Well I must say I am most certainly impressed with the length of this post about me
Some responses. All quotes Justin, non-quotes me.
P.S. Just finished writing this...my god I'm sorry for the length! Quote blocks make it clearer, but it suffers the wall-of-text problem...
Justin Playfair wrote:And now Shteven:
Early on this gives me something to wonder about. It’s from post 31:
Shteven wrote:As far as vigging goes, you may have a significantly higher chance to hit town, but hitting mafia is worth more. I'm not saying I'd recommend night one kills, but saying that you're more likely to hit town than mafia isn't the whole story.
What is the whole story, Shteven? Because I’m hoping it’s more than “hitting mafia is worth more”. Why? Because the logical extension of that would be that random lynching wouldn’t be completely bad either, because if you happened to lynch scum that would be worth more too. If you can explain your thinking here more completely I would be grateful. It wasn’t your tone that worried me in this post. It was your logic.
In a balanced game, the two teams should start at the same level of power. Let's assume a simplistic setup of 12 players, 3 of which are mafia. A mafia member is therefore worth 3 times as much as a townie is. However, you're 3 times more likely to hit a townie than a mafia member, so this cancels out. The above is only a rough approximation; obviously if you're a vig there's one less townie around. If there's power roles (which there probably are, you're a vig after all) then you have a lot more risk, etc. There's a lot that could vary, but I do hold that in a -balanced- setup, the move should be more or less neutral. Most games you'll go down slightly, some games you'll get a significant lead. I don't recommend it, as power roles will skew it, and it's also against the spirit of mafia to a degree. Kills should be selected from information instead of randomly. It is this reason why your extension of this principle to random lynches is wrong, and possibly misleading. There is information after day 1. I did not say it; ask me questions if you don't follow, but do not put words in my mouth. You are stretching to build a case.
Shteven does a lot of “NotHunting”. Conciliatory, noncommittal, posting words that leave the thread in the same place it started. It makes it seem like he’s contributing, but there’s little of value to be gained. Do it sometimes and that’s fine. Do it as much as Shteven’s doing it and it makes me think you’re trying to show you’re in the game and active but don’t want to put yourself on the line. Post 33 is a good example of this:
Shteven wrote:I don't believe I've ever played with LML before (He's usually modding my games) but I suppose just from knowing him this kind of get-started-sprinting makes a lot of sense for him. I don't think it's much of a tell - in either direction.
So, maybe LML’s likely to be aggressive right as the game starts, and Shteven’s never played a game with him, but LML has modded games Shteven’s been in, and maybe it’s not so suspicious but who really knows. Have that argument with yourself Shteven. Then post your conclusions, and support them with the reasoning that got you there. Very little in life lies at precisely the 50 yard line.
You have a valid point that my post didn't advance the thread very much. However, I did already post my conclusions, so I'm not sure what else I could say about it. People who don't know him may think it's an overly aggressive move, I felt it was normal coming from him. It's a small point, but I thought it was useful. This is based mostly on our games of poker, where he often bets heavily and "controls" the table, but in a methodical manner.
More of the same in post 60, including a bit of defensive self-revelation about being defensive. Won’t post it all, but I’ll post the part that bothers me most (in response to an attack on Shteven’s tone by Aimee). You’ll see why Shteven’s meta-game defense here bothers me as we continue:
Shteven wrote:As far as being overdefensive, I'll go on the record right now as a very defensive player. If someone says something about me, I believe it merits a response. . I don't expect anyone to read a 100+ page and still growing game, but if you want to see my play style, I was just lynched in mafia 64 and was a (now) proven townie who defended himself constantly. Right from day one I got into extensive arguments with Glork.
Fortunately for those who don't want to read 100+ pages, White, LML, and manaspryte were all in that game so just ask them.
Post 65 we get a safe vote on Oman for bandwagoning. But then a lot more pretty empty words. Shteven critiques the Jordan wagon, not for merit but because it’s at five and…
Shteven wrote:The confidence you need to join a wagon already past halfway is a bit too steep for at this point.
Confidence in what? Jordan’s guilt? That the bandwagon might go to lynch with your vote on it? Shteven seems to be voting Oman with cause, not just for some faint hope at putting pressure on him. And then Shteven comments again on the number of votes on each. Why would it even matter at this point? Five votes away, four votes away, neither were dangerously close to being lynched.
The number of votes a wagon has when you join it directly affects the meaning of your vote. If you are the first person to vote someone, it is an informative vote - "Hey, this person did something scummy, everyone pay attention and tell me if you think I found something." Second and third votes are agreeing with this, to give it greater visibility. When you get to around halfway lynch (a game of this size, votes 4/5/6) you're saying that the candidate is scum and worth lynching. Final votes imply greater certainty, that you are convinced the person is the best choice, unless the person otherwise stated that they had some other preference but can't get a majority behind it.
These shades of meaning are all implied and may not be universal, but it's how I think of my votes. It does not require as much certainty to put the first vote on someone to draw attention to something they did as it does to put the 5th vote on someone and try to sell them as the lynch for the day. Scanning the thread again I was third on Oman after the initial random votes. Certainly not the first, but I do hold there's a difference. Pointing out that someone off to the side should be getting more attention vs advancing the leading bandwagon. One tries to shorten the day, the other tries to encourage further discussion. I was not (and am not) certain enough on Jordan to want to shorten the day.
Two more nearly completely contentless chatty posts follow, and then this one, which just flat out bothers me. First there is a very long recapping of the vote history. One might think studying the thread so closely would have given Shteven some insights, but he follows the recap with this:
Shteven wrote:Commentary: The Jordan wagon, based on LML's claim that jordan's post about the SK revealed that jordan is the SK, has stalled. People haven't left it yet and may still succeed, but later votes have tended towards Oman with some other scattered targets. It may be too early to successfully lynch, or perhaps he's hidden well enough. He's also reflexively voted LML.
Oman's case is based on his admitted band wagoning. I voted for this, but in looking back, it seems like Jordan may be the better choice. I will consider this, I'm not moving my vote just yet, but also wanted to point out this post:
Hmmm…why would Jordan be the better choice? Oh, maybe it’s this, from later in the same post:
Shteven wrote:I'm a bit curious what LML is trying to pull off here. He's already started the largest bandwagon so far, getting five votes for attacking one post (the response vote may also have helped fuel the wagon). He's now trying to start a brand new wagon? Granted wagons shift frequently at the start of the game, but it seems like LML may be trying to throw out anything that will stick at this point. What have I done that you think I deserve more suspicion than Jordan, who you've already claimed is the SK?
I'm aware that I may be playing into Aimee's concerns here, but I think it would be doing the town a disservice to be silent.
Now to me this seems to be Shteven saying that Jordan (read anyone) would be a better choice than Shteven. And although Shteven actually comes up with a valid reason for being suspicious of LML he is instead suggesting that maybe it would have been a better idea for him to join “the largest bandwagon so far”, the one that LML started on Jordan. I also just hate that last line. Shteven later makes use of Oman making a silly claim as to how he doesn’t care if he dies if it helps the town, but there’s not a penny’s weight of difference between that and what Shteven does at the end of this post. Very noble. If there’s one thing that consistently makes me suspicious of someone it is hypocrisy.
This is probably your best point, it was a bit hypocritical. I didn't really think about it at the time; what I meant with my line was that I was repeating the behavior that Aimee felt was scummy. I felt it was worth it to try to get more from LML; and thought I should mention that because of my general policy to not appear scummy. I was contradicting that; so I wanted to explictly mention it. In doing so, I was a bit too grandiose and fell into the trap I blamed Oman for. It should be noted that the "I don't care if I die for the town" is still far more dramatic than "I may seem scummy posting this but it's for a good cause (information)". When I posted this orginally, I did not go so far as to connect my post with Oman's, just that I didn't want it to look like I was willfully being scummy with no reason.
Then here comes post 143:
Shteven wrote:Metagame defenses make me nervous, but I can't help realizing they're useful. People do play differently; but I'm really not interested in reading 2-3 games from player's past just to figure out how to play this game.
I do my best to avoid being scummy each game and I think you should too. Other than a few people saying I'm too defensive I think I do a pretty good job, we'll see
Early wagons at -2 are pressure. early wagons at -1 are a bad idea. You don't know who would be willing to hammer.
I’m not even going to comment on that well-discussed middle sentence,
Sorry to interrupt, but this itself is scummy. You've commented EXTENSIVELY on all my posts, but can't touch this part? You want it to appear worse than it is? Ever heard the term FUD? (if not, try
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear%2C_un ... _and_doubt)
but the first part of this post seems a little odd considering the meta-defense Shteven used in post 60. Shteven, do meta-defenses make you nervous only when someone other than you are using them? Like claims of noble sacrifice on behalf of the town?
Not sure what you're getting at here. Yes, I dislike meta-game defenses as a rule, but I realize they're useful and won't go away. I don't know how noble sacrifices on behalf of town qualifies as a meta-game defense unless the person linked to some other game showing it as one. It's not related; it's just an easy-to-fake post which scum can use to plead their case. In general, I don't like people who try to look angelic; it's probably scum playing their role a bit too forcefully.
And post 145:
Shteven wrote:Oy...I forgot to include the whole point. Wagoning for pressure is fine, I imagine that was LML's main point in attacking jordan. But if you outright tell the person it's just pressure, then there is no pressure. And that's just distracting. It's a good time to be voting Oman...
Okay, let’s trace Shteven’s logic of wagons. A wagon that would still have been three votes away from lynch if he added his vote was too steep for him. A wagon at -2 seems like pressure. And if you tell the person it’s just pressure there isn’t any pressure. And there’s more about this later. Hey, I paid off when I promised there was more about meta-gaming, right?
I don't like your paragraph construction here. Several completely seperate thoughts come one after the other; I don't attribute this to malice, but it's misrepresenting what I said/believe. I'll quote what you said about me with quotes instead of quotation blocks:
"A wagon that would still have been three votes away from lynch if he added his vote was too steep for him."
Yes, joining a wagon already past halfway changes what the next votes on it means. See above; basically if you vote him at that point you are saying you have confidence that he is scum and would be comfortable lynching him that day. Early votes are more informational; later votes imply certainty.
"A wagon at -2 seems like pressure."
This one was taken out of context, and I don't like how it was lined up with the previous sentence. When I said that a wagon at -2 is pressure I meant that a wagon at -2 is ENOUGH to put significant pressure on a person. There isn't a need to go to -1; and I advise against it, because anyone can hammer it for potentially bad reasons. Being at -3 is pressure; being at -4 is pressure (when it's 9 to lynch). Just slightly less so. The point I was making was that putting someone at -1 is a serious move and not something you should do if the purpose of your vote is only to pressure them. You'd better be confident the person deserves it.
And finally, yes, telling a person you're only voting them for pressure does reduce the pressure and therefore defeat the purpose of your vote.
"And there’s more about this later. Hey, I paid off when I promised there was more about meta-gaming, right?"
Actually no, I'm not following you here. A talk about wagon size vs pressure is game theoretic, not meta-gaming.
And I’m glad it was a good time for voting Oman, since you never shared your thoughts on why it might be a good idea to switch your vote to Jordan.
Perhaps I never shared my thoughts on why it would be a good idea to vote for Jordan
because I never voted for Jordan
? Just a thought.
Post 173 mildly defends Ooba. Post 177 gives a little advice to Sammich and Ooba, and includes some defense about the middle section of his post 143. Then comes post 185, in which Shteven criticizes Oman for making a content free post. Won’t quote this post here but Shteven once again uses a meta-argument and then comes dangerously close to losing an argument with himself about what kind of player is most likely to be nightkilled.
Sorry to argue semantics...but it's not possible to lose an argument with yourself. The other-me would have won.
Shteven votes Sammich for okay reasons but in a later post makes sure Sammich doesn’t think it’s personal and points out Sammich doesn’t have anything to worry about because it’s only one vote.
Wow, sounds pretty consistent with the view that the first vote is more informative than certain, right?
Shteven’s post 201 looks good though, politely but firmly pushing Sammich to give him information.
Yep, this was pretty much the goal...
Shteven’s post 230, asking some questions of LML, is okay too(I see this: “Are you happy with the results of Jordan's wagon or do we need to take it all the way to lynch?” as a question asked to LML which may well have been more to gain information about LML than to continue to try to push that wagon).
Why, it's almost like you're on fire now. Pity LML isn't playing anymore, or it may have worked.
Post 250 is fine. In Post 259 Shteven chides Sammich for being content free. Shteven takes his vote off Sammich, saying it has done it’s job and in Post 259 Shteven announces that his reading of LaptopGun and SomeStrangeFlea resulted in nothing. No explanation, but I guess it was good to get the update.
Then Sammich posts his overview, which includes Shteven seeming like the doctor (which just makes sense which is non in so, so many ways) and Shteven makes this horrible post in response (286):
Shteven wrote: 3) Claiming I'm a doctor is where you went wrong. There's no reason for a town player to do this. It's either a horrible gaffe, or you're trying to signal who needs to be killed. I certainly hope it's not an innocent mistake, because this is day 1 and this evidence will be enough for my vote.
Vote: Sammich
Votes have been coming in pretty fast, so while I have a chance, I'd like to conduct a poll, for everyone: Should we delay a lynch if sammich gets to -1 or -2, or is this enough day 1 posting? My last game went into 40+ pages on day 1 and that was a bit...headache inducing
I agree with CuriousKarmaDog about how opportunistic this post looks but will add a point CKD didn’t. Shteven, who lectured Oman about telling someone the bandwagon placed on them is just for pressure, now proposes “a poll” on the same subject. Then he continues by suggesting that maybe it’s time to lynch Sammich because there’s been enough day one posting. See, told you there would be more on Shteven’s theories of bandwagoning. Plus, and I really can’t help but say this, those votes you cast to lynch someone…they’re a poll. When someone gets enough votes in this “poll” they get lynched. This is such a bad bit from Shteven on just every level that I’m surprised it didn’t get him a far more substantial poll of his own.
You're probably right that there wasn't a need to hold a secondary opinion poll. I've been in games were day 1 went over 40 pages, so when I saw a lot of votes coming in I was afraid that more would follow at the same rate (when they generally taper off somewhat, except in the most extreme cases) and wanted to voice my concerns ahead of time. Probably a waste, but I don't think it shows malice on my behalf. Over cautious, yes.
Shteven’s defense in 297 is deflecting in that it skirts completely the issue of how opportunistic Shteven was being. After a defense in 305 against other things, Shteven continues to push for a Sammich lynch in 306, including this bit of distancing just to be safe.
My post in 297 was a response to CKD's concerns. I did address them; I simply didn't echo the word opportunistic. My previous list of 3 points was not intended to be "3 reasons sammich is scummy" but simply "I think these 3 things related to sammich are interesting." Point 3 was why I voted for him, not 1 or 2. If there's something else you think I should have responded to, let me know. As you can probably tell by now, I try to be complete in my responses
And as a footnote, CKD was correct in that by this point I was willing to shorten the day, I felt Sammich was a good lynch candidate.
Shteven wrote: Seriously, this lack of response doesn't make him that much more likely to be mafia. And I am rather afraid we'll be mislynching town...he's just not giving me much to work with, to let him off the hook.
Shteven continues to push on Sammich, even going so far in post 321 to call out to lurkers who haven’t posted since Sammich “made his post”. CuriousKarmaDog calls him for deflection.
Called on it Shteven says it was to spur discussion and to get away from tunneling on Sammich. Which would be fine, except the call was linked to Sammich. How? Like this:
Shteven wrote: Sammich's post was last tuesday 3:46 forum time. Since then (four days) the following players have not posted ONCE:
This isn’t a post to get people to stop talking about Sammich. This is a post to point people who might not have read the Sammich post to it. If it isn’t, why does this all immediately follow?
My goal was not to get people to stop talking about Sammich. My goal was to get the same 3 people to stop talking about Sammich, and get a wider range of opinions. I would say that a player outing power roles without provocation is a pretty major daytime event, and certainly merits discussion by all of the players. Certainly, they're welcome to talk about any player, but Sammich held my main interest at the time, and yes, I'd like to hear more people talk about him. Maybe some of them would even vote for him. Sounds like a game of mafia to me
Shteven criticizes the continued discussion of Sammich and then posts, almost immediately, that he still wants to lynch Sammich. Shteven then uses Sammich doing a “bump” to go after Sammich again. Shteven doesn’t talk about anything other than Sammich until he finally gets tired of CuriousKarmaDog going after him over his scummy post 286.
Allow me to answer your above question: I continued to post about Sammich because I felt Sammich was scummy and wanted to lynch him. Would you propose I talk about Jordan in order to get Sammich lynched instead?
That one's rhetorical, btw.
In post 360 Shteven misquotes an old post of CuriousKarmaDog in order to try to cast suspicion on him. OMGUS for absolutely sure, but also another attempt at a misdirect. Shteven then posts a whole list of old posts that need to be looked at again, just to prove he wasn’t looking back trying to find some dirt to throw at CKD, ending it, of course, with Sammich. When CKD pins Shteven on the misquote (the accusation based on this got its own post, not just part of a list) Shteven apologizes and even makes a list of suspects that doesn’t include CKD, which has the very safe to be suspicious of Sammich and Oman at the top.
I'm kind of confused at all the things you're accusing me of here. Given: I did in fact misquote CKD, due to skimming the thread on a reread. You then attribute an malicious intention behind this, and call it an "OMGUS for absolutely sure" even though CKD had been voting for me several pages (4 pages) at this point and I never expressed any concerns about the vote itself. He's actually voting me for our different reads of Sammich; he feels the attempt to out me as a doctor was a newbie town mistake, I feel it's scummy. It's certainly questionable if such a blatant mistake would really be a scum tactic, so I don't hold this against him. I could certainly be wrong. But I think it gives Sammich a better than random chance at being scum, and his utter unwillingness to even talk about it is another red flag. I feel if it's a newbie mistake, he should have posted some embarassed note and apologized, and then left it at that. Had he done so, I wouldn't be voting him now. He's continued to be evasive - he seems to hopes it will go away. So I'm trying my best to ensure it doesn't go away.
Shteven changes his vote to Oman after Oman suggests lynching a lurker.
I don’t like much of what I’ve seen from Shteven so far. Is being hypocritically inconsistent in his own favor on the subjects of meta-gaming and bandwagons and being sanctimonious about how the town comes first worth a vote? Probably not. Is the low content and refusal to commit on almost anything worth a vote? Probably not. Is the no explanation reason, raised under pressure and abandoned right after, for reconsidering his position on voting Jordan worth a vote? Taking a clumsy pot shot at CuriousKarmaDog and then making an even clumsier attempt to cover it with a list of similar “overlooked” posts which he never bothered to follow up on or build into a case? Probably not. But put it all together and combine it with that horrible post 286 and…yeah, I’m getting real close.
Wow. Nearly everything here just seems wrong. First, how was I hypocritical on meta-gaming? You never quite showed the two differing stances. My stance is clear: It's of limited credibility because you're never going to read three old games to verify one post here (at least I wouldn't) but can be useful to the person and is somewhat unavoidable. That is nuanced and feel free to call it wishy-washy, but it's not hypocritical.
I don't feel I've been "low content" but I suppose that's your call. However, you spent a fair amount of your post blasting me for calling for more attention on Sammich, calling attention to lurkers for the supposedly express purpose of getting them to talk about sammich, etc. How the hell can you then say I've refused to commit to anything? I've been one of the most committed players here, imho. Maybe I should reread the thread after the delays, but I seem to recall trying to get sammich lynched for some time now.
My position on Jordan was not a position. I mentioned him in a comment. I never voted for him; I did not have a stance to abandon. I'm not sure what pressure you think I was under to comment on him; no one attacked me for it, I was merely mentioning him because he was a leading wagon and I tend to share my opinions on those. I didn't feel it was a quality wagon.
The shot at CKD was a mistake. I would hope that people will check the timestamp with my longer post that was right after it to see that I was in fact rereading the thread and posting whatever I could find. I did not check the point against CKD carefully enough. I suppose if you don't buy the first apology, this one may not change your mind, though.
In short, I think most of your points are wrong or misguided. You have a valid point about my comment "I think it would be doing the town a disservice to be silent" but I can't find much else here that's useful. While in a post this long (your post, I mean) there's bound to be a few things that seem scummy, overall, you seem fine to me. I still have to read your Tyler post, I figured I'd start with mine.
In good news, I'd still take Sammich over you by a longshot!