Mini #582: Meta Mafia Mini! GAME OVER!

[TheSweatpantsNinja]

What mathcam said about stoofer matches my thought process. What benefit does stooferscum derive from lying about his reasoning Day 1? Unless you truly think that stoofer was, as scum, incapable of coming up with a good reason for a random vote. . . seems like a nulltell to me.

But I see primate, as scum, as attempting to look good for the town by proxying his vote, when in reality he can un-proxy it at will, so it costs him nothing while gaining himself townie points as scum. That's certainly not a surefire case, but its the best I see so far.

[DestroyeroftheSky]

@ Everyone, but Primate

: Who of you would have acted the same way as Primate in post 24 and 34?

24, possibly, as part of the random stage. 34, nope.

I actually still like my DOTS vote.

Having a read of your posts, this seems to be the current basis of your vote:

Vote or no vote, I'm going to be listening to what Emp has to say and I'd hope the rest of the town will too.

Sounds like pandering with inanities to me.

The point I was making was that Emp's words held no less weight despite the fact that he had no vote. This was a point to downplay any suggestion Primate had made about Emp being disempowered. And anyway, even if it was "pandering", how is that vote-worthy, especially when compared to Primate

giving a vote away

to Emp to "get him to stick around"? You don't think

that's

pandering?


I'm going to go over the points against Stoofer. My immediate feeling is that it's devolving into a semantics cesspit that's only serving as a distraction. It has created discussion, at least, but nothing that has bought me in my initial read. I'm still keen on the Primate wagon.

[DestroyeroftheSky]

EBWOP: "Downplay" was the wrong word to use.
"Negate" is better.

This was a point to

negate

any suggestion Primate had made about Emp being disempowered.

[Mr Stoofer]

I'm going to re-read to try and find some meaning in the "cesspit" (DotS' words).

[EmpTyger]

Will post more later today, but 2 quick thoughts:

mathcam/Johoohoo:
Temporarily assuming Stoofer is mafia, how do you think the rest of the mafia would react?

---

Stoofer:
Seriously, why aren’t you explaining why you put Primate at lynch-1 without saying so?

[Johoohno]

I'd say that they'll probably take different stances (if there are three mafias, one would brush off Stoofer's carelessness, the other would attack it).

[Mr Stoofer]

Stoofer:
Seriously, why aren’t you explaining why you put Primate at lynch-1 without saying so?

Because only the most stupid person in the whole universe could be in any doubt about the matter?

[Primate]

@ Primate: You haven't answered my question in post 44! Actually, you haven't said anything for five days now (yes I see that you haven't posted at all since Friday on the forum, but we've got no reason for that absence).

It seems everyone posting in this thread has absolutely no idea how to read people or about mafia theory, so I'm mostly staying out for fear of catching the stupid.

[Primate]

@ Primate

: Have you ever played a game where you didn't have any votes? (If so, I'd appreciate a link.)

Kinda, every time it's happened though, it's been specialist setups where no-one has a vote (Consulmaker, Bad Idea II, Worse Idea, Penalty Box(not really, but kinda).)

To my knowledge I've never had a double vote before either. I've been vote thief a couple of times in scumchat games, but I can't really cite them.

[Primate]

Vote: Primate
You give Emptyger one of your votes (to put it on KingPin) in post 24 but also try to make a neutral statement that you wouldn't vote KingPin yourself. Ambiguous of how to please the crowd?

I'm assuming you don't understand the concept of me lending a vote to someone. If I only put it on people that I wanted my own vote on, then that would be only one person, leading to a situation of "If Emptyger okays it, then primate has double bandwagoning power", which is an absolutely ridiculous state of affairs. At any point there's only one person who I'd put my vote on, and you can tell who they are by the fact I have my vote on them.

No way. I think we'd learn way more about your alignment if we could see who you were willing to put two votes on.

Bullshit. Me putting one vote on someone signifies that I want them lynched. Me putting two votes on someone signifies that I really, really want them lynched, yes? How about this. You are apparently relying on the fact that Emptyger will honestly say to you whether he wants someone lynched or not. How about you also rely on the fact that

I

will say whether I just want someone lynched or, in fact, really really want them lynched. That way you are equally happy, and we actually have a fucking voting record for one of the players in the game, as opposed to never actually fully committing to lynch someone. Imagine if he wants to bus a scumbuddy, all he has to do is say "if I had a vote, it would be on XXX", without making a particularly decent case against them that would sway anyone, and he gains a ton of pluspoints without actually contributing to that persons wagon in the slightest.

So?

5 people on a wagon is more informative than 4. Pretty basic.

I don't believe anyone argued that you should do so, but you are effectively pursuing two wagons by splitting your votes anyway. If you really have a problem with pursuing two wagons then only pursue one, and use your votes on nothing else.

Only if you look at the votecounts. I think it's pretty hard to argue that I was pushing the Kingpin wagon when I made a post pointing out a flaw in why people were voting him.

We can still get a read on Emp since he's free to FOS and post as much damning criticism as ever and we've already seen that being voteless doesn't seem to be stopping him. But this might be the only time we get to see YOU play with a double vote and it'd be great for the town to know who you're willing to use them on yourself.

How about if I use a Fos to count as my second vote? Or is that someone not exactly the same thing?

I don't like the 'very influential adviser' bit- seems like one should pay equal heed to the 'advice' of all other players whose alignment one doesn't know.

Nope. Your opinions, for instance, are almost universally retarded, once you get past your eloquence in explaining them, so I tend to ignore. Emp, on the other hand, is a player who has lost a fairly major way of expressing his opinions, so needs to be listened to harder in order to notice the same. There's a major difference between listening to peoples opinions, which is something you should be doing, and actually acting on those opinions, which is something that is hugely dependent on the way you've decided to play the game, and whatever style you normally have.

Primate's votes continued to be divided between two players as these statements came out. This combined with Emp's request to unvote me seems to contradict Primate's contention that 1. he was allowing Emp to use a vote, or; 2. his belief that pursuing two wagons is not constructive, but is still pursing two wagons with his split vote.

Lastly, Primate has a double vote, this isn't an "if I could fly and shoot lasers out of my arse" this is the reality of the game today. Primate's example of his vote being on a single player 90% of the time, contradicts his voting record as of right now.

Emps request was to unvote you and vote myself. He was extremely blatantly only doing it to prove a point, so I ignored it. Your comment on the 90% thing is blatantly the fevered ramblings of a complete idiot, because I specifically said that the 90% thing was what I was

not

doing in this game, instead I was going to split my votes between my choice and Emp's choice.

@ Primate: You haven't answered my question in post 44!

Don't accuse me of omission when I've omitted everything.

Now you’re posting elsewhere but not here on the site. Meaning KingPin’s accusation now holds a bit more weight that I won’t be bearing.

Nope. Doesn't. I was setting up a game I'm modding, which is the main reason I was back in the site in the first place. If you really want to have this discussion again, I could probably link you to a couple of dozen games where I've been town and lurked, then it'll be up to you to prove how those situations are any different to this one.

The point I was making was that Emp's words held no less weight despite the fact that he had no vote. This was a point to downplay any suggestion Primate had made about Emp being disempowered. And anyway, even if it was "pandering", how is that vote-worthy, especially when compared to Primate giving a vote away to Emp to "get him to stick around"? You don't think that's pandering?

I also protected Emptyger night 0 in order to make sure he didn't die and I got to play with him. You consider that pandering, also?

PS: I don't give two shits about what is more informative to you. You people evidentally can't read for crap anyway, for me to be at lynch -1 on page 5 after making less than a dozen posts. I'm not going to try and aid you reading me when the alternative is me being able to read someone else better.

[Primate]

UPDATE:

DOTS is probably town, but an idiot.

Johoohno is scummy.

Emptyger is scummy.

Kingpin is scummy.

Fonz is spouting utter crap, and not trying as hard to gloss it over as I think he might as scum.

Massive is probably town.

I think the sloppiness point against stoofer is BS, though I don't think Stoof has been especially townlike.

I don't feel comfortable reading Cam this early.

Mneme has actually really surprised me. I expected him to lurk and not really do much, but he's been fairly decent. I'd put him as town.

TSPN is scummy.

FYI, I don't believe that all five people I have down as scummy are scum, cause that would be ridiculous. Just reckon the scum isn't amongst the people I have as town.

Primate, I’d like a vote: Stoofer. In any case, I’d like an unvote: KingPin.

K.

Vote Stoofer Johoohno

For Dots, I am 60/200 sure of Johoohno being scum. When this tips over into 100/200, I will likely include my second vote. Neutral people get 30/200.

[Primate]

PS: Emp, none of the people I have as town are options.

[KingPin]

Just so I am clear and not "stupid" or a "complete idiot", Primate, you are giving your vote to someone whom you believe to be scummy?

And allowing that scummy player to vote for someone whom you believe to be town.

Perhaps my linear thought process has gotten in the way, but what?

[KingPin]

I should correct a misstatement before anyone thinks I did not read.... Stoofer = town = not particularly townlike.... though not identified as scummy.

[Primate]

Just so I am clear and not "stupid" or a "complete idiot", Primate, you are giving your vote to someone whom you believe to be scummy?

Yep! I think we've already covered that if all I cared about was my vote being in the hands of a townie, I'd use it myself. I'm pretty sure you can work out it's more useful to force someone who's acting scummy to commit to opinions than it is to force someone who's acting like town to commit to opinions.

I should correct a misstatement before anyone thinks I did not read.... Stoofer = town = not particularly townlike.... though not identified as scummy.

heheh, you say that you read and then don't read. Pretty sure I said five people are scummy. Pretty sure if you read the post, it's blatant one of them is Stoof.

PS: If you're trying to prove yourself not an idiot, I would generally suggest actually reading things in future.

[EmpTyger]

Johoohoo:
I’d still like a response to my [97]. Especially since, on reread, it sounds like you’re accusation is that I’m guilty and Primate’s innocent- yet you’re voting Primate, so…?

<snip>

EmpTyger

: I might be a bit paranoid but I'm being a bit suspicious of EmpTyger. He was the one who got the whole Primate affair started by asking to borrow a vote from Primate (post 23) and it feels as a safe move to do, you won't get in the heat for asking for someone's vote (whereas the opposite is risky). I know this might be far fetched, but I still want this thought to be planted and pondered on byy the rest of you.
<snip>

What exactly are you accusing me of? I mean, playing it safe by sticking my neck out, and then defending Primate? Is there anything more to this than, “A mentioned B; therefore, A may be mafia”?

---

TSN:

<snip>
What benefit does stoofertown derive from lying about his reasoning Day 1? Unless you truly think that stoofer was, as scum, incapable of coming up with a good reason for a random vote. . . seems like a nulltell to me.

Logically, then, shouldn’t you be concluding that Stoofer’s vote wasn’t random? That is, the reason why Stoofer couldn’t come up with a good reason for a random vote was because the vote wasn’t random. I personally think Stoofer *thought* he came up with a good reason for a “random” vote. But he made a mistake, and got caught. He tried to lie his way out of it, but got caught again. And as I said in [97], there are a lot of reasons why mafia might want to cast a non-random vote and say that it was random.

But I see primate, as scum, as attempting to look good for the town by proxying his vote, when in reality he can un-proxy it at will, so it costs him nothing while gaining himself townie points as scum. That's certainly not a surefire case, but its the best I see so far.

Wait a second. You’re giving Stoofer a pass for (1) lying, (2) misrepresenting another player’s actions, and (3) putting a player at lynch-1 without warning. And you’re instead voting Primate, for… what? Doing something that the town might think good?

There has been varying degrees of opinion regarding how the doublevote situation should be handled. But *no one* has given *any* explanation for why Stoofer would do what he did as town. [And that’s not getting the fallaciousness of how you’ve assuming your conclusion: “Primate did something which, assuming he’s scum, would be helpful for him as scum.”]

---

DotS:
At the very least, putting someone at lynch-1 without comment is more than semantics.

---

Primate:
Chill out. That went so beyond unnecessary that I had to raise an eyebrow.
(Though thanks again for the vote.)

---

Stoofer:

Stoofer:
Seriously, why aren’t you explaining why you put Primate at lynch-1 without saying so?

Because only the most stupid person in the whole universe could be in any doubt about the matter?

Well, I agree with you that it shouldn’t be in doubt. But, see, for some reason, not everyone is yet convinced of your guilt.

[Primate]

Logically, then, shouldn’t you be concluding that Stoofer’s vote wasn’t random? That is, the reason why Stoofer couldn’t come up with a good reason for a random vote was because the vote wasn’t random. I personally think Stoofer *thought* he came up with a good reason for a “random” vote. But he made a mistake, and got caught. He tried to lie his way out of it, but got caught again. And as I said in [97], there are a lot of reasons why mafia might want to cast a non-random vote and say that it was random.

But he didn't say it was random. If he was trying to make it look like a random vote, why would he put the word 'Lurker' in front of it, pointing it out as something that definitely isn't a random vote? And you should really know better than saying that there are many reasons why mafia would want to do that without actually getting into whether they are good reasons or not. Wafting about possibilities without going into whether they are actually likely isn't something you can base suspicions on.

Chill out. That went so beyond unnecessary that I had to raise an eyebrow.
(Though thanks again for the vote.)

This is a discussion on what is acceptable in a mafia game that I really don't want to get into right now.

[EmpTyger]

Primate:

<snip>But he didn't say it was random. If he was trying to make it look like a random vote, why would he put the word 'Lurker' in front of it, pointing it out as something that definitely isn't a random vote?

I agree with you: I do not think Stoofer’s vote was random, or intended as such, especially after the explanation he gave. Rather, that post was responding to TSN, who in [100] was offering “random” as explanation for Stoofer’s action.

And you should really know better than saying that there are many reasons why mafia would want to do that without actually getting into whether they are good reasons or not. Wafting about possibilities without going into whether they are actually likely isn't something you can base suspicions on.<snip>

If it’s something that town would never do, and mafia would do, then I don’t really need to know exactly why before concluding guilt. If he- or *anyone* in this game- wants to give a likely explanation for why a protown player would lie in the way Stoofer has, I’ll gladly listen. Until then, I’m certainly not going to waste my time and breath with an uncooperative Stoofer when I have better things to do. (See the section of [97] to Stoofer for the logic behind this.)

[Primate]

I think he made a mistake. It has the advantage of being a common problem and having a completely believable motivation behind it, that of sloppiness, which is a null tell in the early game. I guess I just don't see why, any point of this, he would lie instead of telling the truth, as either town or scum. You're arguing that his lying was intentional, but you have failed to come up with any likely motivation as to why it would be an outright lie as opposed to a genuine mistake, and the two reasons you put forward in #97 are an absolute joke.

[EmpTyger]

Primate:

I think he made a mistake. It has the advantage of being a common problem and having a completely believable motivation behind it, that of sloppiness, which is a null tell in the early game. I guess I just don't see why, any point of this, he would lie instead of telling the truth, as either town or scum. You're arguing that his lying was intentional, but you have failed to come up with any likely motivation as to why it would be an outright lie as opposed to a genuine mistake, and the two reasons you put forward in #97 are an absolute joke.

Are we talking about the same thing? I’m not referring to Stoofer’s casting a “lurker” vote on someone who wasn’t lurking. I’m referring to Stoofer’s saying he “looked at all the players who had not even posted” and “picked one at random” when he could not have. Are you saying that *that* is a believably sloppy mistake? I mean, that’s not even Stoofer’s explanation.

[Primate]

That's exactly what I'm talking about, and using asterisks doesn't make your point of view any more substantial.

[mathcam]

mathcam/Johoohoo:
Temporarily assuming Stoofer is mafia, how do you think the rest of the mafia would react?

I guess it depends. Did scum-Stoofer make those original posts with some ulterior motive in mind, planned beforehand with his co-scum? If so, I guess I'd have to know more about the plan to speculate (e.g., if they were trying to get Stoofer lynched for some reason, then I suspect that they'd both go after him), but I've already mentioned that I think this scenario is rather implausible. Otherwise, I can at least tell you what I would do if I were his co-scum -- With few exceptions, I'd do my best to evaluate how scummy I would have found his actions if I were town, and acted accordingly. There's no sense in adopting a stance you can't defend. I would expect that many players in the game would do the same given the relatively high experience levels of the players. If anyone

were

going to contrive their responses, I would imagine they'd do as Johoohno predicted and split up. In fact, if Stoof comes up scum (either today or in the future), we could probably find some serious scumtells by looking back at people's reaction to Stoof today and seeing who's defending their stances least well. Good question.

Cam

[TheSweatpantsNinja]

Wait a second. You’re giving Stoofer a pass for (1) lying, (2) misrepresenting another player’s actions, and (3) putting a player at lynch-1 without warning. And you’re instead voting Primate, for… what? Doing something that the town might think good?

I might have a problem with the L-1 without warning. But the first two, yes. May as well just read mathcam's post, but I'll add on: do you think scum are more likely to be inattentive than town?

And yes, I'm voting primate for doing something that the town might think good, that doesn't actually do the town much good. That seems to me like something scum might absolutely do.

[Johoohno]

(Quick post and response:)

@ Primate:

You could attach your infamous stupidity label on me, but to me it's not clear in post 109 if you see Fonz as scummy or not. Which way is it?

@ EmpTyger:

Johoohoo:
I’d still like a response to my [97]. Especially since, on reread, it sounds like you’re accusation is that I’m guilty and Primate’s innocent- yet you’re voting Primate, so…?

:
<snip>
EmpTyger: I might be a bit paranoid but I'm being a bit suspicious of EmpTyger. He was the one who got the whole Primate affair started by asking to borrow a vote from Primate (post 23) and it feels as a safe move to do, you won't get in the heat for asking for someone's vote (whereas the opposite is risky). I know this might be far fetched, but I still want this thought to be planted and pondered on byy the rest of you.
<snip>

What exactly are you accusing me of? I mean, playing it safe by sticking my neck out, and then defending Primate? Is there anything more to this than, “A mentioned B; therefore, A may be mafia”?

I am not accusing, I'm speculating, and I wanted others to see my speculations in order to see if they are just paranoia or if there is more to them. To make it clear: I find it note worthy (and possibly suspicious) that you started the whole no-vote/borrow vote debacle, and I want to see if others found that note worthy (and perhaps even suspicious) too, or if it's only paranoia. (quote post 115)

[Mr Stoofer]

Things that struck me on my re-read:

First, I see a lot of players being very cautious. There have been two main debates/bandwagons, and most people have committed to a position on those two issues. But I think that the heat generated by those two debates has stiffled discussion on wider topics. I can well understand why TSN made post 62.

Second, I agree with a lot of what Primate says on this page (except his suspicion of me, but at least what he says about me is logical and temperate). The big exception is his giving his vote to EmpTyger. It is bloody hard to lynch scum day 1 and it can't help thinking that to give away a vote to a player whom you think is scummy is very odd indeed. Primate's justification for his action has logic to it, I think, but I just can't see a pro-Town player giving his vote away to someone he thinks is scummy.

Anyway I am going to

unvote: Primate

because I am no longer confident about him.

Thirdly, there is a part of me which thinks I would be a good lynch today simply because it would reveal a large amount about the Town. The main drivers of the stupid Stoofer-wagon were EmpTyger and mneme. They can't both be scum together but yet I can't believe they are both Town. EmpTyger is the one who is still pushing the point (and he is getting more ridiculous as he does so), while my impression is that mneme seems to have stopped posting. Is this because EmpTyger is scum who can't let go of what he started? Or does it show that he is stubborn-Town rather than calculating-Scum (whom I would have expected to back off by now, as mneme has done)? I would bet my house on one (and only one) of mneme and EmpTyger being scum. I have no idea which one, though.