Mini 720 - SPQR Mafia {Game Over}

[Glork]

OK. Now it's time to re-read the game and kick some serious ass. I'm a bit fired up after these recent defenses, and I finally feel ready to get my hands dirtier.

[El Destructo]

For the record, I don't think EA is scummy. I think I "get" him. I would find Yos scummier for saying things like EA uses crap logic if Elmo didn't have a similar read of him. There are other problems I have with Yos' case (on EA

and

Xtoxm) but I'm working them through with Elmo. I've never seen Yos play as town while Elmo has. This is more or less why I haven't already been pushing a case on Yos.

Yos was scum in Crackers! and I'm getting pretty much exactly the same vibe from him here. I understand that one game is a small sample size, but if the things I suspected Yos for in that game (and in this) are really just part of Yos' meta regardless of alignment, then I think the two of us have some seriously conflicting ideas on mafia theory. But, that would surprise me given that I tend to agree with most of what I read of his in MD. I'm finding it hard to accept that a player I would normally agree with on theory would play in a way that I find is woefully scummy.

des

[Glork]

Okay, a few thoughts.

I'm on Page 6 so far and haven't really found or felt anything that I didn't see or feel before. Maybe the first four pages bored me to death, except that I'm still glad I was able to see so clearly through Corio's altness.

I still don't see why a wagon was building on dahill. His behavior really doesn't differ from what I remember at Starkadium -- he didn't tend to say much unless it was to pipe up in agreement, until the games really got going.
I still think that Xtoxm's behavior was terrible, contradictory, and largely indicative of him being scum.

Page 7

Interesting to go back and see that the EA/Yos spat has been going on for a while. I have a theory on this, but I am going to hold my tongue on this matter for the time being, because I need a tiny bit more information.

--reiterate my "meh" feeling towards Dahill (that he hasn't done anything particularly out of the ordinary) in Post 155

Remind me to come back to 158, too.

I know Corio was trying to ruffle my feathers, but his blatant refusal to explain himself after my major FoS still bothers me a little -- not quite as much, now that I know he's Sim, but it's in the back of my head

In the face of a rising Dahill wagon, Incog brings us back to Xtoxm in Post 166. Possible Incog/Dahill connection noted.

The people i'm calling scummy are all voting me...

Um, that's because you call anyone who suspects you scummy.

Yos, did this post refer to Xtoxm in general, or in this game specifically?

Corio -- when you said the new xtoxm wagon was "full of stupid," did you just feel that Yos/Dahill were being dumb, or did/do you find either of those votes genuinely scummy?

Dahill - when you voted for xtox in 173, did you see Yos's vote (Post 170, 3 minutes earlier) before placing your vote or not?

Yos' arguing with Corio about the xtoxm being "new" or "the same" seems utterly pointless. Xtox went to 5, back down to 3, then back up to 5. Corio considers that a "new wagon" while Yos doesn't.

(phone call, posting this now so i have something)

[El Destructo]

D1 of Face-to-Face, I defended Thesp very strongly

I looked over Day 1. You call Thesp obvTown and the extent of your defence is Voting/FOSing the players that voted or cast suspicion on him. I didn't see any rebuttal of the cases against him. All in all, I wouldn't call that a strong defence of Thesp, especially since you interrogated him about his read of SV later that day. Also reading a bit into Day 2, you FOS Thesp and admit that your comment about Thesp was a joke.

So, this wasn't the sort of example I was looking for.

In this post during D1 of Lights Out 2, I listed seven other players whom I believed to be at least 75% protown

Lights Out 2 wasn't really an example of defending players. If you did defend anyone as opposed to calling them town, I'm admittedly too lazy to read the game and find out.

In D1 of LoudmouthLee's "New C9" I defended Guardian so staunchly that MBL noted my "hyper-defense" of him.

I dig your defence here.

In D1 of Satin Dolls (linked to it in my earlier post), I went out of my way to defend Elmo, simply because there appeared to be a really awful bandwagon on him as the deadline approached.

Fair enough.

So there are a handful of examples I came up with off the top of my head. I can't find the post because apparently the search function is broken, but I know that I've talked about the benefits of seeking out protown players and using that to aid someone in finding scum. I guess outright staunchly defending somebody because I believe them to be protown is somewhat rarer because it's not often that those people come under heavy scrutiny.

If it wasn't clear, I asked my question because of how you stepped in for dahill in Day 1. Particularly posts like 356 and 334-5. Especially 335.

I found it outright weird that you decided to spend as much time as you did telling us that Ether's arguement against dahill was flawed. 335 looked like coaching or something. Nah, probably not coaching, but it was something. You had basically done all the talking for dahill.

This is different from all of the examples you provided except maybe Satin Doll Showdown, but even then there are significant differences. In SDS, you believed the wagon on Elmo was bad, he had enough votes to be lynched, the day was about to end. That's a reasonable circumstance to defend another player. I don't see anything resembling that to justify what you did for dahill.

I've played with you 3 times before. You were town in 2 of those games (Mini 545 and CT:GTSF) and scum in one (Mars 3 - Weasels Mafia). In Weasels, one of the first things I picked up about you was your defence of Thanatos, which I found as inappropriate as your defence of dahill has been. What I basically take from this is that you're less likely to make an uncalled for defence of a player when you're town. This makes me suspect you more.

Something else that's weirding me out is the fact that you went out of your way to defend Xtoxm in CT:GTSF despite the fact that a heap of players thought he was a good lynch throughout the game. I can't remember a heap from that game, but I know that I never understood why you thought Xtoxm was town (I was one of those guys that wanted to lynch him). By the end of the game, I was just taking your word for it since you were pretty much confirmed town and seemed uncannily sure of his innocence.

What was different about Xtoxm's play in this game?

[El Destructo]

That last post was me as well.

Also to Glork, what did you seriously think the town would gain out of the Coriolanus-alt discussion? I'm not asking for an essay, even dot points would be enough for now.

des

[El Destructo]

Actually, I'd like Yos, Incog and dahill to answer that instead.

[Glork]

So let me get this straight, Des. Out of a three-game set, you noted that in two games (one as scum, and one as town) I went out of my way to defend a player, and you're trying to use this as ammo to state that I "usually only go out of my way to defend players when scum"?

Secondly, could you explain the differences in my Guardian defense (which you said you "dig") and the one of Dahill here?

Thirdly, thank you for reminding me of my Xtoxm defense. The primary reason I concluded that Xtoxm was very likely non-SCAPE can be found in this post. Look at the post where I link to NivScum's 149, FaeScum's 159, and FaeScum's 165. All three are examples of where scumbags rail a townie with bad attacks in a short period of time. While my defense of Xtoxm was, in that game, much more of a slam dunk than my defense of Dahill here,

they both reveal the same underlying principle

. If I see a lot of people making bad/weak attacks on the same player in a short period of time, my kneejerk reaction is to conclude that the player being railed is more likely to be protown.

I would also challenge the difference you cite in defending Elmo and defending Dahill. I thought that the wagon/votes/attacks on Elmo were crap then. I thought that the votes against Dahill yesterday were crap. In both situations, I felt that there were multiple other, better targets to look at, and that the wagons which had formed on the defendants was weak, somewhat flawed, and awfully convenient. If you want to cite "significant differences" between my beahvior then and my behavior now you're going to have to explain yourself a lot more clearly. Because I'm not buying what you're selling.

At any rate, no two different game examples will be exactly parallel. I can hardly see why you would just throw out my defenses of Guardian, Xtoxm, and Elmo with a casual "there are significant differences" and continue to assert that "Glork is more likely to go out of his way to defend someone if he is scum" when the evidence very clearly indicates otherwise.

Also to Glork, what did you seriously think the town would gain out of the Coriolanus-alt discussion? I'm not asking for an essay, even dot points would be enough for now.

The town? Fie on the town, I already explained what I wanted to get out of the interrogation:

I don't know if this is what Yos means, but I personally have used this grilling of Corio to try to feel out his behavioral and thought processes as much as possible. I've probably gotten more out of these first four pages than most.

This quote very clearly explains what I was looking to get out of Corio, and it notes that I was well aware that the discussion probably wasn't all that useful for the rest of the town.
Another swing and a miss, Des. But feel free to keep trying.

[Glork]

EBWOP: And to more directly answer your second question:

What was different about Xtoxm's play in this game?

It wasn't so much Xtoxm's play, as the way that known scumbags had behaved towards him during my re-read. But I should think this is obvious based on the post to which I just linked.

[OhGodMyLife]

Vote Count:

6 to lynch.

dahill1: 2 (charter, Tuberkulos)
Yosarian2: 2 (Glork, Erratus Apathos)
Coriolanus: 1 (El Destructo)
Erratus Apathos: 1 (Yosarian2)
El Destructo: 1 (Incognito)
Glork: 1 (Coriolanus)

Not Voting: 2 (dahill1, Assmaster)

Prodding Assmaster.

[charter]

That is the most pathetic votecount ever. SERIOUSLY?

[El Destructo]

Re: Coriolanus, yep, that's why I asked the others to answer it instead. I stopped swinging before I could miss.

About Xtoxm in CT, did you suspect him before Niv and FL were confirmed scum? I can't remember, it's just about 2am and I'm being lazy about rereading the game. Do you think Xtoxm's play

was

different in that game? I seem to remember him being evasive to questions I asked him during that game, much like he had been to questions asked of him here.

About the Guardian defence, the attacks on him were lame. It was obvious that he was not being very serious. I think you were trying to nip that one in the bud so as to get discussion onto better topics. This defence was called for and pro-town for those reasons.

Biggest difference between Elmo and dahill is urgency. In SDS, the deadline was imminent. Your dahill defences at 334-5 were not urgent and so served little pro-town purpose in my eyes, hence I call them

uncalled for

.

Would you argue with me if I said that there are more similarities between your defences of Thanatos and dahill than with those of Elmo and dahill?

Taking all the examples you provided as well as the games I've played with you into account, what I said before - that you're less likely to make an uncalled for defence of a player when you're town - holds true. Most of the time, I pick my words carefully. Both of the other statements you say I made about you and defending others aren't accurate.

[Glork]

I would argue that whatever definition you use for "uncalled for" is crap.

If I see players making crappy attacks on other players, I will go after those attacks, and I generally default to believing that the victims of the attacks are protown, unless I have prior reason to suspect distancing, or evidence comes up later to suggest that they were distancing.

I really don't remember what I thought of Xtox prior to my re-read, and I cannot be arsed to go back and look at it right now. I went and grabbed that post because I remembered that the crux of my Xtoxm defense was "scumbags made bad attacks on him" and I wanted to draw that parallel to my defense of Elmo against bad attacks, my defense of Guardian against bad attacks, and my defense of Dahill against bad attacks.

Regarding Dahill in this game: If you want me to get BACK into the reasons that Ether's attacks were ass, I will do so, but honestly I don't think it's going to do all that much good. But as a quick recap:
-Ether claimed that his post was contradictory, even though she admitted she found his explanation for his behavior to be "very plausable."
-She was jumping all over the place, to the point where I had to as her to stop, sort out her thoughts start-to-finish, and post exactly how she felt about Dahill throughout the entire ordeal. Regretfully, I don't think she ended up doing this.
I went after Ether pretty hard towards the end of the day, because it was evident that she wasn't playing well.

Regarding your "difference" between me SDS and this game: Need I remind you that THIS game has a standing deadline, and that my interrogation of Ether came within 48 hours of that deadline, and that I didn't even say "I don't really understand where there's a wagon on dahill, I'll have to go back and look at this stuff"? If you don't think time was a factor there, with the holidays going on and player availability at a minimum, then I really don't know what to say here.

It looks like you are TRYING to make it look like my actions here are different from other games when I did similarly as protown, by pulling reasons out of your ass as you go along.
--You yourself brought up me going out of the way to defend Xtoxm, but kind kind of mentioned it in passing, and dismissed it in your analysis of "uncalled for" defenses.
--You haven't defined what you believe to be "uncalled for," forcing me to take stabs at defending myself against your phantom attack
--You just tried to bring up a difference between SDS and this game that was hardly a difference at all. Time concerns played a part in both instances. In both instances, a decision needed to be made between two rival wagons, and I supported one while attacking the other.

Unvote, Vote: El Destructo

You're full of shit. I think that if you honestly believed that my play was more consistent with me being scum than me being town, then you would have done your homework well ahead of time and been able to present a complete argument up front. Instead, you just threw out that feeling, and when I started to dig into it, you kept coming up with something new each post.

[Incognito]

Reading up from where I last posted, I find destructor's usage of meta-gaming on this page to be really odd. destructor, you and me have played in a number of games before both on-site and off-site and in each and every one, you were always very strongly anti-meta

(Yes, I'm meta-ing your anti-meta sentiments.)

. Why are you using it so vehemently on this page?

Also to Glork, what did you seriously think the town would gain out of the Coriolanus-alt discussion? I'm not asking for an essay, even dot points would be enough for now.

des

Actually, I'd like Yos, Incog and dahill to answer that instead.

I believe I covered this before but the main thing that I was concerned about with the Coriolanus-alt discussion was whether or not Corio was actually an experienced player who was using an alt to try and purposely feign a certain level of inexperience. You and me have talked about alts in the past, and I don't want to go into too many specifics here since it would require exposing an alt or two, but I believe you actually agreed with me that feigning inexperience under an alt account can actually be a powerful scum tactic as it greatly diminishes the expectations that a town can have on you and allows towns to write off certain things as "inexperience tells" or "newbie tells" or "VI tells" or some other such thing. When Coriolanus made the comment about the "lack of Glork death disappointing him" on page 2 of the thread, I began to become curious about whether or not he may have been feigning inexperience as a possible scum tactic under an alt account and therefore, I felt the discussion was at least somewhat warranted.

[Glork]

Why are you using it so vehemently on this page?

Oh fuck. I didn't even know that Des is traditionally anti-meta.


Fucking confirm vote, bitches.

[El Destructo]

So, I ask Glork questions, he responds/asks for clarity, I do so and that translates into me pulling something new out of my ass?

Getting to the beef,

--You yourself brought up me going out of the way to defend Xtoxm, but kind kind of mentioned it in passing, and dismissed it in your analysis of "uncalled for" defenses.

How the fuck do you see me raising this point in passing when I ask you to explain it? Why else would I ask you to explain it other than to compare your reasons there to your reasons with dahill?

--You haven't defined what you believe to be "uncalled for," forcing me to take stabs at defending myself against your phantom attack

How many things can uncalled for mean?

You had basically done all the talking for dahill.

Uncalled for means stepping in to answer for another player when their own response would be more informative and useful. I really thought this was obvious, Glork.

--You just tried to bring up a difference between SDS and this game that was hardly a difference at all. Time concerns played a part in both instances. In both instances, a decision needed to be made between two rival wagons, and I supported one while attacking the other.

For a start, I specifically mentioned 334-5, which WASN'T 48 hours before deadline and

absolutely incomparable

to the deadline scramble you made in SDS. You're either ignoring this on purpose or sloppy.

You're full of shit. I think that if you honestly believed that my play was more consistent with me being scum than me being town, then you would have done your homework well ahead of time and been able to present a complete argument up front. Instead, you just threw out that feeling, and when I started to dig into it, you kept coming up with something new each post.

Done my homework = metagame? If so, my questions were obviously me doing said homework.

That last sentence is pretty full of bs. All that was "new" was a few extra questions/comments about the CT game and, well, that's basically it. My last post was basically a recap of the one before maybe with more clarity.


I didn't see Ether's attack on dahill as bad, certainly not as bad as the attack on Guardian, so I don't believe your defence would be as justified.


So, Glork, are you OMGUSing me or using this as an excuse not to make a case on Yos? Quick, decide!

[Glork]

--You yourself brought up me going out of the way to defend Xtoxm, but kind kind of mentioned it in passing, and dismissed it in your analysis of "uncalled for" defenses.

How the fuck do you see me raising this point in passing when I ask you to explain it? Why else would I ask you to explain it other than to compare your reasons there to your reasons with dahill?

You asked me to explain why I thought Xtoxm was protown then and not protown here. You only mentioned me going out of my way to defend Xtoxm in passing. Different things here, buddy.

--You haven't defined what you believe to be "uncalled for," forcing me to take stabs at defending myself against your phantom attack

How many things can uncalled for mean?

You had basically done all the talking for dahill.

Uncalled for means stepping in to answer for another player when their own response would be more informative and useful. I really thought this was obvious, Glork.

Wrong on multiple accounts.
First, Dahill explained himself separately. Secondly, if you go back and read carefully, I was basically critiquing Ether's attack (which claimed a clear and direct contradiction) than anything else. Thirdly, I would still argue that my defense was called for, because I was seeking to explore the afore-mentioned bad attack.

--You just tried to bring up a difference between SDS and this game that was hardly a difference at all. Time concerns played a part in both instances. In both instances, a decision needed to be made between two rival wagons, and I supported one while attacking the other.

For a start, I specifically mentioned 334-5, which WASN'T 48 hours before deadline and

absolutely incomparable

to the deadline scramble you made in SDS. You're either ignoring this on purpose or sloppy.

I'm not sure how you can possibly see this as the central part of my defense of Dahill.

Ether said she was amazed at how people could "overlook his scumminess without acknowledging his contradiction." I replied by pointing out that it didn't look like a contradiction to me. Ether's attack was just bad. Awful. And because her "contradiction" DID NOT FUCKING EXIST, that makes my post COMPLETELY CALLED FOR.

You're full of shit. I think that if you honestly believed that my play was more consistent with me being scum than me being town, then you would have done your homework well ahead of time and been able to present a complete argument up front. Instead, you just threw out that feeling, and when I started to dig into it, you kept coming up with something new each post.

Done my homework = metagame? If so, my questions were obviously me doing said homework.

No, doing your homework would be exploring the metagame fully, instead of taking Mars 3, CT:SF, and whatever that other game was as your entire sample set. Three games, one of which includes an out-of-the-way defense of a protown player with me as protown and undermines your own point, does not make for a good meta argument. It makes for a very bad one. That is why you did not do your homework.

So, Glork, are you OMGUSing me or using this as an excuse not to make a case on Yos? Quick, decide!

Neither, obviously. I know that I have to address Yos, but you have clearly gotten me focused elsewhere for the time being. You can't engage me in a lengthy debate then say I'm using said debate as a way to avoid posting about Yos. Plus, I said in my re-read of the first 8 pages that I need a little more info before I decide what to do about him.

[El Destructo]

Reading up from where I last posted, I find destructor's usage of meta-gaming on this page to be really odd. destructor, you and me have played in a number of games before both on-site and off-site and in each and every one, you were always very strongly anti-meta

(Yes, I'm meta-ing your anti-meta sentiments.)

. Why are you using it so vehemently on this page?

I thought I'd used meta in YOUR game (AoaDA), actually.
I definitely used it in Crackers too. My read of a lot of players was based largely on my experience with them.
I also admitted to using it in one shape or form in MD [url=http://www.mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopi ... metagaming[/url].
I've probably used it in other games too.

Getting into Glork's meta was a pretty natural progression from my question to him. First, I see him defending dahill. In context (which I've explained already), I find this anti-town bordering scummy. I know Glork has played lots of games. I remember him doing the same sort of thing early in a game from Weasels, where he was scum. I ask him about other games he's done it in to see if he did it as town as well. If he could show me a game where he did something similar as town, I would have dropped it then and there.

This whole thing pegs on Glork being able to show us an example of him defending a player who is in no immediate danger of being lynched and has had a more than a minor point raised against them.

Glork says Ether's point about dahill's contradiction was bad. I disagree. Rather than saying "Ether was playing badly", Glork needs to explain what was so bad about her case on dahill that warranted him stepping in on dahill's behalf.

Preview edit: I see Glork's latest post. On skim, apparently my last paragraph might be redundant. I'm posting this anyway. Will reply to glork in my next one.

[Glork]

To elaborate on the "do your homework" point. Here's the way I'm looking at it.


You presented a terrible meta argument and asked for additional examples. I presented two very reasonable examples, but I get the feeling that you asked for examples

specifically with the intent to separate them from your lone "glorkscum defending people" examples in Mars 3

, which would much more likely come from scum than from town. I think that a protown player would be far more likely to go "these circumstances aren't exactly the same, but I can see parallels which could feasably explain his behavior here."

[Glork]

If he could show me a game where he did something similar as town, I would have dropped it then and there.

This is exactly where your current argument fails. You say you're asking for something similar, yet you are finding any and every NIT to PICK in order to make them appear different.

[Glork]

Des, I've got another example, but I'm not sure how valid you're going to find it.


In Kingmaker II, bird1111 had been pretty useless throughout D1, then opened up D2 with a nice, lengthy analysis post (found here). A few posts later, MBL came up with an idea out of the blue, that bird1111's scumbuddies told him to shape up (behold). Now, the next ten days' worth of posts were lost in a site crash (which is why I'm not sure you're going to accept this), but an ENORMOUS amount of momentum, with an awful lot of pressure for me to execute bird1111. A number of people, including SpecrumVoid (scum), petroleumjelly (scum), and Pooky (scum) gave very real plausibilitiy to this wagon, and I know that at PJ and Pooky had outright joined the wagon. I was one of the players who vehemently argued against the notion and ensuing wagon. Yos actually agreed with me on this point, saying in Post 533 after the fact:

But anyway, like I was saying, MBL's "nutkick" theory dosn't seem scummy to me, but it's not very compelling either, so it seems very odd to me the way a very strong bandwagon very quickly appeared and gathered a lot of support based on just that.

After the argument settled down, I had stated that I wasn't completely sold on Bird's alignment, but that I hated the VERY strong and VERY fast wagon so much, that I was almost certain scum were on it. (See this post for details.)

So there.
Beginning of a day, no immediate pressure of him being executed.
Strong bandwagon on a completely unfounded theory pitched by one player.
I wasn't sure of Bird's alignment, but defended him vehemently in the face of such a bad bandwagon.


Now go ahead. Find some stupid difference between KM2 and this to say "no you still haven't found what I'm looking for" so we can start this whole stupid debate over yet again.

[Glork]

real plausibilitiy to this

thoery

proofread for the loss

[El Destructo]

--You yourself brought up me going out of the way to defend Xtoxm, but kind kind of mentioned it in passing, and dismissed it in your analysis of "uncalled for" defenses.

How the fuck do you see me raising this point in passing when I ask you to explain it? Why else would I ask you to explain it other than to compare your reasons there to your reasons with dahill?

You asked me to explain why I thought Xtoxm was protown then and not protown here. You only mentioned me going out of my way to defend Xtoxm in passing. Different things here, buddy.

Ok, I need to take something back here.

I asked you about xtoxm not to compare to dahill, but to compare to your reasons for finding him scummy here. This question was completely separate from mine about dahill. I expect to take some flak for this.

I'm still not sure how you see me as asking about xtoxm in passing, though.

--You haven't defined what you believe to be "uncalled for," forcing me to take stabs at defending myself against your phantom attack

How many things can uncalled for mean?

You had basically done all the talking for dahill.

Uncalled for means stepping in to answer for another player when their own response would be more informative and useful. I really thought this was obvious, Glork.

Wrong on multiple accounts.
First, Dahill explained himself separately. Secondly, if you go back and read carefully, I was basically critiquing Ether's attack (which claimed a clear and direct contradiction) than anything else. Thirdly, I would still argue that my defense was called for, because I was seeking to explore the afore-mentioned bad attack.

I need to check Ether's posts here again. I thought dahill's explanation for the contradiction, something like "MD comments shouldn't factor into actual games" or something, was incredibly unbelievable. Does that mean he LIES in MD or something? It looked to me like you were providing a further explanation for dahill's comments in 334:

That's probably because "unexplained votes can be awesome/useful" and "unexplained votes can be genuinely scummy" are FAR from mutually exclusive.

To this post, I wrote this in my notes:

BUT THEN WHY DIDN'T DAHILL SAY THAT INSTEAD OF MAKING SOME LAME AND VAGUE EXCUSE ABOUT MD NOT FACTORING INTO GAMES? AND WHY DID GLORK IGNORE ETHER'S POINT ABOUT THAT?

You add to that in 335:

Furthemore, there is a distinct difference between "accusing X of being scum for no reason" and "voting for X without giving a reason." Again, I'll leave it up to dahill to justify that difference

The "leave it up to dahill to justify that difference" part totally pings something off. It's like you gave him everything he needed to actually make some sense but by adding the "leave it up to him" bit were trying to dust your hands of it or something.

--You just tried to bring up a difference between SDS and this game that was hardly a difference at all. Time concerns played a part in both instances. In both instances, a decision needed to be made between two rival wagons, and I supported one while attacking the other.

For a start, I specifically mentioned 334-5, which WASN'T 48 hours before deadline and

absolutely incomparable

to the deadline scramble you made in SDS. You're either ignoring this on purpose or sloppy.

I'm not sure how you can possibly see this as the central part of my defense of Dahill.

See above. Even in my first post on this topic I made a special and specific note of 334-5. It was THIS that reminded me of your Thanatos defence.

Ether said she was amazed at how people could "overlook his scumminess without acknowledging his contradiction." I replied by pointing out that it didn't look like a contradiction to me. Ether's attack was just bad. Awful. And because her "contradiction" DID NOT FUCKING EXIST, that makes my post COMPLETELY CALLED FOR.

I think dahill was making shit up about his stance on MD. So in my mind, the contradiction stands.

No, doing your homework would be exploring the metagame fully, instead of taking Mars 3, CT:SF, and whatever that other game was as your entire sample set. Three games, one of which includes an out-of-the-way defense of a protown player with me as protown and undermines your own point, does not make for a good meta argument. It makes for a very bad one. That is why you did not do your homework.

I didn't bring those three games up until after I asked for examples. Succinctly, none of the town examples you bought up undermined my point given that none were as similar to what you did in 334-5 as your defence of Thanatos.

So, Glork, are you OMGUSing me or using this as an excuse not to make a case on Yos? Quick, decide!

Neither, obviously. I know that I have to address Yos, but you have clearly gotten me focused elsewhere for the time being. You can't engage me in a lengthy debate then say I'm using said debate as a way to avoid posting about Yos. Plus, I said in my re-read of the first 8 pages that I need a little more info before I decide what to do about him.

I really want to see what you find.


Preview edit: So Glork posted again. It's too late for me to post anymore. goes to sleep.

[Glork]

I see you mentioning

about my defense of Xtoxm

"in passing." I am well aware that you intended to compare why I thought Xtox was town then with why I thought Xtox was scum here. But you sort of mentioned that you never understood how I could defend him so strongly, and that you thought he was a very good lynch candidate. You sort of hint that I defended Xtox in the face of a big wagon, but only briefly mention it in your discussion of Xtox in CT:SF.


I think I need to backtrack a bit and figure explain some timeline stuff.

When Ether first posted that link to MD ("Terrible."), I never bothered to click on the link. I had assumed it was in reference to one of dahills' earlier posts, and that's where the contradiction had come from.
Later, Ether asked about how other townspeople could have dismissed the contradiction so easily, and I said "because it's not really a contradiction." As indicated in this post, I hadn't really paid attention to the Ether/Dahill contradiction, so when Ether said "well what do you think about Dahill's response" I did a wtf of sorts.
That said, I still didn't think that the MD/game contradiction existed, because I found Dahill's defense to be plausible. I asked Ether if she found it to be plausible.
In her response, here, she said she found his explanation to be "extremely easy to believe," but that it's his vote for Corio that she doesn't like. She also calls his defense "flaily" (which I would really have liked her to flesh out) and an "extension" of the "original contradiction" (which he had already provided a believable explanation for?).

Basically, at no point did my interpretation of Ether's attack make any sense to me. If you feel that her attack was and is still valid, I would absolutely love for you to re-explain it, because I still see nothing incriminating there. Because here is what I see across this timeline:
--Dahill calls an unfounded vote scummy.
--Ether points to MD, he says "yeah, but that's not actually how I feel about those votes in real games," and he points out that he basically did it for shits and giggles.
--Ether maintains that there is a contradiction
--I ask if she could find Dahill's "quoting Glork for the lulz" to be believable
--Ether says yes, but that she didn't like his Corio-vote, and that his defense was an extension of the contradiction
--I point out how flawed that is, because the contradiction only exists if she disbelieves his explanation, which she clearly said she found to be believable, and I wonder how she can call his defense an "extension" of a nonexistent contradiction

[Glork]

EBWOP: I am extremely interested to see what Elmo has to say about this entire discussion.

[Incognito]

Reading up from where I last posted, I find destructor's usage of meta-gaming on this page to be really odd. destructor, you and me have played in a number of games before both on-site and off-site and in each and every one, you were always very strongly anti-meta

(Yes, I'm meta-ing your anti-meta sentiments.)

. Why are you using it so vehemently on this page?

I thought I'd used meta in YOUR game (AoaDA), actually.
I definitely used it in Crackers too. My read of a lot of players was based largely on my experience with them.
I also admitted to using it in one shape or form in MD viewtopic.php?t=8098&highlight=metagaming.
I've probably used it in other games too.

Please point to where specifically you used meta in my game. I couldn't remember off-hand, I just finished scouring your posts, and I couldn't find any indication that you used the same type of meta that you're using here within that game. I haven't looked into Crackers! yet, but I will when I get a chance.

Here are previous posts by you that pretty clearly indicate your stance on meta as town in the previous games that we've played on here:

Yep, Incog covered it.

If it's mafia you might know more about Incognito's playstyle than I do, and part of the reason I've started seeing him as town is that he seems more like how he's played as town in games I've read here than as scum (although I've only found one as scum). I'd be interested to know what leads you to your read of him as town.

My experience with his playstyle probably does have a bit to do with my read on him, but

honestly, I try not to meta players as much as possible so I don't want to refer to it too mcuh.

My town read is based mostly on the fact that I perceive his entry and subsequent posts as sincere and thoughtful attempts to generate content. I haven't noticed anything I'd call unreasonable or deceptive from him.

Well, that was opportunistic. The one possibly unrelated point I bought up was the "incognita twin" thing, but even that had something to do with this game. And of course I've been scum-hunting.

I'd rather a case was built based on posts as opposed to meta-arguments.

And if my playstyle really is bothering you - I make it a point to approach each game in a different manner to the last.

I've also looked at the MD topic that you linked to and here was the final stance that you took with regard to meta:

The biggest issue for me is that I don't think tells based on meta are that reliable. I figure that there's no reason a player can't change their playstyle either subtly or dramatically and so the actual manner in which they provide content isn't very revealing.

I suppose the only out-of-game knowledge of players I'm interested in is how experienced they are and so what level of content I can expect from them.

If that's really considered metagaming then I guess I'm not so opposed to it, but I'm not going to be looking for personal "tells" anytime soon.

If I'm interpreting this correctly, then your stance is that you don't think there is much merit to metagaming except in determining a player's skill level or how good a player's content usually is. Is this correct?

You also created a "Metaless Mafia" thread in which you mentioned the following:

Metagaming can help with this but I'm always open to the possibility of changing playstyles, which is why I prefer to play without it - a meta can become redundant (and if you believe change is constant and impermanence is fact meta is always redundant). A change in playstyle doesn't necessitate a decline in tact and knowledge of the game, though, so I would hold a player I know has both as accountable for their play as ever.

Again, further illustration of your dislike for using meta within games to determine a player's alignment.

How does your metagaming in this game in any way coincide with your previous stances on meta that you've taken in various places/games? Also, I'm mildly curious as to why your's and Elmo's reads of players differ so dramatically in this game? I just finished double-heading with Patrick as town in your BSG mafia and our top threes ended up being pretty much the same upon replacing in during Day 1 except they were in different orders.