Open 160 Bird 7P (GAME!) - before 823

[VP Baltar]

Thanks for modding Light-kun.

[yabbaguy]

That was certainly an interesting game. Here's what I make of everything:

For myself, it seems as though I started the exact same way as last game, got off to a very slow start in terms of proving myself pro-town, and this time it took even longer. When I reacted to hohum's initial suspicions of having a suspect list off the bat, I was hit with a fear that the Day might end well sooner than it should have, and that's why I reacted so strongly.

I'm not prepared to give up on the experiment of abandoning my random vote just yet. We'll see how that goes.

@VP Baltar: Very strong overall, and congratulations on surviving as cop. One thing I think nearly damned you was your focus towards the endgame, as I don't think Charnel had claimed vanilla, and yet you jumped on the copclaim. Then you supported my lynch almost jokingly "he's so obvscum it hurts" without realizing that I had just made a simple misunderstanding.

Keep it up though, man. By the way, what were those anti-town reasons you were withholding at the outset?

@Charnel: It's probably not much more than bad luck on your part for choosing me as a suspect. However, a lot of your comments seem to have a wise-ass tone of voice to them which often is an off-put and could fall under scummy sarcasm. That and keeping focused, as like I said, your vote on me was because you were annoyed at me, and you said statements that just outright made no sense or contradicted yourself.

Remember, if you're town, most of the people are on your side. Speak the truth, be honest, and be courteous above all.

@BloodCovenent: Please, don't take hohum's advice and quit. However, I will say that there's a lot left to be said for how you handled scum. You damned yourself with a combination of shrinking away from negative attention you deliberately brought upon yourself (Which isn't always all bad, but shrinking is bad) and generally getting on everyone's nerves, which didn't help your docclaim. I'd expect a doc to be a little less attention-grabbing and abrasive. (Although hohum was quite extrovert the whole game)

@egruntz: Distancing yourself from a predecessor's scumminess isn't a Get Out of Jail Free card by any means. Muzzz was right on the money, BC isn't stupid, and at least he made a claim that may have helped his team had hohum caved in.

Hard situation to dig yourself out of though, and a good effort.

@muzzz: Compliments to you for drawing an NK on a vanilla. You have a very strong grasp on the game. I think your posts being lengthened a bit would serve you better, as sometimes selective responses can be scummy to me, but the pro-town vibes were there from the get go. Well done.

@hohum: Congratulations on holding your firm ground as the real doctor whilst getting the faker out of the nest. However, it seems as though often your emotional passion for the game sometimes impeded your progress, as often I find the phrase "Moar __ lynching plz" to be quite suspicious. While it didn't matter, I notice your belligerence and short-sightedness overlooked the point that I had completely missed your docclaim, and was asking for that information, and yet you told me to "use my head" instead of providing the information I wanted.

Allow me to transition unsubtly to a self-plug, try my new Roleclaimer GIFs! They're a great way to make sure nobody misses your claim ever again!



Overall, well done. Just remember that if you're ever *not* sure about a suspect, but pursue them passionately, and they get lynched and flip town, you're in a lot of trouble. Also, you seem to be a habitual EBWOPer, and I don't know if that's due to not thinking things through or forgetting something consistently, but maybe some more pre-planning before you hit Submit might be a good idea? I don't know how you think, so I really don't know on that last point.

@Octupis: Overall, you did very well. It's really a shame that your scumpartner couldn't handle the full-on force of the investigations and that the odds just didn't break for you, but luck definitely counts. I think a few more posts would've helped maybe in case anyone calls you for lurking, but overall fine.

One thing I would've done differently: NK Baltar night 1. I think his "Divulging my reasons are not pro-town at the moment" clause is implying a powerrole, and that set off an alarm in my head.

Overall, though, well done.

---

One last observation, I noticed that for the most part, between me, hohum, and Baltar, probably mostly our fault, we outpaced the others by a ratio that I'd even deem dangerous. Often, when some vantage points aren't factored in enough, we often lead to cases where the town only goes off of those limited points and merrily heads on their way to a misguided lynch. I think some balancing issues were threatening, but luckily, it didn't matter for town.

Good game overall, guys.

[VP Baltar]

By the way, what were those anti-town reasons you were withholding at the outset?

Can you point me to the post you are referring to? Also, sorry about your lynch. When you went against my plan and Octupis was for it, I just figured you had to be scum because (admittedly from my perspective) it was guaranteed to win the game for town. Really, up until that point I had pretty much felt you were town, so I don't think you played badly at all--quite the opposite for being relatively new on the site and I would definitely play with you again.

[yabbaguy]

When you voted for BC (?) at the outset and Charnel started wondering "so if you're so pro-town, why don't you tell me your reasons?"

[VP Baltar]

Oh, because he voted No Lynch at the start, which is a horribly scummy move in this setup. Turns out, he was probably serious on getting a No Lynch. I thought it was fairly obvious and I said it wouldn't be pro-town to reveal my reasons because doing so removes the pressure of the vote. I wanted to gauge BC's reaction to it. I think this is something that many players don't understand fully about scumhunting.

Many times in games, players want you to fully explain yourself immediately for any move you make, but this isn't really the best way to go about guaging people's reactions, imo. Keeping your reasons to yourself at times can be very helpful from a stategic point of view in terms of getting what I would refer to as 'honest' responses from persons you are investigating. Often times people don't want to do this because it site meta perceives this as scummy, but I think it is worth the risk because it often reaps good rewards.

[BloodCovenent]

I sent a message to egruntz after i was out, and after he was lynched, asking why the crap did he re-claim. It was so dumb, he could have lasted another day. Might have even ended up in a scum win too.

[VP Baltar]

Meh, I mean that certainly sealed his fate, but he was probably going to get lynched anyhow due to hohum very heavily implying that he was the real doc. You were high on my list and I don't know if the doc claim would have really stopped me from going along with the lynch even if egruntz had stuck with it.

[hohum]

@that yabba guy: You should make an effort to find those pushing for a lynch less suspicious. Townies need to have some conviction about their opinions in order to turn a wagon around into a successful lynch and most scum don't have the self-discipline necessary to bus their scum partner from the first page.

It has nothing to do with emotion and everything to do with focus. You should go read this article:

http://www.mafiascum.net/wiki/index.php ... em_Lynched

BTW, I use a console-based browser to play mafia, so I didn't even know you were posting those GIFs until just now.

[hohum]

EBWOP (just to piss you off): you're hilariously egotistical but you seem not to be afraid to make a public spectacle of yourself which is a good quality to have for this game.

[yabbaguy]

What did you think my sig was linking to, a porn GIF collection?

I see where you're going with that, and indeed pursuit is something that's needed. I'm just saying that somehow a townie lynch which you were clearly leading is going to end that wagon's party in a snap, and you're cleaning up.

@VP-429 + hohum: So why was I assigned scumpoints for wanting to withhold my scumlist?

[hohum]

Because you said something specific to me. You told me it was okay to be suspicious of people but not to have a "top" suspect. I felt as if you were nitpicking a very fine detail and I was trying to either turn the tables on you to get you to drop scum tells or reconsider. Mostly I wanted you to piss off so that I could concentrate on getting BC lynched.

You were a very large obstacle to a BC lynch very early on, and I was going to start gunning for you next.

[BloodCovenent]

what gave me away so early?

I never wanted a no lynch.

[yabbaguy]

Sometimes, BC, you opportunistically jumped on points, like when hohum mentions that Charnel is doing color commentary, and you immediately hop in and opportunistically aim the same argument at me. That struck me as opportunistic scum somewhat, but it really wasn't a viable reason that anyone would believe outright.

I'm assuming you did the NL vote to stir attention. It worked, but what didn't work for you was that you basically proceeded to insult and weakly argue against everyone who (unsurprisingly) turned their attention towards that. Somehow, I don't think that's the vehicle you want to use.

Mostly I wanted you to piss off

You failed. :)

I think I also have a lousy sense of when it's okay to lynch somebody, which is probably what restrained my vote on BC. That's probably going to be my failing point, not swinging my vote in the clutch. I'm always afraid that I'm going to be picked on for voting way too fast.

[hohum]

as a townie your only tool is your vote. I don't worry about looking scummy after a vote or even after wagons because a commonly employed scum tactic is to cycle through a wagon and all its members and lay the blame on thick. Usually when that happens calling people on it yields promising results. If I get lynched anyways based merely on my position on someone else's wagon chances are always better that my wagon was driven by scum, in which case I'm happy to turn myself into a lynch pig in order to catch scum smelling bacon.

[ortolan]

it's interesting to see how many open setups are variations on the cop/doc duo

there's this, the one I ran with odd/even night doctor/cop, and one with a doc, cop and a roleblocker

[ortolan]

^^ as in a mafia roleblocker

[hohum]

This is one of the more awesome versions.

[muzzz]

What's Orto doing here?

---

Nice game, guys. Hohum's right, this really is an enjoyable setup.

I'm sure there were a few more intelligent things I wanted to say about this game. But I forgot all about them when I was indulging myself in France.

*shrugs*

Maybe next time.

[MeMe]

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