California Trilogy: City of Angels - On Camera (Game Over)

[Talilan]

That won't be the last bus we'll be seeing this game

Locke and Valentine, take it away. What should we do?

[Talilan]

Carrie sidles up to Locke

A modest soul you seem, but why would you throw not just your own life, but that of the whole group; into the hands of an utterly unknown quantity?

What exactly did that old geezer Grey tell you?

[Talilan]

Carrie scrutinizes the aging Valentine

Wise you are, as is Locke, and I worry one or the other has been mislead by our host.

What makes you think Locke at the wheel might endanger us all? Are you concerned he is not fit to drive?

Locke, what do we gamble with you at our helm?

[Talilan]

Carrie nods at Mr. Green

Listen you two, this has gone on long enough. Quite simply I'm sick of indulging a chick who's always played second fiddle to her psychotic brothers, and a has-been anachronism who's still far too close to the state of nature for his own good.

Now, as you two are providing contradictory information, I want to know if you think it's because old man Grey's been playing games with you or if you think the other is just evil.

Lockey, I'd appreciate it if you'd practice some plain language philosophy for once and just lay out exactly what your reasoning for letting Valentine drive is. You don't strike me as that altruistic.

Likewise Valentine. I don't like the asymmetry of one of you not wanting to drive and the other happily going along with it.

Give us the tools we need to make a decision. I know you like the sounds of your own voices but we've had enough aphorisms for a whole movie.


I'm not questioning your expertise in this area, but how do you know no-one will be killed?


You think he doesn't have our interests at heart?

Julie, please slow down, we do not want to rush this decision.

And where's that latte I ordered aeons ago? Scratch that, make it a double ristretto. I don't do carbs after noon.

Quotes removed. Read the rules. - Mod

[Talilan]

Grrr... somebody in wardrobe fix up my costume please

Ahem.

Carrie looks pointedly at Valentine...

You are an advocate with special information the rest of us do not have. Yet all you've talked about is Locke and what may be his motives. If Locke were yet to speak, what would have been your recommendation for us, and why?

[Talilan]

follows John Locke onto the bus to have a quiet word

The decision, Mr Locke, is whether to have you drive knowing that either you are lying now or you will defect to the enemy, then dispose of you at the next opportunity.

Or do we let the unknown quantity drive, the one who

knows

but has not told us what will happen if she drives. The one who may have had the same offer as you, and may defect, but we will not know of 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?

[Talilan]

I'm not really sure Locke... I sure would hate to lose you if you're on my side.

Raises voice so everyone can hear her

Hey - Does anyone remember whether there can be two bad choices in a single scene? Or is there always at least one good choice that can be made?

[Talilan]

Then perhaps you might put your much-touted powers of analysis to work to recommend to us who we should choose from an objective standpoint, not just from the privileged position you occupy. Have you any further useful analysis to add?

[Talilan]

We have not yet reached consensus.

And don't forget this scene needs to fill up about 14 minutes and we haven't yet reached 4.

Furthermore each of my split personalities (don't ask) was tempted vaguely by the idea of calling the Lockester out on what he's said- letting him drive then letting him get mobbed by his legions of fans when we get off-set. That way we guarantee to get rid of an evil presence, whether he started as evil or just got corrupted by driving a contraption which never existed in his own time.

Why do people think just because both Locke and Valentine have been given information which leads to the same conclusion this is the right one? Is it as simple as that?

We (my personalities) were also wondering if we should take a spot-poll of passers-by off-set as to whether they think Locke is lying or telling the truth. Neither of us are familiar with Locke's previous roles so we're not sure whether we should be impressed by his performance at this stage. The cameraman could perhaps send us a thumbs up or down if people think his acting is or is not up to its usual standard.

[Talilan]

Whilst discussing the problem back and forth in my head I had a pretty firm recollection that there is one good choice for the innocents, and one bad choice. This, as well as the vision i too saw (you're not crazy StarKiss...or maybe we both are) makes me feel better about supporting Locke to be the driver.

[Talilan]

OOPS. I mean Valentine. I think I support Valentine to be the driver.

[Talilan]

Just a heads up: don't forget we're not yet halfway through the scene.

[Talilan]

I feel ultimately it would be foolhardy to go against the consensus between the two most informed of us. Plus according to popular opinion, Locke is acting as he would normally.

[Talilan]

Clarify for me Huey: do you really have a genuine hunch that Locke is lying?

Do both of your personalities (I know more about you than you think) agree?

[Talilan]

Huey I take it that is the astral aspect of your personality rather than the one infatuated with kissing all he comes across?

I don't see what you mean by one person persuading another to follow them. As far as I'm aware both of our guides have agreed on the correct course of action based on information they received independently of one another.

And what makes you so sure you will eventually come to trust Locke, even if it takes multiple scenes?

[Talilan]

Hello. We wish to relay three things to you dearest dears.

DEATH has a fondness for pork and is on the lookout for anyone acting excessively hammy.

Those who shall not be named have no further information about what door we should choose, it is up to us. Should they gain any further insight, or simply disagree with our decision, I'm sure they will find a way of communicating with us.

My suggestions about cults came when I was very much under the influence of wine; there was just so much of it in front of me I couldn't stop drinking. I suggest you disregard them.

I'm also concerned Locke is punching above his weight, interfering in the production process when not necessary.

[Talilan]

no-one who suffers dissociative disorder in the middle of a scene can remember any information given to them by the host with the most

[Talilan]

I only had knowledge of what our host told us in my drunken state. The sober me is not privy to my drunken persona's information, it's almost like we're two different people. The other side of me will take the information they were given by the host with them to the grave, when their face turns blue from the noose.

Based on my correspondence with the script-writer; whenever someone tasked with guiding us needs assistance from a stuntman mid-scene, after the wardrobe change they are blind to the knowledge given to them before the stunt scene.

And I do not like your firing without even a prompting. Ms. Newmar has not once led us astray- she directed the first scene without a hitch. Cycling through directors unnecessarily increases the chance we will get one who has their own interests; rather than those of the studio, at heart.

[Talilan]

Kelly, you might say I am in two minds over which door to pick. I will think over it some more, but we as a collective have been trusted with the decision for the time being.

[Talilan]

Also far be it from me to step outside my area of expertise, but if any of you extras need something to do you could employ your time far less fruitfully than discussing which of you wants a part in the next scene; I hear it's one of the most important in the film.

[Talilan]

(whispers to other actors)

In scene 1 we had to take our time over our lines and make sure we gave the offstage crew plenty of time to get organised. I don't believe it will take them nearly as long this time. We're all positive the actor who played Carrie before had some kind of bad connections and wanted us to choose the wrong door. But she knew we suspect her so she would have done her best to give no hint at which is the correct door to choose. It is hard to know what to make of her vote, but I suggest that we stop waiting for information that aint coming and start trying to make a decision.

(/whisper)

[Talilan]

I think it might be because they didn't want the town to have the advocate information? Any other advocate would have either had to give publically the correct info, or raise suspicions upon themselves.

~tal

[Talilan]

Emphatically Yes and Yes Mr Odbody! What do you think? Do you think that old Carrie, as the sole advocate in this scene, conveyed all her information appropriately?


Kobe, dollface, you shouldn't hit on movie stars wearing that cuddly little teddy bear suit. Cute as it is, but if I'm giving backrubs I wanna be feeling some LA Laker muscles... know what I'm saying?

[Talilan]

FTR, we did not get any advocate information whatsoever when we switched.

[Talilan]

What was the purpose of the above monologue?

Clarence: you realise you can just sent a letter to our host to ask if someone gets the information when they stuntman an advocate, as I said previously. We did so before coming in, and were told "no", so you will be told the same thing.

I'm putting my finger of suspicion on anyone beating around the bush and pretending there is some doubt as to whether the previous me is evil, for example Godwin and possibly Clarence also. That is not at issue. The issue is which glass they placed the poison in.

And I think we forgot this also but it's actually not at issue whether Carrie knew what door is correct irrespective of what information they received as an advocate. She did know which is the correct door, as she does for every scene, not by virtue of being the advocate but by virtue of being evil. Evil people assigned the good and bad doors to begin with.

FYI I believe we made up our mind awhile ago but we want to hear what others have to say first. Kelly, Kobe, John and Julie, we'd like you to take a stand please.

[Talilan]

Mr Odbody, you must have missed my question. It was "Do you think that old Carrie, as the sole advocate in this scene, conveyed all her information appropriately? "

I now have another question for you. Why would you assume that a stunt-switcher would get the same information as the advocate? It would mean 2 actors with the same information, one on-stage and one off-stage, which would defeat the purpose of having a single advocate. I suspect it may be an underhanded way to try and sow suspicion of the new Carrie.

Those who are not convinced should ask the Mr Grey about whether an advocate's information is given to someone who stunt switches with them. He gave us a clear answer.


Dweezil, when we switched onstage we brought with us all the information that the off-stagers had for us. If they have anything further they will no doubt send a sign.

~tal

[Talilan]

Doh
*waves at other half*

[Talilan]

Dweezil, thank you for clarifying. When you put it like that, I do agree.

Hopefully they're getting the caterers organised backstage for a celebratory dinner when we finish the scene.
~tal

[Talilan]

sorry Dweezil, that question was genuine, I didn't understand what you were trying to communicate.

Kelly we have no way of verifying if your pick actually was random. Therefore if you've made the wrong choice we're not going to be able to hold you to account.

[Talilan]

you can ignore the comment about DEATH

[Talilan]

I had not realised how close we were to deadline (just over 2 and a half days). Here is my rationale:

I think the right course of action is staying. I think they originally wanted to stick with "stay" being the right option as we're more likely to switch off-hand. But then they tried to double bluff us by saying door 1 is the right option. So I'd say stay.

Which means our vote will be unchanged.

Would very much like to hear from Kobe, John, Julie and John as to what to do.

[Talilan]

And that decision's from my notes from a while ago, and it's very interesting to see what other people chose.

Both Dweezil and Lance, those of the town, thought the same thing.

Both Clarence and Glen, those more evilly inclined, the opposite.

It's possible to interpret this both ways- as scum trying to get in the good books by pushing towards a decision they know is correct, or simply in trying to mislead us. After all, even if their decision was correct, it would prompt questions as to how they knew what the correct course of action was. I'm also aware they may be attempting to bait us into going the wrong way, fully aware that we won't trust them. Nevertheless I find it difficult to find fault with my original rationale. I think the previous Carrie wanted to start by going with something which would prevent the dominant strategy from working i.e. choosing the correct door to begin with. But then she added WIFOM by saying we should stay. I think she thought we would think she was bluffing, and hence be more likely to change to the other door.

She was probably thinking "go with the door which means you need to play counter-intuitively to win, and then motivate people further not to choose the counter-intuitive option by choosing it yourself".

[Talilan]

I strongly feel Clarence is overacting the whole

I don't know if the old Carrie was scum or not thing!

in an attempt to act uncertain in accordance with how she thinks a town-inclined person would. However she hasn't realised it's blatantly obvious the old Carrie was evil since the previous scene.

Notions based on whether the original Carrie was trustworthy wouldn't even be considered by a reasonable town-inclined person. Yer that's why she stole my part in the last scene to avoid being lynched, before getting trusted with the knowledge determined by the evil players, before choosing her door instantly with no discussion, clearly in order to do so before she could be replaced. Yer Clarence, it's really "unclear" whether or not she's evil, isn't it.

Plus you haven't given any reasons to reinforce your choice of door 2, beyond going with the ridiculous "I suspect you therefore I'll go with the opposite door" argument. You've made no attempt to address my clearly stated rationale for why we should choose door 1, and whether it's wrong.

[Talilan]

I am utterly at a loss as to how you think you can plausibly claim there is any chance the old Carrie is not evil.

My argument for door 1 was not "I suspect you therefore I'll go with the opposite door", it was entirely independent of that. It's the fact I think the scum i.e. Carrie (having spoken to yourself, Glen and Angel) would have chosen the right door to begin with, under the knowledge it's optimal play to switch and if we pursue a proper mixed strategy in light of knowing she knows which is the right one, we will go with the switch 2/3rds of the time anyway.

Furthermore, she decided to bluff us by choosing this door herself, making us even less likely to go with the "stay" option because she chose it herself. This is a very clearly laid out rationale. It is independent of the fact you are obv-evil.

I then reviewed my rationale in light of my rather strong suspicion you and Glen are both evil; yet chose the opposite option. I conclude I cannot conclude enough from this to motivate a change to the chances of my original rationale.

You are just using a very transparently scummy excuse of 'ooh I don't know if Carrie was scummy' to pursue obviously suboptimal reasoning.

Just for you though, CAN ONE OF THE STAGEHANDS GET ME A DONUT? AND PERHAPS WE COULD HAVE WORD IF MS. BLUE HAS TURNED BLUE YET? IF NOT WHY NOT? WAS SHE EVIL?

[Talilan]

We need 5 votes for one choice within the next two and a half days, pending news from off-stage please provide rationale and a vote in your next post.

[Talilan]

where's that donut? Can anyone remember who the director of photography is?

[Talilan]

I see that you haven't insisted that the old Carrie's alignment is unproven. I retract any implication that you had if there was any

[Talilan]

Keep pushin' that button

[Talilan]

Unconcerned by the issues currently concerning the others, Carrie dozes blissfully in that state that is halfway between sleep and wake... a familiar presence slips into her mind...

Checking in from beautiful Rio de Janeiro and I got a prod. I have nothing to contribute to the game at this point, just saying "ola".
~ Tals

[Talilan]

I'm pretty sure Mr. Grey would have fragged me on the spot if he thought I actually posted on-stage deliberately (which makes it not a very intelligent gambit as scum). Apart from that I wouldn't break the rules like that anyway. But this new attempt to twist my accidental post on-stage as "clearly scummy" is quite commendable.

[Talilan]

you put the "dis" in "discussion". no seriously, will post more tomorrow. am more than happy to do a list assuming there's no compelling reason not to.

[Talilan]

Glen Stewart Godwin, played by Thok
Randy Jones, played by Thesp (if was on-stage)
Angel, played by Gaspar
Mr. Green, played by sottyrulez
Clarence Odbody, played by PookyTheMagicalBear
Tabris, played by GoofballsAndBaloons
Dweezil Zappa, played by Mighty Orbots

would be interesting

[Talilan]

so, unless anyone has another plan, I guess we should pays our money and takes our chances?

[Talilan]

hit me with your proddin' stick

Happy Birthday Glork

Glen, my list wasn't of people I found suspicious but just an order which would be interesting to me. There was a mix of people I find scummy, people I find neutral and people I find pro-town on it.

I made my decision based on some admittedly fairly single-minded logic a while ago, and while I haven't been reading closely nothing has jumped out that would change that decision.

[Talilan]

yes Glen, it's the order I want people to reveal their preferences in, just like everyone else was giving.

[Talilan]

my pseudo was to push the button but I may yet change as the venerable Angel and Glen seem rather keen on not doing so.

[Talilan]

Actually I think I might like to not push the button

[Talilan]

you should probably re-read your quicktopic as it will feature you discussing which possibility to assign to each outcome

[Talilan]

Firstly, I think it's silly to characterise that sort of post as "obnoxious" in the context of a mafia game.

Secondly, in terms of throwaway posts (by the way, I am by no means the only person making them, see Pooky), my post did actually have a substantial purpose. Basically it was telling elvis that mod-WIFOM wasn't actually relevant, seeing as the allocation of good/bad outcomes was not made by the mod but rather by the scum. I am actually a little bit incredulous that she would not know this after the time she's spent in the game and what she's undoubtedly discussed with you. Hence the sarcasm.

About not wanting to play with me again- I'm sorry if you feel that way. I'm also sad that you've given me substantial reason to think you are scum, but no amount of this sort of rhetoric should change that, for obvious reasons.

[Talilan]

I wonder if the "moving day" will have any effect on the deadline.

Vote: Don't push the button

[Talilan]

I will explain my most recent reasoning process as well as my original choice.

Basically, I was assuming Gaspy is scum. At the beginning of the scene, in post 579, he said "don't push the button", which was why I still mistakenly believed that was his choice even though he apparently amended it later.

Last scene he continually insisted on the correct choice of action even when everyone was voting against it.

This scene I was thinking, he will try to turn the tables on us. He expects I and perhaps others will vote with him, expecting him to be double-bluffing as scum as he was last scene. Instead, this time, he chooses the wrong option (after all, if he's town, he shouldn't be getting it right all the time anyway).

Now I realised, he's voting for pushing the button and Thoky's voting for not pushing the button.

Thokky's more likely to be scum they are grooming for the end-game than Gaspy. Thus to not put all their eggs in one basket, and for the desired social engineering, they will have Gaspy try to coerce the town the wrong way- after all, his days are numbered and he's not going to make it to end-game and certainly won't be trusted if he does anyway. Thokster, however, is vying for the end-game, and can try to get some bonus points- "I TOLD YOU NOT TO PUSH THE BUTTON" after his friend Gaspy leads everyone up the garden path to pushing the button.

[Talilan]

Okay firstly I didn't say our friend the Hard-Thokker was scum for advocating the correct choice. In fact I worked backwards from the assumption he was scum.

Secondly I would hardly characterise "I don't like Tabris n Odbody therefore I'll vote against them" as ample, logical reasoning. I also think distrusting Pooky's a bit spurious as Talitha tells me he always plays like this and I believe Thok choi should know this.

Do you stand by your above post?

[Talilan]

Vote: Don't push the button, Push the button

According to the last votecount Thok you're not even voting?

Tags removed. Only votes at the end of a post are counted. - Mod

[Talilan]

DGB: I believe the reason for the condorcet with two options is that it reduces the chance of there being an actual "tie" (which causes the worst outcome automatically) because if both choices receive the same primary number of votes it's more likely one will have fewer secondary choices, assuming not everyone has voted with a full condorcet. It's rather pedantic, especially as push the button looks like a clear winner, but as far as I'm aware that's the reasoning.

Vote: Don't push the button

, Push the button

[Talilan]

Hold off on the hammer pls, my jetlaggled self is trying to catch up also
~Tals

[Talilan]

Firstly this is a crappy choice for town to try and figure out. First we have to decide who we think are scum (and we could easily be wrong), THEN we have to figure out whether those (possible) scum are voting for the choice they want to win, or the choice that is best for town (and we could very easily be wrong about this too). The chances of making a wrong assumption are enormous, and it's frustrating.

On the plus side though, we do at least have a chance of stumbling into the right choice by good luck rather than by correct reasoning. So each townie should make the choice that feels right to them and hope for the best.

I'm most comfortable with the DON'T PUSH choice, that we're currently voting for. My reasons are pretty weak but here you go:
1. I kinda like the company on the vote
2. I like that with most people now voting it's the least popular (I'd expect the choice that the scums want to have a bit of extra support)
3. If I were scum I'd have made PUSH BUTTON the bad choice, believing that most people won't be able to resist pushing a big ol' button.

~Tals

[Talilan]

I wonder who got lynched out of hewitt, ckd and MafiaJin

My money's on...........MafiaJin, who flips town

[Talilan]

Hello all

I bring news from offstage.

1. Pooky has been modkilled for not posting enough. (I don't think there was a replacement available). No flip yet.

2. Gaspar has just been lynched. Earlier in the day he strongly hinted at being the AP, and posted what he called "breadcrumbs" that pointed to him being the AP. But the majority of us didn't believe it and after a while he said that of course he's not the AP, he was just trying to draw a night kill and protect the real one. Anyway Gaspar lynched and I'm not sure why it took so long but they were very good at delaying it.

3. CKD wants you to know urgently that he did NOT put Mighty Orbits in the list to go onstage. He wants you to weigh this up when deciding whether to follow MO's advice.


My interpretation is that I believe CKD, and I guess that MO is onstage because scum made him advocate. Whether that gives any indication of MO's alignment I am unsure.

~Talitha

[Talilan]

No. MO is the only one that CKD said was not on the list to go onstage.

[Talilan]

We more or less came to the conclusion that the best move is to trust orbots on penalty of lynch if he ends up lying about his information.

At least, that's the sense I get from the condercet voting.

Do you have an opinion on our choice?

I think that's the best thing that can be done. Even if MO is scum, I don't think he would want to reveal himself at this stage. So the info he gave is probably true.

From memory I don't think anyone offstage had any problem with your tequila choice, apart from possibly CKD who didn't trust the source of the information because "he's not supposed to be there".

~T

[Talilan]

BTW - CKD thinks scum are sacrificing one of their own to get a -1.

I agree that it's possible, but I do think tequila is the safest vote.

[Talilan]

I doubt you'd need my permission for that, but sure.

Happy 5th Scumday (in NZ) Thesp.

~T.

[Talilan]

I'll just ask that we wait for anyone who hasn't shown up yet before ending the scene, just so they can give their reactions/opinions about what CKD said, etc.

Is it just our ladies, Kelly & Valentine that we wait for?

[Talilan]

The list of who CKD thought he was sending onstage was probably posted, but I'm sorry I cannot remember who should have been here instead of Orbots.

We've taken over the director job for the time being, it will be interesting to see how we do in comparison to the old director.

~Talitha

[Talilan]

Wow, I was wrong, wrong, wrong.
I really thought G&B was the AP.

Death needs a cup of tea and a lie down

[Talilan]

vote: tequila
Let's get out of here.

~Tal

Tags removed. Only votes at the end of the post are counted. - Mod

[Talilan]

vote:Tequila

[Talilan]

I like randomly ordering the 75 numbers.
I like the chopping in half each time idea.

But why not start with a bigger set... e.g. half of the numbers? Q1: Ask for at least 8 very goods. Then we'll use the half that has more very goods. From that point we could start asking for at least 1 very good to be present.

Q1 would take us down to 38 numbers remaining
Q2 would take us down to 19 remaining
Q3 is 10 remaining numbers
Q4 is 5 remaining numbers
Q5 is 3 remaining numbers
Q6 is 2 remaining numbers
Q7 is 1 remaining number

This is assuming the worst case that we have to go with the larger "half" each time. I think we possibly wouldn't need the 7th question.
Am i missing anything?

~Tal

[Talilan]

Ohh, my Qs 5-7 would not be legal. You are right.

[Talilan]

Got it. Does that guarantee a very good in 7 steps if we have no liars?

[Talilan]

ok well I guess I'm fairly deficient at most complex maths, I do think mith wouldn't include an easily breakable puzzle in the game with his maths knowledge. If there's no way to necessarily isolate a very good result reliably, perhaps we could aim for very good

or

good, if that someone assists the searching process (I'm not sure if it does).

- ortolan

[Talilan]

I agree with ort, we don't have to shoot for the moon. A good would be acceptable if we can't guarantee a very good.

So, the problem with Thok's idea is that it depends on all 7 questions AND a no at the first step.

By using the halves strategy, in 4 questions we can get a group of 5 numbers where at least 3 (and possibly more) are good or very good. We could choose the 4 most trusted to ask the questions. Then Q5 could try and get a set with no very goods, if we succeed Q6 and Q7 could give us more info (assuming no liars).

But is this the best we can do?

~Tal

[Talilan]

What about the obvious simple strategy: We each choose 5 numbers and ask whether bad+very bad=0. Even if only one of us gets a yes, we'd be guaranteed at least a neutral. I do not know what the odds are but I think this strategy is worth considering because it doesn't absolutely depend on everyone playing their part honestly.

~Tal

[Talilan]

the scum might have countered that based on the plan we put out earlier and just made all the choices alternate

[Talilan]

When I refer to numbers I'm always talking about random numbers. We can generate our own 5 random numbers between 1 and 75, or get one of the most trusted to generate a randomized order, if we're going the working-together route.

~Tal

[Talilan]

Link removed. See the rules for allowed tags. - Mod

[Talilan]

Sorry if I'm missing something G&B, but once we find a set containing a 'very good', do you have a plan how we narrow down which particular number IN the set to vote for? It's not enough to find a set that has one 'very good' in it, if we have no idea which item is the 'very good'.

~Tal

[Talilan]

It's a bit over my head, but I'll try and think it through when I get home from work today.
Tal

[Talilan]

Carrie said

"Q1: Have the most trustworthy person select a group of numbers (not sure if they should be random or sequential) so we have decent odds of getting at least one Very Good in there. If the answer is no, repeat with a new set of numbers (though I think that is unlikely).

Q2 (hopefully): Have another trustworthy person ask if five of those numbers contains a Very Good.

Q3-7: If above is yes follow Thok's plan of cycling them out with a single selection from the other five numbers. If answer is no, ask about the other five numbers having a Very Good.

If we manage to get a very good in the first question (I don't know what the odds are, maybe someone could crunch those numbers) I think we should just keep working down from most to least trustworthy with the questions. Odds would be in our favor to find the Very Good before it came to the least trust worthy person getting their question.

I think the plan might fall down if you start with a set of (e.g.) 10 that has more than one 'very good' in it and they are distributed so there is at least 1 'very good' in each grouping of 5. I think it means you have to rely on a truthful answer to all 7 questions, and can't easily see who lied if someone does the dirty on us.

~Tal

[Talilan]

Death points a long, bony finger suspiciously at Count De Morcef...

STRAIGHTFORWARD? WHAT ABOUT ALL THIS IS STRAIGHTFORWARD?

[Talilan]

you're guessing he was one of the good ones? what, you think scum go around killing their own players for fun???? That seems a pretty weird thing to say, frankly.

Thok: I didn't see if you saw what I wrote off-stage, but I was wondering why you were so sure we could give you a signal by firing ckd last scene. If indeed we had lynched ckd as you seemed to expect we would no longer be able to fire him and give you a signal.

My personal list is:

Town

me

VP Baltar-GaB

-no read due to not enough data and no experience with meta but if I had to bet I'd say town-

ShadowLurker

-no read, need to look at in more detail-

Mighty Orbots

-cannot distinguish between scumminess and VIness-

hewitt

-most scummy-

Thok, for aforementioned "slip".

- ortolan

[Talilan]

I have a partially meta-based read on VP Baltar too

[Talilan]

EARLIER I TRIED TO GET World Wide Web DOT Randomizer DOT Org INCLUDED THE SCRIPT BUT IT DIDN'T MAKE THE FINAL EDIT.

PERSON VOTED MOST LIKELY TO BE TOWNIE SHOULD GET THE RANDOM NUMBERS WE NEED

[Talilan]

Thok, in your 846 you specifically mention us "firing ckd to give the signal that we'd lynched someone". If we had lynched ckd, we would not be able to fire him.

[Talilan]

Death wishes he weren't so busy at work so he could give due attention to the problem at hand... but what can you do... Humans keep getting ill or old or having accidents and Death must attend to them...

But Death is nearly finished collecting the current crop of souls for the week, and anticipates being able to TAKE A GOOD HARD LOOK AT THE M-F-ING BOAT soon.

[Talilan]

Why not, Thokker?

[Talilan]

Back and I apologise for the absense.

IF the 'very goods' were stacked anywhere (and that is a low possibility IMO) it would have been Vizzini style (putting the VGs/Poison as far from ourselves as possible) which I think means they would have buried them somewhere in the 40s-60s.
/Just guessing.

Getting up to speed, seems to me we have used two questions, from arguably our two most trusted players and ended up with a list of 9 numbers that we know don't include any Very Goods.

I don't really care who goes next. The difference in scumminess between MY most trusted and MY least trusted on the boat is actually pretty small. I really only trust myselves. Even SL who I agree appears reasonably townish was fingered by Gaspar on his death-bed as someone he (quote) "knows" is scum.

The risk with SL is that he generated the random numbers AND he put forward the plan. Risky and I'd feel better if someone would re randomize the remaining numbers, but I don't know who to suggest does it. Maybe VP Baltar.

I'm quite hoping that we can catch a scum in a lie here, and still pick a very good anyway. That would be a fantastic outcome. I'm feeling lucky, I guess.

~Tal

[Talilan]

Perhaps when a lynch has occured onstage we could have some kind of communication in the form of a picture that represents the person who has been lynched. That way we wouldn't risk SL trying to stunt with a dead actor.

If the person in charge of pictures gets lynched this won't be possible of course, but that's probably not happening today.

~Tal

[Talilan]

Why one of those two? And when?

[Talilan]

Carrie, could you please use your womanly charms to get the men into line?... by that I mean you choose the specific order for the people asking the remaining questions.

Godwin should be in charge of helping the remaining people submit the best and most appropriate questions as more information comes to hand.

The rest of us are charged with keeping a close eye on these two and making sure they are acting in the best interest of the town... but I do feel that we would benefit from some firm leadership, especially with Kelly so set on leaving us.

Anyone opposed?

~Tal

[Talilan]

Carrie, in 1036 you said Tabris should go last. You are confusing me and I am unclear on the order.

~Tal

[Talilan]

Thanks - I will send the question when I get home...

but was there any response to my concern that Shadow Lurker randomised the numbers AND proposed the plan? Everyone trusts SL that much?

I would prefer if someone else randomised the remaining numbers (that have not been asked about yet), but if no-one else cares I guess I'll send the numbers in as is in a couple hours.

~Tal

[Talilan]

Why do you feel that way about Shadow Lurker, hewitt?

~Tal

[Talilan]

Sorry - I meant why do you feel that way about

Orbots

, not SL. Damn trying to do 7 things at once.

*sigh* Death sits down and contemplates what to do. Use Kelly's numbers, or insist that someone else, a possibly untrustworthy someone else, give new numbers.

What if I use Kelly's numbers, but skip an arbitrary number forward. E.g. skip the next 20, 30 or 40 numbers. Good plan or not? Am I making this unnecessarily complicated and a VG is actually going to appear in the next 8 numbers if we don't mess with the order? (- scum, feel free to weigh in on this).

Death is perturbed and wishes for a guiding light, a voice of reason, AND A SINGLE, STUPID 'VERY GOOD' *sigh*

~Tal

[Talilan]

Got it. Mr Grey is probably sleeping right now so I'm not holding things up as long as I ask a Q before I hit the hay tonight. I will set my alarm 10 mins early so I can login and check the answer before work tomorrow.

Currently thinking that I should ask the next 8 numbers as ordered. If there's no 'very good's in the first 16, I want Kelly Garrett to DIE IN A FIRE. (SORRY, HONEY).

~tal

[Talilan]

OK I saw Mr Grey's alter ego online, so I have sent off the question.

[Talilan]

No answer yet. Seems I must have just missed him.


Kelly, couple questions for ya.
1. What makes you think Mr Green was not just a plain old actor?
2. What do you think of the backstage characters, Locke and Lewis? Do you think they're good or evil?

~Tal

[Talilan]

Does {74, 14, 39, 23, 51, 63, 47, 66, 20, 34, 5, 56, 41} contain at least one very good?

Answer:Yes

~Tal

[Talilan]

I echo Carrie's sentiments (I was clumsily trying to ask something similar, earlier). What are you trying to achieve with the stunting, Kellykins? I'm

seriously

concerned about what anyone but YOU would look like in that bikini.

That's not to say that stunting is bad or you shouldn't do it. It is quite a buzz when you do it right. We want to make sure you have a plan in place that won't make a mess of this scene.

Anyway I'm itchy for some more bingo. Go go goofballs question!

~Tal

[Talilan]

What gave you the impression Huey Lewis is getting kicked off, Carrie? Did I miss something?

~Tal

[Talilan]

At least one of them, yes. That is my understanding.

~Tal

[Talilan]

What does the picture mean? I assume one of the men is Locke but who is the other one?

~Tal

[Talilan]

My info is good. 74, 14, 39, 23, 51, 63, 47, 66, 20, 34, 5, 56, 41 contains at least one very good.

I think at this point I'd rather check 41 (which is, I believe, a very good, if no-one is lying).

~Tal

[Talilan]

Or check Hewitt, because if Hewitt lied, we can still know for certain which is the very good.

As far as I understand, checking me gives us nothing (if I lied), and checking GaB gives only a 1 in 4 chance, if she lied. Checking a lying Thok we get a 50% shot at a very good.

But if Hewitt lied we find a scum and a very good. So I'm happy with that if you want to check a player rather than 41.

~Tal

[Talilan]

(Unless of course there is more than one liar, in which case we're screwed anyway).

I completely understand now why you were so insistent about the towniest players being onstage today, VP.

~Tal

[Talilan]

~Tal

Vote: 41

[Talilan]

_{WANT TO PLAY A GAME?}

[Talilan]

What don't you care about Hewitt... this scene, the whole game, something else?

~Tal

[Talilan]

Small detail but I just wanted to note that we don't know for 100% certain that Hewitt was telling the truth - If he and MO are scum together, MO could have safely given the same (incorrect) answer as Hewitt and ensured we dont get our 'very good'.

I bring this up as a possibility because it seemed odd to me how Hewitt was all disinterested in this scene, but as soon as MO's name was suggested to do randomizing or something Hewitt was suddenly interested and stating his opinion about that.

I'm not very convinced of this, and think it's slightly more likely that everyone actually told the truth and 41 is very good.

~Tal

[Talilan]

Hmmm, Hewitt is the advocate.

The list was:
StarKiss
zu_Faul
Thesp
VP Baltar
Hewitt
G&B

The reasoning (that I posted in our QT) was:
Both info broadcasting roles (Thesp & MO) are onstage, but SL can stunt and G&B can fire as a signal. Risk is that one of them is advocate and we lose that method of communication.
Is Thok, SL and Goofballs a good group to leave offstage? Thok & Goofballs are big question marks in the game. If they don't want to lynch one of them, SL can stunt a suspicious person offstage. If SL is made advocate, Hewitt will be offstage. At least one of those 3 was lying onstage yesterday.

~Tal

[Talilan]

OK, 2:5 vanilla is still winnable, especially with all the info we are starting with.

But I am sorry that my actions directly lead us into worst possible endgame.

To be fair there is a damn lot of scum in this game and any picks I made were likely to be wrong, but I still could have played it much safer. Mea culpa.

Thesp, what did Mr Grey tell you would happen if we lynched wrongly and got down to 5 innocents in the last scene?

~Tal

[Talilan]

Not meaning to be rude, but I asked you first and think you should answer first. IMO you are more of an unknown quantity in this game than we are.

How did the Pooky modkill hurt us?

~Tal

[Talilan]

answer the question please Thespy

- ortolan

[Talilan]

Ok, fine. He told us he couldn't answer the question. That's right, isn't it Thespy?

- ortolan

[Talilan]

Thesp? Thesp? Where art thou Thesp?

- ortolan

[Talilan]

Obviously the scum knew for sure what would happen if they got us down to 5 innocents in the last scene. Otherwise they would not have lynched SL so blatantly.

So either that information was made explicit to them in their role information, or Mr Grey did not decline to answer their questions on the subject like he did for us.

Either way I wish Thesp would've answered. He is, as I said, more of an unknown quantity than us.

~Tal

[Talilan]

by the way, that should have been me

tee hee

[Talilan]

Actually Talitha has pointed out to me that I've overlooked post 2634 off-stage, which is massively, massively, massively scummy from StarKiss. StarKiss did not even attempt to explain it, and still hasn't. Thesp has also brazenly ignored ckd calling him out on his lack of response.

- ortolan

[Talilan]

StarKiss

In order for CKD to switch his alignment and join the mafia (as you suggested to him), he would have to NOT be mafia, correct?

Then you got defensive when SL said you should be lynched, and said you lynched CKD because he claimed scum.

You OBVIOUSLY did not believe the "scum claim" even one little bit.

Your behaviour is only consistent with someone who knows CKD isn't scum, but who really wants to lynch him anyway.... i.e. your behaviour is only consistent with scum.

~Tal

[Talilan]

You're on my back over 1 mislynch. {Kise, keep in mind}

Nono. The mislynch of ckd is immaterial. I thought he was basically obv-town for the whole game but once he called for his own lynch it was necessary for WIFOM reasons. After that point I wouldn't call anyone scummy for having lynched him.

This is besides the point. The point is that you stated that he "should" have joined the mafia. This implies that he didn't join the mafia, which implies that he had the option of whether or not to join the mafia, which means he wasn't mafia already; thus you knew he wasn't mafia, yet still voted him. It's quite simple, and quite scummy.

This is besides the fact that your original suggestion was pretty preposterous- I can't exactly see mith letting someone spoil the game on day one by snitching on their buddies (especially because at that point it would constitute playing against their wincon).

I would like to remind everyone that time is of the essence here. Lurking's just going to autoloss the town. We only have less than two weeks to decide a lynch. I would particularly like to know where we stand with everyone else.

The challenge here isn't insurmountable. We only have one mislynch, but we have a paper trail lasting the whole game. I want people to give reasons drawn from the whole game for why others are scum, not just drawn from the events most fresh in one's memory (which would be easiest for scum to manipulate, as they were edging closer to end-game).

In particular we know that DGB and Thok felt confident sacrificing themselves for whichever two scummies are left alive (the automatic "very bad" setup might also have had something to do with it, but if they were sending in two players who were automatically going to be lynched then they must have known it wouldn't do them any good).

I feel Thesp has been very very scummy. I'm not familiar with his playstyle, but he has in my eyes lurked constantly throughout the game, as though he seems to have been way more interested in self-preservation and not forming links with anyone than catching scum. He's given us no reassurance of his alignment throughout the game, hasn't taken a meaningful stand which might expose him to criticism (apart from a few recent things which can be discussed in due course). He looks perfectly like someone who DGB and Thok permitted to go off by themselves at the beginning of the game, in order to have the best chance of non-linkage in end-game. Plus, to be honest, I get kind of the same brazenly conceited vibe from him as I got from Thok. These two points are separate by the way, please don't attack them on the basis "YoU ArE SaYIng he is a lone woLF but he iS Also aCting Like Thok. That DoESn't Make Sesnse Ortolan, yu are scum." One is an emotional vibe, one is a more behavioural thing.

Thesp, would you please explain your recent hounding of zu_Faul. I don't see how that originated.

Also

Talilan not answering the question Shadowlurker asked on top of this page bothers me.

wrt to

btw, if ckd is scum then the scum would have needed to start with at least 6 players. How likely do people think this is?

- ortolan

Can't remember if I ever answered this. It was simple logical entailment from the setup information. If scum started with 5 players and were sacrificing ckd, then his lynch would bring them down to two. Therefore either ckd wasn't scum, or scum started with 6+ players. I realised this wasn't a very effective argument though, because it in fact was very likely that scum had about 6 players rather than 5, for game balance reasons (and was correct).

- ortolan

Tags fixed. - Mod

[Talilan]

Obviously the scum knew for sure what would happen if they got us down to 5 innocents in the last scene. Otherwise they would not have lynched SL so blatantly.

Eh, we did know as well, it was going to be the worst setup possible... and as scum could not all migrate into this phase there was no risk for them lynching blatantly anyway...

Just how did you know? Ortolan actually asked about it quite early in the game and got no answer. In the rules it is not clear, IMO, that the final lynch of the final scene would count as 'triggering endgame early' and I'm actually a little annoyed that scum apparently had that information but town didn't.

There was definitely a downside to them lynching blatantly... because they sacrificed and exposed G&B & Thok, they did not have any choice about which two would go forward to endgame. And we effectively get two scum flips... something we've been desperately needing.

~Tal

[Talilan]

MO, think about it. If we were scum assistant director, and planned to blatantly lynch to get best possible endgame we would have done things very differently.

DGB was generally more trusted than us... we would have left her out of it.

Most likely we would have left ourselves offstage with Thok and a townie who couldn't run away by stunting. We certainly wouldn't have chosen to stay offstage and blatantly lynch someone who had zero chance of being the AP.

~Tal

[Talilan]

That last sentence is a bit weird. Try... "If we were scum AD and could organise to lynch whoever we liked, it would not have been SL who had zero chance of being the AP".

~Tal

[Talilan]

I don't know why DGB didn't fire us, but my guesses are that either she didn't want to appear to eager and give her scummy self away, or she foresaw it might be a nice way to link herself to us if her (or our) alignment got revealed.

Also, if we were scum we would have fired CKD way, way sooner. There were plenty of reasons we could've given for doing so, and no-one would've thought anything of it.

~Tal

[Talilan]

Talilan wrote:
[1]Most likely we would have left ourselves offstage with Thok and a townie who couldn't run away by stunting. [2]If we were scum AD and could organise to lynch whoever we liked, it would not have been SL who had zero chance of being the AP.

1. This is irrelevant. The quicklynch prevented stunting from being an option.
2. As I said, I don't think anyone suspected SL of anything, making him just as good as the AP really.

Also, looking at it numerically. We knew the setup would be 5 innocent, 2 scum for a while. Obviously there were 4 scum left at the start of Day 7, making two of them expendable (since two were destined to die regardless). So what better way to use them than to quicklynch a really townie player and guarantee their best possible endgame at the same time?

1. It is not irrelevant. Organised quick-lynches involve both luck and organisation. There was no guarantee going into that scene that SL would be lynched. I betcha he would've stunted if he had time after seeing the first vote. If his stunt request PM was timestamped before Thok's vote, he woulda been safe and two scum would've been exposed.

2. A) You're kidding right? NO-ONE is as good as a non-counter-claimed AP. B) There was some suspicion of him. Most notably Gaspar.

If you want to look at it numerically and FAIRLY, how about calculating the probability than any randomly selected group of 3 players yesterday would have 2 scum in it? THEN factor in that I ACTUALLY WANTED to leave scum offstage.. you know, to lynch them.

~Tal

[Talilan]

Let me ask you something else more concrete then.

Talilan wrote:
My own nominations are:
Hewitt
zu_Faul
StarKiss

Talilan wrote:
Before anyone else says their piece, I wanna get it on the table that I feel Thesp and Mighty Orbots are most likely to be scum

Explain what happened here. All three still live but you suddenly want to lynch Thesp or myself more. Why? You listed those three and none of them ended up offstage. Why?

The first post was me, last scene. The second post was ortolan, this scene.

After I posted my nominations I got to thinking that I HAD to go off the only concrete thing I knew, and that was that one of Thok, DGB, OR both you and Hewitt lied last scene. I had to dismiss the you/Hewitt thing as least likely. That left DGB and Thok... I was sure one was scum. I hoped that leaving them offstage, the right one would get lynched. I did consider that two of the three could be scum, but did not think that THOSE particular players would blatantly lynch and give themselves away before endgame because they were the question mark players, not the most scummy players, ya know?

~Tal

[Talilan]

I was also trying to figure out the likelihood of SL being made the advocate. I thought the scum might do this so he couldn't stunt someone offstage to be lynched. If SL was made advocate and bumped onstage, Hewitt would have been left offstage.

There were a lot off possibilities to think about.

~Tal

[Talilan]

I was on the hunt for the onstage liar (Thok or DGB) and had to leave SL off for stunt switching. I thought SL might stunt you or Hewitt off if the three couldn't agree who to lynch.

I am going to re-read you before I throw my weight behind trying to lynch you StarKiss. I find you quite difficult to interact with, probably because you're one of those damn frustrating hydra things.

~Tal

[Talilan]

Thesp, throughout the game you've brought up an issue about the Scene 1 advocate information not being symmetrical. Do you mean how the "offer" to CKD was not also made to Panzer? Why did you feel symmetry to be so important/likely? I don't understand.


StarKiss, one of the reasons I've been suspicious of you throughout the game is that (someone in your hydra) keeps on mentioning the SMG & Scientologists as two different scum groups. But the game setup clearly indicates there is only one primary non-innocent alignment. I thought it was your way of acting clueless (which is how I often act as scum).

Kise, if we accept the publically posted game setup information, there is no need for CKD to be lynched "in order for us to separate SMG from Scientologist". The mod has told us there's one main scum group. Doesn't matter what they're called, they're in it together against the town.

Dram, have you never been in a game with a jester??

~Tal

[Talilan]

That's your opininion. We didn't become hydras so we would have more work to do, it was obviously the opposite. You expectations of hydras are very high (as MO who wasnt able to keep his hydra partner should be able to attest to).

Don't like it, don't play in games with hydras.

This has no relevance to our job of lynching scum.

(Haven't read all of above. Too tired right now.)

~Tal

[Talilan]

Add to that the fact that the game has changed immensely since last scene. You shouldn't be faulting anyone who changes their mind from last scene to this one.

[Talilan]

Ok, I want to bring up some points I've had up my sleeve for a while before this conversation takes too much of a turn for the worst.

Firstly, if we was scum with Thokky and DGB, it is a simple fact that it would have been better play just to lie about our choices, put ourselves off-stage with Thokky, and hammer ShadowLurker ourselves. We were less trusted than DGB on-stage IIRC, and she would additionally look good the way she'd attacked Thok throughout the game and was turning on us at the time we did it.

Why the hell would scum sacrifice two of themselves for the end-game, and additionally have the scum in the AP role look really bad?

This is besides the fact I think it's downright dumb to suggest we are likely to be scum with Thok- we were on his case throughout the game, and as far as I'm aware brought at least one totally unique, and damning point against him- the stuff about him saying we should "fire" ckd as a signal, when that would be impossible if ckd were lynched (i.e. he knew ckd wasn't going to be lynched, even though he supposedly suspected ckd would be lynched). There was also the "knowing Gaspar's alignment in advance" point, I think we might have been the only people to bring that up also?

That's besides the point that I don't think three scum in ourselves, Thok and DGB would put all our eggs in one basket by interacting so much with one another if we were indeed scum. DGB's buddying up to us throughout the game re: Gaspar etc. is another sign we're not scum with her.

Shame we have to shoulder the onus of defending ourselves, but it's becoming apparent none of you were going to go to the effort of using intelligent reasoning to determine why it is indeed unlikely that we would be scum.

And contrary to what PZ says, the point about looking at the "totality of the game" is very, very valid. It's not "convenient" at all for us to want to do that. Unless PZ things we deliberately made ourselves look really bad just recently (when we could simply have avoided doing so if we were scum with DGB and Thok, as I said).

- ortolan

[Talilan]

Ahh, Talilan uses the "scum never make mistakes" defence.

Please clarify what you mean. This isn't the "scum never make slips" defence, it's the "scum would know not to make themselves look scummy" defence, and it's also the "well, it would have been easier just to sacrifice ourselves last scene". I wasn't paying that much attention to the game at the time but no-one suspected DGB and Thok were scum together AFAIK.

[Talilan]

oh and zu_Faul was obv the AP. When I was re-reading the other day Panzer was obv-town and left a rather obvious breadcrumb or two.

I still don't understand why Thesp was pushing for the claim earlier

- ortolan

[Talilan]

What would people have objected to, at the time, about leaving DGB/Thok/Shadowlurker off-stage?

[Talilan]

VP Baltar, again I'm disagreeing with you. It's not possible for hydras to always agree. I agree it is desirable that they agree, but also desirable is someone reading the thread rather than asking me to repeat myself. We can't always have what we want though.

The reasoning (that I posted in our QT) was:
Both info broadcasting roles (Thesp & MO) are onstage, but SL can stunt and G&B can fire as a signal. Risk is that one of them is advocate and we lose that method of communication.
Is Thok, SL and Goofballs a good group to leave offstage? Thok & Goofballs are big question marks in the game. If they don't want to lynch one of them, SL can stunt a suspicious person offstage. If SL is made advocate, Hewitt will be offstage. At least one of those 3 was lying onstage yesterday.

I got to thinking that I HAD to go off the only concrete thing I knew, and that was that one of Thok, DGB, OR both you and Hewitt lied last scene. I had to dismiss the you/Hewitt thing as least likely. That left DGB and Thok... I was sure one was scum. I hoped that leaving them offstage, the right one would get lynched. I did consider that two of the three could be scum, but did not think that THOSE particular players would blatantly lynch and give themselves away before endgame because they were the question mark players, not the most scummy players, ya know?

I was also trying to figure out the likelihood of SL being made the advocate. I thought the scum might do this so he couldn't stunt someone offstage to be lynched. If SL was made advocate and bumped onstage, Hewitt would have been left offstage. There were a lot off possibilities to think about.

I was on the hunt for the onstage liar (Thok or DGB) and had to leave SL off for stunt switching. I thought SL might stunt you or Hewitt off if the three couldn't agree who to lynch.

~Tal

[Talilan]

The above quotes are my reasoning for the onstage/offstage choices, if that wasn't clear.

I actually do not feel that bad about how the lynch last scene went down. We uncovered 2 scum. We know the alignments of ALL players not in endgame. We actually did OK.

At the moment I'm tired, got no fight in me. Kinda dismayed that AP thinks I'm scum. Won't support a VP lynch either although I find his opinions frustrating.

I think StarKiss is scum but have worrying doubts.

I'm on the fence about Thesp.

I'm on the fence about Hewitt, need to re-read the part where DGB calls him out for his vote hopping to do with Pooky (and would encourage everyone to do this and judge whether you think all 3 could be scum).

A little worried that MO might be scum... It is partially because of the scene he was picked to be advocate of. It was a nice scene to pick a townie-looking scum advocate for, a scene that had a neutral outcome, but could earn the advocate the town's trust.

In summary I need to do a heckuva re-read. I hope I'll have time for it this weekend :/

~Tal

[Talilan]

When it turns out you have been consistently wrong about significant things for much of the game, your later reaction is not to show trepidation or uncertainty at your conclusions based on this history (one breakdown-moment after Gaspar's lynch notwithstanding), but instead has been to make bald-faced assertions of things in a similar manner as before. Moreover, when other people express any degree of uncertainty, your approach has been to inadvertently(?) belittle this by proclaiming quite proudly that such things are seemingly obvious.

(Warning, gross use of generalization and stereotypes below!)

Thesp, ortolan is Australian. All NZers know these brash and brazen neighbours of ours never, ever doubt themselves.

~Tal

[Talilan]

VP it's nice to have the benefit of hindsight when calling someone idiotic isn't it.0

Regarding hydra thing, I'm about ready to quit the game due to someone on a high horse with stupidly high expectations of me.

~Tal

[Talilan]

VP I understand your point, and understand what you want and why you want it but I'm not sure how to play like you're demanding I play without ruining my own enjoyment of the game. Have asked ortolan if he will carry on solo.

To answer again about my onstage choices (Hope this will be the last I have to post about it, so getting it all out there.)

Warning, random ramblings about onstage/offstage choices to follow...

You seriously have no idea how many possibilities my mind went through about who to leave offstage. My head hurt after it. I didn't have enough info to guarantee a good decision and I'm not ever sure how I could have made a safe decision.

Firstly I was never sure that Shadow Lurker was innocent. Never played with him before, I had taken Gaspar's advice and had my eye on him. 2nd it didn't cross my mind that DGB & Thok to be scum together, although I was kicking myself in the QT for not figuring it out when I was calling DGB out for her inconsistencies regarding Thok in the last off-stage bit. I had believed DGB was so obviously town for most of the game and was kinda resistant to change my mind on that even though I was starting to notice the evidence against her.

Yes, I could've done better, admittedly. Now that I know (..and remember that the mod refused to answer the question about it) that the last lynch of the last pre-endgame scene is considered "early", it

was

a bad move and I should have at least attempted safer options (even though I was likely to be wrong). I really thought the rules wording didn't support this being the case. I gambled and left two big question marks offstage.. because knowing their alignment before endgame would be very beneficial for town.

I knew that at the very least if one of them was lynched and town, that the other had to be scum.

I did envisage the possibility that SL would stunt me off, so that the 3 people suspected of onstage lying could thrash it out. If not me, then Hewitt of Starkiss would be stunted off, and I wanted to see the discussion of who they chose and why.

I did consider leaving someone very scummy offstage with 2 townie looking people but I had a premonition that whoever I chose as most scummy would end up not being scum at all.

I also thought that even if I left 2 scum offstage, one might lynch the other to look good going into endgame. If the rules were how I imagined them, this could've been a pretty likely scenario.

As I've said I thought it was best play to go with the objective info (that someone onstage lied).. rather than the subjective player X seems scummy.

~Tals

[Talilan]

OK, I don't really want to leave the game at this point. I was having a bad day at work and feeling overwhelmed. Sorry for the emotional blackmail VP... let's just agree to disagree.

Friday night here, TGIF. I'll be back when I'm not tired and prone to over-reactions.

~T

[Talilan]

The problem with our hydra account is we've both been enthusiastically involved in the game-mostly at the same time, and have played pretty much an equal role in it. Yet we haven't gone to great lengths to reach consensus before posting (I think that would have been impossible considering our level of activity in the game). I wasn't actively playing in the game very much from the Gaspar lynch to the present, so I don't have much insight into some of the decisions that were made. I can understand why the choices were made for last scene though- because SL had the stuntman ability etc. I wouldn't have suspected DGB and Thok were together personally- myself I had (regrettably) just started to waver on Thok and was in fact finding DGB more scummy (whereas previously I had been assured of Thok's scumminess and found DGB pro-town). I still would have found it hard to envision them being scum together unless I were explicitly asked to consider the possibility, when I don't know what I would have said.

I will just make some more points as they come to me.

I read mith's invitational game, in which VP Baltar was scum; a few weeks ago. I felt that, once the flips were known, he had fairly obviously defended most of his scumbuddies quite specifically and systematically. He got lynched in 3-player end-game when the two townies realised the same thing. I believe that game took place concurrently with this game. I don't think he played anything like the way he did this game, and it would be too difficult for him to change as scum (and it would rely on him totally changing his approach to scum, if he were indeed scum this game). I also recall finding him pro-town for various reasons throughout the game. For this reason I am pretty much as sure of his townety as that of zu_Faul. The fact he went with the votecount analysis is yet another point in his favour, because votecount analysis of this sort would be precisely the thing that would have shown his scumminess in the invitational IIRC.

I think I said this is in my last post, but I still lean towards Thesp-StarKiss scum. I think that vote is a bus. Will say more if I come up with anything else.

Thesp, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease explain to my why the uncounterclaimed AP is not last in your condorcet.

tbh hewitt's vote on us makes me feel alright about him when I consider it. If he were scum, he must know that we're innocent (woot, subjective tell), and if we got lynched (which doesn't look particularly unlikely with the wave of public opinion) then he'd be a likely second lynch. I do badly need to re-read him for fear of the "too scummy to be scum" fallacy, but I do distinctly recall something DGB said earlier in the game, something like

"I'm pretty sure hewitt isn't scum, because if he were scum then the scum would be telling him to stop acting so scummy in their QT". I'm preeettty sure this makes hewitt a bit less likely to be scum. I don't think I see DGB jeopardising her scumbuddy and herself like that, she's not that sort of player. But I could be wrong. She is anti-busing after all. Does need a re-read.

Tbh my suspicions of Mighty Orbots were partly based on the way he arbitrarily seemed to turn on us at some point in the game. We also speculated recently that it would be more difficult to be scum if one were in a hydra, which might have been the reason troll left. PZ, can you explain to us exactly why Zorblag left your hydra? See the thing that struck me in my early game partial re-read was that Zorblag was doing a pretty good job looking pro-town, helping with directions for the stagemen and all, but it was in a way that wouldn't hurt the scum at all- it was just ensuring things were properly organised. The problem is that at this point in the game there wasn't much to go on, so doing that sort of thing might be perfectly justified. I do also recall reading a post of his where he listed scum suspects (I'm pretty sure it was Troll) in pretty much perfect order based on who the town found scummy at the time. It was a perfectly logical list, almost too logical. It seemed to contain no quirks or counter-intuitive insight. Then again, I'm not that familiar with how Troll plays so this may just be the way Troll analyses, with nothing insidious about it.

I'm still wary to let StarKiss' "slip" go like we kind of did with Thok. I also think Thesp is being too clever by half by voting his scumbuddy right now. I would expect those sorts of shenanigans from smug scum in end-game.

- ortolan

[Talilan]

Why didn't the scum kill zu_Faul? They may have wanted to claim his role in endgame. To do this they had to leave him alive (and unclaimed), but not pick him for endgame.

~Tal

[Talilan]

zu_Faul, HOW would we have gotten those scumflips? Where in the rules does it say that we find out the alignment of the players who don't go to endgame???
I have read the rules several times and as far as I am aware we were never going to be told the alignments of players not chosen for endgame and I have been playing all along as though this were the case.

And where in the rules does it say that the last lynch of last scene would be considered 'early'??

What freaking rules are you reading?

~Tal

[Talilan]

It was in the rules all the time I was here...

What I asked was what happens (wrt endgame) if the innocents reach 5 at the end of scene 7, Mr. Grey said he couldn't answer.

I asked this perhaps quite a few scenes ago. I wasn't really thinking at the time that lynches will inevitably resolve before the on-screen choice (because they have to, otherwise there will be no lynch). The only way the question could have been relevant, I realise, is if the scum had nightkills to use at the end of scene 7. It was also possible that mith designed the game so that even if the number of innocents reached 5 during scene 7, it wouldn't have mattered, because it was the last scene. So he would have allowed us to vote on-stage anyway. It depends if you interpret the "minimum of 5" thing as simply being there for functional reasons i.e. the game won't function any more if further town players get killed after that therefore one needs it as a limit; or if it is set more as a goal for the scum to achieve and for town to avoid. So I still think it could have been interpreted either way, and mith did refuse to answer our question.

There have been other things the scum knew about the setup which the town didn't e.g. that the scum-chosen advocate doesn't need to be drawn from the director's picks (at least I'm pretty sure this was the case?)

I have also remembered Thesp suggesting a no lynch for scene 7 (in retrospect this was very correct advice- even if we hadn't had two scum off-stage; if we'd had one town and one scum or two town who voted for a third town-aligned player; this still would have sealed us into worst end-game). Not to tunnel on Thespy, but this demonstrates an extraordinary level of insight both compared to other players in the game, and compared to how I thought he was keeping up with the game at the time. Bear in mind that the scum would have been discussing in their qt at the time the potential for getting two scum off-stage and sealing the endgame, which may have been where he got it from.

- ortolan

[Talilan]

Talilan, why did you lean in the direction of the crone in that scene?

I personally didn't. After thinking about the info, I wanted maiden and I posted an argument backstage for maiden, and I asked people whether they agreed and whether we should send a sign indicating maiden.

There wasn't support backstage. One of the MO hydra thought there was a problem with what I had worked out. I remember Thesp specifically did not want to send a sign indicating anything as he though the onstage people should play it out. Ortolan did his own figuring out and came up with crone... that was when the onstage accident happened. I'll let him explain why he thought crone.

~Tal

[Talilan]

Sorry, re-reading this game is a bit of a bitch

Crone was where Yos was the advocate, right? My reasoning was that if he was scum, he'd be leading us into choosing the "neutral" choice which was in fact the bad choice. If he was town, it seemed like if he had been told a choice was "not the bad one", it would be very likely to be the neutral one, otherwise it seemed too easy (I still don't know exactly what influence the scum had over the information given to the advocates, so I still can't second-guess how what information to give the advocates was chosen). If he was scum and leading us to the bad choice, then picking either of the others would be better. If I'm correct the potential sequence of choices in which mother was neutral had crone come out as good. Plus if he was lying scum we would be choosing "not the bad choice". And the whole thing looked so convenient, with Gaspar saying "mother was so obviously the correct choice" etc.

- ortolan

[Talilan]

In the rules it said that, as soon as one side is down to minimum number, endgame starts. After the lynch, town was down to 5 players, also known as minimum, so endgame started. It's actually pretty simple.

Well in that case even if scene 7 finished, scum might have nightkills they can use; thus bringing the town down to 5? I don't see how it's as simple as you seem to think it is (plus mith specifically refused to answer our question, if it was answerable in the rules then he would have just told us to read the rules).

I agree with you about alignments being revealed. Assuming there was a lynch (of anyone), rather than a nolynch, we would be able to work out exactly who was scum because there would only be exactly the number of players required for end-game.

- ortolan

[Talilan]

zu_Faul,

We didn't know how many scum there were. I assume neither did you.

If we hadn't got down to 5 town and triggered early endgame, we would not have known how many scum and town were left. The

only

reason we know Thok & DGB's alignment is because we triggered endgame early.

Re: Thesp not wanting to send a sign onstage... Yes I thought it was worth noting after I it was revealed that maiden wouldn't have been a bad pick. Thesp didn't appear to put any effort into figuring out the puzzle himself, just wanted onstage to play it out. (Now that I check back, MO also did not want to send a signal onstage.. I guess I found this less suspicious because one of MO was at least attempting to figure out the puzzle).

~Tal

[Talilan]

Maybe. I think it was around that time that MO lost half of his hydra. Have we heard what caused that yet?

~Tal

[Talilan]

... re-reading.

I'm nearly ready to add MO's name to the list of people I won't vote for. If he's scum he's played an amazing game and probably deserves to win. He's been active in both the special game mechanicky things as well as the scum-hunting side of things and for an active player there's actually very little you can fault him on.

I do worry that he had an unusually firm and early grasp of game mechanics, how the advocate information worked, etc (see offstage posts 90,92,111,156) which I would expect scum to have a better handle on as they needed to know this stuff to make their choices... but on its own it's not a good enough reason he's scum.

I will keep reading, but just wanted to note my updated feelings (as I have expressed suspicion of MO in the past.)

Assuming MO continues to look OK, this leaves me with 3 possible votes... Hewitt, StarKiss, Thesp...

I will narrow down from these 3 to my 2 most likely scums from this once I've read a few more scenes, then negotiate with ortolan our vote.

~Tal

[Talilan]

Better respond to this I guess, but feel time spent arguing with someone I'm most likely not going to vote for is not well spent. He may, however, vote for me. So...

1. It is not irrelevant. Organised quick-lynches involve both luck and organisation. There was no guarantee going into that scene that SL would be lynched. I betcha he would've stunted if he had time after seeing the first vote. If his stunt request PM was timestamped before Thok's vote, he woulda been safe and two scum would've been exposed.

I thought the KY Krew business Scene 1 pretty much established that scum can daytalk.

There was still no

guarantee

. Some people have jobs... some live in different timezones.

2. A) You're kidding right? NO-ONE is as good as a non-counter-claimed AP. B) There was some suspicion of him. Most notably Gaspar.

Close enough. And Gaspar was dead, so.

Exactly. Dead AND confirmed innocent. And has one of the best scum-hunting reputations on the site. Therefore I didn't take his opinions lightly and didn't expect others to either.

We were less trusted than DGB on-stage IIRC, and she would additionally look good the way she'd attacked Thok throughout the game and was turning on us at the time we did it.

You've said this a couple times. What support do you have?

You were there onstage in the recent boat scene when we ranked everyone. DGB was more trusted.

This (below) is ortolan's posts but I'll answer for us:

What would people have objected to, at the time, about leaving DGB/Thok/Shadowlurker off-stage?

Here's where I'm really lost now.

oh and zu_Faul was obv the AP.

So why wouldn't you have left him offstage to lynch your scum candidate? If zu_Faul was "obv the AP" that means zu_Faul is guaranteed town.

*shakes head* Leave offstage zu_Faul, my scum candidate and WHO? I had to be onstage. I might've been dumb enough to get SL quick-lynched but there was no way I was leaving zu_Faul offstage with two people of unknown alignment. (I know that is contrary to what I posted while offstage pre-scene but I certainly wasn't putting all my cards on the table at that point.)

~Tal

[Talilan]

MO, Re SL. Be fair. Your point was to question why I left an obv-town offstage to get lynched. I'm saying that, to me and at least one other player I now trust, he was not obv town. He was voted most trusted onstage but look at the company we were in. He proposed and steamed ahead with a doomed plan. He was nowhere near a confirmed innocent. You can continue to argue this, but you're simply wrong.

And I guess that makes us even because we were apparently wrong about DGB being more trusted than us. Not sure how ortolan and I both managed to mis-remember that, sorry.

-T

[Talilan]

StarKiss/Kise,

The post that you linked seemed awfully rhetorical to me now and back then too. When I figured out that you actually expected a reply, I replied. (As I pointed out to you already) my post was about as clear and unambiguous as it is possible to be!

Your second point (that if I have a clear belief about someone being scum I should try and get them lynched) is a better point. You got put on the backburner for a few reasons...
- you started posting more (which was half the point of my "scum, scum, scum" post... to try and force you to engage in the game)
- as you posted more, I started to entertain the possibility you were town (and I said so)
- you were not onstage and could not be the onstage liar
- I didn't expect you (if scum) to be picked to go to endgame

I still think you're more likely scum than not.

~Tal

[Talilan]

Stunting you was just one of the possible scenarios I imagined. I was only guessing how it would play out. 3 scum off camera would have been fine. They would've had to lynch one or risk exposing all three.

StarKiss, what do you think about Hewitt? More likely scum or more likely town?

I've been having internet connection probs at home which is such a pain because I wanted to read over most of the game by now :/

~Tal

[Talilan]

It's the last week of school (Nah I'm not a student, I am school secretary/office manager). The rest of my week is hellish.. I will probably only get quality re-reading time in the 24 hours prior to deadline (and even then I have a Christmas party I'm s'posed to be at).

So probably nothing new from me until "tomorrow".

I do wonder if StarKiss is a better first lynch than Hewitt. The way CKD's lynch went down made me wonder about a StarKiss/Thesp link. I don't want to be suckered by Hewitt if he's trying to play us though. Has anyone played with him before and is he normally so negative?

~Tal

[Talilan]

hokay I'll do one (ortolan)

Vote: StarKiss

, Thesp, [hewitt, Mighty Orbots], VP Baltar, Talilan, zu_Faul

[Talilan]

hewitt's town. Lynch StarKiss/Thesp instead please.

[Talilan]

Which 3 players would you have left offstage VP. StarKiss: same question.

Lynching us based on the actions of a known scum would be bad play. As for the bad directorial choices, please weigh this up as you consider the above question with your vast benefit of hindsight.

~Tal

[Talilan]

Talitha, Ortolan stated that zu_Faul was "obv" AP. Do you agree?

Question to both of you: When did you come to this conclusion?

Do I agree? Not entirely although he was a very good candidate for AP.

Before Panzer flaked, I posted in our quicktopic that he was either scum or the AP. He was hiding something. Then zu_Faul replaced and we had the long wait and it pointed to zu_Faul being the AP. I thought he was very possibly the AP but wondered if this was perhaps a little obvious. Then DGB did some over-the-top posts, she kept talking about the AP, and with her timing, etc, she was definitely pointing at zu_Faul as the AP. I couldn't work out why someone would do this? I decided she must be the AP trying to throw the scum off her scent. I was very wrong - discovered this when she got given a job.

When SL posted that he didn't think Mr Green (sotty) was vanilla, I kinda agreed. I had thought it was possible they were the AP.

When Thesp challenged zu_Faul onstage I briefly wondered if HE was the AP.. then realised he had a job and couldn't be.

So the answer is yes it was obvious, but no it wasn't

obvious

(to someone who is seeing conspiracy everywhere).

I concluded he was the AP when he claimed it.

~Tal

[Talilan]

If I was leaving people off stage in that scene it might have been DGB, Starkiss, hewitt or some mix like that. Not saying it would have been correct and it could have ended the same way, but SL was obv town and a bad choice.

Your 3 picks would have left offstage with no method of communication. Something CKD got villified for. And unless all 3 are scum (possible but by no means certain), would have put us automatically into worst possible endgame. We also would not have got the benefit of seeing two scum flip, because the scum would have had all the time in the world to make their lynch look like a well-meaning one. My picks were better.

~Tal

[Talilan]

Oh we would... the number things. My bad. ~sigh~

I am going out for the day. Don't know if I'll be back for deadline.

~T

[Talilan]

StarKiss is a very good first lynch. He has the best chance of being scum, IMO. We don't want to be in lynch-wrong-lose tomorrow... SPECIALLY if you are serious about lynching us.

~T

[Talilan]

Also

The more I ponder why hewitt might have been picked as the Advocate for the last scene, the more I'm happy with lynching him. <snip>

Can we please have this reasoning fleshed out?

~T

[Talilan]

lynching us is retarded, start getting better reads pl0x zu and VP. It's Thesp and StarKiss, not us and StarKiss. I suppose you reckon we've been busing StarKiss since god knows when as well?

Read the damn thread.

- ortolan

[Talilan]

why would you expect me to post, I'm not even up to date with this game. I was just suggesting you may not want to vote us if you desire for town to win. If VP Baltar thinks we're def not scum with StarKiss then it's vitally important that StarKiss gets lynched immediately so that we may not be mislynched. Then we can lynch Thesp. gogo.

fyi that argument about us being more trusted than DGB still doesn't hold water, it's not the difference of us being trusted more it's the difference of scum sacrificing 3 of their number compared to 2. Anyway let's not lynch us kthx.

- ortolan

[Talilan]

whatever. I'd outline why the above post makes it even more obvious that Thesp and StarKiss are scum but I'm not going to waste my time arguing against brick walls when I have far more important things to be doing right now.

Let's just lynch hewitt and ourselves, then we can pat KY Crew, Pooky, DGB, Thok, Thesp and StarKiss on the back for a hard-earned win.

- ortolan

[Talilan]

VP, I'm pretty much done with you, and am starting to feel like Hewitt. I've answered the DGB thing. I've answered the choices thing. There's no point repeating anything because you don't recognise honesty when you see it. I have explained myself to death, as you well know. What's with the lol? I didn't say anything like what you twisted my words into. I am not saying I intentionally tried to get us into worst possible endgame and you are absurd to read that into it. I am saying that I THINK MY PICKS WORKED OUT BETTER THAN YOURS WOULD HAVE.

Thesp, you are the only one sticking up for us. It's such a pity you're scum

I do not want argue anymore. I'm with ortolan and refuse to argue at brick walls. Lynch us if you want. When flip town lynch StarKiss, lynch Thesp.

Love you all... peace.

~Tal

[Talilan]

StarKiss - Firstly, no we did not know the outcome of the maiden at that time. I thought maiden was indicated as 'not the bad choice' from the information given, but others either did not agree or did not try to work it out themselves.

Also @ StarKiss - if you flipped town I'd obviously reassess Thesp but I would most likely still think he's scum because I think zu_Faul, VP, and MO are town. With you out of the picture and town, there'd only be Hewitt & Thesp. It's a pair I've considered, but as I find you the most likely scum here I don't think it is the case.

~Tal

[Talilan]

I just want to link this post of DGB's that I refered to earlier:
http://www.mafiascum.net/forum/viewtopi ... 93#1932593

The context is DGB suggesting we lynch Hewitt. And she's saying that if he's scum, then Gaspar looks very townie and Pooky looks like a Hewitt buddy. Now I don't pretend to know what goes on inside the mind of DGB, but I think it's much more likely she knew Hewitt would flip town, than she was actively trying to incriminate Pooky and clear Gaspar.

Just my 0.02c on Hewitt.

~Tal

[Talilan]

Does that mean we will be lynched? That is good. A much better choice than hewitt. Please lynch StarKiss 'n' Thesp on the 'morn

[Talilan]

I am happy 2 self-vote