California Trilogy - Dantès in Fresno (Game Over!)

[Gaspar]

Ah. Understandable.

By the way, what I meant by "anything that moves" is people who have actually done something since DGB's death. I believe that Sarc has not posted (except to say "awesomesauce") and IH made one post, which consisted of a single question specifically addressed to Sarc and some seemingly-irrelevant comments about claiming special words.

I guess I'm curious to know how you would react if IH and/or Sarc said it was "SiLee/Setael" as well, given you seem to trust Sarc at the very least.

[Gaspar]

Now see, if I were merely going for the win and thought DP was town, I'd be jumping ship right now and going for a quicklynch in endgame (assuming Sarc doesn't block someone from making a kill tonight). Needless to say, I'm not.

It's tempting, though, not gonna lie. But I hate Survivor roles so much that I'd really like to shift the meta towards them being an asset to towns, as opposed to a threat. If I lose because of it, whatever -- I'll take the moral victory of having figured out the scums (kinda like how I was willing to throw the personal victory in LO1 in favor of actually lynching scums on D4... hopefully this works out the same).

[Gaspar]

Pfeh.

The role ability is proven, obviously, but there is never any reason to lie about your role if you're town, especially during a massclaim.



Some questions:
What were your targets, night-by-night, and what are rough paraphrases of the messages you sent each one?
What is the flavor behind your role? Are you still Leon S. Peters, or did you lie about your character name as well?

[Gaspar]

Eh, double-post.

I should also point out that Sarc dying as Barry McGuire further ties in with the "red herring" on Dantes identities. I'd be willing to bet that, even if DP thinks he's telling the truth about being Sinbad, he's obviously not

actually

a Dantes identity.

Also, for the record, Tally, I was keeping an eye on the game and would have moved to DP if necessary with about half an hour before deadline. But yes, Sarc had yet to vote and I was under the impression that he would hammer somebody. Nervous as you may have been, a lynch was going to be achieved somewhere, on somebody.

Set, your conclusion that Tally is "practically confirmed" doesn't sit terribly well with me. For someone who went from "Gaspar and Sarc are basically confirmed" after DGB died to "I think Glork and DGB were distancing," I think you're being awfully quick to jump from one side of the debate to another. It's like one second, you don't believe that two players could distance or bus as scumbuddies, then the next you're assuming that such is the case. Your suspicions seem too (for lack of a better word) convenient.

The biggest thing sitting in the way of me just voting Set and being done with it is the ability itself. As I speculated yesterday, it doesn't feel like a scummish ability at all, unless there's a significant chance that the user will die. I don't like Set's play and her interactions, I don't like the nature of her suspicions, I don't like her decision to lie about her role yesterday. There's a lot that either doesn't add up, or adds up to Set being scum, but the claim (even though a small part of me saw it coming) has thrown me in for a loop, and I don't know why.

On, one more question, Set: What possible abilities can be granted by your product?

[Gaspar]

(Okay, not double-post. Oh wait....)

[Gaspar]

CES's last condorcet from D1 looked like this:

Vote: Battle Mage

, [Cubsfan, Skruffs], [Mgm, LoudmouthLee, xyzzy], [everyone else, excluding me], [Dragon Phoenix, logicticus]

With Cubs getting lynched that day and Battle Mage getting killed that night (although looking at CES's posts, he actually pulled BM off of his list after BM's claim), you mean to say that CES tried to gift one of his top living suspects at the start of D2?

Also, here was your claim:

Probably wise since Silent Lee doesn't seem to be in a real hurry. Leon S. Peters, Innocent and Boring.

This strongly implied vanilla Townie, so while you didn't explicitly say you were powerless, "Innocent and Boring" (note the capital letters on "Boring") was absolutely misleading. Tally even listed people's claims, and next to yours put "(townie?)".... you never responded in any way. An intentionally vague and misleading claim is equivalent to a lie.

[Gaspar]

Set, my dear.

The chief purposes of a massclaim are twofold:
1) To get all claims out in the open so as to make finding scumbags easier, the idea being that the information gained from the town will have greater benefit than the information gained by the scums.
2) To establish possible night action combinations and results, so as to best plan for the current and future days' actions.

Both of these purposes rely heavily on all protown players telling the truth about their claims, because it is a given that the scums will lie about their claims in order to muck things up. When a protown player lies (or effectively lies) about his or her role, that undermines the purpose of a massclaim.

Supposing you are indeed protown, let's say that you would in fact have been killed overnight. That would leave us with Gaspar, IH, Sarcastro, DP, and Tally. While there would be no active power for the town, the benefit of having an effectively-confirmed innocent in Sarcastro would have been

invaluable

right now. On the other hand, you are about as far from "effectively-confirmed innocent" as possible. And, at least for me, the fact that you have this ability means little right now because I've been in a game that had a Mafia Inventor.

Furthermore, lying creates a significant trust issue if you're protown. There is a

reason

that "Lynch All Liars" is a policy, and while I'm not going to invoke that here (rather, if I were to decide you are the play today, it would not be solely -- or even primarily -- because of LAL), it has thrown me in for a major loop.

You're making no sense.

Sure I am. You said "I didn't lie about anything." I am pointing out that you made a significant lie of omission by deliberately misleading the rest of us.

I'm questioning your motivations for hinting at being powerless to begin with. If you are scum and/or if you do have a chance of daykilling a target who accepts your product, you are potentially a significant threat to the town here. If you're protown, you've robbed us of your trustworthiness, potentially cost us the existence of a guaranteed innocent, and put yourself in a position where you're a viable lynch candidate anyway (meaning that the "hint townie, claim power later" strategy failed miserably).


Finally, re: this--

he wasn't a prime suspect.

My point is that, if CES wanted to give a beneficial gift to somebody he believed was protown, Logicticus and DP were the most logical choices, and one of "everyone else" was likely/viable than Xyzzy. Giving an ability to somebody in the upper echelons of your suspicion list doesn't make sense. Giving it to somebody whom you firmly believe is protown does.

[Gaspar]

To your knowledge, Setael, is there

any

chance whatsoever that your target will die if he or she uses the product?

A simple "yes, there is a chance that the target will die," "No, there is no chance that they will die," or "I don't know if that's a possibility or not" will suffice.

[Gaspar]

Even though she is gone, I assume we can still lynch Setael, even if you cannot kill her.

I would assume not. Hard to lynch someone who isn't there.

I find it odd that you two both have IH as your top suspect. I'd have him below Tally, and probably below DP. I don't think he was given "Innocent Fresnonite" (or whatever it was) as a safeclaim, and I don't see him going out on a limb to claim the role himself -- especially in the manner that he did, with the slight variant on the actual rolename.

[Gaspar]

So I'm the last scum? Or Seteal? C'mon Gas, make your case. If it's Seteal, I think the game would be lost unless we no-kill and no lynch today AND she reappears tomorrow.

I am disinclined to believe it's Setael. It could be you, it could be DP. I personally don't think it's IH.


I would ask that you not kill anybody until I've had a chance to read over the game. (Probably not

entire

game, but at least the deceased scums and the remaining players. I plan on devoting several hours to reading it Saturday afternoon, my time.)

[Gaspar]

I personally don't think it's IH.

Why not?

I don't think he was given "Innocent Fresnonite" (or whatever it was) as a safeclaim, and I don't see him going out on a limb to claim the role himself -- especially in the manner that he did, with the slight variant on the actual rolename.

[Gaspar]

EBWOP: To elaborate on why I don't think he was given that rolename as a safe-claim -- I think that one of the other scums (DGB or SilentLee) would likely also have tried to claim some variant of "Innocent Fresno Resident" if that were the case. If they had the tools, they would have used them, IMO.


Going to re-read relatively soon -- been looking at my other games first.

[Gaspar]

I'm doing IH first, because figuring him out seems to be the most urgent task at hand here.



Starting with Oman's posts (since he preceeded IH)... the only thing I notice is actually somewhat significant:

Adele : I get an early townie vibe due to her discussion of dice tags and its resulting look at LML. While I'm not saying that LML is scum, I am saying I agree with her analysis within her posts and think them to be town.

The metascummy argument also makes me think town as she aknowledges it is "making a big deal out of it" (which it is). It severly weakens it to the point that no-one is going to be lynched on that argument. I don't see scum weakening themselves.

However Adele sticks to this chat on random voting rather than looking at the real issues. Says in post 181 "Things are random at this stage" which I think we're way past.

And... what game do you think we're playing? Wouldn't giving people your login so they can access your account and see your role pm allow them to see your motivations without wild guesses?
Are you gonna do it? No, because it's against the rule.
Why is it against the rules? Because it's anti-game.

Fairly stretchy. Malking motivations known are anti-game. But MoS isn't letting us know his motivations, he's putting forward what his motivations are, and its up to us to detect if its a lie or not. You're comparing his word (which is flimsy in a game) with irrefutable evidence.

I disagree with her stance on the "Yay thesp" issue, saying that its paranoia. I think thesp could be scum, if only because he's playing in the game, and we know there are scum here.

I don't get town or scum from Adel, gun-to-head I'd say town right now.

He buffs her as being protown, but intentionally fence-sits, but says that if he were forced to choose one, he'd say town. This is a scumbuddy-like interaction. You want to slide people away from your buddy, but you don't want to outright defend them in case things go haywire.

IH replaces in and takes the opposite stance, putting up walls between himself and Adele in his first post, here. Noteworthy at the end of his post, his overall assessment:

Town-Pooky, Skruffs, Talitha, Thesp, Zindy, CES, DP, MGM

Neutral-Tamuz, Logictus, MoS, PWS

Vote:Jeep/Jeeps replacement, LoudMouthLee, Adele, Xyzzy, Foolinc, Cubsfan4ever, VitR, PWS, Logictus, MoS, Tamuz

Thesp/Zindie town, Adele third highest in condorcet.

Moves to LmL (assorted reasons), then to Cubsfan (for posting minimum).

This post is interesting. He FoSes Skruffs because of Skruffs' metaing on Jeep, but states that he prefers a BM (or LmL) lynch anyway. Remember that BM replaced Jeep. I do see some 'playing both sides of the issue' here.

I'm not seeing much out of the ordinary for IH on D2. He comments a lot on random debates/discussions between other people, which is consistent with what I'm used to seeing from IH. The only thing I've noticed so far is this:

Though in regards to his argument with Zindy.....

BM continues to PHAIL

...light defense of Zindie, after BM got killed N1.

I have to admit, IH pretty much hit the nail on the head when it came to outing LmL. He harped on what was probably one of the most legitimate points against LmL in this post, and he was dead accurate.

Interesting that IH talks more about disliking LmL here, but leaves him off of his own Condorcet vote.

Whoa!

Doubly

interesting that IH harps on CES here for doing the exact same thing.

Something just occurred to me. IH spent a noticeable amount of time wondering why no "Count of Monte Cristo" counterclaimed Cubsfan. Obviously, in retrospect, we know why (Dantes was an NPC, and there was no other "Count of Monte Cristo" role in the game). But what just struck me is this quote:

Ok, would you please stop saying I have FoSed any claims of the main character? I said I would be wary because there was no counterclaims of the count of monte cristo.

So, if a player claimed count of monte cristo, and turned out to not be him, why would you believe that claim from a later player Skruffs? Why would they not have counterclaimed?

This seems like it could be a sneaky way of fishing for role information. IH is basically saying "I want the Count to come out now because if they don't and they claim later, I won't believe them."
Instead of absorbing the information and dealing with it if and when a Count claim did come, he wanted answers immediately, and he wanted to know how people would respond to future Count claims.


...and the claim:

Well, my theory is shot I believe.

Wanna know why I thought my theory was mostly correct? Because I don't have a rolename. My PM is almost an exact carbon copy of the one in one of the mod's first post.

I didn't even realize it until later yesterday after MGM claimed, and I double checked with my mod my rolename.

._. Innocent Fresnoite.

Every time I read this, it still

feels

genuine to me. Beyond what I've said, I don't think I can explain any better why this is the case. I guess you have to chalk it up to gut instinct.


Ugh. I didn't realize how much IH took this whole "Lace" thing and ran away with it. I count five posts that address the LmL issue, four of which mention the "lace" issue directly. One quick note -- CES said this:

Not to mention that that assumption totally doesn't jive with the xyzzy kill. I don't really care that LmL used LACE and XYZZY. FoS: whoever brought it up. You wasted our time with your petty suspicions. Die, person whose identity I'm too lazy to look up!

...but I'd expect the people who rolled with it to be more suspicious. Bringing it up is fairly "meh." The ones who turned it into a huge debacle are the ones I'd look at. To an extent, IH does fit this category.

grr arg. I'd forgotten about this Tally/IH debate at the startof D3, where Tally first pitched the "Innocent Fresnonian" safeclaim theory. I'm going to go back and do this separately, because it involves deep interaction with three living players (IH, Tally, and myself).
----As DP is the one player who was not directly involved in that debate, I'd definitely like him to look over those posts and give me an impression as well. (For reference -- Posts 1368-1376 seem to encompass that discussion.)----

REALLY

interesting MrBuddyLee-IH interaction. Starts with 1416 and continues from there. What I find most interesting is that nothing is resolved by it. MBL appears to show curiosity in IH's behavior, but doens't follow up. IH fires back, but nothing comes of it. This does feel a little bit liek distancing to me.

Ah yes, IH's theory on who may have killed Logic and conditions under which Foolinc may have been scum. Even though I disagreed with it pretty staunchly, I do feel that his posts during this time were fairly genuine.

This post feels genuine as well.

Another interesting note. IH defends Zindie sporatically (mostly on the "Zindie is letting all of his games slip right now" -- which was definitely true), but at the end of the day slaps up a vote on Zindie because he didn't like the PookyWagon... as seen here.
While potentially legitimate, this could easily be a "safe vote" at the end of the day. If Zindie gets lynched, he looks like a champ. If not, his vote doesn't really do any harm, as Pooky still gets mislynched instead.

I also find it interesting that at the start of yesterday, when Sarc proposes Zindaras/Gaspar, IH counters with "Sarc/Gaspar" trying to get Zindie mislynched. Another distinct conneciton possible here.



In all, I have mixed feelings. There's one big thing that worries me about this situation, but I am hesitant to reveal it at this time. I want to extract more information from all three of you first.

DP, I'd like you to look over that debate in the aftermath of VitR's death. I'd also like you to explain more clearly exactly

why

you feel IH is scum.

Tally, I would also like you to elaborate on why you feel IH is scum.

I want neither of you to use process of elimination in doing so. Focus on IH's behaviors, not the other players'.


I'll get to other relevant re-reads later. This took like an hour and a half, and I'm wiped out.

[Gaspar]

EBWOP: And, IH, I just want you to post anything of substantial content. Since your "Gaspar/Sarc" analysis, you've not really done anything noteworthy. If you continue to be noncontributive at such a critical stage in the game, I will very strongly consider the possibility that you are scum trying to sneak through the shadows for a win.

[Gaspar]

Gah, I should have preivewed.

I propose that I kill IH, then if the game isn't over DP and I will most likely vote for each other and you'll be the decider. Quite ironic that someone who is going to win anyway would be trusted with the deciding vote

Please, please,

PLEASE

don't do this at least until I've made my analyses and gotten the answers I seek. There doesn't seem to be any major rush -- once we hit the one week mark, we'll decide within a day or two where that kill is going, unless we come to a consensus sooner than that.

[Gaspar]

Feh. I haven't had a chance to touch this thread since my last set of posts. Tally, ultimately the kill is yours to make and if you think we're holding up the game, you're free to make it. I'm still hoping to get another crack at things around midweek.

[Gaspar]

I was really hoping that Setael would come back after IH died, because I had this great plan all set up if she returned during the day. How annoying.

I honestly have no idea which one of you two I would vote right now. Literally every time I come back to look at this game, I find myself switching positions. Over the weekend, I was leaning towards thinking it was DP, because I felt that he was doing little more than popping in to offer a consneting opinion (to paraphrase: "I agree that Setael is the #1 suspect" to "I also have IH as my top choice") and I was thinking that scums would want to try to stay on somebody's good side -- with Tally getting a daykill, I'm sure that if DP is scum, he would want to avoid antagonizing Tally if possible.

But there's still DP's role/claim, and if I think about things from a TallyScum perspective, pre-empting the "obvious" suspicions makes a lot of sense. Regardless of which one of you is scum, your suspicions would probably coincide -- so that throws out my earlier thinking and would lead me back to Tally.

I think the game will probably be determined by looking at each of your early-game play, rather than your recent play.



Preview Edit: I'm not sure how I feel about No Lynch since Setael didn't come back yet. The really big thing that concerns me is that there is no timetable whatsoever for Setael's return. If she comes back before/during night, she probably gets killed herself and we end up in the same situation. If she isn't to come back until after night (or at all), then the game may very well be over before her return is triggered. Also, if she's gone during night, would she have a chance to hand out a gift? Probably not -- but that's something we could have asked her about if she had returned.

I do not feel that Setael's situation is the same as Grey's one, because if you look at the playerlist, she is no longer listed as being a living player --but she is listed as

missing

, which has its own category now. I'm a little irked that Tally killed IH without letting one of us attempt to vote Setael. I'm half-tempted to do it myself, because if the scum tries to quick-hammer, either they out themselves or I win. But I know that could be a pretty big dick move to whichever townie remains if she can in fact get lynched.

[Gaspar]

Just putting out thoughts as they come up...

This seems to be a risk/reward issue here. The risk is obviously that the town loses the game (or for me, that a scenario pops up where I become the "correct" lynch/kill target). To run through scenarios:

Supposing we No Lynch today:

• If Setael does not return at all, the mafiascum kills somebody and wins. Especially dangerous for me if Tally is the last scum, because if DP could potentially dodge her kill, she'd be forced to kill
  me
  , and I'd lose.
• If Setael returns at twilight/start-of-night, she presumably gets to use her ability again. This assumes that she doesn't have to live
  through
  the night to actually sell the product during the day, which is something that genuinely concerns me. I don't remember if Sarc or I mentioned it, but the offer came after daybreak, and we were given a timetable to decide whether or not to accept Setael's gift. I worry that, even if Setael comes back for the night phase, if she is simply killed off she would have nothing to accept.
• There is also the changing nature of Setael's ability. I'm not convinced that it's truly 'random,' but the two abilities given (daykill, then daykill + disappearance) have an escalating nature. Would Set disappear again if the ability was accepted? Would she die? We obviously don't know.
• If Setael is scum, I think we lose no matter what. Disappearing (so as not to become a possible kill target) would be an interesting way of getting around the whole "I'm giving the town a vig" mechanic. But the way I see it, if Set is scum, it doesn't matter what we do -- if we NL, she probably returns and kills somebody. If we lynch, she probably returns and kills somebody. So this isn't really a possibility worth dwelling upon.
• Now, if Set returns
  during the day tomorrow
  we'd be in the same sort of situation that we're in now, with 4ish people alive.

(Another preview edit: Tally, like IH said, it was worth seeing if Setael could be voted. With 4 alive and 3 to lynch, that possibility could have been tested. With 3 alive and 2 to lynch, it's possible that the scum quick-hammers if they feel she can be voted -- or if they wait for a VC from Grey and we find out that she can be voted.)

Tags removed. - Mod.

[Gaspar]

*shrug*

I think it's a possibility, but as I just indicated, if she's scum it doesn't matter because she's almost guaranteed to win. Thus, the only correct way to play is as though she's not -- that way, we can play optimally assuming she's town (aka, assuming we don't autolose). The notion of entertaining SetScum is pointless. So yeah, I'm focusing on "TallyScum" or "DPScum" possibilities.

[Gaspar]

...but then I realised one of the dead players in this game were very likely told

they

were Sinbad.

Why do you think it's "likely" that one of the deceased was told they were Sindbad?

[Gaspar]

EBWOP: Although admittedly, that's a possibility I hadn't even

considered

until you brought it up just now. I see it as a possibility, but I'm not understanding why it's "likely" the case. Did somebody hint at being Sinbad?

[Gaspar]

Hi. I have not had the time to look into the links between characters that I speculated about in my post above. I have a very busy next 3-ish days but I'll see what I can do.

I also need to look over DP's posts without my rose-coloured glasses on and see if I can convince Gaspar to lynch him and not me. Just out of curiousity, is Primate still active?

Prim:

No not really. I'm still reading the game, but at this point it's effectively just as an observer who happens to know one of the roles.

[Gaspar]

Hi. I have not had the time to look into the links between characters that I speculated about in my post above. I have a very busy next 3-ish days but I'll see what I can do.

I also need to look over DP's posts without my rose-coloured glasses on and see if I can convince Gaspar to lynch him and not me. Just out of curiousity, is Primate still active?

Prim:

No not really. I'm still reading the game, but at this point it's effectively just as an observer who happens to know one of the roles.

Just to elaborate quickly: I (Glork) have bounced a couple of ideas off of Primate in the last few game-days to see if I'm thinking right, and he's given me some helpful feedback. But yeah, basically it's become my show at this point.


Anyway, I've not had a chance to really read the thread lately, and for that I apologize. I've been bogged down with various things, and I managed to mess up my sleep schedule. I should get cracking on things Sunday.

[Gaspar]

Hi, I'm still here.

I'm about 65-35 in favor of lynching one specific player. Three reasons I haven't voted yet:
1) I want to be at least 75-80% sure before I vote (although with deadline approaching so quickly, that may not be possible).
2) I'm a self-centered bastard and I feel like I deserve to slap down the game-winning hammer.
3) As a Survivor, part of me is still worried that if I vote and the other person goes "Hi, not quick-hammering," and then I'll end up in a "you or you" situation and somehow find myself lynched.


This is, of course, offset by the fact that I still believe that No Lynch is a

terrible

play. With the deadline approximately 52.5 hours from this post, I will vote in ~36 hours if the protowner among you hasn't sucked it up and voted.

[Gaspar]

Prim:

*doesn't hammer*

[Gaspar]

Er.

Vote: DragonPhoenix