California Trilogy: City of Angels - Off Stage (Game Over)

[Thok]

/confirm

[Thok]

Given my experience with recent mith games (Verbose, but also what I've seen in the California games), I'm expecting most power roles to be fairly irrelevant to how the game goes.

I could be horribly wrong, but I don't think anybody in any of those games really came close to figuring out everything that was happening until the final reveal (and the stuff that people didn't understand was fairly important to the game design.)

Speculation might be helpful, but I'm not really expecting speculation to be right. At some point we just need to lynch suspicious people and hit scum.

[Thok]

I assume we get to see the on camera thread. We could pass information suggesting how the Off Camera group feels about the On Camera decision.

This assumes that the Off Camera group actually has something useful to say about the On Camera decision, and it's possible (OK probable) that having the Off Camera group discuss the On Camera decision will distract from from having the Off Camera group discuss who to lynch.

[Thok]

Does anybody else notice that not only did our Director, MafiaJin, put himself into the scene, but also put the Assistant Director (curiouskarmadog) into the scene as well? CKD has the ability to fire Jin and take over the Director job for himself, yet MJ has severely mitigated CKD's ability to do so by putting CKD in the scene as well. This gives Jin the ability to pick actors for another scene, unless we can relay the "You're fired" message to CKD during the day today.

Wasn't CKD one of the original five people in the scene? It seems as though that group was decided randomly (along with the other five people preassigned to each of the first four scenes), and not by MafiaJin.

I also disagree with your Elmosarian vote; at least from the early discussion he feels like one of the more likely people to be protown.

vote: GoofballsAndBaloons

, [KY Krew, Rawr Hydra], Seraphim, [Mighty Orbots, BagelEatingCowFrog], Shadowlurker, none, zwetschenwasser, [Gaspar, elmosaurian], Thok

Tag fixed. Only bold actual votes, please. - Mod

[Thok]

Thok, why is zwet so low on your list? I've never played a game with him or read one with him in it so I'm not buying the meta argument that much but do you have contrary meta experiences? Or do you think the push for him feels scum driven?

GoofballsandBaloons push on him seems a bit forced to me, and it's why I have that hydra high on my voting list and zwet low. I can (and possibly will) change my mind about both of them but right now early day 1 I'm not interested in a zwet lynch.

Also, on a side note, I feel we shouldn't send in the KY Krew until Panzerjager posts On screen, given that he's the other advocate. (Assuming we send in the KY Krew at all.)

[Thok]

Thok, why put some of the names in brackets like that on your list?

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

If I remember Concordat voting correctly (I haven't actually done it before) [X,Y,Z] means "I equally value X, Y and Z as a lynch."

I could be horribly wrong, and will alter my vote at a later point if I need to correct it.

[Thok]

Thok, why is zwet below No Lynch? Is it simply because you dislike GoofballsAndBalloons' push on him? If so, why is no lynch preferable to losing a player who is, based on meta, usually a distraction to the town?

-Cow

GoofballsandBaloons push on him seems a bit forced to me, and it's why I have that hydra high on my voting list and zwet low. I can (and possibly will) change my mind about both of them but right now early day 1 I'm not interested in a zwet lynch.

Basically, the people I have below no lynch are the people I don't think it would be useful to lynch now in the early part of Day 1. I obviously reserve the right to change any part of my list at any time.

[Thok]

Gaspar, if MafiaJin does come up some form of scum, what do you think that says about the other three people he took with him on stage?

(I realize that the mafia probably wouldn't be so blatant as to move as many members as it could off stage.)

[Thok]

Could somebody familiar with zwet's meta give me a rough idea of what you think is his typical scum and town behavior? (It seems like he's posting less than I would expect him to given his reputation, but I don't really agree with the buddying thing; he feels like a typical inexperienced player who is more focused on analyzing his attackers than on what else is happening in the game.)

I'm also a bit confused by the people in the On-Screen thread debating over whether to follow Locke or Valentine. I'm not sure whether they think the mod has lied to one or more of the advocates, or that both advocates are scum trying for a beneficial first decision, but neither of those positions really makes sense. (Mith may mislead, but he wouldn't lie, and scum wouldn't risk that much on the first decision unless they knew it was so important that it was worth risking two of their members.)

[Thok]

Yeah, as I've mentioned before, I don't find elmosaurian scummy, and a lot of that comes from the mechanics discussion.

I'm wondering if we'd be better off sending the KY Krew in to explain the off-camera thought processes (as opposed to the zwet thumbs up picture.) It seems like we need to communicate three things to the on camera thread:

1. That we want Panzer to drive
2. That we're still trying to decide a lynch, so even if we want Panzer to drive, they should wait a while before voting
3. Maybe that the off-camera people want to see a discussion of why a significant portion of the on camera people are suspicious of what seems to be an obvious choice

Sending in the KY Krew would be a more efficient way to handle that (plus it would allow us to send in specific questions that other people may have.)

[Thok]

DGB (this question is directed at her part of the hydra):

1. Roughly how many scum do you think are on the current KY Krew wagon?
2. Roughly how many scum do you think are Off Camera, but aren't part of the KY Krew wagon?
3. Roughly how many scum do you think are On Camera (feel free to break the On Camera into proLocke and proValentine groups and guess the number of scum in those groups)?

Hmm.

Sorry for being so useless in this game so far, but my presence has been needed elsewhere. I thought I would have more time for this game but obviously I don't have enough. In the meantime I'm going to reread back through both threads and see if I find anything interesting.

Unvote

How's the reread coming along?

[Thok]

Sigh. Double posting with a version that doesn't have messed up quote tags.

According to Thok's list, he'd rather not have a lynch at all than lynch zwetschenwasser, gaspar or elmosaurian. I'm not really comfortable with that. I'm also not comfortable with the fact that he hasn't done any scumhunting since his condorcet vote/post thing.

Is your concern more that I have any people below no lynch, or that I have those specific three below no lynch? Early day 1 that's basically saying "I don't think a random wagon on these people is helpful".

For what it's worth, it's clear I need to revamp my vote and when I do zwet will be above no lynch, given what people have said about his meta.

Thok, you have been much quieter than I would like. What's going on inside that head of yours?

Yeah, I've been quieter than I would like also. This is also my first mafia game in a while (and the few games I've done before that were mostly newbies.) I'm also trying to be a bit more diplomatic than normal, given what happened with me and MOS in the invitational and also what happened in a few of the newbie games before I took my short hiatus. (This isn't an excuse for my relative passivity/lack of posting: my style of posting and frequency of posting really shouldn't be related.)

My poke at DGB was an attempt to get a feel for how she felt the game was going; she really was tunneled on zwet early on for not obvious reasons. It reminds me of Evolution mafia (PJ and pie's weird theme game) where she was focused on a Fritz-scum but made no effort to hunt for people in a second scum group, which was a hint that she belonged to that other scum group; I wouldn't be shocked if one of zwet/DGB was an SK-neutral type and the other was scum. I haven't decided how her response to my questions make me feel.

A quick glance at the KY Krew wagon finds the Inhim half of the hydra scummier than the Raj half. The raj vote on SL feels like a raj tell (although with raj not posting I can't really read much into him.) The KY Krew seems to be focusing more on active posters who have an interest in game mechanics (using a very loose definition of active in some sense.)

Finally, I'd guess that Seraphim is being replaced in 24 hours (assuming that the replacement list isn't empty; a replacement is preferable to a modkill.)

[Thok]

He lied, saying that DGB was tunnelling on me.

Her first five or six posts were about either game mechanics or you. She only started looking at other scum (following Gaspar to MafiaJin) after she was accused of tunneling by MightyOrbots. That's what I was referring to when I said that "she really was tunneled on zwet early on for not obvious reasons."

Or do you just not consider that tunneling at all?

The former. Basically, you're saying you'd rather not lynch anyone today than lynch these three people, which is bizarre given the sitewide meta of lynch at all costs.

-Shanba

I can see your confusion: I'm really saying that at this moment in time, I don't think a lynch of one of those people is better than no lynch. If sufficient new evidence came up today, I would change my vote to reflect that. (Says the person who needs to change his vote to reflect new evidence.)

[Thok]

Glork: if you were successful in getting us lynched and we flipped town what would you say subsequently? Just: "oh, damnit, I thought they were incredibly scummy" or "oh my god how what terrible town-play" or what?

From what I've seen in my quick glance since I've last posted, I wouldn't necessarily find Gaspar/Elmosaurian suspicious even if you came up town. Your defense involves things like "I couldn't see the argument Thok made in the thread that mith wouldn't lie", even though the default assumption in a non-bastardly modded game is that the mod won't lie.

Why did you find it likely that mith would mislead CKD or Panzer?

(More analysis tomorrow: I'm fully expecting to be run up if I don't provide that analysis.)

[Thok]

@Talilan: It's clear that there were two separate issues that could be discussed in the On Camera thread.

1. What decision to make (follow Locke or Valentine).
2. The alignment of the advocates, given what they were saying.

(These issues can be somewhat correlated, but there's a fairly strong argument that on day 1 when the two advocates are agreeing, then such a correlation is fairly weak.)

The Gaspar/you argument seems to be over whether your statements were directed more at issue 1 or issue 2. It feels like you and possibly others should have made a statement of the form "I think it's clear what decision to make, however I think we need to force more information out of the advocates to help assess their scumminess/not scumminess."

There's also the argument that we will have time between scenes to force CKD and Panzer to discuss things more precisely with everybody involved; moreover, during that period of time they will be able to speak more freely, since they won't have to be in character. (I had to double check whether this was the case, but Mr. Grey mentioned it in post 53.)

With Gaspar it's not just the fact that he won't even try and see any scenario where WE might be innocent, it's a pattern that started with MafiaJin. Several people gave decent reasons why MafiaJin might have put himself onstage and not be scum. The "win condition" MafiaJin mentioned I do not think was a scum slip at all; from the context it looks pretty clear to me what he was getting at (but he should answer to that himself when he gets here).

This strikes me as fairly standard play by early game Gaspar: it's more important to him to take a strong stand and see people's reactions to it in the early game than for him to be 100% accurate in scum-hunting.

[Thok]

Thok. When are you changing your vote?

Later today (in the next 5-6 hours.) I appreciate the pressure, since it keeps me from putting this off.

When are you going to do some actual scumhunting? I don't mind all this kinda quiet diplomacy stuff, as I feel the talilan/gaspar/elmosaurian argument is a massive distraction and frankly I don't give a shit about any of it, and any attempt to shut it down is helpful in my book. Nevertheless. More actual gameplay less graphics please.

To be fair, my poking at Talilan is scum hunting.

[Thok]

OK, poking Talilan is scum hunting. What did you find?

It's hard to tell, because Talilan seemingly hasn't had a chance to respond to my second post (and didn't answer the question in my first post, but complimented Rawr Hydra instead.)

[Thok]

My internets been flaky for the last hour or so (like, it has gone down consistently every 10-20 minutes today.) I'm hoping to put in an hour or two of rereading if it stabilizes.

(Don't use the above to avoid voting for me if you find me scummy.)

[Thok]

@Ortolan (I assume that's you in the most recent posts): Assuming for the sake of this comment that you are innocent, being innocent doesn't mean you are right. I'm allowed to decide on my own how much importance I should place on your opinion.

If you want I can hunt down 5-6 newbie games where I've said the same thing.

If Locke is telling the truth and him driving is genuinely the bad outcome then I would have expected, if he drives, for mith just to say "that was the wrong choice". We would have had no way of inferring from this that Locke's alignment had changed. It's only because Locke claimed it to begin with that we would potentially know.

You seem to be implying that you'd trust CKD more if he gave you less information. That strikes me as extremely counter-intuitive.

You are also ignoring the fact that there still IS a non-zero probability of both advocates being scum, 6.25% assuming the scum make up 25% of the town. These reasons are easily enough not to be completely certain about what to do. Being completely certain I would be more inclined to interpret as a scum-tell.

Even in this 6.25% chance, if scum lie they lose two of their members. The odds that scum think the benefit of winning the stage 1 game are more important than the benefits of losing two scum are probably pretty small. (Obviously it's hard to give specific odds to this event, but scum can't afford to give up too many free lynches or they'll run into the 2 scum lots of town worse case endgame no matter what happens in the stages.)

"I think it's clear what decision to make, however I think we need to force more information out of the advocates to help assess their scumminess/not scumminess."

What the hell? Since when is telling someone you're specifically trying to work out their alignment conducive to finding out their alignment? Do you genuinely think your argument here holds water?

Way to miss the point completely. The point is that you can say "I think a specific decision of who to drive is the right decision" and then continue to scum hunt anyways, rather than give the impression that you're ambivalent about the decision of who should drive in an attempt to scum hunt.
---------

Doing some rereading.

First off, it feels like there's a lot of scum in KY Krew/Hewitt/ThebladethatkilledMufasa/MafiaJin on stage (possibly Panzerjager also; Thesp and sottyrulez are the only players on stage who come off as strongly protown.)

Looking over pregame, I noticed Hewitt's semiwishy-washy support of the zwet attacks in post 66. That fits with my feeling that zwet is townish.

@Bridges: In post 346 you said you were working om a zwet meta. How is that coming?

Also to GoofballandBaloons: you haven't voted in over a week (I know, lol hypocrisy.) What would you vote be now if you made it? (You had KY Krew/zwet as your high scum then, but one can't be lynched and you've argued that scum would have bussed zwet by now if he was fellow scum.)

(Nowhere near done and it feels like some of what I've posted is superficial. The following vote is really more of a tweak to my previous vote that I plan on refining more tonight than a fully crystalized view of who I feel is likely scum. Also, given my feeling that lots of people on stage are scum leads to some weird stuff; for example I think zwet has a good chance of being town, but still rises on my vote count because other players have felt somewhat more townish. Similarly late day 1 I'm not going to support no lynch.)

(I plan on posting more in about 2 hours. Going to get dinner.)

unvote

vote GoofballsandBaloons

, Talilan, MisterJellyLee, Rawr Hydra, zwet, Shadowlurker, [Bagel Eating Cowfrog, Mighty Orbots, Gaspar, elmosaurian], No Lynch, Thok

[Thok]

As it was they both gave emphatic responses, which begs the question of why the decision is so easy.

Occam's Razor suggests it's easy because it is easy. If there is another reason, then it more likely is a mith-mod tell than a CKD/Panzer scum tell.

So perhaps I should rephrase my question: Do you have good reason to believe that Mith would not give straightforward answers? Do you have good reason to believe that CKD/Panzer would misrepresent the type of information they were given and provide a straightforward answer rather than a puzzle?

(By good reason, I really mean a reason that is likely enough that pursuing that line of inquiry would help town improve its odds of winning even a negligible amount.)

The competing theory is that you really were trying to persuade the on camera decision in the wrong way, which feels like it's a much more likely situation.

This is really "silly". If it's a foregone conclusion then you're not going to get any more information out of the advocates.

From the point of view of the advocates, it was mostly a foregone conclusion once Panzer posted. And yet you still felt it was worth trying to get more information out of them.

(I also think your related comment is silly; if scum suddenly relax once day 1 is seemingly over, then you now have a viable scum tell that helps you lynch on day 2/3/4 etc. MrJellyLee has even observed a case of this; his suspicion of Panzer comes from the fact that Panzer has seemingly relaxed since the on camera decision is inevitable.)

[Thok]

Thok- please explain why you are not suspicious of Gaspar for this behaviour.

It seems like you are asking about Gaspar's change of opinion about the Day 1 decision. Correct me if you are wrong.

Gaspar, as far as I can tell, has significantly more information about the day 1 decision than he did when he made that statement, as does everybody else in the game; Namely he has CKD's and Panzerjager's statements as to who should drive. If they had disagreed, or if both of them had been vague/unhelpful, then the decision would be random.

To accept your defense, it seems like we need to accept that you didn't bother to consider the implications of CKD/Panzer's statements. That leaves me in a position where I have to worry what other implications you are missing if you are town.

[Thok]

If they had disagreed, or if both of them had been vague/unhelpful

Read the thread. ckd was initially vague.

CKD said to follow Valentine in his very first post 8. He voted her in 13. His choice was clear, even if his reasons were vague.

By vague/unhelpful, I really mean "Didn't give a clear preference towards who should drive." I could imagine a situation where mith had given the advocates no real information about the choice; the point of mentioning CKD/Panzer's statements is that possibility is likely removed (unless both of the advocates are lying about the information they got; even then you either hit the right choice or catch two scum.)

To accept your defense, it seems like we need to accept that you didn't bother to consider the implications of CKD/Panzer's statements. That leaves me in a position where I have to worry what other implications you are missing if you are town.

Again, this is a total misrep, we did, as evidenced by us always having a preference for Valentine over Locke. When I look at posts like 46 and 50, 53, 64 and 72 by us in the thread it's pretty clear we have information-gathering motivations. Your read is bogus.

50, 53, 64, and 72 have you seemingly take neither side, with the implication that you'd be willing to be persuaded to the other point of view. 72 seems to shut down Thesp's 71, which brought up some of the points about the decision that I did, albeit not in the full force I did. 87 is the first time you seem to make a concrete choice one way or the other about who should drive.

[Thok]

What percentage probability would you assign to Glork being scum?

At the moment, something like 10%. Somewhere around 25-30% chance of being scum is my random baseline (that is, what I would think of everybody's chance of being scum after seeing my role but before I posted.)

[Thok]

you're sending yourself out again?

And

Talilan despite specifically being asked not to? I was 100% wrong about you and Glork was right. WTF man, it seems like you haven't even read the thread.

From what I can tell, these aren't the people he's sending in, but the people who are already guaranteed to be in the scene as given by the mod.

To be fair, my first reaction was that MafiaJin was incompetent also. I'd like him to discuss the decision about who he plans to send in, especially because I feel that MrJellyLee mentioned a valid concern about scum dominating one or the other threads. (Plus the whole keeping Talilan out of the scene so we can summon KY Krew is important.)
-------------

Questions to people coming in:

First, everybody who's been On-Camera should leave a record of your thoughts on the Off-Camera dealings once you catch up.

To Hewitt: you mentioned that you were OK with the early pressure on zwet; given that he's been lynched and came up town do you still stand by that statement?

To Panzer/CKD: could you give us a clear indication of the information you were provided as advocates?

To MafiaJin: Why did you think CKD was playing a mind game with people? (Other on camera people who feel like responding to this question can do so also.)
---------------

I don't really buy the "Gaspar voted zwet to save himself, therefore he's scum" argument. Even as a townie, from Glork's point of view a zwet lynch would be better than a Gaspar lynch (known townie versus unknown alignment, plus Gaspar would be more likely to help town than zwet based on scum-hunting reputations.)

[Thok]

Thok, you've stepped in and answered for me three times (give or take, I haven't been counting) in the last 48 hours or so. Are you buddying up to me? The first time or two, I was like "whatever, that's just Thok being Thok" but your most recent defense of me has taken you off my list of very likely Innocents.

At least one of those was when Talilan asked me why I wasn't suspicious of your change of view with respect to the Day 1 On Camera decision. That arguably shouldn't count.

Also, a lot of the stuff I've been bringing up is Mafia 101 basic stuff. So, no I'm not trying to buddy up; rather I'm pointing out obvious defenses you would have brought up also because I don't assume you are an idiot.

[Thok]

Talilan, there were 8 people other than you and KY Krew who were on camera yesterday. Do you have any feelings about the relative scumminess or lack of scumminess of those 8 people? Is there any behavior from those players during their on-camera time that you think is worth discussing?

[Thok]

For what it's worth I like Talitha's answer to my question and hate Ortolan's answer. That's probably a slight plus to Talilan overall.

(Among other things, hearing what Ortolan thinks about KY Krew and Talilan isn't helpful to me, which is why I left that out: in the former case we have obvscum once he switched and in the latter case ortolan isn't going to say he finds himself scummy.)

Here's the thing Ortolan: you claimed that you suggested following Locke for information gathering purposes (among other reasons.) I think it's reasonable to probe to see what information you actually got from those questions, and the response you gave me was that at the time you found Hewitt scummy for behaving similarly as you did in terms of suggesting following Locke and nothing else. (Talilan and KY Krew have been discussed above, and you assessment of MafiaJin had nothing to do with his on-camera behavior and everything to do with his process for picking who went on camera.)

However, I am somewhat sympathetic to Talitha's "Very soon after that we were whisked into the centre of controversy here and that has taken all our attention so we haven't followed up."

[Thok]

Also, I would ask, do you agree that your questions towards us are leading or do you genuinely feel you are acting impartially?

This question is ridiculously leading and pointless.

As this seems to be a point suggesting we haven't given many reads of on-screen players, by way of comparison, how many reads of the people on-screen have for example YOU produced?

First off, it feels like there's a lot of scum in KY Krew/Hewitt/ThebladethatkilledMufasa/MafiaJin on stage (possibly Panzerjager also; Thesp and sottyrulez are the only players on stage who come off as strongly protown.)

Of the 8 people I asked you about, I indicated my rough read on 6 of them, even if I didn't give a full explanation for it.

Not sure at what point you're referring to, but I would say this is not accurate. I would say I made the point he was potentially scummy, but this is mitigated by the fact scum can day-talk and I suspect his buddies would have told him not to simply writhe out there looking scummy.

The latter arguments (everything that you are saying mitigates his behavior)

doesn't have anything to do with the line of play I was discussing

. If I had asked you what information you got out of suggesting that you follow Locke on camera, your answer seems to be "I found hewitt might be scummy for it, but I've changed my mind based off of other evidence", and nothing else. That suggests the possibility that your hydra was lying about using the suggestions to follow Locke as an information gathering tool. (This is part of the reason why I am happier with Talitha's response, because that gave more of an indication that your hydra was information gathering from that set of questions.)

Also, I feel like you are either overestimating the difference between your point of view and Hewitt's: it feels like both of you conceded that there was a right pick after zwet put up the thumb's up picture. Your post 72 before zwet's picture clearly questions whether the obvious choice was obvious and as far as I can tell no realier post from your hydra implies that you've made up your mind one way or the other, and then in post 87 and 89 both you and hewitt concede that Valentine should drive. Hewitt has a bunch of posts afterwards that can be summarized by "I wish the advocates would give us more information, since it feels like they are holding back",

[Thok]

Actually, it's not leading at all. It leaves you the option of saying that your questions are coming from an impartial i.e. innocent perspective.

Just because something has two options doesn't mean it isn't leading. Your question either forces me to say "No my questions aren't leading" or forces me to try to justify why leading questions need not be a bad thing.

It's also pointless, because you aren't going to get me to change my own mind about my play. You might as well just say "I think your play is leading for reasons X, Y, and Z and use that to try to lead a lynch on me."

For the record, my question about "do you have any thoughts about the other 8 people" isn't leading, because you can just talk about what feelings you do have about the other 8 people. Or you can yell at me for trying to present what you feel is a distraction. Or you can say "I do have thoughts, but I feel revealing them at this time would help scum."

I didn't say "I've changed my mind", I said "the other evidence makes me think otherwise". "I've changed my mind" indicates I had a strongly held and emphatic viewpoint and then changed to another fairly strongly held and emphatic viewpoing.

Might limits how strong the view point I suggest you are claiming. I'm not saying that you changed from "Hewitt is scummy" to "He is town" but from "Hewitt might be scummy" to "He is town". (And it probably should be "Hewitt might be scummy" to "He might be town")

Ortolan, do you want to keep playing semantic games? IMHO, you're not particularly good at them, and if you are town then all they are doing is telling people that you are hopelessly tunneled.

I would literally be amazed if you are not conscious of the fact you continually twist my words in every post. Yet another example, you state we "suggested we follow Locke on camera", but we never did "suggest" that course of action, we just "considered" it, and made it clear we were "considering" it.

You act the martyr but wouldn't the truly noble action be to drive, knowing that we will have to kill you?
WWWSD? What would Will Smith do?

This (and to some extent post 72) can be seen as suggesting that it's a reasonable idea for Locke to drive. (I've change good in my original phrasing to reasonable to better illustrate why this is a concern.) Also, I sort of want to link you to a dictionary definition of suggest, but that would be fairly pedantic.

That suggests the possibility that your hydra was lying about using the suggestions to follow Locke as an information gathering tool.

How? Bear in mind that we have always reserved the right to use both the explanation of being unsure of the correct decision and the explanation of wanting to generate discussion. We *can* use both of them at once you know, and frankly if people don't believe us (and these people in question are actually innocent) then that's their problem

If you don't have any information from your information gathering attempts, it could be that you didn't have time to gather any information. (Which is what Talitha said, which is part of why I combine your two response as a slight plus) Or it could be that you didn't get any information because you weren't trying to gather information.

All I can say is that I wish our positions were reversed, I wish we were off-stage and scum at the time like you were and you were on-stage and innocent at the same time like we were/are, we would capitalise on the fact you were unsure of the correct choice too.

Assuming that I was on-stage and town, why couldn't I have been sure of the decision?

[Thok]

Posting partially just to show I exist.

Is it obvious from what CKD said that SMG (if it exists, which I agree is unclear) must be antitown? I know that mith doesn't have problems with roles that have misleading descriptions.

@MafiaJin: why did you say relatively little about your thoughts of the choice of door before your vote?

Also, I agree with any sentiment that I should be kept off-screen: I don't think anybody believes that it's a good idea for me to on screen for three scenes in a row, which is likely if I'm sent on screen today.

(Will answer SL's question about posting a scum list later.)

[Thok]

Wait CKD, really? You're basically saying that you're happy with me not saying anything about who I find suspicious from the start of day 2 until the end of day 4.

Granted, right now there are maybe 2-3 people that I trust.

(Also, need to do rereading. I won't be around this afternoon for that.)

[Thok]

CKD, my comment was "You seem to be stifling discussion between scenes", not "I'm on screen again." It's clear that I know I was going to be on screen today, since I complained about you picking me yesterday because I would be on screen three days in a row.

[Thok]

Double post: CKD basically recognized what I was saying in his fourth part of the quad post.

[Thok]

One thing I thought was really important to note is how a few people mentioned sending KY Krew onstage in the midst of him being one of the highest vote getters! WTF! That was horrible. MightyOrbots did it in 254, Thok says it in 272, and there were possibly others mentions of it. Did you guys talk about this later? Because that was really really scummy, especially now that we know KY was scum.

~Elvis

First of all, Gaspar (your role) also discussed the possibility of KY Krew going onscreen, in the time frame you were discussing, even while voting him.

Secondly, at that time, there seemed to be a real chance that the on-stage people would vote for what was relatively obviously a poor decision to the off-stage people.

Thirdly, the KY Krew wagon at that time was mostly a lurker wagon (and at the time you were discussing, he was at 3 votes, with 6 needed to lynch.) Bagel Eating Cowfrog described it as merely being a decent wagon, for example. Then KY Krew kept lurking and said some stupid stuff, got wagoned some more for that, and then he jumped off-screen rather than defending himself and outed himself as obvscum.

[Thok]

For what it's I think that it's obvious I need to post a scum list. Moreover, I feel like my fews are different enough from the standard

Dear Ort, refer to my previous post and stop trying to get people to give their scum lists before the scene starts. thanks.

We can make an exception for Thok. Talilan has got a point. Thok has been weird, starting out with a fixation on me out of left field, followed by unashamed Gaspar worship, while discussing (his latest post) things that should make Gaspar look scummy, but then Thok fails to conclude that Gaspar looks just as scummy as the other players that did the same actions.

Honestly, I still have a fixation on you. You've been trying very hard to influence and control the town by making very specific statements that seem like a stretch to me. Even the stuff that you've been right about (pushing hard on KY Krew early) looks a lot like you know more then you should as a townie. And you honestly were one of the the people who were strongly pushing towards what turned out to be the wrong decision.

Your on-screen "acting" also feels like it's a way to fluff up your words and influence the language that people are using.

He was also too chicken to vote on the wrong decision. He was a great big bag of non-commitment the whole Scene, wiffle-waffling, lots of words, but taking no stance that might be unsafe.

I very clearly indicated that I was unhappy with the rush to Crone at the end of the scene 3. Moreover, I was fairly clear that I thought not switching was the right decision when I voted in scene 2.

I will tell you that right now the people I'm pretty sure town are Gaspar and Thesp. (People are overemphasizing the "Thesp hasn't posting anything" argument, and are missing the "What Thesp has posted feels really authentic for him" argument.) I remember liking sottyrulez for his scene one behavior, although I need to look over what he's done since then.

There are a bunch of people who, if they are town, I can't see much of a reason to listen to them (Talilan, VP Baltar, hewitt). Baltar's posts, which were a flat out attempt to shut down discussion about what people felt about Elmo was actually scummy. I'm trying to decide how much I should view Hewitt and the Ortolan part of Talilan as VI.

I keep feeling ShadowLurker is lurking more than he is; it feels like he show up, makes a big post, and then disappears for days. There also a feeling that he's trying to show how smart he is rather than trying to convince people to support his point of view (especially with the on screen stuff; he seemed more important with the whole "We can post Concordant lists without voting" idea and the "I can use dice tags to vote" idea than with the actual content of people's votes.) A significant chunk of his off screen contribution has been "Oh no, lurkers!"

Obviously, Pooky hasn't said much. Anything else I would say about him feels redundant.

CKD is probably a must lynch at some point. One of the points I remember JellyLee stressing was the similarity of his play to Fiasco's in Verbose 1; honestly, I think CKD's play is a bit more reminiscent of Commodore Amazing, who was a Mafia Traitor in that game.

I have less of a feel for Panzer, MafiaJin, and Starkiss than I should. MightOrbots feels somewhat protownish, but that's in comparison to everybody else I've mentioned.

OK, that's not a scum list, but it at least gives you people some insight into what I'm thinking and a place to throw questions at me.

[Thok]

Thok is not a fellow whose opinion is changed by, say, facts, events, happenings, shifts in wind direction... or anything in the game. He does little more than turn a blind eye, or find support for his pre-conceived Day 1 notions/grand-masterplan.

OK, I'll bite. What facts should I notice about you that should make me think that you are protown? I've pointed out new events and facts that strike me as supporting my original read on you.

[Thok]

Anything I say can be WIFOM'ed one way or another, and you've already braced for this. I went after KY Krew, and that's because I "knew too much?" That's an example of WIFOM'ing away evidence that doesn't fit your preconceived notions.

You realize that's like the one view point you've pushed that I think helps town, right?

You pushed strongly for crone. Moreover, you put all of your arguments in language that was really difficult to respond to, since we had to translate to stuff like "decepticon" rather than "evil".

You pushed early for zwet (although you jumped off him to KY Krew.)

I don't think your Gaspar push is protown, or your attempt to characterize the timing of KY Krew's hammer as an attempt to save Gaspar (the latter actually raises serious questions about KY Krew's play; it wasn't that likely that KY Krew could change towns point of view, and he could have just quietly pushed them to finish the day while Zwet was still in the lead and before Gaspar got close to being voted.)

[Thok]

He seems to be claiming that Baltar's posts are an attempt to shut down discussion (which I argued against), but we are also labeled VIs? (without reasoning of course, the Thok-special). For the record I very strongly resent being labeled as a VI (which is in no way borne out by the game that I can see anyway?) by someone who's done naught but lurk the whole game, presents inconsistent reads and inexplicable trust in Gaspar, and is happy to write off legions of people, some of whom are confirmed town, calling Gaspar scummy without explicitly counter-attacking them.

Have you read Baltar's posts onscreen at the end of scene 3? That's what I'm talking about specifically with respect to the attempts to shut down discussion. Instead of actually trying to answer my questions, he just called me and CKD evil and didn't comment. At least hewitt tried to point out his reasoning, flawed as it was.

I've already explained why I think you're ignorable. You've spent a significant amount of time basically going "Anybody who attacked me for my on screen behavior is scum", which has been proven wrong at least once, and which IMHO is wrong a second time. Also, if you're town, your On Screen post scene 3 is more reason to ignore you.

Basically, if you are town, I don't see why I should listen to you. I definitely shouldn't try to convince you of anything, since you seem unable to contemplate arguments that don't fit your view of the game.

Of the dead, BEC's attack on Gaspar's are mostly gut that I don't agree with, MJL didn't find him scummy, zwet is zwet. If you think Yos-town being suspicious of Gaspar is good reason to be suspicious of Gaspar, then more power to you.

I think a lot of the issue is Glork not having played in a year or so (as far as I can tell), so people aren't familiar with or don't remember his play style.

[Thok]

Well see the thing here is you're basically saying "based on what I've seen I think you're a bad player (presumably in every game, not just this one), so I will safely ignore everything you happen to say." It's textbook ad hominem, and provides you a free pass to ignore anything I say, regardless if how intrinsically valid it is. Also please explain the bolded.

For the bolded, mostly, the fact that it was posted in the on-screen thread at all. (I haven't read the post, so I don't know what it says.)

This is one of the most anti-town approaches to the game I've ever read. Basically you're saying you'll completely ignore anyone you don't like.

No. I'm saying that I'll ignore somebody who has massive blinders on, refuses to consider other positions, and who seems to have a fairly wrong-headed view of the game. My time is much better spent dealing with the other players in the game. (In fact, I should stop this line of discussion, because it's not really helpful to either of us, and the resulting block quote wars will be a distraction.)

Why does zwet being zwet mean he is incapable of ever being correct about anything?

Zwet being zwet means that I don't think he understood the point behind Glork's switch to him, which is really the only reason he was suspicious of Glork.

I cannot believe you expect your approach here to win you games as town.

And yet, it does. (Well, minus the lurking part, which isn't helpful. I blame myself for that.)

Wait, this is really scummy. Since when does just conforming to one's meta (however you determined he did) make one automatically town? Especially a player like Glork? Have you not seen Gaspar manipulate everyone into winning as scum in the previous CT game? I can't see you, as competent town, assuming Gaspar is so easy to read that you can have been 90% sure he was town so early in the game (and have continued with similar rhetoric throughout).

Hey, maybe I think Glork is reasonably easy for me to read since I've played a lot of games with him, and I know the sorts of tricks he uses as scum.

My reading of him is also reinforced by DGB's play; it's very unlikely they are scum together, and I find her much scummier than him.

[Thok]

Can we lynch GoofballsAndBalloons yet? Or possibly Pooky.

Also, Sottyrulez is obvTown.

On a quick reading of the last day, I want to answer one question from ShadowLurker, about the pseudovote stuff: I think it was unclear (until SottyRulez did it) that we could use the Condorcet voting in the manner that you would want when there are two options, and we were trying equivalent methods. In other words, the answer is roughly "We didn't think of it."

[Thok]

A quick comment for Zu_Faul: please take the time to read the first few posts of this thread, as it has a lot of mechanic information that you will find helpful. Ask questions if there's anything you don't understand. (Also, obviously reread the rest of the thread if/when you have time.)

[Thok]

Glork, unfortunately, I'm not convinced I know what you're asking about. (I have some guesses, but it's not enough to be certain.)

I agree with Elvis's argument that we should be using this down time more productively, and I'd go further and argue that I think we (as the town, as a collective), should start trying to decide CKD's list for him. We already effectively have three of the other roles (stuntman/music/photo) listen to the collective will of the town anyways when making decisions; the only exception was when KY Krew stunted out and was promptly lynch the next day as scum. IMHO, any benefit we'd get from seeing and analyzing CKD's thought process in his choices we've already seen. (It's unfortunately too late for Talilan to fire CKD to benefit the next scene.)

(I should probably go and make a hypothetical list; that would require me to do some clustering of people into groups and split the groups roughly evenly. I'd also try to take into account certain preferences; for example SL I'd probably leave off-stage no matter what since it feels like he has a preference for the off-stage game and seems to me to be more useful there.)

(Also, V/LA roughly noon Friday to noon Saturday)

[Thok]

Right now I think we should be focusing on winning the onstage game and get the best outcome possible for us. We have only lynched one scum and only have three scenes left. I believe there are more than three scum left, so I don't even think we can get our best outcome that way.

If there are four scum left (so 5 total), we only need to get two out of the remaining four lynch to trigger the best endgame scenario. Even if we started with six scum, we can get the best endgame by hitting every remaining lynch correctly. Seven scum out of 20 seems too large, IMHO.

Also, lynching scum will give us a better chance at succeeding at endgame no matter what, since we'll actually be able to build connections between known scum, rather than hypothetical connections with hypothetical scum.

For CKD: here's my thoughts on your list (which, if you'll noticed, I promised when I made my post, so don't yell at me more not including it at the time)

I'm breaking people up into clusters: these are people who seem to be acting similarly/trust each other. My general feeling is that clusters should be balanced on and off stage (for example, a cluster should be split roughly 50-50, so that if it contains a lot of scum it will be weaker than usual.)

Cluster 1: Gaspar, Thok, Thesp, SottyRulez
Cluster 2: hewitt, Pooky, Starkiss, zu_faul
Cluster 3: GoofballandBaloons, Talilan, VP Baltar
Cluster 4: curiouskarmadog, MightyOrbots, shadowlurker

So, for example, since SL has to be onstage, I'd like to see at most one of CKD/MO on your list. Zu_faul having to be onstage is unfortunate (and there's an argument that we should keep a few scummy people off stage for lynching purposes and stunt Zu_faul so he has more time to catch up.)

I guess for a list onstage something like Talilan, MO, Thesp, one of Gaspar/SottyRulez (probably Sotty), and 1-2 of hewitt/Starkiss/Pooky would be a good idea.

[Thok]

and why am I not in a cluster with Tali and Goofball? They Wub me long time.

I put you in the "I haven't really said anything and need to talk more" cluster. I'm also willing to accept that my clusters are perfect.

[Thok]

My general feeling on the Mother-Crone thing:

If Yos was town, Mother was the obvious choice.
If Yos was scum, you've got a WIFOM situation between Crone and Mother (and possibly Maiden depending on how much you trust CKD, although his clue was more likely to be honest given how it was phrased.) Basically, if Yos was telling the truth, you take Mother without thinking, and if Yos was lying than Crone was the best option, but it's hard to establish whether he will lie or tell the truth in that situation, since that's exactly WIFOM.

I think even at the time, to call one of Crone/Mother obvious requires completely ignoring the WIFOM factor.

(Hindsight is 20/20 obviously. I know my late reaction was more based off of "Hey there are a bunch of people agreeing on Crone and refusing to have discussion" than on my assessment of Yos.)

[Thok]

CKD, why did you put VP Baltar and me on stage? I think everybody who suggested a list had both of us off-stage.

(I'm accepting your comment that you didn't put MO onstage.)

[Thok]

also thok, for the record...do you feel that me putting VP on stage was scummy?

Yes. The point of the stuntman is to send information from off-stage to on-stage, and that's best done by starting with the stuntman off-stage so he knows when on-stage has enough information to go off-stage.

Also, by putting Baltar on stage, you prevented people from theoretically lynching anybody on-stage if that was considered important.

I'd still like to hear an explanation for why you made that decision, as well as the decision to keep me on stage for the fourth scene in a row.

[Thok]

EBWODP "that's best done by starting with the stuntman off-stage so he knows when off-stage has enough information to go on-stage. "

[Thok]

thok, you didnt answer the question about Orbots...why?

Because, strangely enough, I asked my question first, and wanted to hear an answer before I replied to yours. (You still haven't touched the issue of why you put me on stage, although it sounds like I could guess that answer; I'd still like hear you comment about it.)

I don't really think MO was nudging at the lack of benefits of stunting, I think he was flat out saying it. In any case, the main benefit of stunting was putting the AP in a position to choose an off-stage stuntman for tomorrow, and I think there's a reasonable discussion about whether the benefits of an off-stage stuntman are worth the risks of out the AP. (The other benefits that were brought up by Sottyrulez were relatively inconsequential compared to that.)

[Thok]

Any plan for questions should have some redundancy built in: anything that depends on all seven questions can be manipulated by scum lies, and those lies are mostly undetectable.

I'd suggest something, but I'd like to know what properties we will be allowed to ask about.

[Thok]

I had this idea that all the advocates pick a number totally at random, and ask "is ~insert number~ very good, good or neutral?". There's a 3/5 chance of getting a correct answer in which case, if we trust them, if we pick the number they chose, then we will at worst get a neutral and at best get a very good outcome. To me it seems better than people just randomly choosing likely useless questions. Does that sound like a g00d id3@ guyth?????

We can't ask questions about individual numbers. (That's actually part of the difficulty of this challenge.) We can ask questions about the set of numbers {1,2,3,4,5}, but not about the number 1.

If we could ask questions about individual numbers, the challenge would be a lot easier.

[Thok]

It looks to me like you can accomplish the same thing?

Does the set {7,8,9,10,11} have the property that the highest number in the set is either very good, good, or neutral?

That assumes we can ask that question. We should ask Mr. Grey.

(If we can ask questions about individual numbers, we can do better than your result: there's a way to get a very good number in 6 questions, assuming nobody lies about their answer.)

[Thok]

I've also had slightly town to very town reads of 9 of the 11 other players left (everyone but ckd/StarKiss) so I need to seriously reevaluate my positions as I think 4/20 scum is much too small.

4/20 scum is impossible, as we'd be in endgame if that was the case.

[Thok]

Talitha, have you seen post 2476?

[Thok]

I'm somewhat OK with that Talilan's list. I'm trying to decide how important it is to leave room for a stuntman to be put off-stage; right now the only people who could be made off-stage stuntman given his list would be Zu_faul, Sotty, and CKD, and making CKD a stuntman isn't going to happen.

(The presence of both MO and Thesp off-stage somewhat mitigates that factor, as we'll have communication unless something weird happens.)

[I've resigned myself to being on-screen this stage to help check and possibly improve algorithms; with CKD being an obvious lynch I feel less bad about being on-stage for the fifth straight scene.]

[Thok]

When I did a condorcet last scene, my top five non-CKD for scumminess were (in reverse order)

hewitt, starkiss, VP Baltar, Talilan, Goofballs

I'd probably drop Baltar down a little bit and hewitt up a little from the events of the last scene.

[Thok]

(4) was first to pick.

This is mostly irrelevant: ShadowLurker's pick was verified 5 times (every single no contained SL's original numbers, so in order for SL to have lied there would need to more liars than is reasonable given that this is a mafia game.)

Where the hell is Thok anyway. I am VERY interested in his take on what went wrong last scene.

My take is that at least one of you/Goofballs lied, (I know I told the truth, and I think the hewitt/Mighty Orbots pair lying is less likely given their position.)

I'm not happy with Goofballs trying to promote her plan as "foolproof". I think something like 3 yes's in a row with her plan set up a situation where we can't determine what the very good is, and more over if the numbers had a yes,no,yes pattern than the person who would have the middle no could lie without being caught. Also, her plan would have made us look at a smaller set of numbers than the actual plan did.

[Thok]

SL could have just made a selection of a group of numbers only containing very bad, and GaB could have lied with her yes. Or scum could have said "no" when they got a yes, so we'd land on a false path.

What I'm saying is that any argument about SL can't be based off of the "SL might have lied with the answer to the first question" because it's nearly impossible that he did. If there is some other reason why "SL going first" is something to be worried about then that's fine, but Goofball seemed to be adding that point to her laundry list of things to worry about SL for reasons I don't understand.

[Thok]

vote: Shadowlurker