The Lord of the Rings Mafia - GAME OVER (KABOOM)

[Locke Lamora]

Right, in everyone's first post, I want to know how familiar everyone is with LoTR.

Vote: gandalf5166

Clearly an alias to hide the fact he's scum.

[Locke Lamora]

Why are people assuming my question was only to get discussion started?

Incidentally, I've read LoTR 10+ times, the same with the Hobbit and I have read the Silmarillion once, a long time ago. When I was a kid I also read (and still own somewhere) some of the more obscure stuff, like Farmer Giles of Ham. I've seen all the movies a few times too.

Zwet: does your PM provide any flavour for why you're a miller?

[Locke Lamora]

Unvote; Vote: Nero Cain

Don't like the timing of that vote at all. Seems like he avoided voting Zwet in the first place, suspicion didn't really take off because multiple people said 'it's just Zwet, ignore him' and so he then pressed on with the vote to try and build Zwet pressure.

I think ME's Gandalf attack is pretty much just SSBF taking things too literally. As far as I remember, I get the impression he takes everything quite seriously when he plays.

[Locke Lamora]

Oh yes, I demand flavour for Zwet's claim.

[Locke Lamora]

Nero: in a flavour-heavy game, it can often be useful to know who's familiar with the flavour, particularly when it comes to the subject of claims. If everyone declares their knowledge - or lack thereof - at the start of the game, then you can't have scum later messing up a claim and saying it's because they're not familiar with the theme if they've already admitted they've read the books and seen the films, for example. It's also relevant when it comes to how players judge the flavour of other game events; for example, Maritya apparently not making the Gollum connection.

Why were you waiting for Wraith to answer your question before you voted for Zwet? What does one have to do with the other?

Maritya: did you have any thoughts at all about who the character might be who had 'strangled' as their kill method? If so, who? If not, why not, given that you were clearly putting some thought into who might have killed Haylen?

Rewq looks pretty scummy. 'Hey everyone, I've told Wraith that lurking is scummy and he shouldn't do it, can I have town points?'

[Locke Lamora]

Oh yes, I demand flavour for Zwet's claim.

Why?

suspicion didn't really take off because multiple people said 'it's just Zwet, ignore him' and so he then pressed on with the vote to try and build Zwet pressure.

I find it a bit hypocritical that you blast me for putting pressure on Zwet when you're doing the same thing.

Why were you waiting for Wraith to answer your question before you voted for Zwet? What does one have to do with the other?

This is a loaded question. Of course they have nothing to do with each other but I found both scummy and I wanted my question answered before I laid down my vote.

1. With these kinds of things, it doesn't really work if you tell everyone what you're looking for before the player claims.
2. It's got nothing to do with Zwet specifically. It's to do with you waiting to vote even though there was nothing from Zwet's slot between the two posts to change your read. You voted him for something that was true at the time he first claimed miller.
3. Perhaps you can enlighten me about your thought process. I didn't see you mention anything about whether you thought Wraith's response was satisfactory or not.

Rewq: your post did nothing else whatsoever, nor have I seen a great deal of scumhunting from you generally. That post specifically displayed a lack of interest in scumhunting.

LMP is also scum for focus on SK hunting and for going after Katsuki for doing something he's never seen her do as town or scum.

[Locke Lamora]

I was in Gorrad's Final Fantasy Mafia, where the scum had a one-shot daykill (they actually shot me as SK on D4, I'm still annoyed about that).

[Locke Lamora]

I'm leaning towards not believing Zwet right now.

Katsuki: what about Rewq? Null?

[Locke Lamora]

Mod: I'm moving house this week so I'm not going to have much time. V/LA until Friday.

[Locke Lamora]

Hi everyone, sorry for the absence, really pressed for time right now. Will attempt to get caught up as much as I can by tomorrow but in reality it'll probably be Thursday, when I get internet in my new place, before I can devote lots of time to the game.

[Locke Lamora]

Internet's back, I'm here and will be catching up right away.

[Locke Lamora]

Mari & SlySly: do either of you have flavour for why you're a voyeur/watcher?

On my first read back, I could definitely see jenniwren as a possible Katsuki-buddy. Top pick for WeirdRa-buddy based on D1 interactions...I would say Katy. CES's ISO gives me the distinct impression of many posts with very little scumhunting interest.

[Locke Lamora]

Mari: so you did. Sorry for missing it, bit swamped with catchup right now. Just doing a more detailed look over Katy while I wait for Sly to respond and here's a nice collection of quotes relating to WeirdRa:

I haven't read anything from WeirdRa in a while but see a lot of people suspect of him so that's one I have to go back and reread.

I've read up to now and don't feel the need to change my vote right now. I do still need to look closely at WeirdRa and figure out what's so scummy about them, because it still hasn't struck me yet.

Why are people suddenly in such a rush to lynch before a claim? I know deadline is coming up, but we have until Saturday, yes? I would prefer to give WeirdRa another night to claim since that player doesn't seem to have much time to post.

I want to second Wraith's request for people voting WeirdRa to say exactly why, I've read them in iso and I don't get it. Or at least, I don't see what's so different about them than any number of players in the game so far. I like my Gandalf vote much better for now.

Avoids making any kind of committal comment on the slot, stalls for time instead of doing so and finally tries to buy more time when WeirdRa's about to get lynched. Also pushes for Gandalf (and also Rewq) when the WeirdRa lynch is imminent.

[Locke Lamora]

So you did. In that case, excellent points, I agree wholeheartedly (in case you hadn't guessed I skimmed quite a lot as I read back).

[Locke Lamora]

Let's get it done. I don't think another direction change with less than 24 hours to go is a good idea.

Vote: a2rudeboy

[Locke Lamora]

Hi all, sorry for the absence yesterday. Obviously I'm way behind on this game, so I'm going to be looking back at people with suspect WeirdRa and Glork connections.

Katy: did you get any information about Gollum?/

[Locke Lamora]

Glork:

My strong impressions from Glork's posts are that he spends a lot of time distancing/bussing with WeirdRa and he also repeatedly calls InHim town, based on his meta read. For a long time he tries to tie Spyrex up with WeirdRa and he also touts VV repeatedly as a potential WeirdRa buddy. There's also a certain amount of Edge(Fate)-following going on.

A post of potential interest (known factions have been colour-coded):

Blah. After thinking some more, I'm starting to agree with Fate that maybe my suspicion of SpyreX is more because we are operating on completely discordant wavelengths than because Spyre is scum. Tentatively remove him from my list of People Who Need To Die.

I'll have more later, including a list of People Who Need to Post Or Perish. Quick version:

ME

, Jenn,

Locke

,

a2rude, SlySly

, mole, rewq,

bv

.

Exclusively from that, I'd say at least one Mordor scum in Jenni, Dekes and Rewq.

Glork, early on D2, comes up with this (bolded is obviously taking a shot at himself and pretty amusing, considering how strongly he bussed WeirdRa):

That said, I do not have terribly good feelings about Kats anymore.
Mari doesn't strike me as scum. She's definitely not scum

with

WeirdRa (

D1 wagoning in a two-scumgroup game is pretty terribad

, and Mari was really early on Weird).

I'd say that WeirdRa's lynch had at most one scumbuddy (probably middle of the road on the lynch), and 2-3 scums from the other group on it.

People Glork goes after once he's already bussed one scumbuddy into oblivion: Nero Cain, VasudeVa. He vehemently defends SlySly in the watcher situation, but tiptoes round Mariyta's claim - he does vote her, but then immediately unvotes, saying he could see how they're both town. He says that at least one of Mariyta/SlySly/Edge is scum due to them all being investigative roles. He casts doubt on Edge being roleblocked, then 'works out' that Edge wouldn't be in WeirdRa's scumgroup so has to scrap his Edge/VV/Weird scumteam.

WeirdRa:

His first vote is Wraith. He soon includes a scumlist of Mariyta, bv, Wraith, LMP (multiple times) and Katsuki. He says Jenni makes him feel 'tingly' in a bad way, but doesn't include her on his scumlist. Mariyta & Jenni win top buddy points for this post. Continues to target Wraith.

I'll ignore the targeting of SlySly and Gandalf, as they're both dead. Lists 'MSG and Katy' as likely Gandalf buddies. Questions Mariyta's read of him and LMP appearing to be bussing/distancing each other.

So, people I think are likely town based on Glork and WeirdRa's posts:

Nero Cain
VasudeVa
Wraith
Edge

Possible scum:

jenniwren
Mariyta
Rewq
Dekes

That leaves Katy and inHim. I think Katy is town based on her claim and bv's obvious confirmation of that mason status. I'm not really sure what to make of Glork insisting inHim is town. I'm going to have to look back over inHim for that.

[Locke Lamora]

You're pro-MC? Do you have some clever reason for getting around the fact that the Mordor scum will just kill the ringbearers and win?

[Locke Lamora]

What night?

[Locke Lamora]

I really don't like inHim's claim, mainly because of his choice of protection target. However, having looked back at the context of his WeirdRa vote, there are three wagons with 5 votes on and inHim makes WeirdRa the leading wagon, when Glork is already on that wagon. Now, given Glork's comment about bussing on D1 in a two scumgroup game, I'm not ruling anything out, but I certainly think this makes inHim a lot less likely to be Mordor-scum. Before I vote anywhere, I'd like an explanation:

inHim: why Fate over all the claimed roles?

Looking over people my WeirdRa/Glork ISOs turned up as potential scum, starting with MSG/Dekes:

Obviously very little of note from MSG, but he does random vote for Glork and there is one interesting comment:

@Glork:

Why are you voting for Memoria Esponia?

I would say it mostly has to do with ME being scum.

Is that a scumclaim?

Early game humour with a buddy? The emphasis is definitely on the joke rather than really thinking about making any actual accusation towards Glork. He's certainly not treating Glork's comment seriously, when what Glork has basically done is dodge the question entirely.

Dekes votes WeirdRa to put him at L-3. At this stage Gandalf is the only other viable wagon, and he's L-7, so I think attempting to save WeirdRa could have been too risky for scum-Dekes. Note that he expresses surprise that Rewq doesn't have more votes on him; at this stage it seems unlikely that he'd be setting up a lynch of another buddy in the same post as he's bussing a very powerful role for his team. He does back off Rewq fairly quickly on D2, however, saying his ISO "wasn't that much of a scumfest I had originally anticipated".

Next up he guns for Maritya, as she is brought to claiming pretty quickly. Once SlySly claims too, he expresses doubt of him and unvotes Maritya. He says he doesn't like bv not voting Sly after saying he's lying and he also states there are scum on Zwet's wagon. That wagon when Dekes makes his comment (this is more for later reference if Dekes turns up scum than anything):

Edge, SpyreX, Mariyta, Glork, Wraith, Nero Cain, bv310, Cogito Ergo Sum, rewq455

The currently living players not on it: inHim, jenniwren, Katy, Locke Lamora, VasudeVa.

Tries to get Nero lynched over a2, then hammers a2 at deadline and seems pleased Benmage isn't going to come into the game. Probably null, although if anyone has experience of town-Benmage giving Dekes a hard time, it'd be good to know.

Some interaction with Glork:

@Glork
I'm not buying the Edge = scum theory altogether. And your first theory would make no sense not only because the two cops being on one scum faction but do you really believe the first person Edge would "clear" would be his scumbuddy VV? A lot doesn't add up with your theory.

This pings my scumdar a little. Dekes has recognised that Glork's theory doesn't make any sense but doesn't seem to think it's scummy. Between this and his next post, Glork gets strangled, so Dekes goes straight on the offensive against Spyrex, suggesting that he is the SK.

Another snippet that I find scummy:

four scum per faction...I'm not sure if I believe that yet.

There's just something about this that suggests trying to hide scum knowledge about the setup. I can't quite put my finger on it, but I think it's the 'yet' - as though once everyone else has safe reasons to make the assumption of four scum, he'll be free to do so too. Now, once the Isengard team are done for, Dekes concedes Mariyta is town, as his whole case against her has been built on her links with Isengard-scum. That's all well and good. What bothers me about this is that he's spent a lot of the game looking for Isengard-scum and very little for Mordor-scum. We lynched Mordor-scum D1, yet there's a definite focus on the Isengard team in a lot of his connection-making, and his target of Spyrex for SK after the Glork flip potentially indicates a desire to get Gollum out of the way before he does any more damage to the Mordor team.

In conclusion, I find the MSG/Dekes slot quite likely to be Mordor-scum, and that also fits in with my WeirdRa/Glork reread.

Wraith: your description of this palantir situation seems very confused. Are you getting information from somewhere other than the QT that you're not allowed to talk about?

[Locke Lamora]

Mari, why do you think my comments about the Zwet and a2 wagons are an attack on Dekes? I was just reading back and seeing how he reacted to the situations. I even say that his a2 vote and comment on Benmage not replacing is probably null, unless there was evidence that Benmage typically gives him a hard time. If you can go back and point out where you think I'm stretching any of those points, please do. It looks to me like you haven't really read those parts of the post properly. As for the inHim protecting Edge topic, I must confess I'd forgotten that he was still maintaining the cop charade at that stage and inHim's protect isn't as implausible as I initially thought. Twp questions for you:

1. You state in post 1543 that inHim is cleared by VV, but in 1556 you seem to be trying to suggest his vote on you is scummy. Is that the case? If not, and you believe he's town, why say anything at all?

2. Was your read of the Edge-Katy situation that Edge didn't believe BV?

[Locke Lamora]

Mari: you begin to tire me. Sure, you can construe parts of my post that don't state specifically that Dekes is scummy to imply scumminess if you want. I can do the same thing with yours, like with your comments about inHim. What I actually did was asked you to clarify whether you thought inHim was scummy or not. You just used those comments in an attempt to make me look scummy for stretching, misrepresenting what I actually said in the post. What do you make of VV's reaction to my case? Do you think he's scummy for agreeing with it?

Something I've been thinking about is how many scum we're likely to have left. Some reasonably safe assumptions about the kill flavours:

Strangled - Gollum
Corrupted - weak doctor mis-protect?
Filled with arrows - Isengard - Lurtz/Ugluk
Bled to death - Mordor
Shot from afar - Haldir
Burned to death - Isengard - Saruman?
Eaten by a fellbeast - Mordor - Nazgul flavour

So, in my opinion, it's very likely that there are two members of the Mordor scumteam left. I also see it as less likely that Glork would bus WeirdRa so readily if there were only 3 members of their scumteam. I'm sure he's experienced enough to know that there was very little chance that they'd make it through the game with 2 players left after D1. Wraith gets scumpoints for suggesting that there's likely to be one. In that light, I've been looking back over Glork's posts again and this bothers me:

Wraiths is frustrated town but announcing that he is going to lurk is a big sign that says "VIG ME." The while self-pity thing has gone on since I first suggested he was scum, and it has gotten old fast. Post or perish.

This isn't the first comment Glork makes to try and encourage Wraith to contribute and a lot of their interactions after the early suspicion really do look like coaching. It definitely reads like Glork's trying to talk his buddy out of the meltdown and stop him looking so anti-town. The question is, was it a deliberate ploy to make us think coaching if Glork was later lynched/killed, or is it genuine? Wraith does seem to stall a bit on voting WeirdRa close to deadline. With just under four days to go, following a vote count showing Katsuki (his vote) at 5 and WeirdRa at 6, in post 739 he says:

Shit. Can we please decide on a lynch for today, and soon?

VV then switches to WeirdRa, putting the wagons at 7-4 in favour of a WeirdRa lynch, at which point Wraith decides to switch. Could definitely be a bus. I need to reread some more, but given these points and the fact that Wraith has already claimed, I could definitely back his lynch.

[Locke Lamora]

Wait, back up a minute. Something just occurred to me:

Mari: you said no-one visited Katy N1?

[Locke Lamora]

Sorry, that should say N2. It was Glork N1 (nothing), Katy N2 (nothing) and Edge N3 (nothing). That right?

[Locke Lamora]

Because there's quite clearly no case being made on me outside of PoE and the fact that I haven't contributed much. I apologise for my lack of posting earlier in the game and I'm doing my best to catch up in a lengthy game that I fell behind in. My activity has been consistent across the site, so I really think it's a null tell. If you think I'm scummy for other reasons, go ahead and make a case, but in a game where we have 2 scumflips from the team we're trying to find, saying I've lurked a lot and ruling out other players for flimsy reasons isn't going to cut it. And don't say I'm our 'safest' lynch - our 'safest' lynch would be a claimed vanilla who we're absolutely sure doesn't have a ring.

No, the reaction where VV says he agrees with my Dekes case.

Thanks for confirming the watcher targets. That brings me to my follow-up. Why do you think SlySly was so quick to counter-claim watcher?

[Locke Lamora]

Mari: so are you saying that you don't have other points to make against me? You said I was the 'safest' lynch. With all the information we have, do you not think that the 'safest' way to play would be to avoid outing another role whilst lynching someone we know doesn't have a ring? As for your reasoning: first, believing someone's claim does not make them town. You

think

we'd be lynching town. Without an investigation/other role-based information to back it up, that doesn't equate to knowing we'd be lynching town. Second, yep, I don't have a ring. Are you really so blind as to think that's the only thing that matters now? Third, to satisfy me that they're not flimsy, what are your reasons for ruling out the other 7 players to leave just Rewq, Dekes and myself? To me, it seems like some of them have been ruled out based on little more than buying their claims. Fourth, I'm town, and you're being lazy by not bothering to look back and make a case on myself or others. All you (and others pushing for my lynch, like Rewq) keep saying is that I've been inactive and lurky and you're actually putting very little work into analysing the game.

On VV: you called me scummy for apparently stretching points to make a case on Dekes and for appearing as though I was trying to help without actually doing so. VV agreed with this case you think is so insubstantial and scummy, so if he agrees with my points and he's not scummy, I assume you have a double standard, whereby my opinions are scummy but VV's aren't?

I'm going to run through the watcher/voyeur situation again and see what the logical conclusion is. I'm going to look at what Mari and Sly both say about their claims, how scum (largely Glork) respond to the situation and whether the wagon on Zwet had anything to do with Sly's motivations. First off, a VC when this all kicks off, as Mari has been almost run up to claiming:

Day 2 Vote Count 3

rewq455

- 2 - Katy, SlySly

Mariyta

- 8 - Nero Cain, jenniwren, Dekes, Wraith, Cogito Ergo Sum, SpyreX, Edge, rewq455

SlySly

- 1 - VasudeVa

Cogito Ergo Sum

- 1 - zwetschenwasser

SpyreX

- 1 - Mariyta

Not Voting

- 5 - bv310, a2rudeboy, Locke Lamora, inHimshallibe, Glork

Eighteen stand gathered, Ten votes will lynch (and nine will no-Lynch).

Votes on deceased players are not valid voting move.

In post 1060, inHim puts Mari at L-1.
1063: Mari, claiming she's dead already, states that 'no-one targeted Glork last night'.
1064: Rewq points out that it's still L-1.
1065: Mari says she thought inHim had a double vote, but maybe it wasn't in this game, and that someone would hammer anyway.
1074: Mari claims Glorfindel and that she's a voyeur, ie. she gets actions, not names.
1076: Glork says he's inclined to believe the ability but is 'uncertain of alignment' and that Mari's probably dead anyway.
1081: Sly posts briefly from his phone to say he'll later reveal why he thinks she's lying.
1087: Glork defends the phrasing of Mari's result after Edge attacks her and says he's leaning towards letting her live.
1088: Glork says no-one should hammer before Sly reveals why he thinks Mari is lying; also says he is not expecting a CC.
1090: Glork asks what the nature of Mari's result would be had she seen anyone target him.
1092: Mari says she would be told which actions she used and that's it.
1095: Spyrex unvotes and switches to Zwet.
1103: Sly returns and says that he's a regular watcher, not a voyeur, and that he targeted Katy the previous night, receiving no results, leaving the possibility of his being roleblocked open. Votes for Mari.
1112: BV says Sly is lying.
1117: BV elaborates to say that he targeted Katy and his action was successful.
1120: Sly falls back on the possibility of roleblocking and points to the two dead roleblocking roles that have already been revealed.
1131: Glork defends Sly and says he has 'little incentive to lie about his result'.
1133: Edge moves to Zwet.
1136: Spyrex moves back to Zwet.
1140: Mari unvotes Sly and moves to Zwet.
1143: Glork again defends Sly and says that as scum he has absolutely zero reason to put his neck on the line.
1148: Zwet says he doesn't see the reasons for his or BV's lynch and that one of Edge, Sly and Spyrex is manipulating everyone.
1151: Glork again points out that the claims are not mutually exclusive and asks that everyone judge them on their play, not the claims, and that we should be looking at Mari and Sly exclusively.
1152: I think I have to quote this in its entirety:

EBWOP: That said, I actually do think Mari is more likely to be scum than SlySly.

The only reason SlySly would counterclaim as a Scum Watcher is if he is already completely convinced that Mari is also scum. If he thinks there's even a chance that Mari is a protown Watcher, SlySlyScum keeps his trap shut. (Again, this assumes that SlySly isn't the Worst Player Ever, making a gambit worthy of policy-killing him in future games.)

So yeah, inHim. I'll give you that if SlySly is scum, I deserve a lot of attention. But here's my question to you: Do

YOU

see SlySlyScum counterclaiming to get Mari lynched? If so, do you think that Mari is also a scum watcher, or is SlySly throwing his own life away to get rid of one information role?

1153: Glork votes for Mari.
1154: Glork unvotes (9 minutes later) and says he could see them both being town, but also that inHim's point about them being of different factions is interesting and he expects them to both be scum.
1161: Mari makes a case on Zwet, essentially pointing out how little he's done.
1162: Glork votes for Zwet.
1163: Wraith votes for Zwet.
1164: Nero votes for Zwet.
1175: BV votes for Zwet.
1179: CES votes for Zwet.
1180: Rewq votes for Zwet.
1189: Sly says Zwet is vigbait and votes for Rewq.
1193: Sly saves Zwet with his governor ability.

So what can we draw from the situation? First of all, saving the Isengard roleblocker had absolutely nothing to do with Sly's thinking. The Zwet wagon was non-existent at both the time of Mari's claim and Sly's CC - the only change between the two is Spyrex's vote for Zwet, and that comes after Sly has said Mari is lying. It's also the case that Sly's pretty under the radar at this stage - there's no need to draw attention to himself the way he did, so I think he must have had some stronger motive. I think it's safe to conclude that one of the following is true:
1. Sly knew that Glork was targeted N1, most likely by Katsuki, although if anyone knows what a Vanguard role is, that'd be great to know.
2. Sly knew that Mari didn't do anything N1 because Katsuki roleblocked her/the Vanguard gave them some other information to the same effect. This would also have meant that Team Mordor had a good idea that Sly was scum.
3. Isengard-scum also had a watcher-type role (the Vanguard) and Sly thought that Mari's role was Mordor's version, so he tried to get her lynched and buy town points at the same time.
4. Sly had no information at all and was making a very risky play to try and buy town cred because he had a hunch Mari was scum.

If 1 is the case and Mari is scum, both claims are clever. Mari could have been attempting to out other potential power roles, given that Glork would have been a target considered by many town PRs. Sly would be avoiding letting on that he knows anything about what happened to Glork N1, ensuring that Mordor-scum wouldn't know he was Isengard-scum, whilst still casting effective doubt on Mari's role.

Now, Glork's reasoning is interesting; I think part of this is him genuinely puzzling this one out in-thread, possibly to help his team along, and he seems to be fairly certain that Sly is not scum. He simply can't see a reason why Sly-scum would CC, and he ultimately comes to the conclusion that both Sly and Mari are town, but he does say that it's very likely that they're both scum if one is, which I don't think Glork would have done if he'd known Sly was scum, which makes option 2 less likely for me. Now, Glork was the Mordor RB, so there's no trouble blocking Sly N2, but Gollum takes him out D3, so what do Mordor-scum do? They kill him. I don't think it suits scum to take out the other scumteam last night; town is well ahead and killing the last Isengard scum would leave them here, at 8-2-1 with Gollum having a high scum hitrate already. I think the Mordor team thought Sly was town and Glork's reasoning could well have been an effort to tie Mari's alignment to Sly's because he was so convinced Sly was town. Glork also makes a great effort to tie his own alignment to Sly's (see the above quote from 1152). Why would Glork do this if he thought Sly was town? Perhaps I'm making too many assumptions about what scum-Glork would do, but I really think that on D2 with a powerful role already dead, Glork is not just going to say 'hey, if Sly's scum then I probably am' if he has any inkling that Sly is Isengard-scum.

The strong point against this is that for the rest of the game, based on hers and Glork's ISOs, I don't find Mari to be a likely buddy. I think she pushes hard on WeirdRa at a time that Mordor-scum really didn't need to bus and in this watcher situation, Glork definitely casts a lot more doubt on her than Sly (although his vote is only on her for 9 minutes in the end). The reason I'm inclined to believe Mari is scum is because, exactly as Glork says, Sly-scum would not have CCed out of the blue with no reason to think that Mari was scum. What's the point? His roleblocker just got strangled by Gollum and the other two members of his team were certainly not high on anyone's town list. I think there's no way that he would put himself on the line like that unless he had a really good reason to believe Mari was scum.

Sorry, that was a bit long. If anyone thinks I missed anything, do let me know, but I've been thinking about that situation all day (I'm a bit surprised no-one's gone back to it in more detail with Sly's flip) and I just can't get round the fact that it's insane for Sly to fake-claim unless he knew

something

.

Preview edit: so NOW everyone wants to lynch Dekes. Can we at least think a bit more about the above situation first?

[Locke Lamora]

EBWOP: where I say 'saving the Isengard roleblocker obviously had nothing to do with Sly's thinking', I obviously mean the Vanguard. Their roleblocker was already dead at that stage.

[Locke Lamora]

Wow. You guys went a bit crazy, didn't you? It's like you think it might be too easy to catch the scum so you're pulling the town in as many different directions as possible. We've got our death miller, our self-voter, a ridiculous caps lock war and now Wraith and Nero are going to have an argument to see who's more of a VI. Don't forget Rewq, guys.

I'm not going to wade through all this now because I have to work, but I have to ask VV a couple of things: if you were scum-Dekes and you'd wasted an ability on Edge, wouldn't you be pissed off? Given that inHim has barely mentioned Edge, why do you find his claim at all believable?

[Locke Lamora]

Wraith being scum would explain why a lot of his palantir chat seems incoherent and confused. It's possible that he's scum who has a connection and, with the Isengard team gone, he thought he could claim towncred by revealing his info. Now he's realised that revealing all the information from the QT would incriminate him further, so he's had to clam up before he says too much. Or he could just be making it up completely. Incidentally, Wraith, you can't quote from a QT but I don't believe there's anything that prevents you from paraphrasing. In a Clash of Kings, Mina basically paraphrased the entire Kingsguard QT for a couple of nights. I want a full description of what's in that QT, in chronological order.

Has anyone come up with a good reason why Sly would counter-claim Mari, other than he knew she was scum?

Edge: how come it took you this long to come back and say 'HEY WAIT A MINUTE THAT CLAIM WAS SO OBVIOUSLY FAKE'? I'll be honest, I skimmed over it at the time, I just thought you were being a bit crazy, hinted at the guilty investigation because CAPS RAGE at everyone wasn't getting the job done and then backed down and claimed the town investigation on VV in case the guilty came back to bite you. As for being anti-town, I think most of the last few pages have been anti-town. Hilarious, but anti-town.

Katy: did BV tell you what action he performed N1 and N2?

[Locke Lamora]

No doubt Edge has got some 'brilliant' insight into the game but as we seem to be waiting for that, here's a few problems I have with Wraith's claim. First of all, if gaining palantirs gives you extra power, why is Wraith still alive? He has been obv-Denethor for quite some time now and anyone with any flavour knowledge whatsoever, which a lot of the players in this game have, would have known that Denethor held one.

Second up:

New information: SlySly had both the Orthanc and Minas Ithil palantiri. Apparently that gave him extra power and if he got more then that would make him really, really powerful. I think it might have been a mistake to claim, then.

Why is this new information? Didn't you know this when the day started?

Third, the whole way he's gone about this claim has been disjointed and incoherent. It would have been very easy for him to ask the mod whether he could reveal that the QTs changed, but instead he's been dragging it out as though it's some big modkill dilemma. That says scum to me, not town.

Fourth, whoever thinks that post when he thought he was dead makes him town is talking absolute nonsense. You don't bother to cover the eventuality that you're going to flip scum unless you know you're going to flip scum.

Fifth, and unrelated to the claim itself, so much of Wraith's play has been devoid of useful contributions, full of self-pity and generally anti-town.

So Wraith, care to fill in these gaping holes? I'm particularly interested to hear your answers to the first 3. No doubt you'll keep spouting 'I think I might be a death miller' and 'I don't like getting wagoned' for the last two, so I don't really expect useful answers to those.

[Locke Lamora]

You don't need to talk about the QTs to answer all of my questions, Wraith.

[Locke Lamora]

Ok, I know at least some of you must be town, so let's all stop and think for a minute. First of all, we don't know that the person who hammers will automatically get the palantir. Secondly, why does anyone believe there are three palantirs anyway?

[Locke Lamora]

So the reason Wraith's info made no sense is because you were screwing with him in the palantir QT, Fate?

There better be some decent info coming out of Mari as I still see no good reason not to lynch her, since no-one's come up with any good reasons for Sly's reaction to her claim other than those I outlined.

[Locke Lamora]

Seems far-fetched to me. Scum have already shown up with some powerful roles; I don't think they'd have the ability to not only know who the opposing scumteam were but then use that to try to win them towncred. Given the situation and the fact that Mari's not on the Isengard team, I'm near certain that Sly somehow knew Mari was lying from one of Isengard's roles and used that to try to buy himself towncred. Either that or it was a terrible, terrible gambit that I can't make any sense of.

[Locke Lamora]

I really wouldn't put much stock in that flavour speculation, Nero. If you've been paying attention, it should be apparent to you that the mods have made out-guessing the setup through flavour pointless. You could also argue that Gimli's a major character in the book and he ought to be in the game, but that wasn't true, was it? We have no evidence that the teams are working together and the only possible connection between the scumteams is this palantir stuff, half of which has been mangled beyond belief by Wraith and Edge.

[Locke Lamora]

Right, so both VV and Mari's abilities are confirmed unless they're scum together.

Mari: did you look at how the situation unfolded? Was anyone seriously pointing the finger at Sly at that stage? He wasn't even on the radar. With his roleblocker dead, Zwet clearly going to get lynched/vigged sooner or later and a2 with zero town points, don't you think that to come out and counter-claim like that just because he had a scumread on you is a bit insane? Not only would it have made him the prime lynch target if you are town, it also made him a target for the other scumteam, which is exactly what happened. So yeah, it could have been that he had a scumread on you, but I think it's pretty damn unlikely that he'd have done it with no information whatsoever because it's simply not a logical trade-off. Unless I'm missing some of Sly's likely thought process somewhere, in which case, provide me with some suggestions to think over.

To anyone trying to draw links between Mordor and Isengard: we have two dead Mordor scum. How about you draw links between them and the living players, instead of saying 'well maybe we have all the scum working together like one giant scumteam with a co-op wincon' and proceeding to identify highly speculative cross-scumteam links.

[Locke Lamora]

Hold up a sec. Mari, why Rewq?

[Locke Lamora]

Well, 'I'm so tired of Locke repeatedly pointing out this fact, I confess I'm scum' would be nice. I guess I feel a little better about you given that your role has actually (probably) produced a result, but I just keep returning to that Sly situation in my head, which is why I keep bringing it up. On Rewq, I realise now that you stated you were going to watch him towards the end of yesterdays' madness. Wasn't VV's tracking ability already confirmed by Jenni, though?

[Locke Lamora]

No-kill makes no sense, in basic mafia logic and in the context of trying to get all the rings. That just gives town more chance to lynch scum and get rings back, and Gollum more chance to kill them.

[Locke Lamora]

I quickly looked back over Rewq and he does go after Mariyta several times, including voting and then re-voting her during the whole voyeur situation. If he was a traitor who knew who his buddies were, and in my experience they usually do, then I think he pushes on her too hard to be her buddy. Look at how much he tries to avoid voting for WeirdRa on D1; he makes a major effort to get Gandalf lynched instead and then finally has to hammer when it's obvious WeirdRa is the lynch. I don't see that as compatible with his attitude towards Mari. There's still the unexplained matter of Sly's CC, but I guess that really was just a strange gambit that I'll have to wait to hear what it was all about. If it's Mari or Dekes, I think Dekes wins the most likely Rewq-buddy hands down.

[Locke Lamora]

Awesome game, Plum & Andy. Great flavour and a fun setup. Sorry I wasn't around as much as I'd have liked to be; sometimes I'd come back to the thread and I'd have missed hundreds of posts. At least I drew a (blocked) NK. My plan on the last couple of days was to try to be the hammer so that I could get the ring and keep it from scum/Gollum for an extra day with my BP-ness. Once Rewq flipped scum I was pretty convinced that Mari wasn't scum and that Dekes was, but again I wasn't around at the right time for the hammer. In any case, Nero played really well to achieve his wincon with perfect timing, and so did town, aside from the odd bit of madness. The masons did well and I thought VV was very accurate with his reading of the game. When the alternate wincon came out, I had visions of the ACoK town meltdown all over again with defeat from the jaws of victory, but thankfully town (with help from Gollum) took it comfortably.