Mini #893 - Dollhouse Mafia (Game Over!)

[Plum]

Rereading. Nice to come home and find four pages up already, y'all.

Perhaps we try a day without imprints and see how we go? Ugh.. that means we're in lylo if we mislynch.

Nope, because scum don't have killing powers before imprints. No-imprints makes it

Nightless

4:8. Does anyone have the stats on that?

Anyway. It's no good imprinting everybody (well, that's partly under my preconceived notion that the imprint-gains are balanced such that the balance of power remains roughly the same as with no imprints and that to gain an edge on the odds we have to imprint more town than scum proportional to the town/scum ratio). And that means we try to give out multiple imprints but not to people we suspect.

...

Okay, Mod clarified what I'd already gotten. For the record, reading is tech.

As far as I can tell, we have no way of knowing what the imprint will give the user. If we imprint one person, take it to night, we can find out if the imprint gives a normal power-role type power or not. We won't have to worry about a townie dying during the night, becuase scum can't kill, and if a kill DOES happen, it could only be from the one person imprinted. We might get lucky and get a power that can be of a big bonus during the night. If it turns out to be useless, whats the problem?

My problem is not what the imprints do. I'm assuming that the Mod made imprints generally useful to the receiver. While killing is not necessarily a scum-indicator here, the narrowed suspect list is extremely appealing. It has its charms . . . there's no downside except time which hopefully we could prevent from being entirely wasteful (if say we gave out an imprint and No kill occured and imprintee claimed to get a Doc ability we're right back where we started). Better than DeathNote's plan, because, as I said, we need to get more town than scum imprinted proportional to the ratio: that means we need more than 2/3 of the imprintees to be Town, if my ideas about the game balance are correct.

DN, Limerick's plan doesn't hope for a Cop and a guilty investigation; it's an early stage minimal/moderate benefits/extremely minimal risks plan. And, of course, we can go on after implementing that plan and do something else (like imprint a few Townie-seeming people) or modify it as necessary.

Dice roll is not an idea I'm down with. I actually do think that despite the heavy scum ratio we

can

improve our odds - by avoiding giving it out to those who are agreed on by many to be shady (because as nice as dice roll is in theory, there will be some people I think are scummy and I don't see a scenario where I'd try to imprint someone scummy, and the info gained from bandwagons, as VMD said, is essentially another, different type of lynch for information purposes.

Buttonman, 8:4 is unwinnable in regular Mafia, but our base starts out as Nightless, which I'm fairly sure

is

winnable, or at least moreso. So scum have a substantial voting block. That doesn't mean that some people aren't scummy and thus shouldn't get imprint votes.

DN misprepping EK is Post 52 - she didn't suggest we do this with no powers, she just suggests - sanely - that we only give powers to those who appear noticeably pro-Town and refrain from imprinting scummy players. You seem to be painting a false dichotomy which Elvis never suggested and supported. Suffice it to say that

you

won't be getting an imprint vote from me any time soon. Besides, as I said above, I'm pretty sure that the imprinting powers are balanced such that if we imprint everyone Town will be give or take back where it started, which is to say that the plans you suggested are two equivalent extremes of a spectrum where the optimal option is in the middle (sort of; I guess my analogy broke down a little). And yes, your suggestion

was

scummy, you've cleared the category, ready for double jeopardy?

Buttonman

why

are you assuming that a Town-imprintee is going to get 1-shot Cop four times, or even at all?

Ah but if we hand out powers by vote how long do you think it will take the mafia to end up empowered?

This reminds me, to a sick stomach, of the reasoning given for no-Lynching. In this setup, it's a risk, just like lynching is a risk. To win we have to take the double-edged sword and use it to our advantage and avoid using it to our detriment.

That strategy is just as full of holes as everyone other one. No plan will be perfect, but some plans will yield better information then others. It is impossible to find a town player right now. Why? Because we have no bases to know if they are lying.

Scum are just as good at acting town as everyone else.

False. The opposite is a fundamental of Mafia; the informed minority

are

different. You acknowledge that scumhunting is real and has to be done well to win, even if you claim to not be particularly good at it yourself. Now we're challenged to Town hunt; find more Town than scum, just like in lynches overall you look to find more scum than Town (with a variable margin of error).

Buttonman, even if Cop draws do happen more than once or whatnot:

But yeah, it would be boring as batshit.

Yeah, I play to win. But I also play to have fun. In the ruleset they're listed equally. I won't sacrifice one for another, and I don't think I have to.

VMD, I've read scum-Elvis before. Maybe I could do it again. I've also played with her as Town and I see what you're saying. It may just be reverse halo effect because she's arguing sanely against players who've been acting like DN and Buttonman.VMD, your vote: would have been good if just pressure to shut up because Buttonman was getting annoying. Being against the spirit of the game is not scummy, though, and not vote-warranting.

Buttonman, why do you comment that DN's plan is bad on page four when he's been pushing it since like page 1?

Pug also points out the blatantly scummy anti-Elvis stuff by DN which I commented on above.

Vote: DeathNote

Buttonman, you also make my gutdar click.

[Plum]

EBYOP:

It may just be reverse halo effect because she's arguing sanely against players who've been acting like DN and Buttonman.

Ow!

Anyways yes my suggested solution is even less fun then paint drying and I can only hope that if we do implement it succesfully the mod will call the game or something rather then force us to run through it a few dozen times.

How sharper than a serpent's tooth . . . :p

If the game is truly breakable my preferred strategy would be for the Mod to fix the leak, rerandomize the roles, and begin the game anew. If that's impossible, blah. I came to win, but more than that I came to play.

DN, wrong

again

. The middle round is banking on more townies getting imprints than scum proportionally and then using whatever powers they get to best advantage. I still don't know why everyone assumes that Cop powers are availible readily or are the only useful imprints. They're not. There

is

a middle ground. Don't try to make it out otherwise.

Again, I surmise (reasonably, I think) that imprinting all will have a net effect of zero ('cept the scum keep their imprints, so at the end of the day it's probably less than null).

[Plum]

DN, wrong

again

. The middle round is banking on more townies getting imprints than scum proportionally and then using whatever powers they get to best advantage. I still don't know why everyone assumes that Cop powers are availible readily or are the only useful imprints. They're not. There

is

a middle ground. Don't try to make it out otherwise.

Hmm... no I am pretty sure I am right. The only role that benefits would be a cop role. Unless you have proof otherwise, perhaps an example of what role could possibly help beside cop?

If we give out only one imprint Day 1, usefulness is limited for whoever gets the imprint, Town or scum (except for setup-info gained, because these powers could be funky. Or some roles. Gun-inventor comes to mind. Inventor plain. Doublevote. Delayed kill. Neighborizer. Imprint-giver, which is implied by the game rules to be possible if not probable, could be huge. Not all of these may be possible, with the info we have, but what I'm saying is that I doubt this setup was designed for someone to finally randomly hit a Cop investigation and use it. In the case of imprinting everyone, obviously more roles (like Doc, which is nothing if we give one imprint Day 1) become more relevant and more useful - for both Town and scum. More useful for scum than Town because scum retain their imprints.

[Plum]

/prodded. I had a very busy/stressful end of the week, and this game has thus far seemed to be the sort requiring more in-depth analysis than I could have given it these past few days. I plan to go out tonight but will get a major post up tomorrow. Sorry.

[Plum]

The best part of all this is that your plan wouldn't even work, because I did actually consider potential game-breaking strategies when designing the setup, because I'm

not an idiot

. But I didn't want to say so, because I thought it might reveal setup info that I didn't want to reveal, so instead I've made a total mess of handling it when I could have just said that in the first place. Because I

am an idiot

.

Now, hows about you guys get on and play a game of mafia, and I'll get on and mod a game of mafia? Sound good?

A plot twist I totally called.

Ah, we come to EK's discussion of those who apparently didn't realize that the scumbags have not automatic NK. Funnily enough, SC's offhand statement about Lylo which suggested that he didn't know is more convincing of the fact than EK's indication thereof, though both seem probable enough indicators, so if we're right it just goes to show that occasionally reading isn't actually tech. Both of the players in question are intelligent enough to make sure they got the whole gamut of their Role PM if scum but it'd be normal enough to just glance at the scum PM in the thread if Town. I happen to dislike some of EK's later arguments (don't you think scum would have figured it out, especially with the QT is weaker when you notice that the Role PMs had been out for about half a day before the Mod clarified the fact in the thread. Even if all the scumbags had shown their faces in the scum QT by that point, it's not given that anyone would be spewing about the NK/lack thereof. I understand that EK claims she talks abut that stuff early and assumes others do too . . . which I guess I could/should check later). It remains probably, and though the deep paranoid part of me afraid of WIFOM feels nervous, rationally I kinda want to go along with it. The paranoid part of me has been right a good few times, though.

In other news, DeathNote continues to be scummy by misrepping and presenting a false dilemma in this post.

Wrong. There is no false dilemma in that post.

Wrong. Buttonmen and I indicated clearly that there are other useful potential imprints besides Cop for any strategy on the spectrum, from all-imprint to one-imprint. You insisted that there are only two real strategies: all imprint or one-imprint-get-a-Cop. Not true; it's not a dichotomy, not a choice between all or nothing, and EK wasn't advocating a no-imprint plan.

And, um, what the heck is Post 122?

A) There is no investigative imprints.
B) Imprinting has a chance to kill you.
C) Imprinting may change your alignment.
D) Scum can get imprinted by some method other then the vote.
E) Some imprints effect multiple people.

Or no Cop-type imprint is available until more than one Townie has been imprinted? There's likely a method to the madness - can you envision a scenario where only the third Townie to get an imprint would be able to get that power? I digress.

I originally thought my plan to imprint all would help town more then harm until the mod posted that scum did not have a night kill. Since then, I sorta gave up on my idea as it would mean giving scum their night kills which I thought they all ready had.

The Mod clarified this on page 1. You were pushing an imprint-all scenario until when? Check check - well, what did you mean by Post 57? From there and other places it certainly seems like you're advocating imprinting most if not all players. Post 57 was on Page 3. When you say you were in favor of voting everyone, you did mean that you were in favor of

imprinting

anyone. Were you not? You didn't sorta give up on the plan after the Mod clarified it. If you meant you stopped pushing it - you still liked it best even though you realized it gave scum the NKs they don't automatically have? You still continues to quietly advocate it and work according to it as a plan? WHY? All you are accomplishing is confidence in my early vote.

About SC's EK imprint vote is kinda funny in retrospect not merely in the what-is-more-likely-a-coincidence thing but that it indicates how we had next to nothing in the way of a random-imprint stage.

Vala, if you don't believe SC is faking it at all but you were somewhat suspicious of Elvis, why wouldn't you vote to imprint SC?

Again, when we started I thought that giving the scum an imprint wasn't particularly bad - all you had to do was keep imprinting the same person and whether scum or town they'd have a permanent ability.

I thought the same as well before I saw it clarified in the thread.

Lynching gives us information where as imprinting probably won't, also the mafia wouldn't NK tonight even if they got a power that allows NK'ing they would just claim to been a doctor or some such.

I disagree to a degree on both counts. Imprinting information probably

will

be useful - in the long term but less so in the short term. Depending on how many imprints we give out and how gutsy the scumbags are, the scum might NK tonight if they can.

Self-imprinting theory: I was thinking about this before the game and with all the blabbering away during the first day of play I forgot:

Imprint: Plum

Because why the hell not. In theory it's not a Towntell nor a scumtell, because it advances your wincon no matter what it is. So now we're going to discuss why the hell not and see whether there's a legit reason not to do so:

I am of the opinion that no one should vote to imprint themselves.

In theory it's just about the same difference; it's in everyone's favor to get an imprint today, scum or Town (I don't actually feel that a poor Townie getting an imprint would be as bad as SC suggests, though I see where he's coming from). Push comes to shove, scum will probably be the most nervous/twitchy around this sort of thing - whether to self-imprint or not (just like they'll act differently around whether to vote to imprint a buddy &c.) - so now I see that it's an info mine - where scum may act noticeably differently than Town just by virtue of being scum.

I just think it looks too eager.

So that quote makes me feel less pretty okay about Vala than previously, seems to be coming from the scum motivation, which is to look Townie/avoid looking scummy (a secondary motive for a Townie). Aside from that, aren't the fractions 7/11 if you don't self-imprint-vote but 6/11 if you do? I need to parse these numbers; it feels like the goats-and-car mental-mathematical illusion.

Like I said before, you're not necessarily wrong; I tend to play cautious and paranoid early on to the point where it almost becomes a flaw and sometimes need a voice of reason or two to keep me in check. >_<

As someone who used to be a more paranoid player in general I sympathize, and this alleviates my concern at the above quote of yours somewhat. And as EK pointds out, your play

has

been a bit paranoid, so in this game you're consistent . It's true that EK's reason is a bit different (she's arguing that she's objectively more likely to be town [probably] [imprints self because of town-tell] whereas basic theory is based on the fact that subjectively you know it'll help your faction [imprint self based on null tell because any player in this game benefits his/her faction by getting imprinted]). Not willing to say it's really scummy, but it is different.

But then again, if you were at I-1 wouldn't you self-imprint-hammer. Everyone? Scumbags, search your hearts too. Yeah, I thought so: everyone's hand should be up. So what's the difference between that and starting out with it? Like nothing. It's a personal choice, one which is in everyone's favor to make . . . and we end up level-or-so if everyone does it. I don't see a real

downside

exactly, because you start feeling that less of a majority is needed but that's really not the case, it's just who you include exclude from the majority.

Lim agrees with my basic theory viewpoint, I see.

Lew's first post is a bit useless, but it looks like he was short on time, and I'm not in the mood to call that kettle black, so judgment is reserved, and he

was

busy, wasn't he.
DN's Unimprint vote is one of the few internally consistent and decent things he's said yet.

Now that Starbuck comes in I start rereading bits of page 1 and feel like Messiah's first post is kinda non-committal . Starbuck's first post feels nice on a gut level, so it's a big ringer to see SC's attack on her.

First of all, though I appreciate noting connections I pretty much hate it when people call scumteams Day 1 before anyone has flipped at all. I can't tell: SC, is your Starbuck case dependent on Zwets-scum or vice-versa?

I interpreted that post as a less serious "These guys are both scummy" kind of thing, but I may be wrong.

Re: Elvis calling Butoonmen and DN scum early: I agree.

Lew seems sane about approaching the mechanics of the game but not especially helpful or insightful. Judgment reserved again.

[quote="Starbuck"There was plenty of ideas and theories being thrown around at the time of your vote on DeathNote. I agree that not everyone should be imprinted and he sees now why this is a bad idea, but why must it only be after YOU point out that its anti-town or scummy? You are making this situation to be entirely about you, when it's not.[/quote]

Um, what? The point would be that it was pointed out at all that it was anti-Town. It was Elvis, but the point wasn't about Elvis saying that at all, it's just the fact of the situation.

It seems as though you are only voting for DeathNote and that you view TheButtonmen as scummy because they disagree with you and vice versa. Right now, according to you, neither one of them could possibly be town because they don't/didn't agree with you. Now, in this last post, you are saying that TheButtonmen is no longer scum in your eyes, but town. How quickly you change your tune.

Okay this here is just . . . wrong. EK just explained what she really thought, elaborations which are reasonable and not scummy. And not those. I could recap, but you basically just misrepped EK's positions to make them seem weak just after EK explained what her real positions were.

So maybe SC's ideas aren't as crazy as I thought at first .

Starbuck then ridicules EK's confirming thing, which I'm leaning towards believing is well-intentioned and suchlike in order to ridicule her entire position. Classy.

I'm being kicked off the computer but y'all deserve better than me making you wait for the whole thing. I think there's some stuff that I meant to fill in.look up before I posted but I can't bother with that now.

[Plum]

Where was I? Oh damn . . . page 9.

It may be a way of getting is partners (if he is scum) closer to being imprinted without overtly being shown to support them if he gets lynched later.

Excellent point. I shudder.

If we could be sure we were giving imprints only to Townies I

might

be down with not lynching (but by that point we'd have exceptionally good base odds for lynching scum anyway). That's not the case and I doubt it will be; even though I'm not as hostile towards EK's attempt to confirm/semi herself and SC I'm not convinced enough to say other than it raises their likelihoods of being Town not insubstantially, which isn't the same. Otherwise we may well be handing the scum something useful (and even if it's not an NK I'm pretty sure our gracious Mod has something up his sleeve useful for a scumbag) for Night 1 before taking our stab. There is no good reason to dismiss the usual reasoning for why we don't no-Lynch Day 1 in general.

For the record, would you go over exactly how you think elvis and my scheme went down if we were scum? Why didn't elvis choose a scum mate who hadn't imprinted her in his first post of the day? When was the plan hatched? Why didn't I imprint more than just one of my scumbuddies? Why didn't I answer her question the first time?

This line of questioning doesn't seem to serve any purpose other than to make starbuck appear scummy through no fault of her own.

That line of questioning looked like it served a purpose: making clear that on the road of the SC/EK gambitting scumbuddies theory there are significant pot holes. I don't see how it was intended merely to make Starbuck look scummy (and it had a reasonable prompt: Starbuck indicated that she put weight to the theory and SC responded with points in the form of rhetorical questioning). This certainly was a weird vote on SC in that case, Messiah.

I understand that, and I don't think that people who want to lynch today are wrong for saying so, but I guess that I just feel, with scum 100% not having a kill as of this very moment, tomorrow is just sort of an extension of today. If we imprint and don't lynch, today+tomorrow is basically one long day in my eyes, only with the added information that comes from knowing what sort of imprints are out there, and anything else we might learn from what is revealed during the night phase. Maybe there are mechanics we don't know about. For example, being FORCED to use the imprints you get would fit with the premise of the show.

Exactly. Or, even more probably, there are imprints the scum would feel relatively safe using if they got them tonight which are still helpful to them. I discussed this above, I think.

SC's case on Starbuck seems stronger when he discusses it than when I go back to see his points; frankly, I don't see enough outright defense of DN by Starbuck that the null-ish read she gets on him is really off balance. Other stuff she's done - like misrepping EK right after EK explained what had actually been going down - are stronger points against her. SC's case is also one which relies strongly on connections and it's Day 1, meaning we have very little info to go on as to who is actually scum or Town a player can be seen to be connected with - it's conjecture, sometimes stronger/more likely than others. I simply didn't see her opening post containing such an underhanded defense of DN - not enough to warrant the 'negative-but-not-too-negative' thing something scummy enough to look unless DN dies and flips scum. Similar to Messiah's feeling on this particular point, I guess, except that I don't find it really scummy of SC, don't think it's strong enough to call as a likely intentional scum twist of Starbuck's words. And Messiah's attack on SC's reasonable response to Starbuck still has me frowning.

VMD, I notice that you found all the active people (as of Saturday) somewhat to very Town and everyone else somewhere between neutral and scummy. I see you had a case on Lewarcher, one of the low-activities, and a decent pretty decent case at that. But you had only one other person down as actually scummy (one who hadn't posted at all) and then only one at dead-neutral (DN, for anti-Town meta. And if I have to ask, do you plan to get a read on him at all or are you going to just let him sit there all game and smell up the room like dead fish, so to speak (and no, DN, I don't mean to compare you to rotting fish; my idioms occasionally run away from me). And all of the actives looked town. This isn't scummy, per se, just . . . odd. This scumhunting wants either refinement or a wider net.

Though I must say that Lew's follow-up post wasn't heartening at all. It's certainly not more content. Okay, then. And Heh, he actually

does

find content in those pages he initially skipped after all. Will you look at that.

So, it's page 12 and nobody has more than 2 votes toward a lynch, and I don't think we've gotten a decent bandwagon going all game. I don't know what most people think on the idea of lynching vs. no-lynching, or if we should imprint or not and who/how many.

/wrists

Yes lynching, yes limited imprinting. How many? Certainly less than five, probably more than one. The number in between which we choose should depend on how many players we find Town-enough to go for it. If we have more than three our criteria are probably not strict enough, and if we have more than four that's

definitely

the case.

Pug: You may be right. I'm willing to conjecture this: If we give scum an imprint, even if they don't get an NK ability and use it, it will probably be something they can use and it will probably be bad for us even if it's not an NK.

Note to self: don't laze around all day and then start responding to this game at 11 pm, especially when you still have leftover pages to respond to.

Farside, what don't you like about EK saying that in the case of a broken, extremely tedious strategy she'd replace out? I don't exactly get it; it seems like a null and normal reaction to me.

Why should my meta not be consistent? People are too use to conformity on this site and policy lynch any suggestions that are different from what they are used too. I am one who believes and fresh ideas and radical thinking so try to take that into consideration before kill me off. (goes for every game)

My vote on you is not policy. I have a policy about policy lynnches such that I'd rarely participate in what is thought of as a policy lynch, and even then would probably need other indicators that the lynchee had an above-average chance of being scum. You have displayed legitimate scumtells here, and not just the sort you dropped in Border of Touhou (which is good because that ticked me off <3). You've misrepped EK and created a false dichotomy and claimed to have realized your original plan was bad because it would give scum the NKs they don't automatically get but still continues to advocate it and play by it yourself.

How is that a policy lynch?

Because I know how this will turn out. My tactic right now is called, appeal to emotion.

Why? You were at what, 2 votes here? I recapped my thoughts in you above, and this sort of AtE backfired before you clarified it as AtE (thanks, now I know you're desperately trying to manipulate me as well).

I think we can gain valuable information from the two of them being power roles. The way I see it, they can't both be scum, so in my mind I'm imprinting one guaranteed (imo) townie, possibly two.

While I approve of you trying not to give two imprints to scum, we really can't afford to do things that way. We can't look at us scoring as many Townies as possible; we need to shoot for no scum while still getting a it of imprinting done. You've just voted to imprint someone you have your eye on - someone you feel is below neutral, which is bad. I am, however, now thinking of Elvis as Grandma. Look what you've done now, Reck.

DN's rolling over and dying is tainted with the policy-lynch lie/appeal. Please stop, kthx.

More soon.

[Plum]

Sorry, late night and stuff. Real stuff is promised/prayed to happen tomorrow.

[Plum]

So of the people who found and started pushing the wagon that we all now think is scummy and have all jumped on, NONE of them are imprinting ANY of the 3 major imprint candidates.

That might have to do with the fact that I've not yet gotten around to voting to imprint anyone but myself. To answer the question, I'd be happy looking at two or three imprints. If we're at three besides me whom I'm confident enough in I'd be happy to throw myself on as the fourth. Otherwise I probably wouldn't be comfortable with three. I'm a bit iffy on VMD and she's not someone I'd really rather get an imprint. EK has seemed very Town and with the extra credit of the apparent lack of knowledge of the scum NK situation she's probably my best bet for likely Town.

Imprint: elvis_knits

I didn't love your attack on Starbuck, SC, so I'm thinking about you and want to look again at Buttonmen, because the more I think about it the likelier a towntell the attempt to break the game seems.

SC WTH.

Okay score one for DN flipping scum (and all those people who complain that anti-town people can't be read, hmph, yet another example that it can) but cutting the day off so fast was less than utterly cool. And confusing, though a bit less so in context with your offers to make a deal regarding lynching you/DN earlier Day 1.

Imprint: Plum, Elvis

IF Starbuck THEN Vala.

If Starbuck flips scum?

Anyway, it

is

too much like a 7-for-7 defense of your positions. Frankly, I'm just not quite as confident as you are in your assumption strings.

Starbuck

was

my next scummiest suspect for similar counts to DN's but not SC's case (though DN flipping scum makes her look no better, to say the least).

Vote: Starbuck

SC, though I feel iffier about you you're not my top suspect and I do not want you dead. I'd rather try to lynch someone I find actually scummy kthx. And I need to reread Farside to see if all her stuff is really lining up and I need to just double-check that the Town vibes I'm having with Buttonmen are good; if so, imprint-vote time for him

I had some reservations about Messiah earlier and he seems to have lost a few imprint votes before the hammer (yes?). And I don't have any tiiiiiiiiime.

Mod, everyone: Put me down as V/LA until Saturday night. I'm really sorry about this week, but grargh. I may be able to post Friday, but tomorrow night I probably getting home in am hours and Saturday is never a posting time for me. Apologies again.

[Plum]

This is a hold-on post; if my school filter lets I'm going to try to get something up before evening. I find this as or more frustrating than y'all do. I'm trying here.

[Plum]

Imprint: Plum, Elvis

More coming/this subject to change, but new day means new slate means get these back on the table.

I'm still seeing VMD's early Button vote as null, just an indication of frustration.

Honestly, a lot of the reason I want to see people imprinted is because I'm curious to see what kind of roles are available to us. Another is that if I thought this game was meant to be played as a purely vanilla game, the mod just would have made it that way. To play the whole game as a nightless vanilla would just be... underwhelming. And if we only imprint a couple people, I don't see much danger in it.

((DISCLAIMER: Before anyone (I'm particularly looking at you, farside) bitches at me for imprinting five people and calls it hypocritical or something, note that I'd obviously unimprint some people if too many people were getting too close to being imprinted.))

Hold on. We have no idea what level of danger imprinting two people would be in the worst case scenario of both imprintees being scum. We have the option of imprinting, and it's probably generally optimal to imprint if we're pretty sure we're right, but there are conceivable cases, which might include this one (full analysis and whatever coming later in this post), where the risk of imprinting scum is greater than the benefit we might get if we imprint town. Just saying "let's play this game the way it was intended" is one thing if we're talking about not playing the game or any game if we follow the strategy. Deciding not to imprint would not be that - though I'd prefer that we actually decide to imprint or not rather than cut it off before we actually choose.

I see imprint-voting like regular voting: you generally vote someone you want to see hammered. If you're confident enough that five people are town, go ahead (except that your townhunting needs refinement in that case). If not, why vote to imprint sub-optimal people?

FOS

-

I feel like we need to get people imprinted THEN decide on a lynch.

My vote will either go to Starbuck or SC. It's currently 8:3. If we lynch wrong, it'll be 7:3, and that'll put us into lylo tomorrow if scum gets a killing imprint.

If 1 of the 2 (and yes I say only 2 imprints) kills a person they will be lynched. How hard is this to understand?
I swear I said this before and no one is listening.

We don't know how scum imprints work. What if an imprint gives scum a day-killl? What if - I'm too tired to think of more examples. Point stands. Giving scum imprints might not lead to regular kills and it might; in either case, something bad will happen, something which we cannot be sure we'll be able to accurately trace to the source.

I dislike Messiah trying to push the SC-lynch idea put forth by SC. Maybe SC is really gambity scum but he reads more like town trying to spin deals for the good of the town (I dislike it and don't think it's working but I find it unlikely to be actually scummy). Fact is that going along with it/saying how helpful it would be if we went through with it feels much worse than just sticking to whatever case you feel you have against SC.

-

Well, you could have 2 scum players who then build up an excessive amount of powers, including the ability to kill. You'd be risking two full lynches.

It just doesn't make sense to me to do that when we have a lot of info and a scum flip. It's game on. Let's imprint if we run into trouble.

Now it just sounds like you would rather keep the town uninformed.
Tell me with the 2 people who have the most votes to get imprinted what about them makes you think they are scum?

Holy strawman Batman! SC makes decent points about the theory of imprints. You spin it as him trying to keep town uninformed when frankly I see at most a theory disagreement; he seems to think that the risk is greater than the reward of info.

Elvis' [url=http://www.mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopi ... 03#2018703[/url] is pretty sweet.

- Messiah switches from attacking SC to going after Starbuck. Checking iso for context, I also note that he doesn't unvote SC and vote her until the next day. EDIT: Oh wait, he was in position to hammer; that makes more sense. Still, though, his hammer post feels weak; this may be gut spasm or gut smart. I'll hold onto my hat. Yeah, Twilight Starbuck makes a post to that point. In fact, hold on - yes, when SC first brought up the point Messiah argued, against it.

Vote: Messiah

until further notice.

- Farside's point about VMD using meta to defend/not attack DN is significant.

- Re: Starbuck's concerns, because I may as well address them: For the record, I never saw strong indications that Starbuck was really defending DN excessively and I said so; my case against her, from Day 1, was that EK clarified some of her positions and Starbuck turned around and misrepped her on those points mere posts afterwards. It was certainly not a strong enough connection for me to really put much stock in it wither way Day 1 and my original case on Starbuck made her the scummiest Day 2 anyway. The interactions with DN certainly didn't make her look

better

, either. Also I was more annoyed at the suddenness of the Day end than suspicious of SC. I didn't think it was significantly scummy. I stated explicitly in that post that SC was not among my top scum picks and that I didn't want him lynched even though he did. I did not attack him as likely scum.

- Buttonman, I know I've been busy and often playing catchup and I don't like it much either. I try to avoid posting mere summaries and I think I succeed. Playing catchup means I might have to scumhunt in a slightly different way sometimes, but I do do work and I don't just arrot or summarize.

Though I'm being kicked off the computer now, and only have this, so I fear I;m not as useful as I wish I were. Things will change;; I won;t be getting home late for a while, unlike the last week and a half.

[Plum]

Back at it tonight .

The big anti-happy party that goes on for about a page is devoid of most things I find game useful except a good point by Lim that hammer before imprint is not necessarily optimal even if it worked out mostly beneficial the first time. And when EK tells Starbuck to post on who she thinks is scum after the hammer instead of continue to engage in the hate parade when Starbuck did post one is noteable. Bit odd, but not hugely; but emotions getting in the way of gameplaying is bad all around and this is grand proof.

Now I want to reread Messiah in context to see how likely it was that his play around DN was a bus or not. Hmm, early attack on DN is a good sign, but the switchover to voting SC Day 1 and then jump back on the wagon when DN is under a lot more pressure and crumbling makes it a whole less of a sure good sign. Farside makes a similar case to the one I made on Messiah in my last post; I like. Note to self, need to read Farside in iso or something to get a better feel for her.

I'm prompted to reskim Buttonmen in iso. Okay, something weird: He votes SC for not answering his questions then EBWOP downgrades that to a FOS because he missed the post where SC did that. So far so good. Then SC asks him to explain why he thinks SC deserves a FOS and Button explains that he sees SC making strong accusations against comparatively mild behavior from Starbuck when SC has been more egregious in the area in question, SC explains the difference in behavior and why Starbuck's play is, to him, egregious. But Button never responds with something like "okay I see your point" or "no, I really think that you're trying to give it scummy spin because X", he just drops it without giving response in turn where it's appropriate and basically necessary to move on from the situation; I don't even know who his top suspect(s) at that time would be except I guess SC. And that was the only vote he'd made in the game. When DN starts to appear scummy and such there's more DN-neutral stuff and then when SC suggests his deal Buttonmen votes SC again. He does a lot against the DN lynch. My conclusion is not conclusive yet - I'd like to digest stuff a bit - but I'm definitely not giving Button an imprint any time soon, game-breaking discussion or no.

As an aside, I'm curious if scum can get imprints that are NOT NK related. I might be missing this, but in the same sense that people for some reason think that all townie imprints are cop-related, why do we assume that all scum ones are NK related? Both are leaps of faith that I don't think are warranted. Can someone point to me if this has been talked about? There is every chance that I've missed it.

I've said this multiple times. Scum may or may not get NK-related binuses when imprinted; we don't know. What we do know is that what they get can and will be used to harm the Town. I don't want to bet that we'll be able to pressure scum into not using their imprint powers against us because they'll get caught; it's more than likely that the Mod thought of this and accounted for it.

Okay, Elvis, I see your logic for imprinting and no-Lynching vs. imprinting with a lynch; I basically see no downside to looking at today like a chance to just do Day 2 imprinting after the flip although I still stand for people respecting getting the conversation about whether/how many/&c. to imprint before anything gets hammered. Day 1 was messy but had a good outcome; Day 2 was what we made of it: too short, cut off too soon to make the most of what we were doing. I'd rather not have to deal with that sort of mess again.

@Everyone - Do you think that plum posting in her other games but not here is a null or scum tell?

I'll tell you right here that I had joined other games which were also suffering from my lack of time; some of them had no posts from me whatsoever, had exploded in post numbers, and demanded a lot of effort to get remotely caught up. At that point, since my V/LA I had made one post on the site, which, if you were interested, was a long and labor-intensive one. My lack of activity was the result of a few related factors, but none of those factors was connected to my alignment in this game at all. Though it's nice to see Messiah respond to your question with a platitude and not even comment on how he himself saw the circumstances.

Unvote

in anticipation of a No-Lynch. If I were trying to lynch my vote would stay on Messiah at this point.

I agree with Lim's points against SC's points about him not voting Starbuck Day 2; I had similar feelings about Starbuck's defense-or-not of DN and said so, too. Regardless, the point is pretty shabby to have made at all considering that Lim didn't get a chance to vote Day 2 at all anyway. Though skimming Lim in iso

is

giving me major Town vibes on him. I'd consider giving him an imprint, need moar reading to see for myself whether that second-to-last vote looked scummish like many are saying or not.

And I have like no concrete recollections of what Pug and Reck have done in this game (except that Pug was early on DN, a plus) which is very frustrating and weird. Is something slipping under my radar? SC's summary of Reck is disheartening, and he points out the Reck's Starbuck vote is just about as eyebrow-raising switch-up scummy as Messiah's appears to be.

As for no lynch I think if we were going to imprint it should have happened yesterday.

The beauty of EK's way of looking at it is that if we no-Lynch we are effectively imprinting yesterday.

I don't even get what Farside is saying EK misrepped for posrt one, though I see legitimate objections to EK in her second part, though not one I take huge issue with (because I think the gist of EK's point still basically stand even if some of her particulars aren't sturdy. This gives me a little pause about EK, but not much).

Considering where we are right now: SC is not my top suspect, though he's certainly been looking more shady than previously. I'd probably rather go with Imprints + no-Lynch today. I don't really want Button imprinted, could deal with Pug getting imprinted (not my top top choice but he's clearly on the Town side of neutral to me).

Excuse me but this is the same person who wants to imprint now and didn't seem to want to do it after DN's lynch so I'm going to ask question about his lets lynch and not imprint vs lets no lynch and imprint flip flop.
We do not know what the imprints are. Everyone seems to be hoping for a cop. Damn even I hope for a cop but there is other roles out there to wonder about and what if they don't help? Then what? I also asked when and how many lynches and frankly he was willing to lynch himself and not have an imprint day 2 and now day 3 he wants and imprint is shifty as all hell.

The thing is I see his way of thinking: You can lynch and then imprint-No-lynch based on flip info + thread info or you can lynch again. If you're pretty close to sure that someone is scum you lynch; if not you look into imprints. SC looks to have thought he had very probable scum in Starbuck, so his approach fits with his actions in this instance. You wanted to imprint two players for info purposes; SC pointed out some serious risks to that plan and explains a decent reason why those risks are not worth the info in a situation where he thinks he has scum in the net. You say he wants to keep the Town uninformed.

I've been saying the whole game that we don't know what the imprints are and that it's quite possible it won't be a cop action. I don't know exactly what you're trying to get at.

EK's case against Farside now looks damn good on the surface and first look-through does show Farside not saying much about DN except attacking SC and EK about whether their alignments will be clarified at all by a DN flip. At one point she says "I need to read back on DN" though I can't see that she ever does. I may need more cross-referencing but EK's case looks damn sweet.

We need to decide what we're doing with today.

[Plum]

I'm going to a friend's house until Sunday, so I'll be V/LA until then.

[Plum]

Okay, so we got a Buttonmen imprint. Nice to see that that side of the game is getting rolling, though he wasn't my top imprint choice. Having thought about that, besides EK there is one person who I;ve consistently gotten Town reads from is Limerick.

Imprint: Limerickx

. I'd marginally prefer this over a Pug imprint; there's no one besides them and my current imprint votes (EK and myself) I'd feel confident enough in to actually want to see them get imprinted. With 12 alive and three scumbags, two lynches seems about right; even if we were to imprint only the four I feel most comfortable about there's a fair chance someone has played my blind spot well enough. I'd like two and I feel pretty good about Lim.

Lim, I would be pretty surprised if EK turned out scum; her posting here is fairly similar to what I've heard about her meta as Town (which is apparently radically different than her scum meta); she's scumhunting and acting like aggressive Town. Buttonmen as scum would have played us pretty well, too, I grant you, but I feel less confident in him than earlier in the game, though the early breaking-the-game thing still stands as a point in his favor. A fair amount of my Town read on EK does have to do with a strong gut feeling.

Though I must say that CTD's scumhunting is changing my impression of his predecessor. Not sure if it's because I'm agreeing with his scumhunting (especially on Reck) or because his scumhunting is that good; main thing is it feels

real

to me, whereas a lot of Messiah's stuff was contradictory or plain scummy as I've noted before.

And the VMD case, which is making me look back and think I was too lenient on her claimed paranoia. The fresh perspective brings up things I haven't been thinking about, like VMD's paranoia about self-imprints. I've been paranoid Town, too, but not quite that paranoid, and the looking too eager thing was definitely suggestive of a scum mindset.

Plum - another suspect of mine. She/He (sorry I forget) comes in a post but I don't see Plum really reading the game. Plum talks about not trusting buttonman saying that he doesn't even know who buttonman thinks is scum where I posted 2 quotes made by buttonman that shows he has been quiet clear.

I said besides SC at that point, before the DN wagon started really churning. I'd have hoped for more; it's not a major point against him, more of a minor 'not voting much/making many official declarations of top suspects' early in the game. The posts you brought were both from a week after the point where I had the problem, and I specified when I noted it that my problem was 'at that point'; closer to December 12 than December 18.

And yes, as I explained before, giving an imprint to someone you're not on the order of pretty sure about is a very very bad idea. If you have a niggling gut, the solution is to hunt him more and imprint him less, not imprint him and hope that if he's scum it helps him slip up more than it helps him decimate the Town.

That was a bit out of order. Oh well.

[Plum]

Sorry I replaced out, but I couldn't deal with all my games then and this one was a slightly demoralizing time drain.

Still want to know what scum imprints were out there.

Was gratified to fool some players briefly. Not long enough, apparently. Good job, Town.