but he's dead right here. DS seems to have baited DLS into speaking up in relation to his vote on Thanatos, and used that to claim the two are scumbuddies. Personally, this is a leap of logic I couldn't have made with a pole vault. Is it possible, and should we have a look into it? Sure, we should be looking into every plausible theory that gets posted. Is this proof? No. Normally, I'd be a little more conditional, but as they would say in Law and Order, DS has simply not made his prima facia case yet.

Further, a good portion of DS's case against the two is based on what he terms their overreaction to his accusations. In fairness, I think that it should be noted here that DS is at this point reacting very radically to anything either Thanatos or DLS posts, regardless of what it is. Frankly, all that this hyper-aggressive investigation of DLS and Thanatos that DS has drummed up has served only to make me more suspicious of him.

In fairness, DLS lying

and admitting to it

is quite concerning to me, and I'm really not sure what to do with this information. In context, she has been somewhat shifty in her positions the entire game, saying one thing and then sometimes posting a revision to her previous words, or a corollary. As far as I'm concerned, the jury is still out on whether she's scummy or just passive-aggressive, but I want to hear more from her either way.

In regards to Thanatos, I'm frankly buying his defense from DS's accusations right now (much moreso than the accusations themselves, as should be evident by this point). His counteranalyses of DS's PBPAs seem to jive for me, and he does point out at least one suspicious omission in DS's quotations, an omission that runs totally counter to what DS is saying. I'm not sold on Thanatos either way yet, and I'd like to hear more from him (god, I say that so much...), but right now I can't find much to pry at, at least not recent stuff.

Anyway, in summary,

FOS: Disciple Slayer

for a long, incongruous series of suspicious analyses of other peoples' thoughts, omitting quotations directly relevant to a PBPA, and seeming to bait out a supposed connection between two people that is on its face suspect at best.

[Infinitive]

On a seperate note,

I don't make this kind of post very often, but Disciple Slayer, I don't find your signature funny, clever or anything than could be associated with any positive words.

Bear in mind, when you were given a choice between multiple people to vote, you choose the person who you found to be the most unpleasant.

Hear hear. That kind of stuff is just rude, and can get people (like me) in trouble for having played on breaks at work. If someone goes and sees that while I'm playing and feels uncomfortable, it's sexual harassment.

I'd appreciate it if you changed your sig, DS. Thanks.

Now, Nudude, you've been kind of hard on several people over the course of several posts recently, and you said in your last post that you'd post the reasons when you got around to them. In fairness, I think that they deserve to see the reasons behind your accusations when you're saying the stuff you're saying around them. In addition, the game has slowed a bit, so levying a couple more suspicions might get things to pick up a bit.

C'mon, people, post!

[Infinitive]

Nudude, I'd like to ask you a question, but before I do so, allow me to offer a touch of commentary.

I find your questioning to be interesting. You've been pushing DLS quite hard over the past couple of pages, provoking some responses that are interesting to me. I haven't bought her defense yet, but, on the other hand, I feel that you're pushing against a person rather than a set of actions. To clarify, it seems to me as if you're putting the screws to DLS more intensely than, in my opinion, her actions would justify. You have noted this, and said that this is simply a playstyle of yours. This leads me to an observation.

Where was this hardcore interrogation on day 1? I don't mean to say that you're scum, but I certainly did not notice this sort of really heavy accuse-and-answer from you before day 2. It seems just a bit odd that you're throwing around your weight so suddenly.

Now, onto my question, and it's a fairly simple one. I have for some time been an advocate of examining Liamcool, and still contend that he is almost certainly scum. However, he has in a very real way ducked under the table on day 2, and as such have given us little to work with, or to provoke discussion. My question is this: Why do you find DLS or Thanatos (as you were questioning both) to be more suspicious than Liamcool? Liam was DT's prime suspect, and HEH also commented a couple of times on the troubling behavior he exhibited. I can't speak for Insurgent, as he wasn't here for long, but it seems to me that the scummiest person to survive day 1 was unquestionably Liamcool (as our suspicion of Thanatos mostly stems from the sour lynch), and I'm honestly surprised that more people aren't interested in investigating him.

[Infinitive]

I have to apologize for what I said earlier regarding DLS and her lying. I didn't read her post after she said she lied at the beginning, and I should have.

DLS, please accept my apologies. I was, it seemed, impervious to dry humor that day.

[Infinitive]

I'm sorry, DLS, but that just hasn't been the case. Each time you've been pursued, you've posted substantially in your own defense, and your desire to not back down helped create the flame war.

Charter is dead on in his analysis of your behavior. You haven't really contributed to much of anything besides your own defense this game. I can see why that would make Nudude suspicious, in large part because I agree with his reasoning (though not as of yet the extent to which he's carried it). Simply put, you've given me no reason to believe that you're town, DLS. I understand that the mathematical odds are that you ARE town, but that's irrelevant to me right now.

As an observation, however, I'm willing to bet that at least one of these two (Nudude and DLS) are scum. Both have been niggling at the back of my mind this whole game, and it's only getting worse as time goes by. DLS's active defense system and nearly nonexistent offense are, while useful for a Stryker APV, not useful for a townie. Nudude, on the other hand, has really raise my suspicions a lot recently with his hyperbolic Q-and-A's; paired with a few leaps of logic early in his questioning (notably the assumption that defense = scumminess and the assumed connection between Than and DLS) make me wonder what the heck he's actually doing right now. In some respects, I'm kind of wondering if he's pursuing DLS to lure an easy vote from DS.

However, I think we have bigger fish to fry here. DLS has been largely a nonfactor this entire game. Nudude has spent two full pages questioning his two prime suspects, and it has really gone nowhere, in large part because nobody but him seems to buy any of it. The case against Liam has been discussed thoroughly, and I think it's time for him to post and defend himself (and I promise, I won't count the fact that you defend yourself against you now that you've been called to, Liam). Further, Thanatos was at the head of the bad lynch on day one, and while he managed to slip out of Nudude's interrogation, I'm still not sold on his innocence. Allow me to put it this way: Thanatos is a demonstrated leader for the town, and is pretty good at explaining himself. If he is in fact scum, it could be a catastrophic blow to the town to let him survive much longer, as he is, if scum, very good at making townies look scummy. IMHO, for that reason alone, Thanatos deserves closer scrutiny.

[Infinitive]

(please note, this post is likely to be a huge mess)

Now, infinitive, if you want to question me, ask away. Just don't lynch me because I'm a good townie who guessed wrong. The same goes true for everyone, except for DS, who I would just like to leave me alone, because, with finals, I don't have the time for

him

That said, we need more pressure on Liamcool, who I feel is the shot for today, who has gone missing despite calls for action. Therefore,

Unvote, Vote:Liamcool

h
We don't know you're a townie. You do seem suspicious, even if your intentions are good and true. (yes, that sounds cliched.)

Your vote seems a bit spur of the moment, so I won't comment on it for now, but I might come back in a later post.

Ooops, hadn't read page 25 when I made that last post, after reading it I do think nudude could be scum as well.

This is a pretty idiotic and spur of the moment thing too, but I'll let it go as maybe you were rushing to make a post or something.

As an observation, however, I'm willing to bet that at least one of these two (Nudude and DLS) are scum. Both have been niggling at the back of my mind this whole game, and it's only getting worse as time goes by. DLS's active defense system and nearly nonexistent offense are, while useful for a Stryker APV, not useful for a townie. Nudude, on the other hand, has really raise my suspicions a lot recently with his hyperbolic Q-and-A's; paired with a few leaps of logic early in his questioning (notably the assumption that defense = scumminess and the assumed connection between Than and DLS) make me wonder what the heck he's actually doing right now. In some respects, I'm kind of wondering if he's pursuing DLS to lure an easy vote from DS.

However, I think we have bigger fish to fry here. DLS has been largely a nonfactor this entire game. Nudude has spent two full pages questioning his two prime suspects, and it has really gone nowhere, in large part because nobody but him seems to buy any of it. The case against Liam has been discussed thoroughly, and I think it's time for him to post and defend himself (and I promise, I won't count the fact that you defend yourself against you now that you've been called to, Liam). Further, Thanatos was at the head of the bad lynch on day one, and while he managed to slip out of Nudude's interrogation, I'm still not sold on his innocence. Allow me to put it this way: Thanatos is a demonstrated leader for the town, and is pretty good at explaining himself. If he is in fact scum, it could be a catastrophic blow to the town to let im survive much longer, as he is, if scum, very good at making townies look scummy. IMHO, for that reason alone, Thanatos deserves closer scrutiny.

I think we should lean more towards people like Gorgon and charter (in terms of questioning and investigating, anyway). In this day, all they've done is accuse me of being scum, with a lot of emphasis on me and very little on anybody else (compartively). Also, charter has flown under nearly everyone's scumdar, which Infinitive commented on twice, early in the day on posts 495 and 502. Gorgon, though, I'm less suspicious of, because although he did seem to be very focused on killing me earlier, he has gone on to discuss other people. Charter, on the other hand, just continuously, needlessly, suspects me. In 544, he fabricates facts based on some misunderstanding he made with not reading Infinitive's posts on day 1.

Beg pardon, Charter, i just want a little clarification, because I'm not sure if I need to explain myself or not.

Around 430 when infinitive votes for liamcool, I think he liamcool thought that DT wasnt actually going to end up lynched, and he switched right over to liamcool when he even admitted to not finiding liamcool very suspicious. He just wanted to be on the next bandwagon early enough so as to avoid suspicion.

Are you saying that I switched over to the next bandwagon or Liamcool did? Meh, regardless, I might as well explain myself, even though I'm pretty my vote post did that pretty well.

Hmmm, now that I go back and reread around 430, I can't find where infinitive voted for liamcool at all. I was basing it off of DTs post 431 and infinitives 429 where I guess I just infered it from infinitive's saying he's 90% sure DT is scum and I must of assumed this meant he would be voting for DT.

(more to come later as thoughts continue to come to my head. Is double posting under these circumstances accepted or not?)

Okay, normally I'd be one to let someone finish what they were saying, but I can't let this mess pass, not even for a minute. This whole post reels to high heaven to me, but nothing moreso than this:

I think we should lean more towards people like Gorgon and charter (in terms of questioning and investigating, anyway). In this day, all they've done is accuse me of being scum, with a lot of emphasis on me and very little on anybody else (compartively). Also, charter has flown under nearly everyone's scumdar, which Infinitive commented on twice, early in the day on posts 495 and 502. Gorgon, though, I'm less suspicious of, because although he did seem to be very focused on killing me earlier, he has gone on to discuss other people. Charter, on the other hand, just continuously, needlessly, suspects me. In 544, he fabricates facts based on some misunderstanding he made with not reading Infinitive's posts on day 1.

Problem 1: here, Liam is

again

misquoting what happened on day one and early day 2; Charter was earlier unable to find where I voted for Liam, and I came back (in a post Liam did not quote) assuring the game at large not only that I had, but that I thought Liam was still (and ought to be) suspect #1 right now. He made this same contention earlier on day 2, and I know we called him on it there. Making the same omission twice is exceptionally suspicious to me.

Problem 2: Liam is calling for suspicion on Charter and Gorgon, then

in the same breath

saying that any suspicion levied against him is needless. Whether this is scummy or not is up to you all, but I think it is, and is just plain stupid besides. Checking people out is a good idea, especially when they were fingered by not one, but two dead townies on day 1.

Problem 3: Liam is calling for an investigation on the wrong people. Gorgon has been a careful and active scumhunter for the entirety of the game. While I have yet to do a PBPA on him, nothing he's done thusfar has made me the least bit suspicious. Charter is even worse- I HAVE done a PBPA on him, and not only have I found nothing suspicious, he's been an excellent contributor to the scumhunt (certainly moreso than many of us). Maybe it's dumb for me to do so, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Charter is the only person besides myself that I'm certain is a townie.

Liam, frankly, I don't know of anyone in the game that thinks you're not scummy, and throwing counterclaims against those we have really no reason to suspect instead of trying to give us some reason, ANY reason, to believe that you're anything but scum is just silly.

I'm not going to vote for you yet, because the day is still young, but rest assured that it will be there when we're done checking other people out.

[Infinitive]

Why am I not voting for Liam yet? 2 reasons, really.

#1 is that, as DT noted, we probably have 3 scum to find. I'm certain that Liam is one. I'd like to find out who the other two are; if we can find someone we think is certainly scum today, I may vote for him/her, just because I'm so sure that Liam IS scum. He'll get lynched eventually, and I'm in no hurry if we find someone else to lynch first. He really isn't doing anything right now that confounds or confuses us, so I don't feel immediately threatened by his presence when we know that there are more scum (or maybe a SK) out there.

#2 is that if I throw my vote on someone, my questioning is less potent, as I've announced before, and intend to stick with, the philosophy of voting once each day and sticking with it. As long as I haven't dropped that, I can keep the threat open.

[Infinitive]

Wow... we're really screwed if VL is telling the truth. He's gonna get NK'd for sure now, with the doc dead.

Just to speak up, I'd like to voice the possibility that VL is lying... though this would be kind of a dumb move for a scum, all they have to do is protect their own for today- if we lynch a townie and both nightkills hit town (and presuming DT was right in his estimation of 3 scum), we're sitting at 3 town/3 scum, which means it's game.

Just wanted to note, there's the possibility that this is a power play to try and end the game by keeping two scum from the hangman's noose.

[Infinitive]

Hokay. Well, since the wailing and gnashing of teeth over what seems to be a very foolish copclaim are now over, I have to ask the pointed question.

What now?

If we presume that VL is telling the truth, who should we be looking at? If we assume he's lying, what should we do? I'm really not happy with either possibility, and I haven't been in a situation even remotely similar to this before. Anyone got any bright ideas?

[Infinitive]

I'm going to have to beg everyone's pardon here, but I'm just having a hard time believing VL. It may just be my inexperience talking here; if so, forgive my ignorance.

I pointed out earlier that, given 2 NKs a night, we may be looking at Lynch or Lose here today. Naturally, that's a really bad position for the town to be in, but it's a position we kind of have to accept. The important point is that, given that same information,

the scum know this as well.

Allow me to think out loud.

Let's pretend I'm playing scum and it's quite possibly lynch or lose for the town. One of my scumbuddies, whom I know to be the Godfather, has been acting scummy in the thread. Is it a necessarily bad strategy to falseclaim as a cop, "clearing" my scumbuddy? If he gets lynched, there's no problem; I'm the cop, right, and I investigated him as town. That's what should have happened. Alternately, if my strat works right, I send the town scurrying off looking for the ONE other scum in the game; in all likelihood, they'll mislynch, given the odds. After that, it's one night and LyoL.

I think that this could have been a very shrewd move by VL; he waits to see if the cop comes out and indicts someone. If not, he falseclaims and sets this whole mess up. Obviously, this wouldn't work if he'd been investigated thoroughly, because nobody would believe him if he roleclaimed as part of an interrogation.

Maybe this is just me doing conspiracy theories again, like with DT. Still, I just don't like this claim one bit. It's a little TOO dumb, if you ask me.

[Infinitive]

Fair enough- I just like to voice possibilities, and am not a terribly big fan of clearing two people because of one statement in a game whose fundamental foundation is lying like a rug. ^_~

[Infinitive]

This is actually not the case- Disciple Slayer and DLS have not yet responded.

[Infinitive]

Okay... more musings.

First, despite DS's wall of text, he still seems radical, reactionary, and hyper-aggressive in regards to DLS. I like his analysis to a degree, but I'm not sure if I like it given, specifically, his history with DLS. Neither one of them seems townish to me, but neither one of them seems scummy enough to vote for either. Further, I could easily see their constant bickering as a smokescreen to keep the town from coming after them in a serious way.

FOS: Disciple Slayer & Dark Lady Shiann

OTOH, I am officially really suspicious of Thanatos at this point. Despite peoples' repeated observation of the fact, his playstyle radically reversed itself when we made the move to day 2. Further, he's really only responded to direct prodding from other people today, his voting aside. Simply put, this flip makes absolutely no sense to me, and makes me wonder what the heck is going on. As I've noted before, Than needed grilling for his part in the day 1 lynch, and the result of that has been him taking really no role in the investigation today.

As such,

FOS: Thanatos

.

Also, if you wanna see something wild, go back and read the beginning of Thanatos' day 1 posts up until I made my PBPA, then read a page or two of his posts after. He was starting up back into leading before I posted, and afterward nada.

P.S.: DS, I apologized for jumping the gun on DLS' "lying". You noticed that, but did your best to make it mean the same thing as what I was apologizing FOR, even as you did your best to make a case against DLS. C'mon, man, that sorta thing is just silly.

[Infinitive]

I'm here. Nothing to say at the moment; I've been waiting for the PBPAs that a couple of you have promised before I act, because my previous instincts seem to have been rather poor.

And counterclaim or not, I'm still not happy with the VL copclaim. Sorry.

[Infinitive]

Like I said before, Charter, it just seems too dumb of a move to me. This is only my second game, and I'd like to think that even I'd have more sense than that. Oh well.

And VL, I really wish you'd waited till you found a scum.

[Infinitive]

What's going on with this game? It seems like anyone we question lately just up and disappears.

[Infinitive]

Ugh... I just blew a head gasket in my car. I might only be in intermittently for a while, especially on weekends. Sorry if it's inconvenient for you guys- this is already gonna cost me over $3000, and as such is somewhat more important to me than an internet forum game.

[Infinitive]

Well, I will speak up in the interests of fairness: there IS a potential gain to voting No Vote today; as I've pointed out before, a mislynch today could end the game outright (presuming both NKs hit town for whatever reason). I vote for caution overall; don't dismiss any option out of hand, please.

If nothing else, a no lynch today gives us tomorrow, guaranteed. OTOH, we're in a bad position for the rest of the game. All of that's in the FWIW category.

[Infinitive]

Sorry for my general absence. This car nonsense is no fun. You all try and sell a '95 chevy cavalier with a busted head gasket while at the same time trying to get a decent car for under $4 grand. It is NO picnic.

I had mentioned the possibility of a power play, as DLS has noted, but (and here's the thing) it's been several pages since then and no cop has counterclaimed. That means that even I, at this point, am pretty sure that VL is the cop he says he is. Which makes me sad. Because we're probably not going to have a cop tomorrow.

Anyway, I've done my best to keep up with things here, and here's my short list of suspects:

Disciple Slayer

: He's added nothing to the game aside from a flame war and wild, unsupported accusations. He's utterly unpredictable, and seems almost manic-depressive. Still, despite prodding, he's done nothing for the town.

Dark Lady Shaiann

: Like DS, she's added absolutely nothing to the game besides a flame war and a lot of self-defense. In 31 pages (and 2 months) of gameplay, there's no scumhunting from her. Simply put, I don't like people who don't help the town.

Thanatos

: I'm sorry, but I've just seen too many coincidences with his name attached to believe that he's an innocent townie. Everyone he's pushed for seems to have turned out town (though I'll admit that I was in there as well), and he's been a vociferous advocate of just plain bad plans for the town.

Nudude

: This is a late addition, but I feel fairly confident in it. Nudude's been giving me a funny vibe all game, and in the past few pages that's turned into a full-fledged ping on my scumdar. Previously, he popped up every now and again with some thoughts and observations, but kept a pretty low profile. Now, he's being more active, but that activity is very offense-oriented, and seems to be more oriented at pushing people into a corner than starting discussion about them. Discussion = good for town. Lynching just because someone can't adequately explain a single thing = bad for town (as we saw on day 1).

Of those four, the two that stand out to me are DLS and Thanatos, for the reasons I mentioned just above. DS and Nudude are concerning to me, but less so than the other two- DS is largely ignorable whenever he DOES post, because in 31 pages of gameplay, he's contributed basically nothing to the game, so I feel safe in his inability to confound the town. OTOH, if he's role-playing the Serial Killer role, I've gotta give him kudos for being in character so completely. Nudude DOES have the capability to confound the town, but he simply has not done as many suspicious things as DLS and Thanatos, and those he has done are less significant. Like I said, he's pursuing a particular strategy for scumhunting that I personally feel to be bad tactics, but he's also more experienced than I am; it may have worked for him in the past.

But my

Number One FOS? Thanatos

, without a doubt. He's a smart fellow, capable of sowing disorder and, in the words of the detective from V for Vendetta, I just keep seeing these coincidences, this chain of events...

God, I love that movie.

[Infinitive]

Which is also compounded by other people (wait, am I mistaken, or was it Infinitive who said this) asking why I'm not leading as much today.

It was me who said that. At the time I was pointing out discrepancies in what you'd done. You answered that question to my satisfaction. It's the other stuff that bugs me.

[Infinitive]

Okay. Well, given the length of day 2, I'm gonna throw my vote out.

Vote: Thanatos

I think he and DLS are about even in terms of likeliness to be scum. Given that, he's the one that has, in the past, shown a demonstrable ability to screw us around. If he's town, he's town. The investigation has really gone nowhere, and at this point we're basically doing "uh-huh/nuh-uh" back and forth. If nothing else, I'd like to move forward.

It's a game. If I lose, I lose.

[Infinitive]

Sigh. Sorry for the L-1- last votecount I saw had you at 2, Than. I still think that, given the situation, you're the best choice.

And again, I'm sorry that I haven't been as available lately, but I'm still trying to chase down a solution for my car situation. Moreover, I'm only going to be less available as time goes on for the next couple of weeks, between the car and X-mas.

OTOH, I now know a guy that works the wholesale car auctions, so I'm hopeful that he can find me something at a great price.

[Infinitive]

As I mentioned in my last post, I thought I was putting him at L-2, not L-1. Please, read the explanations I've given before you ask for one.

As for why I voted at all? I thought I was pretty clear. I think that DLS and Thanatos are each about equally likely to be scummy (based on DLS' defense game and the long list of observations I've previously made about Thanatos). Given that, I think that the consequences of Thanatos being scum are greater than the consequences of DLS being scum. To put it more simply, in a bet with even odds, it is best to choose the path that leads to the best outcome if you're right, as laid against the consequences if you're wrong. If Than is sum and we lynch him, the benefit is obvious. If he is not scum and we lynch him, we lose someone who several people deem suspicious, and whose opinions are considered questionable at best. The cop is almost certainly going to die tonight, and as such it will be impossible to verify Thanatos' alignment if we do not lynch him. If he is scum and we do not lynch him, Thanatos has shown that he is a clever guy, and can manipulate discussions and arguments in a variety of ways. It he's not scum and he lives, we simply have another townie running around who several people are suspicious of.

DLS, OTOH, is an easier equation. If she's scum and we let her live, we know she'll continue to do what she has been doing: mostly nothing. If she's town and we let her live, she'll... continue to do little. If she's scum and we lynch, yay. If she's not scum and we lynch, admittedly, there's little loss.

Basically, in three of four categories, Than and DLS score the same to me- if they live, they won't be much help to the town anymore, regardless of their alignment, either because of their playstyle of because of suspicion re: their motives. If we lynch DLS, no matter her alignment, not much is going to change, because there are almost certainly more scum out there. If we lynch Than and he's town, we've lost someone who DOES investigate and we now have a wealth of information we know to be genuine from his passing. If we lynch Than and he's scum, we've eliminated someone who's a pretty good player.

Simply put, IMHO, the town stands to gain more from a Than lynch than a DLS lynch. Show me how this is not the case and I'll unvote.

[Infinitive]

Whatever. Vote me if you want. It's not like I've got 2 months worth of solid scumhunting built up, and a reputation as a pretty neutral guy.

I'm town. There's nothing I can say to convince any of you of this, because I could just be lying. That being said, I've given my explanation, and it's the damn truth. If you want to bandwagon me, fine. Your call.

[Infinitive]

Well, Than, I don't defend myself, as a rule, because it's universally of more value to the town for someone to be out invesitgating another, rather than defending. Look at DLS' play record for an example of just that. Especially by now, my actions ought to speak for themselves.

As for my L-1 on you, I have explained it not once, but twice, and I'm going to do so

again

to make it three times. I thought you were at 2 votes (L-3) before I voted, and Numenorean had not yet posted the updated votecount. In fact,

Mod: Can we get confirmation that I voted before you updated the votecount, please? Thank you.

I run my voting off of the votecounts at the top of a given page for simplicity's sake, which means that i occasionally screw up. In fact, if you'll go back and look at day 1, I did the same thing in regards to Deepthought, and corrected myself when I realized what I'd done and nobody had zipped in to preempt my unvote, as happened in day 2.

Further, as I have now explained several different ways, I see the least potential risk and greatest potential reward to lynching you, as compared to DLS, Nudude, and DS. I'm not convinced of Nudude's scumminess enough to vote for him, and DS falls squarely into the same category as DLS- easily ignorable for now if he's scum, and of little informational value if he's town and we lynch him. My first concern as a town player is to find the scum that are capable of blending in well with the town and, most importantly of all, screwing up our inquiries. Neither DLS nor DS fit that pattern. Nudude does, but I'm not convinced of his scumminess. That really leaves me only one option, right?

As to value gained from lynching me? Sure, there's value. If you lynch me, you'll see that I was just a vanilla townie, and then you'll be able to use the posts I've dropped thusfar in the game for their objective informational value, to hopefully keep the town from dying during lynch or lose. It's the exact same value we'd get from lynching you if you're town. Not exactly ideal, but it beats a swift kick in the nuts.

And you've referred a couple of times to information that has supposedly been given to me; I've been looking around for it and can't find it. Mind pointing it out to me a bit more clearly.

Further, you note the fact that I list the same reasons that I always have in regards to you as reasons for my vote on you. So... you're saying that my consistency is a bad thing? I'm sorry, but I really do not understand that counterpoint. Frankly, if you look at my playing over the course of days 1 and 2, I show a pretty substantial history of taking a long time to make up my mind (I even explained as much on (I think) page 3) and then voting the person I think is scummiest (though I much prefer to vote whoever I'm certain of, but I'm not certain of anyone today). In short, I've done exactly what I said I would at every possible juncture, and you've cited this as a bad thing, Thanatos. Why do you think that?

[Infinitive]

Vote Count

Thanatos (3)

- Gorgon, VampyreLord, Infinitive
Dark_Lady_Shaiann (2) - Disciple Slayer, charter
Infinitive (2) - Nudude, Thanatos

Not Voting (2) - liamcool, Dark_Lady_Shaiann

With 9 alive, it takes 5 to lynch

I think your rushing to get to the nightphase. It's just a hunch (emphasis on hunch), but I think it's because your getting impatient and want to use your night powers......serial killer.

Lolwaffles. I wish. I've actually never played a Mafia game where I've had a power role. You'd think I could at least snag a Mason position in a game somewhere... Oh well.

In regards to the rest of your post, Nudude, you can believe what you like. I've explained that post before, and you all felt on day 1 that my explanation was satisfactory. By no stretch of the imagination could my vote on D2 be thought of as a hammer vote; that being the case, is it more likely the case that I'm tired and distracted, and made the same mistake twice, or that I did two completely different things with the same motive?

And one further thing- at that point, I was NOWHERE near a lynch. I said what I said, as I explained, because in that post, that I'd had a terrible weekend and was expecting the worst, just to go hand-in-hand with everything else.

Goddamn Slaying arrows and Fatespinners.

[Infinitive]

Yeah, I know that now. I rarely play at high levels, and as such was unaware of the sheer, broken ownenation that save-or-die spells bring to the table. I'm really kind of looking forward to 4th edition- all that crap is officially gone.

And when I build for my own characters, I always pick up a Scarab of Protection. 20K, protects you from 20(!) death attacks, and gives you a crappy SR to boot! Can't complain about that.

Still, that protection wouldn't have done the trick against the Baleful Polymorph that made Old Wicked the lolcat.

[Infinitive]

Because I love image macros far too much:



And I'll do my best, Num. This month has been Hell for me.

[Infinitive]

And, for those of you who care, regarding my car troubles:



I just sealed the deal today, and I'll be picking it up on Thursday. Got it for almost $2 grand below blue book.

YAY!

[Infinitive]

I used to raid hardcore on WoW- I was main tank for my server's #3 raiding guild for the better part of a year. It was wild fun.

Then BC came out, and being level 70 was exactly the same as being level 60, except without the big guild comraderie. I got bored with Molten Corhazan (same damn instance, just a different resist type req'd), and quit. Kind of looking forward to the Jumpgate: Evolution beta though. That game looks sweet.

Now, back on topic, discussion seems to have stalled for d2 here. What do you guys want to do? I'm going to stand by my vote, as Than seems, to me, to be the scummiest guy that hasn't been cleared by a copclaim.

Maybe it's just me, but I think it's time to look seriously at what our best bet, as town, is.

[Infinitive]

Interesting point Re: Charter and Gorgon. Neither has really been investigated thusfar, so that would be eludicating. I still don't get much of a scummy read off of either, but maybe that's just because they're good scum players.

And as for wanting to move to lynch? Well, to put it simply, we've been in day 2 for over a month, and nothing new has been revealed in the last week. Stagnation, to me, means it's time to shake things up somehow. The best way for the town to change things in this game is to lynch. That being said, I still stand by my reasoning regarding Thanatos as a potential lynchee. Convince me otherwise.

[Infinitive]

Okay, I find Nudude's posts over the last page and a half to be quite suspicious. He's pushing for a lurker lynch over the holidays against those in the game that have been most reliably beneficial to the town? I'm sorry, but Gorgon and Charter have been good for this game. Lynching them right now would be a bad move. period.

FOS: Nudude

[Infinitive]

Aww, geez. I go and get my car and come back to an accusation that if I don't pull a vote off of someone I suspect what another person put them at L-1, I'm to blame? When I posted ahead of time that I'd be out? Ugh.

I'm not going to drop that hammer on DS, who, I feel obligated to note, has gone from 0 votes to 4 in the space of one page. I've long felt he was scummy, but this changeover has gone too fast, and I'm beginning to suspect that he's trying to get lynched, just to get out of the game. If he's scum as well, yaytastic. I want more discussion though, if for no other reason than to get people on record for their votes against DS (more comprehensively than as a reaction top his vote) for d3.

And yes, I do still want to move the game forward- with everything except DS's vote, we've reached a stopping point today, and the only way to convert to new information is to lynch someone and move forward; the lynch and nightkills will give us the information we need to make good decisions tomorrow, and I feel that we've exhausted our lines of questioning for today.

[Infinitive]

I wanna get this in before the thread locks for night.

Here's the game I was referencing at the beginning of d2. BillyTwilight was the false leader, and I called him out d1. http://www.mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopi ... hlight=483

The difference between Than and DS, for me, was the length of time that was allowed for a case to build. Than's case was pretty well fleshed-out by the time that I voted for him, and I was confident that he was the best choice, given other options, for reasons that I posted repeatedly. I felt that the best way to gain information in general for the town, given our stall at that point in time, was to move to a lynch and see what we learn from that and NKs.

DS's case went from first vote to lynch in about a page. I may have wanted to move the game forward in general, but DS was lynched too damn fast. Flat-out, guys. He never had a chance, and it should be noted that he did the same thing that I did- why did you all give me a chance to explain and talk and not him? Or were you looking for an excuse to lynch him, as Than has explicitly stated and I strongly suspect DLS of taking the opportunity to do.

This whole lynch is fishy, I say. Majorly fishy.

[Infinitive]

Well, at least that makes sense.

And I still think the DS lynch went waaaaaaay too fast, but it's a damn good thing we caught a break and lynched scum.

Any comments on Than's roleclaim, people? I kinda suspected vig outta him when he said he was going to roleclaim, but in truth we only have his word to go on and the fact that there was no NK. I'm going to think for a little while about that one before I decide if I believe him or not, though. Anyone else have any thoughts?

[Infinitive]

Well, in fairness DLS, I've heard of there being Mafia roleblockers too. Plus, Than said he was going to claim yesterday, and no scum would claim a scum role.

Now, there IS something I thought of since my last post- sometimes there's also a Mafia Assassin role, which (I believe) gets a oneshot ability to take out someone once in the game. That could account for the two kills on night 1 and 1 kill this night.

Than, I'd like to hear the list of reasons for why you killed Insurgent. He hadn't even really pinged my scumdar yet at that point, so I'm wondering why you decided that he deserved a brief and bloody end.

[Infinitive]

That's a hell of a statement, Nudude. I'm gonna have to think about that for a bit.

[Infinitive]

Hooookay. There's 7 of us left alive. One is being replaced. That means that there are two people out there who have yet to post. Liam, you haven't posted in ages- speak up please. Gorgon, got any thoughts?

We gotta play smart here, people. If Than is indeed the vig, and will be roleblocked for the rest of the game, we're likely in lynch or lose with a mislynch here. Admittedly, we do have the comfort of knowing that we have a day's buffer between us and that situation, but I'd rather not push it if I can avoid it.

I don't know how to react to Than's roleclaim here. Vig is a very common role in these 12-person games, and we have yet to get a Vig killed or lynched, which means that there's a very good chance that there is one still alive and nominally active in our game. If there's no counterclaim, we might have to accept Than's roleclaim here. If that's the case, he's not scum.

If there IS a counterclaim, things are going to get very interesting very quickly here. At the very least, we need to wait till Charter is replaced before we decide anything based on that roleclaim, because Charter may be the vig.

Otherwise, here's my short list of people I suspect:
Thanatos (for reasons I've discussed ad nauseum)
Nudude

People I feel somewhat suspicious of:
Liamcool (as has been noted repeatedly, he might be the godfather)
DLS- the fact that Liam came up scum has cleared a significant amount of the suspicion I felt toward her. It is possible that the flamewar and general animosity was engineered, but it seems to genuine to me. Barring anything I've missed, I'm all but ready to move her to the cleared list.

People on the neutral list:
Gorgon- Gorgon has been a pretty steady contributor in general, with insightful stuff coming infrequently. It's possible he's just a smooth, confident scum, but I've got no evidence to the fact whatsoever.
Charter- he's been very quiet for a while, but you all know how I feel about Charter. He's noticed most of the troubling things as they've happened thusfar in the game, and his contributions have been great for the town. I'm really sad to see him get replaced.

[Infinitive]

Yes, Gorgon, you interpreted me correctly. Stupid typo demons.

[Infinitive]

You want my thoughts on this whole mess? Okay, but I'll warn you- they're pretty easy to summarize. I'll preface this by reminding people of my record on Thanatos from yesterday- I'm not exactly thrilled about him.

Thanatos argues for careful consideration before we act. Nudude is pushing very, very hard for a Thanatos lynch, and goes so far as to put himself on the line. More, he wants the lynch immediately.

Frankly, this feels like a power play. Quite possibly an attempt to remove what might be the last town power role. I don't like it one bit. Nudude, do you have anything else to back up your contentions regarding Than, or have you stated your entire case? I ask because I find your argument to be no more convincing than the argument I was levying against Than yesterday. The difference is that, of late, you have been acting very scummy, as has been noted by DLS (who has been pretty much cleared by the DS lynch).

And where the hell is Liam, anyway? I haven't heard from him for ages. Gorgon too.

Anyway, here's conjecture on who's left:
Than: Vig or SK. Certainly a power role.
DLS: Townie.
Charter/replacement guy: Townie
Me: Townie
Gorgon: Unknown. See Liam.
Liamcool: Godfather. Alternately, this could be Gorgon, but Liam has been much scummier overall.
Nudude: Mafia Roleblocker.

If this is the spread, then Nudude is safe in offering himself up after a Than lynch- with no town power roles left, he's nothing more than a generic scum. After that, we're sitting in lynch or lose with pretty well no idea who's scum. That's a very good position for scum to be in in endgame.

Part B is that it'd be monumentally stupid for town to vote for himself in lynch or lose. At 5 people, the two remaining scum could just hammer him and win the game. Either Nudude is braindead, which I don't believe, or he's scum. Period.

FOS: Nudude.

[Infinitive]

Infinitive, the chance of me being a godfather is 1/7 (roughly 14% if my maths is correct). The odds are greatly stacked against me being godfather, if there even is one.

Okay, I'm going to respond to this, and point out a few things. First of all, if I'm looking to figure out scum players in general, I can eliminate myself, as I know that I'm town. I know that that's not much help to you guys, but it's true, and it helps to get the ball rolling. Next, I'm going to throw DLS out, on account of the DS lynch. I just can't bring myself to believe that those two were faking all of the acrimony between them. That leaves me with this list:

Charter
Liamcool
Thanatos
Nudude
Gorgon

Now, I've stated my feelings regarding Charter repeatedly, but I'll do so one more time; with the exception of his recent absence, he was the single most productive player for the town. Look at his posts. If I have to choose one person based on play history and playing characteristics that's town, I choose Charter. Simply put, he's been more helpful than anyone else.

This leaves me with 4 players left, and we all expect that there are 2 scum on that list. 50/50 shot for any of those four.

Thanatos has just roleclaimed, and has claimed Vig. Unless Charter or Gorgon stand up and counterclaim, I believe him; only if Charter was the counterclaimant would I have an inclination. Therefore, until and unless there's a counterclaim, Thanatos is off the list. That leaves 3.

Nudude just posted some thoughts on possible scum team makeups Since DS came up goon, I'd bet heavily on the second option. The only other option for a scum team build would be GF+Goon+One-shot Assassin, which would be a very beefy spread for a 12-person mini. If that were the case, I'd expect a nurse on town side or something to balance it out; if we HAD that, the nurse would have certainly protected VL last night in light of his claim. It being the case that he was killed, we can eliminate that possibility, which brings us back to this:

GF+Goon+Roleblocker; the standard 12-person mini spread.

Okay, so back to my analysis; we're down, for the moment, to 3 possibilities for scum; a 66.6 (repetant) chance of any of the three to be scum:
Gorgon
Liamcool
Nudude

Now, Nudude has been recently acting very scummy, and I've already posted my conjecture as to why I suspect he's the mafia roleblocker; removing the Vig would remove his ability to affect things significantly, and the scum team has a better chance at winning with a Godfather, against whom we have little case. That means that either Gorgon or Liamcool are the Godfather. Liamcool has been investigated, and came up clean; unfortunately, that doesn't actually mean anything if he's the GF. Both Gorgon and Liam have been lurking significantly of late; however, if I had to bet now, I'd bet on Liam. We had a big case against him as scum early on day 2, influenced heavily by DT. That derailed as a result of VL's investigation, but I'd like to bring it back to life now, of people don't mind.

However, Gorgon, I want to hear from you. You've been very quiet of late, and I want to hear your thoughts on the situation we're now in.

[Infinitive]

Well, Nudude, as far as I'm concerned, it doesn't actually matter whether Thanatos is SK or Vig- I'd bet everything I've got on the fact that he's going to die tonight.

Scum's first priority is to find and kill the Cop and the Doc- those two are the roles that most negatively impact the scum MO, which is getting the town to mislynch and then shooting someone in the night; the cop for obvious reasons, and the Doc because it retards the scum's ability to NK.

The serial killer/vig is always of secondary concern because they can hit town just as easily as they can hit scum. However, the mafia wants to remove all power roles other than themselves as best they can. Presented with a known cop and someone else about to make a claim, the smart move for scum is to kill the cop and roleblock the other guy, then kill him the night following.

Here's the important part- regardless of whether Than's SK or Vig, it's in his best interest to kill scum, because they're the only other killing role out there. On the flipside, it's in the scum's best interest (once the cop and doc are dead) to kill any remaining power roles, because it gives them a greater degree of control over the game. Whether Thanatos is SK or Vig, there's no other NK that makes sense. If Than is NOT NK'd tonight, the situation is changed somewhat, but we'll deal with that when/if we get to it.

In regards to the possible one-shot assassin role, I offer a counterpoint- I was the one who first proposed that idea as possible, and I don't buy it because of the lack of a corresponding town power role. The scum get a HUGE advantage when they get more than 1 NK per night, even if it's only a one-shot kill.

In regards to charter, who would you propose has been the most helpful member of the town, Nudude? I can't really think of anyone as of now that can compete with his record.

And finally, in regards to your scumminess, it's not so much WHAT you're doing as HOW you're doing it. You're pushing hard for an early lynch today, and you know my feelings about speedy lynches (though I'd like to avoid another month-plus day like we had yesterday). More, your and DLS' back-and-forth at the end of day 2 has made me quite suspicious of you; if we're sure DLS is town, then that argument casts you in an unfavorable light, especially as you've been, historically, one of if not THE first person to lead an investigation.

Any other questions?

[Infinitive]

Nudude, I'm not saying that investigating people is scummy- it isn't, not by a long shot. It is, however, very out of character for you, a person who spearheaded almost every investigation that occurred on day 2, to call for one at the end of day two and then just sit back on your heels and wait for other people to do it. Given that DS came up scum, this makes me suspicious. Further, given DLS and DS's history, it makes me

very

suspicious that you tried to push DLS so hard to do the investigating.

I will go on the record here, Nudude- what I've posted may very well be false. Thanatos may be lying. We don't know, and with the cop dead, can't find out. Mafia is a game of imperfect information, careful analysis, comparative behavioral study, and gut feeling.

Now, I'm not going to vote for you yet, Nudude, because I don't want a lynch to occur before Charter's replacement and Gorgon get a chance to join the conversation, if for no other reason than I think that there's a fair chance that Gorgon's playing scum; I want to get him at the very least on record before we move forward.

But I, personally, feel that there's enough here to vote.

Mod: Can we get a prod on Gorgon, please? Thank you very much.

[Infinitive]

Well, Liam, would you care to add anything to the investigation currently underway? If you're town, as you claim, shouldn't you have a pretty well-vested interest in the outcome of day 3? You've been lurking hardcore ever since VL investigated you and you came up clean.

[Infinitive]

Well, feel free to investigate me to your heart's content. I've got nothing to hide.

What I think of people? I think I've posted on this several times just recently, but I'll provide a further summary as follows:

DLS: Almost certainly town. Plays defensively in general, but has come out of her shell of late.
Charter: Smart, perceptive and cautious. He plays this game like I want to play it- he catches stuff I miss and (up until recently) regularly made valuable contributions to the town.
Liamcool: Pretty well the scummiest player still alive in the game. There's a long history of suspicion against him, due both to what he's done and how much he's lurked when not actively under investigation. Had a clean investigation, but the game consensus seems to be that that's only got about a 50% chance of being accurate even if he IS scum. Personally, I think he is.
Gorgon: A canny fellow. He's added useful stuff to the game on a pretty steady basis; only recently has he gone AWOL. Still, he was a part of the DT lynch and (I think) was not a part of the Liam lynch.
Thanatos: Spearheaded the DT lynch on day 1 then changed his playstyle on day 2 to something much more conservative. Has committed several fairly scummy acts, but has understandable (if not particularly great) counterpoints for those items. Now claiming to be a vig, which I'm inclined to believe for now. Vig is a common role, and at this depth in the game, one that would be dangerous to falsely claim without certainty that there's no real Vig.
Nudude: I've posted two long analyses of his activity recently. Go back and read them if you have any questions about my attitude regarding Nudude.

My impression of the game as a whole: everyone in this game seems to be willing to play slow and careful, which suits me fine. Scum has been fairly good at hiding themselves within the lengthy series of discussions and investigations, with the exception of Disciple Slayer and, possibly, Liam. The game seems to be speeding up somewhat as peoples' opinions of specific others in the game are firming up; everyone at this point has a solid opinion of the surviving players in the game, and posting histories have served to give people significant tools with which to pry at unusual behavior in any specific player. My current suspicion of Nudude is based in large part on a major play inconsistency right before the Disciple Slayer lynch, for example.

Anything else?

[Infinitive]

AH. I beg your pardon, Liam. It's hard to keep track of stuff when the game goes so long.

[Infinitive]

Liam was being plenty vocal before VL came out and cleared him; ever since, he's said almost nothing. This is a pretty good chunk of the reason that I think he's the Godfather; it's absolutely in his best interest to do nothing whatsoever at all right now that might possibly incriminate himself, or even draw attention back to himself.

Liam, please speak up. We're getting pretty well on int eh game, and I want to hear what you have to say about the Nudude/Thanatos situation.

[Infinitive]

I'm getting awfully tired of asking this, Liam. Would you please speak up and contribute to the town? You haven't contributed anything except in your own defense in as long as I can remember.

In fact,

Mod, could we please get a prod on Liam? He's really not participating.

In regards to the Nudude situation, I have yet to be convinced by anything he's posted in his defense thusfar. Gorgon's quotes are interesting regarding a possible Liam/DS connection. However, despite my own suspicions regarding Liam, I think he's putting forward an awfully thin case.

And, just as a heads up, I just got transferred to a new department at work; since I do 95% of my playing from work, the training and whatnot has put somewhat of a crimp on my ability to speak up frequently. As such, I really don't have time to go back and dig up stuff from the old case against Liam right now, as much as I'd like to. It'll come, but it might be a week or two before things cool down enough over here that I can quietly devote something like an hour to put quotes and analyses together. OTOH, Liam isn't going anywhere, and he's not contributed anything to the town in ages, so I guess there's worse stuff to sit on for now.

P.S.: Still waiting on the replacement for Charter, whoever (s)he ends up being. Whenever that person gets in and starts posting, I'll probably be ready to drop my vote on Nudude (barring anything exceptional, like a counterclaim).

[Infinitive]

Whew, looks like someone riled up DLS.

Now, Nudude, I'm going to throw out a theory that I've gleaned recently from another game I'm in ATM about Vig claims: Since Vig is a very common role in 12-player games, there's a better plan to counter a false Vig claim than to counterclaim- the real Vig has the ability to make a truly unequivocal counterclaim by NKing the false-claiming individual. Further, by claiming Vig, the scum have a very good reason to kill Than. In either of those situations, even if Than is a SK, he's pretty much certainly dead tomorrow whether we lynch him or not. That being the case, I see no reason to burn a lynch on him today; if he lives tomorrow, we can look at it seriously. The best part is that if he IS scum, we know that there's another killing role out there of some sort, and Than has put his head right on the chopping block here.

The point I'm trying to make is that Thanatos is a dead man,

regardless of his alignment.

As such, it seems to me to be a better use of the town's time and effort to find whoever else might be scum, since we all seem pretty sure that there's at least two left.

P.S.: Liam has pretty well cemented my suspicion of him as GF at this point. I'm not as sure of him as I am of Nudude, but the point need to be made that Liam hasn't influenced anyone in any real way for the better part of a month. If I have to, I'd rather sit on him than whoever else is scum, at least since we're not in lynch or lose right now, and will only be if we mislynch.

[Infinitive]

In fairness, DLS, I was the one that first brought up the Liam-Godfather possibility today, and I posted on it twice. Gorgon put some detail out there, but whatever works.

[Infinitive]

Before I get started, welcome to the game, Coolbot. Sounds like you're fairly experienced; we'll have to see how well you fill Charter's shoes. So far, at least, I'm liking what I'm hearing.

I have to give it to you coolbot, those are some good points. I've had a bit of a hard time trying to figure out what DLS is hanging on to, but your points make sense.

In regards to Thanatos, if he is the vig, it is likely that he is the last power role left, and

if I was scum and there was a scum RB, I could RB him every night

, so there wouldn't be any need for me to stick my neck out and accuse him of lying, and in fact it would be foolish of me to do so.

GOTCHA!

Bolded emphasis mine, of course. I'd like you all to read the bolded section carefully; I think that Nudude made a Freudian slip here- he says "If I was scum and there was a scum RB (note that he deliberately distances himself from the RB part of the hypothesis here), I could RB him every night (and here he makes the opposite jump of claiming that if he were scum he would be the RB)." I think Nudude slipped up here and, despite his best efforts at distancing himself from the RB suspicion that I've been leveling at him, accidentally gives away the fact that he is, in fact, the scum RBer.

It would have been better to have just kept quiet and let the town stew over the "What if's" than draw attention to myself, and in fact I thought that the RB would have been better used to block VL and have instead just NK Thanatos and removed his, at the time, "Mystery role", with his suspicion levels he would have almost certainly been lynched.

This is poor logic. The cop is always, always, always the scum's first priority, no matter what. A jumpy vig can do more harm than good, especially if the scum are articulate. There is never a downside for a cop investigation, ever.

I don't believe he was trying to save VL with his claim, if he had really wanted to sacrifice himself, it probably would have been better to say he was a vig. "I'm a vig" gets far more attention than "I'm going to role - claim tomorrow". Scum may have considered letting VL survive the night, knowing that people were very suspicios of him already. I think he was just trying to give his role - block story plausability.

See above paragraph re: logic on cop vs. vig. The only thing I have to add here is that vig is the most likely claim in our position, given the game's composition thusfar; anything more powerful/unusual would, I believe, have sparked a more aggressive scum spread which, given DS' generig thug role, seems unlikely.

Thanatos's claim sounds to me to be false, so I stood up and told everyone why I thought so, and defended my logic. Why would I draw the completely unnecessary attention to myself? I've advocated slow, considered play this whole game, don't mix up me pushing the "Thanatos is scum" bandwagon for the "Hurry up and lynch someone" bandwagon, bearing in mind there were some people on that yesterday, which included DS, Infinitive and Thanatos.

Fair point here, though I'd like to point out that, for my part at least, I think I addressed this one already yesterday. Until DS voted, nothing new had happened for something like two weeks; at the very least a lynch would have given us information, which it did. Still, it turned out all right.

http://www.mafiascum.net/wiki/index.php?title=Godfather is where I got my info from, and though not always, they can be immune to NK's. The only way to be certain is if you got the rolecard. You quite right about the nurse though, they would have almost certainly protected VL. I'm just considering that if Thanatos is the SK or a mafia assassin, then there may be another power role to offset that. Bear in mind the reason I think it failed wasn't because of an intervention, I feel it's either Thanatos only gets one bonus NK this game because of his scum role, or because he's an SK who skipped it. I'm leaning to him being mafia though, because SK doesn't make alot of sense.

How so does SK make little sense, Nudude? Pardon my presumption, but you've said this a few times, but I don't recall you giving any particular reason why. SK makes sense to me for a pretty simple strat: given the events in day 2, Than is seriously staring a noose in the face. Almost immediately, he claims vig, knowing that if there's an actual vig (which is incredibly unlikely at this point), the correct response for that vig is to NK him for the false claim and that,

even absent that

, the scum will toast him to get control of the game and to prevent any random chance killings on their side, which can unceremoniously end the game.

What Than gains by falseclaiming Vig (if he's SK) is one last chance at a NK, now that he knows there's a RBer.

And if he's

actually

a vig? Then he's kept the town off of a non-scum player for the day. If he's

scum,

then he pretty much certainly gets lynched tomorrow for surviving the night. In all seriousness, Nudude, this is a win/win/win scenario- the town leaves alone someone who ought to be left alone, the scum get to kill the last non-scum power role, and the town narrows their focus on who may or may not be scum.

I have made a few posts in my defense, well specifically in defence of my logic, but I feel I present my case to DLS, and she didn't accept it. That's her perogative of course, but I feel I did my best to explain myself.

I feel it is fair to say that Thanatos hammered DS, and you could ask why a scum would have hammered his buddy. Just bear in mind it has happened plenty of times before, either to distance, plain impatience, or if Thanatos was afraid of what might come out of DS's mouth if given the chance.

A fair analysis of why Than might have hammered DS if Than were scum. In the greater context of what's going on here, however, I feel that this is rather less than likely.

I've pushed that Thanatos is scum hard, because I feel certain he is. He killed a guy who had made four posts in the game, who had replaced in for just a little over 24 hours, while ignoring two more likely suspects, because, I think, it's in an scum's best interest to leave suspicious people in play.

In retrospect, saying I would vote for myself tomorrow may have been a little hasty. I was trying to show people how confident I am he is scum, so confident I am right that I didn't consider the possibility of being wrong, but on the off chance I am there would be a good chance of LYLO.

So instead I will offer this. I will go to the noose today, thus proving my innocence if

everyone

agrees to lynch Thanatos next. Don't let him open his mouth or try to justify himself, just lynch him.

Bear in mind, I offer this, and the reason I made my previous offer, because I am so very, very certain Thanatos is scum. I don't know what else I can do to prove it if the evidence I've presented so far isn't good enough for everyone.

Once I'm lynched, it will become clear that Thanatos's claim is false, but everyone has to be on board for this. I don't want to get lynched today just to see him wriggle out of it D3.

This last section seems to me to be just more of the same, only Nudude is now using the logic that the town has previously presented to refute his self-sacrificial plans in reverse. Rather than saying "I'll vote myself tomorrow if I'm wrong," which is an obviously bad plan, he's saying "I'm so certain of my convictions that I'll cheerfully meet the hangman today," knowing the town's reluctance to have people participate in their own lynches.

Nudude, your day 3 has been marked by a series of terrible logical disconnects that were entirely absent earlier in the game, before you came under investigation. I'm not a big fan of dropping a vote yet, given how early it is in day 3, but I'm not seeing any other compelling options right now.

[Infinitive]

You make some fair points in your post Infinitve, but this isn't one of them. Presenting a hypothetical does not make me scum, but using it as a point against me may be.

Sure, of course not, Nudude. What I was trying to say there was that, in light of the greater case against you, this seems to be pretty direct confirmation of a theory that I'd already presented. If this were all I had against you, I'd abandon the case right now. As it is, it's just another brushstroke in the greater paining, but one that looks pretty bad to me.

A cop is scum's first priority, but a RB cop is essentialy a townie. The scum may have come to the conclusion Than is a vig based on the N1 kill. Seeing as how they were allegedly planning on blocking him anyway, I doubt they considered the "jumpy vig" factor. They have allegedy denied him the ability to be a vig, and in doing so advertised the fact there may be a RB in play, when blocking VL would have most likely bought them another day at least while we accused VL of lying. This is scraping in WIFOM, but it seems a very poor scum play. Possible, of course, but it just seems a silly thing to do.

By your own logic, Nudude, the scenerio that I outlined, where the cop is NK'd and Than is RB'd for safety sake, is the right move then? Well, to extend the logic, doesn't it make good tactical sense to NK the SK/Vig ASAP, just in case the scum RBer gets lynched during the day? This is especially relevant if, after a scum lynch, the SK/Vig and the remaining scum player target each other. In short, your logic relies on the scum RBer, the presence of which you're now conceding, remaining undetected for the rest of the game. To say the least, this strategy is foolish and shortsighted if you're a scum player

Than killed a guy who had been in the game a little over 24 hours. Doesn't that seem a little strange to you? Than said he was going to NK me. Of all the people yesterday, I was the best guess? I can appreciate people being suspicious, but do my actions yesterday make me the scummiest player in the game? There are too many stretches required for Than to be the Vig, and I don't think he's the SK, simply because it doesn't make sense for him to make a play like this. I admit I thought he was an SK at the start of the day, but as the hypotheticals were explored, I conceded it didn't make much sense. Him being a one - shot mafia makes sense though.

A "jumpy vig" shooting someone for lurking? I can kind of believe that, even if it is suspicious. More likely, I see a cautious SK, who's now nervous after leading a bad day 1 lynch, shooting someone who nobody will miss. I'm pretty sure now that Than is a SK, and he seems to be hinting that he is as well, given that he seems to expect to be NK'd tonight. Any other play strategy gets him lynched by the town today, for the same reasons we were about to lynch him yesterday. This way, he might get to use his own NK one more time, to steer the game to a victory on whichever side he prefers. That's kind of a cool position, if I do say so myself, even if he has to martyr himself to do it.

To summarize: the town is ignoring Thanatos today because he's going to die, whether or not we do anything. I, personally, see no reason to burn a lynch on someone that the scum are almost certainly going to hit anyway. If he's still kicking tomorrow, we can look at him.

Actually I remember D1 when you made what you thought was a hammer vote, and when you explained your mistake it was Thanatos that stepped up and said basically "It's ok, don't worry about it, lets not worry about it and move on". Post 319 to post 324. You've always been keen to end the day.

You're welcome to interpret my actions however you please. I explained myself then, and again on day 2. If you find those explanations satisfactory, OK. If not, OK. I've got nothing to hide from an investigation, and if one occurs, it will clear me, and then the town can chalk another person on the side of "confirmed town" and get on with the business of finding and lynching the remaining scum players.

I apologize for my confidence in this matter, if anyone finds it inappropriate, but I've been straightforward with everyone the whole game through.

That makes sense, but there are alot of "What if's" in there. You readily accepted his claim earlier today, perhaps on reflection, we can't be so sure if his claim is true?

I was running through scenarios there, Nudude, to try and demonstrate the implications what what each possible outcome would mean for the town. It's not a matter of "what if XYZ," it's a matter of planning and trying to figure out the logical course of action in the three possible scenarios that are extant in this situation.

As far as accepting a Vig claim, Nudude, I would counter that you

always

accept a Vig claim, period. If it's a false claim and there's a real Vig, the false claimer gets NKd the following night for falseclaiming by the real Vig or the SK. If not, the scum peg his arse for being a Vig. We know that there are two killing roles active right now. It's just plain stupid for a scum player to claim anything with a killing role right now.

As I said, I feel I've presented a strong case against Than, and the town seems to have reservations about it. We're getting to the point where either I'm scum trying to off the last power role (even though if I was scum I wouldn't really need to make such a noise about it since he's pretty much a townie while being allegedly role blocked) or Thanatos is scum. I believe very, very strongly Than is scum, but I can't think of anything more to add to the case. This way, the town can be certain they get scum no matter what.

This, however, is correct, Nudude. I think it's very likely that you're scum. However, even on the off chance that you're not, if Thanatos survives the night, we've got a pretty clear lynch for day 4. Even better, if a scum turns up as a NK target, we then know for a fact that Than is either SK or Vig, which further narrows the field (though it's unlikely that he'd get his shot off in this event).

You know, just as an afterthought, I suppose that it's possible that there would be a Scum Doctor instead of a Scum RBer; that would explain Than's failed NK just as easily. That's a pretty powerful role to give to scum in a 12-player game, though, so I'm not sure I'd believe it.

[Infinitive]

Fair point, Gorgon. Okay, I'll back down: if Thanatos is still alive tomorrow, he deserves serious examination; survival may indicate a false claim. Regardless, we'll deal with that when we get to it.

[Infinitive]

And now, for a brief history of Nudude in day 3. I will mention beforehand that this does not constitute the entirety of his posting, but it does constitute the majority thereof. Most of those posts I've skipped are the most recent, as they're easier for people to reference on their own. I will be interjecting every once in a while, based on what Nudude says, but I will do my best not to interject into posts themselves, so that the integrity, what of it there is, of Nudude's posts remains.

The sole basis of you thinking I'm scum is that I didn't immeditaely investigate DS. I was the first one to vote for him, and I didn't move my vote even when he was at L1. Doesn't that say anything?
I swapped and changed my votes all through D2, so I had a perfectly good excuse to take him off L-1, and put my vote on someone else.
I really don't know what else I can say.
I also find it very interesting that you are stuck on lynching me. Consider Thanatos for example. I don't believe his role - claim one bit.
Yesterday he said he's going to roleclaim today. What possible advantage could he gain from that? The simple answer is there is no advantage at all.
He needed an excuse to say he was "Role blocked", so he tells everyone yesterday that he was going to role - claim.
Here's the thing though. IF we have a role blocker, why would he block you? You admit your going to role claim, and since it makes no sense for a mafia to role - claim, we can only assume your going to claim a pro - town role. So why would a role - blocker block you? It makes no sense.
I'll make this easy for everyone.
VOTE: Thanatos
If I'm wrong, lynch me tomorrow. I'll vote for myself as the first act of the day.

Ahh, the damning self-sacrificial quote that's been dogging Nudude all day. I feel that it's been discussed quite thoroughly, so I will say nothing further other than to mark its presence here. I would like to point out that, from the very beginning, Nudude has been unprepared to accept the mere possibility that the scum have a RBer on their side. This is a fairly substantial part of why I believe that he is, specifically, that role.

I'm going on the record and saying that at anytime this game you a proven to be a vig, I will vote for myself. I'm not sure what brand of scum you are though. Your either a one - shot mafia assassin, or an SK who thought he'd pull a clever stunt by opting out of his NK. But you are scum, I've no doubt.
At no time yesterday did I advocate a lynch. The closest I came was saying that I was so sure DS was scum, that I wasn't moving my vote. If you will remember correctly I took you off L-1 the other day. I wanted people to talk and discuss things, come up with ideas and theories and see who defended who and how the votes moved.
I pressed just about everyone that day, except for VL because I, along with just about everyone else, believed he was the cop, and liamcool, because if I believed VL was a cop, then I must believe his investigation.
It's possible that liamcool is the GF, but it's also possible to flip a coin twelve times and have it comes up heads every single time. Possible, but very unlikely. I've explained a few times why I didn't grill DS, and the only time I really supported him was when he was looking at DLS.
I'll remind everyone how he started the day attacking you, and then you both very quickly moved to attacking DLS. He was quiet after his initial attack on DLS, so I'm not sure how you drew the conclusion I was backing him "Most of the time", when he was hardly there. Your stretching the facts to suit your story.
I didn't know who scum were, just like the rest of the town. So I pushed and watched what happened. I don't believe scum are just going to come out and saying something incriminating, so I had a look at everyone. The whole time I encouraged people to conduct their own investigations and draw their own conclusions, and I still do.
I don't buy your reasons for claiming one bit. If your objective was to sacrifice yourself to try save VL, you could have claimed cop after DS was hammered. You could have said "I'm the vig, and I will be killing "X" tonight, and Y tomorrow", and then simply not gone through with it, rationlising on the chance you pick a scum, they would've had to have killed you to save themselves.
If your sure I'm scum, and you meant it when you said you were willing to sacrifice yourself, why not let us lynch you today, so then everyone will know I'm scum and lynch me tomorrow?
You won't do it, because the truth is your not actually willing to sacrifice yourself, that your actually scum that cooked up a story that makes you look noble for being willing to sacrifice yourself.
Prove me wrong.

Here's a section of troubling logic that I missed initially, and only noticed on my last read-through. Nudude has here said that he's ready to participate in his own lynch on D4 if his suspicions come up bad, but demands that Thanatos not only play by the same standard, but do so

today

. That's terrible strategy, regardless, and is WIFOM at its most distilled. In essence, Nudude is using his claimed self-sacrificial nature here to try and hammer Thanatos for a claim that he doesn't like. To say the least, I'm not a fan.

It's not at all equal. DS was about to get lynched, and said that to save his neck. Here, it's the beginning of the day, no votes, and if anything it makes me look more suspicious, not less.
I doubt there is a mafia role blocker. If there was, it would have made more sense to block VL, thus making him and liamcool look suspicious, while NK Thanatos, a self confessed power role, which was likely a vig/sk given the two NK's on D1?
Also, his N1 kill made no sense at all. VL and liamcool looked more suspicious then insurgent at that time, so if you were going to take a shot in the dark, why not one them? Why did you kill a guy who had just replaced into the game, that no - one had a read on and had made a grand total of four posts? That was your best guess?

It fits better if your an SK, because it's in your best interests to leave suspicious people in play, whereas a Vig taking a shot in the dark would probably go for someone more suspicious than a guy who was in the game just a little over 24 hours?

My vote stands, and as you all know, I'm betting my life on it.

I'd like people to pay attention to the bolded part right here- again, this is something that I myself missed. However, Nudude is on record here as saying that it's much more likely that Thanatos is SK than Vig. It was only after the town started saying "Ok, we're fine with that, since the scum still would want to kill him" that Nudude recanted this and said that it's very unlikely that Than was an SK.

Some people play by a very simple creed in this game- Lynch All Liars. I'm not sure if Nudude's reversal in this matter constitutes a lie, but it's extremely suspicious to me.

By all means, think about it for yourself and take your time, no rush.
It's impossible to be 100% certain wether or not someone is scum untill they go to the noose, but comparing the stretches of thinking required to justify Thanatos is an Vig, versus how the pieces fit together if Thanatos is an SK, I feel certain he the SK.

I also think of the consequences of being wrong if he is an SK. There are seven players, I'd say 4 townies and 3 scum (2 mafia + 1 SK). Now if we lynch a townie, and Thanatos is an SK, we could lose 3 townies in one day/night, making 1 townie and 3 scum, meaning the the town will almost certainly lose, as the mafia will kill Thanatos, and even if Thanatos picks a mafia to kill, that leaves 1 townie and 1 mafia, which means town lose.
No matter how I look at it, I don't trust Thanatos enough to put the game in his hands. If we lynch Thanatos, we know for a fact only one townie will die tonight, and if turns out we were wrong and he is a vig, you'll have confirmed me as scum (which I'm not!) and will know who to lynch.
The question is, do you trust Thanatos enough to risk only having one townie tomorrow?

Again, bolded part for emphasis- Nudude is certain here that Thanatos is the SK.

Did you even read my last post?
In it I explained why it's more risky trusting that Thanatos is a vig.
There's a few people that haven't posted in a few days.
I've presented my theories and ideas, and explained why. Some people have said they dis - agree, but don't present any alternative theories either.
If you don't agree with me, fine, but at least do something about it! Post some thoughts you have, alternative theories, do some investigating. It's like everyone says "I'm not sure, I want to think about this" but then does nothing about it!
Come up with some ideas and evidence supporting your case. It frustrating for me because I've done my research and have concluded Thanatos is scum, but everyone else is just waiting for some magical piece of evidence to fall in our laps.
Give me something to change my mind, or vote for Thanatos and knock another scum out of the game.
Do something, anything!

More WIFOM logic here, but it's interesting to note that Nudude is here ignoring himself as a viable target of suspicion- in essence, he's accusing everyone else that's not against Thanatos of slacking and/or lurking. Given the fact that, by this point, there were several long and well-articulated posts of suspicion regarding Nudude, I find this odd, but not necessarily damning.

If you read my posts, I've been saying I am convinced that Thanatos is an SK, and presented my case, and that if people didn't agree with that, to do their own investigating.

Can you explain why he killed someone who was in the game a little over 24 hours after they entered the game, while ignoring a slew of suspicious characters?
Can you explain how he knew he'd been roled - blocked? My understanding is that most of the time you don't told why your attempt fails. I could be a GF, there could be a back - up doc, there could be many reasons, but he was sure he'd been role - blocked....how?
Can you explain why you said that an SK is counted as a townie in an end game situation, when this thread:
http://www.mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopi ... +killer%2A
Would seem to indicate that is false? The only true way to know a win condition is by reading your role PM, but it's clear that a SK is not consdiered a townie in an end game situation....why mis - represent the facts?
Can you explain why you finished off DS yesterday before he had a chance to say anything, a stark contrast to today where your calling for calm, rational consideration. I agree that people should take their time and analyse the info.....so why did you yourself rush to the lynch yesterday? Because you were sure he was scum? How is me being sure your scum any different, except that I'm calling for people to prove me wrong, not neccesarily agree with me and rush to the lynch?
In summary,
1. His best guess D1 was a guy with four posts and who had replaced into the game a little over 24 hours before the lynch, despite there being more suspicious characters.
2. He cannot possibly have known he was role - blocked.
3. He claimed that an SK is counted as a townie in an end game situation. This is false, unless a role PM says otherwise.
4. He killed DS before he had a chance to open his mouth. It turned out he was scum, but I'd hardly call that a carefully considered act. I feel if your going to ask for carefully considered acts, then you should also carefully consider how you act, but twice this game you've been quite brash with your decisions.
Just so were clear, I have no problem with everyone taking their time to look things over. I'm just saying I'm pretty damned sure he is scum, and I'm presenting my case. I encourage everyone to present their own.

Nothing particularly interesting here, except to contrast against his very first statement in his very next post.

I have to admit, you make some good points. It doesn't make alot of sense if your a SK.

In fact, the one theory I came up with is that if you are an SK, it's in your best interests to kill scum tonight if we lynch a townie, in which case we should let you live one more night at the very least just in case we get it wrong today.
The thing is I'm certain your scum, well as certain as anyone can be who isn't psychic. There are some things in your story that just don't add up, which I've pointed out. Everyone will have to draw their own conclusions from that.
Here are a couple of alternatives I have:
1. Scum = 1xGF 1xRB 1xOne shot assassin.
This is a powerful mafia group, but there would probably have to be another pro - town power role to offset this. Thanatos could be the one - shot assasin, say he's a blocked vig, and if the role blocker gets lynched it will lend alot of weight to his claim.
2. Scum = 1xGF 1xGoon 1xRB.
A little less powerful, but another pro - town role would probably be justified in this setup.

Did you see that? In the space of one post, Nudude reversed his stance on how likely Thanatos was to be a SK. Literally, one post he was certain that Than was a SK, and the next he was pretty sure that he wasn't. Not only that, but there was only one post in bestwwn these two, and that one came from Thanatos himself.

Be careful, or you'll get whiplash from the logical reversals here.

I feel most of the players in this game are playing it cautiously at the moment, waiting for other people to post, and hoping that it will be the post that clears everything up.
I don't feel this is likely to happen. Most players have already stated the things they believe, and why they believe them. If there was going to be something said to set you on your course, I daresay it would already have been said.
I suggest everyone takes the time to read back over the thread. It may take about an hour, give or take, but I think it will help everyone get a better idea of where they stand.
Try to do it with an open mind. Pretend your not actually in this game, your just perusing it from an outside view. Try to figure out what each person is trying to accomplish when they post.
I know we were waiting on gorgon to post, but it seems like we're not coming up with many new ideas and evidence, as much as waiting for someone to say something that incriminates them. I don't believe scum are just going to come out and say something stupid. I feel we need to come up with theories, run them by people, and see how people respond to them.
I've been doing my fair share of that this game. I would like to see someone else try it. I don't mind doing it myself, but last time I did I got two votes for it.
So, who's going to generate some discussion?

Finally, Nudude begins to address the suspicion levied against him. His response? "Go and reread the thread," even though the

entirety

of the case against him is based on his most recent behavior. This seems to me to be a very thinly veiled attempt to try and clear himself for recent missteps by leveraging a more townish past history.

I drew this conclusion from Gorgon's post.
He's eager to explore new possibilites. His post is well though out and he presents rational evidence. As for myself, IRL my work revolves around statistics, and statisical it is unlikely liamcool is the GF, so I will need something very compelling to vote for liam. However, even though statiscally it's unlikely liamcool is the GF, I don't feel any problem with gorgon exploring the possibility if he feels it's an avenue worth persuing.
As for me, you critisied me for my narrow pursuit of Thanatos, yet you are just as narrow minded, if not more-so, in your pursuit of me, your just using less words than I did.
I am going to suggest having a read over the thread, pulling up some evidence, and presenting some theories to us. Hell, investigate me if you want, just do something more than pick apart individual posts.

Again, Nudude is trying to trade off his past behavior to clear himself. He supports an investigation that he feels unlikely and, finally, attacks his accusors for focusing on him. In short, he says "Go look at anyone else but me." That's scum talk.

I've posted recently on Nudude's more recent items, and they're mostly a continuation of the end of this. The inconsistencies in Nudude's stance on just about everything have officially put him over the top for me. Nudude, you accused us all of being unwilling to come out and formally accuse someone of being scum, for fear of looking scummy tomorrow. Well, here's what you asked for.

Nudude, you're scum. The first red flag was the fact that the only person you refused to spearhead an investigation on in day 2 was the one that turned up scum. The second was when you then attacked Thanatos, and nobody else that was a part of that 5-person lynch, for lynching him (though I agree that i would have liked to see it take longer). The third was when you refused to consider any of the several reasonable scum team composition scenarios that various members of the town put forward, so long as any of those spreads included a scum RBer.

You encourage discussion, so long as it's not about you. You oppose the prevailing thinking on Thanatos' role, whatever it may be, so long as it damns him to the noose. As suspicious as I was of Thanatos yesterday (and remember, I voted on him towards the end of the day with the intent of moving him towards a lynch), your dogged pursuit of him in the face of all logic and, dare I say, common sense defies explanation. Your logic is not only dangerous for yourself, but terrible for the town. I would go so far as to say that the only way that your logic makes any sense whatsoever is that you're scum.

On top of this persistent, bahavioral scumminess, you've made several slip-ups today that, to me, serve to highlight the dangerous logic, poor judgment, and suspicious calls for action that you've made the whole day through.

If anyone does not

wholeheartedly

agree with my logic on Nudude, I heartily encourage them to unvote

immediately

, and continue the town's discussion. I say this because 24 hours from right now, regardless of the vote count at that time, I will vote for Nudude.

[Infinitive]

EBWOP: Umm... WTF?

[Infinitive]

/sigh.

Well, this is a wonderful way to end day 3. No scum would hammer vote himself, because he's come up scum. Barring some weird role rule where Nudude's vote on himself doesn't count, he's a dead man. I guess we'll see how he comes up, but him voting for himself, while stupid as hell, means he's likely town, regardless of whatever evidence I've amassed.

And yes, I spearheaded this investigation. If Nudude comes up town, I most certainly deserve a long and thorough investigation, as I will have been a part of two bad lynches at that point (again, presuming Nudude is town).

As a note , Than, if you target me for a NK, I'm pretty sure you won't get RB'd.

[Infinitive]

Well... back.

Okay, feel free to investigate away at me to your collective hearts' content. I was part of two bad lynches, and I suppose that I deserve a good looking-at. Regardless, here's some quick thoughts on the surviving town:

We know that there's 1 other mason out there, guaranteed. We're also pretty sure that there are two scum players out there. As such, I propose something: no voting on anyone until we're good and sure; we are now at the point that an incautious vote could end the game. We also have a substantial amount of new, confirmed information from the parts of Thanatos and Nudude that we can sift through. Let's do so, and try to think this through.

Yes, I realize that both of those two's general opinions of me will be fairly damning. I don't care. We're in a tight spot, and I still want to win this if I can. I'm going to think for a little bit and see if I can figure out a decent strategy to run with for the day.

Note: Personally, I'm thinking that the odds on Liam being GF are getting pretty high here. If I

had

to lay money right now, I'd say Gorgon and DS, but I'm not sure of either.

[Infinitive]

Okay, this idea came to me a little quicker than I expected. Before I begin, I'd like to say PLEASE DON'T ACT ON IT UNTIL WE'VE ALL HAD A CHANCE TO DISCUSS IT!

So, here's what we know for facts: there are two scum players alive. One of them is a roleblocker. We know this because Thanatos, a Vig, was both roleblocked and nightkilled last night; I'm pretty sure that a RBer can't both RB and NK in one night; if I'm wrong, please tell me and this can go back into the wishy-washy column.

We also know that there is at least 1 Mason left out there. I would think it unlikely that there'd be a mason group 3 strong in a 12-person game, because then they'd be as powerful a collective voting block as the scum. If anyone else thinks it likely that there is more than one mason left alive, speak up; this plan/idea will not work if there is more than one surviving mason. I'll go into why in a bit.

Okay, here's the idea: first, we have the one remaining mason claim, since their special ability is null without their partner. If there is no counterclaim, we know that that person is town, and our blind lynch odds against everyone else are back to 50/50, which we can then narrow by careful investigation. If there IS a counterclaim, we're also sitting on 50/50 blind lynch odds which, again, we can narrow through investigation. Either way, we're ought to be better off, if only slightly (current blind lynch odds are 40%).

To break a possible counterclaim we could, as long as that's allowable by the mod rules, have the claimants post the previous night conversations that they had had with Nudude. Again, there would be close scrutiny of that information against what Nudude had posted previously, and against his writing style.

The problem here is that if anyone thinks it's likely that there are two masons left, we could end up in a situation where someone claims mason honestly and then both scum players claim mason; it's theoretically possible that there are two masons left alive in the town which, unfortunately, matches the scum's team size perfectly. For the moment, I can't really think of a good way out of this contingency, which is one reason that I'm presenting it to the town. Any ideas?

[Infinitive]

@ Coolbot- Because the primer said that special roles can only take one action in a given night, even if they have more than one available to them? As i recall, there was even a little flash movie, with characters that looked like they were used from the Madness flash animation series.

Secondly, Coolbot, I will concede the possibility that the RBer is town. However, I offer this counter-proposal: if the town has an RBer, what do the scum get to balance that out? If the RBer is town, and we know one of the scum players was thug, that doesn't leave a whole lot of room for reasonable power roles left for the scum side. Further, it makes for a very, very powerful town- 1 cop, 1 doc, 1 vig, 1 RBer, and 2 masons? That would leave a grand total of 3 vanilla townies and would, I'm pretty sure, leave only 1 alive today.

As an afterthought, if Coolbot's thinking on the RBer is correct (it could be either town or scum), I'm not sure that it would actually

matter

at this point, as the only active role left is scum and RBer in any case, which severely limits the RBer's ability to affect anything anymore.

[Infinitive]

DS? Do you mean LDS?

No, I meant Liamcool. I'm sorry, I'm not sure how I got to DS (Disciple Slayer).

Anyway, here's me musing aloud:

It'd be pretty stupid for a mason to vote for his partner, especially the way things were building up towards the end of yesterday regarding Nudude. We know that DLS, Coolbot and I were wanted him lynched (the dearly departed Thanatos excerpted). That means that it's a pretty safe bet that neither DLS or Coolbot are Nudude's partner, and I guess there's also a solid chance that the remaining mason can't claim. It also ought to be clear that I'm not Nudude's partner either, both for my voting and because I seem to know jack spit about the mason role. That leaves...

Liam and Gorgon. The two people I've been most suspicious of, after Nudude. Crap. I'm really not sure what to do with this.

More musing: There seemed to be pretty general agreement that a scum RBer was more likely than a town RBer; in fact, I don't think the possibility of a town RBer was even raised during D3. I'm somewhat surprised that Coolbot has made such a big issue over it now, of all things, but to each his own. What I had been trying to say, Coolbot, is that unless we go out and call for a claim, there's not a whole lot of practical difference for the town, as far as the deliberative process is concerned.

Pardon my meandering thought process, but back to the first part: If we've got two scum left, that means that, unless Nudude's mason buddy was acting really weird, there's one scum player on either side of that divide:

Gorgon or Liamcool // Me or DLS or Coolbot.

I'm not really thrilled about this split, as I'm stuck with two people that I had been pretty sure of as town, and Gorgon and Liam cannot realistically both be scum. I know that it's of no help to any of you, especially fresh off the Nudude lynch, but I'm town, which means that one of the two people I've been trusting is scum and one of the two people I've been distrusting are not.

Regardless, I'd like to ask the town to investigate me quite thoroughly now. There's no chance that we're going to be able to have a meaningful investigation on anyone else as long as I remain uninterrogated, having been part of the DT and Nudude lynches and after being an advocate for the failed Thanatos D2 lynch. Further, I am on record as being upset about the speed of the DS lynch, which you all could easily and fairly extrapolate to being upset about the lynch as a whole.

So, let's get going. I don't care who leads this mess, but I really think that it has to be done for the town to move forward.

[Infinitive]

As I mentioned earlier, a scum blocker would clearly implicate you, since Thanatos made it clear he was targeting you. If you were town, they would've let the kill go through since that's an auto win for scum. The only way it makes sense for scum to have blocked Thanatos is that you're scum. Therefore, I'd really like to figure out if the blocker is scum or not. And FWIW, I mention the possibility of a town blocker a couple times Day 3.

Oh, okay. I get where you're coming from now, and that makes pretty decent sense. I'm not sure where Than said he was going to target me for a NK, and I'd kind of like you to point that out to me, because I'm pretty sure I would have remembered that.

Also, I'd like to point out a part B to that thought process, Coolbot; the scum knew that if Thanatos killed ANYONE last night, it would either win the game for them or put the town in a pretty comfortable position. I don't think that, knowing the way I look after the Nudude lynch, it'd be a hard choice for the scum to just play it safe and hope I get quicklynched today.

What does everyone think about claiming if we're a blocker or not. If no one claims, that's pretty strong evidence of a scum blocker and therefore strong evidence Infinitive is scum. If someone does claim, though, scum will probably off them tonight.

Again, Coolbot, you've got to be careful there. In lynch or lose, it's a very good time for scum to run around falseclaiming whatever people seem to want to see, especially this late in the game; I would think it unlikely that there's both a town and a scum RBer; what's preventing a scum RBer from falseclaiming?

On that note, I just remembered something, and a comment from Gorgon is making me think. Remember at the end of the day yesterday, when Nudude lynched himself? I believe it was on his last post too; he referred to his role as a "pro-town role," even as he put the noose around his own neck. Further, Gorgon's quite right- if Nudude had claimed mason, he wouldn't have been lynched; I, at least, would have backed off, because the way a mason team has to play makes them act like scum most of the time. This makes me wonder if Liam isn't trying to make a powerplay, on the bet that the real mason can't counterclaim.

That being a possibility, I'll ask this, as kind of a way of giving a possible other mason a way to counterclaim without risking mod action: Is there anybody in the town who cannot make a role claim for fear of mod action?

[Infinitive]

Thanks for the quote, Coolbot; I had, indeed, missed that.

Further, you and Gorgon are making pretty good points. I'm kind of wondering why nobody's taken up my invitation to investigate me, though. I know that I look very scummy right now, and I know why. I don't feel that it would be fair for me to go out myself and start putting up reason why I did X, Y, or Z, because that would be necessarily suspect. Maybe I believe in an adversarial system of justice too much, but I really think that the only way that I'm going to be able to fairly clear myself is if the town puts pressure on me to show cause in the various actions I've taken.

[Infinitive]

So, you don't even think that I deserve a chance to defend myself, Coolbot?

Because seriously, if you're not scum, the game ends the moment you vote for me.

[Infinitive]

Well, what do you find most incriminating about me? I know that I myself have listed a number of things that would make me look scummy. Unfortunately, I haven't gotten that telepathy thing down yet (though my GF wishes I had). This means that I don't know what you think is particularly bad, and i would really like to address whatever points people would like to bring.

I'm sorry- I play from work, and what this means in terms of game effect is that I can only check a few times a day on weekdays (as I usually end up committing myself on the weekends), and i really don't have the time to trawl through the thread to try and dredge up every little thing that I've done that makes me look bad. Present concerns and I can answer them. This game is like 45 pages long, which is a tremendous amount of ground to cover for me with no idea whatsoever as to what you all would like me to address.

[Infinitive]

Well, why don't you try this scenerio on for size?

The first is that the scum may have been wanting to play it safe. Thanatos said he was targeting me, but there's no guarantee he wasn't lying, or that he might have changed his mind for one reason or another. Further, if Thanatos is stuffed, the scum are in guaranteed lynch or lose at 5 people, which is a fantastic position for them to be in; they've got one free scum death before they're at a critical stage, and will almost certainly be at lynch or lose tomorrow

even if everything goes wrong.

On the other hand, if Thanatos were to change his mind at the last minute, he could get lucky and put the town in a fantastic position; 5 people with one scum left is wonderful. In short, as a tactical move, it's very savvy, from the perspective of someone who's hedging what they see to be a winning bet. Letting Thanatos free fire was a risk, and the best overall strategy of any scum team is to minimize risk, in the form of invesitgations, protections, and nightkills, as best they can.

I'll put it this way. If you had, on one hand, a 50/50 shot at winning the game outright (with the failing 50% chance almost certainly dooming you to losing) on one hand, and on the other hand no chance at victory outright, but you'd be set up in a gameplay position that was very strong and, further, likely to generate a win regardless of how the following day played out, which would you choose? Maybe it's just me being somewhat risk-adverse, but I prefer the second option.

A second thought is that, if the scum already prefer the strategy I outlined above, how much more attractive does that position look if you know that there's going to be someone left standing the day after that looks very scummy, and may likely just be rolled into the noose? Right now, I'm an easy scapegoat, and the scum only need one in this situation.

[Infinitive]

I'm sorry for double posting, but I have trouble believing that that one post cleared everything up. What's the next question or concern/what part of the above post would someone like to discuss or dissect.

Let's not let this game stagnate, people.

[Infinitive]

Vote Count

Not Voting (5) - Dark_Lady_Shaiann, liamcool, Infinitive, Gorgon, CoolBot

With 5 alive, it takes 3 to lynch.

with the failing 50% chance almost certainly dooming you to losing

How is this true? Even if Thanatos decided not to target you, there'd only be a 2 out of 4 chance of this near certain doom you're going on about. In fact, if scum completely ignored what Thanatos said, by not blocking him, they'd have a 3/5 chance of him targeting town and an auto-win, and a 2/5 chance of them targeting scum being down 3:1 but still very much alive. Yet they blocked him. The only reason I see is that they were afraid he would hit scum, and since he announced he's targeting you, that leads me to figure you as scum.

Okay, first thing's first- your question was "Why would the scum not block Than if I'm town and he's said he was going to NK me." I addressed that question very specifically; in the hypothetical I posed, I'm town and there are 4 unknowns, 2 of which are scum. If Thanatos does NOT target me in that situation, he's got a 50/50 shot of hitting scum. Entering day 4 with 3 town and 1 scum is, I would argue, a very bad position for scum; it's still lynch or lose, which it would have been anyway, but the scum has lost the power to convert a single early vote into a lynch.

Please, when you counter a hypothetical I pose in response to a specific question I ask, take the terms of that question into consideration when you evaluate your answer.

And why was Thanatos so sure you're scum anyway? Unfortunately, he didn't say much except for citing your voting record. I don't really know what he was referring to, but I found this post explaining why you won't hammer DS interesting.

I'm not going to drop that hammer on DS, who, I feel obligated to note, has gone from 0 votes to 4 in the space of one page. I've long felt he was scummy, but this changeover has gone too fast, and I'm beginning to suspect that he's trying to get lynched, just to get out of the game. If he's scum as well, yaytastic. I want more discussion though, if for no other reason than to get people on record for their votes against DS (more comprehensively than as a reaction top his vote) for d3.

And yes, I do still want to move the game forward- with everything except DS's vote, we've reached a stopping point today, and the only way to convert to new information is to lynch someone and move forward; the lynch and nightkills will give us the information we need to make good decisions tomorrow, and I feel that we've exhausted our lines of questioning for today.

These two paragraphs seem in opposition to each other. You say you find DS the scummiest player, but won't hammer him because you want more discussion. And in the very next paragraphs, you say the town has nothing to base any more discussion on, so might as well go to night. Even though DS has not claimed or even really defended himself. It reads to me like you're goading someone to lynch him before he has a chance to slip up and implicate his partners.

First, don't put words in my mouth. Nowhere in there (or anywhere on day 2, in fact) did I say that I thought DS was the scummiest player; at that time, I was fairly convinced by the case against Than. Secondly, please read the paragraph you quoted more carefully before you jump to conclusions. I'm going to repost a section of that paragraph that you seem to have ignored:

If he's scum as well, yaytastic. I want more discussion though, if for no other reason than to get people on record for their votes against DS (more comprehensively than as a reaction top his vote) for d3.

I feel obliged to note that nowhere in there (or, again, anywhere for that matter), did I say that I had an issue with the DS lynch for any other reason than the fact that it came out of nowhere in response to a vote after a long period of stagnation. Further, I said that I wanted more discussion so that we could get people on the record, and so that we could refer back to that later, as when someone goes from 0 votes to 4 in the course of one page, it's pretty likely he's going to get lynched. Please tell me how any of this is scummy.

As to the statement that the two paragraphs are in opposition to one another, I again ask that you read what I wrote carefully before you jump to conclusions. Did I say there that it was time to jump to night? No. What I SAID was that the town had reached a stopping point

with the exception of DS's vote

, and that I still wanted to move the game forward. There was no actual discussion centering around DS' vote, if you'll reread, only strong reactionary voting that eventually dissolved into a fight between DLS and Nudude. What you won't know because you weren't here is that day 2 had gone on for almost a month and a half at that point. I felt that it was time to lynch, as no new discussion had occurred in two weeks, and because I felt that we had a good suspect. If you go back and check my previous scumlists, I had

always

posted that one of either DLS or DS, probably DS, was scum and the other town, and the flamewar that had happened on day 1 was a smokescreen to make the scummy player look stupid, and therefore unlikely to be scum.

And as to your contention that I'm trying to goad someone into lynching him before he implicates someone... I find this to be outright bizarre. Check the sorts of things I was saying when I was looking to lynch Than. My language was

exactly

the same. By your logic, I must have been trying to goad someone into lynching Thanatos before he implicated his partners... err, wait a sec. -_-

And today, you're trying to lynch Liam. It's not that hard to look at Nudude's lynch and realize Liam was his partner. Yet you continued to push your Liam's the Godfather theory, until he claimed. No where did you back off from you suspicions. Instead, you just stopped talking about them, hoping we'd just forget. As of right now, you basically are just demanding "investigations" and defending yourself. You've stopped hunting scum.

Well, if you'll pardon me for missing it, I thought that Gorgon was a more likely candidate, and was trying to avoid flushing him out; as I posted before, I thought it likely that either Liam or Gorgon was a mason, and given Gorgon's posting history versus Liam's, I felt it was much more likely that Gorgon was, in fact, the mason. I had forgotten about Nudude's defense of Liam on day 2, and it took you guys reminding me of that to do so. And why did I stop pushing at Liam? Because there was no counterclaim and his story has been, thusfar, substantiated. As he was my only suspect, I decided that it would be best to back off and let the town pursue its only other real lead, which was me. This is why I've been encouraging the investigation. This is why I'm encouraging people to post specific stuff, like you have been, and general stuff as well, so that I can show cause and get other people on the record.

If there's one thing I've learned from this game, it's that a thorough investigation of someone who looks scummy, regardless of their actual alignment, generates a wealth of new information for the town. We're down to five people. One has a plausible story for being town, and a decent level of proof to back it up. One looks scummy. There aren't other leads. I believe in investigation by interrogation to produce information, either to clear or damn someone, and the only clear case that can be built against anyone right now is me. Fine. Let the discussion center on my actions; I can defend each action that I've taken that looks scummy, and I can do so with quotes from the time in question. With a little luck, this process will help reveal who the surviving members of the scum really are.

And, just as a firestarter question for Coolbot,

if

I'm scum, who's my scumbuddy? I ask this question because you need to have a pretty solid answer for it before you lynch me in lynch or lose, unless your gameplan doesn't require a lynch tomorrow.

[Infinitive]

In the first paragraph, you said you long felt DS was scummy but you wanted more discussion before voting him. In the second paragraph, you contradict that by saying the town had reached a stopping point and the only way to move forward was to lynch someone. How else to interpret that but that you were trying to get someone else to hammer DS?

Umm, did you even read my response to that point? I even out the relevant section in italics for you, so that it'd be nice and obvious, on the bet that you couldn't possibly miss the same thing twice. My words, as you quoted, were that we had reached a stopping point in the discussion

with the exception of DS's vote

. Maybe bold text will help point this out more clearly than my italics. Seriously, my mantra since the game began has been extensive discussion, extensive discussion, extensive discussion.

As to the "Getting someone else to hammer DS" contention, please allow me to make something breathtakingly clear to you. At that point in the game, my vote was on Thanatos. DS was one vote away from the noose. If I were scum and I hammered DS, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now, right? So, if I were scum and I were, as you charge, afraid of DS leaking information about other scum players, why the hell wouldn't I have dropped the hammer myself? Seriously, think about it, because your logic on this matter is awful. In the scenario you describe, my best move, bar NONE, is to lynch DS. If I do that, I'm pretty well clear of any suspicion of being scum for the rest of the game (what kind of dumbass scum player would lynch his own teammate would be the operative question here). Especially given his L-1 staus and the speed at which he acquired it, the chances that DS was getting lynched right there was almost 100%; why not take advantage of that and put myself outside of suspicion?

I can defend each action that I've taken that looks scummy

But it's clear you don't actually want to hunt for scum. In lynch or lose situations, scum tend to sit back and wait for the town to move. That's exactly what you've done since I pointed out how the block of Thanatos implicated you.

I call bull on this accusation. Coolbot, I've been more active today than ANYONE in the game, yourself included. How is asking, REPEATEDLY, the town to investigate one's self sitting back, in any way shape, or form? How is providing evidence against one's self in order to encourage that investigation sitting back and doing nothing? You want to look at people that have been sitting back and doing nothing? Let be give you a damn list:
DLS
Gorgon
Liamcool

None of those three have posted within the last week, much less done ANYTHING even remotely associated with investigating someone. Liam's total contribution to the day was "I'm the other mason, and I'm asking if I can post night convos to prove it." Gorgon's is "I thought Liam was the mason." At least DLS has been somewhat more productive today, but seriously, accusing me of not doing anything in the face of the actions of those three? That contention is false on its face.

And, just as a firestarter question for Coolbot, if I'm scum, who's my scumbuddy?

No, I'm not going to do your job for you. If you want a bandwagon on someone else, you present the arguments. I'm not going to waste my time when I think I've found scum.

Ha! And who would believe me right now if I went out and tried to start an investigation on someone? I'm trying to get you to prove that you're not just looking for a lynch today, without any plan or thought for tomorrow. Remember, the town's still in lynch or lose tomorrow even IF we lynch scum, so we have to have an idea on who both scum players are before we lynch.

Coolbot, you and Charter before you have reliably displayed solid, unimpeachable logic and a clear ability to see through the bull. There is a case to be made against me, as I've been saying for some time now, but you're using craplogic and flat-out falsehoods here. To say the least, this is out of character for you.

[Infinitive]

Okay, before I even get started here, I need to say something, and i really want you to pay attention to it, Coolbot.

Stop misquoting me. I've been saying this for the last three posts, and my patience for you misrepresenting what I say is very swiftly running out. If it were just a matter of interpretation, I'd say cool beans and move on, but it isn't. You're removing portions of paragraphs or even sentences from what I say to change the meaning thereof. I've been bolding and italicizing these discrepancies with the hope that you'll notice them and stop, but this the last warning you're going to get before I start investigating YOU for misrepresentation. Read my entire statement, quote it in its entirety, and don't gloss over sections that don't mesh with what you want to have it say.

So, if I were scum and I were, as you charge, afraid of DS leaking information about other scum players, why the hell wouldn't I have dropped the hammer myself?

Hammering a partner that's going to be lynched anyway is a classic scum move. Despite your characterization of this as a dumb ass move, you knew this, so you didn't want to hammer him. So you tried to get someone else to do it. That's the theory anyway.

As I noted above, this is not what I said. I said it would have been a dumb ass move to NOT hammer DS in the hypothetical you posed. In that situation, I gain nothing by not hammering and look considerably more townish if I do. I said this in the very post you're quoting, and I really shouldn't have to repeat it.

why not take advantage of that and put myself outside of suspicion?

Because it

doesn't

put you outside of suspicion, unless the town is full of naive idiots. I don't believe you believe scum won't hammer their partners, and find your assertion they would to be highly suspect.

Fair enough on the first point. I would counter that, though it wouldn't put me above suspicion, it would have been a much better strategic move if I were scum, and would have given me a major townish touchstone to defend myself with in the event of an investigation.

I've been more active today than ANYONE in the game,

You activity today has only been an attempt to get cop cleared Liam lynched and calls for discussion from other players until I started putting pressure on you. So you were trying to hide in plan sight.

Allow me to quote my first post from day 4. Pardon the added bold emphasis.

Well... back.

Okay, feel free to investigate away at me to your collective hearts' content. I was part of two bad lynches, and I suppose that I deserve a good looking-at.

Regardless, here's some quick thoughts on the surviving town:

We know that there's 1 other mason out there, guaranteed. We're also pretty sure that there are two scum players out there. As such, I propose something: no voting on anyone until we're good and sure; we are now at the point that an incautious vote could end the game. We also have a substantial amount of new, confirmed information from the parts of Thanatos and Nudude that we can sift through. Let's do so, and try to think this through.

Yes, I realize that both of those two's general opinions of me will be fairly damning. I don't care. We're in a tight spot, and I still want to win this if I can. I'm going to think for a little bit and see if I can figure out a decent strategy to run with for the day.

The FIRST THING I did today was state that I ought to be investigated, given my history, long before you or anyone else had called for an investigation. As for Liam, I already addressed this point; I felt that it was more likely that Gorgon was the mason at that point than Liam. Further, it has long been the consensus of the town that there is likely a GF in this game; this is only made more likely by the presence of masons. As we noted as far back as

Day 2

, there was a chance that the Liam investigation was targeting a GF; this was the assumption I was running on, especially given how townish you and DLS had been acting. Further, I did not abandon that when you started putting pressure on me, I abandoned it when he claimed mason and gave evidence to back the claim up, which I then went and verified. I said nothing further on the matter because I felt that there was nothing further to say, barring any evidence of duplicity on Liam's part that was more convincing than the corroboration that we had collectively found.

I've said all this before, Coolbot. I don't appreciate having to repeat myself.

How is asking, REPEATEDLY, the town to investigate one's self sitting back, in any way shape, or form?

Because it's not actually

doing

anything. You want someone else to make the argument that you can jump on. It's either lazy or scummy.

Okay, so you want to investigate myself? Is this SERIOUSLY your contention? I ask because I've stated twice already, and recently, that with Liam's presumptive clearing as a mason, that the town's best lead is me. I've been encouraging this whole mess in the blind hope that it'll give ME something to go on for a counterinvestigation.

If you seriously want me to investigate myself, though, I'll do it, and I'll do a better job of it than you are. This has all been smoke and mirrors so far.

but seriously, accusing me of not doing anything in the face of the actions of those three? That contention is false on its face.

They're not the ones who have been acting scummy the past few days. Also, Night 3's actions don't implicate them; they implicate you.

Umm... we really need to be looking at more than recent stuff in the game, don't you think? I mean, isn't the stuff someone did on day 1 just as relevant as the stuff they did on day 4?

Remember, the town's still in lynch or lose tomorrow even IF we lynch scum, so we have to have an idea on who both scum players are before we lynch

Because they can't talk tomorrow before voting Day 5? I have no idea what the hell you're trying to get at here. Worrying who we're going to lynch tomorrow is putting the cart before the horse. We need to find scum today to lynch now.

I've already explained this twice before, but I'll do so one last time, and I'll do so in such a simplistic manner that, hopefuklly, you won't possibly be able to misinterpret it. Any scum still alive almost certainly has a partner still alive as well. This partner is also scum. The town is in lynch or lose now. If we lynch scum, the town will still be in lynch or lose tomorrow. Given that any scum has the characteristic of having a scumbuddy, it should go without saying that trying to identify whoever that scumbuddy IS is an awfully good way of determining if someone is scum or not. It also follows that if a person does NOT have a scumbuddy, the chances of them being scum are greatly reduced. As such, given the precarious nature of the town's position right now, wouldn't it be smart to check for the most defining characteristic of a scum player in the person you think to be scum? Secondly, this serves as a catch to check and see if whoever's leading the charge, you, in this case, Coolbot, isn't in fact a scum player trying to lead a preemptive lynch in order to win the game.

Is there ANY part of that statement that is, in the least, unclear?

Coolbot, you and Charter before you have reliably displayed solid, unimpeachable logic and a clear ability to see through the bull. There is a case to be made against me, as I've been saying for some time now, but you're using craplogic and flat-out falsehoods here. To say the least, this is out of character for you.

:rolleyes: Yeah, yeah, flattery will get you everywhere. Look, I know you're in a tough spot here, but calls for other people to find scum for you are not enough to convince me. If you gave any effort in trying to help scum, maybe it help dissuade me. Do you have any reason to think DLS, Gorgon, me, or even Liam are scum? Or do you just want to know why everyone else thinks we're scum?

I have said repeatedly that I have no real leads on any of you four right now; certainly nothing particularly potent. As I've stated before, it is my hope that getting the four of you to investigate me aggressively will give me, and by extension the rest of the town, something to work with. My instincts haven't been too solid thusfar in the game, so I'm trying to force an investigation on the one person I know for a fact to be town. It is my sincere hope that this will bring more information to light in general, and will provoke scum players into making slip-ups.

[Infinitive]

How many times to I have to repeat to you, Coolbot, that I don't know of any good frickin leads! I don't have any ideas! Liam was it. Further, nobody's helping me generate any, since you and I are the only ones posting. I've never once said that I was anything but a worthwhile target of investigation. How is this trying to get eh heat off of me?

You know what? Fine. It's going to take a while, but I'm going to investigate MYSELF, because I'm at a loss as to what else to do. Coolbot's investigation has been shallow and circular to say the very least, and nobody's bothered to chime in and help him. It'll take me a while to put this crap together, since there's a huge amount of material for me to wade through, but I'm going to go through, day by day, and try to make a real case against myself. By the way, Coolbot, don't let that stop you. Feel free to harp on the same two to three items over and over, as much as you like; I've explained those items clearly, and unless you add something new, there's really nothing more for me to say. If you do find something new to question me on, perchance, I'd be more than happy to answer any questions you have thereabout.

I know this sounds weird as hell. What I'm hoping is that, with a real case made, people will be compelled to comment thereupon and debate with each other and me as to its validity. That ought to give me something to work with for an investigation of my own.

And who knows? Maybe I'll finally be able to prove my innocence.

[Infinitive]

Sorry about the delay. I post almost exclusively from work, and a project just blew up yesterday; we're still trying to figure out the extent to which stuff is screwed.

I should have my first post in a couple of days.

[Infinitive]

I've got no problem responding to you, Coolbot, so long as you have something new to bring to the investigation. I've explained the same things three times now, and I've got nothing more to add to that. There's plenty here to go on, and I find it suspicious that you've yet to dig into any of that, as I've noted several times.

Secondarily, I have to apologize for my own failure to do as I had intended, to investigate myself. The project that I mentioned earlier has turned into a righteous shitstorm, which means that I really don't have the time at work to do the sifting and extended posting that such an investigation would entail. Sorry, guys. Here's some stuff, in brief, for you to dig at though:

On day 1, I pushed the bandwagon against DT, even though I didn't spearhead it. At the tail end thereof, I jumped off, and went after Liam, sparked by a post from DT.

On day 2, I pushed investigations against Liam and Thanatos very hard. As has been noted repeatedly, I called for an end to the day. This secondary point has been addressed thoroughly, as has my feelings regarding the DS lynch.

On day 3, I spearheaded the investigation of Nudude, which resulted in a mislynch. As has been noted, I focused on him being a likely Mafia RBer.

Take this all as you will. I've gotta get back to work now.

[Infinitive]

Okay, we've got until Saturday to get something done. Coolbot has made his case, and I've presented my defense against it.

Gorgon, DLS and Liam (when you get back from the paper), it's officially time for you all to contribute. You've been lurking all day today. and that helps nobody.

[Infinitive]

Hello? Anyone there? Echo...echo...echo...

Seriously, we're down to 4 days. Anyone have a thought?

[Infinitive]

Well, this ought to tell me a whole lot. If I don't get hammered right now, Coolbot is scum.

[Infinitive]

Well, since today's the last day I'm going to get to do so, as tomorrow is a Saturday, I guess it's time.

Vote: Coolbot

I know that that looks like an OMGUS vote, but it isn't. I waited for a couple of days to see if I'd get hammered into oblivion by scum, and it didn't happen. I know I'm not scum; ergo, Coolbot must be. I'm not thrilled about this one. It means that the one person that I had, more than any other, pegged as town isn't.

Anybody else got any bright ideas before tomorrow's deadline?

Mod: it'd probably be a good idea to prod the other two.

[Infinitive]

Yeah, and neither did I. Coolbot/Charter had me completely fooled until the last day- Coolbot, you might want to recheck your logic; it was getting seriously circular, and pretty obvious. Part 2 was that as soon as Liam was cleared, it became pretty apparent to me that Gorgon was the second scum player, but the only reasons thereto was a set of reasoning that relied on me being town. I was hoping to get to that by clearing my name today, but it didn't come about. Ahh, c'est la vie.

Anyway, don't blame yourself Than. If I had been the vig, I would have NK'd incorrectly too- but it'd have been Liam on night one, which would have only made matters worse; without Liam or a significant history to back him up, who would've believed Nudude was the other mason? It'd be an achingly obvious scumclaim on d2. That being the case, would we have caught DS on d2? Probably not. You did better than you thought.

In short, this game came down to the fact that Charter convinced me early on that he was town, and then played very carefully to preserve that conception. This is likely why I wasn't NKd at some point, despite my generally high level of activity- the scum knew that if it came down to Lynch or Lose with me and Charter both in play, they'd probably win.

Regardless, good game guys. Charter gets my vote for Mafia MVP. Not sure who I'd vote for for town MVP, but I know it wasn't me.

[Infinitive]

Believe it or not, I just didn't. Maybe I glossed over that bit when I quoted you, maybe it happened on a busy day at work, and other things just kind of overwhelmed my memory thereof. I honestly couldn't say, but I honestly don't remember that statement before it was pointed out for me on d4.

[Infinitive]

I did? Seriously?

Freaky, memory lapse.