Mini 1051: Utopia Mafia - Game Over

[Shanba]

Vote: Jdodge

Let's lynch him before he inevitably replaces out.

[Shanba]

I'M NOT BITTER

[Shanba]

VP - what do you think Exe was expecting to gain from that if he is scum, bearing in mind the playerlist?

[Shanba]

The playerlist thing is slightly misleading, as it strengthens but is not integral to my case. Anyone can see a plethora of experienced players with long ago join dates and that ought to be enough to make you think twice before trying a weird gambit. But anyway.

I feel like I've been here a million times before. Deja vu indeed. Every game. or nearly, we start with a newbie suggesting some kind of plan that is undoubtedly suboptimal. If they're really raw they might suggest we no lynch. This one was better than most with at least some comprehensible explanation of his plan, but again, there's never,

never

any chance that we'll actually listen. And inevitably, like the slow ticking of a clock, someone votes them. It's so predictable! I mean, what are you expecting? If they're completely raw newbies then chances are they haven't seen the flaws in their plan. If they're a bit more experienced they'll presumably know that town won't listen to them. If they're more experienced again then they'll know the attention they'll get for the suggestion makes it doubly stupid.

Or to put it another way: without fail, the guy suggesting the plan is in good faith (please note, i@m not clearing him off just that one post as there's always the chance he's trying to play the WIFOM. But I do think he's more likely town than the next guy). I find myself going after the accuser and that's normally pretty fruitless too - I can't recall getting particularly good resutls from my day 1 scumhunting by going after that guy so this I'm simply going to ask you how you can

possibly think that is scummy?

[Shanba]

VP: In this case the two are interchangeable - we're talking about a level of skill high enough to know that the suggested plan is a bad one, which I would argue nearly all players of two to three years mafia experience would have.

VP hasn't answered the exact question I asked, but I've got the response I need. His vote + the bigging up of his case are an early day case combined with a pressure push. On that note I'm still confused as to how much you believe your case - your post 61 suggests that you think Exe is very likely scum again despite you disavowing that earlier?

Unvote Vote: VP Baltar

Exe: If your early game case was made to garner reactions and push the game forwards, why didn't you admit that straight away instead of pretending to accept the corrections of fishythefish? On that note, fishythefish's case of Exe trying to contrast the two is bullshit.

Still think Exe is more likely than not town.

[Shanba]

Shanba: You make it a point to call me out for not posting yet and then completely ignore what I put forth to you. Why?

I called you out because I was frustrated with a differnt (ongoing) game in which you replaced out. Since you haven't replaced out in this game, I don't get the relevance.

I'm actually struggling a lot with pushing vp baltar here, and that's partly the reason I haven't been posting that much - I'm trying to work out whether or not I actually think he's scum. The problem is that while he is pushing a bad case, I've seen townies play in that kind of way where I suppose they think they have to force the early game - similar I suppose to what Exe claimed to have been doing - which reminds me, Exe: you never answered my question. The other thing is I think there is an inconsistency in Exe's play, and it's odd that this is not what VP is focussing on. So in a sense I think he's skirting by a bit - picking something easy to push but at the same time I don't think the early push on the easy target is necessarily the right play for sucm in that situation, and I think he's good enough to know that. So I'm conflicted.

I’m also unconvinced by JD’s saying this conflicts with Exe’s wanting a quicklynch. Mostly because Exe wasn’t favouring a quicklynch at all. There’s no conflict between advocating a policy lynch and not always having a vote up.

I agree with this.

eldarad: What's your read on Flameaxe?

[Shanba]

Exe:

Exe: If your early game case was made to garner reactions and push the game forwards, why didn't you admit that straight away instead of pretending to accept the corrections of fishythefish?

That should answer both your questions.

Unvote Vote: Kast

Kast is pushing nothing. He's posting, but I'm not sure why, because all he's added up to now is well... theory, I guess? Great way of flying under the radar. Also note that in his last post he's preparing to move on to the VP wagon which I am convincing myself is probably just an enticing townie lynch - and as such, is the easy lynch for scum to jump onto today. The explanation he gave that he wanted to vote for exe despite knowing the case was weak doesn't sit well with me, but I've been drawn into wagonning too many townies doing that kind of play. Regardless, Kast is scummier.

Oh, and VP:

orly? do tell. Quotes from 61 are acceptable.

Blah blah blah. Do you think I'm scummy or not? All this sounds like is, "I'm worried how people will react"...which pardon me, but is not a town mindset.

When I voted you, I was well aware that people would say, "oh come on VP, that's such crap logic," but I don't really care because I'm town and even if I did get lynched my cold dead hand would certainly be pointing to some scum somewhere. I'll get you from beyond the graaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaave!

What I'm getting at is that I can't reconcile your claim that it's just an early game wagon with some of the rhetoric you've been spouting. Also, your last 6 or so posts have been entirely on the defensive which annoys me because I want to see you pushing other wagons and stuff. I might just end up reading a bunch of your games to finally try and pin down a read.

[Shanba]

Shanba I answered you in 102. It was a response to Fishy.

Oh yes. Did you miss my question originally before fishy pointed it out to you again? My bad there, I was looking for a response to me and not to fishy.

I'm not really satisfied, though. I agree that there's not really a reason to reveal - but there's also no reason not to reveal. If you know you're going to have to reveal originally, why not do it straight away? What did making the extra post pretending to believe in your plan gain you?

[Shanba]

Hmm, interesting thought, so Shanba how do you resolve Exe going for reactionlulz with his policy lynch proposition when you think he's aware enough to know that the plan in reality would not happen? Doesn't the experience of the player list also suggest that such an obviously bad plan would not garner any useful reactions?

I see a lot of players of that kind of level of experience get all psyched up about "ooooh I can try and get reactions" without really understanding the hows and whys of what they're doing. The results look pretty similar to what we have today.

Kast: With regards to:

This is similar to my position, except that my response to the position is to withhold my vote and re-read the thread. The assumption contained within Shanba's (and Flameaxe's since he's just regurgitating Shanba) reasoning is that it is worse for the town (and scummy) to not vote when you don't have a real suspect, than it is to just place and push a crap-vote that you don't believe in. Playstyle difference perhaps, though it's probably helpful to see if this is a normal part of either of their playstyles.

I really don't care if you're voting or not. You even noted yourself that my case is based around your contributions, not around whether or not you're voting. If you were contributing more to scumhunting, then I wouldn't give a shit. But you're not. The only post I feel you take any stance is isopost 3. In all others you're not even taking a stance that a case is bad or any of that jazz. You're just saying words and the words don't seem to lead anywhere. Take this quote from isopost 4:

-JDodge is right though, your stance against voting before everyone has checked in does slightly contradict your initial proposal to start the game with a Morph policy lynch. To be fair you did not state a quick-lynch, but the implication was there. Regardless of that, the actions of suggesting to begin with a policy lynch + placing a vote before everyone has checked in is itself slightly contradictory to your stated reason.

This looks promising, but there's no followup. That's significant because in the initial post you stop just short of accusing the post of beign scummy. If it's slightly contradictory, isn't that a path you should be investigating? Instead you're happy to comment and then move on. It is unbelievably passive and that's what worries me. We're 8 pages in and I would wager everyone has a top suspect except you.

What about isopost 7? You take the time to comment on the exe/flameaxe thing

@Exe/BBM's Hate-fest-
Overall distracting and a lot of talking past each other.
-Disgree with JD's implication that Exe was the only one adding fuel to the fire and BBM was an innocent victim. Neither is a innocent in the exchange, though BBM very clearly initiated and made most of the personal attacks and incivility.
--However, that reads more like JD agrees with BBM's position and letting this bias his read, rather than buddying. Still, potential link noted.
-Fishy's analysis looks like a genuine attempt to understand what's happening there.

and draw nothing from it except a slight townread on fishy. What is the point in that post? You make no judgments, take no risks - you're happy to just sit and let stuff go. I don't like that.
Or from the same post:

It is possible that your vote and weak attack on Exe was an attempted bus.

I think it was probably not. I also don't think your defense (dismissal), was a good defense (though it may have been sufficient).

It might be bussing, it might not be... eh, who cares, right! And then with these snippets of careful positioning you're left with vast tracts of stuff about bussing, about whether voting is better or not voting is better, etc.

You also falsely claim that I am about to vote for VPB, despite my *EXPLICIT* statement that I don't think his action is a scumtell.

I'll prolly pay extra attention to VPB. Right now the strongest impression I have from this game is that VPB has been pushing an "anti-town = scummy" train despite being a good enough (and cynical enough) to know that's not any more true or likely than "anti-town = bad/weak player".

I'm sorry, that just takes the biscuit.

DDD: You may note that what I thought it would be fruitless to push is a distinctly different scumtell to the reason I actually ended up voting him.

[Shanba]

You are arguing semantics and technicalities. My point isn't about whether you specifically objected to my voting record.

The point is you object that I didn't name a specific player as probable scum. I made lots of contributions in terms of theory, game specific strategy, debunking crap arguments, clarifying distraction points, and even sharing reads of some people (Exe, VPB, & Fishy) as +town. Your snippets from my posts show reactions and explicit statements of where I stand on several arguments and issues. It isn't a problem of my not having conclusions or contributions, it's a problem of those conclusions not being "PLAYERX is scum".

Your position relies on the BS assumption that I already called out JD for pushing. Scumhunting is not measured by how many players you call scum or how many votes you place. To claim a lack of either is a reason to dismiss everything else that has been posted is complete nonsense. Yet that is exactly what you are doing.

Discussing theory, game specific strategy and the rest - it's all worthless. It's a distraction from the actual point of the game, which is, you know, finding scum and all that. For all the good it does for town chances, you may as well be discussing the growth in chinese imports, or the olympic games in beijing. Imagine if someone had posted gigantic walls of text discussing civil war in Lebanon and then added a few snippets about who he thought was town at the end.

Put it this way - what is the value in discussing whether scum will bus in this setup? None. Not as far as I can tell. Maybe later, in the context of scum lynched and whether there was someone on the wagons (assuming there weren't any other factors about those wagons, like a cop claim or whatever)? Much more useful to ask, in each individual case, whether x or y is bussing - and then to draw in information from the setup to reach a conclusion. Because whether scum are more likely to bus in a setup like this is kind of irrelevant if the guy under suspicion has stated in MD that he would never ever bus or something like that.

Right now it's only serving as a distraction. Consider, it's taken Ergo 10 pages to decide that piece of theory from you was a nulltell - 10 pages where he could have been adding to the discussion about who scum is in a far more profitable way. Instead, because he disagrees with your theory he's been forced to get into a discussion with you just to be certain you're sincere. And all for something that wasn't even necessary! And it's not just to others that it's a distraction. It also distracts from the fact that you've really added very little substance, very little for someone to sink their teeth into. Your destructions of arguments that you're so proud of - again, busywork. It's really not hard to say "oh x is a bad argument" and I think most of us here can tell a bad argument anyway - so unless you're using the fact that it's a bad argument to lead somewhere (for example, to make conclusions about the people arguing) I don't see what the value is. Funny how the first time you've managed to do that is against me, huh? GOD DAMN JUST LOOK AT YOURSELF. SERIOUSLY. READ YOUR POSTS AND TELL ME,

HONESTLY

, that you think that shit is useful?!

The problem with iso reads is that they don't contain responses from other players. If you bothered to actually read the thread, you'd notice that my statements were answered, so there was no need to follow up. And actually, Exe has been extremely good in terms of answering (or attempting to answer) most people's posts (Flameaxe is the notable exception, though only after they started fighting). In contrast, if you really did an iso read, you'd see that I followed up with Flameaxe, JD, Fishy, VPB, Erg0, and Eldarad on issues that were not addressed or that I needed further dialog to resolve.

I don't really care about what others are saying, but about your responses to what those other people are saying. None of your scumhunting ever seems to go anywhere. Because you always accept what answers you're given, it doesn't look to me like you're even looking for anything? If I see something that I'm not sure about, even to the extent where I'm saying "probably not" or "most likely", I want to grind out that last part of doubt in my mind. I agree that sometimes I feel like I've got all I can out of a tell and there's no point following it up further, and I agree that sometimes I want to mvoe on to other subjects because I feel like I'm banging my head against a wall - but I don't think either are approppriate to what's going on here. When you ask someone a question and get an answer, why do you so rarely state whether you think that answer is townish or scummish or neutralish? The obvious explanation is that you don't care - you simply care about the appearance of the thing rather than the information gained.

And no, you never explained that quote about vp baltar. When you say something sticks out, and then say that the thing that sticks out is contradictory, how in god's name is it a misinterpretation to think that that is an indication that you think the person is scummy? In fact that's actually the closest you ever came to accusing anyone of being scummy at all, this game, before you attacked me (and again, you never did follow up on it.) That post reads "I think VP Baltar is scummy for this reason and I am going to iso him to be sure of my read", not "I see VP Baltar acting in a way I don't expect, that is a flag to examine him and see why he is playing unexpectedly."

Jd's vote on ani I completely disagree with, and that's as far as I'm prepared to go on that issue.

[Shanba]

I'm wondering if Shanba is going to post at all before the deadline. I didn't intend to lynch him without hearing him give some input.

This is pretty silly - if I were scum, what would stop me just avoiding posting all together in the knowledge that that would keep your vote off me? Also, I'm not tunneling.

Kast: People are obviously scum because they're voting for you. Oh now wait, our cases are bad, my mistake /sarcasm. Check your cognitive biases.

I don't like the Erg0 wagon - frankly I don't understand it. And Jdodge is town, like I'm 90% sure of that - I was wondering about the animo vote, I had it down as some kind of gambit and I suppose it was, but I know how he thinks and this is a town gambit. This is not a jdscum gambit.

I'm tempted to replace out, I have 0 motivation for big wall of text battles with Kast.

[Shanba]

This wagon is all smoke and mirrors, but unfortunately it has legs, so I guess I'd best claim.

I'm an Elf Mystic. I have no powers, but if shit gets real I can defend against thievery and magic (I asked oman for clarification about this when I got my role pm (specifically I asked if I was some kind of doctor) but he said that for now I'm a vt, and later on who knows which was annoyingly cryptic.)

[Shanba]

What suggested to you that you can defend against thievery and magic?

The aprt in my role PM where it said if shit hits the fan that's gonna happen.

[Shanba]

My role pm did not change last night - I am still vanilla. I am debating whether it's good practice to continue giving you updates about this or whether I ought to let scum try and work it out. I think at this point scum already know what I will be capable of, there's little point holding anything back.

I am so sleepy today. Tomorrow will be catch up with all the mafia games I have been neglecting day (and also hopefully sign up with a gp day - with the signing up taking precedence if I run out of time, but I doubt that.) If I can't motivate myself to get involved by tomorrow, I'm going to have to give it up, find replacements for my games and brief them about the gamestate/my current thoughts before handing over the reigns, because right now I am struggling to find any motivation at all (apart from not letting people/mods down - but that means mafia feels more like a chore than like a game right now.) Hopefully that won't happen, though and I will be al caught up and refreshed by tomorrow.

[Shanba]

Can anyone freaking explain why I'm being wagonned? We've now firmly established that my claim is not unusual, except in that I did not evolve further last night. I've no idea why we're assuming that the death of a single townie will result in every power role being upgraded, but whatever. As far as I can tell, people think I am scum because I attacked Kast and because they didn't like my claim. Kast is OMGUSSing the shit out of me, VP Baltar is sheeping like a mofo, exe was a moron. I just don't get it.

In other news, I'm vigorously debating in my head whether JD is scum. I cannot conceive of the semantic game he is trying to pull vis animorpher and Exe. He's stated they were detrimental to the town and that's why he wanted them lynched, but he's also talking about how he was not voting them as part of a policy lynch. There's the possibility I've missed something - I've basically been skimming since yesterday - but only his claim is preventing me from voting him.

Kast is just posting gigantic walls of text and you're all falling into the "OH HE'S POSTING A LOT HE'S TOWN" mindset. Jesus, read what he was writing. He was doing every bleeding thing possible to avoid addressing the game.

I would have voted Exe yesterday had I been paying attention when it came down to me vs him for obvious reasons, but I was fairly certain he was town. That wagon was pretty god damn bad. I was pushing kast then peeps came down heavy on me, but when it became apparent I wouldn't be lynched a few switched over to Exe instead. I'm thinking primarily of rayfrost here, who was very carefully leaving his options open in case a melynch became a better choice.

Vote: kast

Nothing has changed from yesterday, except that he succeeded in pushing further bullshit wrt my claim.

[Shanba]

but when it became apparent I wouldn't be lynched a few switched over to Exe instead.

When did that happen exactly? There was plenty of support for your wagon if Ray had not inexplicably switched. Also, where is the promised catch up? Who is scum apart from Kast? If you and exe were both town, why was there so much last minute resistance to your wagon out of left field?

@ JD - PLAY BETTER.

Vote: Shanba

There is no reason obv. scum should not be lynched today.

VP - until his last post, Jdodge was my second place scum suspect and Ray was third. Now Ray's second! Good times. I still dislike jd's semantical argument over policy lynching, but I understand his motivations better now and am less certain of it being scummy.

I didn't catch up in the end. I looked at the task ahead and SCII became more interesting. Today I wrote a post hoping to paper over the cracks so I won't have to read that abominable pile of wall of texts from people like kast and exe at the end of yesterday. Please don't make me do that.

The very obvious reason for the resistance to my wagon is one that it's probably best not to state outright. Consider why jd as town would have been against my wagon for a second (heck, read his recent posts). That's the worst part of the whole terrible saga - the long term consequences for the town.

I just want to note on DDD here - I'd love to think he was scum (it would be nice and easy) but I don't know why he would be playing in such a way if he was. His tunnelvision push on me is clearly a playstyley thing, so I don't know what conclusions to draw from that. To people who know, what would he look like as scum?

[Shanba]

Ok, I'm kinda sick of this line of reasoning, and since the reason I think this is pretty darn obvious there's no point being reticent any more about it. To all you people who are wondering why there was a big backlash against my lynch: remember how there was this huge push that my claim was scummy? Remember how JD believed me and the claimed a power role? Remember when Flameaxe softclaimedish and said he believed me? Yeah. I don't know how to put this subtly, so I'm just going to fucking state it, as it would take a god damn braindead scumteam not to have noticed, but the guys who were pushing against my wagon really hard were people whose roles also did not match the vanilla townie pm, by and large. JD is town, I'm fairly sure of that now.

Kast is so god damn scum. What the hell kind of response is that. I'm not fucking parroting JD, your lack of any fucking scumhunting whatsoever is notable enough for me to be able to notice all on my own!

[Shanba]

Erg0, who do you think is scum? Same question rudeboy.

[Shanba]

If that was supposed to be some kind of an appeal to experience I have already lol'd. I think you tried the same dumb shit in Tubby's game when you were defending scum HowardRoark from me tooth and nail.

I do agree with you that lynching Shanba will shed a lot of light on the division in the player list one way or another.

I think he was saying that the players who have join dates similar to mine have a better meta read than me - that fits with his whole "SHANBA IS NOT PAYING ATTENTION" thing, since I'm pretty sure that's based on some comments I made in scumchat (pre this game - I'm only playing because they peer pressured me into it ).

What the hell. Apparently stubbornness is a better attribute than having a decent case.

Erg0, is that top 3 in order? If it is, why vote fishy? Also I'm not feeling DDDscum.

I'm going to have another look at the eldarad thing, later.

[Shanba]

And there has been a decent case made against you that is being summarily ignored by you and your defenders. Namely, 1) your claim can be considered questionable (partially addressed, though I disagree with these arguments that there are multiple VT pms) 2) there was a major effort to save you yesterday when scum would have greatly benefited from your lynch if you're telling the truth. I don't believe for a second that they could not have gotten your lynch because JD was stamping his feet. The people on your wagon are likely all town in my book, so from my perspective scum could have jammed it through without much issue if you're town. Hell, from your own reads you seem to think most of your wagon was town except for Kast. It simply makes no sense why you wouldn't have been lynched there. 3) You've been doing your best to ignore points made against you and let JD white knight for you. Calling things "stupid" and "tunneling" is not a defense.

Well, the claim was only questionable because all VTs decided they knew what a power role pm looked like despite not knowing what a power role pm looked like, the point that I was not lynched always felt kinky to me. I still don't understand why scum would want to force me to be lynched rather than exe when you consider that voting me and me flipping town would put a serious crimp in their plans, post claim. A number of points have been made about this already. And these defences are nothing new - I've been making them for ages. It's when you guys stopped listening that I started getting frustrated and accusing you of tunneling and all that jazz.

By the by, there are a few things I did that I tohught were scummy.

But anyway, what's done is done.

[Shanba]

/melodrama voice
I'm so sorry, JD. I'm so, so sorry...
/melodrama voice

[Shanba]

It also wasn't helpful that I had no idea what a town power role pm would look like. But yeah, we didn't play well and town played very well. I'm probably just going to file this one in the back of my mind as "games to forget" and move on. As to the lurkiness: well there were a number of times where I simply gave up and then JD would suddenly give me hope again, heh. Also, I know that night deadline is 48 hours now because I went back and checked the rules, but I didn't know it at the time when we missed the deadline night 1 - I guess we should have read the rules better. Incidentally, I thought we were going to be ok when we had lynched Exe - we would thn have killed one more player who suspected me and then JD/flameaxe/Erg0 might have been enough to keep me alive in conjunction with my scumbuddies, and we could have lynched, say, rayfrost - so that nightkill coudl have been fairly important. We might have been able to force through a kast or rayfrost lynch, otherwise.

The icky play around vp baltar day 1 was just so icky. I wish I hadn't frigging second guessed myself, but I hated not being on a wagn at all, it felt so god damn passive, and vp was wo my gut was begging me to vote. If I were town I'd likely have gone back and forth on him as well, but I'd probably have been more honest that I was going back and forth on him rather than here where I was trying to pretend that I was changing my mind due to new info when that was p. clearly bunkum.

Anyhoo, well played town.

[Shanba]

Oh and before I forget, my death scene was fricking awesome.

[Shanba]

I honestly would never lynch an exeish player day 1. So if that was part of the reason you suspected me, that's a little frustrating. I agree that Kast was super frustrating though - I wish I had picked a different player to attack as the expectation that I'd have to respond to that jazz was really getting to me.

[Shanba]

I honestly would never lynch an exeish player day 1. So if that was part of the reason you suspected me, that's a little frustrating. I agree that Kast was super frustrating though - I wish I had picked a different player to attack as the expectation that I'd have to respond to that jazz was really getting to me.

The problem wasn't that you were opposed to his lynch which was my position as well, but that you were opposed to his bandwagon and so early in the game as well. I'm town I almost never have a read on anyone within the first two pages that makes me really want to defend them or stop a wagon on them. Given a day or three and a few more pages of content and that might be true, but I think mostly it felt to me that you had to think he was town based on outside information and not the extremely minimal content of the game so far.

Meh. Honestly, I can't say "well I would have done this as town" because I don't know that had I been town that's neessarily true - my view is skewed by the fact that I was indeed scum. But I do try and shut down wagons that are based on craplogic even if I'm not sure that the person they're wagonning is town. I generally find those early day 1 wagons based on a misunderstanding or whatever are generally completely uninteresting from a scumhunting perspective, so why waste time with them? They're never exciting unless they're likely to lead to the guy being lynched, and if they are going to lead to that then that's another problem anyway.

Or to put it another way, if they're enticing enough to make scum act oddly around them, then they're probably already a problem.

[Shanba]

Kast: my case wasn't bullshit, but whatever.