Crackers! Mafia -- Game Over. See page 50

[DrippingGoofball]

Why refuse to state who you are suspicious of and why? Why refuse to list the players and make comments? I want a firm stand from you on the players because right now you are my first (second if you count me misreading Korts) real suspect. I will explain further after you procure such a list or again explicitly refuse to.

DGB, do this, promise to do it, or refuse to in your next three posts, or I will take it as you refusing to do so.

Didn't I answer you already???

[Raging Rabbit]

I'll have no access 'till Thursday, see you guys then.

[Korts]

Huh, no posting for 12 hours. Unprecedented in this game.

What makes you read DGB as pro town?

The fact that she actively pursues her suspicions.

2 words. NULL. TELL.

BM

It's all about motives.

please continue.

BM

Ok, let me elaborate on that gut feel after all. DGBscum doesn't have any motive to be elbows deep in shit while she mimes scumhunting. DGB's actions so far have been pro-town, therefore I have no reason to suspect her. Why are you trying to dig any deeper when what we're discussing is a

town

read on someone? I'm thinking rofl has a point here; you are either trying to dissuade me from my read on DGB because you don't like town eliminating other town as suspects, or the other possibility, you are trying to figure out how to appear more pro-town in my eyes (although this second possibility assumes that you give a shit about my opinion).

<snip>

you seem to be the one who is panicking, chainsaw defending sens against a suspicion that didn't even come with a vote attached.

Apparently the suspicion came without a suspicion attached. lol

Votes are over-rated.

Unvote, Vote: Roflcopter

What is your point here saying "suspicion came without a suspicion attached"? Are you implying that suspicion should always draw your vote? If so, do you think that's a valid method of scumhunting?

BM, stop living up to your title.

literally minutes ago you gave BM an X on my scum list, as in "you are incorrect about BM being scum."

I didn't get the feel Elmo was giving BM leeway for scummyposting here with the implication that he's town, rather giving BM leeway regardless of alignment.

If i'm a Jester, i'm not scum. But yes, i am a little curious as to how Elmo knows that me and Guardian are town.

You are making your connection to Guardian more obvious. Please, continue.

(I'm coming from a perspective which is very skeptical of "town tells" in general. Basically, scum has every motivation to appear protown, such that it shouldn't be at all surprising that scum do a good job at "scumhunting". Town, in contrast, has no motivation to appear scummy (subject to my "optimum, non-zero point above"), which makes scumtells (however much we may debate what is a scumtell and what is not) on more solid a footing.)

Do you agree that there are certain actions that inherently are inherently pro-town in the sense that they further the game towards the town win condition? If you do agree with this, don't you agree that people who consecutively perform these actions are less likely than average to be scum?

He's so town that it's blindingly obvious, yet it's also unexplainable because it's a gut read?

Unvote
Vote: roflcoptor

I see what my beef with this is. a) rofl's "blindingly obvious" comment was a very clear hyperbole, and b) "blindingly obvious" doesn't even come close to contradicting the statement that it was a gut read on des. This is pure, unadulterated BS.

a) Probably true.
b) Not true. If something is obvious"it means that it is readily apparent. If something is based on gut then, by definition, the player cannot point to a basis for their assertion. Thus, it isn't obvious.

If a) is probably true, as you concede, and des being "blindingly obvious" town is a hyperbole that, in fact, probably means that "I think that des is town", then I don't see how there is a contradiction. The gut feel cannot be proven, but since "obvious" was presumably a hyperbole, your point to b) is, for practical matters, invalid.

That's not correct. Guardian begins to defend CKD, and then stops (not "retreats") because he has an objection to defending (which I suspect I disagree with, but now is not the place for that argument). He doesn't say anything which could be construed as expressing a neutral opinion - he just refuses to involve himself in CKD's defence. The implicit point here is that he disagrees with the case (is committed to disagreement, you might say) but doesn't want to involve himself in the debate.

Yes. I concede the point that he's not fence-sitting as I first saw it. But if he disagrees with the CKD-case, he obviously has a problem with the points against him, and if that's the case I don't see why he doesn't raise these problems with the case. The conflict of projected motives is evident.

How is BM criticising an attack scummy?

because he wasn't just criticising it, he was mischaracterizing it as a lurkerhunt, which makes it sound like it doesn't have any basis in sens' actions. but if you'll do as i suggested with the quote right above this you'll see that it does in fact have a basis in sens' actions, and i was on his case when they were happening.

Calling it "mischaracterising" is a bit rich.

You said:

oh, also add

sensfan?

to the bottom of that list. i almost forgot he was even in the game he's added so little

Nothing you say there at all exlpains why you suspect Sens, other than your mention of inactivity (which is not a legitimiate basis for suspicion)

This makes me sad. rofl had explained what scummy thing SensFan did

when

he did it. Considering rofl's posting, why did you expect it any other way?

i should also point out that you appear to have the preconception that i am going to do scummy things. I find it hard to believe that an open minded townie would have that approach.

BM

This still irks me. Nowhere was future scumminess implied in the following quote, only present:

BM seems meta-townish.

define meta-townish. because it sounds mostly like an excuse for you to ignore whatever scummy things bm does.

i should also point out that you appear to have the preconception that i am going to do scummy things. I find it hard to believe that an open minded townie would have that approach.

BM

you are really good at framing your statements in such a way that they sound really damning without having actually proven anything.

i had no preconceptions about you or anyone else coming into this game. i am observing in the process of doing scummy things here.

then why have you assumed that i will behave in a scummy way? Tunnel vision much?

BM

This post is ignoring in its entirety what rofl wrote in reply to BM's accusation.

unvote, vote: Battle Mage

What???? BM is still alive?

See? What's DGB if not pro-town?

[Battle Mage]

Huh, no posting for 12 hours. Unprecedented in this game.

What makes you read DGB as pro town?

The fact that she actively pursues her suspicions.

2 words. NULL. TELL.

BM

It's all about motives.

please continue.

BM

Ok, let me elaborate on that gut feel after all. DGBscum doesn't have any motive to be elbows deep in shit while she mimes scumhunting. DGB's actions so far have been pro-town, therefore I have no reason to suspect her. Why are you trying to dig any deeper when what we're discussing is a

town

read on someone? I'm thinking rofl has a point here; you are either trying to dissuade me from my read on DGB because you don't like town eliminating other town as suspects, or the other possibility, you are trying to figure out how to appear more pro-town in my eyes (although this second possibility assumes that you give a shit about my opinion).

You're a competent player, but i dont think i've ever seen you as town. From my PoV, you are playing to your scum meta here (obv) so your opinion isnt my top priority.
The reason im criticising your town read of DGB, is that i'm trying to use my meta experience with DGB in order to assess what is protown and scummy for her. She does this alot (although i cant recall a game as mafia to use as a balance example).

Ftr, i think scum only fear townies eliminating each other as suspects if they fear there is some substance in the eliminations. As there hasnt been for the most part so far, i think you might be jumping at shadows.

<snip>

you seem to be the one who is panicking, chainsaw defending sens against a suspicion that didn't even come with a vote attached.

Apparently the suspicion came without a suspicion attached. lol

Votes are over-rated.

Unvote, Vote: Roflcopter

What is your point here saying "suspicion came without a suspicion attached"? Are you implying that suspicion should always draw your vote? If so, do you think that's a valid method of scumhunting?

I THINK i meant that he didnt really suspect me. Trying to be ironic probs. But my memory isnt that awesome.

If i'm a Jester, i'm not scum. But yes, i am a little curious as to how Elmo knows that me and Guardian are town.

You are making your connection to Guardian more obvious. Please, continue.

*Sigh*

Unvote, Vote: Korts

Firstly, stop trying to be like DGB. 1 is more than enough. Secondly, tying players to each other is not only scummy in itself, but if done by a townie, is easily exploitable by scum.

i should also point out that you appear to have the preconception that i am going to do scummy things. I find it hard to believe that an open minded townie would have that approach.

BM

This still irks me. Nowhere was future scumminess implied in the following quote, only present:

BM seems meta-townish.

define meta-townish. because it sounds mostly like an excuse for you to ignore whatever scummy things bm does.

In an instant, the future can become the present. 'Does' can be used in the future tense.

i should also point out that you appear to have the preconception that i am going to do scummy things. I find it hard to believe that an open minded townie would have that approach.

BM

you are really good at framing your statements in such a way that they sound really damning without having actually proven anything.

i had no preconceptions about you or anyone else coming into this game. i am observing in the process of doing scummy things here.

then why have you assumed that i will behave in a scummy way? Tunnel vision much?

BM

This post is ignoring in its entirety what rofl wrote in reply to BM's accusation.

unvote, vote: Battle Mage

Why are you talking in the 3rd person? It wouldnt be because, rather than talk to me, you've already made your mind up, and want to seek support, would it?

What???? BM is still alive?

See? What's DGB if not pro-town?

Your mom?

BM

[Korts]

The reason im criticising your town read of DGB, is that i'm trying to use my meta experience with DGB in order to assess what is protown and scummy for her. She does this alot (although i cant recall a game as mafia to use as a balance example).

I think you may have disproved your point there...

Firstly, stop trying to be like DGB. 1 is more than enough. Secondly, tying players to each other is not only scummy in itself, but if done by a townie, is easily exploitable by scum.

Firstly, I didn't know how else to phrase it. Secondly, it was you who were implying you knew Guardian was town. Since there are no pro-town linked roles on the front page, this doesn't sit well with me, particularly because you didn't outright state that you thought Guardian was town, but tried to plant the thought of Guardiantown with a passing comment. I'd have had no problem with you stating that you have a town read on Guardian, what I do have a problem with is you trying to pass it as almost a suggestion.

I don't know how better to phrase it, but I'm sure there are better words for this. Anyway...

In an instant, the future can become the present. 'Does' can be used in the future tense.

Fair enough. Your native language, not mine.

Why are you talking in the 3rd person? It wouldnt be because, rather than talk to me, you've already made your mind up, and want to seek support, would it?

It was your damn signature at the end of the quote, probably... I dunno.

What???? BM is still alive?

See? What's DGB if not pro-town?

Your mom?

Nice comeback I'd give a 3.8 out of 5.

[roflcopter]

In an instant, the future can become the present. 'Does' can be used in the future tense.

see the key word in that sentence is "can."

[Elmo]

See, I was all ready to explain to Vollkan why lurking is pro-town, but then Yos had to post, and I just can't bring myself to in his presence. (No, I wasn't lurking, no, I don't intentionally lurk as scum, no, I'm not particularly lurky in general.)

I am still struck by the amount of spam. Hopefully that's died down; interestingly, I remember Adel posting somewhere in MD that she would sometimes try and encourage things like that when she was scum, in order to try and decrease the signal:noise ratio. Either way, it's irritating; I've had to reread 100+ page spammy games as a replacement, and it's not pretty.

Rofl's position is (basically) that some townish things are impossible to fake, therefore towntells exist, therefore Des is (probably) town. CKD's position appears to be the opposite. Okay, theory disagreement. But then CKD says Rofl is buddying up. That would imply RoflTown couldn't reasonably believe Des was town, and I'd think it fairly obvious that he could; I don't see a reason CKD would eliminate the possibility that Rofl is genuine, but (in his opinion) incorrect. So I think his suspicion is contrived, primarily because I would have expected him to have encountered this viewpoint before (it's probably a lot more common than his) but also because of the way he went about it; stuff like 114 / 116 seems more oriented towards convincing other people rather than talking it over. I think a townie would probably be more inclined to try and see if they were right or not, especially at this stage of the game. Scum are far more inclined to turn it into a "me vs. you" debate because they can be sure they're not on the same side, whereas town-town fights can be awful.

I currently think this is the real deal. I would be on this wagon if, well, I don't know why I'm not getting on this wagon. I have a good feeling (hi, Vollkan) about everyone on it apart from BM (yes, I know what I said), so I don't really have a problem with it, but I want to hear a bit more from CKD before I lay down a vote; I don't really feel there's enough material out there to justify 6/8 at this point. Also that, now I think of it, I remember thinking CKD was quite scummy in another game where he was town.

Not true. If something is obvious it means that it is readily apparent. If something is based on gut then, by definition, the player cannot point to a basis for their assertion. Thus, it isn't obvious.

This debate is silly, but: it doesn't work like that. The fact one cannot point to anything specific does not make it more or less obvious, merely less able to be pinned down to some number of specific things. I think it would be reasonable to say if you had a very strong gut read on someone from their posting that it was 'obvious' to you they were town; that's how I interpreted it.

And I normally don't say this, but I agree. Des pretty much has a huge neon "I AM TOWN" sign glued to him at the moment. I can't point to any one specific thing, but it does seem fairly obvious, especially when I played with his town self recently. I literally flipped through the thread, read a post or two of his and went "oh, good, Des is town". Currently, either he's town here, or he's absolutely godly as scum. I don't think that's contradictory at all.

Why is it more interesting that Yos was on the list?

Nice catch. rofl, are you suggesting that Yos is particularly pro-town? Buddying up much?

This is a fairly obviously bad post. Yos hadn't posted yet, so it's rather difficult to believe rofl is suggesting that. You're assigning suspicion that wasn't there in Des's post, too; this looks like you're trying to slide in-between two townies, playing them off against each other. I don't mind reaching in the random stage generally, but this looks the scummy kind. Town wants to find something kinda suspicious as a springboard, but hopefully accurate.. this just looks scummy. The fact that you're basically feeding off someone else's reasoning instead of contributing your own, that you've ignored all rofl's other behaviour in terms of coming up with a read, and that you seem more inclined to push Des into a lynch than prod at rofl and actually read his reactions are, y'know, scummy.

Unvote

,

vote

:

Korts

. Hrm.

I don't think Guardian is scummy. I kind of draw a blank on that. Seems reasonably townish so far, actually.
BM is scummy. But it seems slightly closer to the scummy where he was actually town before. BM is always scummy. Unless he moves back towards scum-scummy, then I don't really want to lynch him today. Obviously, I don't have a strong read on him.
Kison is kind of scummy. But I don't know if that's just him. Kison, are you scum?
Sens needs poking with a stick. He might well be scum, given his aggressive town meta. Writing more is superfluous.
I am running out of care-age at this point in the post. I hope you can tell.

In an instant, the future can become the present. 'Does' can be used in the future tense.

see the key word in that sentence is "can."

You have now been completely side-tracked from your original point - oops? Allegedly, BM was doing

scummy things

. Briefly, what were they?

PROJECT "TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE POST" HAS NOW BEEN COMPLETED.

[Adel]

˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚

votecount as of post 331

_{with 14 alive, 8 will lynch before deadline}

˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚

¬curiouskarmadog:

5

:roflcopter, DrippingGoofball, destructor, vollkan, Yosarian2
Korts:

3

:ZazieR, Battle Mage, Elmo
Battle Mage:

2

:SensFan, Korts
roflcopter:

1

:curiouskarmadog
Elmo:

1

:Raging Rabbit,
DrippingGoofBall:

1

: Guardian


No Lynch:

none

not voting:

1

:Kison,

˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚

Day 1's deadline is December 6th at 16:40(UTC)

Countdown timer to deadline

[Yosarian2]

See, I was all ready to explain to Vollkan why lurking is pro-town, but then Yos had to post, and I just can't bring myself to in his presence. (No, I wasn't lurking, no, I don't intentionally lurk as scum, no, I'm not particularly lurky in general.)

Yeah, I don't think you were lurking. I mean, this is, what, something like your 10th post in the first 4 days of the game? I can't imagine any standards by which that could reasonably be called "lurking".

[Elmo]

Name begins with B.

Sorry. x)

[SensFan]

Des pretty much has a huge neon "I AM TOWN" sign glued to him at the moment. I can't point to any one specific thing, but it does seem fairly obvious, especially when I played with his town self recently. I literally flipped through the thread, read a post or two of his and went "oh, good, Des is town". Currently, either he's town here, or he's absolutely godly as scum. I don't think that's contradictory at all.

Any chance you can back that up, for those of us who HAVEN'T played with TownDes recently?

[Elmo]

How would I go about backing it up when I've just posted that it's a gut read which can't be narrowed down to anything specific? So not really, no. On the other hand, ask who's both pro-town and pro-gut if I'm faking it. (shrug)

More to the point, why are you (of all people) seriously under the radar?

[SensFan]

Me of all people? What's that supposed to mean?

And how to you figure me as under the radar? I posted 6 times in the first 36 hours of the thread being open, then was away for Sunday and Monday.

[vollkan]

Ok, let me elaborate on that gut feel after all. DGBscum doesn't have any motive to be elbows deep in shit while she mimes scumhunting. DGB's actions so far have been pro-town, therefore I have no reason to suspect her. Why are you trying to dig any deeper when what we're discussing is a town read on someone? I'm thinking rofl has a point here; you are either trying to dissuade me from my read on DGB because you don't like town eliminating other town as suspects, or the other possibility, you are trying to figure out how to appear more pro-town in my eyes (although this second possibility assumes that you give a shit about my opinion).

This is the reason I hate people calling something a "town-tell". Nothing she has done is so manifestly pro-town that it would be significantly unreasonable to suppose that it could come from DGB-scum. As I said, scum has every motivation to appear protown. Town has (outside stirring the pot and generating discussion) no motivation to appear scummy. The danger here if you are town is that you are giving people townie brownies undeservingly.

[quote="Korts"}
Do you agree that there are certain actions that inherently are inherently pro-town in the sense that they further the game towards the town win condition? If you do agree with this, don't you agree that people who consecutively perform these actions are less likely than average to be scum?
[/quote]

Well, I think that consistently good, rational arguments can be a mild towntell. But I know from experience that it is not all difficult to appear really protown as scum. I've found in past games that the easiest way to get people on side as scum is just to appear really calm and logical - because people intuitively think that such play is "protown" simply because it doesn't appear manifestly scummy at first glance.

That's why I have little tolerance for roflcopter's "OMG DES IS LIEK SO PROTOWN!!". Nothing Des or anybody has said is at all incompatible with them being scum, and I think it is anti-town at best (scummy at worst) to go about falsely clearing people of suspicion.

If a) is probably true, as you concede, and des being "blindingly obvious" town is a hyperbole that, in fact, probably means that "I think that des is town", then I don't see how there is a contradiction. The gut feel cannot be proven, but since "obvious" was presumably a hyperbole, your point to b) is, for practical matters, invalid.

Well, no, b) is perfectly valid. Ultimately, at best, rofl's point is nothing more well-reasoned than "Des's play gives me a warm feeling in my tummy". There is nothing obviously protown about what Des has done. The fact it is well-reasoned gives rise to an intuitive level of comfort, but that doesn't make it protown. There's nothing obviously protown about it.

Yes. I concede the point that he's not fence-sitting as I first saw it. But if he disagrees with the CKD-case, he obviously has a problem with the points against him, and if that's the case I don't see why he doesn't raise these problems with the case. The conflict of projected motives is evident.

This shouldn't be taken to give endorsement to the view that people should not defend others, but I do think that one can legitimately refuse to defend somebody if one thinks that their will be an information-gain from requiring them to respond personally.

This makes me sad. rofl had explained what scummy thing SensFan did when he did it. Considering rofl's posting, why did you expect it any other way?

Rofl explained absolutely nothing!

I'll quote the entire exchange between them that rofl directed me to ("bottom of page six/top of page seven") if I have to:

The Exchange between Sens and rofl

I actually agree with ckd on all of this. Having a gut scum read on page 4-5 is not the same at alll of claiming to have a gut town read on page 3.

I actually agree with ckd on all of this. Having a gut scum read on page 4-5 is not the same at alll of claiming to have a gut town read on page 3.

whats the difference, exactly?

See something scummy and you can get a gut scum read.
Seeing something 'townie' can hardly lead to a gut town read.

i don't see why not

See something scummy and you can get a gut scum read.
Seeing something 'townie' can hardly lead to a gut town read.

and why does townie need quotation marks but scummy doesn't?

There is nothing there at all which explains why Sens could be seen as suspicious by rofl. Rofl expresses theory disagreement. That's it.

Rofl's position is (basically) that some townish things are impossible to fake, therefore towntells exist, therefore Des is (probably) town. CKD's position appears to be the opposite. Okay, theory disagreement.

It's theory, but it is important. It is horrifically anti-town to have people playing under the delusion that certain things can be, based on nothing more than gut instinct, manifestly "protown".

This debate is silly, but: it doesn't work like that. The fact one cannot point to anything specific does not make it more or less obvious, merely less able to be pinned down to some number of specific things. I think it would be reasonable to say if you had a very strong gut read on someone from their posting that it was 'obvious' to you they were town; that's how I interpreted it.

And I normally don't say this, but I agree. Des pretty much has a huge neon "I AM TOWN" sign glued to him at the moment. I can't point to any one specific thing, but it does seem fairly obvious, especially when I played with his town self recently. I literally flipped through the thread, read a post or two of his and went "oh, good, Des is town". Currently, either he's town here, or he's absolutely godly as scum. I don't think that's contradictory at all.

This is just proof of my point. People keep saying "DES IS TOWN" but nobody can explain why. However, if you approach him with even a modicum of sobriety you will appreciate that nothing he has said or done is incompatible, or even reasonably unlikely, to come from scum. I don't think Des is at all scummy, but I also don't think he appears protown either. If you cannot find facts to justify a feeling about a player, than you need to abandon the feeling. Smart scum can manipulate town instincts very easily, which is one of the reasons why I have such a strong opposition to gut play (or, more specifically, "subjective assertion without objective evidence"). Of course, it's completely possible that there might be good reasons why you think Des is protown, but you just aren't consciously aware of them. The trouble with that approach is that your emotions are more often than not going to be giving you a set of false positives - so it is better on precuationary terms to seek objective bases, rather than relying on your gut instinct. Gut can be a good reason for reading a player more closely, but it CANNOT form the basis for a read itself.

[destructor]

I'm sorry, I haven't been keeping up since my last post. Looking at the last vote count I see that Korts is catching up to ckd. I'm not sure which of Korts/ckd I actually find most suspicious but I'd be pretty happy with either of their lynches (maybe leaning Korts, actually) from where I left off. more later tonight.

[Yosarian2]

If you cannot find facts to justify a feeling about a player, than you need to abandon the feeling. Smart scum can manipulate town instincts very easily, which is one of the reasons why I have such a strong opposition to gut play (or, more specifically, "subjective assertion without objective evidence").

Meh...I can't agree with this. I tend to think my "townie-dar" is very reliable, personally. It's only been actually fooled twice, I think. When I have a strong gut feeling a player is town, I'm almost always right, and it's worthwhile for people to pay attention to gut feelings.

I don't think it's any easier for scum to "manipulate" gut felings then it is for them to manipulate, well, anything else.

The key thing is to listen to gut feelings, pay attention to them, but don't trust them 100% and be willing to change your mind. Do that, and you're usuallly in good shape.

ALso, "town tell" might not be a good phrase to use (since no one is trying to "hide" that they are town), but I do think that there are actions that are more likely to come from town then from scum.

[Kison]

To whomever asked me what I think of Battle Mage, I think for the most part his zany behavior matches what I remember from playing with him ages ago. Which doesn't say much. The only thing from him which I find even remotely alarming so far is his declaration that he is pretty sure CKD is Town so early in the game.

Kirson bouncing off the walls

Kirson

r

AHHHH!!! GET HIM!!!



Die filthy r scum impostor.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi,

I'm Kison, and I'm Town. This is good news.

Battle Mage, is there any reason you've reverted back to your hardware from early 2007? I thought we all agreed that it was obsolete. And by obsolete, I mean your short vote attention span is distracting and not helpful. The problem is this is not really early game anymore, and you're still acting like a maniac. Do you mind explaining what madness has driven you to switch your vote four hundred times over a span of twenty-some posts?

PS: An interesting consequence of the rules as Adel responded to me is that if we quick-lynch someone before Adel has resolved a mafia kill, the mafia kill will not go through. So we might want to try that as a strategy at some point, and in fact we might want to be more liberal about hammering on a whim or some such if the mafia have not killed yet. Sure, mafia could get away with BS quick hammers, but then they would be killing scummy people instead of whomever they chose.

In light of Adel's response to this I am just going to reiterate that I am opposed to rushing the day. We don't necessarily have to run up to the deadline, but I do not see any benefit in ending the day prematurely if we're not ready.

Rofl's position is (basically) that some townish things are impossible to fake, therefore towntells exist, therefore Des is (probably) town. CKD's position appears to be the opposite. Okay, theory disagreement. But then CKD says Rofl is buddying up. That would imply RoflTown couldn't reasonably believe Des was town, and I'd think it fairly obvious that he could;

roflcopter was giving the impression that he had more than just a mild belief that Destructor was town.

I don't see a reason CKD would eliminate the possibility that Rofl is genuine, but (in his opinion) incorrect. So I think his suspicion is contrived, primarily because I would have expected him to have encountered this viewpoint before (it's probably a lot more common than his)[/b] but also because of the way he went about it; stuff like 114 / 116 seems more oriented towards convincing other people rather than talking it over. I think a townie would probably be more inclined to try and see if they were right or not, especially at this stage of the game. Scum are far more inclined to turn it into a "me vs. you" debate because they can be sure they're not on the same side, whereas town-town fights can be awful.

It goes beyond the initial feeling roflcopter displayed; he was refusing to provide anything to back it up. I find the idea of being able to write someone off while unable to provide any example of what is giving you that feeling to be inconceivable. CKD coming to that same conclusion does not bother me at all.

Anyway, this ties into a question someone asked me before I last posted, which was asking me to give an opinion on CKD. I think I already have, but I'll just say again that I wasn't fond of his justification for swapping his vote to roflcopter(pre argument) but agree with his stance on the argument which followed after(regarding the destructor town clearing). Therefore I don't feel there's a strong beckoning for my vote.

Kison is kind of scummy. But I don't know if that's just him. Kison, are you scum?

Scummy indicates I've done something that makes me more likely to be scum. What, then are you referring to? Or did your 'gut' tell you to say that?

Vote: Zazier

temporary placeholder while I find a better home for my vote. Zazier, where art thou?

[roflcopter]

Des pretty much has a huge neon "I AM TOWN" sign glued to him at the moment. I can't point to any one specific thing, but it does seem fairly obvious, especially when I played with his town self recently. I literally flipped through the thread, read a post or two of his and went "oh, good, Des is town". Currently, either he's town here, or he's absolutely godly as scum. I don't think that's contradictory at all.

Any chance you can back that up, for those of us who HAVEN'T played with TownDes recently?

why do people keep trying to do this?

also, sens, please answer the questions i posed to you in regards to the last time you posted.

[ZazieR]

I'm back Kison. Don't worry. I'll just say it now so that everybody will know it:

Hi, I'm ZazieR. I'm 17 years old and a high school student. At this moment, I am in my last year of high school. Although I'm having lots of fun here, except when players ask me to be more serious in my posts, I have to concentrate on RL as well. I want to finish high school this year. I'm pretty much online, but sometimes I have not enough time to post in all my games. Then I start somewhere and see where it will end. However, that results in leaving some games awhile. Especially, Little Italy and Theme Park are victims of this approach.
To make a long story short:
I want to finish high school. To that, I can't give all my attention to all my games and therefor will have to be absent from some games for awhile. Especially the following 3/4 weeks will be busy as I have a lot of essays to finish and I'll soon have test week.

I'll start my analysis right now. Starting with CKD and his voters. But I'll post that some other time.

[curiouskarmadog]

see sig (posting in 3 games).

[Elmo]

If you cannot find facts to justify a feeling about a player, than you need to abandon the feeling. Smart scum can manipulate town instincts very easily, which is one of the reasons why I have such a strong opposition to gut play (or, more specifically, "subjective assertion without objective evidence").

You know (probably) nothing about me, yet you immediately assert that my gut instincts can be easily manipulated. I literally cannot ever remember having a strong town gut read on someone who turned out to be scum. Some people can be manipulated easily, but certainly not everyone who relies on gut. I mean, Glork is basically the canonical gut-based player - how easy is he to manipulate? Not terribly, to say the least. I seem to remember you objecting to his gut when you played with him in mith's second California game, where he destroyed all the scum and was nominated for a scummie, yes? Why wasn't he manipulated by the scum there?

The trouble with that approach is that your emotions are more often than not going to be giving you a set of false positives - so it is better on precuationary terms to seek objective bases, rather than relying on your gut instinct.

This may be true for you. In fact, this probably is true for you, which is why you play as you do. But it's not true for me. And you're asserting this without giving any argument as to why it's true in general, or for me specifically, when my experiences are directly contrary to this. So I respectfully disagree.

Your fundamental problem is that you seem to have generalised about everyone, all together. What you've said may well be true for some subset of people, probably including you, but it cannot trivially be extended to everyone. Your playstyle (I would hope) is designed to fit you, with your individual strengths and weaknesses. If you find your gut is frequently wrong or misleading, then your playstyle should definitely cover that weakness by seeking refuge primarily in logic, and I approve of that. But that is

you

, and your experiences are not extendible to everyone else, because they are not clones of you, and indeed a large number are not remotely similar to you. I am honestly surprised that someone who claims to be logical would seriously try and generalise about literally everyone without a stronger basis. You are basically asserting that gut is typically inaccurate, but as far as I know, there has been no statistical data gathered on the typical accuracy of gut reads, in general or per-player. On that basis, I would assume you're saying "in my experience, gut is innaccurate". Okay; but in my experience, gut is accurate. Moreover, in my experience,

my

gut is accurate, which is somewhat more important in deciding whether I listen to my gut or not. So I don't know what kind of objective basis you're arguing on.

I really do not mind how you choose to play, but I find your attitude that essentially I am terrible at mafia and need instruction as to how to play in the Vollkan-approved manner patronising at best. This is entirely aside from my belief that you're wrong.

I don't really know why I bother writing this. But for now, there it is.

[vollkan]

If you cannot find facts to justify a feeling about a player, than you need to abandon the feeling. Smart scum can manipulate town instincts very easily, which is one of the reasons why I have such a strong opposition to gut play (or, more specifically, "subjective assertion without objective evidence").

Meh...I can't agree with this. I tend to think my "townie-dar" is very reliable, personally. It's only been actually fooled twice, I think. When I have a strong gut feeling a player is town, I'm almost always right, and it's worthwhile for people to pay attention to gut feelings.

I don't think it's any easier for scum to "manipulate" gut felings then it is for them to manipulate, well, anything else.

The key thing is to listen to gut feelings, pay attention to them, but don't trust them 100% and be willing to change your mind. Do that, and you're usuallly in good shape.

ALso, "town tell" might not be a good phrase to use (since no one is trying to "hide" that they are town), but I do think that there are actions that are more likely to come from town then from scum.

We are getting into theory here...but I suppose this is directly relevant to my comments on rofl and others, so it needs elaborating.

Yos, I have absolutely no doubt that your townie-dar and your scum-dar for that matter are of a very high standard. But from what I've seen of your play here and elsewhere, you aren't a "gut" sort of player. Even I don't have a problem with listening to gut feelings; I do that myself (if I get a bad feeling on somebody, I will reread them and try to work out why). What I do have a problem with, and I'll expand on this in a minute, is where people take their gut as evidence for somebody's scumminess or towniness.

Not to suggest a dichotomy, but gut is easier to manipulate than objectively-grounded (ie. rebuttable) arguments. We see it repeated here, and it's a pattern I've seen in a number of games that people just intuitively associate "nice sounding posts" (calmness, rationality, clarity, consistency, etc.) with towniness. To a large extent, without significant pressure of suspicion and so on these aren't at all hard to emulate as scum.

The flip side of this is that demanding a high level of justification for things sets the field up better for town. Legitimising gut simply gives scum an out for avoiding to post reasoning. The more town is prepared to tolerate incomplete justification, the easier things become for scum. It's good for debate and its good exposing cracks in reasoning if people aren't allowed to slide by simply justifying things by reference to their feelings.


And I am not saying there is no such thing as a towntell - though I cannot see any basis for concluding that a few posts which show a reasonable level of reasoning should merit plaudits.

If you cannot find facts to justify a feeling about a player, than you need to abandon the feeling. Smart scum can manipulate town instincts very easily, which is one of the reasons why I have such a strong opposition to gut play (or, more specifically, "subjective assertion without objective evidence").

You know (probably) nothing about me, yet you immediately assert that my gut instincts can be easily manipulated. I literally cannot ever remember having a strong town gut read on someone who turned out to be scum. Some people can be manipulated easily, but certainly not everyone who relies on gut. I mean, Glork is basically the canonical gut-based player - how easy is he to manipulate? Not terribly, to say the least. I seem to remember you objecting to his gut when you played with him in mith's second California game, where he destroyed all the scum and was nominated for a scummie, yes? Why wasn't he manipulated by the scum there?

Elmo, I am not suggesting that you, Glork, Yos or anybody in particular is easy to manipulate/cannot instinctively get reliable reads. I did have this debate with Glork in California #2, but I don't think his success there at all affects the point I am making

The trouble with that approach is that your emotions are more often than not going to be giving you a set of false positives - so it is better on precuationary terms to seek objective bases, rather than relying on your gut instinct.

This may be true for you. In fact, this probably is true for you, which is why you play as you do. But it's not true for me. And you're asserting this without giving any argument as to why it's true in general, or for me specifically, when my experiences are directly contrary to this. So I respectfully disagree.

Your fundamental problem is that you seem to have generalised about everyone, all together. What you've said may well be true for some subset of people, probably including you, but it cannot trivially be extended to everyone. Your playstyle (I would hope) is designed to fit you, with your individual strengths and weaknesses. If you find your gut is frequently wrong or misleading, then your playstyle should definitely cover that weakness by seeking refuge primarily in logic, and I approve of that. But that is

you

, and your experiences are not extendible to everyone else, because they are not clones of you, and indeed a large number are not remotely similar to you. I am honestly surprised that someone who claims to be logical would seriously try and generalise about literally everyone without a stronger basis. You are basically asserting that gut is typically inaccurate, but as far as I know, there has been no statistical data gathered on the typical accuracy of gut reads, in general or per-player. On that basis, I would assume you're saying "in my experience, gut is innaccurate". Okay; but in my experience, gut is accurate. Moreover, in my experience,

my

gut is accurate, which is somewhat more important in deciding whether I listen to my gut or not. So I don't know what kind of objective basis you're arguing on.

I really do not mind how you choose to play, but I find your attitude that essentially I am terrible at mafia and need instruction as to how to play in the Vollkan-approved manner patronising at best. This is entirely aside from my belief that you're wrong.

I don't really know why I bother writing this. But for now, there it is.

Well, yeah, its almost a truism to say this, but my style of play works for me. I don't believe my gut is inaccurate. In fact, it came VERY handy in Mini 542 - where one lynch looked set in and I backflipped at the last minute because I had a bad feeling. I then reread the player concerned, and found out why I had that feeling. They turned out to be scum.

So, I'm not asserting any empirical inaccuracy in gut suspicions. I don't have the statistics either way on that question. What I am saying, however, (see my response to Yos), is that given the possibility of gut being misled and given the policy advantages in being strict on reasons, it's better for town if gut is only tolerated as a means to finding reasons for suspicion (or towniness), rather than a basis for suspicion (or towniness)

I'd point to the roflcopter-sensfan thing here a good example. Rofl has made so many posts now loaded with hyperbole and assertion that his sneaky declaration of suspicion for Sensfan went unnoticed and, when I called him out on it, he pointed me to a set of meaningless (in terms of reflecting alignment) posts

And please don't think I meant to at all comment on your own play ability or anything like that. I'm not trying to coach anybody in how to play mafia. I'm just giving you my views on a theory point which has bearing on this particular game

[Korts]

Sorry guys, this game's on backburner until the weekend. I'll try to answer any questions directly at me, but my attention is due elsewhere at the moment.

[SensFan]

and why does townie need quotation marks but scummy doesn't?

Because I don't agree with the premise of 'towntells'. I don't think any individual action should make someone look pro-Town, only their play in general can do that.

[DrippingGoofball]

and why does townie need quotation marks but scummy doesn't?

Because I don't agree with the premise of 'towntells'. I don't think any individual action should make someone look pro-Town, only their play in general can do that.

Some things cannot be faked. Sometimes, they're not the sort of thing people would even think of faking.