Mafia 96 - Murder in Emerald City (Game Over!)

[SpyreX]

Allow me to elucidate:

1.) Everyone should be playing. Calling out the "town" players to lead a wagon is silly at best because although they are confirmedish by nature doesn't mean they are going to inherently be better at "finding the scum wagon". Which leads us to:

2.) Calling out three specific people who, by nature of their confirmation, hold a little more swing to get in the game would be fine if not for the fact it is serving as self-preservation.

Additionally, you aren't "trying to get your top suspect lynched" by that move. You didn't push them to go for your case or any - you simply said be more active. Consdering they are spread out on every wagon but, well, you, the "being more active" would mean pushing any of the above wagons which aren't you.

This is self-preservation, pure and simple. And you're not even being honest about that part of it.

[iamausername]

-=Vote Count #62=-

SerialClergyman (4) - Kmd4390, Xylthixlm, SpyreX, Lowell
Lowell (3) - SerialClergyman, Faraday, Hayker
curiouskarmadog (1) - Kublai Khan
Kmd4390 (1) - Wickedestjr

Not Voting (1) - curiouskarmadog

6 to lynch.

CLICK HERE FOR DEADLINE CLOCK

[SerialClergyman]

rubbish. I called on the confirmed town to actively lead - they are free to vote whoever they like. I dealt with wicked voting me before, just made me put my head down and try to make my point better.

Not to mention xyl used who he thought were town or not as the major justification for derailing the lowell wagon without a peep from you. Why the double standard?

And even if i accepted eveyone word of what you just wrote, it still isn't scummy to self preserve. At best it's a null tell because it supports almost every win condition. I'm doing my best to keep those I think are town alive and those I think are mafia dead. If I die because I was over zealous in my scumhunting that's one thing, if I die because scummy people keep throwing out red herrings like you're trying to self preserve that's a real shocker.

But if your theory is that I am playing a game of self preservation, how do you explain how vocal I've been about my suspicions?

[SpyreX]

To lead implies others would follow. And, based on there votes, its not a stretch of the imagination to assume where they would lead.

I argued with Xyl about it until you used some classic double speak which I quoted when I switched my vote.

Self-preservation, in general, is going to be more scummy than not because with one giant exception a scum lynch hurts scums chances to win a whole lot more than a town lynch does town.

[SerialClergyman]

Well, the reaction wasn't on the same level for similar
issues, but you did call him out on it, so my bad there.

You voted me because I thought they were both scum but I picked Lowell to vote?

If I was backing away from hunting or arguing or mollifying people I'd agree with you. Look at faraday as a prime example. I think that sort of action, not ruffling feathers is definitely scummy. But I haven't given up my scumhunting, nor have I been browbeaten into voting for someone that isn't mytop suspect.

But appealing to townie players to get more involved while I'm copping the flak sent up by xyl and his cronies... I just think it's another bad little throwaway point.

I'd like people to look at lowells voting record. I'm on my phone so it's hard to quote, but look at the way he rode the wagons yesterday and look at his voting today. That is a much more concrete example of where self preservation can be scummy.

[SpyreX]

No, its more because you went "I think you're scum but you're telling me to vote for you so AHAHAH trap sprung" which makes no sense.

Faraday is hiding under the radar and that's is lame.

Xyl's "cronies' I think would amount to...me. Which is even awesomer considering you being ok with being CKD's other arm and/or saying this whole court is out of order for the idea of buddying.

[SerialClergyman]

That wasn't my point at all. I thought xyl and Lowell were boh likely scum. I kept voting Lowell when xyl told me to switch to him. I wasn't saying he was scum because he asked me to vote for him, I was saying even though I thought he was scum I was happy voting Lowell. Reread the passage.

The line about xyls cronies was out of frustration. Not that I'm ruling you out, because it's possible xyl and Lowell have another member, but it wasn't reasonable to put you in that group yet. The points just feel so petty. There's such a strong case n Lowell from his interactions, poor hunting, poor vote hopping etc that when people vote me because I kept voting Lowell instead of swithing to xyl or because the wagon on ckd didn't get up I'm left throwing my hands up.

Hence when xyl accused me of IIoA, albeit without any examples to back it up, I was able to get stuck into it and provide real evidence of where it wasn't true.

And case in point - I bet you didn't go and check lowells voting record then. The case on Lowell is really, genuinely sound. He's acting like scum, defending like scum and voting like scum. Why is there even a debate, aside from the fact xyl thought the people on his wagon could be scum? Somebody explain why Lowell shouldn't be the lynch?

[SerialClergyman]

Ok, I haven't got the greatest amount of time due to my shiny new apartment but I'm going to stop with all the bickering and semantics and really try to outline why a case against Lowell works.

1) Lowell manipulates the situation as he sees fit. Take this from one of his early summaries of the game:

354- hayker explains absencse [-], votes johnny for having "bad" posts [-, terrible, reeks of "ANYONE BUT ME!!"]

Now pair that with some of his votes:

unvote, vote mastin. I am mufasa's alt.

Then 1 day later

unvote mastin, on the condition that he not ask me to read any of his posts ever.

I'll bandwagon. vote mafiamann

Rode that vote to the hammer.

vote spy

This is as good as any. I briefly looked over the posts since my last recap, and his running narration just looks forced, and poor.

Anyone will do, then promptly forgotten about again.

unvote, vote SC. For some reason this one is more popular than ckd. They're basically the same person so that's fine.

Self-voting is incredibly scummy. He claimed townie. Case closed.

unvote, vote namttam

This was the hammer from yesterday, a nice jump ship on the Xyl wagon he was riding for most of the day.

Not to mention this beauty:

xyl's behavior around my claim is strange. I angrily claimed townie and that was enough for him to unvote? Really? Were I another player in the game I'd have hammered the shit out of me. That said, he is on my side (for now) and his case on ckd is a decent one.

He's on my side therefore I'm not going to vote him. 10 points there for genuine scumhunting.

In short, Lowell's voting pattern has consistently shown that he's voting whoever was convinient at the time. He even recognises this approach as scummy because he chastised hayker for it earlier, but there it is. I don't think he really cares who gets lynched provided it isn't himself and his record hows it.

2) Lowell is inconsistent with his rereads. Lowell has had most of his apparant interaction with the game through the odd long post where he lists a group of events and gives plusses or minuses on whether he thinks they are scummy or not. These lists are not genuine scumhunting, they are made to conviniently fit with the current mood.

For example -

1125- ckd votes ckool
1186- wicked votes ckool after convincing himself [----, mastin the other suspect]
1206- SC votes ckool [-, protecting mastin]
1220- KK votes ckool
1223- hayker votes ckool
1228- xyl votes ckool
1237- rofl votes ckool

Yeah, Lowell, love your impartial analysis there.

But it's not just there.

3) People who look NOT good:
xyl- His indecisiveness in 1520 is bad. His speculating on mufasa's neighbor is bad. Also, I hate posts like 1729. When people say "I'd put money on..." what I read is "I'm scum lazily going through the motions pretending to be emotionally invested in this scumhunt!" It's a cheap rhetorical device, in addition to a obvious attempt to cozy up to a new player (spyrex)
spy- His running dialogue of catching up is horrible. In my case, I'm reading through while staring at a list of dead players and their roles. He's trying to look town by doing it "blind" and seeming like he doesn't have anything or anyone to protect.

But Xyl defended him so suspicion over! Never mind rofl dying, never mind the opposing wagon being town, never mind voting for Spy at the start of the day, or the fact he jumped ship to hammer Namttam.

1898- xyl votes lowell due to "breadcrumb"
1899- ckd votes lowell, agrees w/ xyl [-, opportunistic]
1900- SC votes lowell, says his vote can change [-, cruising for targets]
1902- spy votes lowell, "fine" with vote (lynch-2)

Nice. 4 votes for Lowell, 2 of them scummy, apparantly.

Lowell's posts reek of convinience. When Wicked was unclaimed, Lowell found everything he did scummy. Now, not so much. Lowell has long lists of similar actions but coming from certain people they are scummy and others they aren't. Lowell has ditched any attempt at scumhunting in favour of self-preservation, buddying with those he apparantly thinks were/are scummy and voting wherever he thinks it'll stick.

I've got to go, I'll try to add to this when I have the chance to do some more work looking back over the thread.

[Kublai Khan]

Believe me, if I were mason, I would have claimed (not breadcrumbed) mason on page 1. If I were scum, I wouldn't bother indulging you in this argument. But how else will you learn?

Incidentally, I do NOT believe that the last mason/neighbor is scum. I don't know why people are assuming that. As far as "scum power roles" go, that would be a dumb one, and I don't see how it fits to have 3 pairs, 6 players, and exactly one of them in one pair is scum. It seems contrived to make it look like there's a case when there's none.

Um, why do you keep denying being a mason? As far as I know, nobody is accusing you of being a scum mason, they are accusing you of being a scum neighbor. It's been repeated several times.

And why the hell would the last neighbor not claim if they were town? I'll concur that it would have been more optimal for them to claim yesterday when molestargazer was still alive (truthly I wouldn't believe they were town if they claimed today). The only excuse for not claiming yesterday after molestargazer claimed would be if they were scum.

Damn, I'm thinking a little less of you for that post, Lowell.

Well of COURSE I switched my vote simply because Xyl asked me to and not because of anything you said. I mean, we're secret BFF's and all. In fact, I pretty much just wait for Xyl to tell me what to do and have given up on reading this game at all.

Sarcasm? At this point in the game? Really?

@Xylthixlm: in post 1952 you condemn the Lowell bandwagon and SerialClergyman and Faraday in paticular for "ringing your scumdar", yet you ignore that SpyreX jumped in between those two. Why?

[Xylthixlm]

SerialClergyman, did you think Wicked was scummy at any point? Why or why not? I don't see a lot of interaction between you and him before the claim.

[Lowell]

@KK- my bad. I use the words (mason/neighbor) interchangeably, though I guess I shouldn't. The point remains, if I were going to use my mason/neighbor status as a way to prove my towniness later, why would I then BACK OUT of that plan after all the others turn up town?

[SpyreX]

Because the neighbor status / your play would implicate you as scum and not town?

@SC:

You're still holding onto Xyl bussing the hell out of his partner / jumping off the wagon which still makes the least sense of the combinations.

You've said that Xyl is scum independantly of Lowell yet are pushing for lowell.

I still think Lowell is scummy, but you reactions to this are scummier.

[SerialClergyman]

From phone

I stand by Xyl/Lowell. The wagon grew very quickly because Lowell is reeking of scum then Xyl tries to save him. The explanation that Xyl is town and starts a wagon on his top suspect then pulls out as it gains traction is significantly less likely to me.

As far as I can tell, this idea that if Lowell flips town I'm going to be gunning for Xyl is a fabrication thought up by Xyl. I've asked him about it in 2099 and 2088 to no reply. They were my two top suspects going into today but I wasn't seeing any evidence of a connection between them. Now I do. If one of them is town then I'll need to rethink rapidly.

But if Lowell flips vermillon I'm on Xyl like a bad rash.

[SpyreX]

Its not a simple function of "gaining traction".

Xyl said pretty clearly that it was the type of traction - the fact that the other players he felt were scummy jumped all over that wagon that made him take a pause.

Which, makes sense.

However, scum pushing on a buddy and then not following through to get the "cred" for starting the wagon? not as likely to me.

[SerialClergyman]

I think Xyl misjudged it, he wasn't expecting it to grow that quickly, hence the messiness of it all.

If you have a look - the 5 on the Lowell wagon had 3 from his maybe not town list and 2 from his town list. Hayker eventually gets his vote on Lowell which would make it 3/3. KMD said he would hammer, so if you count that then it would be 4 of Xyl's town list vs 3 of his scum list.

Neither KK or Wicked have voted Lowell today, I think, but even that's 1/1 on Xyl's scumlist.

So my point is it's hardly overwhelming. It doesn't ring true to me to say that he a)genuinely believed that Lowell was scum then b) had a complete reversal due to the scumminess of a wagon that was 2 from his town list, 3 from his not-town list with kmd from his town list waiting to hammer.

[SerialClergyman]

Xyl - I don't think I've ever really suspected Wicked greatly. I remember having a conflict about his possible taking a doc's protection off of ckool with his possible cop-slip, but that's about it, I think.

Why do you ask?

[Xylthixlm]

Lowell's posts reek of convinience. When Wicked was unclaimed, Lowell found everything he did scummy. Now, not so much.

I found this very interesting, because I had the same reaction to Wicked that SerialClergyman is accusing Lowell of. I thought he was totally obv scum, and then he claimed, and now I don't. So I looked to see what SerialClergyman said about Wicked to see if he had the same reaction and ... nothing. Serial didn't say much about Wicked, and what he did say gave the impression that he was just assuming Wicked is town.

So I asked. SC's response is at least consistent with his interactions before.

[Kublai Khan]

@Xylthixlm: in post 1952 you condemn the Lowell bandwagon and SerialClergyman and Faraday in particular for "ringing your scumdar", yet you ignore that SpyreX jumped in between those two. Why?

[Xylthixlm]

@Xylthixlm: in post 1952 you condemn the Lowell bandwagon and SerialClergyman and Faraday in particular for "ringing your scumdar", yet you ignore that SpyreX jumped in between those two. Why?

I didn't like it because people who were ringing my scumdar jumped on the wagon. Jumping on the wagon was not why they were ringing my scumdar.

[Xylthixlm]

Let me color that vote count with

Maybe not town

,

Town

and

Kublai Khan

. It may clarify why I was suspicious of the people on the wagon.

-=Vote Count #54=-

Lowell (5) -

Xylthixlm

,

curiouskarmadog

,

SerialClergyman

,

SpyreX

,

Faraday

SpyreX (1) -

Wickedestjr

SerialClergyman (1) -

Kmd4390

Not Voting (3) -

Hayker

,

Kublai Khan

,

Lowell

6 to lynch.

I do not like the people on that Lowell wagon. SerialClergyman and Faraday are both ringing my scumdar. This wagon grew too fast on too little evidence - and yes, I know I started the wagon.

I'm not sure why Kmd thinks Serial specifically is scummiest, but I see a nice case of IIoA. Let's run with it.

vote: SerialClergyman

[Xylthixlm]

Correction: "It may clarify why I was suspicious of the wagon itself on account of the people who were on it"

[SerialClergyman]

If we gave you the yellow, which is a bit dicey because I think some of the green could go to yellow as well given your suspicions, you could still put hayker and kmd in the 'for' list for their votes/promise to hammer.

And did you do any research to confirm your decisions? Like checking if the people you thought were scum clambered onto the same, popular wagon previously?

And finally, if the wagon was scummy because of the people, what was the case on the people before the wagon?

It seems to me your reasoning for your vote as you explain it is a little circular.

[Xylthixlm]

The case on the people in red is

I didn't have any reason to think they're town

. Very simple process of elimination. Try it sometime. I don't need scum reads if I have enough town reads.

Hayker and Kmd could be on the "for" list and it wouldn't matter: the problem was that every single person who I thought likely to be scum was voting Lowell except for Lowell himself. That made it kind of unlikely that he is Vermillion. I already thought he probably wasn't Cerulean, so I decided he probably wasn't scum at all.

[SerialClergyman]

Ok, I'm makingsure I've got this right.

You don't have any scumtells on a group of people, but don't have any particular reason to think they are town either. Then you make a case against someone you presumably think is scum. Then you are convinced to leave this case completely when some (all except kk) of the people you feel are scum by default join the wagon.

Is that a fair summary?

[Xylthixlm]

Ok, I'm makingsure I've got this right.

You don't have any scumtells on a group of people, but

they are the only people you

don't have

any particular

a strong

reason to think they are town

either

. Then you make a case against someone you presumably think is

likely

scum. Then you are convinced to leave this case completely when

some (all except kk)

all

of the

other

people you feel are

likely

scum

by default

join the wagon.

Is that a fair summary?

No. Fixed.