Mini 695 - Futurama Mafia - Over

[Zorblag]

/confirm

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

Good day everyone.

Vote: Xtoxm

for being the last name alphabetically that hasn't posted since day one has started.

Looks like there's lot's of history among this group; I'm looking forward to a fun game.

And of course, happy birthday farside22.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

Are you trying to imply i'm lurking an hour into the game?

Not at all. I'm using an arbitrary method of casting a semi-random vote. I do come into the game with most of my forum based mafia experience being in games played where days have a 32 hour deadline and so my initial votes are based largely on that but to say anyone is lurking thus far would be particularly ridiculous.

Having said that, it's still a system to start with so

Unvote, Vote: Porochaz

.

why in the world would you want a no lynch already on day one Dukes?

I never understood starting with a shot in the dark. Shouldn't we give the Cop a chance to find something instead of pulling a name out of a hat that, for all we know, is the Cop?

Wolframnhart largely addressed this but I'll throw in my two cents as well. For one thing we don't have any solid reason to think that we've got a sane cop to follow right now. Relying on them and giving up the 1/2 mistake that we have at this point in game given an even number of players (in addition to the one, two or three full mistakes we most likely have) seems ludicrous. No lynch might have potential later when we've got information to work with but right now it just gives initiative to the scum and takes away a tool for later. In addition, I'm overly paranoid and don't have a reason to rule out some sort of cult (brain slugs, hypnotoad, hell, maybe even Slurm addiction) and a slow start can only help cults. I've not played enough here to know what the chances of a cult showing up in a mini-theme but the idea makes me nervous.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

OK, things have gone crazy and I need to figure out what's happening. For now I will

Unvote

Normally I'd now cast a vote for LlamaFluff next (based on names and posts thus far) but clearly we're past a pseudo-random voting stage.

At this point we have Xtoxm claiming to be a SK. Is there any reason other than being a jester or some pro-town role that hurts the town for a town aligned player to claim that day one? I'm new to these boards and am seriously welcoming input from anyone including Xtoxm.

Further, Xtoxm is saying that Porochaz needs to be a scum daycop trying to breadcrumb the claim. Is there a great reason that a town daycop role wouldn't consider outing a threat to the town day one even if it was a SK rather than mafia? I don't know enough of how these two play to have a read on how they've chosen to interact thus far.

I don't like a SK saying that they'll act pro-town for the rest of the game if we let them live. They have no vested interest in helping the town win and I find it entirely believable that an outed SK would work to hurt the town rather than help. If they can't win there's no fundamental reason for them to play in a pro-town manner. I respect the move to stay alive using whatever means necessary but I don't buy the motive given.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

Rolecop is a scum role, only scum get it so he can't claim it and claim town. Town cops only get alignment.

Town doesn't get Rolecop's.

Is that a fast rule for MafiaScum? I know that I'm used to playing in a setting where town cops get role but not alignment. Is there a compelling reason that we should know that a town cop just gets town/anti-town here?

At this point I'm looking to establish the ground rules. Knowing that it's now things are normally done is not enough to convince me that it's not how it's being done in this case.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

If hes playing as a Jester hes putting in one hell of a performance, I highly doubt it though for two reasons, 1, his whole reaction towards me and the claim of SK, 2, knowing farside, our mod, I can see her being outlandish in her roles but a Jester is one of these contraversial ones that not many people like, as it goes against the ethos of the game farside I believe being one of those people. However thats an opinion not a fact.

Ignoring for the moment the likelihood of the mod putting a jester in the game, why isn't Xtoxm's claim the perfect jester strategy. If we ignore the jester possibility we've got every reason as town to lynch him before we get to lylo. Claiming that you have to be scum dayrolecop is a great move. If we lynch you on day one then we know that Xtoxm was full of it and have every reason to lynch him tomorrow. Scum will leave him alive as a distraction and we now have a good reason to use a lynch on him at some point.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

I should make it clear that I don't actually think that Xtoxm is a jester. Mostly, at this point I'm trying to figure out a motivation for the SK claim that he had no pressing need to make at all. I suppose I might buy the pressure/panic idea but it seems to be pretty heavy handed for someone who has played before. If Xtoxm is actually an SK then there's no great reason for him to come out and claim it after the one post from Porochaz. Even if he Porochaz did know his role due to a day investigation, Xtoxm wouldn't know that was the case for sure. Perhaps I'm giving too much credit or perhaps even living a single day's life with a crazy claim like SK will let Xtoxm do enough pro-town things to feel that he's justified his death early in the game but on the surface I don't see a good reason to keep Xtoxm alive if we believe him. Given that I think that people are playing to win and that Xtoxm has enough experience to know that drawing suspicion and getting killed day one doesn't help him if he's a town role I'm trying to figure out what alternate motives he could have. I don't want to dismiss the jester possibility just because it's unlikely but I do want to explore the possibilities here. The claim is as scummy as Xtoxm could get and he must have known that when he made it. Why is he making this claim this early in the game?

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

Right, I've had a night to sleep on it. I still have suspicions about Xtoxm's claim not being legitimate. I don't see it as a useful move for him if it's true. I've got some thoughts I'm still mulling about what else me might be up to but for now, Xtoxm, can you confirm one more that you really are claiming to be an SK? I want to get more information to help rule out some sort of post restriction you might have which forced you to make the claim once.

I don't think that there's a good reason to believe that Porochaz is a day role cop for either alignment. He might be but the case for it definitely being the case strikes me as flimsy. If I decide that he's scum as we go it's going to be based on other things. Right now I put him at about neutral as far as my suspicions go.

The players that seem right now to think that Xtoxm should be lynched based on his claim and simply accept that he must be anti-town are Dukes, Porochaz and Wolframnhart. Gorrad and Jahudo seem open to using the SK role for a while if we can come up with a way to do it which seems safe. I can accept all of these as potentially legitimate. Perhaps I find Wolframnhart a bit over ready to do away with Xtoxm and Dukes to be a bit on the bandwagonny side as he gets reactions. I also don't think that the Xtoxm/Porochaz cross-bussing action seems particularly likely and don't love the somewhat blatant robot-crumbing that he's done.

I also don't have nearly enough information to work with on any of Drunken Piper, kloud1516, GhostWriter (excused for now as he's let the mod know he can't be here yet) and pacman281292 to make any sort of informed decisions involving them.

I suppose a

FoS: Dukes

is in order at this time.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

Can you explain the FoS on Dukes a little more though? It seems that he is being suspected for the same reason that you are suspecting wolf and poro, even wolf more as you call him wagony but not Dukes.

Hmm, I had meant to be calling Dukes more waggony when I said:

Perhaps I find Wolframnhart a bit over ready to do away with Xtoxm and Dukes to be a bit on the bandwagonny side as he gets reactions.

Porochaz and Wolframnhart seem firmer in their convictions and faster to vote with them. Dukes seems to have been hedging his bets a bit more and focusing on both Porochaz and Xtoxm. He didn't cast his most recent vote until Gorrad voted Xtoxm as well (with a vote that has since been unvoted) and it feels like it was a more opportunistic move to go with the momentum more than either of the other two. That combined with the robot-crumbing that I mentioned raise more flags than Wolframnhart (who I do find to be playing a somewhat reactive, focused game) does for me. As I said, I find Porochaz's play to be about neutral as of this time.

Is that clearer?

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

OK, the game seems to be dragging a bit at this point. Xtoxm doesn't seem as though he's going to be a willing tool for the town if he is a SK (which I still don't fully buy.) At this point I won't have any real issues with him getting lynched at the end of the day. On the other hand, lynching him right now means that we've gained very little information and go into the second day giving scum the advantage of initiative so let's see what we can do to talk about other things that might lead to useful information down the line.

I'll go ahead and upgrade my FoS to a

Vote: Dukes

.

Dukes, you're not being at all shy about your insinuation that you're a robot:

Role hinting much? Razz

Ya think? Wink

Why do you think that's helpful for the town as something to do on pages 1 and 2?

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

Hmm, a couple things might be worth drawing attention to. Xtoxm seems to have attempted to self hammer and might be claiming cult now. I suspect everyone caught that but it's been largely ignored. (Why would cult try to get themselves killed anymore than SK would?)

Also, we might or might not be in twilight. It's been a bit and farside22 was very careful to include in her rules:

12) A lynch will require the votes of a majority of players. When a majority is reached, no further votes/unvotes will be counted. If majority is not reached by deadline the person with the highest votes is lynched.

Be aware that the numbers may be misleading when it comes to votes.

She then made a point of asking us later to:

Please, please read the rules carefully especially the rules I put in bold.

I don't think that we should assume that today is over until we get an end of day message.

I know my jester speculation was a stretch. Here's an even bigger one. Is there any chance Xtoxm has some sort of pathalogical liar post restriction and that he's showing us with actions that he doesn't get a vote?

Perhaps a more plausible explanation would be that convicted felons don't get to vote (at least in "A Head in the Polls".)

In any case, I'm worried that we're still making assumptions that perhaps we shouldn't.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

I can't say that I'm thrilled with how this game is going so far. Apparently Xtoxm was the SK he claimed he was. Unless there's some twist involving him later on (and that doesn't seem too likely) I'm not at all convinced just now that he was playing by rule 2.

2) Play to win, but also to have fun. See rule 1.

I take that trying to win to be something the players have all agreed to do when I'm trying to figure out the cause for their actions. For a one person faction to die that willingly (going so far as to self-hammer) the first day does not count as them playing to win. In this case he's done even more harm though. The way he's chosen not to win arbitrarily hurts the town and helps the scum despite the fact that he wasn't aligned to either.

Of course, when I say he hurt the town and helped the scum I have to be fair here. We followed his lead and went straight for the quick lynch on day one without discussion of much of anything. We got minimal posts from several people and now have to try to figure out what's going on without the benefit of interactions we would have gotten on a typical day one. We did exactly what I warned we were doing (though I didn't make nearly enough of an issue of it so I get blame for this as well.)

OK, the game seems to be dragging a bit at this point. Xtoxm doesn't seem as though he's going to be a willing tool for the town if he is a SK (which I still don't fully buy.) At this point I won't have any real issues with him getting lynched at the end of the day. On the other hand, lynching him right now means that we've gained very little information and go into the second day giving scum the advantage of initiative so let's see what we can do to talk about other things that might lead to useful information down the line.

So now, here we are in day 2. We did give initiative to the scum and they used it to take out our doc. If we're going to pull a town victory out of this we're going to have be more aware as we go forward. We've got a couple places to start from today (but not nearly as many as we should) and I'll take a look at them this afternoon and see where my suspicions lie but I'm really hoping that we don't continue to play this game like we have so far.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

I think its fair to say that when he outed himself and it was clear we wernt going to keep him alive it was all he could do. Also your last paragraph is rubbish... unfortunetly I have to rin off to uni so cant finish this post but the fact that the doc got hit I think was totally random and was done more for Gorrads seniority than anything else. We have a few leads as far as I can see and as the day goes on the game will develop further. And by the way I hope we do continue the game as we have done. We have just lynched scum on day 1. Our aim is to eliminate all mafia.

If you don't want to say that Xtoxm wasn't playing to win that's fine. I suppose I'll allow for it being very poor play. I'm still not happy with it if that's the case. Regardless of the intention though it served to draw our attention to Xtoxm and not focus on everyone in play.

I should be clear that I don't think that the Xtoxm lynch yesterday was a bad lynch to make. I don't want us to stop lynching scum. What I do want us to do is not lynch again before we've had people talking some. We didn't apply any pressure to anyone else in any real way. You're probably right that the mafia just got lucky with a seniority kill that took out the doc; what I don't like is that they had full range of who they chose to kill without having any concerns at all about how it might look. When the scum make any kill they want (and I think they could have last night given what I saw from the first day) we aren't doing enough as a town to look at people during the day.

There are a number of people that I just don't have enough information on to have any feel for at all. Many others are just barely on the radar for me. I don't like it being the second day of the game and my not having any inclination for that many people. It's way too easy for scum to hide in a situation like this.

Gorrads was talking about Zoidberg being a doc more likely than a jester, and if he was a quack or a sane doc so I guess Gorrads was breadcrumbing a little bit. I didn't catch this day 1 and don't know if anyone could have from what Gorrads wrote. Maybe the kill was for his seniority, but we shouldn't rule this out.

Group: Did anyone read it as a possible breadcrumb? Do you think anyone could have understood what it meant?

I did see that when I looked back at the game after Gorrad's death but I didn't see it as a likely breadcrumb. I don't think I would have picked up on that at all before his death.

Anyway, I'm torn on whether to ask any protectors to use it on Poro. It's true he led us in the first lynch and all, but OTOH, it may have been a stab in the dark. Guessing which it is turns into WIFOM in my head and makes it hurt badly. I will, however, say that if there is a doctor out there, don't bother using it on me, since I have no ability anyway.

I think I made it clear in my play yesterday that I found Dukes to be suspicious. I still find that to be the case. One more thing that I didn't like from yesterday but haven't commented on is that part of his end of day post there. I don't at all like someone claiming vanilla townie with no pressure. If he is town I'm not going to believe other role claims he makes now so if he's lying he's screwing himself. If he's telling the truth then he's making it easier for the scum to get the power roles as they don't have to worry about focusing on him.

I'm going to put my

Vote: Duke

again today. It was supposed to be a pressure vote yesterday but with Xtoxm gone he's now the one I actually do find to be the most scummy.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

Having re-read my own stuff and a few others', I will start with ]b]Unvote[/b]. I wanted to hear Zorblag's argument for voting for me (so in that sense, saying "OMGUS" was the probe), and I've heard it. Hopefully I can make sense of this a little more with this post.

What did you learn about my vote yesterday that I hadn't said yesterday? The only thing that I said that related to it today before making it was:

I think I made it clear in my play yesterday that I found Dukes to be suspicious. I still find that to be the case. One more thing that I didn't like from yesterday but haven't commented on is that part of his end of day post there. I don't at all like someone claiming vanilla townie with no pressure. If he is town I'm not going to believe other role claims he makes now so if he's lying he's screwing himself. If he's telling the truth then he's making it easier for the scum to get the power roles as they don't have to worry about focusing on him.

I'm going to put my

Vote: Duke

again today. It was supposed to be a pressure vote yesterday but with Xtoxm gone he's now the one I actually do find to be the most scummy.

Your claim of no special role came after my vote had been cast yesterday so the only thing that I potentially added was that it was meant to be a pressure vote. As the lynch of Xtoxm was more or less a foregone conclusion and I wasn't opposed to it happening eventually what else could the vote have been?

Beyond Dukes I know we're not going to hear anything from Pacman281292 for the next couple days so I'll wait for him to get back and reply to what people have asked him. LlamaFluff is trying to use the little interaction we had yesterday to deduce something but I'm not sold on the idea that any of the reactions he's focusing on. Well, I suppose I also think that Duke's was suspicious but I found the reactions of Kloud1516 and Wolframnhart to be trying to cope with the bizarre Xtoxm play rather than scummy seeming to me.

I agree with Drunken Piper that we need to hear more from GhostWriter (or his replacement if it comes to that.) Jahudo does seem to be trying to take in all the information we've to to work with; I like that.

@Porochaz: I realize why we lynched as quickly as we did. What I'm trying to argue about us doing to quickly is perhaps summed up well by:

...trying to come up with a way that Xtoxm could be a non-scum role.

X wasn't scum, he was third party. He was anti-town, of course, but not scum. My main reason for not voting him was for this reason. We need to find scum and

day 1 ended before we got very far at all on that subject.

At this point it's neither here nor there though. We're in the state we are so I'll drop it and focus on figuring out who the scum are.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

kloud1516, I think that you're misreading what I've written. I'm saying that I didn't find your actions to be particularly scummy. I didn't find Wolframnhart's actions to be particularly scummy. I thought the two of you were reacting in a more reasonable way to what Xtoxm was doing.

Dukes on the other hand I did find more suspicious because he seemed to be sitting on the fence with his FoS of both Porochaz and Xtoxm and then he went with the one who was getting more support for a lynch. At the time I took it to be opportunism. I've actually grown a bit more sympathetic about it possibly being a case of following the idea that Porochaz and Xtoxm being scum with some sort of crazy bussing action which he has since dropped as he thinks it less reasonable. In any case, his one the one reaction that I felt was scummy of the three in question.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

OK, I've finished up a busy stretch in RL and should have more time to pay attention to this game. Sorry for being absent for the past couple days.

I suppose I can see how Dukes might feel that I've been ignoring the other players and focusing just on him. I don't think that's actually the case; I have commented on whether I thought various other things seemed scummy or not. The difference is primarily that I've found Dukes's behavior to be on the scummy side and I've been closer to neutral with most other things I've seen. I do have some concern that Dukes could just be a player who's getting used to this setting but I'm not going to give him an innocent because he's new card; I will keep an open mind and if someone else seems scummier as we go I'll switch my vote accordingly.

I sympathize with Drunken Piper about his previous suspicion of GhostWriter. I tend to think that lurkers are a danger and he was citing a particular meta he was working off. I don't think I wouldn't have voted based on that in his place but I'm glade the vote has been removed. I suppose that I do have trouble telling who he might think is scum past that so perhaps at this point I think that his GhostWriter ideas seem like they were good scumhunting if the meta is reliable but past that I've not seen much to make me think he's not scum.

I do still like Jahudo's play for the most part. There's not all that much of it to go by but he hasn't done anything which raises any particular alarms for me. I'd like to see more so I've got a larger information base from which to form my opinions but on the other hand I've been as guilty as anyone of not being about of late.

Kloud1516 has come under more fire than many for a couple things (Porochaz, his vote for Dukes) and thus far I think that his explanations are entirely plausible.

I do believe that KMD4390 has taken the time to look at everything that has happened thus far and I like that. He has chosen to focus slightly on Pacman281292 for terse posting. I agree that the posts have been terse and that having no opinions on most of the players is noteworthy but this perhaps feels like something along the lines of lurking while posting so I'm slightly surprised that you differentiate as much as you do between him and Drunken Piper.

LlamaFluff has been largely consistent this second day (which follows from what he said the first day.) I am curious to see where he plans on going now that he has unvoted. I do have minor concerns that he might be dropping his Wolframnhart thrust because he doesn't seem to be making headway with it. That he hasn't focused as much on Dukes despite naming Dukes as someone he finds suspicious makes me leery of potential distancing without action to back it up. Mostly I need to see where he's planning on going next at this point.

As I said earlier, I do agree that Pacman281292's posts have been largely terse and that other than his dislike of Duke's play I can't tell much about what he thinks about other players. I don't particularly love his classification of Porochaz's play as wierd but that's probably largely because at this point I think that Xtoxm's reaction to the SK comment at the start was just poor play on Xtoxm's part. I suppose I should ask whether, other than the strawmanning which has been brought up repeatedly, why are you so set on lynching Dukes (or is that enough?)

I apparently disagree with Porochaz about how useful the day one interaction might have been but that's fine, I disagree with many people about many things. On the whole it seems like Porochaz is trying as much as anyone to find scum without making assumptions about who scum is at this point. I'm leaning towards townie for Porochaz.

I don't actually love Wolframnhart's "Good news everyone! A good chunk of us are alive!" to start day two but I don't think I'll hold it against him. I did my complaining at the start of the day and that covered my opinions just fine I think. As I said before, I think his reactions to Xtoxm were reasonable and I like that he's not tying up all his thoughts dealing with the suspicion he might be getting because of it.

I'm not having much luck this game deciding who I think is likely to be scum. As I've said, I don't like many of the actions Dukes has made but beyond that I apologize for not being that helpful. I will continue to watch but I'm at more of a loss than I feel like I should be at this point in a game. If I had to pick 3 scum it might be Dukes and then two of Drunken Piper, LlamaFluff and Pacman281292 but what they say next will have a huge influence on that.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

(guzzle)...why are you picking 3 scum over just 2 left? Especially with a Sk dead? Do you have knowledge we dont? I assumed the mafia team would be 2 in a 12 person game with a SK...am I missing something?

vote Zorblag

please explain why you decided to pick that number? did someone say pick a top scum list of 3 and I miss it?

That's a fair question. I think that it's safe to say that there shouldn't be more than 3 scum in a 12 player game with a SK. My choice of top 3 candidates (which I actually failed to meet given that I'm not that comfortable calling most scum so far this game) was mostly an attempt to work with the outer bounds of potential scum this game. Given that I think there shouldn't be more scum than that I'm giving a larger pool based on what I've seen from the players. If it helps at all my top 2 scum would have looked the same as I'm not overly suspicious of any of the three past Dukes listed.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

Ah, it has been a while since I posted last. Sorry; it continues to be busy here.

Not that much has happened in the past couple days but I suppose I can talk about LlamaFluff. I see that he has moved his vote to pacman281292 and I think his case looks reasonable and well thought out. The only reason that I'll raise anything close to an objection is that he is moving to one of the players with more suspicion. If LlamaFluff were scum with Dukes and Wolframnhart were town that move would be the right one to make as the Wolframnhart attack didn't seem to be gaining any momentum and it has helped to draw more attention away from Dukes. On the other hand, as I said, pacman281292 would be on my short list of people to fucus on as well so a town LlamaFluff would probably make the same move. When someone else flips one way or the other I'll be able to make more of this but it is the recent play that I'm paying most attention to at this point.

I also don't love that Drunken Piper took his vote off me overly. He was reading into my phrasing than was actually there but I liked the fact that he was looking carefully at what was said. As he hasn't done anything to implicate anyone else since voting for me I'd very much like to hear his thoughts at this time.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

I can see what you're thinking here but I don't know what kind of objection you're raising. A player that moves to a wagon with supported reasoning tends to look more town than a player that moves to a wagon with inflated reasoning. You seem to think pacman is someone to look at, so why are you concerned that people are doing that?

It's the move to pacman281292 over Dukes (who also has a wagon) when Dukes has been on LlamaFluff's list since day one. It's biased by the fact that I don't trust Dukes and I'm seeing a move that arguably helps him. This, as I said, is largely mitigated by the fact that LlamaFluff is not just waggoning. He's giving a number of reasons for his move and clearly not just casting the vote because other people have as well. I'm not raising an actual objection to LlamaFluff's new vote; I am saying that it's something noteworthy.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

@Dukes: No, KMD4390 doesn't get the same level of noteworthiness for his vote for pacman281292. The difference is that LlamaFluff has had Dukes on his list of potential scum for quite some time and KMD4390 hasn't. The fact that I do suspect Dukes does help this stand out to me more so there is perhaps a bit of something to be said for the blinders that you're talking about but my point for bringing this up now was that it was a connection that seemed worth mentioning that others hadn't brought up yet. If I can count on everyone to play a good game then it's the connections between people that I need to look for that will bear more fruit in terms of information as we progress and learn the alignment of various players as they leave the game.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

Explain. My discussion on you was just because your first posts looked weird to me by some weirder reason (but now when I think on it, it looks like Xtoxm screwed me...). Why do you think that my deffense on llama is bad and voteworthy?

What do you mean Xtoxm screwed you? Xtoxm never talked about you at all. I don't see any way for you to argue that the suspicion about you now is Xtoxm's fault? Do you mean that your reaction to Xtoxm's play has put you in a more precarious situation? How is that his fault more than yours?

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

Well, to my question of how Xtoxm screwed him on day one pacman281292 gave the following answer:

His posts confused me, and made me get a little overeager on Poro. Xtoxm's post confused me, and made me misinterprete Porochaz...

I don't find that to be particularly satisfying. Xtoxm clearly confused me as well with his play (I suspect that I spent more time than anyone else looking for alternative explanations) because the SK reveal seemed like such a bad play. It turns out it was just a bad play (so far as I can tell at this point; I suppose that I should wait till the game is over to be sure of that) but I'm not going to blame Xtoxm for how I've played the game.

At this point given all I've seen, I think that I'm not opposed to a pacman281292 lynch. I'm going to keep my vote on Dukes as I like his play a bit less but I won't do anything to oppose votes for pacman281292.

As for Drunken Piper's question about my comment about him:

I also don't love that Drunken Piper took his vote off me overly. He was reading into my phrasing than was actually there but I liked the fact that he was looking carefully at what was said. As he hasn't done anything to implicate anyone else since voting for me I'd very much like to hear his thoughts at this time.

This is a strange post and has set off another alarm. This post seems like you are "ok" with my vote on you. Then you come back with a reverse OMGUS. As of this post you are attacking me for not attacking anyone else since my unvote WHEN I CLEARLY state that I am going to be out of town until today...I unvoted because I was going out of town and did want to leave my vote unattended without seeing your retort first.

Please explain why you have a problem with me removing my vote when I was going out of town? You feel that was scummy? Why?

The fact that I was the one you were voting for was pretty incidental in this case. I don't feel that I've got a great idea of what you think of people in general. The vote for anyone gave me more information to work with. Unvoting didn't take the information away but it seemed unecessary as you were voting for someone who wasn't getting a lot of other expressed suspicion and wasn't in any legitimate danger of getting lynched while you were gone. My basic reaction was that if you felt strongly enough to vote in the first place there wasn't a need in that situation to unvote for the three days. Had you left the vote I would have gotten more of a sense of conviction than I got when you unvoted.

Having said that if I think it was scummy it was only very slightly scummy. Mostly it ties back to my lack of access to your thoughts thus far this game.

Also, my response to your vote happened directly after you cast the vote for me. There was no need to worry about waiting for that when you left for Chicago. You made no mention of that when you unvoted but you do seem to be citing it now.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

Also, my response to your vote happened directly after you cast the vote for me. There was no need to worry about waiting for that when you left for Chicago. You made no mention of that when you unvoted but you do seem to be citing it now.

to be safe and while away from my shack..
I will unvote until I get back

Made no mention my ass, "To be safe" while I was away, I unvoted so my vote was not unattended. Things can happen very fast in this game. Unless I am absoutely certian about my vote and suspicions I always unvote if I am leaving.

My problem with you is that you are implying that a.) you found my unvote strange and b.) You attempt to deflect saying I havent suspected anyone else. "As he hasn't done anything to implicate anyone else since voting" I hadnt done anything else because I was busy...you posted that on 299, I voted you on 280, I unvoted and left on 298...I only really suspected you at that point and did not feel it important to talk about anyone else.

I also note that Dukes defends you with a "to be honest" comment in 282 when you are voting him. Interesting enough your vote is on Dukes, but you are supporting a Pac lynch(334). trying to gain support to get heat off your buddy? But wanting to test the waters first so it doesnt look scummy?

I stand by my statement that you didn't mention the reason you gave after the fact for unvoting when you did. You made no mention at the time of being concerned that I hadn't had a chance to reply to your previous vote. You did mention that you were unvoting to be safe and I don't object to that overly (which I think I already addressed) but you never mentioned wanting to give me a chance to respond to you before you left.

As for my inability to tell what you're thinking, apparently I'm not alone in that as Jahudo has just said:

So i'm not suspicious of your timing, but more confused what you were thinking up until your last two posts.

It doesn't make you scum but the lack of transparency isn't something that I see helping us too much at this point.

On the issue of the votes that we have this day I do probably support the pacman281292 lead more than any other that we might have as I still have the same issues with his play that I did at the end of the day yesterday. We probably want to start being more cautious with our votes now as I agree that what Jahudo said at the start of the day:

Does anyone else think we should decide a way to popcorn roles throughout today, given that if there might be 3 scum (I doubt it though) we would need to get one of them today or at night.

As of now I actually have a strong suspicion that there shouldn't be three scum (for reasons that I'd rather not talk about so that it doesn't provide them with more information than they already have) but I don't know this for sure. If there are three scum then a mislynch today could lose the game for us.

My top scum suspects at this point are pacman281292 (who I'm still waiting to hear from for the day) and to a much lesser degree Drunken Piper which might be a reaction to how he's dealt with me as much as the lack of feel that I'm getting for him.

I plan on holding off on voting until I've got more to work with on the grounds that we might be at LyLo without having realized it. If it weren't for that I'd probably be voting for pacman281292 at this point as a carry over from yesterday.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

I think that Kloud1516 is getting a scum read from my desire to get more information out of the conversation during a day than I thought that we did on day one. That's fine but I'll give another shot at explaining what I was talking about when I made the posts that he has quoted.

On the other hand, lynching him right now means that we've gained very little information and go into the second day giving scum the advantage of initiative so let's see what we can do to talk about other things that might lead to useful information down the line.

This sentiment sums up my feelings about everything else that that the rest of the posts you talked about are going to reference. It doesn't seem as though you're taking issue to the sentiment here as otherwise I don't think I'd be able to convince you of anything.

You do a fair amount of picking apart things that I said in Post 161 but I think that you've lost the context that it was made in. Here's the post in it's entirety.

Hmm, a couple things might be worth drawing attention to. Xtoxm seems to have attempted to self hammer and might be claiming cult now. I suspect everyone caught that but it's been largely ignored. (Why would cult try to get themselves killed anymore than SK would?)

Also, we might or might not be in twilight. It's been a bit and farside22 was very careful to include in her rules:

12) A lynch will require the votes of a majority of players. When a majority is reached, no further votes/unvotes will be counted. If majority is not reached by deadline the person with the highest votes is lynched.

Be aware that the numbers may be misleading when it comes to votes.

She then made a point of asking us later to:

Please, please read the rules carefully especially the rules I put in bold.

I don't think that we should assume that today is over until we get an end of day message.

I know my jester speculation was a stretch. Here's an even bigger one. Is there any chance Xtoxm has some sort of pathalogical liar post restriction and that he's showing us with actions that he doesn't get a vote?

Perhaps a more plausible explanation would be that convicted felons don't get to vote (at least in "A Head in the Polls".)

In any case, I'm worried that we're still making assumptions that perhaps we shouldn't.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

I posted this after Xtoxm had apparently hammered himself. I waited a while and the day didn't end so I was trying to make sure that we weren't assuming that we were really in twilight when we might not have been. If the day hadn't ended shortly after then there would have to have been some reason it hadn't; I was throwing out a couple guesses.

As for questioning why cult would self hammer any more than a SK I was still trying to figure out a way for Xtoxm to be helping his team. I had trouble believing that someone would play as poorly as Xtoxm seems to have so I was still trying to find alternate solutions that might have merit. It seems I was wrong, but my frustration at Xtoxm's play does come up in the next post that you mention.

176 was my first post of day 2 and was made as much out of frustration as anything else. I've said since and I'll say it again now that I wasn't trying with that post to indicate that killing the SK was a bad move for the town. Killing the SK was a good thing to do. What was troubling was that we hadn't had enough other good discussion in my opinion. It might not have done us any good but I don't think it could have hurt us. I did look at Dukes some on day one after post 128 but I really didn't do enough to get attention away from where it was narrowly focused. That's why I accept my part of the blame for our lack of scrutiny for most of the players on day one.

I don't know whether any of that will resonate with you or not but that's why I made the posts that I did. I'm glad to hear that you agree that we need to look carefully at everyone today but I think that you're taking 3 of my posts and building a somewhat out of context case from them. I'm all for everyone including myself getting gone over closely; I'd love to hear what you think of other players if you've taken a look at them as well.

There are other things that I should address but this post is long enough for now so I'll stop here and post again on other topics shortly.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

pacman281292's claim is an interesting one because of it's timing as much as anything else. If it's the standard role as provided on the wiki I'm going to have to think some about how I think that it's best used but I can potentially see why one would claim it directly after it's use. I'd also like to hear why pacman281292 didn't use his power the first night (though I can take a good guess at an answer I'd like to hear it from him.) I would say that I'm at a wait for more information stage with pacman281292 at this time; I see no good reason to believe or disbelieve his claim.

I find it unlikely that pacman281292 is being controlled by a brain slug cult at this point. I did bring up the possibility of a brain slug cult the first day but once Xtoxm flipped SK I decided that it was unlikely that there would be a scum team, a cult team and an SK (unless the cult is pro-town and gives mason abilities or some such thing but there wouldn't be a reason offhand to think that the brain slugs should be pro planet express.) It's still possible but I find a cult unlikely for now.

As for the potential of popcorning roles today I'll go on record as saying that I don't think it's necessary yet as I think that we're not at LyLo. If we decide we want to go ahead and do it as a group I'm not opposed but I certainly will want to say something before we start. I'd rather not say more for now as again, I don't want to give the scum any information that I haven't already.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

Just stopping in briefly to let everyone know that I'm swamped with midterm related things this week so I didn't get on yesterday and I won't be on today until this evening. I am still here though and will post something tonight after I've had a chance to read what's happened since Monday.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

I did read the post in its entirety, and understand the overall point you were trying to make. This being said, the quoting of farside-mod and trying to figure out whether or not the day was over was not a proponent of my reasoning for finding you suspicious. This is about the only thing about this post that I didn't have a problem with, as the rules did say vote counts and votes would be misleading.

This was about post 161 and I still think you're missing the context as a whole. If we weren't in twilight then it would have been good to figure out why and I was trying to move towards that. On the matter of my asking the question about the cult, where you're seeing potential WIFOM I was asking because I've not played any games with cults and was trying to gather information from others that might have which might have helped me to assess the situation. Remember that Xtoxm made his (false it turns out) cult claim after he thought that he had self hammered. If he was wrong and we weren't in twilight yet and there was some way it could help that others knew about we might have been able to adjust our actions.

Further, if we really were in twilight (which it turns out that we were) then post 161 wouldn't actually do anything to hinder us as the day was over anyhow. The only way might have been important for what it was intended to bring up was if the day hadn't ended; if we still were in day one when I made the post then I would have stuck by everything that I brought up as there would have been some voting wackiness that we could have tried to learn about.

I'll still stand by my statement that Xtoxm's poor play was the reason for most of my reactions on day one. I assume that people will not out themselves in a lost role within the first 3 pages of the game.

In regards to post 176 you say:

You claim that "the way he chose not to win arbitrarily hurts town and helps scum," which to me implies that you felt that the xtoxm lynch was not the best move. If you would have elaborated to explain the lack of information was the negative/harm you were referring to, then my opinion of this would have differed. You didn't though, and your desire for more information is already questionable based on reasonings provided both in this post and in post 362.

I disagree with that assertion. I think that I did elaborate on why I felt that xtoxm had hurt the town. It's in the next paragraph of post 176:

The way he's chosen not to win arbitrarily hurts the town and helps the scum despite the fact that he wasn't aligned to either.

Of course, when I say he hurt the town and helped the scum I have to be fair here. We followed his lead and went straight for the quick lynch on day one without discussion of much of anything. We got minimal posts from several people and now have to try to figure out what's going on without the benefit of interactions we would have gotten on a typical day one. We did exactly what I warned we were doing (though I didn't make nearly enough of an issue of it so I get blame for this as well.)

It's possible that I didn't put things as clearly as I might have but my intention there was to complain about the lack of information gathered on day one as the reason that I wasn't happy (rather than it being the lynch itself that I had an issue with.)

Again, I appreciate that you're looking carefully at what people are saying (well, what I've said at times anyhow.) I don't mean to try to deflect attention from me and I'm happy to explain any of my actions up to this point should my intentions be unclear but I wonder if you have thoughts on what others have said as well?

Kloud is looking really pro-town today for his scum hunting and I think that some suspicions are valid except I have a problem with how he's recently taken it but I will allow Zorblag to answer it first.

I'm not sure what in particular you had in mind there and I'm a bit slow right now as I've just spent the past 6 hours straight grading papers but it is clear that you probably think some of the issues that were raised about me had some merit. I'm happy to address any that you'd like to bring up. I'm also curious as to whether what you had in mind what that sentence was addressed in my post here.

As a question to everyone, does kloud1516 seem focused on me in particular or is that my misconception just because he has focused on at least me?

Wolframnhart, do you think that I should know who you find suspicious at this time? I can't remember from reading through the recent posts.

On the issue of pacman281292's hider claim I think that were I in his position and if I had that role I would have made the claim at the end of the day on day two now that I've had some time to think it over. Given his level of suspicion he had a good chance not to be targeted by scum during the night so it wouldn't have helped scum narrow in on other power roles particularly and a vig could have targeted him to verify the claim (if we have a vig.) Of course we didn't talk about him potentially having the role yesterday so I can't blame him for not agreeing with my take on the timing offhand.

I suppose that the trouble that I have with the claim is that by making it he's giving us a probably unverifiable connection to someone who seems to be one of the least suspected players anyhow. If pacman281292 si telling the truth we won't know unless the mafia kills him (by killing someone he hides behind most likely) or we lynch him (and if he's telling the truth we then lose him and likely lose Jahudo tonight.) I suppose that the best we can get out of it is that Jahudo really should be town as pacman281292 does give a somewhat compelling reason to think that he's got the standard hider role if he does and that means that should Jahudo ever turn out scum pacman281292 would get killed the next day. That isn't worth the risk with this many players left I wouldn't think.

If we decide that we shouldn't lynch pacman281292 tonight then I'll request that he hide tonight to give a vig a chance to verify his role (don't tell us who you'll hide behind; save that for tomorrow) and that if we have a player with a vig ability they try to kill him assuming that they don't have a compelling reason to kill someone else. If there's not a mafia doc (or some other wackiness that I'm not thinking of) then that will give us a reason to believe the claim and we'll have much more to go on for tomorrow. If there's a reason not to go with that I'm all for hearing it but that's the best use of the role that I've come up with in the time I've spent thinking about it given our situation.

There's probably more but my reasoning skills are mostly shot right now. I'll try to get on tomorrow but I might not manage until Friday. The good news is that I give my last midterm of the week on Friday before noon so I'll be much more stress free after that (though I might be more drunk which could cut down on coherence in another way.)

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

OK, my week done; I've proctored my last midterm and have a chance to sit down and catch up on things here. Let's start with the end of kloud1516's last post (it's the easy part).

As a question to everyone, does kloud1516 seem focused on me in particular or is that my misconception just because he has focused on at least me?

I would like to respond: I am looking at others, but the limited amount of time I have right now has been getting in the way of my opportunity to organize my thoughts and get them submitted. I am sure you of all people, since you have been swamped with midterms and grading papers, can identify with this. Analysis and opinions of others are on the way.

You're certainly part of everyone so the response is appreciated. I do certainly accept that things can get busy and I don't mind that at all. This portion of the post on my part was a precursor to questioning your possibility of tunnel-visioning. If others get some examination as well then I'll have no reason to go ahead and wonder why you would be doing that. I don't even particularly need to you to stop focusing on me to do that; just show more evidence that you're looking at others (and I'll take you at your word that you will at this time.) As such I expect that to shortly be a non-issue for me.

Here are the points/ideas I can see from your post 161:
>Xtoxm has apparently self hammered
>Xtoxm has claimed cult.

>Why has xtoxm claimed cult?

>Farside-mod said vote counts would be misleading, so are we in twilight, or is it still Day 1?

>Your jester speculation was a stretch.
>

Here is an even bigger stretch:

what about a pathological liar PR, or even a vote restriction on felons?

I'll take a slight issue of your classification of the last point there. The pathological liar PR was supposed to be a bigger stretch than the jester but it was the idea that accounted for both the fact that we were in twilight as well as Xtoxm's play (in a way that didn't just have him playing poorly.) It was the idea that I had come up with that manage to explain everything but it was enough of a stretch that I felt I had to mention that so that people didn't think that I was saying that it should be true.

The possibility of a felon not getting a vote was meant much more serious. We were warned that we couldn't trust the vote count and Dukes voted Xtoxm as well as breadcrumbed Bender particularly hard. If we were not in twilight that struck me as a reasonable reason why. Based on the reactions of others (LlamaFluff in Post 163 and Ghostwriter the next post) others didn't take it to be as far fetched as you're making it out to be.

The cult question could not be answered by anyone save xtoxm, so posing it as an aside like you did, to me, would be of no value. Sure, he may have answered it, but why not direct the question at him instead of simply leaving it on the table for others to interpret as they will? As is, the question seems to all but invite others to give their input on something we have no information about, thus promoting WIFOM and speculation.

The question that I asked about cults could be answered by people other than Xtoxm. As I've said before, I have not played a game with a cult in it previously. I was asking (albeit in a brief way) whether others had some reason that cult might want to eliminate them self for a reason that I hadn't run across simply due to inexperience with the role. You've had experience with Xtoxm and were taking that into account when deciding what was worth bringing up. I assume that you've also had experience with games with cults based on how this conversation is going. I have not. What you're labeling as fishing for speculation was in fact an attempt to establish that my initial reaction that there wouldn't be a legitimate reason for cult to self hammer any more than there would be for a SK.

I don't want to seem like I'm playing the newbie card here. I was however trying to get input from those with more experience on an issue to which I have no exposure. If that comes across as scummy in this case to you there's little I can do about that. I will continue to ask in game about issues which I encounter for the first time not as a means to distract but rather as a way to gain information.

Further, if we really were in twilight (which it turns out that we were) then post 161 wouldn't actually do anything to hinder us as the day was over anyhow. The only way might have been important for what it was intended to bring up was if the day hadn't ended; if we still were in day one when I made the post then I would have stuck by everything that I brought up as there would have been some voting wackiness that we could have tried to learn about.

I disagree, for if anyone had actually taken the time to look at this post/caught these posts at the beginning of Day 2, discussion could have fallen upon xtoxm's actions and your baseless suspicions which would have gotten us nowhere. As it was, no one did, but the possibility is still there, meaning it could have done harm to town causes. If Day 1 had indeed continued, then this would have promoted WIFOM and theory in ways already described.

If anyone had picked up on speculation of Xtoxm's role in day two it would clearly have been scummy. If he was the SK or even anti-town cult who self hammer and eliminated the cult from the game (and he was SK) then anyone who went back at the speculation of him being other things to focus on what his motives were the next day would definitely have been trying to do the distracting from scumhunting which I think that you're accusing me of. If anyone had done that I would have been the first to vote for them. My questions were there to provide potential use if we were still in twilight.

I think that we aren't understanding what each other are trying to say in regards to:

You claim that "the way he chose not to win arbitrarily hurts town and helps scum," which to me implies that you felt that the xtoxm lynch was not the best move. If you would have elaborated to explain the lack of information was the negative/harm you were referring to, then my opinion of this would have differed. You didn't though, and your desire for more information is already questionable based on reasonings provided both in this post and in post 362.

I took this to mean that you thought I was saying the decision to lynch Xtoxm was my complaint about day 1. Jahudo seemed to have this impression as well when he said:

I'm not sure what in particular you had in mind there and I'm a bit slow right now as I've just spent the past 6 hours straight grading papers but it is clear that you probably think some of the issues that were raised about me had some merit. I'm happy to address any that you'd like to bring up. I'm also curious as to whether what you had in mind what that sentence was addressed in my post here.

Basically it was when kloud said this:

You claim that "the way he chose not to win arbitrarily hurts town and helps scum," which to me implies that you felt that the xtoxm lynch was not the best move. If you would have elaborated to explain the lack of information was the negative/harm you were referring to, then my opinion of this would have differed. You didn't though, and your desire for more information is already questionable based on reasonings provided both in this post and in post 362.

I also felt that the Zorblag quote kloud used explained that it was about the lack of information and not about trying to say that xtoxm was not the best move. I don't know how kloud came to that conclusion.

Your issue instead seems to be that I was not giving further reasons that we hadn't gathered information but rather that I was simply repeating my assertion that the lack of information was detrimental despite your belief that I had been acting in a way which stopped us from gather the the information in the past. Is that an accurate assessment of what you were saying?

In any case, if the issue was that you see me as trying to confound rather than add to our information pool I can accept that as your interpretation of what I have posted. My intention was to try to get us to continue to examine closely what was happening without making assumptions that we had no great reason to make. I'm still trying to do that now and will continue to. I suspect that you will find my game to be a more speculative one than might be typical but I don't let that hold me back from voting. I attempt to keep an open mind and watch everyone but not to be indecisive because I'm doing this. It's a play style that might well continue to lead to suspicion of me here (the fora in general) but I don't have a great way to control that so I'll just have to deal with it.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

So that I don't get too wrapped up in my discussion with kloud1516 here are my thoughts on everyone still in the game so far:

Drunken Piper: I do appreciate the continued attention on pacman281292. I agree that his claim doesn't clear him as it would be a decent claim to make if he were scum trying to hide. I've seen you talk about both pacman281292 in some depth of the players who are still alive. I wonder if you find the play of anyone else to be suspicious at this time?

Jahudo: As I said when I was talking about pacman281292's claim I currently find Jahudo to be the most likely townie of the group. This is both because of the dynamics of the claim as well as the overall play from Jahudo.

kloud1516: It might not be clear from my recent posts but if kloud1516 gives the same attention to other posters that he has to me then I will find his play today to be fairly pro-town. Right now he's barking up the wrong tree as I am town but I do mostly like the effort and it does come across as a genuine attempt to analyze what I've done to determine whether I'm scum or not.

Kmd4390: I see a case for pacman281292 (though one a bit light on details) and an argument for a massclaim today. I don't particularly think that he's been lurking but at the same time looking back I see that I'm not particularly sure what he's thinking of anyone past pacman281292. Are there people that you think have been scummy? If we don't end up massclaiming today what would you like to see next?

pacman281292: I've seen his claim and talked about it some. I really hope that he'll have time today (before he hits V/LA) to give us thoughts beyond his own defense. If he is town I don't think that I've gotten much other from his play to help us other than his clearing of Jahudo which is good but mostly a confirmation of town play. If he's going to be mostly gone for big stretches then it feels like we'll be down a resource that we didn't get much use of. I'm certainly not saying that I think he's scum because he's going to be unavailable but I do think that he's done as little as about anyone to help me form opinions other than that I found him scummy yesterday.

Porochaz: I'm not getting much from Porochaz today. He was willing to vote pacman281292 to start the day and withdrew when the claim was made but I'm not sure what he's made of pacman281292 since then. He has made a case about the massclaim which is fine and has indicated suspicion about Wolframnhart for his reaction to the idea but I think I'm getting a gut "flying below the radar" read from him right now. I'd like to hear more from him.

Wolframnhart: As I said a couple days ago, I'm not sure that I know anything about who Wolframnhart finds suspicious today. He was the one of the three people that farside22 prodded that I found least surprising. He seems not to have taken anything of a stand today on any of the players which I don't care for.

I suppose right now my top suspects would be Wolframnhart, pacman281292 and vaguely Porochaz. Jahudo is the only one I think is particularly likely to be town though I would put kloud1516 as a second most likely right now. I think that hearing more from people in general would ease concerns on my part. Who do we find suspicious in general? We've got no votes cast right now (since the reactions to pacman281292's claim.) In general do we think the claim is legit?

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

I can understand Zorblags thoughts on me, can't really say i blame him. I am being careful today though only because of something that happened last night, and it might concern the vote count but i am not sure. I can explain more if ya'll want, and i feel i should explain but i will see what everyone says.

If you think that explaining will help the town avoid mistakes due to assumptions about how the vote is going to work then I don't oppose your explaining it; though the fact that you've brought this up at all should allow us to approach this vote more cautiously in and of itself. If you think that providing details would help the scum by giving them warning about some particular voting irregularity then I'm happier if we don't hear it. Basically, if you're town I'll trust your judgment on what is worth saying (and if you're scum then you'll be working against the town's best interests anyhow so it won't matter what I say.)

I don't mind your being careful here, especially with your vote, but like I tried to make clear before, the thing that I find scummy about your play is that I'm not seeing anything that makes me think that you're scum hunting today. I'd love to hear some thoughts from you about what other people are doing and what you find scummy or pro-town. I believe that we've got a much better shot at winning this if we have everyone actively trying to figure that out. Right now you've talked more today about the potential setup than anything else. Adding this last bit about knowledge of game dynamics is interesting but still doesn't give us any more access to your attempts to find scum as a player (and ignoring whatever special information you might have.)

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

Kmd4390: I see a case for pacman281292 (though one a bit light on details) and an argument for a massclaim today. I don't particularly think that he's been lurking but at the same time looking back I see that I'm not particularly sure what he's thinking of anyone past pacman281292. Are there people that you think have been scummy? If we don't end up massclaiming today what would you like to see next?

My top choices would be Kloud, Porochaz, and DP,. I don't have much of a case on any of them though.

This fails to reassure me offhand. I can see not having iron-clad reasons to put people at the top of your list but I don't see any of those three as coming from anywhere you've indicated previously (with the possible exception of Drunken Piper if I go back to your first couple posts of the game.) Other than gut can you give us anything else here? Why shouldn't I think that you're just throwing out names to have names out there?

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

I'm checking in briefly this morning and I should have more this afternoon/evening. While I in theory agree with Porochaz that there are probably 2 scum rather than 3 I find his level of certainty to be troubling. Unless he has some sort of additional information that the rest of us don't have access to there shouldn't be a way for him to be as sure as he's claiming to be. The simplest way for him to have that information would be for him to be scum.

Additionally Porochaz has been focused on massclaim issues to the exclusion of anything else since we started talking more about suspicions (while most everyone else has been looking at other players which should be helpful.) As such, Porochaz has risen on my list of potential scum from a borderline entry to a much more solid entry.

FoS: Porochaz

.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

I'm checking in briefly this morning and I should have more this afternoon/evening. While I in theory agree with Porochaz that there are probably 2 scum rather than 3 I find his level of certainty to be troubling. Unless he has some sort of additional information that the rest of us don't have access to there shouldn't be a way for him to be as sure as he's claiming to be. The simplest way for him to have that information would be for him to be scum.

I was waiting for someone to make this point. The thing is I have made it perfectly clear that its from an odds and a common sense point of view than anything else.

Yes, I am taking that into account. As I've said, I think we probably shouldn't mass claim now and probably aren't at at LyLo. What I don't like is your level of certainty. If you're just using odds and common sense you're coming to a stronger conclusion than I think is warranted.

vote: no massclaim

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

I do have experience balancing games offsite (before I started playing here I started another forum based mafia site and have modded a number of games there.) Wolframnhart has given evidence of at least one game here that had 3 scum in a situation like this but I'll admit that I haven't done an exhaustive survey of Mafia Scum by any means. I can think of a number of ways for a mod to balance a game with 12 players, 3 mafia and 1 SK. I'm sure that others could think of more. I do think that it's unlikely that we've got 3 scum but I don't think it's impossible given my experience. You seem to think that it's close enough to impossible to rule it out and I don't like to rule things out that I don't have a very good reason to.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

I dont think its impossible, by all means, there could be 3 scum, 1 SK but I seriously doubt it, just from my experience, and dont think "its farside" is a decent enough excuse to push it.

I don't think that I've ever said that farside22 modding is the reason that I'm not ruling out the option. This is my first game that she's modded and I don't have much of a baseline (though I did go back and look over her Family Guy game.) I'm also not pushing the idea that there are 3 scum as I'm saying there probably aren't. I simply don't think that there is a strong enough reason given my experience to rule out the possibility to the degree that you have. You're saying here that you don't think it's impossible but you are still somehow sure enough that there are only 2 scum to come out and say:

We dont have 3 scum. There I said it. I think its blindingly obvious 3 scum and 1 sk would be a pain to balance.

That's too strong a stance in my opinion.

On another note, I'm growing slightly anxious about the deadline. I know that I'll be away for much of the next couple days and I assume that others will as well. As the Deadline is a week from tomorrow and we're likely to lose about half of that to Thanksgiving we really need to start to get some progress made on who we think is scum and should be lynched. I'm still waiting to hear suspicions from Drunken Piper (who I know is V/LA), Jahudo (which surprises me as somehow I thought he'd done something along these lines), and Porochaz (I know you said that the issue of the mass claim was more important but surely you can address more than one issue at a time during a game.)

For those that have given thoughts I'd really like to hear more analysis from kloud1516 as he had a number of players he was going to look at more closely as well as pacman281292 or his replacement. I'd like to hear Kmd4390's response to Jahudo and more from Wolframnhart in general. Right now suspicions seem to be all over the place. As we're not voting we're not putting any pressure on anyone so scum can hold back and take advantage. I said earlier that it was good to be cautious as we might be in LyLo but we do need some action.

I'll start with a

Vote: Porochaz

at least until he gives input beyond the merits of mass claiming.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

I'd like to hear Kmd4390's response to Jahudo

Did I miss something?

Zorblag: I keep going back and forth on him in my head. His back and forth with Kloud is interesting.

Can you be more specific? Do you think that kloud is misrepresenting the case? Do you think that Zorblag looks town without the perspective of thinking kloud is scummy?

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

I apologize then, I seem to have missed that somehow.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

Unvote

due to the deadline extension and lack of clarity about LyLo. I will

FoS: Porochaz

instead to keep some semblance of pressure on.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

Hmm, I misread. It's a potential deadline extension. I'll hold off on my vote till we get a definite answer on Monday anyhow. I expect the game to be light on activity till then anyhow.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

Welcome back Xtoxm. I would be much happier if you did read the game and use the entirety of your knowledge before being as sure about Wolframnhart (or rather whoever his replacement turns out to be) as you seem to be now not in the least because you think that we're at LyLo and he has made insinuations that he has a connection to some other player that somehow effects his votes. I will be interested to see how his replacement chooses to go with those vague statements he had made.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

Drunken Piper, first off I might be able to explain some of your reaction to me by saying that I teach math. I'm used to people coming to the wrong conclusions and focusing on the wrong ideas. When I see someone making an effort to do something I think will helpful beneficial in the long run my instinct is to encourage them. In this case I've seen people paying close attention to the game and that should help the town in the long run so I'm doing my best to make sure that continues by providing praise. Emotional play tends to distract from the important aspects of the game and I do go out of my way to avoid it. I find that getting angry when people don't agree with me right away is tiring and I prefer to keep things civil, find the common points and move on to a place where we can get more useful information.

Wolf, throws out some weak suspicions (after being prodded by Zorblag). Zorblag mentions previously that he doesn’t feel like wolf is scum hunting(413). This was his retort to that. This post is not scum hunting it is opinion based and weak at that(but it is what Zorblag asked for). It leave wolf room to maneuver if a bandwagon builds later. Wolf what was scum hunting about this post? Also mentions that Pac’s claim cleared Jahudo in his eyes.

KMD does much of the same in his post (415)that wolf does his..(throws weak suspicion without reasoning leaving himself room to maneuver). I understand vibes and guts…believe me I do…but at this point in the game..we need more. Ha, Zor calls him on that same fact in 416…Zor, do you feel like Wolf’s answer was adequate at this point?

I will say that Kmd4390 gave less to work with in his first suspicion list than Wolframnhart did. At the same time, no, I didn't find Wolframnhart's answer to be nearly as fulfilling as I might have liked. My intention with both of them was to prod once and see what quality of information they would provide. Their willingness to provide their thoughts is useful information in and of itself.

Xtoxm, you've now changed your vote that I didn't see any attempt to explain for Wolframnhart to one that I still don't see any attempt to explain for Drunken Piper. I don't care for this at all. Why do you think that Drunken Piper is scum? I've seen you at least give a reason for suspicion for Porochaz which you haven't acted upon. Surely you must have at least that for Drunken Piper.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

I have now won the fight against no internet connection at home. Sorry about not being about for yesterday.

Welcome to the game animorpherv1. To answer you latest question, Xtoxm was lynched the first time around when he claimed that he was a Serial Killer shortly into the start of day one. Thank you for giving thoughts on the players in the game. Do you have an opinion about whether or not we should be mass claiming at this time? What do you have to say about Wolframnhart's earlier assertions that he thought he had something effecting his vote today?

I do think that you've misread the argument Kloud1516 was making against me though.

I'm confused on this, how can someone POSSIBLY find someone suspicious by them quoting the mod and trying to get more info? My thoughts, kloud is scum, trying to lynch Zorblag for a bad reason at this point.

vote:kloud1516

for the moment, still reading.

He was saying that my quoting the mod and trying to figure out whether or not the day was over was the one thing he liked about the posts he was talking about not that he found them to be a reason to think I was scummy. I'll let him address your concerns past there but I think you likely missed a not when looking over what he was saying.

Xtoxm, I'm really not happy with your continued failure to give a reason for your Drunken Piper vote. I won't say that you don't have any reasons but I do know that I found pacman281292 suspect before you took over and with your apparent willingness to vote without giving justification I'm not any happier with your play. Unless you can provide a reason for your vote I think that I'm going to be voting for you in the near future. I want to give you another opportunity to explain where you're coming from but if you firmly believe that we're in LyLo (which you apparently do) then you should be able to give reasons for votes that your casting; we can't afford to be wrong and if you're sure enough to be voting you should be able to try to convince the rest of us that you have some reason.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

To ask animorpherv1 again as it seems to have been missed the first time:

What do you have to say about Wolframnhart's earlier assertions that he thought he had something effecting his vote today?

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

Zorblag

• Post 30 answers question not directed at him and revotes from that person
• Post 60 wonders if poro is town daycop trying to hide his role. Not something you’d want to put in the minds of scum.
• Post 76 hints that x as jester and poro as scum rolecop would make sense then advocates both killing poro today, x tomorrow, and keeping him around which benefits scum.
• Post 78 says he never believed x was jester. Seems like post 76 was noncommittal when compared to this firmer stance.
• When Llama in post 83 says that people suggesting poro is scum are more likely to be scum, Zorblag gives his opinion in 98 that poro is not likely scum. FoS on Dukes seems weak.
• Post 182 gives a good reason for why more discussion would have been a good thing day 1 and I think this answers why he continued to talk at the end of day 1, and said day 2 that scum had rull range of options without a concern for how it would look. Good answer.
• Post 279 makes his opinion known that he thinks DP isn’t scumhunting much beyond GW meta and not much from DP to suggest he’s town. Since it’s the first of this opinion I saw, and the timing of it, I think it’s genuine.
• Post 334 explains his stance and attack on DP well but also backs off from sounding confrontational. Could be personality but I think it could be intentionally trying to sound nice when a more important lynch is going on.
• Post 458 looks like he’s trying to bring the group discussion back into the focus of who to lynch.

I feel somewhat obligated to address some of these earlier posts as I don't think that Jahudo's reading does justice to what I was trying to express.

Post 30: Xtoxm asked an unspecified person if they were accusing him of lurking. Looking back now I suppose that it probably was addressed to Dukes but I had cast my vote on Xtoxm because he hadn't posted yet. I actually did think he was asking me if I was accusing him of lurking. I was not so I made that clear and then I proceeded to change my vote to the next person who had not posted yet based on the criteria I had established earlier.

Post 76: This post was addressing Porochaz's post saying that he didn't think Xtoxm was playing as though he was a jester. I was trying to show that it was ideal play for a jester and everything past that was hypothetically what Xtoxm would want from the situation as a jester. I wasn't saying that we should lynch Porochaz but rather I was saying that a jester Xtoxm making the claim that Porochaz was a day cop would be fine with that Porochaz kill today as it should get Xtoxm killed the next day.

Post 79 (rather than 78): At this point I realized that Post 76 made it look like I thought that it was likely that I thought Xtoxm was a jester. I had brought it up as a possible explanation for how Xtoxm was acting (back in Post 60.) This was meant to help me determine what possibilities existed at the time. The stance I give in post 78 is meant to be a clarification of my position after the past couple posts.

Post 83: I'm not saying that Porochaz is not likely scum. I believe that I say specifically that I'm neutral about his alignment. I am saying there that there is no reason to think that he should be a rolecop of either alignement based on what had been said previously. My FoS on Dukes at the time was an FoS rather than a vote because I hadn't made a strong case. I was attempting to make sure that we didn't focus exclusively on Xtoxm and waste the day and Dukes was the player who looked most worth paying attention to at the time.

Why do you think DP is scummy?

I just get a scum feel off him.

And this is now unacceptable. If you can't give us better reasons that you get a scum feel for a vote at what you claim must be LyLo I have to conclude that you're not helping town.

Vote: Xtoxm

until I see some legitimate reason for a vote.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

OK, once again I'm back from connection issues. I am going to leave my vote on Xtoxm for now as he hasn't addressed the issue of voting for no reason past someone feeling scummy but I need to look carefully at what else has happened since then. I'll be back to do that in a bit.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

So you're leaving you're vote on me when you're uncertain? Only scum would be that careless with their vote in lylo.

I should point out that I'm not the one who is convinced that we're at LyLo at this time. I've said that I think we probably aren't. You on the other hand have said that you're convinced we're at LyLo and you're leaving your vote on Drunken Piper with your given reason being, "I just get a scum feel off him." So far as I can tell this is without having fully read the game. Basically, your complaint is exactly the reason that I'm voting for you. Only scum would be that careless with their vote in LyLo.

he is not reading the thread and he has changed my view of him

I call BS. I read from the start of day 3 on. I even annoucned it in thread.

If I didn't read it, then how could I have gotten it? Scum can't talk in the day, remember?

I will say that I'm not particularly impressed by animopherv1's play since I've been gone. This last post seems to be fairly representative. The problem that people have raised is that if you had read and paid attention to the thread then your call for Xtoxm to claim made very little sense as both pacman281292 and Xtoxm have done their claiming in day 3 which is when you've read from. I also can't tell what the it you wouldn't have been able to get would be without reading but I that phrasing of the statement at the end seems a bit off unless you are scum.

I am still going to leave my vote on Xtoxm. I'd still like Xtoxm to give more substantial reasons for his vote for Drunken Piper. I'd like animorpherv1 to clarify what's he's been trying to say recently. I know that Porochaz has an exam sometime soon but I'd still like to hear who he finds suspicious as he hasn't gotten around to letting us know.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

Xtoxm's most recent vote strikes me as particularly bandwaggony. He still hasn't given any definite reasons for his previous votes and I'm not even sure what he says that he was agreeing with about with his Kmd4390 vote. I am more comfortable than ever leaving my vote on Xtoxm.

I still don't think that animorpherv1 has done a great job of answering the questions that people have asked and I don't at all like him bringing up the idea of a no lynch as I don't think that is particularly helpful. I'd like to see animopherv1 cast a vote for someone not because he was trying to get them lynched but because he thought they were likely scum; this would give me a better idea of where his convictions lie after having seen him withdraw from Xtoxm so readily.

Interestingly enough, today has a fair amount of potential to end in a way with which I'm used to playing mafia on a forum. I'm used to 32 hour days where the person who gets lynched is always the one with the most votes at deadline with and tie breakers going to the first one who voted. A major issue which people here probably aren't that used to thinking about is the last minute vote switch to change who is going to be lynched. On the other forums we call that an e-Bay swoop. I will be very suspicious of any votes that come the last 5 minutes before deadline which cause the person being voted to be lynched. There is no good reason to leave things to the last minute and the confusion can only help scum. Hopefully it won't be an issue but it is one I'm used to dealing with so I'll point that out now before anyone has a chance to try it and potentially get away with it.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Zorblag]

I don't at all like him bringing up the idea of a no lynch as I don't think that is particularly helpful.

How so?

The no lynch option still cedes initiative to the scum. We aren't in a situation where we're in danger of a no lynch happening spontaneously given the voting rules at deadline and I think that bringing that up as an option now is largely artificial and not useful to the conversation. I would mind less if there had been some sort of argument for going for a no lynch vote even though I can't see merits myself but throwing it out there like animorpherv1 did out of the blue was not something that I found useful.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh