Good vs Evil, Law vs Chaos Reboot - Game Over, Good wins

[Feysal]

So we're live, there are already more new posts than there were before the crash, and we've shot straight past RVS. Things are looking up.

I had one suspect from the original thread I can still remember, and that was xvart, now replaced by Foxace36. My reason for suspecting xvart was his scum read on CooLDoG, which I find questionable. I can agree with the part that scum would be just as confused as the town about whether to mass claim, and they could prefer to let the town sort it out for them. What I don't agree with is that scum would be any more likely to be confused about the setup, and make baseless and erroneous speculation posts about it. On the contrary, I think that is what makes CooLDoG town, particularly since Seacore's clarification post revealed that there was significant confusion within the playerlist.

Now, Foxace36 has made it easy for me to keep my scum read on the slot. Reading his posts has reminded me of my own first game on the site and the excuses I made for my reluctance to vote. I was not lying then, but that did not stop me from being scum in that game. The reaction test does nothing for me.

VOTE: Foxace36

Other players on my suspect list include Typo Incarnate, whose behavior so far seems erratic. I did not think that their suggestion in the original thread that the people caring about alignments were scum was useful, and calling for votes on Norman while acknowledging his trolling for what it is is just pointless. I'm not sure what I expected from that hydra, but not this.

About Norman, I have no read on him and I have never played with him, but his reputation precedes him. His playstyle can be called unconventional, and people should consider that before labeling him as scummy.

There is also ManiacalLemon, whose statement that the benefits of alignment claiming outweigh the risk was just bizarre, when he had only mentioned downsides in the same post.

[Feysal]

So you are voting for me based on...

1. The person I replaced sounded scummy.

2. Apparently there is a correlation between my reluctancy to vote at first (Which I had good resoning for) and you reluctancy to vote as scum in a completely different game.

If you want to know, I would have voted xvart for his, in my opinion, poorly reasoned vote on CooLDoG alone. Your reluctance to vote made it easy. I believe that is a trait common to scum, and not just to my early scum games. Scum can have a harder time coming up with cases on players they know to be town - though come to think of it, they would not know that in this game, with there being two confirmed scum teams.

As for Feysal, why do you think Foxaxe is scum?

I trust that I answered this above.

Dear Feysal – at what point does Norman’s complete lack of actual scum-hunting mean that we would be allowed to vote him regardless of his troll persona?

The vote is not the problem here, it is the reason. You were obviously aware of Norman's reputation, yet you tried to label him scummy for a single post on page one, during the RVS phase of the reboot. If you had wanted to policy lynch him then fine, I would not have supported it but I would have understood it. Your attempt to call him scum for not scumhunting and posting fluff less than 12 hours into the game is way too early, and given his reputation for being erratic, it is absurd. For the record, I see nothing wrong about players who were not here for take one engaging in RVS.

UNVOTE: Foxace36
VOTE: Typo Incarnate

This was random in the original thread. It is not random any more. It seems MoI has been cursed to always be scum in every game I play in.

I swear I read "this is a hydra between shotty and dgb" in your sig. swear to god.

But fate also has a history submitting fake daykills... and real ones on occasion.

furc/fate

Okay, I have to assume you're not joking, and you seriously don't know who Typo Incarnate consists of. Can't imagine why, since the name of their hydra is the most obvious I have ever seen. Perhaps these few quotes I dug up from the original signup thread provide enlightenment.

Magna.

I believe it's time to activate my our hydra.

y/n?

Sure, if the Mod will allow!!!!

QT get!

And the titanic force that is Maguaofillusion was unleashed on Mafiascum ...

it would never be the same!

MoI has already posted from the wrong account once too, and Magua posted twice in the new signup thread, so I don't see how there could be any confusion. Yes, their original signature did say they were a hydra of drmyshottyizsik and DrippingGoofball, which was an obvious joke if I ever saw one. Then they changed it just to ask a question like this:

Cooldog you need to explain why you keep mentioning Shotty in reference to this slot given he’s not in this game.

And should anyone be unclear about why I refer to them as Typo Incarnate, you need to read MoI's signature:

Number of times Magua and myself have been mixed-up since 9/13/11 - 9
Number of times prior to this that a mix-up directly resulted in the death of said player - 1

[Feysal]

@Feysal

– If you'd like to point a single post by Norman where he's authentically doing a single scrap of scum-hunting let me know. Also I'd like your answer on the point in the game where it is acceptable to suspect Norman... when does his shield of erratic playstyle expire?

I thought I had been sufficiently clear on this, but guess not. My answer is that the correct time to suspect Norman for doing something scummy is whenever. The correct time to suspect Norman for being Norman is never.

And before you claim that you voted Norman for doing something scummy, you did not. Your reasons were fluff posting and lack of scumhunting, which can both be valid accusations, but they are largely the same thing, and they are more about

not

doing something townish than doing something scummy. In other words, those accusations are based on posting trends, and less than 12 hours is much too short a time for such a trend to have been established. Accusing someone of lurking when the game had just started would make as much sense, which is to say not much sense at all.

Incidentally, I began to see cause to suspect Norman about this time yesterday, before this current insanity. I'll elaborate on that some other time if I need to, I have little time to spare right now.

[Feysal]

You people questioning the timing of my claim - are you nuts? There was a wagon on me, picking up steam, led by morons who had no good reasons but were getting support from smart people that could actually make it happen.

What are you talking about? Two days ago there were three votes on you. When you claimed there were two. Now there is only one left. Your wagon was not picking up steam, it was collapsing. The only wagon I have seen picking up steam lately is the one on CooLDoG, and that wagon ranks high among the stupidest things I've seen in this game.

So Feysal has come back, so Charlie Chaplin what do you have on YOUR mind?

Plenty. For one thing, a sincere wish that there would be less noise in this game, so I could have more time for actual analysis and posting, instead of wasting it wading through the muck that is this thread. Which you are largely responsible for. Have a look at the activity overview and ask yourself, what do you have to say that is so bloody important that you cannot say it without having over 25% of the total posts?

Below are some highlights of your recent posts. Take a time out, think them over, and see if you can't figure out why no one takes you seriously or likes you in this game.

I wouldn't call it stupidity, I'd call it being retarded and discreet.

Did you really just say that you would rather be called retarded than stupid? Why yes, yes you did. Then again, perhaps you are not a native English speaker and don't know what the word means? Nope, you demonstrated the correct usage of the word in post #504.

Like I said I'm NOT a VI, I'm a regular townie... God I hate when people use that fucking description.

And yet you are a village idiot, and you should be glad of it, since it is the only thing keeping you from being lynched. Just in case you actually meant it when you called yourself retarded, and you in fact suffer from a debilitating mental disability, I apologize for the insensitivity, but it is true.

Scumbags come in many different forms, shapes, and languages. And with that statement I base off having probably atleast one scumbag on the list. Your logic actually makes no sense at all.

There probably is, given that there were eight names on your suspect list. You would have to beat the odds if there were no scum there at all. Even a blind chicken choosing at random would be expected to get one or two right.

Maybe but it's the first day, how would I know? How would anyone know for sure?

You were accused of lack of commitment to your scum reads, and this is your response? Good grief. And only two posts previous you said you had more suspects to add and that you did not like having your suspect list criticized. If this is the limit of your faith in your own reads, why should anyone else take your reads seriously?

The whole plan was to get scum on the wagon and

try to make them look town

but when everyone had voted for me I would say what my plans were at the end of the votes.

EXCUSE ME?

It's spam but it's spam that I had to use for the effect.

So you admit to spamming the thread, then deny it in post #617. While continuing to spam.

*The right to remain silent and

will do so

.

You would be ten times the player you are if you posted one tenth of what you do, but spent ten times the effort thinking about what you post.

[Feysal]

Who's my favourite little turdshit, you are Feysal, you are. Awwww you're so cute trying to make me look like crap. I applaud you for your efforts you worthless, scum-sucking, discriminating, negligant, afflicted, calamitous, vile motherfucking bastard. I hope some day you may be able to eat feces like the piece of shit you are.

Such praise! I am not worthy!

Must... stop... laughing...

It seems to me that you have only proven my point. In case you were actually offended by the debilitating mental disability bit, you should not be. The way you set yourself up for that zinger would have been criminal not to use. Point is, you really don't need me to make you look bad or undermine you, you do that all by yourself. If you can't take criticism, you are playing the wrong game.

[Feysal]

@MOD: I will be V/LA until Monday due to the annual concert tour of my orchestra.

I shudder in advance at the thought of how many pages I will need to catch up on when I come back.

[Feysal]

I'm back from V/LA, and I've read most of what was posted during my absence, but I have to wake in six hours for work, so I will leave the rest for tomorrow. I see that there are considerably less posts by Norman though, which is a good thing, and even better is that our less than productive players have begun to come forwards with some real content. We'll make a game out of this yet.

Something else I was pleased to see was the Typo Incarnate hydra on so many suspect lists. There are far fewer reasons though and even less votes, which I would like to see more of. CooLDoG is not scum, and Norman would be no more than a consolation prize compared to the big bad scum hydra. I also feel less sure of Foxace36 being scum than I used to, leaving me with no more strong suspects to pursue at this time.

My case on Typo Incarnate has to wait until tomorrow as well, but for a sneak preview it involves his stance on Norman and my experience with both heads of the hydra, particularly the one that seems to be cursed never to be town when I am in the game.

I like my vote just fine where it is. It just needs some friends. 13 of them to be exact.

[Feysal]

I said I would post my case on Typo Incarnate today, and so I shall.

It all begins with post #33, where what some have called the mean head votes Norman for a single post he made. This was no random vote. It was further explained in post #80, and calls for Norman to be lynched are scattered throughout the ISO.

The problem I have with this is that the timing and reasoning of the vote do not add up. Norman was supposedly scummy for posting fluff and not scumhunting, based on a single post made during the new RVS phase. People post fluff during RVS all the time, and it means nothing. Both heads of the hydra are more than enough experienced to know that, so there can be no excuse for such a premature accusation, especially since they acknowledge Norman being trollish, and as such posting like that would be par for the course. In short, the Norman vote is highly scummy.

This brings us to my experience with the players making up the hydra, specifically the mean head, or to call him by his name, MoI. The first thing I can say about his scum play is that he is an aggressive busser. He will throw his partners under the bus with no provocation, to capitalize on the town points later - just ask Shadow. This is why I think there is a decent chance that the hydra and Norman are in fact allied scum, and MoI did not bother to come up with a credible case on Norman, since his eventual scum flip would net him town points anyway.

Something else that bothers me about the hydra is that they have been purposely obfuscating who the heads are. At first they had a signature that claimed the heads were drmyshottyizsik and DrippingGoofball. I treated it as an obvious joke, what with their hydra name making it blatantly obvious who the heads were, even without seeing both heads discuss forming a hydra in the signup thread. It stopped being a joke in post #41, where one of the heads claims MoI is not part of the hydra. To what end? This was not an isolated incident either. In post #184 they ask CooLDoG for an explanation for why he referred to their slot as shotty, and changed the signature to read that the hydra consisted of Fate and Furcolow. It should have been obvious to them that CooLDoG had taken the signature seriously, so what is the point of confusing him further?

For future reference, the names in the signature later changed to Seacore - the [moderator] - and Sotty7, then to CooLDoG and trekker.

One possible explanation for the obfuscation is post #327, where the nice head, aka Magua, explains that CooLDoG is town for being ignorant of who made up the hydra. Nice argument, by which I mean it is exceptionally bad. I can think of no reason why being ignorant of who the hydra heads were should be a town tell, particularly when it should have been blatantly obvious and common knowledge. It is definitely not any kind of inside information scum would be more likely to have... unless the hydra was scum, and they were talking as themselves in the scum QuickTopic. Of course, coming from the hydra such a town tell would be anything but. In fact, the part of CooLDoG's posts that is hardest for me to believe to have been sincere is his ignorance of the hydra heads, even after it was explained to him repeatedly. That looks like intentionally playing dumb for town points, and is my main cause of doubt about his alignment.

As a bonus, in the same post Magua seems to be trying to feed me the idea that he is partnered with hitogoroshi. I have no idea why, or why he thought that could ever work. MoI had already posted out of the hydra -

twice

.

To quickly name some other reads, I like Zdenek rather more than Tammy. I have played with him as scum three times, and most recently with both of us town and mistakenly suspecting each other in Consulmaker III (the game has been canceled due to the crash). I can believe him making arguments like the ones he has been making here as town. That does not mean I would agree with them - I thought the points he was making against me in Consulmaker III were flawed too, more flawed than any case I've seen him make as actual scum.

About Tammy - I think it stood out how she was asking more questions than she was providing her own thoughts, and Zdenek was not wrong to call attention to that. In particular I found it strange how many of her questions dealt with stuff from the original thread as opposed to current events here. More recently there has been more than a touch of rhetoric in her posts against Zdenek. I would prefer to see her logically refute Zdenek's points instead of trying to ridicule him. I would not want to lynch her for this though, my read on her is close to null.

I think Haze is town. Some of his latest reads seem to come from a fresh point of view, and I think they are genuine.

[Feysal]

Feysal you crazy if you seriously going to bother discussing whether or not MoI is actually MoI + Magua.

I never questioned that they were. Did you even read my post? I said it was obvious who the were, and would be even if I did not see MoI and Magua discuss forming a hydra in the original signup thread, which I did. This is exactly why I wonder why they were confusing the issue.

Do you really think MoI is trying to obfuscate who the heads are though?

Yes. I know it makes no sense for them to try, which is why I wonder why they even bothered to make posts like that. I'll grant you that post #41 could be just a joke, but posts #184 and #327 could not. In #184 they are purposely trying to confuse CooLDoG, and when they succeed, they use that as a reason to have a town read on him in #327. Something you use as reason for a stance is not a joke. Then there is the hitogoroshi stuff in that same post, which serves no purpose I can think of other than to spread confusion. Again successfully, if Shadoweh's last post is any indication. No, Magua and hitogoroshi are not the same player.

A hydra of Feysal and mith.

Amusing. Now how about you explain what the point was to confuse CooLDoG about who your heads were?

[Feysal]

My apologies for my short absence. It was for a good cause though - I kept my promise to Amrun to repair one of her games, which took much out of my mafia playing and reading time.

I see there have been plenty of posts, some of them quite interesting. Reply time.

Now how about you explain how voting me for trolling (which is basically what you are doing) is different than us voting Norman for trolling (which you used as a scum-tell, natch).

I have explained this before. You voted Norman for trolling when you knew perfectly well that he was a troll. Essentially you voted Norman for being Norman, in other words you wanted to policy lynch him. That would have been fine, if I had known what Norman would do to the game I may even have been sympathetic, but you did not call it a policy lynch. You tried to present Norman as scum, using reasons that made no sense so early in the game. And that is what makes the vote so dishonest.

The fact that you have been confusing people about your identities is not what I'm voting you for. It is simply something I thought strange about your play, especially when you used it as a reason to declare CooLDoG town. Frankly his confusion could easily be feigned.

Not that day one information is useless, but day one is not the day all of you wasting your time trying to get big name players lynched is going to happen. People who are actually generating content and connections we can look in to, that will be helpful later, not today.

I've heard that one before. Magua said something very similar about leaving MoI alive in AFFC. And what happened? Magua was night killed, and MoI survived the game to win as scum. Yeah, that worked really damn well for town. Big names, as you say, should not be given any sort of preferential treatment, and any content and connections they provide is going to be riddled with wifom.

Since you have some experience with him, would you say that Zdenek is a player with easily distinguishable town and scum styles?

I only have the one game where I saw Zdenek as town, but I have played against him as scum three times. Based on those, my opinion of his scum play is that it is cautious to the point of being lurky. Currently he is being rather more proactive and belligerent than I'm used to seeing from him as scum.

To give a short answer, I believe his styles are quite distinct, and this is far more likely to be him as town.

So your point is that it is completely obvious who the heads of the Hydra are to anyone with a working cranium yet are questioning why we have a funny sig? Is that what I am seeing here?

No. I always thought your signature was an obvious joke, which is part of why I find it suspect that someone could be confused about that. The only time you ever used your signature to do anything in game, it was to confuse CooLDoG, who was referring to you as shotty, and even that is debatable. I have no problem with your signature. What I do question is what did you expect to gain from confusing CooLDoG and others, and why do you think town would be more likely to be ignorant about who your heads were?

For something else, I don't like AV's drunk posting at all. He basically calls for people to sheep Mastin, before he even knew which of the vacant slots he replaced into. I don't like the fact that he was drunk posting in the first place either. I've seen AV confuse his scum partner with a major American city, and I just wonder what sort of scheming he may be trying to mask now. I do agree that Internet Explorer is an all wonky browser though. While developing for the web, IE is the root cause behind every second problem, and every single incompatibility problem.

I'm not answering Mastin's request to summarize the game here, partly because it is very late for me, and partly because I have yet to form a coherent picture of the game myself. There are still many players I have no reads on.

[Feysal]

I've got a problem. I don't think either of our wagons is on scum, and time is running out. At this point, if I had to choose between the two, I'd rather vote Foxace. I am more confident in my Zdenek town read, I am unfamiliar with Foxace and there is more potential for surprise in his play, and Zdenek is in fact contributing something useful while Foxace has gone into defeatist mode. I would rather lynch someone other than these two. MoI is a given, as should be obvious from my vote. AV is another, due in part to his drunk posting and the absurdity of suggesting sheeping Mastin before he even knew which slot he replaced in. Then there is Jackal, whose recent posts have rung alarm bells.

#1086
Jackal claims he supports the Zdenek wagon, but left his vote on Foxace, because he is more likely to be lynched. I don't like this argument at all, since it is basically a self-realising prophecy. He also said earlier that Foxace was his number one scum read, but no mention of that here.
#1073 and #1116
Promises of content instead of actual content. I've seen this used as a scum tell and correctly so. He has had two weeks to read and contribute, and we have seen little more than prod dodging, and jumping on and off Foxace. Curious that he does not vote anyone here. What happened to that Foxace scum read? If Zdenek appears more town to him, why would he not try to push Foxace instead?

[Feysal]

Feysal - I think I saw you post this before and Mastin's not answering me. Is this Zdenek's town play? I really want to know this.

I've only seen him as town once, and I was wrong in my read of him, but his play here has much in common with that game. For instance, in that game Zdenek was making a case against me despite the fact that I had been appointed as Consul and I was therefore immune to execution for the day. On the contrary, I had the power to order executions. I guess that says something about Zdenek as town, and it is unlike anything I have seen in his scum games.

I do agree that this argument is getting out of hand, and having Zdenek calling you names is bad form, even if you were scum.

On the other hand, there is something I wanted to say about your case on him. You have accused Zdenek of misrepresenting you, but I don't think what he has done matches with what the word means. He may have misinterpreted you or mischaracterized you, which indicates a difference of opinion. Misrepresentation would indicate twisting of verifiable facts, and there are none here - we have your word against his opinion. Before I get called out for arguing pointless semantics, misrep is an often used accusation and it carries some weight, and I would not want to see Zdenek mislynched because the case against him used too strong a word.

[Feysal]

Picked up my prod. I've been otherwise occupied during the Easter holidays, but I will catch up starting tomorrow.

[Feysal]

Four new pages since yesterday, and seven since I began to catch up. I should not complain about the activity, but it's not making my job any easier.

Something I will complain about is CooLDoG apparently being the top suspect today. Do people seriously believe his confusion about the setup was some insidious scum plot to appear as uninformed town? I would say that the mod post in the original thread confirmed there was genuine confusion about, and there is no reason why scum should have been confused like that.

I'm more than fine with AurorusVox being the second largest wagon though. I thought he was suspicious yesterday for multiple reasons, and today he has added his doctor speculation and subsequent horrible CooLDoG vote to the mix.

VOTE: AurorusVox

Incidentally, I have my own theory about the lack of a second kill and about the setup, but no evidence for it whatsoever. If I'm right, it should become fairly obvious within a couple days though, so no point dwelling on it now.

For the record, I'm not caught up, but there would have to be something quite significant in the pages I have remaining for my reads on CD and AV to change.

[Feysal]

Still in catch up hell, though making some progress here. Unfortunately, it will take me at least until Sunday to finish, since I will simply not be here at all tomorrow. The main concert of my orchestra is taking place, and together with the rehearsals and party afterward it will take all day and possibly much of the night.

Looking at the wagons right now, I'm of course pleased with the one on AurorusVox, and with the one on CooLDoG losing steam. I'm more surprised by the one on Pine. I tried to dig up what the reasons for it were, and I don't find myself agreeing much with them. Yes, it has been established that he claimed with little actual provocation, though he may have believed there was more support for his lynch. I'm not sold on that making him scummy. As for the reason Zdenek gave, that being his investigation of MoI, I don't agree on that being a bad choice at all. I've seen MoI survive to win as scum, and to prevent that, I would welcome any hard information to expose the shameless lies he is notorious for. In short, I think it was perfectly reasonable of Pine to investigate MoI.

[Feysal]

Responding to prod. Any meaningful contribution from me has to come later though.

Feysal is too good at this game.

I have to wonder why you would think this. During this day phase my play has devolved to little more than prod dodging and skimming just enough to know what is going on. I may not believe that Pine is scum, but that is just one read in a game of 24 alive.

[Feysal]

Hello. I'm more or less caught up at last, though I have no time for a long post at the moment.

I see that we have entirely new wagons. I'm glad the one on Pine has died down, since I believe he is town. His actions may have been anti-town, but I don't think they were deliberately so, and I don't consider him scummy for them. I can follow his thought process and why he would have acted this way as town, but I can't see him doing this as scum. I've seen him feign ignorance as scum, and that attempt was so crude it was called out immediately. Here his ignorance of scum having motive to lie, and of Zdenek's claim, seem like the real thing. I believe him. AurorusVox on the other hand... I'd be fine voting him again.

I have not paid sufficient attention to either BBmolla or Shadoweh, so I don't feel secure making reads on them now, though I'm doubtful about both their claims. BBmolla's claim of being a role blocker who did not use his ability is strange. Shadoweh's doctor claim with an alignment restriction is weird based on flavor, but if I were to choose between her and BBmolla, it is Shadoweh I would believe more. I don't think this is a choice that should be based on outguessing mod flavor.

Unvote: AurorusVox
Vote: BBmolla

I need to leave momentarily, but I will be back in a few hours, if the day has not ended.

[Feysal]

Oh also what do you make of Feysals final post and vote yesterday because it's bugging me a lot right now.

I suppose it would, given your town read on BBmolla, but I don't share that read. I agree with nearly all of your other reads and the reasons behind them, but not this one. At the time I found the claims from both BBmolla and Shadoweh to be suspicious, and voted the one I felt was more likely to be scum. I was also in a rush. To answer what Faraday asked me in #2319, I had skimmed the final pages of the thread, missed the comments about Shadoweh effectively claiming doctor in case the scum had targeted Tammy, and I did not think it through myself. I'm glad someone did, but I don't regret voting BBmolla. In fact, now that I've had time to catch up properly and think things through, I could not be happier seeing so many votes on him.

VOTE: BBmolla

I was not fond of Mastin either yesterday, since his reads made no sense to me. When someone has town reads on my main suspects and scum reads on four of my top town reads, I see more than a little cause for concern, particularly when there are no explanations to be found for those reads. Today he has admitted to probably being wrong about his suspects, which reflects well on him, though I would not say I trust him just yet. In any case, he is not the correct play today, and BBmolla is.

What's a 'cleric' in dnd terms? Is there any obvious power role they would be?

Duh. This was already answered, but frankly I wonder why you would even ask this.

[Feysal]

@ Feysal

- So is your reasoning for voting BBMolla is purely related to his claim and if so what specifically about it makes you think he's mafia.

It is about his claim, yes, more specifically about him not using his ability for not wanting to mess anything up. That was terrible yesterday, and it is worse today after his talk of being confirmed by the player he blocked.

I admit that his attitude toward his counterwagons was indifferent and townish, but the weirdness of the claim outweighs that for me.

I will be V/LA until Tuesday due to a trip to Lisbon

. I will try to check in, but it is unlikely I can do much.

[Feysal]

I'm back from V/LA, and have read or skimmed what happened during my absence. That does not appear to have been much. I see plenty of bickering and red herrings, and suspicion aimed at Nachomamma and brizingre, for reasons I don't fully understand. BBmolla remains the largest wagon, but the lynch continues to elude us. I would not have minded coming back to a night phase and seeing him hanging.

Simply put, my vote is exactly where it should be, and I'm getting annoyed by all the distractions, particularly the lingering suspicion against Pine. It is high time to see reason and that a Pine lynch is not happening. There is not enough support for it, and some players including myself believe him to be town.

I see deadline approaching, which is probably a good thing, since it will force people to make up their mind. I would hope that inertia alone will make the BBmolla lynch happen, but to avoid taking any chances, I would like to see more votes there soon, or there had better be some convincing reasons not to lynch him from the people not on the wagon. I of course don't think there are reasons nearly convincing enough.

[Feysal]

Bicker bicker bicker. I'm amazed how difficult it is to get scum lynched around here. BBmolla narrowly evaded death yesterday, and he has been the largest wagon the whole day long, but for some unfathomable reason that final few votes leading to the gallows seem to be impossible to achieve. All the while inferior wagons spring up, and I have seen none that I would take seriously. The only wagon that is even close to competing in size is the one on Nachomamma, and BBmolla's presence on it makes it unacceptable, multiscum be damned.

On the topic of Pine, the only point I have seen recently that gave me any pause was the thought of what his role would be in the event that two factions left the game. If either the lawful good or chaotic evil won and Pine remained in the game, he would be a full cop, since the remaining town and scum have different alignments. Even more importantly, he has claimed to be a bard, which can only be chaotic. That would make him not only a cop, but a confirmed town cop in the event that the only remaining chaotic were all town. This power, even if it is only potential, makes me doubt if the mod would include such a role in the game. Roles that sound too good to be true usually aren't.

Still, common sense says Pine is not the correct play today. The thing with overpowered claims is that they tend to sort themselves out quite quickly. If the claim is real, neither scum team can afford to leave Pine alive in the long run. Meanwhile we have a perfectly fine scum lynch in BBmolla.

Of recent posters, I am most disappointed by PeregrineV. I've had a town read on him for a while - I have liked some of his thoughts and felt they were town motivated, but I'm not at all happy about him claiming BBmolla would be a bad lynch. Reasons, I want them. What is wrong, in your opinion, about the BBmolla wagon, and what would it take to get you to vote there? Not directed solely to PeregrineV, I would like answers from others too.

[Feysal]

There is talk of no lynch? What?

For the Love of God

, BBmolla is right there, and he has been obvscum since yesterday. Can any of you honestly say that it would even occur to you

not

to use a role block, because you could block a town power role by accident? I would take that chance any time without thinking twice, or indeed even once. Even if you did block town, the information could be useful later and enable you to confirm not only your ability but that of the blocked player. Today BBmolla has tried to use his block to confirm himself and obtain information on AurorusVox. Since he obviously understands what his ability is good for, what could possibly have possessed him to ignore all reason to use it the first night?

I cannot imagine any town reason for BBmolla to have acted this way. He is scum, and needs to be executed today. There are of course other scum out there. Oversoul may even be one of them. But we cannot lynch every scum during the same day, we have to do it one by one. Oversoul will keep, and if he is scum, we may gain more associations from him by keeping him around. BBmolla has been the largest wagon all day, and by now everyone must have made their stance on him known. We will gain nothing by keeping him alive any longer, we will just give him an extra night to mess with the town with his ability.

As if any further reasons were needed not to lynch Oversoul today, TiphaineDeath apparently thinks he is lawful evil. Only the chaotic good could possibly win the game immediately, if we lynched lawful evil and the last team member died. If that were to happen, that would leave the lawful good even more screwed than they already are. Not good. BBmolla however is, in my opinion, highly likely to be chaotic evil scum.

My theory at this time is about Mastin, and his relation to Shadoweh and BBmolla. He gave a strong read about Shadoweh being town, was proven wrong, and after the night he reversed his read on BBmolla. I have a suspicion that Mastin's peculiar level of certainty about Shadoweh was due to him knowing she was not aligned with his faction, and after he was proven wrong so thoroughly he decided to bus his partner to repair his damaged town credit. That would make BBmolla and Mastin chaotic evil scum partners.

TiphaineDeath apparently also has a strong hunch, about the lawful evil team. If he is 70% certain of being able to win immediately, does that mean he thinks he knows who their last member is? I wonder who he could be that certain about, and why? Perhaps TiphaineDeath should enlighten us, in case he does not last the night?

Today though,

vote BBmolla

. I'll be damned before I let this scum lynch slip away from me a second time.

[Feysal]

This BB lynch is so very wrong, look who is on the lynch and you'll see that. In case you're not sure what I'm talking about;

- Mastin who jumped from BBtown to BBscum and isn't scumhunting at all. In fact he's blatantly avoiding commenting on other things.
- Haze who jumped from not wanting to lynch BB yesterday to voting him today saying he's the obvious lynch with no reason.
- Feysal who hasn't done nearly any scumhunting and is just standing back waiting for this lynch to go through.
- Nacho who hasn't caught up with the game and is 'sheeping mastin' with his vote.

Mastin is my favorite candidate for scum partner bussing BBmolla after his blunder reading Shadoweh.

I have a town read on Haze, and I don't think he ever claimed not to want the BBmolla lynch, only that he wanted other lynches more.

As for myself, there is a time for scumhunting, but that time is wasted if you cannot get scum lynched. I'm convinced of having caught scum in BBmolla, and I'm focusing my effort in seeing him dead, such as it is. After he flips scum, of which I have little doubt, it will be time to find his partners. Until then, speculating on relationships is not much use.

I have no read on Nacho, and even less on his predecessor trekker. That does not make him scum, and even if he were, he could easily be part of the other scum faction.

In short, I don't see anything wrong about the wagon. None of our votes make BBmolla any less scum.

[Feysal]

Wonderful.

Just wonderful.

PeregrineV pulls a dubious claim out of thin air, derails a perfectly good scum lynch, and everyone accepts it and plays follow the cop with no critical thought to speak of.

I have two reasons to be doubtful here. For one, it is suspiciously convenient that this ability came from an item as opposed to his role, an item that was gifted to him by an unknown person no less. The ability not being tied to his role means it cannot be disproved by any kind of investigation, and I am skeptical about anyone giving something to a prolific lurker like PeregrineV. I remember Lost Butterfly even labeling him scummy for lack of contribution, which I made a note of, since I found it to be an easy and convenient excuse to push a lynch on him. Granted, I did once push a lynch on PeregrineV myself for exactly the same reason, but since he flipped town that game I'm not eager to repeat that gamble.

Secondly, there is the item itself. Everything we've seen so far has been firmly rooted in D&D rules, and after playing my fair share of D&D games, both on computer and tabletop, I can say I've never heard of an item called "Ring of the Warrior". The supposed characteristics of this item are also questionable. It is a one-shot item with three abilities to choose from, okay. But why are these abilities linked to a class? It would make sense to me if the user had to choose between three classes without knowing which ability each of them granted, but PeregrineV obviously knows exactly what the abilities are. There is no point in linking them to classes. I also wonder why the item would be called "Ring of the Warrior", when only one of the abilities is in any way combat oriented. Calling it a "Ring of the Jack-of-All-Trades" would be more appropriate.

Simply put, my confidence in this claim soars... right alongside the Hindenburg. However, it is true that scum would have little incentive to place themselves in a one-on-one this early. That leaves options like lyncher, or gambitting town. I had a very painful experience of the latter in AFFC, and seeing a repeat is about the last thing I would want. CooLDoG had better flip scum, or PeregrineV can look forward to having a dunce cap nailed on his head. Yes, you heard me right, even if CooLDoG does flip town, I don't think it would make PeregrineV scum, just an idiot.

To name my reads heading into the night, on the off chance that I do not wake up, BBmolla is scum, and my best bets for his partners are Mastin on his wagon and Lost Butterfly off it. I'm also not at all fond of TiphaineDeath, who called that wagon terrible for no apparent reason.

[Feysal]

Excellent.

What a difference one night makes. The balance of the game has shifted considerably in favor of town, and I dare hope and even expect that both towns will emerge victorious now.

How many people believe the towns to be split into 10:3? Because if that is the split, I think today is an appropriate day to mass claim ethics.

I believe both towns started with 10 members, and both scum teams with 3. Any more scum would imbalance the game. But I don't think today is the right day for mass claim, not yet. In all likelihood, tomorrow is.

Feysal, can you confirm or deny that you were blocked?

You realize of course that if I were to do either, I would be revealing whether or not I have a power role? Excuse me if I decline to answer this for the moment.

If my preferred lynch goes through and flips what I think it will flip, tomorrow will be the day of mass claim for ethics.

Who is your preferred lynch then, and why?

Last I remember, I was under some suspicion from at least Regfan, Lost Butterfly and PeregrineV. One is now dead and another replaced out, and I'm not sure if Mina agrees with that read of me. If I need to defend myself I am more than prepared, but I'd rather get to lynching the last scum and ending this game in a dual town victory. Right now, I have one question for everyone:

@Everyone: What are your current thoughts of BBmolla and Pine?

[Feysal]

Feysal is a scumread by the way. That last post isn't scumhunting and it seems every post is similar. He seems to write a lot without saying much.

I have been described as wordy by several people I've played with. Get used to it. You haven't even seen the wall posts I'm capable of, yet.

Meanwhile, I'd like more answers to my question about BBmolla and Pine, including yours. You may think I was not scumhunting, but you should consider that I may be going somewhere with this.

[Feysal]

Actually I like Chess' plan.

Unvote; Vote: Feysal

Way to revive the scum read on yourself with a single post, AV.

BBmolla has not stopped being scum just because MoS, who lead the push against him, flipped chaotic evil. It just means I was wrong about which scum team he belonged to, and BBmolla is lawful evil instead. MoS appears to have been right about the lawful evil having been unlucky enough to have wagons on two of their members on the second day. At the time I thought that BBmolla's reluctance to push the other wagon was a town tell, but instead he simply did not want to deflect to his partner.

How did I react to those wagons? Right, I said they were both suspicious, and voted the one who had more votes, and who had a power role. When Shadoweh the commoner was lynched instead, I spent all of yesterday trying to get BBmolla lynched, and would have succeeded if PeregrineV had not revealed his guilty result.

The only unknown scum at this stage is lawful evil, and though I say it myself, I believe my actions make me the least likely of all living players to be allied with BBmolla and Shadoweh.

The BB wagon was definitely scum driven and it looks like both teams went after it. Since we know at least two of the CE evil team was on there we can guess that it holds true for the LE evil team as well. Wagon analysis, or role analysis for that matter, is not my strong suit but I do think that at least one more of the LE team was on BB as well.

You know - I believe you are town regardless of your read on BBmolla, and I think the last lawful evil would be more cautious about declaring his partner town, but you are going to have to rethink this read soon. Very soon.

Now, it looks like everyone except Mastin and Haze have posted today, so it is about time for the grand reveal. This current discussion is not going to lead to anything.

[Feysal]

Ladies and gentlemen, good townsfolk, evil townsfolk.

The time has come for me to explain everything. I wanted to get everyone to commit to stances on BBmolla and Pine before my grand reveal, but given where this conversation was headed, I can wait no longer. It is unfortunate that Shadow was outed, since it was completely unnecessary. The only role revealed today should have been mine.

I am a lawful good wizard.

This claim alone should explain why I have been calling for BBmolla's blood from the moment I saw his claim. I do not believe there would be another wizard with the same alignment. But, you don't know the half of it yet. I have two further reasons which tell me BBmolla has to be lying. The first is my ability. I would prefer to keep to myself what exactly my ability is and what it does, but it is definitely not role blocking. The second is the fact that I have been role blocked...

twice

. Yes, one of those times was last night. The other was during the very first night,

the same night Pine claimed to also have been blocked, and BBmolla claimed not to have submitted an action

. Hands up, is there anyone who would believe that there are three role blockers on the loose? Right, I did not think so.

BBmolla is 100% confirmed lawful evil.

My revelations do not end here though. I have also strong reasons to believe Pine is the very last chaotic evil player. I have mentioned one of them before. At first glance his claim looks plausible enough, but when you consider what that role becomes when the lawful good and chaotic evil factions leave the game, you notice how broken it is. He claimed bard. Bards can only be chaotic. In the event that all the chaotic evil scum are confirmed to be gone, this would make a bard confirmed town. What is more, in the event that all remaining scum are lawful and all remaining town are chaotic, his power would be equivalent to that of a sane alignment cop. So, confirmed town alignment cop with unlimited actions, anyone? This role is way too good to be true, and when I thought of this yesterday I realized I'd been had. The fact that he was so strongly defended by MoS is icing on the cake.

There is also a minor inconsistency in Pine's claim, which I ignored at the time in favor of my otherwise strong town read on him.

Seacore got back to me. I investigated MoI, and was returned with a null result. The question I asked Seacore was whether the kill or investigation resolved first; I was informed (in that

roundabout Mod manner

) that my investigation failed before he was killed.

The observant reader may have noted that I have not claimed any of my targets. I was successful only on the second night, and I'm keeping that secret for the same reason as the ability itself. Last night I was blocked from visiting TiphaineDeath, and the first night I was blocked from visiting MoI. The same player Pine claimed to have failed to investigate. The sheer unlikelihood of this is baffling, and I have considered theories like MoI having been jailkept, making all actions he was targeted with fail - except someone obviously killed him. Be that as it may, this put me in the position where I could ask Seacore whether my action had failed because MoI had died, just as Pine had done. Naturally I expected the same response, and it was, almost. I asked a straight question, and received a straight answer. Nothing roundabout or ambiguous about it whatsoever.

I'm 95% certain of Pine being the last chaotic evil scum.

Now, some further explanations for my play may be in order. When I saw BBmolla's claim, I of course knew immediately he was lying. I found Shadoweh's claim suspicious too - I'm not completely gullible - but with a larger wagon on confirmed scum, it was clear where my vote would go. The same applies to yesterday. Given the bad situation of the lawful good town and what had happened to greenknight, there was no way I would claim if I could help it. I tried to have BBmolla lynched without having to out myself while evading scum attention at the same time. It nearly worked too. PeregrineV derailed the lynch at the last moment, but I am still here while MoS was killed, undoubtedly for his strong push against BBmolla. After those scum deaths what was unthinkable yesterday became the obvious right move today, which is why I am claiming now.

I also never considered CooLDoG suspicious, contrary to what PeregrineV tried to show. I did criticize MoI for his town read on CooLDoG, but I did not disagree with his conclusion, only with his reason. It bothered me that he declared CooLDoG town for his confusion about the hydra makeup, while that was the only part of his play I found suspicious. It was not nearly enough to overturn my town read on him though, I believed he was town right until the flip. He had me thoroughly fooled.

Finally, about my ability and why I'm keeping it secret. All I will say about it willingly is that it lets me find out something about my targets. Something, but not everything. If I reveal what exactly it does, scum can easily claim around it, but if I keep them guessing, there is a chance I can catch the last scum lying.

Now, I propose the following course of action:

1. We lynch BBmolla today.
2. Tonight I use my action for the last time, hoping to learn something to help the chaotic good town after I'm gone.
3. In the best case, two lawful good players are killed, which does not matter, since they would have left the game anyway when Pine is lynched. In the worst case, two chaotic good players die, but that would require the last chaotic evil player to abandon his win condition, since there are now two known lawful players.
4. Lawful good town full claim. Anything that can help the chaotic good is revealed. I would prefer to be last, if I live the night, and reveal what my ability is and what I've done with it.
5. Pine is lynched. Lawful good town win and leave the game, significantly reducing the pool of potential suspects, leaving chaotic good town in an excellent position to hunt down the final lawful evil scum.

Vote: BBmolla

I can't think of anything else to add. Any questions?

[Feysal]

why the hell did you take so long to counterclaim?

Like I said, I did not want to out myself to be night killed like greenknight was. After four lawful good town deaths, I did not want to risk myself. And, I did not think it was necessary to counterclaim. Throughout yesterday BBmolla was the largest wagon, and I'm confident that he would have been lynched even without my counterclaim if it had not been for PeregrineV. Having to wait was frustrating, but I believe it was the right play.

Now the situation is entirely different. After two chaotic evil deaths we have the numbers to win whether I'm killed or not, so I have no more reason to hide.

[Feysal]

I know there have been posts I should respond to, Shadow's claim in particular, but unfortunately that will have to wait. My laptop has fallen victim to the Metropolitan Police Ukash virus, and I've just pulled an all-nighter to get rid of it. The virus is gone now, but my computer is nowhere near full recovery. I'll be back in some hours.

[Feysal]

I have eliminated the last trojan and repaired the damage done to my system. Fortunately nothing seems to have been lost except time and effort, and some hours of sleep. Back to reading and responding to posts.

-If you're Lawful Good, why aren't you proposing we lynch Pine first instead of BBMolla (considering you're confident in both being close to confirmed scum and BBMolla being the wrong flavour of scum)?

It would be more beneficial for me, but I doubt the chaotic good town would agree. With two chaotic evil scum down, I don't mind waiting, and besides, BBmolla is the only one I am certain of. Judged by his play I would still see Pine as town, it is his claim that I find difficult to believe. His answer to why the response he got from Seacore would be different is plausible too. I asked whether my action resolved before or after MoI's death, and if Pine asked a different question about why his action failed, it would make sense that the response he got was different too. By the way, when I was blocked the first night and last night, the wording of the messages I got was slightly different, but I don't think that matters.

Anyway, I did consider the pros and cons of lynching Pine first, and in my opinion that would be slightly worse for chaotic good town. There would only be one kill, but that kill would be certain to hit chaotic good town, and in addition to that there would be a role block. By comparison, by lynching BBmolla first there will be no more role block, and the extra kill will be aimed at lawful good town, which no longer matters if they win and leave anyway. Also, the lawful good power roles will have one extra night to try and find out something for the chaotic good town to use.

I think I said at the start of the game that both towns would need to cooperate. I believe both have a better chance of winning that way, and this is no time to get selfish and ruin that.

-You said you didn't want to claim so you wouldn't be nightkilled like greenknight. But IIRC, BBMolla's claim came on D2. Why didn't you claim then while Shadoweh was being wagoned?

It was the end of the day and BBmolla had more votes. I did not think it was necessary to claim then, as I believed he was the lynch. I did not expect greenknight turning attention to Shadoweh, and I did not return to the thread until the day was over.

Preview edit: I'm being suspected of being chaotic evil now? With two chaotic evil already down? This should be good. More posts to read first though.

[Feysal]

@Feysal- Do you have more, and/or a response to stuff since your claim?

Yes, in a moment. I've been delayed by this untimely virus attack, I'm catching up and responding now.

[Feysal]

I see there were a number of requests for me to claim my ability, since I am now unlikely to live the night. I have to agree, and on closer analysis the information I have is already useful, and it would be a shame to die without sharing it. A ball in the hand is worth two in the bush.

My spell flavor is

Detect Thoughts

. I might as well have claimed it earlier, since neither the name of the spell or its description in D&D give much of a hint about what it does. It tells me the class of my target, essentially making me a flavor cop.

This ties into my suspicion of Pine's claim by the way. I'm not sure if anyone noticed, but I left a flaw in the logic about how Pine's claim could make him a confirmed town cop. Just because he claimed bard does not mean he would be proved as one, and thus he would not become confirmed town based on his claim alone. My investigation however could prove that.

Anyway, my one successful investigation on night two was on AV. He is a commoner. I have no idea of whether he's lawful or chaotic, but I believe now that this result makes him probable if not confirmed town. I believe Shadow is right about the last missing scum having power roles, which would make commoners confirmed town at this stage. Yesterday was quite different though. When BBmolla claimed to have blocked AV I was really hoping it was a scum gambit, and AV would try to counterclaim him for town credit. It would have backfired so gloriously we would still be watching the fireworks. Alas, it was not to be.

Since I shared that, I might as well share the rest of what I've been thinking. It is about Zdenek. I've been calling him town based on meta pretty much all game, and my opinion on that has not changed, but I'm getting concerned about him and Pine being alive three days after claiming chaotic good. Meanwhile the lawful evil scum have consistently failed to kill any of the players they were hunting.

I don't really believe Shadow's theory about the town and scum factions having the same powers mirrored. For one thing, I think that would probably lead to counterclaim madness, especially if the players caught on to the pattern. It would be too easy for the towns. I do believe that both town and both scum factions have the same number of power roles of approximately equal power though.

[Feysal]

Why do we think there are only six scum in a 26 player game and not eight scum in a 26 player game?

I believe it because four scum in each team would make the setup very scum-sided. If that were true, the towns could barely afford any mislynches if they wanted to win. From a game balance point of view, I consider three-member scum teams much more sensible.

[Feysal]

Not true at all.

Very true, since there are two towns. If both towns wanted to win, they would not only need to lynch the scum opposing them, but maintain their numbers in balance. With four scum in each team, it would become excessively difficult for both towns to win together.

Also find it odd you haven't asked the mod if "commoner" = confirmed town or not.

Considering that there are two flipped evil commoners on the front page, I'll have to say such a question would be entirely pointless. My point is that there are probably no more evil commoners left alive, and Seacore would never answer if I asked him to confirm that.

[Feysal]

Glad to be alive. I checked the thread earlier before leaving to watch the Avengers. Coming back four hours later, I find four new pages of posts. Wow.

So, PeregrineV was actually a Paladin. That does not surprise me. I never believed his story about the ring after all, and it occurred to me that it could be a coverup for his own power role. I guess the scum may have thought so too.

Now, time to get into this Oversoul-Pine business. There seem to be some misconceptions here. I'm usually at my best analyzing night actions, so time to make a summary of what has been claimed.

Night 1

MoI is killed.
Oversoul's predecessor, claimed chaotic cleric, protects MoI from law.
Pine, claimed chaotic bard, fails to investigate MoI.
Feysal, claimed lawful wizard, fails to investigate MoI.
greenknight, flipped lawful cleric, targets Feysal.
Shadow, flipped chaotic ranger, tracks greenknight to Feysal.
BBmolla, flipped lawful evil wizard, claimed no action.

I think that is all we know. Most of these actions add up very nicely, and evidence from the thread supports them. Since Shadow has flipped, we can accept his report of greenknight having targeted me as fact. However, I believe Shadow's theory about greenknight blocking me has now been disproven. It occurs to me that if it was true, greenknight should have been suspicious of me on day two, but there is barely any mention of me in his ISO at all. I know that I was blocked, and the action Oversoul claimed would explain that. That leaves the block on Pine as the only unexplained action.

My take on this is that BBmolla probably blocked Pine. He could not claim it since it would be viewed as anti-town, and he could not claim having blocked another player, since if he picked a power role at random, it would expose him to be counterclaimed. My conclusion is that Pine is highly unlikely to be lawful evil, never mind the fact that a bard cannot even be lawful.

I think it is worth noting that in his first post the next day, BBmolla declared Tammy as town. The same player Shadoweh claimed to have protected. Now that Tammy has claimed lawful, I wonder if they somehow knew?

Night 2

greenknight and Lord Mhork are killed.
Oversoul protects Regfan from law.
Pine fails to investigate chesskid.
Feysal investigates AV as commoner.
Shadow tracks Pine to chesskid.
BBmolla claims block on AV.

Not much to say here. Pine claimed he was blocked, but if BBmolla targeted AV, we don't know how that happened. Since we don't know what greenknight's final action was, I don't see how we could figure that out either.

Night 3

Regfan and MoS are killed.
Oversoul protects Pine from law.
Pine investigates PeregrineV as lawful.
Feysal fails to investigate TiphaineDeath.
Shadow tracks Mina to nowhere.
BBmolla claims block on Feysal.

Now this is an interesting night. Oversoul protected Pine, whose investigation succeeded for the first time. This is evidence of Pine having the ability he claims, since he predicted correctly that PeregrineV was lawful. Pine may not have been targeted at all however, since BBmolla claimed having blocked me, which I indeed was. Here is some proof that BBmolla indeed was a role blocker, unlike myself. For the record, what I found damning about BBmolla's claim was that he had claimed the same alignment and class as me, but a different spell. Had he claimed chaotic wizard, I could have believed him.

Night 4

PeregrineV and Shadow are killed.
Oversoul protects Feysal from law.
Pine investigates ?.
Feysal investigates Zdenek as commoner.

The first thing that makes me wonder here is why would Oversoul protect me? I had claimed lawful, therefore if any scum were to attack me, they would in all likelihood be chaotic, and protection from law would be wasted on me. Shadow was the only claimed chaotic power role, and the protection really should have been used on him.

My original plan was for the lawful good to full claim today, and have the chaotic good keep their roles hidden. That is why I investigated Zdenek. I was worried about his continued survival as claimed chaotic good, and since he had claimed his class too, I could either expose him or confirm him. He is a commoner, just like he claimed to be, and probable town. I expect the last remaining scum have a power role each.

My conclusions from all that has been claimed is that Oversoul's claim fits the evidence. It explains the block on me on night one. On the other hand, I can confirm that I was blocked on night three, apparently by BBmolla, who could have blocked Pine on night one, so Oversoul's case on him fails. His behavior however screams town to me.

So much for that.

VOTE: Junpei

If I were scum I wouldn't lie Pine, stop being stupid. There are a lot of reasons not to lie in this game about your ethics. You obviously are either scum with no result who's afraid of being wrong on me or you have a result on someone else; stop bothering me.

Everything in this post is wrong. It has been established repeatedly that the scum must lie to avoid being crosskilled and to avoid being exposed after two factions leave the game. Now that we expect there to be only one scum left in each faction, scum have a stronger reason to lie than ever before. They cannot be certain which of them will leave the game first, and guessing wrong would guarantee their loss.

Also, Pine has already proven his ability by investigating PeregrineV. I believe he has a result. Junpei's refusal to claim looks damning like hell. I can only imagine scum having motive to hide their alignment now, and Junpei looks like he is caught between a hammer and an anvil - if he lies, Pine may expose him, and if he tells the truth, he will automatically lose if the other factions leave first.

[Feysal]

1) Who did you investigate N1 again? (Sorry if you've already answered this, but you can probably see where I'm heading.)

MoI, as listed in my summary post above.

2) Can you explain how Zdenek is playing to his town meta? My only experience with him has been when he's scum. I found he tended to post the occasional solid case, but was somewhat robotic and had an opportunistic pattern. I haven't seen a major difference here (well, I haven't really looked at his votes), but his overconfidence in scum reads and tendency to tunnel seems new. Is that what makes him town to you? Is there something else I'm missing?

That is pretty much it. The way Zdenek pushed Tammy early on reminded me of my battle with him in Consulmaker III - the game disappeared in the crash, but we were both town. He seems more involved and even reckless to me, while as scum he has seemed more prone to lurking and being cautious.

In addition to that, I confirmed his commoner claim last night. I think you and he are both town, and if one of the last scum turns out to have a power role as I expect, you will be confirmed town.

[Feysal]

Responding to prod.

Contrary to my habits, I don't feel like writing a longwinded post repeating all the new points made during my absence and my take of them. Suffice to say that I find that the evidence supporting Pine's claim is compelling. The numbers of claimed power roles match, and no further power claims seem to be forthcoming. And now that I think of it, Pine's ability is not the only one that would increase in power if the other two factions left - if the chaotic good and lawful evil left, and I was still here, my own ability would be comparable to a cop, since I would know how many power roles the lawful evil team had. I still think Pine's ability has potential of being grossly overpowered, but that may be required by the setup. We do have only one lynch against two scum kills after all.

I also don't think Oversoul is scum, partly for the same power role symmetry argument, but mainly because his actions have fairly consistently read as town to me, and I can't see this claim coming from scum. I never had much of a read on briz, and don't get what the case on him is about, though admittedly I was not paying attention when I was focused on BBmolla.

According to Shadow's claim yesterday, Mina is confirmed town, because he tracked her and she did not move, during a night when all scum should have been active. AurorusVox and Zdenek I can confirm as commoners, and depending on whether the scum have any more power roles, they may become confirmed town yet. I'm not suspicious of either at the moment. I believe Tammy is town, I'm fairly certain of that, even. Many other players I have weaker town reads on, some only due to process of elimination, since I have stronger scum reads.

My guesses for last chaotic evil scum are TiphaineDeath and Mastin. For the former, I have only one thing to add to the arguments already posted, and it is about Norman. Some players declared the slot town because of Norman's antics, but a chance comment in another ongoing game referred me to one of his completed games, Mini 1276. In that game Norman started a wagon on himself, claimed scum, and ended up force replaced. The end of the game has been lost, but from what I gathered this earned Norman's replacement a confirmed town status, despite turning out to be scum in the end. Simply put, Norman's trolling does not mean the slot would be town. As for TiphaineDeath, I have been suspicious of him for a while.

As for Mastin, there are two things in particular I find suspicious. The first is his case on BBmolla. At the time I thought he could be bussing him, but there is another possibility. After MoS flipped chaotic evil, I found myself wondering why he was so convinced of BBmolla being scum. It occurred to me that he may have actually known BBmolla was scum, from an unknown action of his, or perhaps a partner. If so, it would make sense that the other chaotic evil knew also, and may have tried to push BBmolla for the town credit.

The second thing I find suspicious about Mastin is circumstantial. He claimed his alignment last. It has been established that scum have reason to lie at this point, but the scum telling the truth is still not ruled out. I can imagine the scum being concerned about this and delaying their claim. If it becomes apparent that the other scum lied, they would lie also, but if the other scum took the risk of telling the truth, the other scum might need to do so as well. Imagine if we had ended up with one lawful claim more or less than we expected - had that happened, one half of the town would have been confirmed immediately. If Junpei is scum, this may have actually happened.

UNVOTE: Junpei
VOTE: TiphaineDeath

Preview edit:

Mod: Prod Feysal, please.

I had been prodded already, took my time typing this.

[Feysal]

Whoa, we have a huge spurt of activity. I've read part and skimmed the rest, but we seem to have caught scum today. Even if Chesskid had not given up, it was obvious that Pine could not have been lying now, with the chaotic town nowhere near LYLO.

I am intrigued by Chesskid's suggestion of lynching one of the lawful claimants today. There is Mastin, Nacho, Tammy and me. Lawful good town is in MYLO, and chaotic good town is basically safe.

From what I understood, if Chesskid was lynched first, it would result in me being killed next night as the only confirmed lawful good, since Chesskid claims he would flip a commoner. I can believe that. I guess the reason I'm still alive is because of my theory of confirmed commoners being confirmed town, which could have caused me to falsely clear the last chaotic evil scum. I investigated Mastin last night, and learned that he is a commoner, but I no longer believe it would make him town. In fact, my ability has most likely become useless. Anyway, my death would leave only Mastin, Nacho and Tammy alive tomorrow, and from a mathematical point of view, lawful good town would have one chance in three of victory.

The alternative is lynching one lawful good claimant today. Then, Chesskid could kill one of the remaining three, and the lawful good team could win with only one survivor after the crosskill. This would increase the chance of victory to one in two. I don't see a downside to this, for either town. Even if Chesskid did not kill from the lawful good claimants, it would be no worse than the first scenario.

In either case, I've got to decide who of the lawful good claimants is most likely to be lying. I have trusted Tammy for most of the game, and I believe Nacho is town too. I have been in a game with him before where he was the chief suspect in LYLO, and I'm reminded of that here. The game in question was There Goes the Neighborhood if anyone is interested. Lynching Nacho did not end well for town then, and I don't think it would end well here either.

I believe Mastin is the last scum.

I think I've said the most important things now. I now have some questions:

@All chaotic good

: I know you probably want to lynch Chesskid and call it a game, however you have already won. It does not matter whether you lynch him today or tomorrow. For lawful good town however, there is a difference, and leaving Chesskid alive could be our last chance of winning. You probably don't trust him, and I would be lying if I claimed to fully trust him too. He may just want to kill me to avenge his partner, but even the chance of him killing the last chaotic evil scum is better than risking everything in LYLO tomorrow.

My question is simple: would you be willing to delay your victory by one day to increase lawful good's chance of victory?

And just in case you have some input on who you think is the last chaotic evil, please share.

@All lawful good

: Who do you think is the last chaotic evil?

I provided my answer already, but I will be rereading just to be sure.

[Feysal]

Spoiler: Rant about ethical play

Do the LG guys have no pride? "If we don't lynch Chess today he could troll to give us the win!"

Pride don't enter into it. This is pure mathematics. By accepting Chesskid's offer we increase our chance of victory, and even if he does not keep his end of the bargain, it does not hurt either of the towns. Every mafia game I've ever been part of has shared the same rule, play to win. If I were to reject the offer out of pride, I would be breaking that rule. On top of that, the fact that I personally want to give Chesskid his chance is a nice bonus.

I find this issue of ethics interesting, since this is not the first time I've encountered it. In Children of Húrin Mafia I was Gurthang the serial killer. I replaced into a slot already under pressure, and after I inadvertently recruited Furcolow to my cause, I was doomed. The very next day Furcolow proclaimed that I had tried to kill him, and that his win condition had changed. With that huge millstone around my neck, winning the game was beyond hope. But I was still alive, and I saw a way to survive a while longer. I could not win, but I could influence who did.

So what was I to do? Any choice I could have made would have affected someone else. If we define the ethical choice as not getting involved, that was not available to me either. At one point I in fact asked the mod of her opinion on whether I could make a full confession, and she predictably said I should try to stay alive and play to win. So I made my choice. I followed the cardinal rule of having fun and enjoying the game, and chose to ally myself with the town. And enjoy the game I did, despite knowing I was doomed. I was not very effective at helping the town, but I gave it my best shot.

After the game I was criticized by Vi for what I'd done. That is when I thought over this issue, and realized that there is no such thing as an ethical choice. If you're in the game, you're involved. Both actions and inactions have consequences. Anything you do or don't do, say or don't say, will matter to someone.

Here we have Empking claiming that the ethical choice would be to deny Chesskid his opportunity to make a difference, and not get involved in the outcome of the game between lawful good and chaotic evil. Nothing could be further from the truth. By advocating lynching Chesskid he is getting involved, and he is doing it in favor of the chaotic evil who have killed one of his team members, and siding against the lawful good who have worked with his team from the beginning and contributed considerably to their victory. I did not see Empking complain when Greenknight championed the final push against Shadoweh and got killed for it. Nor did he protest when I counterclaimed BBmolla. The fact that he does so now and has the gall to call it ethical makes him a hypocrite and a traitor.

The only player who should be making any kind of choice here should be Chesskid. I do not know what motivates him, and I consider it possible that he may want to kill me for outing his partner, or just for laughs. It makes no difference, I'm defending his right to make that choice either way. I'm not even doing this because I am lawful good, I would be doing the same as good or evil, lawful or chaotic. In Children of Húrin, the day I was lynched I asked to be spared for one day to kill one more scum suspect, but I was denied. That kill would have hit scum. I want Chesskid to get the chance I did not get. Whatever he chooses, I will not hold it against him.

What Empking is doing however?

That

I will hold against him. If I ever find myself in the position where I can choose to screw him over when it does not matter to me, I will be delighted to do so.

Now that I got that out of my system, it is time to play mafia. Just because I want to give Chesskid a chance does not mean I would be blindly letting either of Mastin and Nacho get lynched today and count on Chesskid to get the other if we're wrong. I would much rather get the lynch right.

[Feysal]

Sorry about the inactivity, I have not had the time I would've needed for both my games. I'll make catching up here a priority tomorrow, tonight you're only getting this prod dodge.

[Feysal]

It is time I began to contribute to the discussion on our decisive lynch. I have only skimmed the latest pages, and am not aware of any arguments already covered. That could work, since now I'm not influenced by what others have said in drawing my own conclusions. I started with an ISO read of Nacho and his predecessor trekker. I'll do the same to Mastin later.

As I said earlier, I believe Nacho to be town, and reading his ISO has not changed that. This is in large part due to my experience with him in There Goes the Neighborhood, where the final mislynch was on Nacho, resulting in town loss. I've been reminded of that game by some of his posts here, such as when he admits to having been fooled by Mastin and concedes the round to him. Compare that to what he says about AV in post #1122 in the other game for an example. It is from moments like this that my town read initially arose.

I also don't see anything wrong about him turning on Mastin after calling him town all game. What else should he do as town in MYLO, surrounded only by town reads, but try to figure out which of them he was wrong about?

I have no idea of how anyone ever manages to get a read on trekker, but I do know that behaving as he did would not be out of place for him as town. In retrospect, his reads were surprisingly good too, with one scum from each team among the three he was pushing. I think the CooLDoG push speaks for the slot being town, since that would be an odd thing to do to a partner, and so early.

I also looked in CooLDoG's posts for interaction with trekker, and damn, there is a lot more of it than I remembered. He first reacts to trekker's suspicion on him, and tries to discredit him. This seems to me more like scum defending themselves from town rather than from their partner, since if they were allied CooLDoG would know that trekker has no desire to actually lynch him. Instead CooLDoG becomes fixated on trekker, and starts pushing for his lynch in earnest. This really does not look like bussing to me. The suspicion on both sides seems too strong for that, and you'd think scum would have better things to do than keep voting each other.

I have one more solid point to make too. Remember this?

lawful.

After Oversoul called for the alignment mass claim, Nacho was the first to respond. I think it is important to note here that if Nacho was scum, he would be chaotic, and he would therefore know that Pine was town, since as a bard he could only be chaotic good. Chaotic evil has always known that Pine is a threat to them, and yet Nacho claimed his alignment without hesitation.

Now compare to Mastin.

You probably already figured out that I'm Lawful Good.

Mastin was the dead last claimant, and I suspect he may have waited for Pine to claim his result, and to see if the other scum chose to lie or tell the truth. There is no direct evidence of this however. I looked at Mastin's activity, and he made no posts anywhere between the start of the day and this post, save one a couple hours earlier.

There is something else that bothers me about Mastin's alignment claim, and that is the part about us already figuring out what he was. That tells me that Mastin was thinking about what we expected him to be when he wrote that, and that rings the alarm bells for me. Simply put, compared to Nacho, I find Mastin's alignment claim more suspicious by far.

More tomorrow, now sleep.

[Feysal]

Okay. I'm finally finished reading through Mastin's ISO. I feel like I've wasted my time, and everyone else's, since I only ended up confirming the read I already had. Between Mastin and Nacho, I believe Mastin to be scum.

VOTE: mastin2

I'm pretty much ignoring the possibility that Tammy has fooled us all. Except for the very start of the game, I've always had a town read on her, and I don't see how getting paranoid about that would help now. I'm going to have to trust someone, and I choose to trust her. I can think of no reason not to.

In case we still want to discuss this, here are some of my thoughts from reading Mastin.

For starters, I find some of Mastin's first posts odd. It is commonly accepted that ignorance is town, but I find that is only true up to a certain limit. I can understand people missing details such as individual rules and being clueless about the setup, but sometimes people appear to be ignorant of things so painfully obvious that they go beyond my ability to suspend my disbelief. For example, the only thing in CooLDoG's play that I found suspicious was how totally confused he was about who was in the MoI hydra, even after it was explained to him twice. I could not understand how anyone could be that lost, and consequently it came off as fabricated, an attempt to appear ignorant that had gone overboard. I'm sensing something similar in Mastin's early posts, though much more subtle, like the comment about imagining there is a scum faction out there. Well, duh. Another example was when he quoted the playerlist from the first page and asked if that was everyone.

After that, Mastin starts reading and quickly produces a list of reads, but no explanations. What I find strange about this is that Mastin claimed not to have read even the second page. I don't believe in clairvoyance, and I have no idea how he arrived at those reads. Whenever he has been asked to explain, he has talked about internalization and his QuickTopic notes, but he has rarely been able to name real reasons. There are some exceptions to this of course. He defended Zdenek very strongly early on, based on his meta. I agree with that, though I wonder how his conviction could be so strong. And there is this gem too.

...Add in Cooldog (scumread) to the list of people pushing the Nacho wagon as yet another reason to never again consider Nacho scum.

Mastin already explained that his read changed, which would make sense after our scum flips. The reason he named was something else though. He pinpointed the rise of his suspicion on Nacho to his failure to reply to post #2516. Frankly I find this story ridiculous, but stranger yet, it does not match the actual timeline. Post #2516 was made four days before post #2685, where Mastin was still calling Nacho town. The first trace of suspicion on Nacho does not appear until post #3480.

It's an old trick. Shoot one of your own to show that you're not one of them.

They've just freshened it up a bit with blank cartridges.

You may wonder what an old movie quote has to do with anything, but it illustrates a simple point. Scum bus each other to show they are not on the same side, but they don't want their friends to die. This means that it is often possible to spot bussing scum because their pushes are halfhearted, lack conviction, and the target of the bus may not even react to it, knowing the busser will not force the issue. When a push is strong, pressure is kept up, and the other player defends himself, then it is much less likely to be a bus, though exceptions exist.

If we look at how Nacho and Mastin have interacted with other known chaotic evil, the difference is clear. Mastin names MoS as a suspect, but never votes him. He does vote CooLDoG, which he never even acknowledges. The only thing CooLDoG ever says about Mastin is a non-committal "Mastin lynch I'm just not feeling today". On the other hand, while Nacho never has any interaction with MoS worth mentioning, the battle between his predecessor trekker and CooLDoG looks very much like the real thing. Later on CooLDoG repeatedly endorses a Nacho lynch. My conclusions from this are quite clear.

To finish, there are a number of WTF moments in Mastin's ISO, where I just can't understand what he is thinking about. Such as when Shadoweh flipped scum, after which he dropped many of his reads, believing them wrong since he was still alive. Another was when he speculated on his predecessor having used him as a role model, and the less said about that dream of his the better. I tend to trust people whose thoughts I can follow, and the opacity of Mastin's posts is almost impenetrable. I understand much too rarely what is going on in his head.

[Feysal]

And so the game ends in a dual town victory. I'm well pleased. It was not perfect, but overall I think both towns played well.

This is only my second town victory on site, and the first where I was correct on the final lynch when it counted. Still my play definitely had room for improvement. I started out pretty excited, having received my first significant power role, and I think I actually had the highest post count in the original thread. Later I slipped back into lurking, and when Shadoweh and BBmolla were wagoned, I was pretty out of touch with what was going on. I got my bearings quickly enough though. After that I just kept my vote on BBmolla and waited for the passage of time to get me the lynch while the rest of the town argued. I was certain then that BBmolla would be lynched at the end of the day even if I did not claim, and claiming would only draw a night kill from scum, so I kept silent. That day my lurking was intentional too. I don't know why MoS was so certain about BBmolla being scum, but I made sure I was playing second violin to his first to protect myself.

Also I think Feysal/Pere at the end of the day played their PRs very well, they managed to appear scummy enough to avoid ever being night-killed but not scummy enough that they were ever a leading lynch candidate. It's the perfect way to play the roles they were given. Oversoul on the other hand...

Oddly enough, I never managed to do anything significant with my ability. The only things of any importance I learned were from failures, which enabled me to confirm the actions of others.

Now that I remember, the reason I tried to investigate MoI on the first night was because I suspected them, and I knew they would not be an easy target to lynch, so I felt I needed solid information to use as ammunition. When he claimed to have super secret reasons for me being town, that clinched it. I've seen too many false claims from MoI, the individual player. I'll be interested to find out how many players actually targeted him that night.

The Lawful QT is very small. :< We uh.. didn't talk much.

I can imagine. I can also imagine Seacore's desperation when he made post #894... half of the total scum needing replacement at the same time. I don't know if there is a record for highest number of replacements needed in a game, but this game had more than I've ever seen.

Should have listened to my doubts about Cooldog and his "confusion" over the set up, but so many people were so certain he was town I let my self be swayed.

That goes for me too. I did reconsider my read of CooLDoG a number of times, but I could never get over the fact that Seacore had made a clarification post about the setup in the original thread soon after CooLDoG's crackpot theorizing. That appeared to confirm there was real confusion, and CooLDoG had displayed his in thread.

By the way, I have a minor confession to make. I criticized Mastin for supposedly suspecting Nacho for not answering when he asked if he was town, but I can similarly pinpoint the moment I decided you were town to a single post. It was #684, specifically the bit about

swimming

. I don't think that reason would have gone over well so I shut up about it, and even now I don't think I can satisfactorily explain why I got a town read from that, it just felt like something only town would say. After that I never doubted you again. I'm sure I could have come up with better reasons if I'd had to defend you, but that never happened.

[Feysal]

You can't read me very well Feysal

Really? I've had a scum read on you in every game we've played, excluding ones where I was scum, and this is the first time I've been wrong.

[Feysal]

Mastermind of Sin - Night 1 - Watch Pine - targeted by BBmolla

I knew it. There had to be a reason why MoS was so single mindedly pushing BBmolla.