Pledge of Allegiance (Game Over! Page 76)

[RedCoyote]

So, which alignment do you guys personally prefer and why did you choose town?

I prefer mafia, but I chose town because I figured too many people would choose mafia.

---

Wondering where you got the idea that a cult is "non-hostile" considering that a cult that doesn't prevent town from winning might as well be a mason group with a recruiter.

I think I agree with this. Why would one assume "non-hostile"? I mean, there's something to be said for the idea that no one would let a slip like that go by, but still, I'm now much, much more curious what Jack will flip.

---

Hey all. I'm going to

vote DGB

because abr says she likes to be scum.

Hey all. I'm going to

##vote: farside22

for not reading the rules and not reading the posts prior to hers (otherwise maybe she would be curious about the pound signs).

scum:

Parama - wants to assure people of his meta and his vote and reasoning look like the biggest load

I don't buy it. Jack brought it upon himself, and I think Parama was good to call him out.

---

Welcome to RVS!

What RVS?

---

Anyone who understands how I play knows my alignment.

I didn't bring up my own meta.

That's not Meta?

Meta is the playing style - how I scumhunt.
Personality is how my posts sound when spoken aloud.

I don't think I like this. I, for one, liked your opening posts. I don't care for all of this though, you know, all of this noise. You sound like you're kind of getting paranoid. I don't even get why you're making this argument other than to split hairs. This is over-the-top defensive. I don't like your spat with VP, and I think it's all just noise. I can't stand it when players think they have to make a bunch of noise.

---

Sorry, this is slightly wally. I'll provide links for my @'s where necessary if requested.

I'll tell you right now that I'm not going to play the one sentence post game with Jack, Parama, VP, and xvart. I just don't have that kind of devotion. I propose we lynch them all, what do you say?

Do Lynch: farside, Jack, VP, xvart, Parama, Cobalt, and every non-poster can be thrown in here until they decide to join us (half of them are scum anyways)
Don't Lynch: Zorblag, DGB, Fishy, imaginality, Ojanen, UK

[RedCoyote]

What did you like about Parama's opening reasoning on me?
Looks to me you are confusing what farside was referencing with Parama's case, his vote wasn't on Jack.

I'm not sure what you mean. I liked Parama's opening reasoning on Jack, not you.

Elaborate on this. Where you thinking altruistically of game balance or what? Why not choose other?

Oh, no, I just thought the mafia would be gimped, subjected to a lot of restrictions, or there would be multiple mafia groups. That kind of takes the fun out of it, imo, because then it becomes a shooting match. I like a more intimate 2-3 person mafia team versus everyone else (e.g. Newbie or Mini games).

---

You give a 'do lynch/don't lynch' list after saying "I'll tell you right now that I'm not going to play the one sentence post game with Jack, Parama, VP, and xvart. I just don't have that kind of devotion. I propose we lynch them all, what do you say?" To clarify, is that list a semi-tongue-in-cheek "lynch these people cos I don't like their posting style" list, or an actual list of scum v town reads?

It really isn't tongue-in-cheek. On a good day I don't usually have but enough time to check the website once, maybe twice. On a bad day (or week, as in, university finals week), I simply don't have the time to comb over the "no u" arguments. I'm just making it clear that I wouldn't mind if we cut out a bunch of noise by cutting out those that feel it necessary to have a post count of 50 by the end of the first real-time week of the game.

---

FoS: farside

for timing on jumping on my wagon

That's hysterical considering I was the first to vote for you.

Why would you not go back over and make sure this is accurate before making claiming this? That seems kind of lazy to me.

RC: I was busy this weekend and I like RVS. I voted to vote and nomrally I don't see condition to voting using a # sign so I just go off what I normally do. How is that scummy?

It's as good as vote as any. Apparently it's becoming a bit of a pattern here, as now you're trying to frame Parama with inaccurate information.

---

I'm considering it a null tell, but enough to keep my eye on you.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

Where do you get your numbers for "half of them are scum"?

And to be fair, I hate playing the quote stripe game but I'm more interested in finding scum than arguing for pages about how you make my eyes bleed. Though it took me a couple games to realize this ^-^;

Take any group of lurkers and I would suspect that, chances are, half the time they wind up being scum. Would you disagree? I know I kind of put myself into a bad position at this point because of that, but I'm going to be making more posts from here on in.

Actually I think I may have realized that we have a different definition of "quote stripe", because I was referring more to the idea of people making 4-5 one sentence response posts with another person in a row.

---

Add Gamma to the list of Jack, VP, Parama (although Parama is growing on me), and xvart for his nonsense on page 8.

I mean, to those who scratch their heads about what I'm driving at, read a post like this,

Oh, you're asking whether it is or not and not what exactly is doing that? Yes, asking for reasoning for their comments and suspicious is part of how I can tell if they are legitimately scumhunting or pulling things out of their ass like you are.

"Oh, you're asking whether it is or not and not what exactly is doing that?"

Read that out loud. How many times do you have to read that for it to make sense in your mind? It's pointless posting for it's own sake.

---

Fishy and Balter on a scumteam.

Xvart is scum.

Jack is scum.

Parama is town.

Zorblag is probably scum.

I'm keeping my vote on Balter for the time being. I think Balter and Xvart have the same number of votes.

I'll hold onto this for later, but I don't get the Zorblag hate. Do you agree with DGB, charter? I just don't get what I'm not seeing in his posts.

---

Phate 216 feels scummy. I don't like the single question that add nothing to the game post.
I'm on the fence with Elli
Seriously 2 post from Phate that say next to nothing and a very minor (one line) case against VP. Either bussing or bw vote either way Phate gives me scum vibes

This seems kind of like a cop out to me. I mean, I'm one to talk, as I'm the only one voting you, but do you plan to push Phate's wagon, farside, or are you just throwing something out there?

I'm going with my gut read of phate based on how little he has said this game (meta) right now.

This just seems misguided to me. I don't like how Parama caught you and it looks like you are trying to back away from that. I can buy you saying that Jack/xvart seem town to you, but it's still kind of awkward. I guess if Phate was the only one lurking it would make a little more sense, but why Phate over someone of the other lurkers?

---

Dear Players,

I issue this challenge to you.

(1) ISO Phate
(2) Vote Phate

Can you do it? Let me show you how it's done.

Vote: VP Baltar

I firmly believe that the vast majority of accusations of 'flailing' come from scum. It's like 'overdefensive'.

(edited the vote)

*shurgs*

How is this worse than pops, SttB, or Jazzmyn? I mean, it's certainly not any better, but if we're just going to lynch lurkers then let's at least be upfront about it. Far be it from me to step on the idea of a lurker lynch, especially in a game this big, but it just seems kind of arbitrary.

##Unvote
##Vote: Phate

I'll go with it though. I want him to at least respond to farside, because I know she has been voting him for a while now. I'll bet Phate has checked the thread since then, even if he hasn't posted here.

---

The one that I think is most likely to appeal to you is that unlike most (all perhaps) of the others on the lurker list he's got his second post where he tries to look like he's following the game by asking a question that should have an obvious answer about DrippingGoofball's opinion. Given your reaction to Nicodemus's careless read of what DrippingGoofball said I thought it might appeal to you.

The others which I don't think are that likely to sway you are convenience (he was the lurker with a vote other than mine at the time) and because I wanted to see what DrippingGoofball would do when I brought him up as out of place for the rest of her reads.

I guess that's okay. I'd argue that it seems kind of like we're "settling" on Phate, rather than finding him, but then again I guess Phate wouldn't be an acceptable lynch if not for 12 pages of looking for scum without his presence.

I hope that sentence makes sense to you.

[RedCoyote]

Hey RC, do you have any scum reads that arent one of the top five picks for the town?

Top five picks for scum or for town?

I gave a list in my previous post, and I'd say it was a pretty good range of players. xvart, Jack, farside, Gamma, and any of the lurkers (including Phate, Cobalt, pops, Jazzmyn, SttB) would be acceptable lynches for me at this point (I had VP/Parama on there as well, but I've been liking their more recent posts).

There's a lot of scum in that group, no doubt.

---

"Wagon seems a little arbitrary but lordie it is completely beyond me to defend lurkers, so bam me put down an eighth vote so he has more motivation to answer some questions." Strikes me as some sort of overcompensating.

I don't really get what separates Phate from the others, especially to the degree that DGB and farside see it. They both strike me as though they see something that obviously sticks out. I don't, but I'm not opposed to a lurker lynch, especially on D1.

Can you still elaborate on the specific qualities you like about intimate mafia groups? Note from your wiki: your dislike for multiple groups does not seem to be based on first-hand experience, you've never drawn mafia in a large game.

Mostly from EM (epicmafia), which, granted, is a different beast altogether, but it's really difficult to coordinate more than three scum, I think. I might be able to find you an example off of EM. You're right though, I've never played in a large mafia team on MS, but I suspect it would be very similar.

[RedCoyote]

framing someone is a bit strong. It's called reading and coming to a conclusion. I had at least 3 post showing my issues with Para. How is it inaccurate?
You have Para on your scum list aren't you being hypcritcal on my case

You and Parama can't both be scum, is that what you're saying?

What's inaccurate is you saying that you had the first vote on Parama, accusing Parama of misleading the town, when that is just not true... at all. You can say it was an honest mistake and your looked over it, but that's an extremely bold statement to make. What makes it worse is you didn't even bother to go back and check whether it was true.

Woah. Talk about the biggest load of WIFOM right out of the gate.

##Vote: Parama

##vote:parama

What did you say in your first post?

There is nothing wrong with OJ's question...town reads are valuable

I don't see how either of these votes are not serious, personally. They're early votes, most definitely, but they're both explained.

Really how did Param catch me exactly? And where are you getting that I found xvart town?

He caught you here, where else? Not town, that was me misspeaking. I meant to say I get you see Jack/xvart as better than Phate, but I didn't see how Phate leapfrogged in front of everyone else.

---

What is your reasoning on farside?

Her argument against Parama was weak and late to the table, basically that Parama is scum because he is pushing the idea that he loves to be town. So what, you may say, if it gets a little discussion going? Well, the next part is that Parama tells farside that she's bandwagonning. farside essentially says that's not true, without bothering to check it out. Parama points to votes that were on him beforehand, and farside said that she missed one of them and one doesn't count.

So, ultimately, I think farside was just trying to slip her vote in for Parama and stir up trouble without really looking into it. If she really thought that Parama was lying to her, why didn't she just go back and verify it herself?

What about gamma? All I have seen you say on him is "posts are worded poorly".

Well, we've got players like Gamma, Jack, xvart, VP, and Parama. They make a hundred posts with two sentences in them. It's a bunch of a noise going back and forth at each other. Posts 190-204 are all made within almost 1 hour of each other. I don't respond well to that, and it's hard for me to keep up with that pace. Jack changes his vote every two seconds, yet I think he makes a good point about Gamma trying to feel out him and xvart in post 190.

Anyways, I should differentiate between acceptable lynches and scum reads. If I had my way, the best lynches would be farside, Gamma, or Jack right now.

Saying "the lurkers" (although you missed a few, was this intentional?) is also a cop out. Which lurkers are scummier than other lurkers?

What do you mean? The ones that aren't posting. That's the reason they are acceptable lynches, because there's nothing to read.

What about VP/Parama? Are they neurtal? Town? Just less of scum reads?

Parama is going back and forth on me, but I just don't like either of their posting styles. Yeah, they both are okay town reads for me right now.

---

OK. I've caught up completely. I doubt many will like the way this post goes down, but I honestly think it'll be the easiest way for me to get into this game.

It's unfortunate you're reduced to this fightcard style post, but this is what happens, I think, when you have players content on submitting a 7 posts with one sentence in it rather than compiling their thoughts into one.

Still, I would really like to hear your thoughts on specific things. This X vs Y thing just ain't doing it for me.

---

Could be that when I see people throwing words out without saying why my scumdar goes in overdrive.

Back this up. What "words" am I throwing out?

---

In conclusion, right now I think he's being way too brazen about not giving reasons for his suspicions to be scum. Too casual, if that makes any sense. He seems to be a very gut-based player. I'm not used to looking at it that way (looking at posts from the viewpoint of "If I were scum, would I do this?"), but he's consistent enough with it that I'm reasonably convinced that he is. Now I'm going to look through some of his past games at his scum play and see if matches.

I agree with your logic, but I don't like your conclusion. The last game I played with Jack, I thought he played very similarly to the way he's playing now (he was scum). I'm tempted to draw some parallels between this game and PYP2 already, but I would suggest you start there.

Anyways,

##Unvote
##Vote: Jack

This is overdue. I don't agree with Phate that Jack is too gutsy to be scum. He's flying by the seat of his pants, throwing suspicions at everyone and everything, and expecting people to be so dizzy by the time he's through that they can't pinpoint why they've got a bad feeling about him. I think he'll flip scum, but regardless, I really want to see what he flips. No, he's probably not cult, but I don't think he chose town.

---

RC-I understand it from the first read, although admittedly I'm biased here from writing it. I misunderstood Jack's question so I stated what I thought the question was at first then re-answered the question. How is trying to clarify a reading error pointless?

Well, my point is everyone (read: You, Jack, Parama, VP, xvart) is talking a lot and saying very little. Moreover, I think Jack had the better of you in that argument anyways. I felt like you were trying to sneak in an xvart push.

---

I still don't get why you sort of settle yourself to vote due to not opposing a lurker lynch because others see something, when apparently xvart, Jack, farside and Gamma have some action that you actually feel is tangibly scummy. Especially when one of the people "obviously seeing something that sticks" is on your scum list.

The way this game is moving is completely throwing my style off-kilter. I'd be absolutely content to be a stalwart with my farside wagon, but you know that won't work, Ojanen. The way this game is moving means that to stay relevant you have to post hurried and post often. Players like VP (xvart), DGB (Phate/Zorblag), and Parama (VP), are setting the score here, like it or not. They have the capacity to log in several times a day and flood the game with consistent pressure to bend the game at their will. So, you know, sure, I can throw out my vote and check back on it later, but it won't amount to much.

What will come of my push on farside? I suspect Llama will say it's weak, farside will make a couple of quick comments, and it will be buried and ignored under a pile of "xvart!" "Jack!" "Gamma!" etc. I'm not happy with that, but that's the name of the game until we start thinning the ranks a bit, hence I'm comfortable with quite a few lynches at the moment, including lynching a lurker who happens to have farside on the wagon.

Why did you choose Phate over xvart, when both had wagons?

I'm not sold on xvart as scum; I just think he's part of the crowd that are trying to make as much noise as possible so they can prove how valuable they are to the town. I won't cry if he's lynched, no way. There are only a handful of people that I think are genuinely contributing (not just posting as much as they can), and they are who I wouldn't want to see lynched today.

[RedCoyote]

yeah it was wrong. Why is it scummy? As scum I'm more careful your counter point? Where did I say he mislead the town? Again I thought I have the first valid case on him in my view with a serious vote.

This idea is you're making an implication with the eye roll and the, "I have the first vote, how is this bandwagonning" comment. Only after Parama brings it up do you say, "Oh yeah, ignore the other votes already there". So you're actively looking to throw dirt on Parama with that post rather than looking to see whether he is town or not.

No proof with accusation [...] same

I just explained those. If you weren't trying to frame Parama, then you didn't bother to bring Jack or xvart up. You were purposefully omitting that information because you subjectively thought they shouldn't count. I don't buy your Parama push. Period.

Can I call you a hypocrite for not reading since you are saying I found xvart town when I never did or lazy?

This is different. I stated that I misspoke when I went back and checked the source. When Parama called you out, you tried to cover it up by saying you were the first "real" voter. It just shows me that you're more interested in throwing dirt on Parama than you are in figuring out whether you have an accurate read or not.

---

What would you say if I told you Gamma majorly scumslipped in our neighbor qt?

I'd say make with the quote, or at least explain the situation.

---

Accusation of being 'over-the-top defensive'. Can't believe I missed this in my first readthrough.

Do you disagree? Parama spent too much time constructing defensive angles over his own meta, personality, etc. It was as if he was challenging people to attack him. I liked him being upfront about "If you know me, you know I wouldn't choose scum", because I think there's something to be said for that argument, as WIFOMy as it is. Players tend to favor one side or the other.

He's seriously advocating (he definitely stated there that it wasn't tongue-in-cheek) lynching a bunch of people purely because he doesn't like their posting style. You didn't miss any "Hey Parama, will you stop posting one-liners?" Nope, just "we should lynch these people." Scummier than that is the fact that he actually hasn't done any scumhunting by this point (this is his

second post

, on

Page 13

). He literally still has his random vote on farside.

One, it wasn't a random vote, two, you're one to talk about activity (we all have obligations in life outside of MS), and three, I'm only "seriously advocating" a group with which I'm going to pick a lynch from. It's borderline impossible for me to believe that you honestly thought that I was setting up lynches for Day 9 and beyond... It wasn't a tongue-in-cheek list because I'm not kidding around about the list. Obviously I hadn't called out 10 or more players as scum though, Phate. :/

What the hell? She voted me. How is that a cop-out? What do you expect her to do, dayvig me?

There was nothing to separate you from any of the other lurkers in this game at that time. Anyone could've picked from d3x, Jazz, pops, or Cobalt and said "X's only post looks scummy". Anyways, it wasn't really a point of contention, I just wanted her to explain why it was you deserved special attention more than anyone else.

Besides, farside gave a reason (her opinion of my town meta involves more postage) as to why me over some of the other lurkers.

After Parama called her out. I think it was a bigger deal than what she's acknowledged. It's funny that I get the same feeling about farside that you just said you get from me. She jumps onto this anti-Parama sentiment and when Parama calls her out, she doesn't bother to check it out, Parama pushes back again, and she kind of backs away onto, "Hmmm, Phate usually talks more".

Little moves like that are how scum are caught, I've found.

What? How the hell does that make sense? You think he's making a whole bunch of scummy plays hoping that people won't be able to notice his scummy plays?

Absolutely. He's saying controversial stuff and hiding behind this idea that he's a controversial fellow, so we just need to deal with it.

This bravado about bringing up a Cult and being mum about it reminds me exactly of PYP2. Now that SC is in this game, he'll probably remember this attitude even more than I would. I'm kind of surprised Cobalt hasn't moved on it either, but I don't know if he's actually here or not.

---

What are the timelines of your farside and Parama suspicions? Are the Jack/Gamma suspicions mostly signal to noise things? You seem to continually fall back to things like that about them.

farside since the beginning, and Parama since a little bit afterward. He's kind of shifted though; it wasn't a huge thing. Yes, for Jack and Gamma, in different ways. Gamma is just throwing around a lot of suspicions, and Jack is similar with his wagon hopping, but also with a meta I have on him (above).

---

I don't get why you don't think she really thought she was the first on Parama and forgot the page 1 votes. Why deliberately fake something so easily checkable and so obviously counter-arguable.

Then why the kneejerk eyerolling when Parama calls her out? It was just fake all around. I didn't think what Parama did was scummy, and I didn't think farside needed to make a big deal over Parama calling her out for jumping on the bandwagon. Instead of adjusting her view of Parama accordingly, she just kind of slips out toward making a case on Phate out of thin air. Something doesn't feel right about this, Ojanen. Maybe my intuition is off, you know, maybe it was just something simple as you think, but I don't know. Maybe farside was just looking to get on board without Parama noticing too.

---

On these three issues, it feels like xvart really isn't bothering to think about the situation. For me, the continued stubbornness on the QT thing feels like he doesn't want to admit his error. I think this posting lots without thinking about what you are writing about is much more likely scum than town.

I want to see how Jack's comment plays into what xvart said about the QT.

---

You've seen it at work in Kingdom Hearts, or was it PYP1? It caught Cruciare quite squarely in endgame. I'm surprised to see you try to discredit it instead of protesting your townieness.

I've got to agree with Fishy on this one. You're talking about endgame scenarios after lots of flips have happened. I think the difference here is that we're still in D1, when we don't know the alignment of anyone on the xvart wagon.

---

Honestly, I'm really disinterested in this game atm. I think tomorrow I am going to try to muster the will to read the last like 5 pages or so since I've only been skimming. If I can't get myself into it, I may replace out because my laziness isn't helping the town and it's better replacement wise if I get out early.

It is a bit tiring, so I kind of know what you mean. For what it's worth, I think I like this post as townie.

---

So no one at all complained that Phate told farside22 that he wasn't interested in providing a list of reads because it helps scum to know who town thinks is town and then he proceeded to spend his next couple posts deciding why he thinks Jack is town.

Well, that's kind of a political thing. I've heard that argument before. Still, Jack is only one player, not a list, so why should it be noteworthy?

---

FishytheFish has correctly identified

Gambler's Fallacy

in the analysis of his wagon, and I think he's town anyhow. Please quit wagoning him. It gives me headaches in my math/logic lobes. (to be fair though, he did fail to realize that each townie member does make the next more likely to be town, but that is because they are a member of the town, not a member of the wagon. The town has a definite composition.

I agree with you, but you used this exact same line as scum in Caught in the Crossfire for yourself. Why should I be willing to cut you slack here?

---

If we use meta here, I'm liking pops or Jack for our lynch.
If we think the mechanic of choosing your side makes meta too risky, then I like farside, Gamma, or xvart.
The case on Fishy is completely crap as far as I can tell.
Now that the the bulk of the lurkers are being plucked, SttB and now imaginality are both kind of the only ones running into lurker territory.

Lynch should be one of those seven (pops, Jack, Gamma, xvart, farside, SttB, and possibly imaginality).

[RedCoyote]

Nico, do you have reason to doubt Chrono?

##Vote: Fishythefish

If my playstyle is a problem, which everyone seems to indicate (Elli, Llama, Plum, Nico, etc), then you need to be upfront about that. I'm trying to get on here and keep up pace with you people, but I'd suggest you start thinking and talking with me one-on-one and not just bending to someone's will who makes a blanket "RC and Fishy must be partners because he thinks Fishy is town" statement. Coming after Fishy yesterday with no real evidence besides "seems the most scummy in group of X = proven scum". I don't see the tangible case against him. I like his posts. If Chrono has an accurate report, then I'll stand corrected.

Parama's flip = farside is still a direction we need to push btw. Jack, pops, xvart, and SttB should all still be on the table as well.

So it's proven that Jack lied about his role now, correct?

[RedCoyote]

It's more rhetorical.

I'm lagging behind the game, but I think more people are in a rush to post their useless little twitter blurbs rather than following through on anything. Parama's Modkill shouldn't give us a free pass to screw around today. We need to get, like, FBI serious here.

You know what? No, I'm not going to do this. I didn't like Cobalt, and I don't really see how Chrono has been much of an improvement.

##Unvote
##Vote: Jack

This needs to be done. Jack is not town-aligned. Even if Chrono has something incriminating against Fishy, Jack is still not on the town's side. I don't know how I can be paired with Fishy when Jack is sitting there trying to rolefish Chrono, Gamma, and whoever else. I'm not comfortable with his style.

[RedCoyote]

What is it you liked? He only posted two words, and one of them was vote.

[RedCoyote]

One more post before I've got to get to work.

Cobalt's lurkerscum is old hat. I should know, I nominated him for a scummy because of it. He was a hair away from being replaced out in that game too. Yes, I do object to specifics being asked about his role though, from you and Nico. Y'all are both likely fishing for information to help you and your group, whether that is mafia, cult, or some other third party (xvart's?), as opposed to the town. I don't see the town benefit in knowing the specifics behind Chrono's role at the moment. Do you disagree?

[RedCoyote]

I do know someone visited me, and I suggest they don't do it again.

[RedCoyote]

I've been seriously mulling this over. I haven't felt good about farside at all, but I know for sure that I was roleblocked last night. It doesn't help that the website is not running very smoothly for me right now.

Fishy, who did you target yesterday if it wasn't me?

##Unvote

Ugh. It's a total shot to my pride if Fishy is my Roleblocker and farside is the one who uncovered this. Screw it; go big or go home.

##Vote: Fishythefish

(Unofficially, this puts Fishy at L-1)

[RedCoyote]

I would rather lynch pops, but it seems pointless to try when most people are just going to be all charter like.

To be honest, I don't get why we should even take the chance. There's a good possibility that Fishy will flip scum Roleblocker. If there's a Bus Driver out there, then we should cross that bridge when we come to it.

---

My role pm says that I win the game when all factions that require the townies for their wincon are dead.

Fishy and all his undersea friends do not require townies to die, even if he lied and his point conditions give him bonus points for lynching townies.

I'm assuming this is the new position that a majority of people are taking. I suppose players are also considering that maybe farside is lying and maybe I am lying. Knowing what I know, however, is that a Roleblocker visited me, Fishy doesn't deny using a roleblock, and farside said Fishy visited me. I mean, I get the idea of leaving "non-threatening" third parties alive. I really do get that. I played a large game with the Mod some months back where we spent over a dozen pages arguing about whether or not an admitted Lyncher should be lynched or not. In that game, it was officially impossible for the Lyncher to win on the first day, even if his target was lynched.

I argued, unsuccessfully, that the Lyncher shouldn't be lynched. Guess what? I was scum that game and I primarily wanted to cause chaos in the town.

So, frankly, I don't really get the mentality behind leaving Fishy alive. I don't know who Bayes is and all that jazz, but I'm guessing I can't go toe-to-toe with pops on advanced mafia theorems. All I know is, it makes sense for the town to kill a player who's throwing roleblocks around and admits to not being town. If someone wants to dumb down the advanced, high brow strategy for the town to manipulate the third parties in their favor, then they are welcome to try. Right now I don't get it though.

---

Mod

, if you don't have Internet access for whatever reason, will there be an official substitute Mod until you get back? Congratulations on graduating!

[RedCoyote]

Wait a minute, pops.

My role pm says that I win the game when all factions that require the townies for their wincon are dead.

This is what a sample Role PM would look like.

~NAME~

Game Title:

Pledge of Allegiance

Role Title:

Vanilla Townie

Flavor Title:

<Your Mama>

Motive: The crisis is pre-empting Oprah. Now the whole thing is real and personal to you.

Alignment:

Town

Faction: {REDACTED}

Factional Abilities:
<none>

Passive Abilities:
<none>

Active Abilities:
<none>

Win Condition: Force a game state where no living player's Win Condition requires you to die.

Please confirm via PM. I wish you the best of luck. This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds.

The game thread can be found here: viewtopic.php?t=14015

I thought you said you were VT?

[RedCoyote]

I'm pretty sure I did. At any rate, I do now. I did not use any power last night that would lead to you (or anyone) being blocked.

Whatever. An action that you're not willing to disclose that just so happened to turn out to be a roleblock.

---

In fact, if you're Part of the Executive, Legislative, or Judicial branches please claim now. If you're pro-Town-type Other, as Fishy claims he is, you'll be doing the Town overall a favor, even though you might not want to claim. You have another incentive: You don't claim now, well, there's at least one and possibly more investigative PRs who will assume you to be hostile if they get a non-Town, or even an Other result on you, should you not claim immediately.

Oh, yeah, there's a threat. "Claim now or if we happen to investigate you may get lynched!"

Like how farside investigated Fishy?

I want to know how many of these players who are unvoting Fishy and talking down his lynch happen to be part of these third party groups trying to circle the wagons.

---

Town Cop says Fishy is not-town

Fishy claims other with one shot tracker

That they hadn't used

Tracker says Fishy visited RC

RC admits being RB'd

Fishy admits visiting someone, Not RC. Therefore Lied about not using ability.

But Fishy doesn't want to say who they visited, or what ability.

Therefore we cannot trust Fishy.

This is the analysis I get too, Chrono. My impression is that the mindset behind ignoring Fishy is that the town can use these players in some way, although everyone has been vauge about how that's going to work, and that we shouldn't focus our attention on third parties. To that I say, no one here is saying that we need to focus on any Judicial/Executive/Legislative roles, but, rather, focus on those players who are just not town period. Especially if they are running around using random actions on everyone.

---

Red Coyote: Did you receive or get anything else beside being told you were Role Blocked?

I was told that I didn't get any result for my investigation.

---

I paraphrased because I assumed my wincon boiled down to what the townie wincon always is, but technically if you nitpick the wording, if the last three living players were a lyncher who had already killed his target and two vanilla townies some townies would be declared winners and the dead lyncher target would be considered a loser. This kind of turns the town into a coalition of Survivors and is bad design and I'm hoping the wincon phrasing was just an oversight.

pops, I'm just giving you a yes or no question here. I was under the impression you were more or less suckered into claiming VT by DGB. Is this true or not? If it's true, why not just post your VT win con as it shows on the rules post of the game, and if it isn't, then why do I think you are a VT?

---

Well I will be giving the town the finger every day I am role blocked for keeping someone alive that is saying they did something good for the town and was tracked to someone that claimed to be role blocked. In my view they are just being dumb.

Maybe I'm just being unsophisticated, but I agree with farside here. I don't really get how the town expects to win if there are a lot of "non-hostile" entities with some supposedly nondescript action that may or may not wittingly be roleblocking town PRs. I mean, what is there to take advantage of here? I don't think those advocating a lynch on Fishy are asking the town to ignore scum or "hostile" third parties, but you do lynch whomever is running contrary to the town's best interests.

---

Furthermore, if the wagon falls apart I have no idea how it isn't Nicodemus who isn't getting strung up. Ignoring his dreadful play from yesterday he then just blatantly rolefished today to try and completely out a PR whose claim has been verified by the person they claimed against.

I can support this. I can support a lot of lynches, actually, over Zorblag at the moment. I like his contributions and I really don't get where this idea that DGB can simply say, "I know he's not town because I know all about him", and that's what flies.

[RedCoyote]

The PGO is a decent solution, although realistically Fishy will only do it if he thinks he will be lynched the next day for not doing it. I think though, that even I would be fully behind a fishy lynch if we had told him to do it and he didn't.

Oh, wait, so the plan is to force Fishy to visit the PGO then? I must've missed where this was proposed. This is perfect, and I feel like I just spent half and hour making a post for nothing.

##Unvote

##Vote: Jack

---

When asked the question I answered with the gist of my wincon. I didn't bother with going to the rules post or opening my role pm which is hidden in a sea of pms because I'm very popular. I only now realize that there may be any distinction between the answer I gave and the wincon in my role pm.

Of course, what's rather fascinating is that you said "hey, don't you have the wincon posted here in the first post" and not, "hey, that's not the wincon in my role pm".

Okay, okay. You're popular; I can definitely buy that.

Actually, because it deviated from my role PM is the only reason why it caught me a bit off guard. I actually went back and checked on it at both places (PM + Mod's opening post) to make sure mine wasn't any different from the VT. Anyways, consider it dropped.

[RedCoyote]

Anyway, time to make things worse: I

will not

visit the PGO tonight.

Okay.

##Unvote
##Vote: Fishythefish

---

Oh Hai RC, why did you vote Jack again?

Because I've never been more sure of an anti-town role in my life... except for Fishy, of course.

---

Where did he say investigation? I don't recall him saying his role is investigative.

Chrono is right. I don't think it's necessary to elaborate beyond that until I have something to actually offer the town, but yeah.

---

I must admit that I feel completely out of my depth in this game. I just got done reading through the thread, and I still have precious few suspicions.

Well, you should look at that Nico guy for rolefishing... oh wait.

Seriously though, I agree with you on the first part. Frankly, I think we've got quite a few third parties who are trying to confuse the town into leaving them (and their buddy Fishy) alone because there's a huge looming scum faction or factions out to get us that is much more pressing.

That may or may not be the case, but look it, when you've caught someone who is surely anti-town, then you take care of business. You don't leave him alone because he talks a pretty game about how he's 90% on your side.

A least that's how I was raised to play mafia. What do you think, Nico?

---

A scum tracker WOULD be something Vi would do. And any lynch that's not mafia is a mislynch FOR the mafia.

This is coming off as a policy lynch of absolutely anybody not town, and hunting for Mafia should be priority.

Wrong answers, Fishy friends.

I don't get what the reservations are. He's said he isn't town. He said he's not going to obey the town's orders (even after this whole argument on, "We can keeps Fishy around only if he follows orders!"). He's throwing around nondescript actions that are roleblocking town PRs. Why do you want to keep him around other than this paranoid, "...but, but the mafia!" routine?

Maybe because you have a personal interest in keeping Fishy alive? Hmmm? No one is saying that we should drop everything and ignore mafia or SKs or cults or whatevers. Let's not allow this branches of government group to continue to fester, potentially stealing a win from the town despite how lucky we are against any other factions.

[RedCoyote]

Glad RC was able to clear up whether or not that question mark was needed so quickly. Fishy wagon wreaks of others with a dash of mafia.

Says the person going to bat for the anti-town faction. I'm not naive enough to believe that other players are always telling the 100% truth.

[RedCoyote]

If you think my claim might be largely true, then you simply cannot afford to waste 5 or more lynches on non-hostile others, some of whom are not working against the town.

You might want me gone, but you don't have enough lynches to kill off a large number of non-hostile others.

No. No, no, no, no, no. This is exactly the strawman that I've addressed multiple times in multiple posts today. No one here, not me, not farside, charter, DDD, or whoever else, have said they want to sit here and focus on non-hostile others. That's not the point at all. I only speak for myself, but I suspect everyone else voting you feels the same way. Players that aren't town are to be lynched as they're revealed. Period. The best thing about your lynch, Fishy, is that there is no downside. Either you flip non-hostile, hostile, or scum. You yourself have eliminated any chance that you are sided with the town. Just lynching you is no ultimatum that the town is decided to lynch all non-hostile others. Heck, if I was caught roleblocking (or using an action that led to roleblocking), I would probably do the same thing you are, "I'm non-hostile and the town needs to focus on someone else".

---

So Llama, UK, DGB, Plum, imaginality, and whoever else are all convinced that Fishy is telling us the pure and honest truth, and there's no possible way he could be hostile other or scum. Why would he concoct some sort of story? UK has gone so far as to threaten any future non-hostile claims with a vote from her if they don't fess up immediately. A threat so motivating that I'm positively quivering as I type it. The thing is, Fishy has declined to work with the town. He refuses to use his actions to benefit us, or even tell us what his actions are. He refuses to visit a PGO. He refuses to out his partner(s). I can live with letting known anti-town live if for only the benefit of the town, but even that, I think, is being reasonable. What I don't get, however, is completely selling out the town and town PRs on the idea that Fishy is being 100% honest. Fishy is being honest alright,

non-hostile others, some of whom are not working against the town.

"Some of whom are not working against the town". Fishy just happens to be the one non-hostile working for the town's benefit, hm? Fishy's honesty tells us that these non-hostiles are, in large part, working against the town. It's extremely aggravating for there to be people who want to bend over backwards for Fishy here. Why? What possible town motivation is there in trying to keep Fishy alive?

Let's not try to outguess the Mod, especially in a game like this. These players either told the Mod they wanted to be town or they didn't. Let's not assume every player who says they're non-hostile is telling the truth, please.

[RedCoyote]

@ RC

Purdy sure Fishy is still lying about stuff. But he's not killing people at night.

And you know that how? Because he told you he was non-hostile. Because he would never lie to you, hm?

---

@RC: I have? Wait what? Where? Huh? Please, explain yourself? I don't believe I ever said anything about voting other non hostiles. What game are you reading?

Secondly, where did I ever say Fishy was being completely truthful? I think my stance is that he's not a good lynch when we COULD BE LYNCHING OBVIOUS MAFIOSI!

I'm sorry; I meant Plum. There are too many people in this game, lol.

What obvious mafia? DGB says Zorblag is not playing to his meta so that's good enough for you? I mean, in Nico's case, I agree rolefishing is unsavory, but why leave Fishy alive to throw around his night actions (that lead to roleblocking), especially if you don't think he's telling the truth?

---

There was a debate earlier today about whether we could trust Fishy's intentions or not. If I'm alone here in thinking that he just flat out told us that we can't trust his intentions, then so be it. Lying Scum or AntiTown. My Vote stands.

You're not alone in thinking that, d3x. I really don't care if my vote is obsolete. I was roleblocked, and we have someone here that very likely visited me. Instead of going off that strong piece of evidence, the rest of the game rather call me scum and say that setup speculation (Fishy must have been driven) and outguessing the Mod (only scum are good lynches, others shouldn't be touched) is a better town strategy.

And as much as I love Fishy and love to play with him, the fear card is the oldest trick in the book. "I may not be on your side... but there are others worse than me!" That may or may not be true, but it's completely irrelevant. He is not part of the town, he is actively harming the town, and he's not cooperating with the town. Guess what? If Fishy isn't mafia, then the mafia sure has heck won't bother killing him off. If the town has a Vig, sure, Fishy would be a good shot, but what if the Vig is limited in shots? I'm just waiting for the wagon to build on an "actual" mafia member, and then when that player goes, "Uh, I'm non-hostile, too!", what the Fishy friends will say about that. Some are so worried about "wasting" a lynch (God forbid we lynch someone who isn't anti-town

enough

), that we're probably going to end up taking out a townie.

[RedCoyote]

I dont know what you want me to say, Gamma. I'll move to prevent no lynch from happening, but it seems painfully obvious where the votes should be today. I'm in the minority, and I accept that. That doesn't mean I think Fishy is any better because people aren't going to listen to me/don't believe me. If y'all think we'll lose if we don't lynch a mafia everyday, then that's your business. I think that's incredibly short-sighted and presumptive. Until people wise up and say, "Hmmm, maybe I shouldn't trust Fishy's motivations 100%", then I think we'll just be at an impasse. There are things I can negotiate on, you know, I'm a reasonable guy. If Fishy says he'll visit the PGO, then that's fine, if he is willing to out his partner(s) or his action(s), that might by him a little creditability, but he has chosen not to do these things. Then, once Fishy claims non-hostile after being

caught roleblocking

he comes up with a convenient story about how he's going to flip non-hostile and the town'll be sorry if they lynch him! Everyone bends over backwards to lap it up and come up with all these stories about how Fishy was driven and that he shouldn't be forced to tell us about his actions and that we should leave poor Fishy alone. I guess we want Fishy to stick around a long as possible, as an anti-town force it's important that he have a say on the fate of this town during the endgame, right?

[RedCoyote]

I'm ready to claim... as soon as charter tells us all what he did last night.

[RedCoyote]

Sorry, I haven't been on the website in a while. To be perfectly honest, and I doubt this will come as much of a surprise to those paying attention to the game, this setup is a little over my head. I don't really get the points system, and how these win conditions conflict with the town/mafia.

What I can verify is that I had a successful track of charter last night visiting LlamaFluff. As everyone knows, I was roleblocked on the first night. My role is an FBI Bureaucrat. Essentially I have tracking powers every night, but the caveat is that if I conflict with any other administrative body, that I get no result. Originally I just assumed this was the case for the first night, until Fishy claimed specifically that he had a role action and declined to tell us what it was. Now, I'm sure, it makes a little more sense why I was fixated on Fishy. In either case, I should have proven scum at this point.

##Vote: charter

[RedCoyote]

Llama was not 'Other'. I used it on him after he made some comment about believing Fishy's claim, I thought Llama might have a similar role.

I was thinking that it could catch scum pretending to be other

So, in other words, you thought Llama might have a similar role to Fishy's role in that you thought they were both scum pretending to be "other"? If you thought Fishy was lying, why not just use it on him? Seems a little convenient for you to visit the person who happened to die last night (after they claimed a town PR, no less), when you could've just as easily visited the person who, I don't know,

actually claimed to be "other"

.

Confirm my vote 100%. This is our vote today, guys. Y'all didn't want to hear me yesterday, but please hear me today. This is a slam dunk if I've ever seen one.

[RedCoyote]

That's a good point, Gamma.

Also, farside, didn't you say at one point you were just a one-shot Tracker? I think we are allowed to claim role names (I hope we are!), did yours have something to do with, like, a police force or agency or anything?

[RedCoyote]

Or, ya know, I'm exactly what I say I am and had the unfortunate luck to target Llama. And sorry if I don't believe everyone who claims a "town power role" is actually town.

It doesn't matter whether you believed him or not.

If you have two players, one claiming town PR and the other claiming third-party, and you think that players claiming third-party are possibly scum, why would you ignore the player that

claimed

third-party in favor of the one that claimed town PR? That doesn't make logical sense. You sat there and said that scum were probably hiding amongst the non-hostile others, which I happen to agree with, but then you say Fishy gets a free pass? Huh?

Sorry, charter, no dice. pops said it earlier in a different context, but you go with what makes the most sense, because that will steer you in the right direction more often than not. It makes the most sense that you shot Llama instead of up and deciding he was more likely to be scum pretending to be non-hostile other pretending to be a town PR.

I don't see where RC get's this high and mighty attitude from. You claim not town, you've claimed the same role as someone else. You really haven't been protown in the least this game.

Uh, what? When did I claim "not town, the same as everyone else"? I've been extremely protown, and, might I add, one of the few people here who has been. If it were up to me, we would've been rid of Fishy yesterday instead of a VT. I argued very strongly and persuasively for it. It didn't work out, and no one bought that it would've been a better lynch than Nico or Zorblag. That's fine, you know, whatever, but don't come barking at me because your Nico lynch didn't work out. I'm one of the few people here who actually cares about using our lynch effectively. Right now, the effective thing to do with it is to lynch the player who visited LlamaFluff last night.

[RedCoyote]

Fishy, you asked me why I didn't just assume I was stopped from an outside administrative force. I answered that in the post where I made my claim, but to clarify, that's originally what I assumed had happened. If you recall, I was initially pretty torn at the beginning of Day 2, switching from you to Jack and back again. What swayed me over was the fact that farside said you visited me and you refused (and still refuse) to tell us what action you had.

With all the claims that have been given at this point, I think I get what limitations my role has. Elli's claim explains why I didn't get any results on Llama now, so I've got a pretty darn good feeling about him. Zorblag feels okay, UK and DDD too. I was hard on farside earlier, but now I'm not so sure. We do have a lot of power roles, but, given all the claims, charter and pops seem the most scummy to me. charter for obvious reasons as he shot Llama, but pops moreso because of his awkward role claim. I still don't really get how a country star fits into the scheme. Also I don't really get what Plum is saying... she saying she knows charter is telling the truth about the role because she has the same role? Huh? That needs to be cleared up. Either this game has a lot of duplicates or a lot of people scum/other power roles.

farside, do you have any limitations to your tracking?

But so far Plum is the only person who has really been able to stand up for charter and say firmly that she doesn't believe he is lying about his role. To put it bluntly, I feel as though we have a caught mafia here, and I don't want him to be swept under the rug for playing a points game with the government roles.

[RedCoyote]

Fishy, do you get points only at night? Also, wouldn't it be best for you to focus on getting rid of the other points factions, or are you connected with them in some way? I guess what I'm getting at is, do you have certain lynches that give your team the most benefit, meaning you are steering the town in a particular direction regardless of whether it will help us or not?

In other news, is ani the only one left not claimed?

DGB, how does your census count score interact with our other "others"? Are you purely separate from them or do you have some sort of alliance with anyone?

Zorblag, how is the Sniper different from a Vig again?

Right now I'm seriously trying to figure who exactly is on our side, because the only people I trust are those who both claimed town and who I think are telling the truth.

[RedCoyote]

So, uh, who is Fishy's partner?

[RedCoyote]

I figure DGB is/was probably Fishy's partner. I would be pretty shocked if she flipped scum, and her wagon seemed hypocritical, imo. Especially after Plum and UK and everyone else's lecturing on how Fishy was a bad lynch and we need to focus on scum. What was her downfall? Voting UK? I mean, I don't really have any major problems the lynch (DGB never presented a case as to why she would be helpful for the town), except for the fact I have no pull whatsoever in this town. It's making me a little pissy to be honest. I don't have time to sit here and hold everyone's hand, but we had a confirmed scum for goodness sakes.

UK, I suggest you make some use of your power tonight.

[RedCoyote]

The speed of this game is ridiculous. I didn't get a Day 4 action, obviously. I guess the town is content with that. I tried to log on this morning, but the website was completely non-responsive.

On D3 I tracked charter again. I considered tracking farside, but I played a little WIFOM with my action because I thought the mafia team may just have charter submit the kill again. So, yeah, he did visit Elli during Night 3.

##Vote: charter

It goes without saying.

charter is probably one of the weaker roles in the mafia force, but he's the only certain one we've got. If UK is right, and there are that many mafia, we have to go with the sure thing. I don't know why the town has two trackers, but I'm assuming it must mean that the mafia are very plentiful. They certainly have 1, and possibly have 2 Roleblockers.

Now I don't know what a Neighborizer is, but I do know that charter visiting two killed players is no coincidence, which, in my mind, confirms Plum.

Tomorrow's lynch should probably be between Gamma and SC, without question. There just cannot be that many town PRs left.

[RedCoyote]

I didn't get a Day 4 action, obviously.

I didn't get to submit an action. The day ended way too quickly.

[RedCoyote]

I think anyone who picks "other" when given the choice has to know they're signing up for something really challenging.

For sure.

I just saw that RedCoyote Tracked "the path of the moon across the sky". Glad to see someone else here has a sense of humor

I think Gamma did that for me, lol. Our night actions, especially mine, were determined by the collective, as I'm sure you saw.

Big thanks to our Mod, Vi, and Spyrex. I know how much work it must've been to get this thing going, and you deserve big kudos for pulling it off without a hitch. The flavor was great, too!

I don't have much perspective to add gamewise. I basically did what Gamma and DGB told me to, lol. I really wasn't faking the dumb card. I mean, I got the gist of what was going on, but I think all the extra abilites were throwing me off. I can't imagine how I would've felt as a VT coming into this. The best move of the game is a tie between Gamma claiming PGO (looking over the QTs, almost everyone had begun to figure in how a PGO would fit with their plans... so awesome) and Zorblag's multiple sniping.

The win over the town, UK, and the government factions is great, but it's a shame we couldn't have taken out Zorblag earlier (although he probably made winning a lot easier).

I do not like the instant nightless, and I don't really like nightless at all. I think a break is helpful if you want to look back over the game and reread over parts. The only benefit to nightless, I think, is daytalk. Maybe I just don't have the same level of commitment that some of the other players have, because I think everyone else really likes it. With the added work it requires, I have no idea how the Mod was able to pull it off as easily as it seemed.