Mature Mafia: Game Over

[Axelrod]

Vote: Coron

One post and lurking already!

[Axelrod]

He said either "I'm out of the game" or "I have been eliminated from the game." "My alignment is townsperson," "My role is vanilla." So yeah, someone edited that.

[Axelrod]

Also, the player's list has been edited, going from listing zu_Faul as "townsperson" in Blue, to just "Deceased."

[Axelrod]

One thing that is nice about playing here, even with the inconsistent pace, is that you don't have to wade through 200+ posts of spam before people actually start getting serious.

but i didn't think that enough for me to jump another bandwagon.

but i see the hunch.

I call BS. What, praytell, do you think you see?

[Axelrod]

Wow, Raj. I think that is possibly the worst "analysis" I have ever seen. The game is under 35 posts old, and you are criticizing for a 1st post vote, being "helpful" but failing to analyze "voting trends," for not providing "real content," using "tunnel vision" and "avoiding other conversations." Absolutely the most horrid, slanted, 1-sided, hack job based on nothing I've ever read.

Apparently I've displayed a veritable cornacopia of scumminess and uselessness. My goodness, if that was how you really felt, why on earth wouldn't you be voting me until I was dead. What could DGB have done that was worse than this?

Could it even be an overreaction to several people asking you to explain what you meant? You had to come up with something, but you didn't have anything to say, so you decided to throw in everything but the kitchen sink and hope that at least some part of it would sound believable?

Now I have to decide if this is scummy on your part or just completely idiotic. I'm leaning scummy. And since I don't have a better place to put my vote at the moment:

Unvote;

Vote: rajrhcpfreak

@Adel: I'm curious. Are you under the impression that because players have been given editing powers in this game, that it's okay to edit your posts at will? That strikes me as a very, very bad thing.

[Axelrod]

The game won't work without some level of Moderation, or at least, it won't play fairly.

Frankly, I'm rather well put off by the edit was was done to zu_Faul's death post, because (1) it does not appear that he was the one who edited it (no "last edited by..." line) and (2) it was a

major

change from what was there before. It went from saying he was a vanilla townsperson to "I'm dead" with nothing about alignment or role.

I will continue to assume he was a vanilla townsperson, but if future deaths and reveals can be edited like this then it just makes the game exponentially harder, not even considering the possibility that someone might

lie

in a death post, or have their post edited to say something not truthful.

[Axelrod]

@Adel: I am with logicticus here, proposing "rules" that we all agree to follow is completely worthless. If the scum if this game are being allowed to make significant edits to other player's posts, including death reveal posts (which destroys the integrity of the game in my opinion), then why would they stop because you proposed a rule?

The game doesn't work unless everyone plays fair. Perhaps this is the experiment - to see whether or not the scum would actually do so when not forced by Mod. If so, based just on what I've seen so far, this game is crashing and burning. Hopefully, that's not what's actually going on.

[Axelrod]

You know, almost this same topic came up just recently with respect to another game on site which DG is well familiar with:

viewtopic.php?t=8232

The Mod. went AWOL, but because it was a "nightless" game, technically the players could continue, they just had to agree amongst themselves that they would honestly reveal their alignments after they were lynched. Vollkan, as scum, felt like he was not obligated to go along with this, even that it was his duty as scum trying to win to lie. Most people disagreed, and I think even Vollkan himself came round to realizing that his position was wrong, and he should not have continued to play if that was going to be his attitude.

As a game

with

Nights, things are even more complex here. I'm not prepared to say it can't work out. But I'm concerned.

A "pledge" that everyone is going to be honest is pointless though. Either you agree that the game just can't work at all without a certain amount of honesty, in which case no "pledge" is needed, or you don't, in which case your pledge would be worthless.

[Axelrod]

DISCLAIMER: The upcoming post does not necessarily reflect what my own role may or may not be/include. I am merely using it as the simplest example I can think of off the top of my head, so as to make a point to Axel.

Consider the case of a mountainous game (aside from "mod powers" such as VCing). At night, the Mafia could simply PM their target saying something along the lines of "We are killing you. Please open the thread and reveal your role to the other players" -- perhaps even from an alt/anonymous account. The deceased player (n this case, Zu_Faul) complies, and the rest of us move on with our lives.

In the absence of a "killer" alt for PMing purposes, a situation such as the above example would create an interesting scenario in which the scums would have to rely on victims' honesty to not reveal their identities while the town relies on the scums to reveal themselves truthfully and to adhere to conventional game rules.

I'm not sure what the point you are making here is?

[Axelrod]

Rather than a pledge, simply have each player acknowledge that they need to be honest. That's what the point of the suggested "pledge" is, anyway. I think you're making a big deal out of nothing here.

I'm not making a "deal" out of anything. I just don't understand why you think this would make any difference at all. Do you actually think the scum (if they don't already agree with this position) are going to have any compunctions

saying

that they agree with it?

[Axelrod]

The bad lurkers:

Coron - said he would be gone 2-3 days 5 days ago.

Phoebus - said he was here and "reading" 2 days ago. But wait! He has possible internet problems, so see he's not really lurking.

DrippingGoofball - and she's

active

in other games....

People who seem as okay as you can seem considering it's only 83 posts into the game:

logicticus
elvis_knits
Talitha

I don't know about raj. His posts are strange, emotional and not well reasoned. But I also get the feeling he might just be that way in general. I may flip over to someone who's not participating soon unless they, you know, start participating.

[Axelrod]

Glork appears to be less on the ball this game then I would normally expect. But it's early, so, yo.

[Axelrod]

Frankly, I'd be interested to hear if Talitha still likes her vote or not moreso than Pooky. Pooky is silly and inscrutable.

[Axelrod]

Who is in charge of Mod Prods? You need to go prod DG....

[Axelrod]

Generally, Mathcam, you claim when you are in range. This is true whether or not the reasons people are giving for putting you in claim range are good or bad.

Plus, there's one thing you've said that's a definite Red Flag for me (which I am not saying what it is yet, so there) and I'd like to hear a claim at this point as well.

[Axelrod]

I just want to hear the "Alignment" part of your claim. I don't really care about the "Role" part. I agree that the "Role" part could be town/scum equally and there's not a real basis to tell the difference. But not the "Alignment" part, so I don't get what you are saying there.

[Axelrod]

Some things that are confusing me:
1. Shadow Lurker - Do you think you're playing in this game? Why? Your posts here don't seem to fit the troll profile.
2. If we all have some kind of mod powers, how come zu_faul said he was vanilla (or whatever it was that people saw before the post got edited)?
3. What happens to our powers when we die? Can we delegate someone else to continue our job?
4. Why do posts 87-91 read so weird? Did someone edit them?
5. Would it actually hurt if we all claimed? It might make the game easier.

1. Shadowlurker posts in games he is not playing. He's rude like that. That is my current assumption here as well.
2. I have not been assuming that everyone has Mod. powers (or rather, Mod. duties). Completely vanilla townies seem very possible.
3. Dunno.
4. posts 87-91 have not been edited, I remember that sequence.
5. I don't think it would hurt too much for the claiming of "Mod" powers, as I suspect they don't have much effect on the overall game.

I still want Mathcan to claim for devious reasons of my own devising.

[Axelrod]

1. Shadowlurker posts in games he is not playing. He's rude like that. That is my current assumption here as well.

Is this a fact?
Can you link to other games?

If there is a "body of rudeness", I'd consider appealing to the Boss.
That is one distraction we could definitely do without here.

Possibly I am being unfair here. I was looking at the endgame of raj's "War to End all Freaktowns" and happened to see SL posting there when he was not playing - but it looks like he might have been helping the Mod. at some point during that game, which makes some difference. Dunno.

@Glork: I am aware that everyone in the game has "Modding Privileges". This is not the same as everyone having a specific "duty" as part of this game (like Elvis saying he's the "Executioner" etc.) I think some people have the Mod. privileges but no specific Mod. related duties to go with them.

Either that or zu_Faul was scum and lied when he said he was vanilla, and the scum are being allowed to hide the fact that scum was NKed (which begs the question "Who killed zu_Faul if he himself was scum").

Or zu_Faul was town but lied about being vanilla after his death? I doubt that.

[Axelrod]

Okay, so, in the interests of "playing Mafia" let's take a closer look at this whole Mathcam Wagon, shall we?

First Vote, Post #9: From Macros. This is clearly a joke vote. Nothing to see here.

Second Vote, Post #13: From Phoebus. No explanation given. One assumes this is still simply a random vote.

Post #22 Pooky makes his announcement that he will vote for whoever Talitha votes for. Again, this is rather obviously a joke. I did fully expect him to follow up on this promise whenever Talitha voted though.

Third Vote: Talitha appears and votes Math. Again appears to be simply an initial random vote.

Fourth Vote: Pooky follow through on his threat to vote whoever Talitha votes for.

So it's quite true that Mathcam got up to 4 votes very quickly based really on nothing.

Mathcam himself has nothing to say about the fact he is at 4 votes in his next post. I'm not saying that he needed to say anything about it - as noted, the votes were pretty much worthless - but there it is.

Pooky then prods Mathcam a little bit, in what I would take to be (1) still a joke, but (2) also legitimate attempt to get a reaction out of another player.

Mathcam continue to ignore this particular situation in his
next post. I'm still not calling this scummy. Everything that has happened so far has been pretty much joking and no one is seriously questioning Mathcam, so him ignoring 4 votes is probably okay.

Talitha revotes Mathcam here, but again, it appears to be mainly a joke, with her try to mess with Adel's vote counting program script.

Now it gets interesting.

Post #76: Mathcam votes for Pooky. This, conversely to what has gone before, is not a joke vote. It's a serious vote based on Pooky's "disavowing" any responsibility for his own vote. It's almost like a delayed OMGUS vote, because it comes quite a bit after Pooky's vote, which Mathcam had previously ignored.

Pooky's response is here, which seems completely reasonable to me. Basically, what's the big deal?

Mathcam is a bit flippant in his response here.

Post #102: Mathcam appears to suddenly realize that he is actually at 4 votes for the first time. He expresses "confusion" over why he has 4 votes. For some reason he understands Macros's vote (joke), but doesn't understand that the other posts were equally joking/without reason 1st votes. He re-explains why he is voting for Pooky, but does not try to press that case, and goes on to talk about something else.

Fifth Vote: Elvis_knits. He has his own independant reason to vote Mathcam, which is what he perceives to be Mathcam's fear-mongering (my words).

Logicticus doesn't see the case here (and this would be the case that Elvis_knits was making, not anyone else, since no one else had made any kind of case at all).

Glork "more or less" agrees with Logic here. Asks weird question about the over/under for scum on the Mathcam wagon.

Macros confirms his vote was a joke vote here. Doesn't unvote though. Does not appear to be paying very close attention to the game.

Raj makes an interesting post here. He says Mathcam's last post is enough to convince him to vote Mathcam, but he won't do it yet because that would put Math at L-1. Says he'll wait until "tonight" so as not to rush the lynch.

This post is one of the main reasons I'm still voting for Raj. right now. It's really scummy.

Mathcam posts again here, and is still pushing the Pooky thing. This is another post of his that I don't like.

My next question is to Talitha, who hasn't said much up to this point.

Macros will Unvote at post #116. Mathcam is now at four votes.

'Cam continues to make a push against Pooky in #118.

Pooky comes back at #130 and now he appears to like his vote as a real vote. Says Mathcam's posts reek of scum who is frustrated he's getting voted for no good reason. This is not a completely unreasonable assesment, in my opinion.

Next Vote (vote #5 again): DGB. This appears to be in accordance with her newly announced strategy of voting someone to make something happen, regardless of reasons.

Elvis wants a Mathcam claim at #134.

Glork votes DGB at #135 for blindly pushing wagons.

Glork wants DGB to give him 5 reasons why Mathcam is scum in #139 (or 5 reasons why shamelessly bandwaggoning is good for the town)

DGB responds here. Actually comes up with seven reasons. Clearly these are slanted, not really being "objective" but from the perspective of someone who is trying to prove someone else is scum. I don't think they are all bad though. I didn't like when Mathcam asked for something "stronger" against DBG early on either. And I didn't like the delayed vote on Pooky which Mathcam seemed to push more and more as time went on.

Phoebus makes a long post at #153 which ends with him not changing his vote. I would

presume

at this point that his initial "random" vote has now been converted to a serious vote. It's very hard to tell exactly what his reasoning is in this post though because it's so confusingly written.

Sixth Vote at #154: Raj. Following through on his previous threat to vote. Says it's mainly "gut." Still scummy.

Glork agrees Mathcam should claim now that he's at L-1 in #155.

Pooky then switches his vote from Mathcam to Glork in #156. Doesn't like how Glork demanded that DGB give him 5 reasons Mathcam was scum. (Mathcam at 5 votes)

Shadowlurker votes Mathcam in #158 (only noted in case he isn't just being a dick)

Mathcam comes back and defends himself in #162.

Mathcam comes back again in #194 and switches his vote from Pooky to Raj. Exactly why he is switching is unclear because he's still all over Pooky in this post. It appears to me that Mathcam is moving on to a target of easier opportunity, as Raj. has gotten a couple of votes (one of which is my own). This post here is another big reason I am still asking Mathcam for a claim. I dislike the way he associates Raj, Glork, and DGB very much, and I don't like the way he refers to his role PM and argues why it would be pointless for him to claim.

Elvis switches his vote from Mathcam to Raj. in #200. (Mathcam now at 4 votes)

Adel says Mathcam shouldn't have to claim at
#211 since the wagon was pretty much BS from the beginning.

Talitha comes back and Unvotes in #214.

Mathcam is now at 3 votes, I believe. Phoebus, DBG, and Raj.

I throw my support towards a Mathcam claim in #220. The truth is that I thought Mathcam had more votes than he actually did at that point. But my reasons for asking for a claim are, in fact, independant of the votes.

That's where it is now. I don't know what the vote count is. I suspect Raj might be the vote leader. Maybe even DGB.

I would be happy with either a Raj claim or a Mathcam claim. I'm still voting Raj, and he hasn't done anything to make me want to change it. But I certainly could change it.

Someone needs to claim something.

[Axelrod]

Someone needs to claim something.

For Pete's sake. Will someone

please

explain to me why? I just don't see what good Raj claiming would do for us, and I

can

see a detriment. If he reveals a mod power that it would be to scum's advantage to get rid of, then it obviously behooves us to keep it hidden. On the other hand, I doubt there's a mod power so vital to the continuing of the game that we wouldn't lynch someone we thought was scum just to hold on to that power.

Unless, of course, there's an affirmative answer to Tally's questions of whether we can re-assign mod powers.

Cam

So wait, you are voting for Raj., but you

don't

want him to claim?

You just want him to be lynched?

Someone is trying to draw attention away to the fact that replacements are not possible in this game (see the fact that there was nothing said about replacements in the signup thread)

You have 2 choices here:
(1) Explain your presence in the game
(2) Leave

If you choose option (3): continue to just post whatever the hell I want without explaining anything - don't expect your posts to remain in the game. At least not in their current form.

See how mature I am being?

[Axelrod]

Because I am bored, please allow me to present: A votecount! (unofficial, of course)

mathcam - 3 (phoebus, DGB, raj)
raj - 4 (Axelrod, Glork, mathcam, elvis)
DGB - 4 (Coron, logicitus, Macros, Adel)
Glork - 1 (Pooky)

Not Voting: Talitha

If we assume Pooky is willing to vote for Mathcam, then three people are essentially tied. I already said I could vote for Mathcam here as well.

Talitha, you may get the tie-breaker!

[Axelrod]

I do not see why anyone would delete a post of Macros'. Especially one that "wasn't much."

And if I were Macros and knew that a post of mine had been deleted, I rather think I might think it was important, and try to, you know, replicate said post. As opposed to saying "oh well."

I am also not a fan of Glork's #277 above. Glork, please look back closely over what you just wrote, go re-read your role PM, and tell me if you made a mistake of any kind.

[Axelrod]

No, Mathcam had 6 votes as of post #154. That's L-1.

Of course, Pooky switched his vote 2 posts later so, yes, it wasn't for long, but long enough for Glork to comment about it at #155.

[Axelrod]

So wait, you are voting for Raj., but you don't want him to claim?

You just want him to be lynched?

I think it's too early to say I want him to be lynched. I want him to convince me why he shouldn't be lynched, or fail miserably in doing so, so that I can tell whether or not he is the right lynch. His role claim seems pretty irrelevant, and if he ends up not being lynched, I'd rather it remained secret, so no, I don't want him to claim.

Cam

I DID NOT WRITE THIS.

I wrote that. I am assuming it was just some kind of a cut & paste error.

Mathcam: you are

still

missing/ignoring a rather fundamental point here. There is a deliniation between "Alignment" and "Role" in this game. You keep going on about how claiming "Role" won't tell anyone anything and might be harmful because the Mafia then might learn some valuable "Mod. Power" and try to eliminate that from the game - but you are completely ignoring what are traditionally the "Roles" of Mafia. You know, the ones that don't have anything to do with "Mod. Powers/Duties" but are plain old "Cop" "Doc" "Vanilla", etc.

Are you taking the position that these things are also useless and pointless to claim? That we cannot learn anything?

[Axelrod]

Are you taking the position that these things are also useless and pointless to claim? That we cannot learn anything?

I'm pretty sure I have a very relevant response to this, but I'll wait for Cam to answer first.

Oh good. I'd very much like to hear it. But Mathcam can speak first.

[Axelrod]

Mathcam, I don't care that you are a "replacer" (which it's nice you do not choose to elaborate on - is it exactly what it sounds like and no more). I don't care that you don't want to quote a specific word from your PM. I am not interested in arguing about ethics and whether or not claiming "pro-town" is the same thing as saying that your alignment is pro-town.

This is what I want to know: Aside from your role of "Replacer", are you anything else? Anything traditionally Mafia related? Or are you otherwise "Vanilla" as zu_Faul appeared to claim before his post was edited.

[Axelrod]

Well, that was like pulling teeth.

Now to decide if I believe it or not....

[Axelrod]

Well, I'll put it this way - had he claimed some kind of "extra" Mafia-related ability I would have voted him till he was dead. So he managed to do that correctly. This does not make him town though. Still feels like he was being very evasive before.

[Axelrod]

Also, Glork:

Are you taking the position that these things are also useless and pointless to claim? That we cannot learn anything?

I'm pretty sure I have a very relevant response to this, but I'll wait for Cam to answer first.

What was your "very relevant" response?

[Axelrod]

Frankly, a "Mod. Responsibilities" claim might be necessary in order to keep the game going.

It might even be a situation where we would have some kind of agreement that even if a player was killed in the game they would keep up with their "Mod Job" afterwards. At least we

could

theoretically do something like that. I'm not sure where the scum would benefit from that or even necessarily gain any advantage at all - it might depend on the Jobs. Which is another reason to have them all out in the open.

Then if we don't want a deceased player continuing to do that job it can be delegated to someone else (for all I know deceased players lose their Mod Privileges anyway).

[Axelrod]

i have a feeling the mod will give the responsiblities to someone else. or we are responsible enough to continue our ablities after we die.

Well?

How about you just start? You already said you would.

[Axelrod]

I am not supporting the raj vote for a number of reasons, one of them being that I don't have any mod powers either.

There simply aren't 12 mod duties to hand out, and I'm pretty sure that what mod powers there are were handed out proportionally between town and scum players.

I also doubt that we are in a town free of power roles, and I think we should stick to the general rule of the less we talk about power-roles the better off we are, and I think mod duties should also be thrown in with that group. No talkie talkie says I.

~~~

Why hasn't my case against elvis_knits and mathcam and macros been accepted? It tastes so true to me that I don't understand its lack of support.

I would be very surprised to see Elvis turn up scum. She's posted very genuinely the whole game. Mathcam maybe, and Macros definitely maybe, but not Elvis. So in as much as you case relies on some kind of "link" which you are seeing between them, I think it's flawed.

Why don't you think the Mod Powers should be claimed? What do you think the town gains from having them hidden?

[Axelrod]

I am the Player List Maintainer. I keep the first post updated.

When zu_Faul posted his death and that he was townsperson, I posted him in Blue (as some of you may have seen). I was going to do Blue for Town, Red for Mafia, pretty standard.

Then, when his post was edited to remove any reference to alignment, I edited the first post to reflect the change. I didn't know who/why zu_Faul's post was edited, but I thought at the time that the Player List should reflect the information that was actually in the thread - in this case, nothing about alignment. But I made post #14 to memorialize what I remembered zu_Faul's post as having said before. And then I made post #16 to point out that I had edited the Player List.

'dats it.

[Axelrod]

I just "updated" the first post again!

[Axelrod]

yes, the death post alterer would be most happy with a deadline.

Wait, wut? Did I miss something?

Did you edit zu_Faul's post?

Why?

I'm confused.

[Axelrod]

I am the Prodder

I get to prod people who are neglecting the game.

Did you prod Coron yet?

[Axelrod]

yes, the death post alterer would be most happy with a deadline.

Wait, wut? Did I miss something?

Did you edit zu_Faul's post?

Why?

I'm confused.

why not? its my job.

Unvote;

Vote: Macros

This is 1/2 for the claim and 1/2 for the way you just responded.

Want to explain it better?

Here's a hint: why on Earth would you edit the death post to remove any reference to his alignment?

What exactly is your "Job?"

[Axelrod]

Also, why did you say this:

holy crap, what in the hell is ging on, it said something like "I am vanilla townie I quit"
Emptyger, what is going on?

When you were the one who did it?

[Axelrod]

I haven't played with him either.

There's "terrible" and then there's "anti-town." If someone wants to explain why a

townie

edits someone's death post to remove all references to that players role/alignment, and then acts confused by the edit, and then

doesn't

clear it up immediately when people start talking about it and how troubling it is....Well, I'd be interested to hear that.

[Axelrod]

I am certainly not in love with the way Glork jumped on and off that wagon either.

[Axelrod]

I am certainly not in love with the way Glork jumped on and off that wagon either.

Oh? I'd love to hear you elaborate.

It was very unloveable.

Where was your "witty death scene" "old jokes" or "funny random bullshit"?

All I noticed was you deleting important information.

This.

@Talitha: out of curiosity, was that you who also changed the Thread Title to reflect that we now have a deadline?

[Axelrod]

Somehow I don't think that's right.

[Axelrod]

Actually, it may be....

[Axelrod]

Macros, just as a friendly reminder, if Raj. makes a "Death Post" and you edit it in any kind of way that removes any kind of important information from the post I will shove a rusty spike through your eyeballs.

[Axelrod]

That didn't come out as Mature as it might have....

[Axelrod]

Here is where I am coming from to start the day: Glork and Coron are probaby scum.

Pooky was suspicious of two people yesterday - Mathcam and Glork. Mathcam is dead and was town. I do not believe the scum would kill Pooky if he was that wrong about both of them. I mean why? In the hope that someone like me would come out today and make this exact point? Generally speaking, scum don't plan like that. They kill the perceived threats, not the people who are horribly off base/under massive suspicion.

Coron has been the worst contributer by a fair margin in the game. And his "also: vote DGB" just now is classic scum voting.

I also note that Glork has come out quickly against DGB this morning as well (this is not to say DGB is therefore clear - some kind of bussing plan is a possibility - but that seems less likely when no scum are down yet).

Feeling it more on Glork than Coron. I

really

didn't like the "Die scum Die" post at the end of the day yesterday. Can we say Over the Top?

Vote: Glork

[Axelrod]

Hahahahahahaha.

Axel's using nightkill choices to define his suspicions.

Unless they flipped a coin, presumably there was a reason. Plus, you just haven't been your usual Glorky self.

I imagine I can work up a more compelling case later. I don't have the time or energy to do so now though.

[Axelrod]

And his "also: vote DGB" just now is classic scum voting.

Um? Just picking up where I left off yesterday.

Right. Did I mention what an incredibly weak vote that was?

[Axelrod]

Here is where I am coming from to start the day: Glork and Coron are probaby scum.

Pooky was suspicious of two people yesterday - Mathcam and Glork. Mathcam is dead and was town. I do not believe the scum would kill Pooky if he was that wrong about both of them.

Vote: Glork

This totally ignores the matchcam kill simply for your case. How do you know the scum group killed pooky and not cam?

I am not "totally ignoring" the Mathcam kill. I do assume that the scum didn't kill him though. You haven't quoted my whole post - in particular, this part:

Generally speaking, scum don't plan like that. They kill the perceived threats, not the people who are horribly off base/under massive suspicion.

Here, Pooky is the one who is "horribly off base" (that is, if Glork is town) and Mathcam is the one who was "under massive suspicion," which he certainly was yesterday.

Do you disagree with that? I do not believe for one second that the scum would have chosen to kill Mathcam last night. Do you honestly think that?

It's not as if this is a great leap on my part. Note the reactions of both Coron

and

Glork first thing today:

So, what do people think of 2 deaths? Is there a vig at work? Seeing as people were suspicous of mathcam yesterday it seems like a possibility.

He doesn't seem to think the Mafia would have killed Mathcam, does he?

And Glork:

Either that or an SK pretending to be a Vig.

Doesn't seem to think it was the work of the Mafia either. States it was either a vigilante kill (which has a certain amount of logic to it) or a SK kill (which is really only possible if you think the hypothetical SK chose not to kill on N0, and then to kill the townie under the most suspicion N1, just so as to be able to attempt to claim vig. (all the time without knowing if there was an

actual

town vig., of course)

Do you find either of them suspicious for making this same "leap" that you are criticizing me for making?

Do you have a theory on what happened last night at all?

Incidentally, Glork appears to be reversing himself when he subsequently barns your comment with the "winner, winner chicken dinner remark." As though he now agrees it's suspicious to assume that the Mafia killed Pooky and not Cam. Which he did himself. But no, it's not that it's scummy to assume the Mafia killed Pooky, it's scummy to try and draw any kind of conclusions from that, right?

I think that's wrong.

Pooky also seemed highly opposed to accepting that the setup was mountainous. Like maybe he had another power role.

He would be a good NK for that reason too.

As I recall, Pooky was not the only one who indicated he was open to the possibility that the game might not be completely mountainous. If fact I know he wasn't the only one. And some of us judiciously didn't render an opinion on that one way or the other.

Even were that the case, you'd have to be arguing that the scum (if they did not include Glork) would look at Pooky and his voting strongly for both Glork and Mathcam yesterday, and decide that, regardless of his being so far off, that they still wanted him dead more than anyone else (including Glork, incidentally, who was defending Mathcam.) Is that possible? Yes, sure, anything is possible. But that's just not the way they usually work.

I'm going to do up a case thing later. I'll do one for Glork and Coron both. Although the three quick votes on me from other people are certainly less than encouraging here.

[Axelrod]

I've written a big thing on Glork, but it's too long and unwieldy to post in one shot and no one would read it. There are no smoking guns, just some stuff I don't like a whole lot. He's good enough that you can't really expect him to make a major slip as scum though. I'm going to chop it down some and just try to hit the highlights later.

Coron is easier since he has done absolutely nothing all game.

1st post announces he'll be away for the next few days.

2nd post to say something rather obvious (no one should edit other people's posts)

3rd post to say that "prodding" the mechanics probably won't work in this game and we should just try scum-hunting (which he personally doesn't have time to do at the moment).

4th post to say less than 1.5 scum on the Mathcam wagon (in answer to a question of Glork's, with no further elaboration)

5th post to say he's been busy but will have more time later.

6th post to say he's protown and to criticize Glork for making a list of people he thinks are town/scum on Day 1 with hardly any info.

7th post is primarily a defense of Mathcam (and his first that I would say counts as an actual contribution to the game), but it's a defense by way of criticizing the attacks being made against Cam, as opposed to asserting that he thinks Cam has been acting in a townie kind of way.

8th post is to say he thinks Cam's claim of "protown" is equivilent to an alignment claim.

9th post in response to Pooky's prod. He hasn't posted in 6 game days, and say "Hi."

10th post is where he finally does another vote-count and we realize that Raj. was lynched like a week ago. He gives 1 liner comments on 2 people - Macros (don't know much about him, but this seems like something he would do so no reason to condemn him) and DGB (seems like a fine vote).

That's the entirety of Day 1.

Day 2 starts with his speculation that maybe a vig. killed Cam (which is what I'd expect a scum to think, if not necessarily to come right out and say it). Votes DGB for the same reasons as yesterday - which were never stated. The entirety of his prior comments about DGB were what he said in his last post of the day (seems like a fine vote). In fact, he admits his initial vote on DGB was random, and just says that sometimes you random correctly.

Last post seems to criticize me for not giving him better reasons to vote anyone else. Says give me a reason and he'll totally vote them.

How about voting yourself for general scumminess and uselessness?

Unvote;

Vote: Coron

I'm still going back and forth on Glork.

[Axelrod]

Axel, you know Coron never helps, right?

No. Is that something like "Macros is terrible."

If we've got a bunch of people in this game who can't be challenged for scummy play because they just suck, then we have already lost.

[Axelrod]

I'm still miffed that Axel tried to use the "Pooky wouldn't have been killed if he were wrong about both Glork and Cam" bit. That's a complete joke.

Oh, it's not the only thing.

But humor me and why don't

you

speculate on why the scum killed Pooky.

[Axelrod]

Axel, you know Coron never helps, right?

No. Is that something like "Macros is terrible."

If we've got a bunch of people in this game who can't be challenged for scummy play because they just suck, then we have already lost.

i'm hurt!

Were you hurt yesterday when Pooky said it?

[Axelrod]

Well, I apologize for not being more active.

I have good feeling reads on exactly 2 people (Elvis Knits and Logicitus). Everyone else could easily be scum.

Phoebus
Talitha
Glork
Coron
Macros
DGB
Adel

I think there's 3 scum in that group of 7. Out of that group, Phoebus, Talitha, Coron, and DGB have been lurking fiends. Macros has not been

exactly

lurking, but almost totally worthless in terms of overall contribution. So what am I supposed to make of that?

Yippie.

[Axelrod]

How come your least suspicious two are my most suspicious?

Because I am paying attention?

Seriously, if you want to share why they are your most suspicious (beyond saying they are making you itch) I'll share why they are my least. How's that?

[Axelrod]

While I'm sitting here, anyone up for a little gaming of the Mod?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Player List:

1) DrippingGoofball - vanilla
2) Coron - vote counter
3) Talitha - deadliner
6) logicticus - thread locker
9) Glork - vanilla
10) Phoebus - post cleaner
11) Macros - death post writer
12) Adel - no mod. duties
13) elvis_knits - executioner
14) Axelrod - player list maintainer

The Deceased:

8) zu_Faul - Vanilla townsperson (we assume) - Killed N1
4) rajrhcpfreak - Vanilla townsperson (we assume) - Lynched D1
7) PookyTheMagicalBear - Townsperson/Prodder - Killed N2
5) mathcam - Townsperson/Replacer - Killed N2
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Premise #1: some scum have Mod. duties in this game.

That's a fairly unremarkable premise, I think. Otherwise the scum would be DGB, Glork, Adel by default (or someone else who is faking a Mod duty. which seems unlikely)

Premise #2: not ALL the scum have Mod. duties.

Ah, this one's more interesting. I have no proof of this. I have no reason for saying it except that it makes sense to me. It's the way I would have done it. Especially given the presense of completely vanilla townies (which I am still assuming).

What it suggests to me though, is that at least one (and very possibly only one) of DGB, Glork, or Adel is scum.

That's not exactly a revolutionary position either, but comes at it from a different angle.

Continuing on, take those people out and it leaves the pool of living players with Mod. duties:

2) Coron - vote counter
3) Talitha - deadliner
6) logicticus - thread locker
10) Phoebus - post cleaner
11) Macros - death post writer
13) elvis_knits - executioner
14) Axelrod - player list maintainer

Now, are there any Mod. duties that we would not expect scum to be given? The first one that springs to mind for me is "Deadliner." Of all the abilities on this list, that's the one subject to the most potential abuse for scum. What if she just kept setting extremely short deadlines?

Sure, the role could come with restrictions like "You can't set a dealine less than 1 week..." or "You can't set a deadline unless the posting rate drops below xxx" which would limit the abusability for scum, but given everything else we've seen so far, I tend to doubt that the Mod. would have given this role such detailed and specific instructions. On the other hand, the Mod. could quite literally be relying on the players "maturity" to keep their Mod. power separate from their role as scum, but I have trouble seeing that as well. Talitha is least likely scum based on Mod. power alone.

The next most abusable power is Macros'. I mean, editing the player's death posts which contain all the "concrete" information we are getting in this game, is hugely abusable. We've seen it already. Ironically, the fact Macros screwed up and edited zu_Faul's post in such a scummy way might end up being a point in his favor. Because if he

were

scum, he would have cheated. I can't believe his role (as Scum Death Post Editer) would have made it okay to remove critical information from the posts, like the alignment and role of the deceased player. That just makes the game unplayable (as discussed before). No, if he were scum, I'd call it cheating, flat out. As a townie who just screwed up though, it's completely possible.

The counter-position is the whole "Macros is terrible" argument. Could he be scum, with that role, and actually not have realized how unfair it would be to edit the death posts like that? Seems hard for me to believe, but if he was really just not paying any attention at all, maybe? He did come clean later about it, so in his (hypothetical scum) mind, that could have set the record straight. I don't want to believe this one either.

3rd least likely (in my opinion) is "Executioner." Because that would just be such an odd role for a scum to have. I mean, they are already trying to kill the town, and one of them has a separate role that says "When a player is lynched you send them an instruction telling them to reveal themselves in the thread." This would presumably include their fellow mafia? That's just weird.

All the others (including my own) are pretty neutral. I don't think it really says much of anything one way or the other about likelyness to be town based on them.

But I'm town , so by the wonderful process of elimination that would leave:

2) Coron - vote counter
6) logicticus - thread locker
10) Phoebus - post cleaner

With at least one and possibly 2 scum in that grouping.

Right now I'm going with one out of Glork, DGB, Adel (most likely Glork - but I'm hating how DGB disappeared and then just posts "Talitha is town" with nothing else) and Two out of Coron, logiticus, Phoebus (most likely Coron and Phoebus).

If DGB and/or Adel had something

else

they wanted to tell me about their roles, it might further cement this opinion.

[Axelrod]

I guess I'm thinking about a one week deadline. Any objections?

I might approve, but only if you said you were ready to lynch someone and actually argued for why. You've really got no business setting a deadline if you aren't doing anything to push the game forward yourself. You are still voting Logiticus based on an "itch" right? So is he the one you really want lynched?

[Axelrod]

I said I wasn't going to do this, but, since nothing else is happening, and I am bored, and don't feel like editing, I'm going to go ahead and post this thing I wrote up on Glork a while ago that's just been sitting on my computer doing nothing. As I mentioned, there are no huge smoking guns here, just a bunch of stuff I don't like very much.

So, this is my (totally unbiased, of course) assessment of Glork's play in the game so far:

Starts rather innocuously. A random vote or two. A joke here and there.

His first "position" is that players should all agree not to edit each other's posts - so if it happens we'll know it was done by scum.

That's not a "scummy" suggestion. It's just more like a pointless one - if you assume people are going to be trying to play the game fairly to begin with.

He pushes that position a bit harder in #62. Fine, I suppose. Still think it's pointless.

The first truly interesting post comes at #66 where Glork speculates about the Mafia method of killing in a hypothetical game without a Mod. Scum would just PM their target and tell them "your dead - post your role info in the thread." He further speculates that the scum might even do this from an alternate account, presumably to prevent the victim from identifying his killer in his death post (which I think we all can agree would be rather unsporting, yes?)

What's interesting here are 2 things - first, how unremarkable a speculation it really is. I mean, in a Modless game how

else

would the scum kill their targets? They'd pretty much have to PM the target directly, wouldn't they? And of course, in that situation, all sides would have to rely on the "Maturity" of the other to not ruin the game by revealing information that they would not normally have.

The second interesting part is his "Disclaimer" at the top. What's that all about? Why did you feel the need to put a big "Disclaimer" saying that the following speculation has nothing to do with any role that you might or might not have? What were you afraid that people might think? That you were showing too much knowledge about the way the scum kill works in this game?

It's especially interesting in light of his later reveal that he has no role or ability. I'm trying to envision why/how a vanilla townie feels the need to say something like that and having trouble. Presumably, from your own role, you would have no basis to think that this game was without a Mod. You would have had to gather that information from other people's posts.

I think the first person to explicitly speculate that we were without a Moderator at all in this game was Adel in #45. Elvis Knits earlier had "speculated" that various Mod. duties had been assigned to players as early as #8, and then says she thinks it's a modless game in #64.

So, did you think we were playing a Modless game when you posted #66?

Glork then makes the first of his two "serious" votes of the day, on Raj at #87/88. No reason given at this time except that he's "feeling" the Raj. wagon. Okay.

His next action is to press people to give an opinion on the number of scum on the current Mathcam wagon (consisting of Macros, phoebus, talitha, pooky, elvis_knits). Wants to know if people think there are more or less than two scum on this wagon.

Frankly, I found that whole line of inquiry bizarre. I mean, if you

knew

Mathcam was a townie, you could look at that wagon with suspicion - hell, looking back at it

now

might provide something of use. But at the time, it was very early, and we knew nothing. It was the equivalent of asking all the players "Do you think Macros is scum?" "Do you think Pooky is scum?" "Do you think phoebus is scum?" etc. At a time when no one is going to have well formed opinions about any of them. And for the reason, apparently, that you personally just didn't like the wagon?

I also note that you, Glork, did not answer your own question that you were so gung-ho to get other people to answer, and never gave any opinions about any of these people on the Mathcam wagon. You certainly didn't vote any of them for waggoning 'Cam. (you voted Macros very briefly later for an entirely different reason).

The person Glork

does

vote next is DGB, who comes along in #133 and jumps right on the 'Cam wagon. It is not my intention to defend DGB here, but I do note that this vote is entirely in keeping with her publicly expressed opinion that people should be wagoned early and often to make things happen in Mafia games. Which I believe is something you are aware of. So it really can't be considered much of a scum tell

for her

(which is not to say that it's pro-town play, or that I agree with this particular philosophy).

Despite knowing this about her, you vote her in #135. You say that pushing wagons blindly is (something anti-town). This appears to be as much a policy vote as a vote because you find her scummy.

Glork then makes the post that Pooky will criticize him for in
#139. Give me 5 reasons why Mathcam is scum.

DGB responds to this request in #144. Actually gives 7 reasons.

Glork's response to that is "REEEEEEEAAAAACH."

He elaborates in #148 where he seems to acknowledge that at least two of DGB's given reasons are actually legit, whereas the others are a stretch. This doesn't change his opinion on DGB. Now he thinks she waggoned first and went looking for reasons later, which = scummy.

That is probably the most legitimate point he has made in the game up to then. It certainly seemed like DGB was voting 'Cam just to make something happen - not because she had any particular suspicion of him, but when pressed, she comes up with a boatload of reasons for the vote, as though she actually found him suspicious before she voted, but just hadn't said so.

It does remind me a tiny bit about what Raj said about myself early on, however. He mentioned he saw "something" suspicious about me, and when pressed suddenly decided that every post I had made in the entire game up to that point was suspicious to him for one reason or another.

Pooky attacks Glork next for "setting up" DGB with his questioning and Glork responds Here. This post feels like a bit of deflection. Glork says that if DGB had declined to give him 5 reasons to suspect Cam - basically said "I don't have 5 reasons, I've got 2" or whatever, he'd have been satisfied. But it's the fact that DGB actually attempted to give 5+ reasons, including weak reasons, which has made him even more suspicious.

Pooky's response is that Glork was more or less "commanding" DGB to come up with 5 reasons, not asking if she had five reasons, so he should hardly be surprised when she gives them to him, and if some are consequently a stretch.

Glork's resolve appears to be weakening as of #179. Although he thinks he can usually get an accurate read on her, now he's just "baffled" by DGB. It's unclear to me why he should be less certain than he was before based on what's happening in the thread.

Then he makes what I consider his weakest vote. DGB had made a rather sweeping statement that she was seeing a "Glork-mathcam-macros" scum team, and Raj. posted that he "buys" that grouping. Glork instantly switches his vote off DGB and back to Raj.

The question is, if the person you are currently voting for is the one proposing the ridiculous (in your opinion) scum team, then why would you jump

off

that person and onto someone else for agreeing? How does that make DGB less likely to be scum and Raj. more? I can see where Raj would move on up the suspicious list, but not where it would make you want to jump your vote - except in as much as a DGB wagon was going nowhere at the present time and Raj. seemed to have more suspicion on him from others. Making it very much a vote of opportunity.

This vote sticks almost the rest of the day. Glork doesn't really talk about much else. There's some discussion about SL and if we think he can edit posts. Some diuscussion about DGB and if how she is playing is typical or not.

He maintains that he think Mathcam is town, without really going into it at any length. He's really not defending Cam

too

strongly for someone he thinks is town and who got pushed very close to lynch. What he does do is steadfastly maintain that Raj is obviously scum.

His PBPA of Raj is Here. It's not exactly an unbiased objective look, which Glork freely acknowledges.

I really don't like the patronizing tone of This post either. "Listen to me, son..." ?

And then, the last thing, which was his momentary diversion onto the Macros wagon, after it was revealed that Macros was the person who edited zu_Faul's death post.

It's "wagon, wagon, wagon" in #489. But then, unvote and back to Raj in #499. And what's the reason for the switch? Very hard to tell, but it

appears

to be because Pooky (and phoebus) said that Macros was a "terrible" player, and nothing more. Phoebus' post was not much of anything at all in point of fact. Just "oh dear, have none of you played with Macros before?" While Pooky more explicitly said "He's terrible."

What I don't like is why Glork would abandon the vote so quickly based on that kind of information. Macros does what is objectively an anti-town thing, and gets your vote, but when someone says (in essence) "well, he's terrible, so he might could do that and still be town," you immediately go (in essence) "oh really, well if he's

terrible

then I guess I won't vote him any more...." Which is just weird.

I found This post, after we realized Raj had been lynched, to be insincere and over the top. Who goes "Woo, die scum!" especially before we have even seen an alignment reveal?

And his next post "Oh boys and Girls I am so PROUD of you all" is more of the same.

Obviously hasn't come out today with anything.



That was what I wrote before. To this I suppose we can add that he's dropped off the face of the planet in this game as well.

[Axelrod]

Glork takes too much pride in his Mafia game to suck this bad if he's town. On the other hand, he could easily ignore this game as scum and tell us we deserved what we got afterwards for ignoring him. He's active in other games.

I don't remember who I am voting;

Unvote;

Vote: Glork

[Axelrod]

I'm trying to remember why I thought Adel might be town (at least over Glork) and I'm not remembering. That "case" against Elvis Knits is a bunch of baloney.

I might possibly be able to get behind an Adel lynch.

[Axelrod]

In addition to trying to remember why I thought Adel was town, I'm trying to remember why Macros (now Nonny) was not lynched dead for lying and/or hypocrisy based on these posts:

Post #11:

holy crap, what in the hell is ging on, it said something like "I am vanilla townie I quit"
Emptyger, what is going on?

Post #25:

what, im sorry but i may have missed something along the way.
how hav e we discovered dgb editing? (if we have i'll vote him for it the scumbag)
I'm waiting talithas first post, let aloone vote

I mean, seriously, how does someone who (A) is responsible for the edit he is exclaiming "Holy Crap" about and (B) calls a player suspected of editing a "scumbag" when they actually did it themselves, live?

Is it really just because he's supposed to be terrible? I mean, that's worse than terrible, that's downright lying deceit. And it's NOT what Macros later said:

@ Tall, I assumed iot was to give the game flavour, hence my excitement when the game started, I assumed (obviously quite wrongly) this was an oppourtunity for me to delight the masses with witty death scenes, my early foray to test the waters showed clearly everyone was not clued in to the idea (that I thought was immeadiately obvious) that despite the mature title, this game would be a delightful trip down a twisted nostalgia lane, chock full of old jokes, and random bullshit. But no, I was filled with disgust at the serious tone in pretty much everyones post, I was then forced to play dumb for fear of a pogrom on my fine self for editing the post (which is my job).

He was exclaiming "Holy Crap" before almost anyone else had said one word about the death post edit. He called the (hypothetical) editor a "scumbag" before people started complaining that the editor was "cheating" - not to mention the fact that the death edit contained precisely none of the wittiness than he claimed it was his intention to insert.

Could he really be just

that

bad?

[Axelrod]

I am paying attention.

While I see a case against Nonny via Macros, at this point I don't see myself voting for anyone who is actually participating. That's just reality as I won't lose to lurking scum, but I will happily blame lousy townspeople for a loss when they couldn't be bothered to play. My vote is staying on Glork.

[Axelrod]

Good grief. It still seems like basically everyone is a candidate. I have no reason to doubt my earlier impression of Elvis Knits and Logicitus so those would be pretty much the only players I wouldn't vote for at a deadline. Talitha seems a little better also, though she's still not really doing much active scum-hunting.

Glork and Coron's posting has been non-existant. DGB's posting has been a joke. Both the replacements deserve looking at based mostly on the acts of their predecessors.

Adel is kind of the wild card. She's posting though, so I don't see myself voting for her at this time either.

Glork or Coron. Then Nonny. Then DGB. Then Werebear. Then Adel. Then Talitha. Then Logiticus. Then Elvis Knits. That's probably my rough and not especially well informed order right now.

[Axelrod]

I don't think we are going to No Lynch. 1/2 of Majority +1 = a minimum of 4 votes, right? We can get 4 votes on someone.

Right?

[Axelrod]

If Talitha's vote count in #860 is accurate then DGB is at 4 votes now, which is not hammered, but is enough to lynch her at deadline (meaning the scum do not have to do anything, DGB, except sit and watch you get lynched if you are town).

Armlx is, indeed, lame, but less lame than the invisible Glork.

[Axelrod]

Unvote

Apparently the power of Glork means people here just won't vote for him ever. I will vote someone else before the deadline. Beware!

[Axelrod]

So, Glork's late support of both DGB and Nonny is making me not want to lynch either one of them. This is still assuming that Glork is scum, of course.

That might put Coron/Armlx up next on my chopping block. Armlx is not making a good impression by coming in and acting all confused "I'm still catching up" for days and days right up to the deadline. Coron didn't do anything remotely townish during his time either.

So, what about Armlx then?

Vote: Armlx

[Axelrod]

So, Glork's late support of both DGB and Nonny is making me not want to lynch either one of them. This is still assuming that Glork is scum, of course.

That might put Coron/Armlx up next on my chopping block. Armlx is not making a good impression by coming in and acting all confused "I'm still catching up" for days and days right up to the deadline. Coron didn't do anything remotely townish during his time either.

So, what about Armlx then?

Vote: Armlx

So you don't vote Glork as no one is voting him, then vote someone else no one is voting?

I voted Glork for a long time and no one voted him. I just started voting for you. You have to give it time, man!

However, I see Adel just switched to Glork. This changes things:

Unvote;

Revote: Glork

[Axelrod]

Meh. I'll knock off DGB to save my own ass, but Axel's the bg here. Trust me.

Unvote, Vote: DGB

Trust me?

Trust me

???

Ignoring for the moment that I am the subject of your assurances of trust, that has got to be the most pathetic thing I've read in a Mafia game in a long, long time.

Also nice how you decided DGB was expendable ~ 5 hours after declaring her "not necessarily scum." Didn't you

say

we could lynch you if you didn't put up something? Change your mind on that too?

[Axelrod]

How nice Glork replied to my ("big angry") post of 3 weeks ago. That's very timely.

Here's another question: You said yesterday saying you thought DGB was scummy. You started this game day saying DGB was a "good place to start."

Then, right up against the deadline, you came back with "I don't think DGB is necessarily scum."

Then, you voted DGB to "save your ass" while still arguing she's not the best choice (which would be me now, yes?)

Why the shift in opinions on DGB? What did she do that struck you as townish? Vote for you, maybe?

[Axelrod]

I'm just hitting a few points for right now:

Obviously it is not a pointless suggestion if SOMEBODY HAD ALREADY EDITED A POST IN THE GAME. Given what we did (or did not, rather) know at the time, there seemed to be no reason for any protown player to edit any other player's post. Thus, I wanted to establish a precedent that would both maintain the integrity of the game and potentially make it easier to spot scum.

Pro-town players already know not to edit posts, Glork. I would think that's the default townie mindset. The fact someone DID edit a post is completely irrelevant. I (and others I presume) made the early assumption that the person who would edit a post like that would be scum. Period.

But your suggestion appeared to be saying that you were concerned that it might have been a TOWNIE who edited the post, and you felt the need to tell the townies that they shouldn't be doing such a thing. Which was pointless.

Incidently, this is what will make me think Macros/Nonny is really town if you come up scum. Because you would have known as scum that it wasn't one of you guys who edited that post.

I launched into a discussion about how a modless mountainous game would work. I did not want anybody jumping to the conclusion that I was a vanilla townie based on the posted hypothetical. I've seen people jump to those kinds of conclusions before, and I wanted to avoid it if at all possible. What on earth makes you think I would post a disclaimer as scum revealing how we killed?

If you are concerned about being called out for demonstrating knowledge of something you are not supposed to have any knowledge about - which happens from time to time, you know, and scum get caught that way - then you could easily say something like that.

OBVIOUSLY I thought we were playing in a modless game at that point. Anybody with half a brain should have thought that. My Post 66 was an attempt to extrapolate the most likely mechanics of this game, so that we could get them out in the light and move on with the game itself.

So, you have come to this conclusion that "anyone with half a brain" should have already thought by that point (even people not blessed with Mod. duties). Why didn't you just say that? Why did you engage in this "hypothetical" discussion with loud disclaimer preceeding it? If it was so obvious already?

Except you didn't think the idea that the scum would have to PM their nightkill targets directly was obvious at all, right?

Check that. My vote for you may have been on a hunch, but it was still serious.

Okay, what was your "hunch" based on? You never said, and you certainly never went back to it.

Hm. I went after RAJ for pushing a wagon then coming up with reasons for it. I went after DGB for pushing a wagon then coming up with reasons for it.

Well golly gee willikers. It's ALMOST like I'm

trying to find people who are being scummy and calling them out on it.

This is what Pooky was all up in arms against you about.

You

demanded DGB give you reasons for voting 'Cam (5 reasons), then you attacked her for them. It's not at all the same as Raj.

Player X votes Player Y for doing A, because A is a scummy action.
Player Z says "I could see Y doing A as protown."
Player X's reason for voting Player Y immediately diminishes, provided X accept's Z's statement.

How the fuck could you possibly find this "weird"?

(1) Player Z has already said he thinks you are scum. One would think that might make one less deferential to his opinions; (2) Saying "he's terrible" and inferring "he is so bad that he could do something like that and still be town" is hardly the same thing as saying "I think he's protown." Pooky certainly didn't express any such opinions about Macros. As a reason to unvote, it's incredibly weak; (3) since when do you not form your own opinions about such things? Question: have

you

ever played with Macros before?

[Axelrod]

So now we wait to see who turns up dead.

And, though it may go without saying I'm saying it anyway, no one ought to vote for anyone yet.

[Axelrod]

I knew they were going to kill Elvis. Because why should anything in this game easy, right?

I think pretty much regardless of what happens with Werebear we are looking at 7-8 alive with likely 3 scum. Meaning 4-5 town. Meaning we had best lynch correctly today.

Oh joy.

[Axelrod]

What I meant was that if I had to bet all my money yesterday on the one person who I thought was town, it would have been on Elvis Knits, so of course, he dies.

Logiticus was #2, but now I'm trying to think what the late rush of votes towards him at the end of the day means. At one time, I would have said that scum have no reason to jump on someone else who is town when a townie's neck is already on the line, but I've seen that happen enough now to know that it doesn't really say much about the people voting him.

On the other hand, what scum probably would not do is jump on a late wagon of one of their own.

So from this we conclude that (a) Logiticus is town and the people voting him (Tally and Nonny) might be anything; or (b) if Logiticus is scum, Tally and Nonny are more likely town. This helps me not at all.

I'm sticking with I think Logic is town for now. The thing about him pointing out where Glork changed positions on people, but then saying he wasn't using that to argue Glork was scum is fairly well neutral for me. I think I feel okay about Tally too.

Armlx/Coron might be at the Top for me now. Perhaps followed by the non-mod power people DGB and Adel.

[Axelrod]

Why are poeple still insisting non-mod powers = scum?

I wrote a whole post on this, you know. It's just a theory that not ALL the scum were given Mod. duties in this game, as opposed to the bunch of townies who were not given duties. Aesthetically, that makes sense to me. So it's more of a process of elimination thing, although there may be other reasons to vote one of those people completely aside from the lack of Mod. duty.

[Axelrod]

I may still be willing to play the "eliminate those with no Mod powers" game if something much better does not present itself soon. That would mean picking between DGB and Adel. I think DGB has been mostly a non-entity all game. She's pretty much just popped in to vote and give one-liners. I don't have any especially good feelings about her, except there was that point where she self-voted which would be an unusual gambit for scum.

Adel has been more pro-active, though no more effective at figuring out who are scum (not that anyone has been effective). I'm not sure what to feel about her going along with this theory though - whether she would be more or less likely to do this as town/scum and what the fact that we may be right at lynch or lose means. I'm concerned she could be using this as a convenient means of lynching yet one more townie and then going for the win tonight. I also don't like the way she just jumped on and off and on again on DGB, apparently due to confusion about the overall number of players in the game.

Of those with Mod powers, I am going back and forth between Nonny and Armlx as best choices, both of them primarily based on stuff that was done by the people they replaced. Macros' scumminess/lying has been documented, and Coron was completely worthless.

Can we perhaps get a top 2 from everyone? And with 8 people and 5 to lynch and 3 probable scum, no one ought to put anyone on 2 votes or the scum could theoretically "speed-lynch" (although in a game like this that would seem quite risky for them to attempt.)

[Axelrod]

Ooo. I forgot Werebear. I don't like him either. He could totally be scum.

[Axelrod]

I really don't see just 2 scum out of 14 players. I mean, completely vanilla games go off with 3 scum in 12 players all the time. 3 out of 14 is the highly, highly more likely situation.

I'm also still open to the idea that Mod powers went randomly - of course, even then statistics would say that at least one scum should get one out of three.

@DGB: what just changed your mind there?

[Axelrod]

that came out backwards - the statistics thing would say that not ALL the scum would likely end up with one in a random distribution. I am not really wanting to lynch based solely on that though.

[Axelrod]

I've felt like Axel is town, but not having played with him before am open-minded.

Axel is a manipulative bastard in my experience. I have to reread Random 2 on MTGS again though to get a better read.

Oh go on you. This is making you drop like a stone (and it's not like you were high up on the "list of trust" to begin with)

[Axelrod]

I was just going over some recent posts to try and remind myself why I am suspicious of Werebear, when I saw a post by Axelrod that made hairs rise on the back of my neck. Post 1030, he says he is may be willing to eliminate those with those with no mod powers, if nothing better presents itself.

To start with, I find the at-least-one-of-the-vanillas-must-be-scum position a bad one. I thought more people would agree with me that decent mods assign things like that randomly just to avoid/foil this kind of setup-based reasoning.

I don't like how Axelrod uses the "if nothing better presents itself" line. I feel like he knows it's not a good option for the town. My feeling is backed up later in his post when he details how there's 8 of us left and likely 3 scum, etc. It's freaking obvious that we have, at most, one mis-lynch left. If both DGB & Adel are town (and I see that as somewhat possible), then lynching one, then the other if the first is town, is a definite loss. If could also easily be game over after lynching one of them. It's lazy, lazy, lazy. (Edit: Which I really don't expect from a good pro-town player at this stage of a game with NO scum down).

Now that I'm talking myself around to the idea that Axel is scum, I am going to go back and see who jumped when I talked about Glork's suspicion on logicticus. (Edit: "jumped" because I neglected to mention Axelrod... I think it was Adel and someone else).

"If nothing better presents itself" is meant to be taken at face value. To this point, there are precisely zero what I would call "strong" leads. I think that's fairly evident by the way everyone is just going round and round and round right now.

There may be good cases to be made from posts in the thread, all the way back to day 1, provided someone takes the time to read back and actually make them. I plead guilty to not have done this in quite a while myself. I don't see anyone else doing it either. This means everyone is just voting based on "gut" and on what was the most recent thing someone said that you didn't like.

That's not a good way to win games. We are doing terribly, and are likely to continue unless someone comes up with something better. Lynching someone based on a statistical argument that more likely than not one scum would have no Mod. powers (even if you are assuming a random distribution) is better than

nothing

.

So someone needs to make a better case. This could be me too. Frankly, if I can get the energy up, I will make the effort. But that's not happening right now.

[Axelrod]

Axel, admittedly no-one has claimed scum (or the equivalent) yet, thus I agree there are no extremely strong leads.

But your un-enthusiasm for trying to find scum, in a very possible lynch-wrong-lose situation, is pretty damning, IMO.

You mention going back to day 1 to make a case against someone, but it's been my experience that players' true colours start to really show once they get close to winning (or losing). Your un-worried behaviour (wanting to sit back and do the statistical lynch thing... because it's "better than nothing") makes me think you're closer to winning than to losing.

I will put my own efforts at finding scum in this game up against anyone's (which is not to say I've been any more successful thatn anyone - but I have made the effort). If I am experiencing a lack of enthusiasm now, then it is caused largely by so many other people completely phoning it in. I'm not sure I've ever felt like I had so little to go on this deep in a game before.

This is where I am:

1) DrippingGoofball
2) Armlx
3) Talitha
6) logicticus
10) Werebear
11) Nonny
12) Adel
14) Axelrod

There are 3 scum in there, I believe. Not me (duh) so out I go.

1) DrippingGoofball
2) Armlx
3) Talitha
6) logicticus
10) Werebear
11) Nonny
12) Adel

I have felt for most of the game that logicticus was at least trying. That might change after a review, but he's nowhere near the top of the list. I would say that Talitha is next least person of interest.

1) DrippingGoofball
2) Armlx
10) Werebear
11) Nonny
12) Adel

Adel and Nonny are at least making the appearance of giving an effort. Frankly, one of them is probably scum, because I doubt

all

the scum are just lurking their way to victory, but I wouldn't pick either of them first either at this point.

1) DrippingGoofball
2) Armlx
10) Werebear

So. I think I could go for anyone here. But I don't want to vote until I at least do some kind of token review of each of their posts. It probably goes: Armlx -> Werebear -> DGB. With the understanding that one of them is probably town and at least one of Adel/Nonny is scum.

[Axelrod]

I am going to gouge my eyes out.

I just wrote an extremely long, point by point response to that non-case and when I tried to post it, got some kind of "critical database error" and lost the whole thing. That is so frustrating it makes me want to scream. I am not replicating it again tonight.

I will just say this, Nonny. You have done some serious mis-reading or are engaging in serious misrepresentation. So please go re-read what I wrote (and when I wrote it) and then come back and ask me what questions you actually have about what I wrote and why.

[Axelrod]

I am going to post something meaningful tomorrow.

See, if I make this post now, then I will feel obligated to actually do it.

[Axelrod]

Okay, finally time to respond to Nonny's posts. This, I think is everything even somewhat negative you had to say about me leading up to your vote. I'm ignoring the things I said that you said you agreed with:

People who seem as okay as you can seem considering it's only 83 posts into the game:

logicticus
elvis_knits
Talitha

I don't like that there is no exlaination for this list. And no prompting for it eiter.

Okay. What don't you like about it? Saying you don't like something can be construed as you saying you think it's "scummy." Is that what you mean here? If so, what's scummy about it (in your opinion). I do this all the time, and I do not think that making a list of people you are feeling good/bad about at any particular moment in time is ever a scummy thing.

If not, then it would seem you are guilty of the same crime you insinuiate that I am guilty of - namely throwing out a list (or a statement) without purpose.

I just want to hear the "Alignment" part of your claim. I don't really care about the "Role" part. I agree that the "Role" part could be town/scum equally and there's not a real basis to tell the difference. But not the "Alignment" part, so I don't get what you are saying there.

Then why are you now saying one none mod power person has to be scum? This is pointless to go on this far in the game.

What? Either I am not understanding your issue or you are completely missing mine. I asked a very specific question of 'cam (for a very specific reason) at a point in the game

well before

everyone had claimed whether or not they had a Mod. duty. I did not have a feeling at that point that there was any specific distribution of Mod. duties amongst the town/scum. That was not what I was talking about at all.

I did have a feeling that scum would have Mod. duties though, and that it would not be obvious who was scum or not based just on that.

Do you still feel coron is a threat now that you know glork is town?

This is one of those questions that makes me think you are talking to hear yourself talk and not actually paying attention, considering I had

just

made another list and Coron/Armlx was sitting right at the top of it. Did you just miss my post or something?

Axelrod do you still feel this way about logic, or the other poeple you seperated in your lists? (obv exclude elvis)

Ditto.

Axelrod posts a list and assumptions about the game. He tries to clear tally on mod power alone. I find this all very WIFOM and why would you say

Talitha is least likely scum based on Mod. power alone.

I don't think any townie would try to clear someone so easily. FOS axelrod on that alone.

And here's the complete misrepresentation. I was absolutely NOT trying to "clear" Talitha from being scum with that post. One would have thought that was clear from the context. I was playing a game - out guessing the Mod. and speculating on what Mod. duties made the least sense for scum, such that

if

EmpTyg. had picked who got what, what would he have been more/less likely to pick.

You say "I don't think a townie would try to clear someone so easily," the implication being that you do think a scum would try to do it? Why is that, exactly?

then moves on to macros

Because if he were scum, he would have cheated. I can't believe his role (as Scum Death Post Editer) would have made it okay to remove critical information from the posts, like the alignment and role of the deceased player. That just makes the game unplayable (as discussed before). No, if he were scum, I'd call it cheating, flat out. As a townie who just screwed up though, it's completely possible.

Again trying to almost clear someone on power alone. Do you still feel this was axelrod?

Again, answer me - even

assuming

that what I was doing was trying to "clear" people (which it wasn't), why would I be doing this as scum? Especially "clearing" townies? Macros is/was you.

3rd least likely (in my opinion) is "Executioner." Because that would just be such an odd role for a scum to have. I mean, they are already trying to kill the town, and one of them has a separate role that says "When a player is lynched you send them an instruction telling them to reveal themselves in the thread." This would presumably include their fellow mafia? That's just weird.

trying to clear this one seems silly to me.(now elvis is cleared) But I don't see why that role couldn't have been scum, would have made sense since they would also be the one to say "oi we night killed you go post" but seeing as now we know it's not, it's a moot point, but still he is stretching to clear certain roles/players.

Again you accuse me of "stretching" to clear townies (which is wrong), but at least here we now know Elvis was, in fact townie. And presumably you know yourself to be townie, yes? So I have been "stretching" to clear at least 2 and possibly 3 townies. Why would I ever do this as scum? Why "stretch" at all?

And if this is just you again pointing out something you don't like, but without having any reason to think it's scummy, then....why?

Still feel this way about the latter part?

Another seemingly pointless question.

Axelrod: you are the one that pointed out that the front post changed. And you are the one for changing it. Pot calling the kettle black there.

Not. Even. Close. Seriously, did you go back and read what I said, when I said it and how I said it? If I had accused the person who edited the first post of being scum, that would be one thing. If I had said "omg, how scummy, someone edited the first post - people don't do that" that would have been one thing. But I made 2 back to back posts with a very specific purpose in mind. The first post was to memorialize what I remembered zuFaul's death post to have said before it was changed, and the second to

point out

that the first post had been edited to reflect the information currently available in the thread. I planned to

use

that post to support my claim when and if I made it. It was very deliberate and not even slightly scummy.

That is so completely different from what happened with Macros I can hardly believe you are trying to raise it as a point.

I wrote a whole post on this, you know. It's just a theory that not ALL the scum were given Mod. duties in this game, as opposed to the bunch of townies who were not given duties. Aesthetically, that makes sense to me. So it's more of a process of elimination thing, although there may be other reasons to vote one of those people completely aside from the lack of Mod. duty.

I find this detracting from real scum hunting.

You find trying to stir up debate about

something

"detracting?" Considering the extreme lack of scum hunting that was going on, one might have thought you'd have been happy someone was trying to talk about anything.

And I

still

stand by the point that, without anything better to go on, eliminating both the non-mod. powered people would statistically and logically be better than lynching at random.

After all that, you vote for me. And I still can't tell why - what out of all that you didn't like moreso than the dozens of other things that you posted that you didn't like from every other player?

The posts were lengthy, yet superficial. It's like you did this skim re-read of each player and just jotted notes to yourself as you went without any awareness of what had actually happened in the game or the context in which certain posts were made.

So tell me again - why are you voting for me, Nonny?

[Axelrod]

Now I'm just watching Olympics all the time, so it appears I have to make another promise to the thread to make myself stay active.

What I'm going to do is a write up on each player left (not including me, someone else can do that). That will be 7 write ups in 7 posts. This is not going to be some kind of full on PBPA - which would take too long and also be way too long to read, but something that at least trys to do some kind of analysis of the play. Maybe I'll learn something along the way.

I'm not promising 1 of these per day either, but I'll try to stick close to that.

[Axelrod]

ARMLX

All right, first up in my player reviews will be Coron/Armlx. And this is not because Armlx now appears to be building up towards a vote of me with these last few "review" posts of his, but because (as mentioned previously) he's been right around the top of my suspicious list for a long time.

Start with This post that I made about Coron way back when. I will stand by all that there.

Looking at Coron's subsequent posts, I do not see anything that got any better, in my opinion. The only ones of any kind of substance are where (1) #620 where he's asked by logiticus to elaborate on why he's voting for DGB and he completely avoids the question. Then (2) #764 where he defends Macros/Nonny from my re-questioning of the editing of the first post and what I view as Macros' general dishonesty. Coron here says that Macros is from a time in Mafiascum's history when people just normally tried to hide their roles. He suggests he might vote for Adel, but does nothing more in that regard.

Then he gets replaced. I will submit that, as a player in this game, Coron's contribution was the worst of anyone's, period. Does that by itself make him scum? No. But it certainly doesn't make him look good. He rarely expresses opinions about anyone. The opinions that he does express are not argued or defended, but mainly appear to be riding on the coattails of others. He votes very little. He lurks a lot until prodded, but seems to keep popping up just enough to not get replaced (until he gets replaced, of course).

Then Armlx comes in. Armlx has certainly been more active, the question is, has he been more townie?

Armix spent his first several posts explaining that he hadn't read everything yet. His first action was to vote for Nonny, and this apparently in response to post #899. He says that this looks like an attempt by Nonny to derail the lynch of DGB, possibly causing a No Lynch, or a quick lynch of someone else without much thought. Eh. I can sort of see this point. We were approaching a deadline. We needed a lynch. DGB had the most votes. Nonny was already voting for DGB. Then, Nonny unvotes DGB and votes for someone (Talitha) who doesn't have any votes on them at all, while ranting about how the town isn't doing a good job of scum-hunting.

I also agree with Armlx HERE. Nonny is defending herself from her Unvote of DGB by saying, "I'm not the type of player to vote on a wagon during a deadline that I don't believe in." But she WAS voting for DGB previously. So what changed? Basically Nonny says, at first she just wanted the day to end like everyone else, then she thought about it and realized this was a stupid reason to vote for someone, so she changed it to someone she thought was scum (Talitha). I find all that explanation from Nonny somewhat questionable and not entirely consistnent. So I will give points to Armlx here.

Armlx then switches over to Glork, however. This appears to be part "we need to lynch someone at the deadline" and part "I read his stuff and he looks suspicious to me." Armlx is vague on the particulars. His initial explanation is: "I can't really see the logic behind anything he (Glork) has done this game." Then he

appears

to agree with my general assesment of Glork and finds Glork's response lacking.

Armlx starts this game day going back to a Vote: Nonny HERE. Also says he could possibly get behind the "vote for a non-mod powered player" idea. He doesn't do anything particularly significant after this for a long time. It's mostly 1-liner posts, popping in to ask a question here and there or express agreement/disagreement. It feels like he does some insinuating against me early on - Adel asks Talitha if there's a reason they shouldn't be looking at me and Armlx says that's "interesting" and reminds everyone that I was the one pushing the Glork wagon hardest. He goes on to call me a "manipulative bastard" (but I'm sure that was meant with love), but doesn't follow that up in any way. It's then mainly just a series of random comments, without really pushing anything. His excuse is having only skimmed the game the first time through, and he promises a re-read.

The re-read eventually comes and he's been posting his thoughts from that most recently. I am not a huge fan of these posts. They are the

kind

of thing I have been known to do as scum, i.e. make big long posts "summarizing" the thread or just recapping, and/or noting posts that I "like" and "dislike" out of context.

I will note that in his re-read Armlx notes nothing in

any

of my posts that he likes/agrees with, and a bunch of things he dislikes/disagrees with/thinks are a stretch. This includes my #694, which, again, Armlx

appeared

to agree with at the time when he voted for Glork. It also includes my comments about eliminating all the Non-modpowered players, which Armlx indicated

some

agreement with at the start of the day. All this could be interpreted again, as him trying to generate some buzz for an Axelrod lynch. This does not make Axelrod happy. He's also pushing the idea that I am "linked" with Adel. This also does not make Axelrod happy, and is very bad analysis to boot.

He makes a couple of extremely strong statements, however, like "first thoughts are the Mathcam wagon was complete bullshit. I expect 2 of (DGB, Nonny, Werebear, Tali) are scum for their involvement in it." and "DGB is pretty logical on page 9. Phoebus is not, probably 1 of the 2 scum." which really seem to come out of left field. Man, if you really thought that, one would think you'd be focusing more on it, wouldn't you? Note how neither Adel nor myself are on either of those lists either.

In summary, Armlx has made one point I can sort of agree with, relating to the way Nonny unvoted DGB close to deadline, and not a whole lot else. I can't say that this makes me feel much better about him, but I'm trying to be objective and not simply jump on him because he appears to be trying to raise suspicions against me personally.

He's still right around the top of my current hit-list. I think I'll do Nonny next though, because I did find myself understanding his one point there, Macros was really scummy, and I want to see if there's anything else to see.

[Axelrod]

NONNY

Continuing on then. As with Armlx, the analysis of Nonny starts with the person she replaced (Macros). Macros' failings have been well documented, and my main issue is pretty well summarized HERE. It's not even so much that he edited zu_Faul's death post (which was bad, but possibly just ignorant), but the fact that he lied about it, and was actively deceptive. Then he appeared to get all huffy when people called his actions scummy and quit. He is player #2 as far as general uselessness goes.

So, starting with that, what has Nonny done?

Nonny's first stated opinion is that she doesn't think that the Mod (EmpT) would have designed the game with the same ratio of Town/Scum as Mod. Powered/Non-Mod. powered, because that would be too obvious. This opinion is neither here nor there with me. It might be right, it might not be, and no one who is not scum really can know at this point.

Her first expressed suspicions are against DGB and Tally in post #712 for lack of participation. This becomes suspicion of DGB and Adel in #714 for basically the same reasons. She thinks Adel has been posting, but not really contributing. One thing I don't like here is the way she expressed suspicion of DGB - appears to be her top suspect - but then asks "those of you who do support a DGB lynch, do you still now that she is on vacation?"

I mean, are you one of "those who support a DGB lynch" or not? You don't seem to give your own opinion on this issue (whether or not we ought to lynch someone who is away on vacation). You just float it out there like some kind of a test balloon, almost as if to see which way the wind is blowing on DGB. It reads as cautious and a bit calculated.

There's an argument between Nonny and Adel then where each vote for the other. Another somewhat interesting moment comes when Talitha pops in and votes for Adel. Nonny's response is HERE. Even though Talitha has apparently agreed that Adel is scummiest, Nonny want to know her reasons. Perhaps it's just me, and it's certainly possible I've done something similar in my time, but when I'm making a case on someone, and voting for them, and someone else comes along and

agrees

and

also

votes for the person I am voting for, I don't typically do what Nonny does here. I am either (1) happy for the support, and don't worry the bandwaggoner didn't give their own independant reasons; or (2) suspicious of the waggoning, which makes me doubt the validity of the original case. It depends on what the original case was based on, of course. Nonny isn't doing either of those here. She's doing both. She's happy with the support and apparently still wants Adel lynched, but she's

also

questioning Talitha, who just voted in support. It's a little bit schizophrenic.

As I said, I am not saying I've never done something like this before myself. I've been playing this stupid game a long, long time, so anything's possible. I just don't quite "get" the mindset that Nonny is coming from here.

Adel is run up to about L-2, when Talitha unvotes. Then there's THIS unvote from Nonny. This is another eyebrow raiser for me. I don't see where Adel has done

anything

to convince you that she is less likely scum. You certainly don't quote anything which you say is making you think she's less likely scum. You just say that she's "being helpful by being active."

On the one hand, I can respect the "don't lynch the people who are actually playing over the people who aren't" position. In fact, that was my

exact

position in THIS post, which was made exactly two posts before Nonny's unvote. I am (essentially) explaining why I am not voting for Nonny now - she's participating. It's almost as if Nonny is barning

me

here, and jumping off a wagon that isn't going anywhere using an excuse I have given her.

But the thing is, if I was actually voting someone for being scum, and genuinely thought they were scum, the fact that they were actively participating wouldn't stop me from voting for them. I was voting Glork at that point, and Glork never gave me a reason not to vote for him the entire time, so my vote just never came off (until a brief switch-up close to the deadline). I don't get why Nonny is unvoting here. Up to this point, Adel has been her primary focus.

In fact, the vote goes right back on again in post #858, seemingly with no more reason than what Nonny believed previously. This vote gets moved over to DGB, however, in post #869, following Logiticus.

And then there is #889, which is what Armlx questioned Nonny for, and as stated previously, is the main thing I agree with Armlx about. This vote switch at such a late hour is way, way, odd. Especially in the context that Nonny hasn't been pushing anything against Talitha the whole game. It's been Adel, Adel, Adel pretty much up to now, with a little bit of "okay, I'll vote for DGB to get a lynch." But now it's "Man, that Talitha sure has been lurking, let's get

her

" at a time when we are under deadline and no one is voting for her.

Once again, Nonny is somewhat schizophrenic here. Saying she's happy we are going to Night (under Talitha imposed deadline) but also using this fact as a point against Talitha, because activity had increased in recent days and Armlx wasn't given time to get caught up.

Then

she switches her vote to Locigitus, following, ironically, Talitha of all people. Nonny says Logiticus was on her "list" of people who contribute, but just barely. I don't think she has mentioned logicticus as someone she was interested in at all before this vote. She

had

mentioned Glork before. She had prodded him multiple times. When she voted for Talitha, she put at the end in big capital letters "where the HECK IS GLORK!" Yet, Glork was one player she never voted for, or said much of anything about at all. I'm wondering why she completely avoided that wagon. Could it be that Glork's reputation made her gunshy to try and get him lynched? That she didn't want to be associated with that (mislynch) in any way?

I don't know, but that whole sequence of votes at the deadline looks fishy.

That's all I'm doing for now. This post is too long as it is, so this game day will have to wait.

[Axelrod]

1) Why is not agreeing with your early posts bad?

2) Which things are stretches?

1) The point is, you are making these long analysis-type posts where you are pointing out things you agree/disagree with. For some people, you point out both posts you agree with, and other posts you don't. When it came to me, however, it was all negative. It's like, suddenly there's nothing I've said this entire game that you agreed with. Though you hadn't mentioned it at the time (as pointed out, the times you did mention me, it seemed like you were agreeing with me more than anything else).

It is a shift in tone. And it feels to me very deliberate an effort to try and get some momentum going towards an Axelrod lynch.

2) I'm talking about things that

you

said were stretches, I'm not saying that you yourself were "stretching."

Does not making you happy mean I am scummy?

Obviously.

Why is the Adel-you link I noted bad analysis.

Well, (a) Because it is non-existant; but also (b) what you are saying makes little sense anyway. Essentially (correct me if I'm wrong) you accuse us of showing too much knowledge about who did the scum kill the previous night. We both make the same "slip" and you see this "link."

If I were to direct you to Coron's post #574 where he speculates about the previous Night kill, would you also be suspicious of him? Oh wait, that's you now.

You also say I merely summarize and say like/dislike. What do you think I am only summarizing, and what would you like me to elaborate on my thoughts behind?

Every time you say such and such seems "off," or "odd," or I don't like so and so, or so and so is "WTF" or "reachy," and you DON'T explain WHAT about it that you don't like. WHAT seems off. WHY don't you like it, and you just leave your comment hanging there in the air.

What do you even mean asking me to tell you what you were only "summarizing" - virtually the entirety of those posts was just general impression/feeling without explanation or elaboration.

[Axelrod]

Axel, what differentiates what you are doing from the "like/dislikes and summary" that I did?

What I am

trying

to do is review every player and

explain

my thoughts about said player's actions. I am trying to explain

why

a certain post or a certain action rubs me the wrong way (not just asserting that it does). I am trying to put myself in said player's head and see if what they did/said makes sense from the townie mindset. Then the same for a scum mindset.

If you don't think there's a difference, well then I guess you are entitled to your opinion, but I think there's a rather large difference.

[Axelrod]

axel: first off you are useing the word "schizophrenic" wrong, sorry i don't see thing or hear voices in my head.

You're right, I meant bi-polar.

/humor!

Secondly you aren't taking interaction with other players into account. I was orginally after adel due to crap logic that made no sense and couldn't see why she was making such a poor case. The fact that tally jumped on with no reason gave me more insight since even before I replaced in I was suspicious of tally. Then I unvoted adel when tally brought up the "huh why did these poeple get reaplced..scum" logic. You didn't even taken in to account that I can read and listen to other poeple than adel, just because I was voting her doesn't mean I had eyes only for her.

I am trying to take everything into account, and I definitely try to look at the context (unlike some others). You attacked Adel for lack of participation/contribution. You didn't say anything about Adel's "case" against Elvis Knits initially.

Then

, when Adel pointed out that she had been "contributing" and referenced her case, you dismissed it and said that when you read it even before you replaced in you didn't see the logic.

Then you voted Adel after she voted you. You hadn't voted her before, but apparently her vote of you convinced you. You also (somewhat ironically) acused her of being jumpy with her votes - this is ironic because of how you jumped your own vote around at the end of the day.

You unvoted Adel for the reason she was being helpful by being active. I note that this came just two post after I said I wasn't going to be voting for

you

at this juncture over certain lurking persons because

you

were being active. Your unvote piggy-backed on my reasoning.

Another thing you don't take into account is that that "day" was over a month long, in that time frame you see new stuff, get frustrated with activity levels, and what not.

I'm not sure what I am supposed to take into account here. That people can get frustrated and do strange things?

I wanted to see poeple reactions to this. If they thought DGB was truly scum I don't think the vacation would factor in. However, if they themselves are scum going after an easy lynch then they would care, because it would slow down things and also take longer to get to night.

I see no evidence that this was your reasoning, that you questioned anyone about their voting of DGB or ever followed up this in any way. So, I mean, you can

say

this is what you were doing, but it does not appear to me that is what you were doing.

Furthermore, I believe your way of analysis is poor. Looking at only one person at a time doens't take into acount interactions with other nor what was happening at the time in the game. IF this was the only thing scummy you'd done I'd still go on it. Also you took more into account your opinion then mine, like when you said adel hadn't done anything that was convincing enough to remove a vote, that is your view. Also, why does adel have to be the one doing something convincing...tally did something convincing me she was scummy.

I'm totally taking into account "interactions" and what was happening in the game at the time (or at least, I'm

trying

to). I don't see where you can legitimately accuse me of this, so maybe you can explain better what I said that (in your opinion) wasn't taking into account the interactions and what was happening in the game.

Right now my gut and logic leads me to believe it's a axel-tally pairing. Esp, with how he was almost defending tally in a subtle way. Sure at the time what I had against her was lurking, but I also pointed out when she did vote it was to ask if we need a deadline or otherwise. Her actual posts lead me to the conclusion too, as well as her inactivity. You also said my suspicions came out of the blue when i switched near deadline? But yet you say one of my first suspects was tally. You give no "analysis" of my orginal case against her when i voted and don't even mention I had one.

I need that :eyebrow smiley here. Post #712 was where you first mentioned Tally, along with DGB. I described this post as your first expressed suspicions - and that's true. But it was

hardly

a "case." Actually, you don't even say that you are "suspicious" of Tally in that post, you just point out that she hasn't been posting much and hasn't contributed much content. In your very next post you say you would support a DGB or Adel lynch and don't mention Tally at all. Is that supposed to be this "original" case that you are referring to?

And the "case" you made at the time you switched your vote is irrelevant to the point I was making - which is that the timing was suspect. But it was also still odd that you would be jumping on Tally for her lurking and lack of contributing over DGB when those were perhaps the strongest points against DGB to begin with.

When someone is inactive as she was/is(even if she has IRL stuff going on she was inactive) it takes more time to analyize thier beheavior because at first there is less to go on. Also, the fact that tally is trying to say we should go off glork and lynch logic due to it. While yes she was voting logic at deadline, she disregarded that axelrod was glorks biggest case and suspect. It's been ignored, though their is the most to go off of for a cse on axelrod.

I don't think I understand this, but it certainly looks like you are trying to use Tally's vote of Logicitus as a point against her - she voted Logic while disregarding that I (Axelrod) was Glork's biggest suspect.

But you

agreed

with Talitha about Logiticus. You switched your vote

off

Talitha and

onto

Logiticus after this. You can't possibly be saying that Talitha's vote of Logiticus was another point you had against her.

So, what are you saying there?

I'll probably be looking Werebear/Phoebus's way next for this little series.

[Axelrod]

ugg. It is looking very possible that I am about to become very busy over the next week or so. This doesn't mean I'm not checking in, but it means I am much less likely to have the time to sit and do lengthy reviews for an hour or more on end.

Just letting you know. After next week I ought to be okay again for a bit.

[Axelrod]

My week of Hell is over with, so I will be paying more attention to this now.

From what I'm currently seeing I feel a lot more confident about Tally not being scum. Not really confident about anyone else.

I'm looking at Phoebus/Werebear and then DGB and then Adel, and probably not doing any more of those.

[Axelrod]

Phoebus/Werebear

As far as Phoebus goes, his first post of any real substance was THIS one, approximately 1 week into the game. He's basically saying that he's voting for 'cam in this post (who he was already voting for, but that was "random" and now he's sticking with it). His reasoning is hard to decipher as he appears to be saying several things at once, but the jist appears to be (1) 'cam is being overdefensive, (2) a lynch of 'cam gives us the most information, and (3) his gut. And what I just said makes his post sound much better/clearer than it actually was. Most of it was rambling and incoherent.

He sticks on 'cam for basically the whole day until the Raj. wagon reaches a critical majority and he jumps over to that one with THIS vote. Total wagon.

Phoebus get some minor pro-town points for his fatalism in THIS series of posts (457-463). Basically he's saying he's not enjoying the game and wouldn't mind being lynched. I'm not sure how much credit to give him for that, since he didn't really get serious about it, but it's somewhat less likely that a scum under basically no pressure would offer himself up like that.

The next most interesting thing is when Macros comes clean about his Mod. duty. and a quick wagon starts to form on him. I think it's me, 'cam, and Glork in quick successtion, and Phoebus - who had absolutely no problems with waggoning Raj. responds to this wagon with "oh dear....have none of you ever played with Macros before?"

It's odd because it both is and isn't a defense. He doesn't really say anything about Marcos, about what Macros did, or what's going on, he just says "oh dear." The logical way to read this is "hey people, Macros is a terrible player and he is quite capable of making a terrible move kind editing a townie's death post and removing references to his alignment because he is so terrible, so the fact that he has done this is no evidence of his scumitude and I do not think this is a valid reason to be voting for him. I think we should be voting for Raj (the person I am voting for) for these most excellent reasons....)

Of course, in reality he has said nothing like that. This is one of those posts which makes me want to say "at least one of Phoebus or Macros is scum" because Phoebus seemed to be assuming Macros's towniness in that post which he really had no business assuming.

Day 2 Phoebus opens with a vote on 'Cam before 'Cam posts that he is dead. Then he basically whines that he has lost interest in the game and he will just wagon anyone who we say, and/or try to find a replacement for himself. That was more or less it. He never voted anyone (living) on Day 2 or made any kind of case, or even remarked on other people's cases. He was literally useless.

So I see one minorly townish thing in (apparently) being willing to die, and not much else.

Werebear picks up HERE. Basically, his opening position is to agree with (me?) and the idea that people who have currently claimed no Mod. powers should be more suspect than people with Mod. powers.

He goes on further to say that DGB and Glork are his top two within that group with a preference for DGB. Doesn't really say

why

he prefers DGB, just that he does.

HERE he asks what I would consider to be a useless question - how are we going to know when the game is over? I would consider Werebear smart enough to think that one through on his own without really needing to ask the thread.

As far as suspicious posts go THIS one jumps out at me first. Adel made a remark about the "scum" killing Mathcam. Logic asks Adel how she knows this and thinks it's a tell. Nonny agrees with Logic. Then Werebear posts this, which says that he was assuming it was a vig who killed Mathcam and he doesn't like how sure Adel seems that it was "scum." It's the bandwaggoning tone of this post that I don't like first, and the way he threw in that he "mentally" had checked off 'cam's death as Vig., but he had neglected to mention it until this point. HE doesn't vote for Adel, but appears poised to go along with an Adel wagon should one form. So it also appears a bit opportinistic to me.

Werebear contributes essentially nothing over the next 2 or so weeks, and finally comes with a Vote: DGB. DGB has the most votes (including her own at this point). Werebear's reasoning is still the "vote for someone without Mod. powers" one, and doesn't appear to be much more.

He was not around for/did not comment at all about the Glork wagon.

Next day, he opens with what I consider is another suspicious post, which is HERE. Now he says that, because Glork died and was town (and had no Mod. powers) he no longer thinks that the people without Mod. powers are more likely to be scum. I don't follow this at all. We already had people die who apparently had no Mod. powers (zu_Faul and Raj), so why would one more make you suddenly change your opinion?

What he seems to say later is that he had this idea that "possibly players with no mod powers were scum." and when Glork died with no mod powers and was not scum, that theory went out the window.

My problem is: how could Werebear possibly have actually thought "players with no mod powers were scum." That would have meant that the entire scum team had exposed themselves on Day 2 - Glork, DGB, and Adel. The "theory" that I posited was NEVER that ALL the people who had no mod powers were scum. It was that AT LEAST ONE scum was in that group of people who claimed to have no mod powers. What Werebear is claiming he was considering was crazy.

In THIS post Werebear makes another questionable assertion that he thinks there are only 2 Mafia in this game. Which also seems crazy to me. 3 Mafia in a 12 player mini is practically the standard, and this game started with 14 players. Why would you think 2 out of 14 seemed right?

Werebear does some more irrelevant speculation and makes another obvious point (about how, if there are 3 scum and we mis-lynch today, then we lose, unless there's a vig. who hits a scum tonight).

Then there's another interesting sequence. In THIS post, he expresses suspicion of DGB and Adel. Thinks they are all chummy-chummy with each other. He proceeds to Vote for DGB in his next post (incidentally, DGB just voted for him).

Then THIS - which is strange coming from someone already voting for DGB. One way to read this is "if you are town, you aren't posting like it and you need to shape up!"

Then THIS. Now, somewhat abruptly, Werebear seems to have switched his focus from DGB to Armlx. Armlx just voted for him (I'm sensing a pattern) and he says they are his "top 2" candidates. Except he thinks only one of them is actually scum, and the other is probably just a misguided townie.

Why would you say that? Why couldn't/shouldn't they both be scum from your standpoint? I don't see why you would declare them your top two and then instantly say that you think only one of your top two is actually scum. I'll also note he doesn't actually change his vote here despite saying that he thinks Armlx is more likely scum.

Lat thing he does is defend Phoebus' actions with some very WIFOMY logic - who would you expect to hate this game more, a townie or a Mafia?

I'm thinking of moving Werebear into my #2 scum slot now, probably right behind Nonny. I just don't get a lot of his logic/thinking this game.

[Axelrod]

Adel, Werebear seems to be missing from your assessment.

I also left out logic & armlx.

The theory I have that compeates with the Axel/Tally/DGB scum group is that two of (armlx, logic, werebear) are scum with Nonny.

Please note that my vote is still on Nonny. I'm just voicing my doubts.

Well, aside from knowing that it isn't an "Axel/Tally/DGB" scumgroup, I am much more thinking along the lines of your second grouping.

[Axelrod]

I'm pretty sure I'm satisfied with a Nonny Lynch. If there are three scum and Nonny

isn't

one of them, I'm just stumped on what the configuration would be.

But I've got reviewing to do still.

Hey Nonny, look at me, not hammering you! If you can explain why scum me does that to town you...well, I'll be impressed.

[Axelrod]

DGB

What I didn't like at all about DGB was her rampant lurking and general lack of participation in this game right out of the gate.

She started with a joke vote on Logic, disappeared for about a week, and came back jumping right on the Mathcam wagon with all guns a-blazing. She pretty much focused exclusively on Mathcam for quite a while, without really saying much of anything about anyone else.

Then she does take a strong stand against the Raj. wagon, which is somewhat odd as there was (in my humble opinion) not much of anything to defend there. But it is possible I am biased here.

She then does take on Glork a bit and criticizes his assesment of Raj. She also is critical of Adel's assesment of Elvis Knits.

Looking back at the early game, frankly, DGB looks better than I was remembering her being.

Of course, then she completely jumps ship onto Macros after he claims to be the "Death Post Alterer" and her vote is sitting there when the day ends (actually, she may have been part of the Raj lynch that none of us realized had happened for a week).

Day 2 she came out of the gates barning me and voting for Glork. Again my bias comes into play as I can't exactly find this scummy. I'm somewhat curious why she lost interest in Macros though. She says early on that Glork or Adel are the people she will vote for, but Macros was who she voted for last, and he hasn't done anything to make himself townier at this point I don't think.

Then she goes through another long period of inactivity which I was remembering where her total contributions consist of making pronouncments like "Talitha is Town" and "Both Axel and Talitha are town." These are not super-helpful. She does not elaborate further beyond saying that both of us have said things ("one or two sentences") which she feels could not possibly have been made by a scum. That's kind of weak as a reason also, especially when you aren't telling anyone what the "one or two sentences" are so we can evaluate your supposed reasoning.

I don't suppose you could go back and let us know what those sentences were, hmm?

She then goes on vacation which results in another large (2 week) gap in posting, and comes back with more pronuncements ("I think logiticus and Nonny are town"). When pressed for her reasoning, she again gives vague generalities - "Demeanor and attitude" which are impossible to evaluate. This is definitely my low point as far as my feelings about DGB go. It does not seem like she's trying at all. It reads like she's skating by, putting in the very minimum, and avoiding saying anything specific that could pin her down.

Then she does that self-vote thing, which I have trouble seeing a scum do. Not that it's ever a good idea for a townie to do it either, but I tend to see a lot more townie self votes than scum self votes - unless the scum are flat out hammering themselves to end the day. This vote clearly wasn't that. If she's scum it was a rather large gamble. Possible, because maybe she felt like she was on the ropes and didn't have much to lose, but still a large gamble. Then again, she doesn't leave her vote on herself for very long.

Day 3 she comes out against Adel first (again, without really saying what it is that Adel did or said to make her feel this way - not helpful). It looks like it

might

be because Adel is supporting the theory I proposed that one of the non-mod. powered players was likely to be scum, and Adel and DGB are the only 2 non-mod. powered players left.

She then has one of her more dramatic reversals, going from THIS "You're scum." To THIS "I think Adel is town." With NO posts in between.

I mean, there are 4 game days in between and Adel has made some posts so

obviously something

Adel said in those 4 days dramatically changed DGB's opinion, it's just that DGB completely fails to mention what that post or those posts were. This is getting to be quite an annoying pattern.

I probe a little on her reasoning and her answer is just as vague and non-specific as all her answers have been all game - "Her tone. It seems consistent across several posts." Huh?

After another 9 day gap in posting, she's now saying THIS about Adel. Really? She's now so convinced Adel is town she'll jump off a cliff?

The most I can say here is that I don't quite see this as a scummy thing to say because I don't think it gains DGB much as scum to suddenly be posting that Adel is now townie town. Most of the time scum want to create doubts about possible lynchee's, not declare their undying support for them. Of course, if DGB were part of a 3-man scum team, they would know they didn't need many more lynches (and maybe only one more) so that would give them room to focus on just the few most vulnerable targets. So it's possible, just unconventional.

Her focus at that point was on Werebear and that was pretty much it. She thinks I'm town, and says so a lot.

Until just recently when she jumps on this Nonny wagon who at various times she has said she thought was Town, but has also hedged a bit on.

Overall, it's nothing to write home about. Her style is difficult to analyze because she waggons without shame and makes abrult pronuncements without giving a basis and is always vague and non-specific when asked why she feels a certain way about a specific player. I don't have a history to go on as far as DGB goes, so I can't say how much of this is typical behavior for her and whether or not it's something she always does as town/scum. I also know I'm not about to go researching old games of hers for a basis of comparison either though, because I can barely keep up with this one game here as it is.

So maybe someone who has more experience with DGB can weigh in on whether this is just typical for her or not. She's not the top scum candidate, because she hasn't done anything that in and of itself I would say is super scummy, but she's been vague a lot, and waggoned a lot, and lurked a lot, and the combination of all these things doesn't look exactly good either.

Meh. [/b]

[Axelrod]

I am totally dead.

I was totally the vigilante, and this game is totally over.

I will, however, leave it to the scum as to when they officially feel like declaring victory.

Sorry town.

[Axelrod]

If not my worst game ever, it's definitely in the top two.

In hindsight, having seen what went on behind the scenes, I can't fault the set-up at all, we lost this one fair and square, and I get to say I lost "most" because I killed two townies all by myself.

Killed Mathcam because he looked suitably scummy, I figured there was no Cop role that would be "clearing" him, and he was a very likely lynch target the next day anyway.

After that, realized that I would only be able to "miss" one more time before the game would be over, so I just held my shot trying to wait until I had the most possible information. Didn't matter. Ended up shooting Werebear last night for mainly the same reasons - if he wasn't scum, he was going to be lynched anyway, and we'd lose anyway.

Bad read on Logiticus early which I never got around to re-visiting. Also never got around to reviewing Adel (though it's hard to imagine I would have suddenly become certain she was scum from that). Every time I made a move towards Coron/Armlx, somthing else came up to distract me. I always think the people who attack me are scum. Character flaw.

Town definitely had some bad luck with Macros (apparently) being a complete idiot, and Glork just not getting himself involved in the game ever.

Seems like the biggest area of concern would be the scum and vig. targeting each other in the Night. What happens if the scum PM me to tell me I am dead

before

I have decided who to shoot at? What do I do then? Come back with "oh yeah, well, you're dead too, ha ha ha." I think not.

I sent in the hit on Werebear very quickly last night specifically to avoid any possible ethical dilemmas if the scum decided to go after me. Basically I was trying to put the dilemma on them - if I do hit a scum and tell him he's dead, does he tell his fellow scum, and/or do they retaliate, or try to just kill the person they think they would have killed anyway assuming they didn't know who the vig. was.

@Werebear: Adel, Logiticus, Armlx were the scum

[Axelrod]

Axel, just a question to answer in retrospect once the game is over: why not kill N3?

If I "miss" on Night 3 then it's 3-3 town scum on Day 3. Town has lost in this situation.

I mean, in theory, we could No Lynch and then I could hit a Mafia Night 4, and we'd then be 2-2 the following day. And as long as the scum don't NK me (the vigilante) this could, in theory, be repeated each day/night until it's a draw, but the odds of that happening are rather slim.

I decided I'd rather go into Day 3 with a 4-3 town/scum edge, where if we lynch correctly we are guaranteed another day, and even if we mis-lynch I can still salvage things by hitting scum, and I've also got more info to base my decision on. Of course, in this case, more info was bad info.

[Axelrod]

Axel, if you shot N3, it would have been 7 alive. 4-3.

Right, I said that wrong before. I

think

what I was thinking was that if it's 4-3 the next day, and we mis-lynch then it's 3-3 going to night and nothing I do makes a difference anymore. I can't do any better than keep it a draw for the next day, which is a non-winning proposition.

Basically, I had one chance to miss either way, N3 or N4. So I held it to try and get the most information.

Edit to Eymp Tyg: I am most curious about the reasoning for leaving the players in the dark as to the nature of the set-up. I'm not sure what this blind element added other than some confusion, annoyance and frustration.