Mini 720 - SPQR Mafia {Game Over}

[El Destructo]

Hi. We are Elmo and destructor.
We will read, discuss and then post soon.

- des

[El Destructo]

BUENOS DIÃ

[El Destructo]

He could, and he might. I was meant to have finished my read yesterday but IRL happened. The plan had been for us each to read, discuss and post. We both thought reading the game independently before discussing things would probably be more productive and interesting (synergy, etc).

So far, most of our discussion has been about how we're going to manage this double-head. I sent Elmo a very crude list of my reads based on what I've read (up to page 12) with little reasoning just to give him an idea of what I was thinking. That's been the extent of our game-related discussion.

Given that he's done with his read and I'm not, I've suggested to Elmo that he post anything he feels comfortable about posting short of a vote.

des

[El Destructo]

Is there a particular reason you can't post your own thoughts without consulting your partner first?

I figured it would be cool if we read it in isolation from each other and then compared notes, see what was the same and what was different. Then I got his PM and while a few things we seem to agree on, other bits are pretty much exact opposites; in particular, EA seemed like painful obv scum to me and Yos2 seemed much closer to my experinces of TownYos than ScumYos at minimum, I've probably put him at prob town if he hadn't got that scummy thinigummie. Des thinks EA is really town and Yos is obv scum. Erk. So I was kind of a bit put off posting that until we'd talked about it at least a little, I don't know what I'd do if double-heads disagreed that much. Also logically at least one of us has to be wrong. Hopefully we'll talk it ovah.

I also think that Glork's closer to when I saw him as scum, and you can read whatever you want into Patetheric getting killed N1 but they both know him real well, and they didn't like what they saw either. So yeah, not really liking him at the moment. No, I don't have anything specific yet, go away.

(For the record, yes, I still firmly believe that dahill is protown.)

When did you firmly believe he was protown prior to this? Vote: Glork

This is a really really really bad vote. My impression is that he's distancing/bussing from Glork, since I recall he was bus-happy in another game I read, but I pretty much hate it with a burning passion regardless of Glork's alignment. What Incog just said is also a pretty big deal in my mind, that Glork vote really didn't have any teeth, did it?

Those are kind of the big two on my mind. Tuber and charter both seem to have gone by without a lot of prodding. I think charter is ok so far, but I have a bigger question mark about Tuber. I don't really like what he's been posting, but it's a pretty vague feeling - I'd be curious why Glork said he felt better about him (at some point?). Probably needs a reread.

The dahill thing, I have difficulty reading him, but I don't really see it at the moment. I feel like I'm missing something obvious, so I'll go over the case(s) again, but I'm really kinda "meh" about the wagon right now.. I don't really understand why it formed or why anyone's interesting in voting him even.

By the way, I'm amazed no-one googled the name Coriolanus. I did when I was reading along.

It occurs that Incog has his vote on me, I'll go back and look why sometime, or you could summarise it if you didn't already? I see in the preview part of it's something about RV.. I dunno if I can add anything except the knowledge he's town, I'll go back and look at it though. I'm aware half of this post is like "I'll go back and read" but uh yeah, I get a lot more reading done when I got a computer, heh.

So yeh now my other head will explain why EA is obv town T.T

Elmo

[El Destructo]

I've finished my read. Like Elmo said, I had a really strong scum read of Yos throughout and am leaning far towards town on EA. I'm definitely feeling like Elmo and I should talk these reads over before filling the thread up with noise.

I also agreed with pretty much everything Pathetric said, especially Ether's reads, including what she said about dahill. So that's something else I'll have to talk over with Elmo.

For your info, the reads I sent Elmo yesterday, which didn't really change when I read the rest of the thread, were that Yos was obv scum and that the rest of the scum were probably in {dahill, Incog, Glork}.

Give us like a day to sort the above out.

des

[El Destructo]

The kill is ridiculous. After Patrick said "If we die, seriously look at Glork no matter what," I instantly felt that any group containing Primate/Assmaster, Corio/Simenon, Incognito, or Yosarian2 (and possibly even Dahill) would have tried to off them. And while I won't deny that I would have if I were scum (believe me, it would have been a no-brainer), I can hardly believe that it points any more or less to me.

Uh, yeah, that's not what I said. I

said

you can read whatever you want into their getting killed; I

said

that they are probably the two people who know you best still active on this forum, and they - in collaberation - thought you were scum. In addition to my own view, independant of them. So I am curious as to your view on how these two players, who know you well, and as you said are very good players, and are now confirmed town, happened to be so wrong about you. 'cuz I don't think they were.

Other stuff is coming. Holy fuck I hate this IE7.

Elmo

[El Destructo]

Hi Glork. Do you often defend players whose alignment you aren't aware of? Can you give me links?

[El Destructo]

* des

[El Destructo]

For the record, I don't think EA is scummy. I think I "get" him. I would find Yos scummier for saying things like EA uses crap logic if Elmo didn't have a similar read of him. There are other problems I have with Yos' case (on EA

and

Xtoxm) but I'm working them through with Elmo. I've never seen Yos play as town while Elmo has. This is more or less why I haven't already been pushing a case on Yos.

Yos was scum in Crackers! and I'm getting pretty much exactly the same vibe from him here. I understand that one game is a small sample size, but if the things I suspected Yos for in that game (and in this) are really just part of Yos' meta regardless of alignment, then I think the two of us have some seriously conflicting ideas on mafia theory. But, that would surprise me given that I tend to agree with most of what I read of his in MD. I'm finding it hard to accept that a player I would normally agree with on theory would play in a way that I find is woefully scummy.

des

[El Destructo]

D1 of Face-to-Face, I defended Thesp very strongly

I looked over Day 1. You call Thesp obvTown and the extent of your defence is Voting/FOSing the players that voted or cast suspicion on him. I didn't see any rebuttal of the cases against him. All in all, I wouldn't call that a strong defence of Thesp, especially since you interrogated him about his read of SV later that day. Also reading a bit into Day 2, you FOS Thesp and admit that your comment about Thesp was a joke.

So, this wasn't the sort of example I was looking for.

In this post during D1 of Lights Out 2, I listed seven other players whom I believed to be at least 75% protown

Lights Out 2 wasn't really an example of defending players. If you did defend anyone as opposed to calling them town, I'm admittedly too lazy to read the game and find out.

In D1 of LoudmouthLee's "New C9" I defended Guardian so staunchly that MBL noted my "hyper-defense" of him.

I dig your defence here.

In D1 of Satin Dolls (linked to it in my earlier post), I went out of my way to defend Elmo, simply because there appeared to be a really awful bandwagon on him as the deadline approached.

Fair enough.

So there are a handful of examples I came up with off the top of my head. I can't find the post because apparently the search function is broken, but I know that I've talked about the benefits of seeking out protown players and using that to aid someone in finding scum. I guess outright staunchly defending somebody because I believe them to be protown is somewhat rarer because it's not often that those people come under heavy scrutiny.

If it wasn't clear, I asked my question because of how you stepped in for dahill in Day 1. Particularly posts like 356 and 334-5. Especially 335.

I found it outright weird that you decided to spend as much time as you did telling us that Ether's arguement against dahill was flawed. 335 looked like coaching or something. Nah, probably not coaching, but it was something. You had basically done all the talking for dahill.

This is different from all of the examples you provided except maybe Satin Doll Showdown, but even then there are significant differences. In SDS, you believed the wagon on Elmo was bad, he had enough votes to be lynched, the day was about to end. That's a reasonable circumstance to defend another player. I don't see anything resembling that to justify what you did for dahill.

I've played with you 3 times before. You were town in 2 of those games (Mini 545 and CT:GTSF) and scum in one (Mars 3 - Weasels Mafia). In Weasels, one of the first things I picked up about you was your defence of Thanatos, which I found as inappropriate as your defence of dahill has been. What I basically take from this is that you're less likely to make an uncalled for defence of a player when you're town. This makes me suspect you more.

Something else that's weirding me out is the fact that you went out of your way to defend Xtoxm in CT:GTSF despite the fact that a heap of players thought he was a good lynch throughout the game. I can't remember a heap from that game, but I know that I never understood why you thought Xtoxm was town (I was one of those guys that wanted to lynch him). By the end of the game, I was just taking your word for it since you were pretty much confirmed town and seemed uncannily sure of his innocence.

What was different about Xtoxm's play in this game?

[El Destructo]

That last post was me as well.

Also to Glork, what did you seriously think the town would gain out of the Coriolanus-alt discussion? I'm not asking for an essay, even dot points would be enough for now.

des

[El Destructo]

Actually, I'd like Yos, Incog and dahill to answer that instead.

[El Destructo]

Re: Coriolanus, yep, that's why I asked the others to answer it instead. I stopped swinging before I could miss.

About Xtoxm in CT, did you suspect him before Niv and FL were confirmed scum? I can't remember, it's just about 2am and I'm being lazy about rereading the game. Do you think Xtoxm's play

was

different in that game? I seem to remember him being evasive to questions I asked him during that game, much like he had been to questions asked of him here.

About the Guardian defence, the attacks on him were lame. It was obvious that he was not being very serious. I think you were trying to nip that one in the bud so as to get discussion onto better topics. This defence was called for and pro-town for those reasons.

Biggest difference between Elmo and dahill is urgency. In SDS, the deadline was imminent. Your dahill defences at 334-5 were not urgent and so served little pro-town purpose in my eyes, hence I call them

uncalled for

.

Would you argue with me if I said that there are more similarities between your defences of Thanatos and dahill than with those of Elmo and dahill?

Taking all the examples you provided as well as the games I've played with you into account, what I said before - that you're less likely to make an uncalled for defence of a player when you're town - holds true. Most of the time, I pick my words carefully. Both of the other statements you say I made about you and defending others aren't accurate.

[El Destructo]

So, I ask Glork questions, he responds/asks for clarity, I do so and that translates into me pulling something new out of my ass?

Getting to the beef,

--You yourself brought up me going out of the way to defend Xtoxm, but kind kind of mentioned it in passing, and dismissed it in your analysis of "uncalled for" defenses.

How the fuck do you see me raising this point in passing when I ask you to explain it? Why else would I ask you to explain it other than to compare your reasons there to your reasons with dahill?

--You haven't defined what you believe to be "uncalled for," forcing me to take stabs at defending myself against your phantom attack

How many things can uncalled for mean?

You had basically done all the talking for dahill.

Uncalled for means stepping in to answer for another player when their own response would be more informative and useful. I really thought this was obvious, Glork.

--You just tried to bring up a difference between SDS and this game that was hardly a difference at all. Time concerns played a part in both instances. In both instances, a decision needed to be made between two rival wagons, and I supported one while attacking the other.

For a start, I specifically mentioned 334-5, which WASN'T 48 hours before deadline and

absolutely incomparable

to the deadline scramble you made in SDS. You're either ignoring this on purpose or sloppy.

You're full of shit. I think that if you honestly believed that my play was more consistent with me being scum than me being town, then you would have done your homework well ahead of time and been able to present a complete argument up front. Instead, you just threw out that feeling, and when I started to dig into it, you kept coming up with something new each post.

Done my homework = metagame? If so, my questions were obviously me doing said homework.

That last sentence is pretty full of bs. All that was "new" was a few extra questions/comments about the CT game and, well, that's basically it. My last post was basically a recap of the one before maybe with more clarity.


I didn't see Ether's attack on dahill as bad, certainly not as bad as the attack on Guardian, so I don't believe your defence would be as justified.


So, Glork, are you OMGUSing me or using this as an excuse not to make a case on Yos? Quick, decide!

[El Destructo]

Reading up from where I last posted, I find destructor's usage of meta-gaming on this page to be really odd. destructor, you and me have played in a number of games before both on-site and off-site and in each and every one, you were always very strongly anti-meta

(Yes, I'm meta-ing your anti-meta sentiments.)

. Why are you using it so vehemently on this page?

I thought I'd used meta in YOUR game (AoaDA), actually.
I definitely used it in Crackers too. My read of a lot of players was based largely on my experience with them.
I also admitted to using it in one shape or form in MD [url=http://www.mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopi ... metagaming[/url].
I've probably used it in other games too.

Getting into Glork's meta was a pretty natural progression from my question to him. First, I see him defending dahill. In context (which I've explained already), I find this anti-town bordering scummy. I know Glork has played lots of games. I remember him doing the same sort of thing early in a game from Weasels, where he was scum. I ask him about other games he's done it in to see if he did it as town as well. If he could show me a game where he did something similar as town, I would have dropped it then and there.

This whole thing pegs on Glork being able to show us an example of him defending a player who is in no immediate danger of being lynched and has had a more than a minor point raised against them.

Glork says Ether's point about dahill's contradiction was bad. I disagree. Rather than saying "Ether was playing badly", Glork needs to explain what was so bad about her case on dahill that warranted him stepping in on dahill's behalf.

Preview edit: I see Glork's latest post. On skim, apparently my last paragraph might be redundant. I'm posting this anyway. Will reply to glork in my next one.

[El Destructo]

--You yourself brought up me going out of the way to defend Xtoxm, but kind kind of mentioned it in passing, and dismissed it in your analysis of "uncalled for" defenses.

How the fuck do you see me raising this point in passing when I ask you to explain it? Why else would I ask you to explain it other than to compare your reasons there to your reasons with dahill?

You asked me to explain why I thought Xtoxm was protown then and not protown here. You only mentioned me going out of my way to defend Xtoxm in passing. Different things here, buddy.

Ok, I need to take something back here.

I asked you about xtoxm not to compare to dahill, but to compare to your reasons for finding him scummy here. This question was completely separate from mine about dahill. I expect to take some flak for this.

I'm still not sure how you see me as asking about xtoxm in passing, though.

--You haven't defined what you believe to be "uncalled for," forcing me to take stabs at defending myself against your phantom attack

How many things can uncalled for mean?

You had basically done all the talking for dahill.

Uncalled for means stepping in to answer for another player when their own response would be more informative and useful. I really thought this was obvious, Glork.

Wrong on multiple accounts.
First, Dahill explained himself separately. Secondly, if you go back and read carefully, I was basically critiquing Ether's attack (which claimed a clear and direct contradiction) than anything else. Thirdly, I would still argue that my defense was called for, because I was seeking to explore the afore-mentioned bad attack.

I need to check Ether's posts here again. I thought dahill's explanation for the contradiction, something like "MD comments shouldn't factor into actual games" or something, was incredibly unbelievable. Does that mean he LIES in MD or something? It looked to me like you were providing a further explanation for dahill's comments in 334:

That's probably because "unexplained votes can be awesome/useful" and "unexplained votes can be genuinely scummy" are FAR from mutually exclusive.

To this post, I wrote this in my notes:

BUT THEN WHY DIDN'T DAHILL SAY THAT INSTEAD OF MAKING SOME LAME AND VAGUE EXCUSE ABOUT MD NOT FACTORING INTO GAMES? AND WHY DID GLORK IGNORE ETHER'S POINT ABOUT THAT?

You add to that in 335:

Furthemore, there is a distinct difference between "accusing X of being scum for no reason" and "voting for X without giving a reason." Again, I'll leave it up to dahill to justify that difference

The "leave it up to dahill to justify that difference" part totally pings something off. It's like you gave him everything he needed to actually make some sense but by adding the "leave it up to him" bit were trying to dust your hands of it or something.

--You just tried to bring up a difference between SDS and this game that was hardly a difference at all. Time concerns played a part in both instances. In both instances, a decision needed to be made between two rival wagons, and I supported one while attacking the other.

For a start, I specifically mentioned 334-5, which WASN'T 48 hours before deadline and

absolutely incomparable

to the deadline scramble you made in SDS. You're either ignoring this on purpose or sloppy.

I'm not sure how you can possibly see this as the central part of my defense of Dahill.

See above. Even in my first post on this topic I made a special and specific note of 334-5. It was THIS that reminded me of your Thanatos defence.

Ether said she was amazed at how people could "overlook his scumminess without acknowledging his contradiction." I replied by pointing out that it didn't look like a contradiction to me. Ether's attack was just bad. Awful. And because her "contradiction" DID NOT FUCKING EXIST, that makes my post COMPLETELY CALLED FOR.

I think dahill was making shit up about his stance on MD. So in my mind, the contradiction stands.

No, doing your homework would be exploring the metagame fully, instead of taking Mars 3, CT:SF, and whatever that other game was as your entire sample set. Three games, one of which includes an out-of-the-way defense of a protown player with me as protown and undermines your own point, does not make for a good meta argument. It makes for a very bad one. That is why you did not do your homework.

I didn't bring those three games up until after I asked for examples. Succinctly, none of the town examples you bought up undermined my point given that none were as similar to what you did in 334-5 as your defence of Thanatos.

So, Glork, are you OMGUSing me or using this as an excuse not to make a case on Yos? Quick, decide!

Neither, obviously. I know that I have to address Yos, but you have clearly gotten me focused elsewhere for the time being. You can't engage me in a lengthy debate then say I'm using said debate as a way to avoid posting about Yos. Plus, I said in my re-read of the first 8 pages that I need a little more info before I decide what to do about him.

I really want to see what you find.


Preview edit: So Glork posted again. It's too late for me to post anymore. goes to sleep.

[El Destructo]

EBWOP: I am extremely interested to see what Elmo has to say about this entire discussion.

I actually stated what I did pretty much entirely to see how you'd react. Like I said, I didn't have any concrete reasons at the time; I was mostly going on fairly vague gut/meta, hoping to (if I'm right) get it down to specifics once I'd been through Des' notes, as well as using your reaction to see if I was right or not. Generously, I'm about halfway done with the notes; I'm a little less suspicious of you now, although there are some oddities that I'm curious about. I also like to "just do something" in a game, I frequently I need to interact with people a bit in order to feel them out. Now predictably, I disagree with your response to me as regards Patetheric, but I sense that we'll also have a contest on who can get the last word in if I start going down that route here (you seemed awfully pissed about it). I'll post it if you want, though.

About Des and you recently, I have to be a bit careful because I know Des is town, so there's a sort of "OMGUS by proxy" to be avoided. And obviously I've only been skimming it. I do loosely agree with what he's saying in general, that scum are more likely to defend townies purely to be seen to be defending them, at times when it's uncalled for. In terms of specifics, a quick examination of 335.. eh, I don't really agree. At least I weigh it far less strongly than he appears to, it seemed far less pronounced. I am more interested in the difference between your treatment of Xtoxm, it seems odd you would sort-of defend dahill who didn't get lynched and not Xtoxm who did, when you've defended him previously - although I cannot remember if it was for similar behaviour, it's quite a while since I read that game.

I didn't like the way you voted for him much, really, it seemed very.. OMGUSsy, in the neutral sense of the term. And my impression was you weren't like that as town (or at all, really), I could be wrong here. But I don't really see why as town you would think he couldn't be misguided in the way he has; the incomplete sample, I think, is just down to games he has to hand, for example he was in weasel mafia and mith's game with you. Specifically, I'm dead set against "you only used X games as meta, therefore you're trying to reach a conclusion" (I believe this is roughly what you said, correct me if I'm wrong) as a viable tell.. I don't know how much depth you expect him to go into in the space of time in which he's gone from reading the thread to talking with you (I think ~24h). I think there's a contradiction between your assertion that he'd have "the full works" ready if he were town and the time since he/we replaced in; I don't know how many games you can read in that time, but I rather doubt that. How do you propose he go and find a large number of instances where you defended someone, anyway? Large enough to be representative, I mean. That's a lot of reading. I really don't understand the "ahead of time" comment at all (from GlorkTown).

I am actually quite a bit more interested in Yos2 than you after rereading and looking at Des's notes, I've done one of my patented 180s, I think. Oh well. Hopefully changing reads apon going over the game in detail and discussing it is a good sign, haha.

Incog, I would say that the scum in BSG were less skilled than pretty much any possible scumgroup in this game, hence the degree of disagreement between us. It's quite an interesting experience, knowing we have the same role.

Yos: Why exactly was Xtoxm supposed to be scum?
Charter: Why is Glork not scum?

Elmo

[El Destructo]

No assumptions. The basis of my entire point was that a defence of another player is anti-town (in most situations). That's where it all starts. The first motivations that come to mind for scum to do that are either to buddy up to town/get town cred for defending a townie or to cover a buddy's back. I'm still not sure which is more likely in this case.

I'm going to give you my take of Ether's case on dahill1 later tonight. Right now, I'm doing some catching up with Elmo's notes.

[El Destructo]

^ That was me.

Incog, that Newbie game was from a long time ago. I do think that metagaming can be useful. I'm not vehemently opposed to using it to get reads of players anymore, except in cases of things like lurking. I recognise that most players have a lot of consistency in how they play. I mean, even in that Newbie game you linked to I said you seemed townish really early on replacing in and accepted that it was probably based on my past experience with you. So even when I was saying "metagaming is useless!" I was actually using it without thinking. Patrick's comments in that first metagaming thread had a lot to do with me accepting that.

There not much else for me to say on this topic and I think you were really missing the point of what I was doing as well, which is curious.

I have a question for you though.
What do you think it means that Elmo and I would have different reads of the same players?

des

[El Destructo]

So the assumption here is that Dahill is in fact protown?

No, just that you have a motive (as scum) to defend him in that way if Dahill is town; WIFOM aside, I can't see it being pro-town to defend scum, either. And I agree with Des that town are less likely to mount "uncalled for" defences of people, especially when they're unsure about them.

The main point seemed to be that you particularly have a tendancy to do that more as scum than town, in his experience. I can't comment usefully on that, I mean I think Weasel Mafia alone is 100+ pages. So I can only really comment on the specifics, which didn't seem like you did anything unusual to me - but I suppose it wouldn't. I don't really disagree with him, I suppose, but absent the examples he's talking about, I don't see the event viewed purely in the context of

this game

to be suspicious.

Now, it's a small sample size, but he's using what is available to him; like I said, I just don't think it's practical to gather as much meta as you'd prefer, and I find even a small sample is frequently helpful.

Do you currently think Elmo is scum?

Yos: What do you think about Glork at the moment?
Incog: Hi. Why're you focussing on Des? I feel left out ._.

Elmo

[El Destructo]

The Contradiction

for voting assmaster with seemingly no reason,

and i found it strange (scummy strange) that he didn't even really comment on xtoxm.

Terrible.

Ether points to Dahill voting Tuberkulos "for voting assmaster with seemingly no reason". She comments that it's "terrible", linking to a post of his from a Mafia Discussion thread where he seems to be saying that he believes that "voting with seemingly no reason" isn't scummy in itself and can actually be useful.

It is clear to me that the contradiction Ether pointed out is that dahill appears to have voted for Tuberkulos for a reason he previously said he didn't actually believe was scummy in MD. Simple.

The Flailing

[quote="dahill1, Post 145""]meh. i was merely citing it as one of the opposing viewpoints to the situation. i wasn't necessarily agreeing with it, and i have questioned when people do this in other games iirc. i dislike using info outside of mafia games in general, so i don't consider this telling of any particular alignment.[/quote]When I read this, I thought dahill was making shit up. Quoting someone saying "stating "X is scum" and giving no real reason why" in a "5 things I hate in Mafia" thread then immediately following it with the sentence, "Take it away, glork!" and a huge quote of a player (Glork) laying out in great detail why unexplained votes can be awesome does not give me the impression that dahill1 was just posting it as a diplomatic citation of an opposing viewpoint for the sake of hearty debate. Hence, dahill claiming that that

was

what he was doing sounded like bullshit.

His next sentence, about not liking info outside a game being use, seemed desperate. In context, I assume he was trying to say something like, "even if that was what I said, I shouldn't be held accountable for it in this game." The only reason I can see for us to ignore what we read him saying in Mafia Discussion is if he actually

lies

about his opinions on theory there, which is, again, bullshit. This last point in particular, made it look like dahill was flailing and trying to deflect attention from the contradiction Ether pointed out in any way he could.

So, it wasn't a "bad" argument. By my read, it was pretty reasonable.

---

Now that that's done, I'm going to be posting a case on Yos. I'd do it tonight, but it'll probably take me too long and I need to make sure I don't sleep at like 5am again. I think Elmo and I are more or less in agreement about it but we'll each probably have a few different things to say.

With less than a week to deadline I'm worried about there being as many wagons going as there are. I think dahill

may

be scum, but the jury is still out on that. I (des) might be willing to vote him to ensure a lynch, not exactly sure how Elmo feels about it, but I really think we're FAR more likely to hit scum with Yos.

Unvote
Vote: Yosarian2

My half of the case will be posted tomorrow.

des

[El Destructo]

charter already said that he was suspicious of you, so there's no reasons for you to say he'd be blindly following a wagon on you.

I'm going to write that case now.

des

[El Destructo]

I didn't like the entire discussion about whether Coriolanus was an alt. I thought it was mostly useless so far as outing scum goes. Because of this, I found anyone saying it was useful or "interesting" iffy because none of them, besides Glork, actually explained how it might be useful or of interest to the town. For lack of an explanation, I considered their posts on the topic to be little besides noise and so anti-town.

Yos seems to sum up his thoughts on the discussion here:

Again, it dosn't matter that much, although it is useful information for the town to have I think. I'm just wondering why you're reacting so strongly here.

There is absolutely nothing pro-town in this post so far as I'm concerned. He says "it doesn't matter that much" even though he was one of the players asking Cor about his knowledge of the playerlist. He then says that it's useful info for the town. I still cannot see how anyone could see the results of that discussion, whatever they were, as useful to the town. The last sentence is pure noise - I wondered about Cor's reaction too, but I couldn't see a reason to believe his behaviour was more likely to be a result of being scum, so I pretty much dropped it. The fact that Yos notes it but doesn't elaborate about why it's even worth mentioning comes across like a false contribution to scum-hunting.

At least Yosarian admitted that this probably wasn't the most productive subject.

Actually, no, I don't think that. The subject of "is Corio an alt or not", isn't all that relevent; but Corio's answers, his response, really seem strange to me here, and I think his posting here might be a very productive subject.

This, his next post, is another example of exactly the same behaviour: Corio's answers

might

be a very productive subject. Zero elaboration. Noise.

Besides that, he's pretty much completely flipped on how useful the topic is in one post.

(I just noticed my mug was still full of tea. I love that. I felt like sharing this moment with someone.)

I have no idea what Yos is trying to achieve with this. It seems like he's trying to argue Coro into admitting he is an alt, which I don't think has any relevance to whether he's scum or not.

[1]Well...it's a useful thing to know, and especally if he says whose alt he is I suspect I'll have a much easier time reading him, for meta reasons and such (there are a few players from which I wouldn't find this kind of over-reaction to be a scum tell, for example.)

[2]But, mostly, I just think it's odd the way he's reacting. I think his initial "why isn't Glork dead yet" post was really odd, and I'm trying to figure out what he's thinking right now. I care less about if he is an alt then about why he's reacting this way to Glork speculating he's an alt; , the overly hostile reaction to what looks to me to be logical speculation on Glork's part seems kind of scummy to me.

1. This is inconsistent with his earlier comment about it not being important whether Corio is an alt.

2. Is more of the same stuff that leaves me asking, "so why is it scummy again?"

Incog asks Yos the question I had been asking:

Yosarian2 and dahill1, do you find Coriolanus's reaction to be scummy-interesting or some other type of interesting?

Well, that's what I'm trying to figure out. My natural reaction is to be suspicious of someone who reacts like that, although as Ether pointed out there are other possible reasons for it.

Since Yos has said this is his natural reaction, I expect that he should be able to provide examples.

Also, a lot depends on if I'm dealing with an experenced mafia player or a true newbie; reactions are different. Glork asked him that question earlier of if he'd played on a different forum, and he hasn't answered it yet.

Eh, minor point, but Corio mentioned playing on Conquer Club. How much is Yos reading and how much is he going with the flow?

Why have neither of you gone forward and actually voted for him as of yet?

(shrug) Haven't decided yet if his play is scummy or not, I suppose.

But! -

the overly hostile reaction to what looks to me to be logical speculation on Glork's part seems kind of scummy to me.

Considering how much he's been implying Corio's reaction is scummier than it's not, I would have expected that he'd have a more solid stance by this point.

In Post 151 Yos gets REALLY OMGUSy towards EA and basically goes, "NO U!" I think it was Patrick or Ether who later said that there was nothing wrong with EA criticising the quality of Yos' contributions even if EA himself hadn't quantitatively posted more. Consider what I've posted so far about Yos' false and noisy contributions to the game. EA voted Yos for his "contributions", and I 'got' what he meant. (See EA's Post 158)

Yos unvotes Incognito in 154 because he's getting "pro-town vibes". I feel this is important to note. I took it as evidence for Yos being scum because I did not at all get a pro-town vibe from Incog, and was even leaning scum on him based on what had happened so far. Elmo found it odd too for the same reasons except that his read of Incog was much more neutral at the time. Considering our reads of Incog and the fact that Yos had shown little to no interest in Incog's play, this unvote didn't make much sense to us at all.

I have to go, so I'll leave it there for now. I really really REALLY didn't like Yos' role in the Xtoxm lynch so I'll cover most of that next time unless Elmo gets to it first. Both of us thought the Xtoxm wagon was horrible but I think we might have slightly different opinions on how telling this was for Yos.

des

[El Destructo]

Have those issues been sorted out? Are your's and destructor's notes and feelings of the game beginning to match one another's?

The computer is dead as in dead, I'm stuck stealing time from an infinitely slower computer with a tiny screen until I finish the relatively slow process of building a replacement. I think me and Des' reads are pretty close to each other now, though, which is nice.

I have to go, so I'll leave it there for now. I really really REALLY didn't like Yos' role in the Xtoxm lynch so I'll cover most of that next time unless Elmo gets to it first.

Yeah, I do have time to drop in for this, though.

Probably the first thing both me and Des seemed to pick up on was "wow, that Xtoxm wagon was bad". And it's not merely hindsight, that seems to have been the opinion at the time:

Half the people contributing to my lynch don't fully believe in it, and you know it.

Welcome to Day One of a deadlined game...

so I'm pretty curious how this wagon built in the first place. In retrospect, it seems to have gone pretty well for the scum; the focus was on him quickly and stayed on him pretty consistantly, limiting interactions between other people. And I'm usually interested to work backwards from the result of a lynch, and see who pushed it, and why - most mafia games are decided on lynches, after all. I think it's unarguable than Yos is front and center in Xtoxm's lynch. And the argument post-reveal seems to be "Hey, don't blame me! Blame Xtoxm for making the wagon on him so salicious.. I mean didn't you see that guy, he was so anti-town I just

had

to lynch him!" but reading back, I noticed the oddest thing. No-one else seems to be rabid, in fact no-one else is really that interested, it's only Yosarian who seems to be going just

crazy

over this one guy. Then this catches my eye:

And yet, I cut you slack for this because I know you have a policy of lynching claimed vanillas on day 1, but I think the post where you voted Xtoxm reaches to try and make him look bad.

so I'm thinking it actually goes way beyond just jumping onto something easy, he's actually pressing the townie lynch by making mountains out of molehills. I mean, if you read Yos' posts alone, you'd think Xtoxm was public enemy number one, enough that he joked about him flipping town being a mod error. If you go back and look at what Xtoxm actually did, there's a huge gulf between there and Yosarian's behaviour towards him.. you'd figure he insulted his mother or something instead of self-voting for all the heat Yos attacks him with. And Yos never looks elsewhere for the whole of day 1 until Xtoxm is dead, except to yell at EA when he's required to.

His reasons seem to be:
# He claimed vanilla for no reason which "is incredibly anti-town". If he's scum, claiming vanilla doesn't hurt the town at all, so that's predicated on him being town, which is ridiculous if you're trying to lynch him. Hey, look! He even said that!

Yos is scummy because his post is directed at someone he either knows or believes to be town, he expresses annoyance at the fact i'm town and claimed my role, rather than finding me suspicious for it (which later changes to once he realises his mistake).

this is an explanation of his earlier post:

Yuck...xtoxm claimed vanillia? WTF? Xtoxm, what the heck are you doing this game? So far you've self-voted and claimed vanillia on day 1 with no reasoning very early. Do I need to explain how anti-town either of those actions are?

Sounds like someone knows i'm town.

and Yos later falls over himself, trying to explain how claiming vanilla can possibly be a scumtell. Apparently "scum want to claim vanilla and town don't", this is despite the vast number of townies who do claim vanilla when they get near lynch. You can argue all you want about keeping power roles hidden, the fact is, it's not a scumtell, and

it's only anti-town if a real townie claims vanilla

, so by deduction, Yos must have thought Xtoxm was a real vanilla townie at the time he said that.
# "Multiple OMGUS attacks", which translated really means "he suspected Yos and Glork after they attacked him". The attack against Yos, as I have just shown, has a valid basis; it is not scummy to attack someone with a valid reason, regardless of who they are voting for. He attacked Glork for what he saw as an opportunistic vote, which seems valid to me, and indeed Patetheric thought it was reminicent of the GlorkScum featured in Space Monkey. And his later attack against Glork only came right before he was about to be lynched, so it makes no sense to use that as a reason to suspect him.
# "The people i'm calling scummy are all voting me..." which as he said later was limited to concerning Glork and Yos, is a reasonable comment in my view - if you suspect two people are scum together and they both have this odd habit of voting together, it's a good idea to point that out. And given he's stated valid reasons for suspicion of both, it seems fine to me.
# He said "Yos knows I'm town". Apparently this comment is "incredibly illogical and scummy", for no stated reason. I have explained why I believe he said this, and why it makes sense, and indeed he explained it later. And he said multiple times that he'd already explained himself.
# "Before Glork hammered him, he actually admittted he was delibratly evading my questions" which I just cannot find, the cloest thing is that he did say that "I made it clear I had no intention of answering him", which is the next point:
# He refused to answer questions. Okay, that's pretty irritating, but I have difficulty actually finding any questions where he really didn't answer them. It's possible I missed them, but the only thing I can find where Yos asserts Xtoxm didn't answer it was the reference to Yos knowing he was town, which he did answer multiple times, as I said above. I don't understand how that's compatible with the quote, but that makes it surely a very weak tell at best.

(I actually did say to him that he could either answer my questions or die. I'll admit I didn't really expect him to die rather then answer my question, but that's the risk you take when you pressure someone...)

Okay, wait, you were taking the risk of pressuring him? But I thought you just said he acted incrediably scummy - if you're telling the truth, you wouldn't be talking about a 'risk' because you'd just want him plain dead. And actually this talk of a risk is all the worse for the sheer lack of hestitation or cautiousness exhibited in pushing Xtoxm, a player well known to be poor at defending himself as town.

I should make clear, since lots of people seem to be misunderstanding this, that I'm not actually pushing for an instant speedlynch of Xtoxm or whatever; I mean, the game is only, what, 5 days old? We do need to put pressure on him until he starts making sense, though, and I find it frustrating that so many people are making it so hard for me to do that by everyone in the game suddenly jumping to his defense here.

And at the point he posted this, how many of the his stated reasons were already present? The vanilla claim, the alleged OMGUS, and so on? You betcha: all of them apart from what Xtoxm said right before being lynched, which logically Yos cannot have used as a reason to lynch him.

So basically what you're left with, after an examination of his stated reasons, is not a damn lot. And sometimes a majority of the town are well and truely sucked into thinking someone must be mafia, and it's harder to find who was pushing it for their own gain later, but I really see no reason why that's remotely true here, and I'm actually surprised that no-one seems to have done any real analysis of Xtoxm's lynch. Occasionally towns tear themselves apart, but vastly more frequently scum have a hand in their downfall, and Yos has his fingerprints all over Xtoxm's corpse as far as I'm concerned.

I mean, there are basically two options:
1) Xtoxm's behaviour, as a genuine vanilla townie, was so amazingly bad that Yos's near-bloodlust and subsequent sorry weakass reasons are justified
2) Yosarian is scum

and Xtoxm's actual behaviour simply does not support #1. Hence, Yosarian is my preferred lynch for today.

Elmo

[El Destructo]

destructor, I suppose this is pending?:

Please point to where specifically you used meta in my game. I couldn't remember off-hand, I just finished scouring your posts, and I couldn't find any indication that you used the same type of meta that you're using here within that game.

I thought I tried to use the scumtell I got off Cerebus3 from Newbie 530 on Kai but I can't find it anywhere. The closest I can come to it is this:

By acknowledging Glot's opinions, Kai's revealing that he believes/knows Glot is town. You don't acknowledge the opinion a player you think is scum has of your own arguments.

Not a great example. I can't prove it (unless I mentioned it somewhere in the thread) but I did do some reading of some of Kai's other games to see if he played the same as well.

If you really have issues with me using meta, in Crackers I openly referred SensFan's play as similar play he'd made as scum in Mini 570 and BM's play as his from Nice Shot Mafia and noted both as reasons to suspect or vote each.

There not much else for me to say on this topic and I think you were really missing the point of what I was doing as well, which is curious.

I didn't miss the point at all. You spotted something in Elmo's play in this particular game (his defending of dahill1) that you felt was very similar to something that you spotted in his scum play within Weasels Mafia (his defense of Thanatos). You then asked for specific examples of where he may have defended players as town to see if Glork's defending of other players might be a reliable scum-tell for Glork.

I'm sure you got that, but he fact that you didn't actually comment on how valid my points on Glork's meta were but instead decided to interrogate me on my

use

of meta, regardless of its application in this game, is what I found noteable.

Perhaps your view really did change from that particular time period, but I'm sure you could see why your change in stance on the actual worth of meta might catch my attention in this particular game.

I can see how you'd pick up on it given how adamant I have been about it in the past. But I've provided two examples of me metagaming from my most recently completed game (Crackers) where I was town. That pretty much completely deals with your whole issue.

I'd like to see Yosarian2's response to El Destructo's case before commenting on it myself.

What are your thoughts?

[El Destructo]

^ that was me too


I suppose I should respond to Yos.

He's coming up with explanations for his play at the start of the game that I don't find hugely convincing. The main point he's not addressing is that he didn't explain it at the time, so it was still noise, so far as I'm concerned. I still don't see why he'd even begin to think that Corio's reactions could be evidence of him being scum, which is one of my biggest beefs against him regarding this.

I think Pathetric, EA and Corio have pointed out how Yos' argument that he was scum-hunting or that we can't criticise him for not doing so when others weren't is a weak one. Specifically in relation to the Corio-alt thing, Corio was doing what a townie should - defending himself. From memory, Assmaster and Pathetric also reacted most pro-town because they noted early that it was a unproductive topic. While that's not obviously scum-hunting, it's definitely a contribution to the scum-hunt in reducing the amount of noise in the thread. On the otherhand, we had players like Glork, Yos, dahill and (I think to an extent) Incog seeming to perpetuate the discussion.

Bascially, I see a pro-town player being less likely to get involved in the discussion while scum would be more likely to latch onto it to appear to be involved and contribution.

Why would you expect me to have a "solid stance" that early in the day? Do Corio's early first few posts, on their own, give you a "solid stance' about his alignment?

No, but the point I made is that given your interest in the topic, you really should have been able to show us more than the vagueness you exhibited.

Regarding my read of Incog at the time of your unvote. I haven't played a heap of IRL Mafia, but when I have my play has been completely different. Not sure that playstyles carry over form forums to face to face play. Also, I've played a lot of forum mafia with Incog on and off ms. Not sure how many forum games you've played with him, but I'd guess I've played more.

I haven't really elaborated on my read of Incog mostly because I haven't had time/the deadline. I certainly didn't see him as notably town and neither did Elmo.

Quick post. El Destructo, what do you think of Pathetric's 136?

I'm not sure if there something specific you're asking about. Is there?

des

[El Destructo]

There's this too.

Yos tells Pathetric that Glork would be suspicious if he didn't think Xtoxm was scum.

Frankly, Patrick/Ether, I'd agree with you about Glork being suspicious, except I don't think Glork is likely to be scum with Xtoxm, and Xtoxm is looking far more suspicious ATM.

Yos doesn't support this stance very convincingly in Day 2 after Xtoxm flips town.

I guess the biggest thing I found odd was his whole attack on you yesterday. That never really made much sense to me; he had several posts attacking you, some of them quite long, but the only point he actually made against you that made any sense at all to me was the "if he's scum we'll take care of him tommorow" comment, and that hardly seems enough.

Glork is a good enough player that his scum-play dosn't diverge much from his town-play; so even though about 70% of his play yesterday is what I would expect from him as town, including the Xtoxm hammer, the other 30% makes me nervous; more so then if it was someone else.

I say it's not very convincing because he made a special note that Glork is being suspicious, even when he admits that he didn't think Glork and Xtoxm could be scum together... and he was apparently convinced beyond reasonable doubt of Xtoxm being scum. So to go ahead and call Glork scummy in the face of this is actually a very meaningful statement.

Yos asks Glork to explain his vote on him in 456. Glork says he "might" have reasons for it. Yos' reaction is to ask Glork for more clarity on his vote in 461. He never follows this up on this until after Elmo asked him about Glork in 564, which is like 5 days later. For someone who had implied to have good cause to suspect Glork in Day 1, this is very unusual play.

des

[El Destructo]

Not sure of timezone stuff, but I think the deadline is like a day or two away.

Incog needs to tell us what he thinks of the case on Yos in his very next post. He should probably also tell what he thinks of dahill, since the lynch is likely to be one of those two.

I'm disappointed that Glork hasn't already gotten around to explaining his Yos vote. He hasn't posted anywhere on site since the 16th, though.

Mod:

What timezone is the deadline set in? Also, I think Glork needs a prod.

des

[El Destructo]

Add assmaster to my scumlist. I have no clue what he thinks about anyone, is just skirting by, and isn't voting with deadline in a few days.

This is starting to worry me a bit too. I got a pro-town vibe from him through most of my read because his posting was seemed sensible and natural, but yeah, his lack of vote right now isn't so cool.

I'm actually kind of inclined to think Yos might not be scum. Coupled with dahill's late vote with no reasoning and Yosarian's complete lack of trying to get someone with a legit chance of being lynched lynched, I'm waivering on him.

dahill's vote was not great, but Yos is still scummy. Also, bussing can happen when one scummy player votes for another scummy player. I'm not ruling it out given Yos and dahill are in my top 4.

Not sure why you find him pushing for a lynch at deadline on a a player who probably won't get the votes as a town tell. If I was town in his position and the other possible lynch was a player I thought was town (he thinks dahill is town), I'd be doing more than saying, "no you're wrong! EA is scum! Read his posts again!" Yos looks more like he's just getting ready to roll over and die while dropping the least number of tells on his buddies, or, in the case that he isn't lynched today, giving himself the room to continue attacking EA tomorrow.

I'm also pretty freakin sure there's a heap of stalling going on. With TWO wagons at 3 votes and 6 to lynch, I've got no doubt that the near completely lack of wagon growth is due to scum stalling. I'm also inclined to take this as a sign that there's a good chance one of Yos or dahill is scum. I think scum would be more likely to be active at deadline if the leading wagon was a mislynch and obviously much more nervous when it's one of their buddies who's about to get lynched.

des

[El Destructo]

EBWOP
I meant to say:

I'm also inclined to take this as a sign that there's a good chance at least one of Yos or dahill is scum.

I thought I posted this, but i must have deleted it or something, but Yos' push on EA is similar to his on Xtox yesterday in that he's not showing us any evidence that he's seriously considering EA as part of a scum-team. His focus today has almost exclusively been on EA, like Elmo described his focus was on Xtox yesterday. I find this sort of play scummy, especially in experienced players. It lets them start from scratch mislynch after mislynch, and saves them the trouble of trying to fake picking up on connections to other players.

des

[El Destructo]

but yeah charter, i think yos got way scummier with dahill's vote.

scummier?

[El Destructo]

but dahill is definitely the priority here. why isn't he dead yet?

Some of the players I suspected most wrote him off as town way earlier than I was comfortable with. I feel like it's marginally more likely that that sort of thing is buddying up than defence. Yos looks like scum whatever dahill's alignment is.

des

[El Destructo]

Ass has done nothing in particular that seems inconsistent with what I know of his town play. I would like to see a vote somewhere, though.

Dahill's vote is logical, to me - rationally, you always vote 'the other guy'. CKD refused to vote Korts in Crackers because he thought Korts was town, and was lynched as a result. Korts was the SK, and CKD was irritated with himself post-game. You don't want to be that guy. This is not to say I find dahill townish (both me and Des feel there's a good change he's bullshitting on the meta issue, iirc), but Yos is far worse in my eyes - I've said why.

Yos' behaviour around EA is most assuredly not a towntell. Either what Des said, or he's delaying the wagon hop until as late as possible, so he can see where to best get on. How is that townish? I mean, what are the odds a player like Yos believes he's going to get five votes on EA before deadline? He's not going to, you can see that, I can see that, and he can see that. This is definitely not a deluded town Yos; keeping a vote on EA is anti-town right now, in the same way that refusing to vote intentionally robs the town of information.

charter, have you looked at my case against Yos from a day or two ago? It won't take long to read. Actually, that goes for everyone.

Elmo

[El Destructo]

Dahill's vote is logical, to me - rationally, you always vote 'the other guy'.

I would note, though, that this isn't what dahill said when he voted Yos. He said he thought Yos' case on EA amounted to OMGUS. I would probably have felt better about dahill if he'd just said, "I'm going to vote the other guy" mostly because it'd be more honest.

des

[El Destructo]

*waves*

Not sure where Des is, haven't heard from him in a couple days. Massclaim is good with me - I have a theoretical preference for randomising the order. I'll go ahead to keep things moving, I think he'd approve.

We are a conspirator.

Elmo

[El Destructo]

Hi, I got busy last few days.

Elmo was right, I'm okay with the massclaim.

des

[El Destructo]

Elmo and I were considering the possibility of a mountainous setup. First reason for me was seeing everyone flipping "Conspirator". That was at least 4 vanillas. Assuming 3 scum, that left 5 more players to have powers. I was also finding it harder and harder to imagine a 3-player scumteam. Another thing Elmo noticed was the kill choice of Pathetric, who was probably the most town player in the game, and so "Doc-bait". It was a really ballsy kill for scum to make if they suspected a Doc in the setup. We both thought Corio was obvTown and, again, he was killed. Both of the nightkills were odd - if scum thought a Doc was in the setup, wouldn't they try to kill him first?

So yeah, 2:1:9 makes sense here.


des

[El Destructo]

Considering vanilla 2:10 is sorta-balanced, in favour of scum if anything, we simply can't have no power roles. Which means charter is very probably town and very probably not a useless role. Which means Caesar is very probably in the game.

My own theory - that just came to mind - is that the scum are sort of vengeful style. That is, Caesar is in the game along with one 'assistant' role, and they both immediately lose if Caesar dies. That would be consistent with the win condition, I think. The interesting part is that the non-caesar mafioso - I'll just call them "Harry" from here on - is investigation-immune. It would also mean that a single 'guilty' from charter could end the game. I don't really know if that fits, but it's the only logical conclusion that I see, unless there is an 'imperial threat' beyond Caesar, and I can't think what that would be.

Practically speaking, it means that only one of Glork and EA can be scum; it also means that if we lynch Harry, we'll confirm-innocent whichever of Glork and EA are still alive. I think.

I'm curious of people thing my 'vengeful-style' theory would be balanced. It's certainly intriguing, to me.

Elmo

[El Destructo]

Assume that we have two scum, and Caesar is in the game, and Caesar is scum.
Then we have scum as {Caesar, someone who is not Caesar}, which we'll call Harry. So the scum are {Caesar, Harry}. (Looking at Wikipedia, I am thinking perhaps Mark Anthony, but it doesn't matter.)
We know that EA is not Caesar. If we lynch Harry, we know EA is not Harry. So EA must then be town. Same goes for Glork. That's the idea.

Also, logically, it must be vengeful-style if:
* There are two scum
* One scum is Caesar
* Killing Caesar is a town win

I think the first two are solid, really. There must be two scum, and your role must be useful, otherwise we'd be playing something harder than vanilla 2:10 which is known to be real tough for the town, I don't think they've ever won. I can't understand why the last one wouldn't be true, but it's far less solid. Hence, it is logical, but like you, I'm not 100% comfortable with it.

I think it's likely you would only get two shots at hitting Caesar, though. I think that's something of a possible counterbalance. I don't know, I'm convinced your role does something useful, it's just a question of what happens if you did find Caesar. I am just assuming you'll be killed tonight, which is another mildly pro-town effect of your role (it forces the scum to essentially kill a random townie when claimed, which is statistically likely not to be the kill they'd otherwise like to make).

---

on that note, unvote vote tuber for voting assmaster with seemingly no reason, and i found it strange (scummy strange) that he didn't even really comment on xtoxm..

Why specifically did you vote Assmaster here, Dahill?

EA: Why exactly did you vote Glork in post 418, the one I indicated a while back?

Elmo

[El Destructo]

Was the complete ignorance of the fact Charter could be Harry/Caeser intentional there Elmo?

Yeah, the only way charter can be scum is if the setup is 2 mafia vs. 9 vanilla townies with 1 survivor as a third-party. Unless I'm mistaken, the way 99% of survivors are played are to uber-lurk; certainly they're worth far less than a townie in terms of scumhunting because they have an incentive not to do anything ever. So it's a definite handicap on the town relative to a townie.

It's arguable if 2:10 vanilla is even balanced or not, but it certainly leans in favour of the scum; 2:9 with a survivor just seems ridiculous to me. On the other hand, as soon as I saw Sim flip, my guess went to 9 town, 2 scum, 1 survivor with a very mild amount of town power, which would fit charter perfectly. So I'm very strongly towards believing charter merely because of the claim. (I pretty much said all this already, but I figured I'd restate it.)

you mean tuberkulos?
mainly because he put a vote on assmaster with no reasoning or explanation at all.

Yeah, sorry. What was your intent in posting what you did in Mafia Discussion?

[El Destructo]

"The scum are vengeful-style" as in Vengeful Mafia, as in 1 GF, 1 goon, scum lose if GF dies.
Glork, would you agree that if charter is town, Caesar is in the game? If so, what do you think would happen if we lynched Caesar? Logically, if Charter is town, you're saying lynching Caesar wouldn't end the game - why is the 'imperial threat' not ended with the death of Caesar? This is the part I don't understand. I agree that something feels 'off' about the game possibly ending on day 2, but I can't find a logical argument against it.
The traitor thing is interesting. That would remove almost all associative tells for a fair chunk of the game, though, I'm not sure I'd buy that. Is that even mafia? There's no informed minority... it doesn't really seem likely to me, right now.
The scum being weaker in some other, unknown way might leave the possibility of charter being scum, but I really can't think of anything that seems to fit well. I also like the breadcrumb, amongst other things.

I felt this game was likely to be low-power in general; I thought it'd be likely to have had a power role claim by now if it was power-heavy. Also, perhaps this is silly, but I felt the senate being based around debate and rhetoric would have leaned towards a vanilla-style game, thematically. I don't really understand why that'd bother you.

Glork, how much do you know about the theme?

Assmaster: My initial impression of 2:10 was that it favoured the town. Now, I'm really not as sure; at minimum, it seems to have a reputation for being difficult for the town to win in practice. I think OGML would have to think long and hard before running a setup like that. I suppose it gets tangential, but I think

generally

site-wide, the opinion of mods and reviewers is similar to what I posted... I don't know if OGML has a particular viewpoint.

I'm more than willing to re-examine any of this if there's something I'd missed, I thought 2:10 was near-universally viewed as kinda-balanced-favouring-scum.

Elmo

[El Destructo]

I'm more than willing to re-examine any of this if there's something I'd missed, I thought 2:10 was near-universally viewed as kinda-balanced-favouring-scum.

Which is why we do newbie games that are frequently 2:7?

There's more to work with in newbies games, like predictable power role claims, etc.

I don't think we'd win if Caesar is lynched. Mostly for balance, but flavour wise, if I remember my Shakespeare from school, Marc Antony took over after Caesar was killed, so that "imperial threat" was still around.

The Traitor idea is interesting, but I'm inclined to think it's unlikely and would probably balance the game further against the town for the reason Elmo stated - lack of associative tells = not Mafia. Variations of the Traitor could be considered. I dislike this sort of speculation, though, because we can never confirm any of it, making it mostly useless.

Glork, I don't see your issue with us speculating about there being 2 scum, or why we'd bother to pretend to speculate about it. That's not WIFOM, it's more why the fuck would scum even start thinking to fake that? See my list of suspects from my first posts - Yos is town and for whatever reason, a scum team of dahill-Incog-Glork didn't feel right to me. Like Elmo, I thought we'd have a powerole claim by now and just the way things were going, particularly the Pathetric kill, made me start thinking mountainous. I dunno, like EVERYONE was hunting like they were vanilla.


I was wrong about Yos and that was depressing, so I'm cautious about where to look right now. Elmo and I will be discussing it.

@ Incog, Ass, Tuber -

What do you make of charter's claimed results and do you think it's wise to consider them when deciding on where to look/who to lynch today?


Also, I'm going to have limited access over the next three weeks. I'll probably be able to post every few days. I think Elmo and I together should be able to keep up with everything.

des

[El Destructo]

Last post before I'm officially LA.

EA, what makes you think charter's "slip" means more than everything else going for him, especially in terms of game balance?

Glork, what are you thinking about Incog? Did it bother you that he didn't comment on how meaningful (or not) my metagamming of you was yesterday until I asked him?

Everyone but EA and Glork, what do you think of posts 13 through to 20?

Incog, I found EA's play to be pretty similar to what I remembered from him in your game, Cog City. I saw him play scum in Lovers Multiball for a bit before he replaced out and don't have a great memory of that (it was a big game). Besides this, I've never seen him play scum. Do you think EA's meta is relevant in this game?

dahill, can you give us your thoughts on each player?

[El Destructo]

Everyone but EA and Glork, what do you think of posts 13 through to 20?

Not sure. I think it's a weird series of posts to look back to though given my current thoughts about the game and current suspicions. At the time I thought it was random chatter, but now that you've re-pointed it out, I think it is at least mildly interesting. What are you seeing in it?

I think it'd be worth hearing what Ass, Tuber and dahill think about it first. I'm letting Elmo know what exactly is going on in my head, so he can post/elaborate on it later if I'm not around.

des is meta-ing again? Have you seriously seen the light or is this really an inconsistency from the typical des I know?

I pointed out my use of meta in Crackers as well as inadvertent uses in other games, so that covers whether it's telling of my alignment. I'd be happy to discuss my opinions on metagaming once the game is over or in MD.

With regards to this meta you're citing, I don't think Erratus Apathos's play looks anything like his play in my game, Mini 601, at all. If I remember correctly, EA was Vanilla in that game, pinned avinashv/Oman-scum on like Day 1, and pretty much tunneled on him for the remainder of the game until Oman got lynched on like Day 4. Comparing that to his play here, I've noticed a pattern where he seems to just vote, stick with it for awhile, and then drop it without further comment. If anything, I'd argue that his play here looks much closer to his play in Mini 577 where he was scum and had a tendency to distance/bus his buddies in that game making his voting pattern much more flippant than it was in 601, similar to how he's played in this current game.

When did you notice this?

You say that you dislike my posts and have a bad feeling about me.

We found your inactivity a little unsettling. I don't think I made that comment, it may have been one of Elmo's posts. He might have something more specific to say, but neither of us find the posts you have made past the early stages of the game too worrying.

[...]
--I ask if she could find Dahill's "quoting Glork for the lulz" to be believable
--

Ether says yes

, but that she didn't like his Corio-vote, and that his defense was an extension of the contradiction
--I point out how flawed that is, because the contradiction only exists if she disbelieves his explanation, which she clearly said she found to be believable, and I wonder how she can call his defense an "extension" of a nonexistent contradiction

This is the difference between me and Pathetric. I don't believe that dahill1 quoted Glork "for the lulz".

Ether corrected herself on that. She didn't believe he did it "for the lulz" either:

I misread the angle of "for the lulz." I still don't think he'd post that if he completely disagreed with it.

Pretty sure she though Glork mean he posted it as a humorous way to agree with him. The contradiction stood.

I really like Incog's thinking and I agree with what he have said on these pages. I find it interesting that El Des have used so much meta when he in other threads have expressed opposition to meta-gaming.

Maybe you didn't get up to it, but I pointed to examples of where and when I've used metagaming as town, so as a tell, it's null.

It would also be great if you quys could tell me how to link to specific posts.

The little paper icons on the top left of each post are a link to that post. Just copy the url of the link and put it in the url tags.

des

[El Destructo]

Hi guys. I haven't heard from Elmo since before I last posted. Not sure what's up, but maybe he's still having computer issues.

@ Dahill, Tuber and Ass -

can you respond to this?

Everyone but EA and Glork, what do you think of posts 13 through to 20?

And dahill, can you finish that player analysis?


I'm really worried about the deadline coming up and the fact that so little has been discussed today. Dahill's dodgy backtrack from the MD discussion still really bothers me - his explanation makes very little sense to me so I wonder why he'd say it as town but like I said, it seems like the steam that didn't build on the topic was more likely buddying up. That said, Yos didn't get on board and was town, so eh. Still really conflicted about EA.

charter, have you seen EA play town?

I'll try to get on again tomorrow and I hope you guys have responded to what I've asked.

[El Destructo]

My access is still seriously limited and I start my new course on Monday, so I'll have even less free time.

A lot of this is copy+pasted from the quicktopic Elmo and I use. I'd try to be more tactful, but seriously, given how close we are to deadline and how little access I'm likely to have, I don't know what else to do right now.

What I'm thinking about post 12-20:

I would have expected people to comment on your slip with Erratus and odd non-sequitur defense (the FoSed Yosarian part, not the bear part). I found it uncanny that no one noticed this at all, and instead wagoned Xtoxm to try and kick off the game without it.

There was definitely something odd about how it all went down. Specifically, 1. Glork's comment about only FOSing Yos "clearly indicating" that he wasn't convinced that dahill was town, which is questionable, and 2. EA backing off on the serious and decent FOS (considering the context) and upgrading to a jokey vote.

That nothing came of any of this but the Xtoxm mislynch began instead seems way to convenient.

Elmo and I were talking about possible distancing between EA and Glork, but Elmo pointed out how it was unlikely that Glork and EA were on the same scumteam on account of charter's investigations. So, the question I'm asking myself now is, which of Glork and EA is scummier?

Elmo and I are both tending towards finding Glork scummier.

The only scumteam I see as viable if both EA and Glork are town is Incog+dahill1, which is freaking me out.

So basically, I wish we had 3 lynches instead of 2.

I wrote this to Elmo about a week ago.
---
"PossScumz [re-arranged] [assuming one of EA and Glork is scum]:
2. dahill1
5. Incognito
7. Erratus Apathos
11. Glork

1. EA + dahill1
2. EA + Incognito
3. Glork + dahill1
4. Glork + Incognito

1. EA + dahill1 - Possible, but not incredibly obvious. I remember EA making a REALLY late vote on dahill in Day 1, but that's about it.

2. EA + Incog - If this is true, Incog is preparing to bus EA right now and was doing some weak distancing by linking us to him. It's interesting that he voted for us, though. What has EA said about Incog?

3. Glork + dahill1 - Definitely possible, given Glork's overt defence of dahill. I'm cautious about it, though, since it looks like it could have been buddying up, too.

4. Glork + Incog - Definitely possible. Incog stayed away from commenting on my metaing of Glork. Glork hasn't really said anything about Incog. They've both very much been staying away from each other the whole game until asked. Is this sort of behaviour more likely for scum in a mountainous game with only 2 scum?

Looking at things this way, EA-scum seems [less likely]. Glork+Incog makes the most sense. If I'm right, Incog's questioning about my metagaming, with intent to discredit?, was pure chainsaw defence.
---

EA+Incog is not likely. Incog's pushing the case on EA right now. Given how slow things have been, I expect he would have changed his target if he'd been distancing from him buddy. I just don't see bussing as sound play for scum in this game, especially when they can easily avoid it.

dahill is still a big freakin huge enigma to me. If he's town, he's playing a game that's sloppy as and not helping anyone. If he's scum, I'm not sure where I'd look for his buddy. I guess it'd have to be one of EA, Incog and Glork. So, yeah, dahill, if you're town, pick it up, please.

I was suspicious of Incog because I wasn't getting town vibes from him throughout my read. My experience of him as town is of a player who is proactive and involved in all discussions of a game. Here, he seemed to be sitting much more in the background and trying not to be obtrusive. His play feels better now, but I can't shake the feeling I got from his earlier play.

I mentioned his reaction to the dahill-MD thing. Doing some rereading a few days ago I found this from Pathetric, and it was exactly what I was thinking:

The quoted post most certainly does seem to lean one way or another. Dahill dedicated a full post--no debating with anyone else except Animorpherv--to quoting the counterpoint Glork made, starting off with a "take it away, glrok!". That's pretty strong on its own, and he didn't throw in any disclaimer about him personally disagreeing. Yeah, Incognito. That post had a lean. Regardless of his alignment, it bothers me easily you swallowed that.

It should be clear why I asked Glork about Incog not commenting on the meaningfulness of my meta of him. That was something that really got to me. Incog decided to focus on my use of meta as opposed to how well I was actually applying it.

I'm obviously disappointed that he hasn't been on to respond or really do anything lately.

If we assume Caesar is in this setup, I think he'd have to be one of Incog or dahill1. Personally, I'm leaning towards Incog-scum since his reactions to dahill actually appear to be more likely those of scum towards a player they know is innocent (or possibly their buddy). I'm seeing Glork as his most likely scum buddy. Then dahill1, then EA.

Please, thoughts quickly.

des

[El Destructo]

Ass and Tuber both seem town to us. I don't see the point in getting into this discussion if no one has a good reason to think they're scum.

Incog, what I say is true though. You were intensely focused on my

use

of meta and didn't make a single comment about Glork in relation to the metas I bought up until I asked you to. Whether you were already voting us is irrelevant in the context of a chainsaw defence here. I started attacking Glork, and you attacked my method of attacking him, which is what makes it look like it could have been a chainsaw. With your questions, you were scrutinising the legitimacy of my actions in a meta sense without commenting on their actual application in this game.

I'm inclined to see what Pathetric pointed out in 351 as the actions of someone towards a player they knew was town. I admit that I've been vocal against meta-gaming in the past and that it wasn't a surprise that Incog questioned me about it, but I still don't see how Incog, or anyone, could disregard dahill's MD comment, which is still really hard to read as anything other than agreement with Glork.


charter, what are your thoughts on all of this? Do you think Incog's reaction to dahill's MD comments are reasonable? Am I barking up the wrong tree? I was being very sincere when I asked for thoughts on this in my last post.

[El Destructo]

Hey. Sorry for being away for a while; the computer situation is now mostly resolved, but some other stuff came up, which I'm still deadling with. This was meant to be posted yesterday, but it didn't get finished, so, hier.

I don't know what the fuck with this game. I'm pretty much flying on pure gut, which is fun. I think charter is town because of the claim; I felt he was a little townish before that, albeit there wasn't masses to look at. Various things (hand-waving is pro-town!) about assmaster's play make me think he's town, in particular the way he acted around charter's claim.. I don't know exactly, but it seems the kind of "probing" you'd expect from a townie.

Tuber, I believe I said that you hadn't been poked at much; that is, people haven't interacted with you much, questioned you, that sorta thing. I'm generally more wary of people who haven't been 'grilled' at all since it's a much easier situation to play in if you're scum. Personally, I think you're town, right now; again, I can't really quantify it, but you just felt very natural to me when I was reading along.

Aright. So assuming I'm right about those three, and two scum, I've got 50:50 odds to hit from here. The thing is that coming into today, I was thinking Glork + EA as a pairing, and charter's results eliminate that possibility, at least in my mind. So, really, there's only a couple options:

dahill1 + Erratus Apathos
dahill1 + Incognito
dahill1 + Glork
Incognito + Erratus Apathos
Incognito + Glork

The obvious observation from the above is that, if I'm right so far, one of dahill / Incognito has to be scum. Irritatingly, I could pretty easily see either as scum. Des knows Incog far better than I do, and he's suspicious of him; he hasn't really done anything that makes me think he's town, but I haven't found anything staggeringly terrible either. The problem is that basically no-one has really done any particular action that I'd call pro-town, so although I'd generally agree that "not seeming town" when someone usually does is a bit shifty, I don't like the idea of using it here. And the last time I did try and use it with him, I got bitten

T T

so there's that. I have difficulty articulating exactly why this "scumhunting well so seems town" thing is different to my view on Tuber/Ass, but I think it is.

Pretty much the one 'big' problem I have with Dahill is his comment on pointless votes. His playstyle doesn't really seem very 'pro-town'.. and he hasn't really contributed as much as Incog that I can see (or at least that's my perception without going back over it in detail), but that seems to be more of a consequence of his playstyle than anything really likely to be alignment-related. I figure that theoretically I should be somewhat more willing to lynch him because of that uncertainty. Ugh.

And my position on EA has to be influenced a fair amount by the fact that he can't be scum if Glork is scum. And I do have the persistent bad vibes from Glork, I've said that.. I don't really see a Glork lynch happening right now, much as I might prefer it. And I haven't really seen anything huge that'd point to him being scum with either Incog/dahill if he is scum.

One real interesting thing is that Glork appears to have a double standard; he went from pretty neutral on RV to OMG DIE on us over Des not using a large sample of games when meta-ing, yet he's pretty much ignored Incognito doing the same with EA. I don't like that. It's possible there's something with the timing since he hasn't posted in a while, but it looks sketchy to me. I don't think it necessarily makes Incog more likely to be scum with Glork, though, I think Glork just wanted to pull a reason to accuse us out of his ass.

That's kind of where I'm at. I suppose I'm questioning myself about Ass a bit more, in retrospect, but I'm sticking with it for now.

Tho. Incog's last couple of posts seem townish to me. I'm probably more inclined to vote dahill now. Would be interested to hear his response about his position on dahill's MD thing, though.

Also: someone not being "PossScum" doesn't mean they can't possibly be scum; in my head, "poss scum" is a corruption of "poss sub" or POSSSUB, a classification used by ships hunting submarines; it basically means "hmm, might be something here". You can read a bit e.g. here if you really care. (For clarity, I wrote the list of possibilties, and Des wrote his comments on them back to me.)

I would probably be voting dahill at this point.. I'm pretty much netural on Incog, so due to what I posted above I'm not hugely against lynching him. I figure Des knows better than I do with respect to him, heh. So I'm okay with both, I guess.

Elmo

[El Destructo]

Elmo's flavor discussion is easily the biggest factor I have pointing to anybody being scum. Arguing that

flavor

takes precedence over

game balance

literally screams "I'm trying to make people believe something that probably isn't true."

Haha, thanks for being obvscum. I

specifically said

that I was somewhat doubtful of it because it would affect the game balance, hurr? I've never once suggested that flavour should take precedence over balance. My win condition is not "flavour"; trying to work out precisely what "the imperial threat" constitutes is kinda important, don't you think?

I don't get what you mean about the flavour of the nightkills. Someone got stabbed; that's perfectly consistent with roughly what we know. I have no idea what kind of contradiction you think exists.

Elmo

[El Destructo]

I meant what I said: Based on what I knew, I could not find a logical argument that Caesar did not represent the imperial threat to Rome. But something felt off about the balance if that is true, so I thought that might be a gap in my knowledge, and I asked other people for their input. Des' explanation makes sense. It is not some tangential piece of flavour like you seem to be making it out to be, it's

the wording of the town win condition

.

Glork, would you agree that if charter is town, Caesar is in the game? If so, what do you think would happen if we lynched Caesar? Logically, if Charter is town, you're saying lynching Caesar wouldn't end the game -

why is the 'imperial threat' not ended with the death of Caesar? This is the part I don't understand

. I agree that something feels 'off' about the game possibly ending on day 2, but I can't find a logical argument against it.

And what you've quoted is a LONG WAY from trying to convince other people in the manner you've said; you specifically said that I was trying to make people believe it, and then quoted me saying I was unsure about it and asking for input. Hurr?

On nightkills, I have no idea what you're getting at. It's Rome, a dagger is easy to hide, the scum stab people. There's no kind of inconsistancy that I can see. What are you even asking?

Elmo