/Invitational 11: Pick your Poison 5 (Game Over)

[Plumegranate]

Screw up. But I've learned to repost for convenience of all:

Hoopla: I'll give you credit for thinking outside of the box or something, but no. Just no. Potentially giving the scum two extra kills aimed at some of our most useful players is really not something I like to contemplate, basically ever. So with a no PR claim agreement it might or might not come into play (if we're willing to risk it on something that'd be substantially luck-based). But I think choosing it mainly to remove WIFOM/Paranoia in the PR claim is bad. Scum have pretty limited powerrole claim options anyway, given the nature of the setup. We can adopt a no PR claims sort of thing if we feel like it anyway - the benefits of your plan, assuming we really don't want Janitor, are approximately the same as a Roleblocker/Rolecop combination with a no PR claims policy, except that the scum don't have the slender but very plausible chance at eating away at our powerroles with extra bullets. Unless I'm reading the thing incorrectly, the Assassin's shots can be used separately or together, which means that two good guesses by the scum = instant death for the Town.

Look at it this way - it's not individual roles which are necessarily bad options, but combinations where the roles complement each other and make them stronger than the sum of their parts (with one important exception):

- Rolecop is a fairly safe option with Janitor, but kinda stinks with Roleblocker (because they can find and block powerroles who haven't been outed, or block an outed powerrole who may be protected by a Weak Doc while killing a powerrole found by the Rolecop) and is absolute suicide with Assassin.
- Assassin is flat out of the question. That's the exception.
- Janitor works fine with Roleblocker and with Rolecop, basically. I'd probably lean towards Janitor + Rolecop over Janitor + Roleblocker. Ehhhhhh. Maybe not; it depends if we're more worried about scum finding and killing PRs who haven't been outed or screwing us over when we want an outed one to come through big. And because the last depends on stuff like protection we may well not even have . . . I guess I'd go Janitor/Roleblocker.
- Roleblocker is horrendous with Assassin and, as above, bad to team with Rolecop.

EDIT: mith disagrees with me about Rolecop/Roleblocker having synergy or not. Explain, mith?

[Plumegranate]

@Hoopla:

Um, I was merely referencing that powerroles can make players into more useful players by their very fact. Obviously VTs can be damn useful, often more useful than some of the powerrole-players in a game. But in relatively decent hands - and I have a fairly good opinion, at least, of everyone in this game - powerroles make players into things potentially and often actively more useful for the Town. I'll respond to the rest of your bit soonish, but my intention wasn't to imply that the best scumhunters we have are likely to have gotten the powers, but that the people who have powers are among the people we'd least like to lose.

[Plumegranate]

Crud. I need to be more mindful (oh and yes, Pom will be away for the following month, so it's just Plum you'll be seeing for a while:

I think you guys are seriously overestimating the power of the assassin role. For one, it can't be used to end the game/give the mafia a majority. And since its only a 2-shot, the only real threat of an assassin kill is after a PR claim, or a less than a coinflip (probably) chance of the assassin guessing when it gets close to endgame, if it even lives that long. Putting an assassin in is not riding off the PR's as unvaluable. We can still get PR information, except we have to expect that once a PR claims, it will be killed. Note that after a PR claims, they're usually killed or RBed anyways, in most games.

Note that after a PR claims, usually only the PR is killed that Night, not a PR and someone else as well. Just because the Assassin can't be used to auto-win the game for scum doesn't mean it can't reduce the number of mislynches we have available. And unlike Vig kills (which have been cited in this argument as similar and are considered good because they reduce the pool of lynch candidates), the extra kills will be on the scum's terms, not (basically) on ours. Vig kills have been known to do more than reduce the pool of lynch candidates. They've been known to - strange as this sounds - kill off scumbags on occasion. In any case, the extra kill the scumteam gains from an Assassin with a good target (for whatever reason - as mith showed, there will be times when a no-PR claim is stupid but with an Assassin chosen anyway, viable alternative methods don't present themselves) is going straight onto the most useful Townie they can think of. Probably someone

not

in the lynch pool at all.

Rolecop is in my mind not as bad (though actually it does get worse if it lasts long enough) - it may direct scum at PRs, but it won't ever give them an extra kill or ever reduce the number of mislynches we have. People who've suddenly gone all anti-Janitor (a role I don't think is quite as inherently bad as many people seem to, but still probably worth avoiding. Depending on a lot of factors, some of which will be out of the control of just about everyone in the game, it could be mostly harmless or - slim chance - really bad. So I wouldn't mind avoiding it) think about this: a Janitor may rain on the parade of one lynch, but an Assassin can take away our extra mislynches. Lynches are still what we'll need to win the game. I'm really not interested in handing a few over to the scum for free.

EBWOP: Zorb's Hider-claim idea sounds good. The downsides are limited and the info gained seems both fairly safe and worth it.

[Plumegranate]

The question is whether the reasons for (potential for gamebreaking, forcing the scum into a choice between giving us a bunch of confirmed innocents or taking on a messy fake claim situation, increasing the utility of the power roles while they're alive) outweigh the reasons against (scum know who the power roles are, and will be able to kill them more quickly or leave them alive to mess with us in a messy fake claim situation).

Outweigh, I think. The likeliest scum strategy will place one scumbag in danger three or four days down the road, and the rest stay as they are - and depending on how much we have in the way of protective roles, we're more or less likely to lose them pretty quickly. If we go without, the scum will either have to deal with a messy fakeclaim (less messy if they have a Janitor) later in the game

anyway

or we'll end up massclaiming and forcing them into claiming their stuff later in the game

anyway

- unless we lynch scum really quickly it won't benefit us, and if we

do

get rid of a lot of scum early we can always massclaim and have basically the same benefits. The increased utility of powerroles while still alive will probably be more than countered by scum killing off the powerroles and their use of either the Roleblocker or the Janitor, one of which we'll have to give them along with the useless Rolecop. In that case Janitor has less utility but still has the possibility of either messy fakeclaim screwery or general screwery (I'll admit I don't mind that last one

too

much myself, because I'm more inclined to take Janitor than most others, it seems).

[Plumegranate]

So as far as I can tell we're not going to be massclaiming today and we probably

are

going to do a Hider claim? In that case, Hider claim ASAP and afterwards choose one of the following combos (the only few which have been discussed and have substantial following - I don't think any others are widely considered among our best choices, unless the Hider claim helps us deduce that we don't want a Roleblocker, in which case we may have to go Assasin/Janitor or Rolecop/Janitor, probably the latter given that two outed Hiders means the Rolecop has limited use for the scum anyway):

• 1. Roleblocker/Rolecop
  
• 2. Roleblocker/Janitor
  
• 3. Roleblocker/Assassin

Is there any reason we shouldn't all just post Hider/Not Hider and mention which other power we'd like to give with Roleblocker if we don't end up with two Hiders?

[Plumegranate]

Was pretty sure over half supported it. Zorb's point was that scum, if they assumed getting Roleblocker was a pretty safe bet,

might

have done it, and that if they haven't it's extremely low risk. But I'll vote along, I guess. Anything to move on, really. Please.

Hider claim?
Yes - 1 (Plumegranate)
No - 1 (ekiM)

Massclaim?
Yes - 0 ()
No - 2 (ekiM, Plumegranate)

[Plumegranate]

PROBABLY LIKE TWO TRACKERS AND A VIG AND A JK. AS SCUM WHAT I REALLY HATE IS PEOPLE GETTING CONFIRMED TOWN/

[Plumegranate]

Not a Hider

.

I

still

don't like Assassin, but I have a feeling I might be outnumbered on that one.

[Plumegranate]

Hm. That's not a terrible idea. If we were to vote for Rolecop, an early massclaim is likely a good idea. (Don't know that that's enough to leap to "Giving them a Rolecop is a good idea", though.)

That. I'd rather give the scum a Roleblocker which will probably lead to fewer early PR deaths and then lynch scum in the unmentionables so we don't need to massclaim in anything but a favorable situation.

VOTE: Roleblocker

Re: DGB's shenanigans. At this point it's information which needs a context to be understood, particularly in light of the fact that we haven't even properly gotten to Day 1 - that goes for both what it says about DGB's alignment and what it says about the reactions of those who faced it. I don't hate Janitor so much (and I am glad it kept us out of the Assassin route. Sorry if this wasn't clear in ISO: I simply feel that giving the scum the potential for extra kills on top of their regular Night kills is something much less desirable than any of the other choices we have. Vigs are good, on balance, because they put more kills in the hands of Town. Assassin is bad because it can put two bonus kills in the hands of scum. Even if an outed PR is protected the extra kill gets saved and can be used later - its bare saving grace is that it can't be used too much later).

[Plumegranate]

Crud, sorry. Repost for ISO POWA.

I'm not sure I see the connection between your criteria and where people are located, ooba. I'd love to hear how you square DGB with being town, even if you just mechanically try to apply those criteria you listed.

Forgot to add - I cannot see scum ever gambitting like that ... Puts a lot of pressure on her at the start of the game. The only probable trade-off is that Janitor was hammered. In fact if I was scum, I would have probably lurked it out until Assassin was hammered too and then declared gambit at start of D1 to increase payoffs of move.

DGB does this stuff regardless of alignment. You're one to talk about suggesting original things, keeping a low profile, or agreeing with massclaim, just by the way. I was doing a bit of a reread and then my browser crashed, but your first post smelled strongly regurgitated material and the rest haven't been stellar on that count. And you managed to comment on massclaim without saying anything either way by merely discussing which roles we should give in the case of massclaim. If I were using your criteria - which are decent starting points given the information we have at this point - I'd have to put you in the scum category there.

The switch from lets massclaim to massclaiming is bad as a function of the snipes with mith is bad. The push for assassin/rolecop under very, very weak logic is extra bad. Add in a dash of secret gut reasons (TM) and we've got us a stew.

Hero's arguments for Assassin/Rolecop (easily the worst synergetic combo even given a Hider claim) remind me of Rhinox's arguments that Assassin is good because it reduces the lynch pool the way a Vig would. AARgh. I may join you thar, still don't have a full hold on the game, too many people with too many wallposts makes for mediocre recall. I'd rather vote for the player who would fit on his own scumlist right now.

VOTE: ooba

[Plumegranate]

EBWOP: And VOTE: ooba in case the last didn't go through as it was posted by Plum.

[Plumegranate]

That said, I think his hider stuff Day 0 was terrible and more scum-motivated than town. Also law of averages.

Yes law of averages but WHAAAAAAT on saying it was more scum-motivated than Town. It's clear now we have no Hiders; if Troll was scum he'd know that beforehand and wouldn't have anything to gain out of it as far as I can see, and might lose out a bit by letting the Town in on info they didn't previously have. And considering I think we've both played in games where Troll attempted similar things as Town (Drunk!Mafia, nu?) - why the read would be anything on the scum side of null absolutely baffles me. Hmmmm. You never did get around to answering Troll's questions about thinking more about the pros and cons of the Hider claim, partly because it started happening on you. But could you maybe do it now, I wanna see some stuff.

@Papa Zito, Troll realizes that you no particularly like to try to get into the game mechanics at the start. You have demonstrated that on multiple occasions in games that Troll has played with you. That no means that what we do here in terms of claims be useless as you be saying. Whether we claim various things or not and what roles we give the scum based on that actually does much to effect the shape of the game and making the best choice about that now after thinking about it should improve our chances of winning. The fact that we have a Day 0 and have these choices in the game means that we should be approaching this game differently than we do most games; we explicitly have a time when setup speculation be helpful and taking advantage of that helps us.

Flay, I didn't get prodded on either of my accounts, but given the crossed out bit I guess I didn't need it?

Ooba, I suppose I did miss the 'agreed to massclaim' bit on your Townlist criteria. You get the point on a technicality; I personally find the other Towntells you used more satisfying and found your Day 1 play underwhelming. Tajo makes a nice point on you as well which I'll quote because I recognize related feeling and motivation in my own play as scum/as Town:

My point was that I really dont see scum forcing to positions in RVS. What ooba has done (assuming he is scum) is to strongly reduce his possibilities to support a well thought wagon on a townie just for the fact that his analysis proved he was town. The fliflop is really painful to write and to make it look sincere.

It's a good point but it needs to be followed up to see how easily and also how sincerely Ooba writes off the early Townread or doesn't.

MME, any suspects and any comments thus far? All I have right now is 'I would've opposed the Hider claiming plan, which has been done by now'.

I find them crippling. What was that one game... I think it was Plum's, where you'd lynch people but they wouldn't flip right away, and you'd have to vote them again to make them flip. It was absolutely maddening.

Still apologizing for this

Rhinox: I still read your "couple extra deaths aren't necessarily a bad thing" followed by "as it reduces the player pool and gives slightly better odds on the next day's lynch. Similar to, a vig who goes to town starting on day 1 might hit a few townies, but thats not necessarily a bad thing." That's an explicit comparison. Assassin reduces the player pool, better odds on the next lynch, not necessarily bad thing vs. Vig reduces player pool, mediocre players, not necessarily bad thing". A kill which hits only PRs and is given into scum control in addition to the regular NK AND kills PRs only is necessarily a bad thing if it hits. The fact that you continue to argue that the odds of a hit are poor, which we'll state for the sake of argument as true, does not affect the fact that you used a misleading and poor argument comparing the Assassin hits to Vig his on Townies, and stated that both were not necessarily bad. That does still disturb me.

Ooba is out; Hoopla's responses to mith's questions are way up there. Loljanitor vs. strong Janitor hatred + temporary insanity due to bedazzlement + 'I'm wary that maybe you're gonna lynch me' = bad news. Perhaps I was too hesitant to look critically at Hoopla's Assassin + lynch all claimed PRs plan due to . . . dang, did I fall into the too-scummy-to-be-scum hole because I thought scum would try to avoid standing out by suggesting plans as outlandish as that? Especially playing down the points about outed PRs we'd be a little too confident in to want to lynch but if Assassin was locked in. The last post stinks of politician but it reeks even more of direct fear of being lynched, feels like it's Hoopla's primary motivation rather than a secondary one. Primary motivation of scum is avoiding getting lynched. Or otherwise killed. I'd be happy to try doing just that.

UNVOTE: ooba
VOTE: Hoopla

[Plumegranate]

Zito. You expressed willingness to answer Troll's questions about the Hider claim Day 0. You didn't dismiss it as chiding then; you seemed to genuinely be willing to answer it:

I'll answer Troll's post when it's less midnight.

I'm not a hider?

What is this mess.

Troll, you still want answers to stuff or is it moot at this point?

For me it's not moot; it's a part of helping me determine whether your behavior about the Hider claim idea today is a scummy attempt to poke holes in the believability of the Hider claims which have gone down by now or genuinely some sort of Townie allergic reaction to the very idea of the claim. Because I'll say it now: If there is a Hider, or two, who falsely claimed not Hider, even if the best of intentions were there, even if they both thought Hider claiming was a completely bad idea, I will punch them out at the end of the game. Or tear my hair out. Because putting the Town in such a heavy WIFOM situation on purpose is easily more hurtful than going along with what they'd have thought a sub-optimal tactic. But you attacking Troll and dismissing his questions as chiding re: a part of the game you're uninterested in is dodging questions. Please stop dodging and answer. I like me some infoz. Troll said lots of stuff since he's voted you but I want to hear some things and see whether there's an underpinning of logic or what the heck you could be thinking about this. But avoiding the question isn't helpful to either of us.

I've played with lots of Kmd scum (in minis; haven't seen him as scum in a Large). In any case, I generally recall Kmd-scum to have a different feel than here; probably a little more concerned about keeping up appearances and posting more/offering bigger chunks of analysis. Nothing conclusive, but I'm not overly impressed that he's much scummy.

To find the hider(s). Is this one of those forest/trees situations where people are missing the obvious?

Current theory is that there are one or two hiders out there who were smart enough not to claim despite all the noise in the thread about them. I guess we'll see.

Think it's likely the scum gave us one Hider? Or two? Or is it just based on your feelings on Troll and his perceived scumminess? Just out of curiosity.

Why is there a wagon on VV? I missed something here. Uh, ooba? Someone? I need more than 'I want to see where this goes. Also law of averages" to understand what VV's done/why wagoning him might be a good idea. Tajo? I guess I sympathize with question dodging BUT.

Well, sorry but that was not my main argument for being pro-assassin. It was more of a small "in-addition", like it didn't even play into the reason why I wanted to give the assassin, it was just to say that I didn't feel the negative of an assassin in the unlikely event it actually got a successful shot off was really all that bad. Even if it would be a scum directed kill on a PR, typically targets of scum nk's are suspected by someone in the game, and eliminating them as a suspect (through nk) helps those players narrow in on scum. I know there are times where I've been in a better position the next day when a scum nk hit a player I had a gut scum read on that was clouding my reads on everyone else.

Fair enough that it wasn't your main point. I disagree; typical scum targets or often suspected by few people in the game, because scum like to use the NK to kill off players they can't get lynched. I'm certain that some examples of what you're talking about exist, and it's perfectly plausible that you're a Townie who generally feels this way. But the fact that you used such an argument gives me some definitely cold prickly-type feelings about you. I don't want to misrep you, but you made that argument as part of your overall argument and I find it misleading and quite off, and overall noticeably scummy. The rest of your play has not concerned me too much, but. This remains in the back of my head. I have distinct reservations about you because of this.

As a minor favor, could scumteam speculation be minimized Day 1? I find it distracting and too generally inaccurate to be of much practical use at this point in the game. There just seems to be a lot of 'oh, X could probably be the scumbuddy of Y' and such.

Papa zito to me comes across as more frustrating than scummy. I reserve the right to revise that, but so far he just comes across as kind of an asshole.

Yeah, but he's usually not an asshole. It may be worth looking into.

Tajo's post listing the lurkers &c. is by no means the most useful thing I've seen but it's as good a technique as any and I've had a strong townread on him thus far and I'd trust that. It seems to be Town-motivated, at any rate).

[Plumegranate]

Hate to say, but Zor's 'slip' is complete bollocks and an utter nulltell. The implication of Zor's statement is 'DGB's gambit did not come from the perspective of a Townie trying to help the Town'. While I disagree, this smacks of an honest opinion (or at least one not necessarily colored by a scum mindset). Ooba's vote on the slip is fairly weak. Ughhhh. It might just be my experience, but 'scumslips', even the ones which seem super-ultra incriminating are spotty tells at best, but can be taken advantage of pretty easily.

Why are Spy and Hero having a long, drawn-out conversation about meta which has nothing to do with anything? Or am I missing something here. It looks like spam spam spam spam lovely spam wonderful spam but just SPAM. While we're here, Hero, what about Spy's acknowledgment of the validity of the Hoopla wagon while deciding to stay off it seemed Townish to you? By the way, yes to the question dodging, and at a glance I'll call VV's scumhunting to that point minimal but extant (which is more than I can say for some people, like certain chronic nonentities *cough*Kmd*cough*. I may be lazy BUT. And speaking of, you're right, Kmd

does

do bandwagon analysis and should have been pretty anti-Janitor . . . actually that's a pretty decent case you have put together right there. HMMM).

VV lashing out against his wagoners is pretty shoddy, and I never thought that being against your own wagon could look so horrid. I could go into the defenses and excuses which multiply and mutate and such (FOSing and otherwise attacking the people on his wagon then labeling it 'abrasive defense'; I scumhunt by bandwagoning whatever moves but there are so many people me trying to scumhunt would just confuse everything). It's everything and the kitchen sink, but it all comes down to excuses for trying to discredit his wagon and the people on his wagon without legitimate reasons and with some degree of unsubstantiated bullying.

THAT said I think I have some memories corroborating with Amished's claimed meta of VV. I kinda wish I didn't but. It's certainly enough to keep him from knocking out Hoopla from my top suspect slot but I would shed no tears to see VV dead

Zor bandwagon is

stupid

, at least the parts based on the so-called scumslip (dunno about DGB 'cause she was all over Zor earlier in the spat over her gambit). Sheepy bandwagons can be decent, but this one is ridiculous. Tied for the top badwagon there? Everything I said about Ooba's vote above goes approximately the same for EkiM, maybe for sheepy Elmo. Not sure yet how to tell when shameless self-declared sheeping is a scumtell, though. GRRR.

VasudeVa>>zoraster>>Hoopla

Same. But I still think KMD is scum.

I barely recall that KMD is in this game. And you think he's scum?

I thought you thought that if you don't remember someone's in the game he's avoiding the opportunity to commit scumtells; I guess I remembered wrong but I still agree with that sentiment. I hope the scums gave us a Vig or two to take out guys like him, because wagons are best rolled over people actively protesting the fact of their bodies being crushed beneath the wheels. Or something.

Hoopla's been question-dodging and contributing next-to-nothing since all her previous stuff. So. Can we please just lynch this thing already?

Hoopla>VV>>>>zoroaster - Maybe more >>>>s between zoro because I have a give-or-take neutral read on him and would prefer plenty of other players die before he comes up.

What's your opinion about Troll's complete and total tunneling on Day 1? Town or scum move?

Neutral leaning Town move, given that it's Troll. I assume he's capable of pulling out ideas which benefit the Town with few risks as scum, too, but I've seen him coming up with claiming ideas as Town directly. I guess if you seriously believe we have one or two Hiders who both chose extremely anti-Town play, in my humble, and you actually believe Troll was rolefishing as scum, maaaaaaybe you can see him as scum but that is so far-fetched &c. that I'm not counting it in my calculations at all, therefore decent Townread on Troll overall. And yes, at the time, when I thought one or remotely two Hiders were possibilities, I thought that the risks were so minimized that it was unlikely to have been a scum rolefishing ploy at all anyway. Hmm. Well, hold on:

How much would a hider claim hurt us do you think? Troll thinks that you be objecting to it just because it no be the normal thing to do to start a game? Troll thinks that you should at this point trust Troll's instincts to some degree when it comes to what claims might make sense.

PREVIEW EDIT @mith

And, yea, super hi-c tip is IF he flips scum which the magic 8 ball sure is pointing at EVEN THOUGH I would be absolutely surprised if he's scum I want you both dead for it.

He seems to say he thinks VV will flip scum and that it's unlikely in the same sentence. I'm assuming Spy was ON MOONBEAMS on that sentence but clarification would rock.

[Plumegranate]

Why are Spy and Hero having a long, drawn-out conversation about meta which has nothing to do with anything?

Because he went right off the crazy train and I was trying to figure out where he was coming from BUT ALAS VV decided to just see if he could twirl a handlebar mustache and if people would go "well, the guy with the bloody knife can't be scum too obvious".

This doesn't save me having to comb through things for a side conversation in a reread. But the way things are that can definitely wait soooooo.

Plum: I actually didn't know what the slip was supposed to be, I just felt like wagoning someone who seemed background-y I will say that I was really surprised to see it got votes like that, it was probably useful for that alone.

This makes me feel better about you than some of the other Zoro-wagoners. Getting v. good townvibes from this post, I gotta say.

Hero, as much as I am not grooving with Kmd this game (:() that wagon wouldn't have gotten my support over Hoopla or even VV today.

Zito: When I say Zor I mean Zoro. Zorblag is Troll to me . His tunneling . . . well, I wasn't too worried about it. I could see why he found you scummy and agreed with him, somewhat. It looks more worrying than I think could really be the case - ignoring the early pushing with the Hoopla wagon, for the most part, looks bad, but it's hard to say how he'd have continued if it weren't for the scummeet V/LA he was on. Is it possible Troll did the Hider-claim tango as scum? Possible, but as I explained I think overall the idea was more Troll-town (though that's based on the decent reward/low risk take I have on the claim itself, which you strongly disagree with). THAT said I agree with most all of your stances thus far Day 1 otherwise. Hmmmm. Maybe I'm thinking too hard and this is really just a metastatized theory disagreement between the two of us.

In other news, Herodotus has now claimed scum twice. I do not believe that townies make jokes about being scum, unless they're elvis_knits. It's something you do as scum to release the stress of being caught. And the stress of being caught bus'ing.

I suppose I could vote KMD; but I'm more confident in the bus driver being scum, than the guy being squished into the asphalt.

unvote, vote: Herodotus

I think I missed these two instances. Probably my fault. I'll look for 'em later or something . . . I'd need context to judge, but DGB's theory here is legitimate.

I also dislike Mrs. Plum for voting ooba instead of other people.

Miss Plum, who has not yet experienced the joys of matrimony, hasn't been voting ooba for . . . over a week. Que? You seem to have made multiple minor errors in that post by accident.

Bonus scumpoints to Ekim for joining the Zoro wagon for weak evidence and his reiteration of the case, this time with quotes, afterwards when he unvotes Zoro to vote Kmd (WTH, was there even more support for Kmd-wagon than Zoro-wagon then?) makes it seem more forced, and like he's more hung up on justifying his vote. There wasn't much content in between, either. Eyes on the prize for Hoopla, buuuuuut Ekim warrants looking-at tomorrow.

PREVIEW EDIT: I'LL GET TO HOOPLA'S MEGA-POST ASAP.

But I'll be V/LA until about Friday. I'll be in Washington and don't expect to have any access.

[Plumegranate]

Hey guys. I'm back.

I read the first few pages of the thread, and I'm going to be continuing (and hopefully concluding) my read-through this evening.

Plum has also summarized what has gone on in-thread for me, but I do want to get my own grip on the game. More later.

-Pom

[Plumegranate]

Hoopla's mega post was POWERFUL WIZARDRY.

Vote: ekim

FoS: Plumen, Vas, KMD

You win some, you lose some, but an EkiM wagon could

go places

. Zito's ooba vote is understandable, but overall Ekim's behavior with the focus of Zoro's alleged slip, and the focus on reexplaining his position thar.

Sera, I'm not certain wagon-hopping is scum-VV or imply plain old VV. I sympathize with you on the attempts to discredit the wagon on him in ludicrous ways, certainly, but am having doubts, partly because [REDACTED].

The use of the janitor means that the scum had much less reason than usual to avoid the Hoopla wagon (though if the competing wagons (zora, Vas and to a lesser extent KMD) were on townies, they also had little reason to care enough to be on it.) However, they DID bother to cover up Hoopla. The question is, why?

Because it was used on a presumable townie, this doesn't matter as much as it could have, but in theory, the janitor role made the scum have slightly less incentive to bus each other before it was used. Using it on the first member of their team to be lynched would have been the sensible play.

While it's possible scum used the Janitor in an attempt to disguise a bunch of them piling onto her, I'm inclined to think that something akin to normal distribution (that is, without most/all of scum on or off the lynch wagon) is most likely. Long-term risks of extended shady associations is fairly likely. Maybe my thinking is colored by the fact that just now I've become fairly confident in Kmd-Town for obvious reasons, never thought Zoro was much scummy, and am having doubts about VV, but. Simply casting doubt on the motivations of the Hoopla wagoners and those who avoided the wagon, and the prospect of drawing the Town into a maelstrom of WIFOM about that was probably enough, and that's why Hoopla acting scummy actually drew them into doing it, and why the gambit worked. I suppose it's a combination of 1 and 3 according to your classification, but. I don't think the conclusions are that scum were voting Hoopla much more heavily than usual on a popular Day 1 mislynch.

Vig shoots Elmo tonight is obv the best plan.

Was inclined towards Elmo-scum, but he's been pretty reasonable overall here, and then again what sort of Vig takes out TAJO of all people last Night? Above plan takes care of those worries, and I'm all for removing WIFOM headaches with bullets.

[Plumegranate]

Greaat, now that I'm actually trying to be useful, people attack me for trying to be useful. Geez, you people are hard to please.

Vote: ooba

@Seraph: Daytalk. If you've played scum with Daytalk before, you'd know that I don't have daytalk. Do you honestly believe that my scumbuddies would coach me to be dense and play like I did? Don't you think that maybe after like, the 3rd or 4th vote they would've 'Yo Vas, stop BWing lol'. And when people started calling me out on Daytalk, do you think my scumbuddies would say 'Yo Vas, attack everyone attacking you lol.'

I feel like this is a bunch WIFOM and AtE all mixed up together. Or something.

-Pom

[Plumegranate]

So, where I'm at right now...

Town

(in no particular order)
DGB
Elmo
KMD
Hero
Troll
VV

Everyone Else

ekiM
Ellibereth
mith
MME + SK
ooba
PZ
Plum
Seraph
Spy
Zora

What puts VV into Town? I mean, he's not that scummy, but I don't see why he's town.

[Plumegranate]

Because if you're not scum, the only other option in this game is town.

Why do you ask if you don't think he's scummy?

What Kmd said in 865.

Also, I didn't say that VV isn't scummy; I said that he isn't

that

scummy. Read carefully.

[Plumegranate]

Vote: VasudeVa

.

He's lurking, and not doing anything productive when he does post.

Rhinox isn't making any sense defending him.

Kmd is town.

And I don't know if Plum shares my opinion on any of this.

-Pom

[Plumegranate]

EBWOP:

She doesn't especially. Pom, I'm going to sit you down on the bus to school tomorrow and talk about stuff like me having doubts on my previous VV read today, because we haven't had enough communication about this game since you came back. Suffice to say thatI am being persuaded partly against my will of something akin to a too-scummy-to-be-scum-argument, except it's more like too-attention-grabbing to be scum. It's one thing in a small game (where there's little leeway for policy/VI/annoying playstyle lynches/misvigs), but in a Large game like this - one where scum-VV would

know

there's a Vig who'd like as not be perfectly happy to shoot someone who plays like that Day 1, Day 2 - I do think we would be seeing something less provocative, less 'full of buzzwords' to paraphrase Rhinox. I have reservations about this, especially re: dearth of scumhunting as noted by Seraphim and ooba and all, but. Am questioning myself on a lot of things.

I joined the zoro wagon because... that's the one I liked best. I thought the slip could be good evidence and I thought the Hoopla and VV wagons were garbage. I didn't have any amazing revelations to start a new wagon a few days before deadline.

I reiterated the evidence later because mith asked people to explain why they liked which of the popular wagons. I moved to KMD because the zoraster wagon had died, and Hero seemed to think the KMD one might have some life if people started joining it.

Not seeing how any of this is scummy.

You argue eloquently. And your play since has been . . . more palatable? My scumread on some of your stuff may have been improperly exaggerated by my differing theory opinions.

We have a dearth of Zoro and Troll in this game. I'm trying to give Troll the benefit of the doubt because I don't recall seeing this from him before ever, Town or scum, but it's hard to update my read on him from 'a little tunnelly on Zito Day 1 (biased because I now have a confident Townread on Zito?)' without new stuff. Please SK I haven't got much read on yet, I have a mith Townread but I'm not sure if it'd be easy to get a scumread on him &c. This game is starting to wear on me.

UNVOTE: VV
VOTE: ooba

I'm going to sheep on Zito for a bit because he seems to have a clue and I certainly haven't been getting many warm fuzzy vibes from ooba in any case; he was another very questionable zoro-wagon hop yesterday. But. frustration. Lingers. Sorry for the schizo after Pom's post, but. Sister's don't always agree.

[Plumegranate]

I think you're being coached to play like this because it will make it difficult for you to be lynched so long as they continue to play the too scummy to be scum card. I postulate that scum may even be using you to draw the vig with your play.

WHAAAAAAAT? EXPLAIN NOW PLZ.

[Plumegranate]

I think you're being coached to play like this because it will make it difficult for you to be lynched so long as they continue to play the too scummy to be scum card. I postulate that scum may even be using you to draw the vig with your play.

WHAAAAAAAT? EXPLAIN NOW PLZ.

Whoops. Looks like there was a giant hole in my logic there, lol. I'm pretty sure there was more to that point so I'll expand on that.

It's a win-win situation for scum. Have VV act in a VI-ish manner. Players dismiss him as VI. He isn't a strong player anyway, so if he comes under heavy scrutiny, they can bus him easily. Also, if there's a lot of noise about VV in the thread, that might help overshadow the other scum in the topic and make VV a more likely vig target.

It's incredible speculation and there's no real basis behind it besides my speculation.

WAIT. Let's take a look. Let's say you came into this game and drew scum with two other players and VV. Do you decide to

a) Give the Town a Vig and help VV be less of an obvious Vig choice (possibly, knowing his tendency to act the VI, decide to help him avoid the drawbacks of his playstyle pre-game)

b) Not give the Town a Vig and let VV's VI-ish manner run its course

c) Give the Town a Vig and encourage VV to look like Vig bait so that everyone else will be less likely to be Vigged with the contingency plan to bus him hard if he comes under scrutiny (but what if he never gets quite to that point during the Day and gets Vigged?)

There are two vaguely logical answers. Two ways a scumteam with VV would be likely to behave in order to minimize the risks to the team. But answer c) is NOT one of them.

There are decent points against VV, but this is

not

one of them. The fact is that you're stretching the case WAY BEYOND any logical explanation of VV's play. It

is

incredible speculation. Not credible. The very idea that you have this thought process going on is almost beyond credibility; I'll have to be reading SK's case on you in depth soon (skimmed the new stuff at school but haven't really read/responded).

[Plumegranate]

Seraph is not the lynch for today. I've been going back and forth on this, but I don't think scum have to try that hard to get VV lynched. It'd be easier to get rid of the opposition to the VV lynch, and then grab it later when someone suggests that VV is way to scummy to let get anywhere near endgame and the policy lynch commences. I'd have expected scum in seraphs position to abandon the VV wagon today and get a wagon going on me for example a couple pages

Proooobably . . . I've been going back and forth a little in my head about Seraph's super-tunnelling (well, to the point that he made those incredible stretching arguments about scum-VV being set up as Vig-bait, even if he did take them back after the utter dsfgfsgfhskj.hfsaness was pointed out).

What's interesting about this list is that the only one who makes a public, confirmable action is... the vig. What, then, would happen if the roleblocker correctly chose to block the vigilante? Why, the scum would then know that they had found the vig.

In other words, rolecop + roleblocker + nightkill gives the scum three chances per day/night cycle to find the hidden vigilante, making it virtually impossible for the vig to stay alive and safely hidden. And ooba was the one who advocated for this.

This

was what I was sheeping on you for? I mean, it looks honest enough coming from you, but I don't see a stroke of genius here - mostly because the Roleblocker is limited-shot and the scum would thus be less likely to use it blindly (I agree that the only case in which they would do so would be to find the Vig, but I think it's more likely that they'd want to conserve the shots to some degree and not risk wasting them). Honestly, the combo was Hoopla's first choice initially, mith's second choice, Tajo's initial choice, and Troll also expressed initial approval of the notion. Simply put, I'd be hard-pressed to see that initial thought process as anything but null, just given that.

I'd say I'll do a better reread of the ongoing VV/Seraphim argument but in fact I have such little desire to, and such a feeling that at this point in the game it's not worth it at all, that I probably won't.

So maybe it got lost in the shuffle, but are we completely leaving the elmo tajo thing alone? It seems like in our quest for information, this might be a good place to start, especially since we know they have a roleblocker.

Is this player even

pretending

to read this game?

I have to go out to learn to drive now, but what I certainly

will/i] be doing later today is a Zoro reread.

[Plumegranate]

We shall never find out

The scum will take the secret to his grave

obviously I'm a bit biased, but this type of semi-joke (said meant to be serious but in a humorous way) is DGB scum at her core.

Regardless, what Elli (and now mith) have asked for is time consuming given the amount of review it takes. It will come, but posting "heh heh he's not posting on it" ain't going to make it happen faster.

This is getting ridiculous. If you're going to tunnel on DGB all game in lieu of doing

something

(I'm not picky; analysis of even one player who's a top wagon right now would suffice; I know the game is big and dense and scary but heck, a bit of basics ought to be doable) at least pick out things which aren't null-DGB, y'know?

UNVOTE:

VOTE: zoroaster

zoroaster>>ooba>>>DGB>>>>>>>VV

[Plumegranate]

Quick post, busy today.

Zoro's big post is null leaning scummeh - there are extremely Townish I'm-at-L-1 posts and there are others, and this one's definitely an other. It's unlikely he's playing dumb, but ignorance of stuff like that is pretty null if you're skimming everyone in ISO and/or skimming the game. Though ekiM brings up a good point about Zoro not even knowing much about what he's curious about, and the apathy towards the game that shows while complaining loudly about how he'd read through 30-odd pages just like we asked is somewhat incongruous. Just see here again:

What a load of horsehockey. You ask me to read effing 30 pages of stuff and come up with a post on every person (you being whoever was asking -- elli and DGB in particular). I have done that. If you don't particularly like it, so be it. I'm not particularly detached from the game. I've read each and every person as carefully as I can manage. If you're not particularly interested in that read, that's fine. But to simply yell "detached!" without actually elaborating why (you have made no effort to say what the relevant posts are. there are a lot. It's not just me not wanting to delve in, it's not having a clue what you're actually talking about) is ridiculous.

Violently protests about not being detached, protests that he did what we all wanted him to, while actually not reading clearly enough to see the major revelations which are the reason why, as he asked, we are 'Accusing mith of trying to take any venom from the reads is laughable, considering the general lack of bite in the reads to begin with'.

V/LA through Saturday night/Sunday morning. Jewish New Year and all.

[Plumegranate]

God prods.

Simple explanation: I'm an idiot. In my defense, to my knowledge KMD has never actually outright claimed tracker, he just made statements of certainty. Regardless, it's something I should have caught, I suppose.

If you've read close enough to see statements of certainty, there's NO way (as illustrated by ekim above) that you could have missed the fact he actually was a tracker. Maaaybe while it was going on, but no way in a reread.

The QT angle makes little sense - why, WHY, would they say in this group under pressure to play dumb versus speeding things up?

Unvote, Vote: Zor

I (Pom, that is) find that this looks more opportunistic (and makes less sense) than mith's vote.

[Plumegranate]

I agree with KMDarian2.

WE CAN DO THIS

unvote, vote: mith

This is the stupidest thing I've ever seen and scummy to boot.

[Plumegranate]

Everyone: Go read DGB's 1180 ("your conclusion ought to be that zoraster's lack of attention is a NULL-TELL at best"), then her recent post ("that ignorance of the game is often a scumtell"). Then read Kmd's argument, and mine, and see that she keeps claiming she agrees with Kmd while the reasoning that follows shows she does nothing of the sort. Then vote her, because she's scum scum scum. Then, give me money. (Hey, worth a try, if you're with me this far...)

Plus her strong suspicions of Zoroaster Day 1-Day 2 capped by a jump on the mith wagon which was formed in response to mith getting

onto

the Zoro wagon ... it just stank of glee at the idea of a wagon on mith (who'd been on her to various degrees the whole game) completely disregarding any sincere feelings about either Zoro or mith.

IAUN is Town; when I have time I can try to respond more fully by looking into his case on Rhinox properly, but as he also came to the conclusion that DGB is very likely scum I think that while he may be right about Rhinox/DGB scumbuddies, the play today is definitely DGB. To the people who speculate on DGB/mith scumbuddies, mith has been anti-DGB enough, and consistently enough, that I find it very unlikely and verging on MOONBEAMS - I'll see if I can find time to dissect why later. In any case, anyone who finds them both scummy, especially Townies who find them both scummy (*cough* KMD *cough*) should hold any long drawn out wall-o-arguments against mith for now (argh, too late) and concentrate on

lynching DGB

. Most players find her very scummy, but too many are consolidating around distractions. Because that's what this is doing.

tl;dr give mith some moola. VOTE: DGB

V/LA through Monday, will try to find time to post but don't count too much on it.

[Plumegranate]

Stepping outside the game for a moment...

Kmd, in all sincerity I hope that when my alignment is revealed as pro-town - whether that happens at the end of today, or on a later night or day, or at the end of the game - you resist the urge to brush this fiasco off as a "oops, guess I was wrong, my bad, teehee" moment and seize the opportunity to take a good hard introspective look at your play and your logical reasoning skills (or lack thereof).

We all make mistakes, in Mafia and elsewhere. Everyone gets bad reads. It happens (a lot), and it's ok. What's not ok is for you to get the tunnel fever like a newbie, despite multiple third parties telling you your case is rubbish; determination in the face of reasoning isn't a badge of honor, it's just stupidity. What's not ok is for you to decide that you've "got enough of a feel" and don't need to share your thoughts on the other players, or ask insightful questions, or otherwise contribute to the game beyond your pathetic tunnel and an acknowledgement that you might have to move your vote at deadline. That's not... [actually, I don't know what "good" thing you could think the position you've taken in 1284 represents, but whatever it is, stick it here], it's just bad play.[/patronising tone]

Now that I'm finished talking down to Kmd, can we get on with lynching DGB?

Mith is town.

What do you think of his reads?

[Plumegranate]

Stepping outside the game for a moment...

Kmd, in all sincerity I hope that when my alignment is revealed as pro-town - whether that happens at the end of today, or on a later night or day, or at the end of the game - you resist the urge to brush this fiasco off as a "oops, guess I was wrong, my bad, teehee" moment and seize the opportunity to take a good hard introspective look at your play and your logical reasoning skills (or lack thereof).

We all make mistakes, in Mafia and elsewhere. Everyone gets bad reads. It happens (a lot), and it's ok. What's not ok is for you to get the tunnel fever like a newbie, despite multiple third parties telling you your case is rubbish; determination in the face of reasoning isn't a badge of honor, it's just stupidity. What's not ok is for you to decide that you've "got enough of a feel" and don't need to share your thoughts on the other players, or ask insightful questions, or otherwise contribute to the game beyond your pathetic tunnel and an acknowledgement that you might have to move your vote at deadline. That's not... [actually, I don't know what "good" thing you could think the position you've taken in 1284 represents, but whatever it is, stick it here], it's just bad play.[/patronising tone]

Now that I'm finished talking down to Kmd, can we get on with lynching DGB?

Mith is town.

What do you think of his reads?

--

So who is Calcifer an alt of?

[Plumegranate]

This page is the best exchange.

And, again, I don't think I really need to go hunt them all down when he's nice enough to do it again here. "I'm scummy, so people think I'm scum, thus I don't play and everyone attacking me is scum"

No, I meant scum are likely to attack me(since I'm easy to attack and all.).

Well, this isn't a productive post.

--

Kmd: Wait, and what do you thin thik of DGB?

Didn't you think she was scum?

[Plumegranate]

*think

[Plumegranate]

Ugh. We're gonna work on a post together soon, but... ugh. I'm so confused an behind in this game.

[Plumegranate]

Ugh. We're gonna work on a post together soon, but... ugh. I'm so confused an behind in this game.

^^^
C'mon gaiz

The I'm-confused-and-behind defense...

I'm so disappointed...

This being said I'll be around to help an ooba lynch, I don't think ooba is scum, but I can't say that I'm getting town vibes from him either.

That was Pom posting, and given that I've done the bulk of the work in this game even since she's come back from camp I don't think she's ever

not

been at least a bit confused and/or behind in this game.

I suppose I'm disinclined to believe the wagon analysis, given that (subjectively) it failed in terms of analyzing me, and Kmd gets a pass for being obvtown anyway and also the fact that trusting wagon analysis is his sort of thing. But Kmd, you

still

don't get a pass for not voting DGB even though you think she's scummy. Seriously, she's scum. I don't care about your catfight with mith, which I guess is a big part of why you're not trusting your scumread on DGB, and it's not a good reason my gosh. Back to my point: this wagon analysis has been a lazy way for everyone to say 'oh, pretty colors, well, DGB must be right' without offering any analysis . . . I'm less than impressed by this bandwagon here.

I'm really struggling to identify scum in this game. Right now, I've got Spy and Ellibereth as my top 2. [...] leaving just plumpom as potential scum.

My top two are Spyrex and Plumpom, are we ready to negotiate their surrender?

Yeah okay I was doubting Spy for a bit but then Fate came in and reminded me that all the love of a Town-SpyreX is right here, it's just me wishing there'd been more of it spooned out yesterday.

I KNOW I WAS CALLING PLUM SCUM BEFORE WAGON ANALYSIS TOO BUT I HAVE TO/...awgerfvawrkagbatehaethnatenblfaebnanteq
just give me a little more time. >.>

Elli, I've been patient with this for ages, but you

do

realize that the only thing Tajo found scummy about me was me voting ooba that late that long Day 1 - something I

didn't actually do

?

Their move to the zoras lynch ..

Re: why you thought a DGB/mith pairing was plausible yesterday - But you didn't notice that DGB shamelessly votehopped onto mith in the middle of the zoro wagon?

...because the point system is mathematically naive.

It's doesn't have to be complicated, it has to be EFFECTIVE. And effective it is.

Citation? For the people out there who like votecount analysis, how does DGB's method differ from yours/your preferred method, if at all?

Pom case on VV in post 921 is bad. Way too much going on to peg someone for lurking. It's interesting that Plum puts a halt to it in the next post.

Yeah, dude, we're sisters, we disagree pretty often (plus Pom didn't have as much familiarity with the context plus then I had an insight about VV's playstyle in a game where the scum chose a Vig).

Plume I don't see much from you, what's your scum/town list atm?

Approximately something like this, from Towniest to scummiest. It's a bit arbitrary in the middle.

8). Kmd4390
9). mith
12). iamausername (replacing Papa Zito) ~ 18). HackerHuck (replacing VasudeVa)
3). Fate (replacing ekiM)
17). SpyreX
15). Rhinox
4). Ellibereth ~ 20). AdumbroDeus (replacing Zorblag)
16). Seraphim (replacing Slicey) ~11). ooba ~ 10). PokerFace (replacing My Milked Eek)
2). DrippingGoofball

- Plum's VV vote an unvote is suspicious esp. since the unvote paragraph is a lot of words with no real stance. I would feel vindicated if HH was the fourth but leaning on unlikely since he had a choice between DGB\Plum and chose Plum..

I beg to differ on the "no real stance". I realized then that with scum knowing there's a Vig in the game, scum-VV is very unlikely given his playstyle. That was certainly a stance, and one which multiple players in this game found useful in the course of all the debates about VV. An L-1 vote for this? All of a sudden? I understand wanting to make sure you don't get wagoned again today (I GUESS), but it stinks of taking HH's feelings and recycling them as an excuse to vote me. I'm not amused.

PlumPom in case you were skimming you are at L-2 now, there is no need for you to claim

That's special, dear!

I'm not opposed to Plum but thats more of a MORE WORDS versus ooba/mme which I'm pretty sure there's done be a scums up ins.

</3

What do you mean you're not opposed to me????

2 days.
Ooba or Plumen.
People need to start choosing.
Nao.

Given a choice, ooba. Given a better choice, DGB dammit. I'll try to make a recap case on her tomorrow and if that doesn't work I've seen worse second choices than ooba . Oh wait, before I forget, just to keep things a little bit tidy -

Fruitsisters are still a good wagon. Don't worry about Ooba soiling the wagon. I know Fate understands what bussing is. Take a look at them in iso. The activity has seemed to really drop off after Day 1. From the most recent posts, I don't like their entry onto the DGB wagon. It seems to be based on Mith's assessment of DGB's alignment, which isn't too bad, but I don't like how they ignored the large case that IamAUserName put forward on his entry into the game. Considering they think he's town, I would have expected them to use it to support a case, but they instead look to ride Mith's coattails. Someone who really suspected DGB, would have picked that up, so I get the feeling that they were just looking for a reason to jump on the wagon and tied themselves to Mith.

I wish I had more time/enthusiasm to dissect long wallposts - if I did iam's stuff would top my list. As it stands, a general readthrough of it was enough to strongly convince me that Iam is Town. The DGB case was based on my own observations of DGB's behavior yesterday with the Zoro wagon. She's been pushing for it most of the day, happily encouraged it to reach L-1, and

then

when mith joined it and other people started going 'hey mith is scummy' she was like 'no I prefer the mith wagon based on mith agreeing with a lynch I like'. And

then

on top of that yes, mith's observations about her flip-flopping on exactly what she didn't like about mith on that wagon was a cherry on top. If mith's driving a wagon I approve of for various reasons including his and I advertise a wagon as being driven by him because I think it'll actually net a lynched scumbag, well, as they say WHOOOOOOOSH.

[Plumegranate]

</3

What do you mean you're not opposed to me????

You've been off the grid WAY too much here and I don't like it.

However, I like the majority of that post and maybe a few more will direct this hard and solid back at ooba (or VV sigh) where it should be.

I could say the same to you, dearest pot (especially given VV not even being on the grid anymore), but this kettle isn't interested in going around in circles.

[Plumegranate]

Plum, get back on DGB. There's still time.

UNVOTE:

VOTE: DGB

LET'S ROCK THIS.

Ooba, nice job skulking about my wagon.

[Plumegranate]

Sticking firm with the plum wagon unless the deadline approaches (about 3 hours, 30 minutes atm) and we still don't have a lynch, but I dunno if I'll have a chance to log on then.


At least the flip will be very useful regardless of the side.

So this needs a WHAT. Cop-out of responding to what appears to be a 1-for-1 dichotomy and keep talking about me? Don't even mention DGB's claim or Rhinox or anyone?

FATE you're calling early distancing, or Troll actually setting up early distancing? That . . . admittedly wouldn't have been my first interpretation, but given scummy AD I say let's go.

VOTE: AdumbroDeus

[Plumegranate]

I would think that this should be obvious by now...

I'm not scum, I'm just the resident VI. I wasn't prepared for the level of play in this game, tried my best to figure it out, but in the end wasn't good enough. Do a bit of research both here on smashboards on my meta, I'm a much stronger scum player then this, the only other game where I really played badly was where I got lost as town (of God's and Men).


I would've never protected DGB if I was scum, I've opened cases against my scummates on more then one occasion.

Wait, WTH? Don't go playing the VI card on me, mister. Now, an actual defense would be appreciated.

[Plumegranate]

Was that a lynch, or am I counting incorrectly?

[Plumegranate]

-- a) I paired everyone with DGB - I saw an iam\DGB pairing early in the day but then dropped the connection. The you\DGB connection is still valid. Who else did I spot DGB connections with?
-- b) Voting plum - When I didn't see iam\DGB anymore, I moved.

Wait. Your method of scumhunting is stupid; I don't remember well enough whether this is really your MO (to practice it to this effect and degree, anyway) but in any case you didn't analyze DGB herself, but instead decided that more possible connections were available with her so you voted her. Then suddenly you drop it and vote me to L-1 because I might be in a different possible group? How did you choose whether a Fate/DGB team was more or less likely than a mith/Plum/Rhinox pairing? Argh my brain is melting.
- Other Fruit

[Plumegranate]

Either I am a (Vanilla) Townsperson, or I am the Vig and think there is enough of a chance that I can get two shots off to warrant my staying hidden.

IT IS TIME TO DO THIS RIGHT DAMNIT FATE

AND WHEN HE FLIPS TOWN THEN WHAT?

YOU'LL BE ALL "ZOMG VEZOK WAS TOWN??" AND SULK THE REST OF THE DAMN GAME INSTEAD OF BEING OBVTOWN.


LYNCH SERAPHIM, DO I NEED TO QUOTE MY FIRST POST WHERE I SAID IT WOULD CONFIRM IAM+HH???

OR OOBA OF COURSE, BUT APPARENTLY MITH IS TOO POWERFUL AND WON'T ALLOW SUCH A FEAT TO BE ACCOMPLISHED BY MERE MORTALS.

I would be happy to lynch ooba today with you but welp, you haven't even voted him today so it was off the table before it even got to my plate.

Also maybe ego but I'm torn regarding mith's catch. On the one hand I'm not a scumslips kinda gal (we've been through this before) but on the other hand wacky scum gambitz have been in effect so it's that much more likely to end up causing confused scum to say something wrong about that (I'm picturing VV going 'ohcrudohcrudohcrud' in the scum quicktopic'). And yet and yet my question about VV scum is קל וחומר'd given that we have two Vigs.

I'm thinking too hard. Should probably just listen to the smart people. I mean, two of my favorite nice Townies, mith and Spy, have just AGREED that someone is obvscum, which is a nice warm fuzzy feeling.

Sleeping on it.

[Plumegranate]

<3

FATE, YOU TOOK ALL THE DESTROYING OUT OF IT FOR ME

WELL, ALMOST:

Also I do think PF's approach is much more sensible .. We've got to start thinking in threes i.e if you're voting HH, you got to have a possible scum team in mind ..

mith, Plumegranate -> Town
If HH is scum -> Seraphim, SpyreX are Town -> Too prolonged an attack from both for it to be a bus
Which leaves PokerFace, iamausername, Fate.

I'd put iam in as a buddy just for 1788. (Not voting)
The lynch vote and DGB-Fate banter seemed genuine but can't say for sure.

So list out your scum teams when voting ..

---

Meet you in 24 hours with re-read thoughts ..

So. Speculate about how things might line up if HH is scum and don't vote? Well, we're at L-1, I suppose. Do that sort of analysis but don't make it clear who your frakking top suspect is (follow - ooba just incriminated a bunch of people on the assumption that HH is scum and then left it ambiguous as to whether he actually believes that to be the case)???

And follow it up with 'lol reread' (which I've been hearing ALL GAME from your corner, come to think of it)????

Yeah no.

HH is maybe-scum (but either way he's certainly on MOONBEAMS). Not important, because as HH himself pointed out, lynching right today is pretty critical and ooba is obv-scum.

VOTE: ooba

Oh, cherry on top:

- How would you reconcile DGB avoiding the second biggest wagon other than hers to vote me (end of day play)?

B-b-b-but I thought the bussing was faked so well!

[Plumegranate]

I had you up until the loins stirring.

[Plumegranate]

Hey ooba, nice to see you. Where's that catchup post, eh?

[Plumegranate]

HH, 've been waiting for a bunch of days for ooba to get hammered.

BE A HERO, HH.

[Plumegranate]

DAMMIT STUPID HYDRA THING

---

Okay so. We have too many of my Townreads left, but that's okay because a game recently ended in which that also happened. Lo and behold it was because someone got on there for mediocre reasons including what appeared to be early attack != bussing (I actually don't think he knew whether the guy was even on his team or not).

FATE and MITH keep their slots. mith for backwards attacking (that is, DGB's behavior towards him as opposed to his behavior towards DGB). Fate for being obvtown DESPITE BREAKING MY HEART YESTERDAY ENCOURAGING HH LYNCH FOR THE LULZ .

PF is the only guy here I

haven't

had a strong townread on at some point and the slot hasn't really done

anything

I can remember really liking much this game. Maybe I'm biased, but for a while PF mosquitoed me with an ambivalent read blurring into the spectrum of suspecting me, which smacked a bit of a desire to set me up as a mislynch later in the game if it became feasible while not pushing anything too controversial or out of place in the meantime to earn scrutiny.

SPY
IAM

SPY might've been bussing ooba yesterday, and despite my desire not to go all paranoid about my townread on him

not

having had a scumbag on that wagon would be weird. Possible, I suppose, but. If there were one, he's easily and by the most likely guy on that wagon to be a busser.

IAM

wasn't

on ooba yesterday and pushed hard for the HH wagon and the early attacks on DGB did initially leave leeway to push Rhinox over her

and

to dismiss suspicion on DGB if he managed to push Rhinox to lynch when Rhinox flipped Town.

That whole sequence from 1938 to 1944 is icky. SpyreX looks worst, but I don't like that Fate goaded him into switching. On the other hand, what does scumFate gain from going so hard after scumooba? Maybe he thought HH would go down anyway (which is what happened, but it didn't seem likely until the very end; if HH had voted ooba instead of throwing himself on his sword in an endgame maybe we lynch ooba and go some way toward clearing HH).

That said, scum don't seem to know who the Vig is/outside chance that all their Roleblocking power has been used up already (but unless we assume that they went with a Roleblock-blindly Night 1 strategy,

after

the Hoopla gambit resulted in a completely wasted Janitor power). That means that if ooba had been lynched, we'd be like as not looking at:

ooba lynched Day 5

CTD (or other Townie, I guess) killed Night 5
HH killed Night 5

And by between 2-4 votes on the ooba wagon there was next to no chance ooba would get away without being lynched

or

Vigged (PF pushing an almost certain HH/ooba scumteam thar seems to be reinforcing that in case HH got lynched, and he never did move his vote to ooba even when the guy was in hammer range, amirite). Not going after ooba/pushing HH would be counterintuitive for IAUN scum given the above but. WIFOM late at night disagrees with me.

I haven't read everything yet that occured over the past few days but I

was am

considering voting ooba. I may be willing to drop the hammer once I'm all caught up, though there is one thing I'd like to say first

WAS/AM? HUH?

SPYREX? DAMMIT I DON'T LIKE MY HEART GETTING BROKEN TWICE IN ONE GAME SO. JUST LETTING YOU KNOW.

PF/SpyreX would be my first be because of all that plus onescum on/one scum off ooba and one scum on/one scum off the my Townlist makes more sense than both off ooba (IAUN/PF) or both on my Townlist (IAUN/SPYREX). But that's a bit aesthetically biased. AND HAVING SAID THAT

ekiM (1) -- Ellibereth
VasudeVa (3) -- Seraphim, ooba, SpyreX
ooba (6) -- Papa Zito,

VasudeVa, Plumegranate, Rhinox,

Kmd4390

, ekiM

DrippingGoofball (1) -- mith
Seraphim (1) -- SaintKerrigan

PAPA ZITO SCUM RIGHT HER

(when was ooba the leading wagon I don't remember that...)

I'd like to buy this because it's

also

aesthetically pleasing, and that's confusing me, but I'm waiting for the special on 'after IAUN and PF post WHOOOOOSH'.

One down.

One to go.

And then we can get our awesome on.

LET'S GO, IAUN.

[Plumegranate]

BOOM.

Scratch what I said about the votecount looking better with iam as scum.

Let's win this then.

WHEN FATE GIVES THE FREAKING GREEN LIGHT.

NUUUUUUUU. GET YOUR AWESOME ON ALREADY.

[Plumegranate]

Oh wait, I forgot the obligatory laughter at flailing SpyreX.

FLAIIIIIILOL.

That will be all.

[Plumegranate]

WHOAN OKAY WOW.

Fate, as weird as you made all of this, I love you for it, just saying (no one does this the way you do, you know). I wish I had more time/awakeness left in me to treat this, but given that I'm tired and all I'll preface this by saying I am not immediately sold on the idea of mith-scum because of the nature of DGB's interactions and behavior towards him as I remember them happening, but with your prompting I am very interested in giving this a better look through especially in comparison with the PokerFace lynch, which is where I was leaning before you went all Vig on everyone.

So Fate, I'm going to quiz you about the mith=scum thing and make sure it all lines up at the end, mmkay?

.... I mean I appreciate the effort put into seeing if there are mith/SpyreX connections but as you yourself are going back on the SoyreX being scum thing a bit

1. But here's my question - does mith REALLY dislike Vigs that much, or what? If there's an MD thread supporting this from a mith-theory point of view I'd certainly be interested. I'd also be

super-interested

in EV values for other sample distributions of the Town roles available for scum to give out. mith is obviously big on using that approach as the beginning of setup evaluation, so if there's a big difference between the EV of this setup and the EV of a few sample setups with no Vigs it might have relevance. If I wanted to kill myself right now I'd try to do it myself, but I value my health and sanity and I am already approaching bedtime.

2. If mith is scum, DGB's behavior at the end of Day 2 is simply bizarro.

Votecount

VasudeVa (2) -- Seraphim, ooba
ooba (1) -- Papa Zito
DrippingGoofball (3) -- Elmo, zoraster, mith
Seraphim (1) -- My Milked Eek
zoraster (4) -- ekiM, Plumegranate, Rhinox, SpyreX
Papa Zito (1) -- Herodotus
mith (3) -- VasudeVa, Kmd4390, DrippingGoofball

Not voting: Ellibereth, AdumbroDeus
17 alive, 9 to lynch.

Deadline: 11th of September, 6 am GMT

Maybe it's just me because it's where I realized that something was WRONG with DGB, but DGB switching off the Zoro wagon to jump like an opportunist on the mith wave
a) feels pretty damn opportunistic
b) why rock the boat on a Townie lynch with distancing/bussing which will cause you to stand out?

DGB still easily top suspect, but agree with Fate that ooba's response is scummy. Would vote him over Plumegranate (but that was already the case).

First Ooba is #2 candidate, then he'd rather lynch ME over a nulltell lurker? Mith clearly decided on having "read" ooba as careless town, and tried to stick consistently to that view except when I made damning points on ooba (and oh did I make them).

I'm almost certain mith meant he'd rather lynch ooba over me than you over ooba (that of the three wagons his preference was in order DGB>ooba>Plumegranate).

So. Following this I need to see mith's response to Fate's point about pinning VV as scum because he assumed about the Herod kill &c. and I need to look over DGB's actions towards mith. CTD's "cum-DGB gets bussed, that's pretty much a law of mafia. In my experience, it's hard to make sense of DGBs antics irregardless of her alignment unless you're scum with her. Hence why it's usually easier for her scum-buddies to see her scum-moves for what they are than it is for a townie" post might be right, but that still only tells us that mith can be scum despite his positions on DGB. I need to give a damn good check on vice-versa with DGB and ooba. ESPECIALLY ooba because he was really lazy which means his behavior towards his scumbuddies might've mimicked itself in a way easy enough to discern, so we can do a comparison of ooba's behavior towards DGB vs. ooba's behavior towards mith (and also with DGB).

Just on skimthrough from before (then I realized there'll be enough time to do that thoroughly later and I should see mith's reactions and such now):

Damn, DGB calling out mith as scummy Day 1 (while not freaking voting for half of Day 1? - but the time to kick myslef over lost scumhunting opportunities this isn't) and then remaining ambivalent and at-arms-length about it . . . doesn't look so good (though she also called out ooba as scummish based on this - would she distance from both of her buddies like that at once? It would be pretty low-risk in the short term, I suppose).

*offers hand to PlumPom*

Come up here ladies I hereby nominate you 2/3 of my Charlie's Angel's Town Squad of Awesome.

I love you too but I'm not putting on the ring until I make sure you have this right because I was not seeing this at all and I still remain - well, I'm not there yet, but I'm questioning heaps of things now, so let me let stuff sort, my dear Vig (and I'll officially forgive you for weird things like Vigging Elli whom you didn't think was scum? and not shooting ooba when we win this thing - for now it'll be unofficial but still).

^THIS IS PR DIRECTION PLAIN AND SIMPLE, AND GOT VIG ON VIG KILLING VIOLENCE TO OCCUR, BECAUSE HE KNEW THAT THE OTHER VIG INDEED SHOT TAJO (AS WAS SCUM'S PLANS WITH THEIR NOKILL) UNDER WHAT GUISE? WHO WOULD EVEN COME UP WITH THIS SORT OF PLAN AS TOWN?

Especially given the theory that scum no-killed Night 1. Huh.

The scum QT script made my day for sheer lulz.

AND GOOD LORD CONSIDERING WHAT HAPPENED YOU THINK SPYREX SCUM SAID YO LETS LYNCH A VIG THE OTHER SURE WONT SHOOT ME FOR IT JESUS.

Would depend on who the Vig would end up blaming if you did manage to lynch a claimed Vig so yeah.

That said, considering I'm on board with you about Mith we're going to have a frank talk about the series of events you bring up that flat don't make sense with me scum and you know it just rethink it good lord almighty:

1.) Why, WHY, would I have killed CTD? You say he suspected me but he only suspected me if I was right about VV. In fact, as scum I have even more reason to keep him alive BECAUSE of that.
2.) If the scum plan is two vigs for hilarity why in the name of everything would I want Elmo lynched considering a town flip is a giant red X on my skull?
3.) Considering D0, WHY would I ever let a D1 Jan go through? It was absolutely overvalued and WE BOTH KNOW that I would have milked that train forever.

So Spy agrees with mith=scum we know not why but counters some of the big ones with WIFOM-laced 'maybe him but not me'? It rings a bit 'you can suspect mith all you like but for the love of everything holy why would this implicate

meeee

? I saw you sorta recanted the SpyreX suspicions or whatever, Fate, and I'm not sure but you might've done that a little too quickly is all I'm saying.

<<Not countering

just so you know. I won't discuss how I feel about the claim until everyone else checks in and I'm all caught up on things

Translation: 'I'm here but I'm going to wait and see how everyone takes the claim and aftermath so I can adjust my reads and vote to go with the tide'?

Iam is still more shades of Town, not believing Fate at first out of belief that mith was soft CC-ing. Scum would know on Fate's claim that he was telling the truth and would be more inclined to let that color their reactions, so.

Hmmmm, mith regarding the apparent VV slip makes sense, especially given the note to self he made of the post well in advance. I am too tired to properly parse why I thought it indicated mith didn't have extra info but in any case he basically did seem to do the equivalent of 'this post rubs me the wrong way' back there. Also confirmation that Fate read something wrong which wouldn't have made sense from mith otherwise, but old news is old. I wish I were awake enough to understand Fate's response.

scummith would never ever allow a no-kill N1. (But scummith would never have given the town two Vigs in the first place. Vigs rule out suspects and give the town extra kills.)

Again, we really need to find out if this is likely or not to be true. If so, a scumteam of that makeup is relatively likely but not certain to follow mith's advice/lead on these sort of things.

I'm receiving clear internal and external signals that I need to go to sleep and this won't get much more productive, this post won't, not now.

But lemme get this straight. We lynch either scum today and neutralize the Roleblock either way - so that we won't have a scum kill without a prior or simultaneous Town-controlled kill, amirite? But if mith is Town, how is it okay again if we mislynch him? Okay, it isn't, but what motive has Town mith OR scum mith to say so? And how would mith make that sort of error at all? Wat.

Tomorrow I'll put it all together and make sure who makes sense as scum with what and lynch it.

[Plumegranate]

Dammit Fate. I know bizarro behavior with someone else doesn't mean not-buddies, especially with DGB.

But I

do

want to have some look at DGB and ooba ISO in regards to mith. It's possible I won't find anything conclusive either way, but I might and I want to believe you but there's a part of me that wants to check your work on the mith=scum thing.

[Plumegranate]

Okay Fate the quiz was what I was going to do if I had time/energy to do real ISOing last night but that didn't happen. That said.

Hold your horses about me not believing in mithscum. I wasn't sure. Slept on it. But mith's response on the Vigs thing seals it.

Plum let's discuss something and then hammer this chump.

So now you want discussion? I SEE THROUGH YOUR EYES, MY BROTHER.

VOTE: mith

FATE I commend this game into your hand. Find the last scumbag and shoot. I don't think it's IAM still.