California Trilogy: City of Angels - On Camera (Game Over)

[Thesp]

My apologies - the actor playing this role is out of town in a few minutes, and will not be back in town until Sunday evening, when he will be able to enter the scene appropriately.

[Thesp]

I'm having a hard time imagining why in the world we would make John Locke drive, especially when the dude's so old he hasn't seen a car before, right? How are we going to expect him to drive a friggin' bus?

I'm a little surprised that Locke knows more about what will happen next, though I have a hard time imagining him lying to us right now. I suppose I'm more surprised that Valentine seems to know nothing.

I'll be more than happy to have Valentine drive. I'm eager to get to my game in town before it starts. Are we unanimous in our desire to see Valentine drive, or am I making stuff up from one too many shots to the head?

[Thesp]

Randy Jones rushes into the scene proper - his hockey-player namesake being rushed off. It's fairly clear that he's trying to act as if he's been here the whole time, though you seem to recall some fellow in a jersey having occupied the same spot a bit before.

As I was saying, I think following Valentine is the self-evident path. I have considered the possibilities that the information provided to our drivers is somehow faulty, but I think that line of inquiry is dubious at best. It seems far more likely that Locke was provided information that leading would be detrimental to our collective interests, and abdicated this forlorn path. It also seems likely to me that Valentine had some similar information _about Locke_, was flustered by Locke's approach, and simply went with the flow rather than fought for Locke's ascendancy to the driver's seat. (In particular, I think the asymmetry of the information provided is highly suspect.) I am suspicious of Valentine, though I think in the driver's seat is the best place for him, where we can all keep our eyes on him. I will gladly place my vote on Valentine when we feel the time is appropriate.

[Thesp]

Mr. Green, I feel quite strongly we should follow the advice "given" to both of our drivers, and force Valentine to drive. Was that unclear in my words? That does not mean I believe that both of our drivers are being truthful regarding the information they've claimed to have been given.

[Thesp]

My apologies, Mr. Green, this whole scenario has me completely mixed up. I would like to hear Lewis's response.

Fisher, have you any special wisdom to provide from the great beyond?

[Thesp]

Newmar, you're not really saying anything that's not readily identifiable even on a cursory glance. How likely do you think it is that Locke speaks truth? How likely do you think it is that Valentine speaks truth?

[Thesp]

Fisher, why in the world do you hold your tongue at this moment? Speak, woman! Be heard!

We ought not leave until we've heard Fisher speak.

[Thesp]

Ms. Fisher, who is passing this information to you? I think we'll need things to be more specific.

I still fully plan on voting for Valentine to drive, and will do so tonight,

ceteris parabis

.

[Thesp]

Green, I thought your question was silly at first until I realized that Fisher herself had not taken a stance on the issue.

Fisher?

[Thesp]

[Thesp]

[Thesp]

[Thesp]

[Thesp]

[Thesp]

Yells offstage

Talilan, fire the crap out of curiouskarmadog. All the info passers

including the stuntman(!)

are onstage. Fire him now and fire him hard.

[Thesp]

Also, a Condorcet, which likely will change:

Vote: Tequila, Vodka, Buttery Nipple.

[Thesp]

Some substantial part of me wants to run with this information, find out if it's true, then string up Dweezil Zappa/Mighty Orbots if it's not. John Locke/curiouskarmadog better not ever be coming back, hopefully a lynch mob will find him by the end of the day, and if Dweezil Zappa/Mighty Orbots is lying, we get another scum. If he's not, we haven't lost any ground (or have gained ground).

Condorcets are awesome, by the way.

[Thesp]

After referencing some materials, it sure appears possible. This could get awesome. You may want to inquire as to whether you obtain any jobs of the switched person - we could ensure that certain people are relieved of their duties.

[Thesp]

It was the order they were presented in. I had a momentary fear that those opposed to us might end the scene prematurely with no stated preference given by us (meaning we'd get the worst of all possible worlds), then I recalled that

we

dictate the tempo, not vice-versa.

[Thesp]

Just biding my time here as well, I don't know what else to say. If anyone has specific questions, I'll be happy to answer them.

I sure hope curiouskarmadog is being lynched, he thinks to himself.

[Thesp]

Still here. I seem to recall that any firing of a director would be announced at the end of a scene, would it not? (Of course, it should be obvious that the director will be fired no matter what, and likely lynched..)

Is there anyone here who thinks the one responsible for all of us onstage shouldn't be lynched? I want to hear it now.

[Thesp]

I'm sorry, I missed both of your responses - do you think Locke/curiouskarmadog should be lynched?

[Thesp]

My weekend access may vary depending on happenings around then - I'm keeping abreast of the thread and waiting for the end of the day to arrive.

[Thesp]

Zappa/Orbots, do you think curiouskarmadog should be lynched? I notice you've skirted the issue pretty heavily. Do you think he should be fired, or are you comfortable leaving it up to those offstage?

[Thesp]

Zappa/Orbots, are you unable to make educated suppositions based on the 100 pages or so of information that has already been proffered? I must admit I'm a little surprised at your unwillingness to express some sort of preference. Also, do you think those in the great beyond are unable to see your stated preferences onscreen? Do you think it may have some bearing in their decision?

Also, Garrett/ShadowLurker, my position on the Valentine-Panzerjager-zu_Faul/Locke-curiouskarmadog disparity of Day 1 has indeed radically changed, and looks far more like your position.

[Thesp]

New Death/Talilan, can we lynch you if a lynch has not yet taken place? If I get the affirmative, I'll be happy to place my official vote.

I'm not liking Zappa/Mighty Orbot's answers at all today.

[Thesp]

Thanks! I'm just wanting some strong assurance that a lynch has actually occurred, and we're not being duped into anything by ending the day.

Vote: Tequila

.

[Thesp]

[Thesp]

[Thesp]

OK, 2:5 vanilla is still winnable, especially with all the info we are starting with.

But I am sorry that my actions directly lead us into worst possible endgame.

To be fair there is a damn lot of scum in this game and any picks I made were likely to be wrong, but I still could have played it much safer. Mea culpa.

Thesp, what did Mr Grey tell you would happen if we lynched wrongly and got down to 5 innocents in the last scene?

~Tal

I wanted to ask you first. I did ask and got a response, I want to hear yours first. I'm quite leary of you.

At the same time, I'm glad Thok is dead and a confirmed baddie, as I was quite wrong about him.

I also find it irksome in retrospect that the Pooky modkill may have actually hurt us more than it helped us.

[Thesp]

Not meaning to be rude, but I asked you first and think you should answer first. IMO you are more of an unknown quantity in this game than we are.

How did the Pooky modkill hurt us?

~Tal

My apologies, I had intended on asking it when Scene 8 came up, but I didn't et a chance to post before it ended. I'll go first if others insist, I expect you'll go first if others insist?

I was thinking the Pooky modkill hurt us because of the numbers, but in retrospect, it didn't affect the town numbers, I'm not sure it did. (Of course, if we ended up lynching him instead of him being modkilled, we might have lynched one fewer townie, but who knows.)

[Thesp]

Same here. (Sorry my responses may not be immediate, I'm amidst Christmas decorating with family.)

[Thesp]

This is akin to how I was thinking about

you

, incidentally, particularly since you said nothing about it to open Day 8. (This makes me feel a bit better about you.) There are some people and things I want to re-visit, but I'm still away in Gouston right now, and I will be until tomorrow. I'm reserving Monday night to myself at home for the Saints game and a review of things in the game.

[Thesp]

I've been doing a lot of thinking about the game, and I'm still hung up on D1. I've been thinking about the game in light of other games mith has run, particularly the five year anniversary game. It was a vanilla game with mechanics which allowed the mafia to make it look like there was more going on than there really was. (There were no power roles, no kill N1, 2 kills N2, and one kill on all nights afterwards, and the mafia could invent the manner of killing.) The mafia used their flavor construction to make it appear that there were two separate killing groups, including the threat of a cult via "poisoned Kool-Aid".

I'm thinking back to that in light of curiouskarmadog's innocence, trying to make sense of D1. He was insistent that he would become scum, that there was a SMG, etc., and there was a great bit of detail to his supplied information. Contrasted this with Panzerjager, who basically gets "you should drive". There's an asymmetry to their information that I've been screaming about all game to no avail until the last scene. Now that curiouskarmadog has turned up innocent (with a bizarre tale of the Screen Mafia Guild), and Panzerjager/zu_Faul under the veil of "we all think he's the AP", I've been doing some reconsidering. From a mechanics standpoint, I'm beginning to think that the mafia have been writing the advocates' information (with some moderator proscribed restrictions - presumably the information has to tell something truthful and useful?). This would explain the asymmetry of the D1 advocate PMs, at the least.

This is all to say I'm a little less gung-ho about zu_Faul, but I still want the AP claim (from everyone, actually, but him first). I don't want the AP dying and his info lost, then scum trying to pose.

I'm looking over some prior scenes decisions. I've also looked more closely at the StarKiss quote in question, and agree it's crazy scummy:

It's best not to fight this. You should have just converted and snitched on the maf like I suggested.

I overlooked it at the time, and somewhat wish I hadn't. He's already presuming that curiouskarmadog is town. (PPE: Talilan covers this, but in more detail just a bit before me.) I refrained from pushing on any case (or really looking for them) between Scene 7 & 8 because I didn't want a possible scum-Talilan from deliberately putting me in a situation where I'd lynch someone they knew to be town (particularly when she pushed for two willing StarKiss-lynchers), and I've been out of town more often than I've been

in

town over the last two weeks. I've also pulled up my spreadsheet of choices made over the first 4 scenes (I haven't updated it since), and see StarKiss's name plastered in red. I'm most happy with a StarKiss lynch at this point (as apparently the rest of the world is), and I want to see some other things addressed first (particularly the AP).

I'm crazily distrustful of Mighty Orbots. (In part, Mighty Orbot's question to end D7 is sooooooooo bad - looking back, checking (56, 41} is so much better, even if hewitt is lying you discover it.) I'm hesitant about hewitt still, but he's lower on the priority-meter right now than StarKiss. I also need to tease my thoughts out about VP Baltar - I feel somewhat trustful of him because I'm agreeing with most of what he says (which contrasts somewhat strongly with the last game I completed with him - I thought this while amidst that game as well). There's a paranoid bit of me that says I need to re-evaluate this (as this thought has been dormant with me for a while, and I see a red mark by VP Baltar's name on an onstage choice), but I don't think he's worth looking at today. And there's a lot that bothers me about Talilan, but I'm warming to the townside on them, if not in some small part to the manner in the thought process on claiming information on what they were provided on the endgame scenario. (That is some driving force behind why I suggested Talilan ask the question as well as myself.) I want to get a claim from zu_Faul.

There's more analysis for the days to come, but I wanted to go ahead and get my thoughts out now.

PPE:

Thesp, would you please explain your recent hounding of zu_Faul. I don't see how that originated.

It's been since Panzerjager's weird D1 (it's been for most of the game, in fact, he's been my longest-held-and-stated suspicion) - he seemed a bit dumbfounded that curiouskarmadog claimed his info the way he did. (See my first paragraph or so on how that's evolving.)

Condorcet vote:

Vote: StarKiss, [Mighty Orbots, hewitt, zu_Faul], [Talilan, VP Baltar], No Lynch, [Thesp]

[Thesp]

Thesp, throughout the game you've brought up an issue about the Scene 1 advocate information not being symmetrical. Do you mean how the "offer" to CKD was not also made to Panzer?

Somewhat - curiouskarmadog claimed to get advocate information with plenty of detailed information as to what might have happened if one choice was made over the other (not just which choice is good, but specifically the consequences of such an action). Panzerjager claimed to have

no

information as to the consequences of the choice, only that he should drive. This struck me as incredibly odd and unlikely - on a binary choice, it seemed as though they would be told what the best course of action would be, it's the detailing of the consequences in one PM and not the other that puzzled me. At the time, it seemed to me that curiouskarmadog was telling the truth, and that Panzerjager was scum, and that Panzerjager was surprised that ckd came forth as he did rather than try to join the scum, and was a bit flabbergasted when asked his role information. When the whole "everyone thinks Panzerjager/zu_Faul is the AP and won't touch him with a 10-foot pole" bit went down, I started to re-evaluate this, and pondered that ckd might be the odd man out on this (I think another player has mentioned the same - hewitt?). When all the info roles ended up on screen in one day, I started thinking it was the work of an evil director, and it led me to the ckd-lynch-push.

As I've given it more thought (and given curiouskarmadog's innocence), I'm beginning to think that the information provided to curiouskarmadog was unlikely to be true in the first place. Sure, the correct choice was to let Panzerjager drive in the first scene, but had curiouskarmadog driven, I find it unlikely that

both

we'd have a seventh scum (!) added, and that we'd go (-1) on our track. I think the scum get to fabricate the advocate information, which is useful as a theory to me insofar as it explains how Scene 1 went down, and that the striking difference in advocate info may be deliberate by the scum, and that the Screen Mafia Guild bit was a distraction. (And, if the Screen Mafia Guild was a deliberate distraction, I need to go look at who was fanning the flames for it.)

Why did you feel symmetry to be so important/likely?

It's not that I expected the information to be identical, it's that one bit of info detailed explicit consequences, whereas the other did not. That seemed odd (and seemed odder as the game went on, where no other player's advocate info detailed particular consequences).

I still want zu_Faul to claim whether or not he is the Assistant Producer

(as many people clearly think this is the case, and if I recall correctly GoofballsAndBalloons openly stated that they thought he was the AP). If anyone disagrees, they'd better speak up now, or I'm taking your silence as tacit acceptance.

I understand that keeping up in this game is a beast (which is part of why I'm struggling to enjoy this game, to be honest), but we cannot afford any let-up here. Same goes for hewitt - you'd better be crazy-active soon. It seems like the same few people have been posting the most lately, and it cannot remain that way.

[Thesp]

Just a quick note to confirm that I'm not the Assistant Producer. (I'm guessing VP Baltar isn't based on his post.)

I'll try to reconstruct what I have a bit later when I get home tonight, given the restrictive tags allowed in the game.

[Thesp]

oh and zu_Faul was obv the AP. When I was re-reading the other day Panzer was obv-town and left a rather obvious breadcrumb or two.

I agree that the status of his supposed APness was overt. What did he say or do that made you think he was "obvtown"? I'm asking because not only have you been consistently wrong for much of the game, you've asserted your wrongness at times as though what you thought was plainly evident and obvious. When it turns out you have been consistently wrong about significant things for much of the game, your later reaction is not to show trepidation or uncertainty at your conclusions based on this history (one breakdown-moment after Gaspar's lynch notwithstanding), but instead has been to make bald-faced assertions of things in a similar manner as before. Moreover, when other people express any degree of uncertainty, your approach has been to inadvertently(?) belittle this by proclaiming quite proudly that such things are seemingly obvious.

What was it that Panzerjager and/or zu_Faul did or said that made it obvious to you that he was town?

before we do anything else, hewitt are you playing this game?

This is an excellent question.

[Thesp]

@Thesp-can you quantify why you are so assured of Talilan's towniness? What do you think of his decisions this game (particularly Scene 7)?

Part of it's a best guess, some of it is their thought process in claiming what Grey told them (or didn't tell them) regarding the endgame. I feel like they're actually trying to do the best they can with what they have, and I get the feeling that they don't have the whole picture and they're trying to piece it together. They come across as genuine (even if one half is occasionally aggravating, I think their effort is townlike). I think they're less likely to be scum than some others. I've pondered a lot about their offstage decision on the last day, and while it's a touch suspicious in the results it achieved, I have a hard time killing them for it, at least in part for the fact that it's possible (if they and Orbots are town) that they're picking from seven players, 4 of whom would be scum.

@Thesp: Opinions on things that didn't happen Scene 1 plz?

Anything in particular that strikes your fancy? My opinions are based more than on Scene 1, but I thought that was worth exploring.


Let me give you the rundown in the notes I'm showing by player (re: onstage decisions, Scenes 5-7 are excluded for their utter uselessness, probably could have excluded Scene 1 as well):

Talilan

Scene 1: Wiggin (Good choice, onstage)
Scene 2: Door 1 (Good choice, onstage)
Scene 3: Bizarre - I have a hard time following, though did have post that helped push to Crone onstage (uncertain, offstage)
Scene 4: Not Push (Good choice, onstage)

Mighty Orbots

Scene 1: no choice reflected (no indication, offstage)
Scene 2: Door 1 (Good choice, onstage)
Scene 3: neutral (no indication, offstage)
Scene 4: Push (Bad choice, onstage)

Starkiss

Scene 1: Wiggin (Good choice, onstage)
Scene 2: neutral (no indication, offstage)
Scene 3: Crone (Bad choice, onstage)
Scene 4: Push (Bad choice, onstage)

Panzerjager/zu_Faul

Scene 1: Wiggin (Good choice, onstage)
Scene 2: neutral (no indication, offstage)
Scene 3: Mother suggested offstage (nonBad choice, offstage)
Scene 4: Push (Bad choice, onstage)

Hewitt

Scene 1: No vote (no indication, onstage)
Scene 2: Neutral (no indication, offstage)
Scene 3: Crone (Bad choice, onstage)
Scene 4: Neutral (no indication, offstage)

VP Baltar

Scene 1: Wiggin (Good choice, onstage)
Scene 2: leaned towards switching to Door #2 (leaned to Bad choice, offstage)
Scene 3: Crone (Bad choice, onstage)
Scene 4: neutral (no indication, offstage)

Thesp

Scene 1: No vote (indicated Good choice, onstage)
Scene 2: neutral (no indication, offstage)
Scene 3: suggested Crone might be best, but asserted Mother was the pick to make (Nonbad choice indicated, offstage)
Scene 4: neutral (no indication, offstage)


I really, really wish I could table-ize and/or color-ize this. It looks much prettier that way.

As an FYI - my birthday is next Friday, and the party is next Saturday. I probably will not be useful around the deadline, which I hope we won't be running into.

Also, I'm not liking hewitt's last post.

Vote: StarKiss

, [Mighty Orbots, hewitt, zu_Faul], [Talilan, VP Baltar], No Lynch, [Thesp]

[Thesp]

Thesp, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease explain to my why the uncounterclaimed AP is not last in your condorcet.

Hurr, I just copied/pasted my last vote and made it an actual vote without changing anything. Fixed below.

tbh hewitt's vote on us makes me feel alright about him when I consider it. If he were scum, he must know that we're innocent (woot, subjective tell), and if we got lynched (which doesn't look particularly unlikely with the wave of public opinion) then he'd be a likely second lynch.

I'm not sure how you're discerning this or concluding this. Wha? I'm not seeing any way that him pushing a lynch on you then causes or correlates with a subsequent lynch on hewitt. (In fact, I think any hewitt lynch would be entirely independent of his stance on you.)

Does anyone have any thoughts why the scum would not kill the obv-AP Zu Faul? It really bugs the hell out of me and I cannot figure out why they would not do it.

My suspicion is that if they killed him, then a new one would be assigned (whether they feared this or knew this). I bet that they didn't want someone different being thought of as confirmed town, and they'd just hunt the other trusted people in the town. I'm not sure how useful this guess is, though.
(This is somewhat related to a gambit I was going to suggest at some point in time, whereby we out the AP and he makes all the onstage decisions. It turned out to be less useful in some instances, and even if we could get over the fear of outing the AP, it was somewhat difficult to coordinate with the small time between scenes.)

Fixed vote:

Vote: StarKiss

, [Mighty Orbots, hewitt], [Talilan, VP Baltar], No Lynch, [Thesp, zu_Faul]

[Thesp]

I'm out of town right now, but let's try to get a good post up - the heater has been out of our house since Tuesday, and it's supposed to be replaced tomorrow. (I'm sooooooo ready to be in my own home for a weekend. Ugh.) Anyway, on to business.

Anything in particular that strikes your fancy? My opinions are based more than on Scene 1, but I thought that was worth exploring.

You're voting Starkiss. Post a case. Show me why Starkiss is worse than me and hewitt. Show me why hewitt and I are worse than Talilan and VP Baltar.

I thought I've touched on why I'm voting Starkiss - horrible voting record, the quote in Scene 7 that there's been much hullabaloo over - what are your thoughts on him?

I've seen some striking pro-town things from Talilan and VP Baltar. I haven't seen the same from you and hewitt.

I know at some point I'm going to need to shift from the "stating one's own opinion's phase" to the "convince everyone else that I'm likely correct" phase, I'm just not sure it's this moment. I'm not sure how detailed cases on all my thoughts are as useful at this moment, when it feels like to me others seem to have the same sense. (Perhaps I'm wrong?)

Let me give you the rundown in the notes I'm showing by player (re: onstage decisions, Scenes 5-7 are excluded for their utter uselessness, probably could have excluded Scene 1 as well):

Argh. All info, no analysis. Why is scene 6 utterly useless? How did you interpret these things?

Scene 6 was utterly useless from a strict voting record, and given the known alignment flips of 3 people involved (ShadowLurker, Thok & GoofballsAndBalloons), it's entirely likely that no one else needed to lie or make a "bad" decision (though I'm still concerned about your question in the scene, I'm pondering whether or not town-MO would have asked it, I feel sure scum-MO would have asked it). How people acted is still somewhat relevant, but it's somewhat useless otherwise from the "who voted what" aspect.

So basically you're saying the players who made the "better" decisions are the ones who are town? That's a surefire way to screw us over and lose the game. Hope that works out great for you.

This is entirely unhelpful, on top of being wrong.

Sure, scum could try to make good decisions the whole game, cause unknown damage to their side, and try to pull it out in a best-possible-town setup at the end. How likely is that? Not very.

Also, compare this with straight-up lynches - compare:

Person A

lynches town more often than scum,

Person B

lynches scum more often than town.
Who is more likely to be scum? Sure,

Person B

could be a scum who's trying to harm his team repeatedly to get in the good graces of the town. But what's more likely?

Scenes 3 & 4 are also noteworht in that they reached bad decisions on razor-thin margins. If I remember correctly from my spreadsheet at home, I'm showing that the inclinations of everyone were split by a one vote shift (that is, if one person voted the other way, another decision would be made). Bad decisions in that scene are all the more highlighted, as scum lose that much more by making the "Town-Good" choice. You being wrong on both of those two is compelling enough to me to want to lynch you.

The problem with the decisions in the scenes is that clearly the scum are not going to make a negative impact on the game every chance they get because they know that other players are going to make mistakes. No matter who the scum is, they're going to manipulative that and use that to their advantage. It's almost the most unreliable resource we have in this game because the scum most likely voted for the good outcome knowing that it'll make them look good.

Do you see the problem with this argument? It justifies acting in an anti-town argument the whole game. It's exactly the sort of argument one would expect scum to make if they'd been acting anti-town the whole game. I am uncertain that town would try to make the same argument.

Thesp, what was your stance on Gaspar?

I was initially very anti-Gaspar, but this softened up over the course of his game, particularly as his playstyle changed. I was surprised he was lynched - I wouldn't have at that point in time.

Happy with a Starkiss lynch (or a hewitt lynch, really, I can't imagine both of them being town, and could easily imagine both being scum). I don't want a Talilan lynch today.

[Thesp]

Honestly, I'm in the camp of belief that there is no way in hell that both Starkiss and hewitt are both town. I dont' even consider it in the realm of possibility. We have one mislynch and I have a feeling this game is going to lylo anyhow, so these two need to be the first to go.

If one of them does happen to be town, there is no way scum is going to NK them. If one of them is town, the lylo decision is obviously going to be a difficult one, but I think that is something that is just going to have to be dealt with in lylo.

So, my conclusion is we lynch them back to back and see where we are at. Two two players are going to be killed by that point as well, which should eliminate a portion of the difficulty and highly increase the town's odds of hitting the other scum.

As for the argument being put forth that the scum wouldn't put their scummiest players in endgame, this isn't necessarily true. Keep in mind that (if Talilan is town), scum didn't get a choice really at all. They only had 4 members left and if DGB and Thok were put off stage with SL by Talilan, they would have had no other option than to eliminate themselves. There was no argument they could have proposed against OBV town SL that would have been believable, so the best thing they could do would go to the auto best endgame for them and stop their scummy partners (starkiss and hewitt) from making yet ANOTHER bad decision on stage.

So, yeah, hewitt and Starkiss one and two, then we'll see where we are from there. If we use a mislynch, so be it. This is the best strategy we can go with in my opinion.

---

I have a couple other things to look at, so I'm not really proposing a speed lynch here, but I don't see a plan that is better for us at this point. The key to winning open setups is to have a good strategy, and this is the optimal one.

I agree with this 1000%.

[Thesp]

I know at some point I'm going to need to shift from the "stating one's own opinion's phase" to the "convince everyone else that I'm likely correct" phase, I'm just not sure it's this moment.

So you're just going to keep saying I'm antitown/scummy but not say why and give me a chance to defend myself. Thanks Thesp, that's helpful. Though not unique to yourself.

While I also think defenses are overrated, I don't think you're worth pursuing at this moment. (See: Starkiss/hewitt.) We'll cross that bridge if/when we get there. I may not even think you're the scummiest at that time, and I don't think it's useful to lay all those cards on the table yet. (Why try to set up a third lynch when the scum still have nightkills between now and then, if we even get to the third lynch?)

[Thesp]

I lean towards lynching Starkiss first, but as a practical matter, while Starkiss at least promises to do some serious evaluation and hewitt promises to taunt us into lynching him, I see little reason to pursue this preference with any conviction.

In all seriousness, I don't think I want to play with hewitt again if he's town. (I agree with zu_Faul's sentiments, as well as others that seemed to be intoned.)

I don't want to be suckered by Hewitt if he's trying to play us though. Has anyone played with him before and is he normally so negative?

I've played with him before, and he was somewhat negative, but I don't recall defeatist. (Looks like VP Baltar echoes this.)

I do wonder if StarKiss is a better first lynch than Hewitt. The way CKD's lynch went down made me wonder about a StarKiss/Thesp link. I don't want to be suckered by Hewitt if he's trying to play us though. Has anyone played with him before and is he normally so negative

If you think I'm suckering you then clearly you should be voting for me. Why the change of heart all the sudden? Why Starkiss and not me? What has Starkiss done that is so overwhelmingly more anti-town than me? Do I not have the most anti-town voting record? Isn't that what you were basing this whole thing off anyway?

Any second-guessing of myself on hewitt's "poor me I'm going to be lynched" was lost with this post. This looks like he's baiting rather than hunting.

No I think the scum sent the two players who they knew would be able to control the town the best.

So they forced Talilan to axe GoofballsAndBalloons, or had Talilan deliberately choose to axe GaB and Thok over nearly everyone still in the endgame? Really?

(VP Baltar keeps posting my thoughts right after I have them.)

hewitt's town. Lynch StarKiss/Thesp instead please.

wat

I don't see how hewitt's town. At all.

QFT. (Is it wrong that it makes me think hewitt's more likely to be scum because ortolan thinks he's town?)

I'm looking forward to StarKiss's efforts.

[Thesp]

MO, [StarKiss], Talilan, do two things asap:

Vote (concordet).

Give a reason why you haven't done already.

I already have voted. Condorcets are ridiculous. I said that at the very beginning.

Meanwhile, the off-camera crew is busy lynching people. I'm guessing this functions like a regular mafia game. That weird voting system (which I think we should avoid, really) comes into play here.

My list:

hewitt
Talilan
[StarKiss, Thesp]
VP Baltar
zu_Faul

If you're willing to provide a list, why are you avoiding an honest-to-goodness Condorcet vote? (For the record, if this game approaches the deadline (which it is!), I fully expect you to put your vote in Condorcet form. If the day hits deadline and your failure to vote in Condorcet form results in a different lynch than it otherwise would, I will pursue a lynch against you.)

[Thesp]

If you're willing to provide a list, why are you avoiding an honest-to-goodness Condorcet vote? (For the record, if this game approaches the deadline (which it is!), I fully expect you to put your vote in Condorcet form. If the day hits deadline and your failure to vote in Condorcet form results in a different lynch than it otherwise would, I will pursue a lynch against you.)

Condorcets are fail. Look at the Day 1 vote. How the hell can you analyze that with the Condorcet mess in the way?

There's seriously no reason why we can't just ignore the concept entirely and just outright vote like normal. I still maintain that Condorcets can be manipulated and shouldn't be used.

Do you think they can be manipulated by not using them when they might otherwise swing a lynch?

(Also, I don't see how the Condorcet "mess" interferes with looking at D1. Perhaps I'm missing something?)

[Thesp]

I think straight voting works for every other game on this site just fine and work just as well here. I see no reason, at all, to add another variable into the mix.

The Condorcet BS muddies the D1 votecount for me. Maybe you're better at parsing it than I am.

The extra variable of condorcets is already in the mix - you're not adding it. I agree with you that we should get a traditional lynch - we ought to have someone strung up by the deadline. However, if that doesn't happen,

it will be a Condorcet lynch

. Currently, you have an outstanding Condorcet vote that looks like (using "fakevote" so it doesn't look like a real attempt to vote):

(fakevote): hewitt, [Mighty Orbots, No Lynch, StarKiss, Talilan, Thesp, VP Baltar, zu_Faul]

If this vote ends up swinging the lynch, I will hold you responsible for it.

(Granted, I doubt it will, and I think and hope we'll have an actual lynch instead of a deadline lynch, but I want to be crystal clear about my expectations, and my surprise at your refusal to actualize your stated full voting preferences.)

Still awaiting Starkiss.

[Thesp]

my surprise at your refusal to actualize your stated full voting preferences

This is BS. I gave my full voting preferences.

I think you're reading me wrong - why not put those preferences into a vote (where they are actualized) if you're already willing to state them? I understand the argument against Condorcets where people are afraid to give out their entire list of suspicions, but I'm not understanding why it's bad to

actually vote your list

as a stop-gap in case the real lynch doesn't happen in time. Can you help me understand?

[Thesp]

I dont' think the argument over condorcets is particularly relevent. Let's find the scum.

True. Still awaiting Starkiss.

[Thesp]

If Thesp is town, he screwed up his image by fishing for an AP claim previously.

How is this screwing up one's image? You have tossed this out as if it's somehow obvious that demanding a claim from zu_Faul was something scum would have been more likely to do, yet that's not clear to me at all. Can you back this up?

Private speculation doesn't serve anyone well. A gameplan should have been arranged with SL if you truly expected or wanted him to do certain things while off-camera. Still, setting it up where 2 scummy/lying players are left with someone who wasn't close to scummy (SL) was a boo-boo move. You share so many thoughts of what was going on in your head and what you thought would happen, but optimal play would have been to go over these ideas with SL. Unless you shared a QT with Shadow (joke), all thoughts and suggestions should have been posted.

I don't recall, what was your stance on curiouskarmadog's refusal to give details on who would be onstage?

[Thesp]

When it turns out you have been consistently wrong about significant things for much of the game, your later reaction is not to show trepidation or uncertainty at your conclusions based on this history (one breakdown-moment after Gaspar's lynch notwithstanding), but instead has been to make bald-faced assertions of things in a similar manner as before. Moreover, when other people express any degree of uncertainty, your approach has been to inadvertently(?) belittle this by proclaiming quite proudly that such things are seemingly obvious.

(Warning, gross use of generalization and stereotypes below!)

Thesp, ortolan is Australian. All NZers know these brash and brazen neighbours of ours never, ever doubt themselves.

You reply to Thesp with a joke, seriously?

For what it's worth, I appreciated the humor, though that may be because I <3 Tally.

As an FYI - my birthday is next Friday, and the party is next Saturday. I probably will not be useful around the deadline, which I hope we won't be running into.

Why the rush, cowboy?

Deadline lynches are pansy lynches. People should man/woman-up and lynch someone. I will switch to lynch hewitt if I'm around and need to. (Also see Mighty Orbot's concern with Condorcet manipulation, though I suspect there's less flexibility in that right now with both you and hewitt at the top of almost everyone's list(?).)

Not to tunnel on Thespy, but this demonstrates an extraordinary level of insight both compared to other players in the game, and compared to how I thought he was keeping up with the game at the time.

During scene 6, how far along were you caught up, Thesp?

I believe I was pretty well caught up (with a moments of lapse). I did some number-crunching from time to time, and I've always found endgame scenarios intriguing (particularly as we were getting down to 4 people offstage at a time).

Re: Thesp not wanting to send a sign onstage... Yes I thought it was worth noting after I it was revealed that maiden wouldn't have been a bad pick. Thesp didn't appear to put any effort into figuring out the puzzle himself, just wanted onstage to play it out.

Thoughts, Thesp? -- You as well, MO?

Anything in particular you're looking for? I thought about it from time to time, but no, I did not put much effort into puzzle solving, and I adamantly did not want to send a signal onstage. Talilan is correct in her observations here.

Happy B-day, Thesp!

Happy birthday.

Thanks!

Happy birthday.

If Thesp is town, he screwed up his image by fishing for an AP claim previously.

How is this screwing up one's image?

Because it was at a time when scum could still kill in between scenes, and before they could manipulate who's in endgame. In other words, if scum knew before endgame that zu_faul was AP (opposed to hewitt or myself), they could have had the choice to eliminate him before hand so that we would currently be playing with 7 unconfirmed players, rather than 6.

When was this time that the scum could kill that you speak of? (We'll get to the fact that you haven't demonstrated that the scum actually wanted to kill the AP yet - I think there are good reasons the scum

wouldn't

want to kill the AP.)

I don't recall, what was your stance on curiouskarmadog's refusal to give details on who would be onstage?

CKD or Talilan? If CKD, you'll need to tell me which scene or link to it.

Sure. Here's a small sampling, Check out CKD's posts around the between scenes (ca. 10/1 and 10/20):

I dont think we should have ANY conversation about who to hang tomorrow, until the scene starts, why give scum so much information? if you have thoughts about who should go or not, go ahead and state your case....I will listen, but no longer going to even fucking hint at who is going...if you have a problem with that that, fire me.

in that case (no advocates) chat away....that being said, I am not indicating anything though.

gaspar, you would love it if you could tell me who to send wouldnt you?

Of course I would. I am a power hungry lunatic. I wouldn't be Glork if not.

But seriously, I was suggesting that the collective tell you who to send, not me personally.

no, you have a problem with that..lynch me.

I dont want scum to know who I am sending before the scene...if you have a suggestion I will listen, but you are running out of time.

putting together a list now...

and no, not going to tell you who i am picking....but would love to hear suggestions and why...

[Thesp]

you haven't demonstrated that the scum actually wanted to kill the AP yet - I think there are good reasons the scum

wouldn't

want to kill the AP.)

Happy birthday Thesp. I'm curious about this. What good reasons would the scum not want to off a confirmed town player prior to endgame?

Sure, I touched on this a bit earlier today:

Does anyone have any thoughts why the scum would not kill the obv-AP Zu Faul? It really bugs the hell out of me and I cannot figure out why they would not do it.

My suspicion is that if they killed him, then a new one would be assigned (whether they feared this or knew this). I bet that they didn't want someone different being thought of as confirmed town, and they'd just hunt the other trusted people in the town. I'm not sure how useful this guess is, though.
(This is somewhat related to a gambit I was going to suggest at some point in time, whereby we out the AP and he makes all the onstage decisions. It turned out to be less useful in some instances, and even if we could get over the fear of outing the AP, it was somewhat difficult to coordinate with the small time between scenes.)

So as AP, zu_Faul is confirmed town, and lets suppose he's killed and a new AP is assigned, and is confirmed town as well. What if it's hewitt? Or StarKiss? Or Talilan? Or...you get the picture. Someone else we may have thought was scum might end up with the role, taking them off the lynch-table. Compare this with the scum's most recent nightkill, sottyrulez, whom everyone seemed to think was pro-town anyway. How likely is it that sottyrulez would have been lynched?

With their last nightkill (sottyrulez, before Scene 6), did the scum remove any possible lynchees? Compare this with if they'd killed zu_Faul (whom was seemingly known by the scum anyway), is it possible they would have removed a possible lynchee with a re-assigned AP?


...

Another thought just came to me. If Talilan is scum and really priming theirself for the ideal endgame, why not put theirself in with scum and zu_Faul? I'm inclined to think scum-Talilan would have done so. (This is somewhat contrary to my re-assigned AP theory, but it's also possible the AP wouldn't be re-assigned when killed in the last scene - I dunno.)

[Thesp]

So as AP, zu_Faul is confirmed town, and lets suppose he's killed and a new AP is assigned, and is confirmed town as well. What if it's hewitt? Or StarKiss? Or Talilan? Or...you get the picture.

Where does it say that the replacement AP must be town?

It doesn't. It's not clear what would happen. (Perhaps the scum know, or are afraid of what might happen.)

[Thesp]

The more I ponder why hewitt might have been picked as the Advocate for the last scene, the more I'm happy with lynching him. I also don't have a problem with Talilan's picks for the last scene.

[Thesp]

Also

The more I ponder why hewitt might have been picked as the Advocate for the last scene, the more I'm happy with lynching him. <snip>

Can we please have this reasoning fleshed out?

~T

Sure. I've been thinking on this back and forth and I'm still torn, but I've been pondering why the last scene went down as it did. I feel like GaB didn't fire Talilan because they thought they might still try to go undetected, and possibly shoot for a bad result in the last scene. (Or heck, if they got a 2 townies : 1 scum in the last scene, if they could talk the townie into lynching the other townie, they'd be set.) I've been pondering, why hewitt as the advocate? He was quite high on the chopping block, so perhaps they were putting him on stage to avoid him being able to be lynched? Then when 2 scum got put offstage, they said, "what the heck, let's do this". I'm thinking the scum outside of hewitt were less likely to be lynched, so putting hewitt onstage there kept him safe.

At first I thought him being onstage means he was more likely to be town (so they'd have a stronger likelihood of having two scum offstage), but if they were really going for the offstage lynch no matter what, then GaB might have fired Talilan earlier. Of course, to choose for S7, GaB would have had to fire Talilan during S6, which would have called her question into question, and they had S6 in the bag. That makes me think they were going for the worst number initially, and simply seized opportunity when given the 2 scum : 1 town scenario offstage.

I feel like I'm rambling, but what it comes down to for hewitt is that I think Talilan was town, GaB and scum didn't want to be blatant about a push for the townlynch until it could happen (in fact, I think if scum chose, then at least one of Thok/GaB would likely be in the endgame), and given this, scum didn't want the town having good information (and hewitt was likely to be lynched given most potential three person groupings, so keeping him onstage kept him from being lynched).

hewitt's also gone dark again.

I also don't have a problem with Talilan's picks for the last scene.

Really? Why?

I think Talitha's agony over who to keep offstage feels very genuine, and I disagree with your assessment that ShadowLurker was obvtown (I certainly wasn't persuaded). And honestly, I'm glad Thok is confirmed scum, because I was completely snowed by him.

lynching us is retarded, start getting better reads pl0x zu and VP. It's Thesp and StarKiss, not us and StarKiss. I suppose you reckon we've been busing StarKiss since god knows when as well?

Read the damn thread.

- ortolan

Please start taking this game and the players in it seriously. Lynching you isn't "retarded", it's a legitimate and understandable approach that some people are taking based on some actions you've taken in the game. (I disagree with them, but they are by no means retarded.) As long as you continue to consider yourself "not even up to date with this game", I'm not going to listen to

crap

from you about who to lynch, and especially not about your pleas not to lynch you. Catch up with the game, treat the people who are playing this game with you with respect (perhaps you can take a clue from your other hydra head?), and start

thinking

about this game. A lot of us have gone to great lengths to explain where their stances have come from, and have asked questions of others to discern where they stand and where others might stand. Please pardon us if we don't give your seemingly unsupported assertions and vitrol any weight when others seem to be trying.

That said, I still don't want a Talilan lynch today. I might have the opportunity to post tomorrow morning, but I'm not counting on it. I'm happy moving to a hewitt lynch, since it doesn't look like StarKiss is happening.

And thanks for the birthday wishes, everyone. It's been an awesome birthday!

Vote: hewitt

, StarKiss, Mighty Orbots, [Talilan, VP Baltar], No Lynch, [Thesp, zu_Faul]

[Thesp]

So in hewitt's case he's different from Elmo, who was also made advocate and later stunted off camera to be lynched?

At that point, yes.

Deadline lynches are pansy lynches. People should man/woman-up and lynch someone.

So people shouldn't take their time deciding who to lynch at a crucial time like this, merely so they can avoid being labeled a pansy? There should be as many posts, questions, answers, opinions and information for us to use because 2 wrong moves can hand this game to scum. With my poor availability especially, I could use time on my side. This reminds me though that I voted improperly this morning.

Oh, we should absolutely ask questions. And make a decision. There's a point of diminishing returns to all this. This quote makes me want to lynch you more.

Anything in particular you're looking for? I thought about it from time to time, but no, I did not put much effort into puzzle solving, and I adamantly did not want to send a signal onstage. Talilan is correct in her observations here.

Was this at a time when we definitely knew the outcome of maiden(?), and you didn't help out those on camera ?

(Something tells me I'm misinterpreting the scene)

I don't think we ever definitely knew the outcome of the scene. Perhaps you did.

When was this time that the scum could kill that you speak of?

Probably after we lynched CKD, before SL got lynched (same time 41 was picked on camera). At one time, there were two kills done, then later only single kills. I'm thinking scum were alloted kills based on how many scenes had finished. The on camera choices don't seem to indicate their ability to kill since Bagel and MJL were killed after non-bad choices were made.

But there was no nightkill between those scenes.

If the scum had yet another nightkill, why in the world wouldn't they have used it then? You're arguing that I was trying to suss out who the AP was so that I could nightkill them,

when there were no more nightkills in the game

. How in the world does that make sense?

I think you're ascribing waaaaaay too much importance to the AP. Look back before S6, when sottyrulez was killed instead of zu_Faul. The scum apparently thought it was more advantageous to kill sottyrulez than to kill zu_Faul. You can argue that it's because they didn't realize that zu_Faul was the AP, but I know that's not the side I'd want to be arguing.

Also @ StarKiss - if you flipped town I'd obviously reassess Thesp but I would most likely still think he's scum because I think zu_Faul, VP, and MO are town. With you out of the picture and town, there'd only be Hewitt & Thesp. It's a pair I've considered, but as I find you the most likely scum here I don't think it is the case.

Where are you getting MO as town from? (Forgive me if I've overlooked it.)

I just want to link this post of DGB's that I refered to earlier:
http://www.mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopi ... 93#1932593

The context is DGB suggesting we lynch Hewitt. And she's saying that if he's scum, then Gaspar looks very townie and Pooky looks like a Hewitt buddy. Now I don't pretend to know what goes on inside the mind of DGB, but I think it's much more likely she knew Hewitt would flip town, than she was actively trying to incriminate Pooky and clear Gaspar.

I thought this was going to be compelling when I read your post and was ready to rethink my position here. Upon reading, though, it's at a time when GaB has already stated her strong preference to lynch Gaspar, he's on the chopping block from just about everybody for the fake-pseudo-AP-tease, and there does not appear to be any discernable chance of lynching hewitt.

GaB appears to be trying to suss out how people would react in case hewitt flips scum.

I'm not sure that this is expecting hewitt will be town, but quite the opposite - what happens if hewitt's scum? How do people perceive hewitt and Pooky? I don't think she's trying to show the inverse, that is, I don't think she's trying to demonstrate town-hewitt implies scum-Gaspar and town-Pooky. (It'd be a logical fallacy, anyways, inverting the if-then clause as such.)

I feel like I need to scale back on my posting, as it might be in danger of becoming too much (if it's not there already!). I do want to crunch some Condorcet real quick, though. (Notably, I think there may be something wrong or different in the results.)

[Thesp]

Here's the data I'm showing for the most recent Condorcet I've added StarKiss's vote and I've reflected my changed vote, so here's what I have:

1,hewitt
2,Mighty Orbots
3,StarKiss
4,Talilan
5,Thesp
6,VP Baltar
7,zu_Faul
8,No Lynch

1:4>3>2>5>6>7>8>1
1:1>4>3=5>6>2>8>7
1:4>5>2=6>1>8>3>7
1:3>5>1=2>6>4>7
1:1>3>2>4=6>8>5=7
1:4>5>1>3>2>8>6=7
1:3>1>4=6>2>5>8>7

Currently, there is no lynch happening, which is VERY VERY BAD. Switching my vote between hewitt or StarKiss doesn't change things. The people who are voting me higher than hewitt are blocking hewitt's lynch. Those voting hewitt over Talilan appear to be blocking their lynch. The people who are voting hewitt AND Talilan over StarKiss are preventing their lynch (or one of each).

I don't see a way to change my vote without lynching Talilan, which I'm against. Something needs to move. If I absolutely have to, I will consider moving my vote, but I sure don't hope to have to.

[Thesp]

Basically, I'm sick and tired of all the pity party stuff from the people who are potential lynches today. "I'm town, so lynching me is bad" is not a freaking defense, nor is it going to sway me from wanting to lynch you, so if you are town at least take a page from Starkiss' book and TRY to answer stuff.

I agree with this 1000%.

[Thesp]

I'm willing to compromise and lynch Starkiss today, since I think Tal and Starkiss are probably not the same alignment. Right now my preference is Tal, but if you are willing to lynch Starkiss, Thesp, then I would compromise with you on that.

However (and you might have answered this already), if Starkiss flips town what will your thoughts on Tal be?

I'm down with that. My Talilan-town thinking is independent of StarKiss. I'll be happy to re-evaluate that, though.

Vote: StarKiss

, hewitt, Mighty Orbots, [Talilan, VP Baltar], No Lynch, [Thesp, zu_Faul]

[Thesp]

VP Baltar, if you move StarKiss to the front, he's the new Condorcet winner.

[Thesp]

Currently, there is no lynch happening, which is VERY VERY BAD. Switching my vote between hewitt or StarKiss doesn't change things. The people who are voting me higher than hewitt are blocking hewitt's lynch. Those voting hewitt over Talilan appear to be blocking their lynch. The people who are voting hewitt AND Talilan over StarKiss are preventing their lynch (or one of each).

I don't see a way to change my vote without lynching Talilan, which I'm against. Something needs to move. If I absolutely have to, I will consider moving my vote, but I sure don't hope to have to.

Oh look, condorcet voting is fucking everything up. Imagine that.

VP Baltar, if you move StarKiss to the front, he's the new Condorcet winner.

RAGE.

RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE.

BECAUSE NO LYNCH IS SO MUCH MORE AWESOME I WANT SOME

Actually, with Mighty Orbots's new vote, Talilan is the sole Condorcet leader, I believe, let me double-check.

[Thesp]

Incidentally, StarKiss,

this is why we want to have a lynchd ecided well before the deadline, rather than have the possibility of running into a no-lynch

.

[Thesp]

Nevermind, that actually lynches Talilan. No Condrocet needed.

[Thesp]

But seriously, this BS wouldn't even be on the radar if we were just voting. It's bad enough that we have players quitting left and right but we can't even figure how to lynch someone.

And good ol' hewitt just had to post a little fit and disappear and oh look he's not really a lynch candidate anymore, that's just great.

I agree with this 1000% as well. Disgusting.

[Thesp]

Time to massclaim our info. It's unlikely to be useful, but it's possible. I want to do it today, and I want to go last (for reasons I will divulge later). I also don't want to waste time with it, so it'd better move quickly.

We lose on a no-lynch or mislynch today, folks.

I know who's at the top of my lynch list. (It should be pretty clear what soem of my thoughts are.) I am disappointed that I was not wrong about yesterday's results.

[Thesp]

StarKiss.

[Thesp]

What info are we referring to exactly?

Role PM. All of it. (Without modquoting, of course.)

[Thesp]

Well this most certainly is going to be a tricky, tricky day. In my mind I basically have a 2/3 chance of hitting scum with my vote. The decision is going to really rely on which player I think is most likely to be town. My gut is telling me that Mighty Orbots is the most likely to be scum, his vote on Talilan yesterday was VERY weird in my opinion. I was actually surprised that Talilan was lynched in the first place, I probably should've realized that he wasn't scum when his lynch was met with little resistance. It was just plain bizarre.

What do you think of claiming info? Do you agree with it? Do you agree with pushing StarKiss to do so? Will you be willing to do so? (You seem to have missed/ignored the first posts of the day.)

[Thesp]

Go, hewitt.

[Thesp]

VP Baltar, next. I'll go right after. (I wouldn't force the most townie-looking player to go before me if there weren't reason.)

[Thesp]

I'm Clint Eastwood. I'm Innocent. My flavor is almost a direct ripoff of the famous long Dirty Harry quotes. Secret word is Charlie, and my win condition is

nearly

identical to the sample PM in the OP offstage.

I wanted to claim last because KY Krew claimed my actor when he was going down in flames, which was bizarre to me. I didn't counter-claim because it certainly wasn't necessary, and I didn't know if he was trying to draw the real Clint Eastwood out for some reason. I don't know why he claimed my name, unless he was somehow afraid of his own name (which I suspect).

I don't have time to process what our claims here mean, I'll try to look at them tomorrow night, but I did want to go ahead and get it out there.

[Thesp]

He refused to participate yesterday simply because the lynch was possibly coming his way at one point.

Uh are you kidding me? I'm the ONLY one who voted Talilan for an actual, sound reasoning. The rest of you bozos hopped onto the opportunistic wagon and did basically nothing but babble stupidly the whole day. So I deserve a thank you for building and actually having a case on Talilan that the rest of you can just be like "oh yeah okay he's innocent so why not".

Are you seriously trying to argue that lynching a townie gives you any pro-town cred? Yeesh.

I haven't had the time to go back and review midgame stuff like I'd hoped. The only thing that's keeping me from wanting to lynch StarKiss is the nagging possibility that hewitt and Mighty Orbots are a team, as MO appears to be more likely to be scum than he did prior to the end of yesterday.

In fact, I want to hear a lot from MO, and pretty soon.

[Thesp]

Slap me if you want, but I'm one of the few ppl who haven't seen Dirty Harry. I did see Gran Torino though. Excellent screenplay.

So can you paraphrase your flavor, Thesp?

It involves uncertainty as to a quantity of ammunition, along with a request for self-reflection on one's good fortunes.

Hey all, I apologize for not being around. Work has been bad lately and I'm kinda burned out on Mafia in general.

Anyway.

Two of our claims give me the heebie-jeebies. First VP has claimed the sample PM. Then Thesp acts like he has ULTIMATE SECRET KNOWLEDGE and it turns out he's just claiming what KY did.

How likely do you think it is that someone would have a claim divergent from an actor/flavor?

In fact, I want to hear a lot from MO, and pretty soon.

Hear what, Thesp?

Whatever you're thinking. More than anyone else left in the game, it's not immediately clear to me where you stand. You seem to be taking a variety of potshots at things, not commiting to things, and seeing how the wind blows. You make vague statements and don't seem to support them or put any weight behind them. Heck, take this post I'm quoting as an example. You talk about how the claims seemingly bother you, but you stay away from any considerationa s to whether or not they're more likely to come from scum. Are you disturbed that someone's avoiding positing truse information from their role PMs? Are you disturbed by possible roles distributed by te moderator? It's not clear, and you don't seem to be making it clear.

In particular, you say this:

hewitt is worse, but I won't cry over a Starkiss lynch either. My problem is that while they're both horribly scummy I can't really see them as scum together. I think Thesp is the partner of one of the two.

...which is terribly important to me.

Why aren't they scum together?

I really want to know, because that's the way I'm leaning as a strong possibility. Moreover, you say hewitt and StarKiss are both bad, don't think they're scummy, and don't seem to be a strong proponent of lynching one over the other. (Correct me if I'm wrong, please.) If they're not both scum, then lynching the wrong one is

very bad

. It doesn't seem to bother you that much.

Maybe we're different personalities - endgames energize me. After all, this blasted game has been going on forever, and we're at a pretty crucial lynching point (as was yesterday). It worries me when others don't want to get this right, and the only one I feel convinced is that way is VP Baltar. (VP Baltar, if you're scum, can you please let us know so we can scoop and concede? Seriously, it's just cruel at this point otherwise.)

I keep saying I want to go back and look over midgame, but I haven't had the time, and it's running out on me. If anyone has any special insights from that time, I'd really, really like to hear them. I feel like most of my suspicions are based off of voting patterns onstage and everything since we started onstage, and I feel like I'm missing something.

I also want to analyze the claims and double-check them, but I'm not sure against what. I'm looking over something now, though, I'll report shortly if I find anything interesting. (I doubt I will.)

Condorcet vote forthcoming.

Vote: [hewitt, Mighty Orbots, StarKiss], VP Baltar, [No Lynch, Thesp]

[Thesp]

Nope, it wasn't much of anything - I thought I had a great lead wikipediaing people and finding strong connections to LA with MO and I, and not as much to StarKiss and hewitt, but checking through everyone, several of the early deaths are inconsistent with an "everyone is strongly related to LA" theme (unless I'm missing some connections on people, which is possible, but not an avenue worth spending too much time pursuing).

[Thesp]

Thesp, why hewitt over Starkiss?

I've actually got them listed equally in the Condorcet because I'm not sure, but I must admit part of me wants to lynch hewitt so he doesn't win. I'm pretty distasteful of his endgame hissyfit he's thrown, and I want some real effort in the game. He's either petulant or scum (or both), and I don't really appreciate either. I'm trying to discern if my thoughts on his scumminess aren't clouded by my distaste for how he's thrown up his arms at the end of the game, but at the same time, his behavior was rewarded by a disappearing wagon, and so I think the continuance of his behavior is indicative that he's trying to avoid the spotlight rather than win the game as town.

My inclination is currently hewitt/StarKiss as the pair (with a pang towards MO, but I'm of two minds on him), which is why I really want to hear why Mighty Orbots thinks StarKiss and hewitt aren't scum together.

I also think everyone should request prods on StarKiss (and hewitt), as that last post by StarKiss didn't avoid what a prod intends to elicit, especially if Kise is the one that needs to post.

[Thesp]

I had to re-write this twice to take all the cursing out.

I appreciate that, and I apologize if there is something I haven't seen that makes this frustrating for you. Thanks.

How likely do you think it is that someone would have a claim divergent from an actor/flavor?

I'm not sure what you're asking here. Please restate.

You seem uneasy about VP Baltar's claim. How likely do you think someone would have a claim something other than claiming an famous actor's name and appropriate flavor to that actor? (I ask because VP Baltar has claimed something other than a famous actor and appropriate flavor.) Do you think it's more likely scum would make up such a claim (or copy it from the sample PM), or that Mr. Grey would include such in the game?

they're more likely to come from scum. Are you disturbed that someone's avoiding positing truse information from their role PMs? Are you disturbed by possible roles distributed by te moderator? It's not clear, and you don't seem to be making it clear.

I haven't drawn any conclusions Thesp. But I thought the whole point of a massclaim was to get these things into the open and talk about them.

I wanted to see if there was any claim overlap. I also wanted to see if something could be gleaned from my claim, which seems to imply that scum don't ant to claim their actual name, and may not have a safeclaim. I'm not sure that the claims we've gotten have made it easier to suss out any fakes.

I really want to know, because that's the way I'm leaning as a strong possibility.

Tell me why.

Some of what you've alluded to (as have I) - they have terrible voting records, and I haven't seen much that implies they are town. I've seen someconflicted indications from you as being town, and I've seen plenty from VP Baltar. I've seen squat from hewitt, and only glimmers from StarKiss.

Moreover, you say hewitt and StarKiss are both bad, don't think they're scummy, and don't seem to be a strong proponent of lynching one over the other. (Correct me if I'm wrong, please.)

You're wrong. You're horribly horribly wrong.

Who would you prefer to lynch? Perhaps I've overlooked it because I must admit that most of what I've seen recently is the last few pages, because I keep coming in here to see if people have posted and responded to things, and I see so very little from half of the remaining game. (Part of my statement comes across incorrectly - instead of "...don't think they're scummy..." it should read "...don't think they're

scum together

...".) Because of this, reading your posts from today, you seem to be taking potshots at everyone without strongly pushing in one direction. (This could be directly related to burnout, I understand.)

I'm burned out, Thesp. I need time off. It's hard for me to care much about anything right now.

I understand and you have my sympathies. We're right at the finish line - one more push until the end. (Burnout is a partial reason to why I try to limit myself to one game at a time nowadays, so I know how you feel.)

Vote: [hewitt, Mighty Orbots, StarKiss], VP Baltar, [No Lynch, Thesp]

This is terrible. Who doesn't care which one gets lynched again?

I've just been waiting for your reason as to why you don't think hewitt and StarKiss are scum together. Based on this, I don't see a compelling reason, and nothing really to sway me from it.

I'm happy lynching either of StarKiss or hewitt today. I think they're our pair. I will vote for either one to lynch them, and I no longer care about the order.

Vote: [hewitt, StarKiss], Mighty Orbots, VP Baltar, [No Lynch, Thesp]

[Thesp]

Some of what you've alluded to (as have I) - they have terrible voting records, and I haven't seen much that implies they are town. I've seen someconflicted indications from you as being town, and I've seen plenty from VP Baltar. I've seen squat from hewitt, and only glimmers from StarKiss.

That's not what I meant. I'm asking what makes you think they're scum

together

. I can easily identify what makes them independently scummy, but I see precious little that shows them being part of a scum team.

I'm with you - at the same time, I've seen little of pairings between

any

of our remaining people (which is odd to me because it's my favorite way to scumhunt, and it feels stunted in this game), besides the possible you with hewitt-or-StarKiss pairing based largely on the turbo-lynch from yesterday. I didn't know if you'd seen something particular that made you think they

aren't

scum together, which are also things I look for and hadn't seen.

Who would you prefer to lynch?

Hewitt. He and Starkiss have similar voting records, but I feel hewitt is worse because of his interactions with our flipped scum. To reiterate:

1. KY Krew - He made clear in thread that he wanted KY Krew dead, and when given the chance he voted Panzer instead.
2. Pooky - He said several times that he wanted to lynch Pooky, but changed his tune from "scum" to "wildcard" once presented the opportunity.
3. GnB - As with Pooky, several times he said he'd like to see GnB lynched, yet never voted them.
4. Thok - This may be the worst of the four - he never, not once, mentions Thok in-thread.

Starkiss is similar, but not quite as bad:

1. KY Krew - Condocet votes KY Krew #1
2. Pooky - Only lists Pooky at the bottom of a scumlist but no interaction
3. GnB - Seems to be some light scumhunting/questioning, but that's about it.
4. Thok - Same as hewitt - never, not once, mentions Thok in-thread.

Thanks for the reiteration. I'm totally down with that. I'm voting hewitt tomorrow if he hasn't posted something good. Same for StarKiss. (I may vote one of them tomorrow anyway, but if I haven't heard anything, I'm definitely voting for the one I haven't heard from.)

[Thesp]

@Thesp: Why didn't you push for a GnB lynch?

Good question. In part, I thought curiouskarmadog was scum in part for putting all the information roles on-scene in Scene 5 (?), and I pushed hard and heavy for his lynch at that moment. After that, I was onstage for Scene 6. Actually, I don't think I was ever offstage with GoofballsAndBalloons, and I was pushing harder for other people's lynches in between. G&B slipped to a lower priority than perhaps they ought to have.

Still haven't heard from hewitt, and I'm not letting his silence escape us like yesterday. I can't see town acting like this, and it should be pretty clear where I stand. If hewitt's not scum, then I'm happy conceding at this point. I will vote for StarKiss instead if necessary to get his lynch - they're the two I think are scum.

Vote: hewitt

, StarKiss, Mighty Orbots, VP Baltar, [No Lynch, Thesp]

[Thesp]

First off, thanks to everyone for playing. I appreciated the efforts put in by almost all of you, and this was a pretty darn good cast of people. I was particularly amazed and impressed by mith's efforts in running a smooth, fantastically designed and thought-out game, and adding rich flavor and theme to the game.

I

hated

this game. I'm still trying to figure out why, but I hated this game with a passion, and I apologize if some of that spilled out and affected others' enjoyment of the game. I think it was the inherent stunted nature of the game that got to me - there were some players I never got to meaningfully interact with, yet they were significant to the outcome of the game. There was so much to sift through and so much fracturing of groups that it made re-reads impossible. On top of that, there were no real roles of any significant utility during the course of the game for the town to use. I appreciated the hard-and-fast two week deadlines because otherwise a game that took forever would have taken longer than forever.

I also hated the split name/character bit, and the roleplaying onstage seemed cutesy at first, but I felt it was ultimately detrimental to playing the game - it interfered with scumhunting at times, and so when I would break away from it for tactically sound reasons, I felt like I was letting the mod and other players down, which bothered me.

I was also frustrated by particular people in the game (and it's probably no surprise who they are), which may have affected my enjoyment of the game. I'm particularly frustrated by hewitt, whom I feel gave the game to scum by not trying after so much effort had been put into the game by so many people. (Granted, the scum played magnificently, so it's entirely possible we wouldn't have won anyway.)

I do resonate with Talitha's notion that I appreciate a game where when scum put more effort in, they see their efforts rewarded. I also think that scum did exceedingly well (Thok in particular had me totally snowed, and while I had suspicions of Mighty Orbots and GoofballsAndBalloons, they managed to do the right things at the right times to keep my senses off), and they deserve plenty of credit for the victory.

Thank you all for playing. I'd be more than happy and honored to play with almost all of you again. I hope you have a Merry Christmas, and I look forward to finally being able to sign up for another game!

[Thesp]

I was also frustrated by particular people in the game (and it's probably no surprise who they are), which may have affected my enjoyment of the game. I'm particularly frustrated by hewitt, whom I feel gave the game to scum by not trying after so much effort had been put into the game by so many people. (Granted, the scum played magnificently, so it's entirely possible we wouldn't have won anyway.)

While I can understand your feelings, I believe that Hewitt (and probably Starkiss as well.) should have been dealt with LONG before endgame.

Instead we lynched far more valuable players.

I do agree with this - but when? The only time I can point to is scene 5(?) when I went hard after curiouskarmadog, which feels a little silly right now. I don't think Gaspar should have been lynched, but if I remember, scum largely controlled that as well. It felt like the town had very little room for error - scum would be able to control or largely influence at least one half of the game, and the other half would be more of a crapshoot.

Thesp, you were my hero in endgame even though I was suspicious you were just playing me for a fool. At least I had someone reciprocating the effort I was trying to put in. I should have listened to you about MO though.

You were my hero there too! I'm not sure listening to me about MO would have done any good, I still more strongly suspected hewitt/StarKiss, and had we lynched MO or StarKiss first, I'm not sure we would have correctly tagged the other. I would be honored to play in any game with you again - I felt like when I would go to post, you had already said half of the things I was going to say anyway.

[Thesp]

Also, I learned that while I might like the people who are in hydras, I hate hydra play.

[Thesp]

And curiouskarmadog, I'm sorry I was horribly, horribly wrong about you.

[Thesp]

Wish we could have seen what happened if we stuck to the original plan of lynching you and Hewitt 1 & 2, Kise Probably we would have been #3, but you never know. Yours and Hewitt's flips might have given us some cred.

I feel like we could have gotten MO if we'd lynched hewitt and StarKiss first, as long as you didn't keep your campaign to lynch me. I think lynching you was our biggest mistake in the endgame, though I understand why it happened. Oh well.

[Thesp]

Fourthly, ortolan. I'm not going to rant and rave at you, because I don't think it's going to change the way you feel about how you played, and I doubt it will have an impact on your mannerisms in the future. But I will say that I don't plan on playing another game with you until you have demonstrated that you are willing to accept that A) you might be wrong when you play mafia; and B) protown players will suspect you -- and often for completely valid reasons.

Also Glork, for whatever it's worth I don't really remember you playing all that badly. For the most part I think your lynch can be put in the same class as Elmosaurian. It was just scum rhetoric ramped up the max, and the townie under attack was just so confused with how they were being so heavily suspected because a lot of it wasn't rational. Under that kind of fire you just got a little bit lost and it's something that's totally understandable under the circumstances.

I think those lynches pointed to the scum pretty clearly in most cases, (Except for Talilan who for the life of me I can't understand how they flipped town.) but it just seemed like there weren't nearly enough town players paying attention.

I had these same feelings as well.

[Thesp]

Second-to-last post.

Lies.