Newbie #851 (Game Over!)

[PorkchopExpress]

Vote: stands2reason

Yeah, we'll see about that!

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hello everyone. I am your IC today, and I hope we are here to have some fun. And catch mafia of course. Well, that is easy, I already found then

vote Pierre

Ah, this is the guy that you should look to if you're having some troubles grasping the game. (That's the game, mind you, not actual play. There's a fine distinction.) Also, Spinach and I are SE's, which means we've played a couple of games enough to kinda explain the odd bit of game theory, strategy, or mechanics. That said, take everything with a grain of salt in Mafia, even veterans can be wrong.

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Everyone is innocent until we have a reason to think otherwise.

Nope.

Unvote. Vote: AntiSemantic

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Everyone is innocent until we have a reason to think otherwise.

Nope.

Unvote. Vote: AntiSemantic

. . . you're going to have to explain a little more than 'nope' and a vote. Why do you disagree with it? What makes people who agree with AS's statement scummy? (I'm assuming you think he's scummy because of the vote, correct me if I'm wrong)

Well, it's a bit of an eyebrow raiser. I don't see it as an effective mentality for a townie which seems susceptible to buddying and blind spots. I'd say the truth of the matter is somewhat reverse: everyone is suspicious, until you have reason to think otherwise. Townies can only trust themselves, and must scrutinise everyone else. Is it necessarily scummy, though? Such thinking could play well for scum (justifying their focus on the highly-lynchable without unneccessary tangles with other harder-to-lynch players), but there are other reasons a player would believe that, and I haven't seen enough of AS' play to say that it's scummy in this instance. As such it warrants pursuit, and I'm finding that more promising.

Seriously, taking a quote out of context and semi-bandwagoning with a single word? I hate making retaliation votes, but this kinda calls for it.

In AS' response we have:

1) Misrepresentation. How exactly did I take you out of context? How is the rest of the post even relevant to what is being discussed?

Here's the extended quote:

@Pierre: Vanilla townie is not really a role claim. These games start with a bunch of townies living their lives, until people start dying. Everyone is innocent until we have a reason to think otherwise. Circles I'm used to, that's the base assumption. I meant it sarcastically, but to be clearer I'll use more smilies next time.

Here's the whole post.Nothing has been taken out of context, you've made a seemingly standalone statement (sibilance!) about Mafia, that I do not agree with and piqued my curiosity. You've tried (poorly) to make that seem scummy.

2) Being against "Semi-bandwagoning" while "Semi-bandwagoning" himself.

3) The preemptive defence against an OMGUS claim.

I'm getting some mild sensations in my scumdar here, AS hasn't responded well to pressure.

@Myk: Mind if I redirect your questions back at you? What do you make of the wagon/s?

@Everyone: What do you make of Pierre describing AS' roleclaim as Misleading? Post here.

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I hereby do stand quite well behind my previous vote for AntiSemantic. It looks like he/she (?) is trying to mislead us and give quite a lot of reasons, JUST at Semi-RvS. By the way, is it frowned upon to start a bandwagon, even if you do have some pretty good reasons, and I am not trying right now to start one mind you.

What are you trying to do then, exactly?

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Pardon my absence, an looong weekend of paintball and work has left me tired, bruised and with a two-day long headache. Personally, I couldn't be happier (or more dead in the head). I will be back some time today with a post.

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Catching up now. Here are two outstanding* responses while you wait.

RE: AntiSemantic

1) The Alleged Context Stripping
If that’s what you were doing, you failed to make it clear. The post from Pierre that you were responding to was not about your actions in this game, it seemed logical that you would responding to that more directly. Judging by how other players were with my thinking, and oblivious to any misrepresentations, I’d say I’m not alone in finding that unclear. As a sidenote, I wouldn’t introduce ‘roleplay’ to Mafia unless it’s an expected part of the rules. It can trip you up since Mafia is essentially a metagame. For instance, decrying the death of a pro-town power role might seem in character, however it’ll just seem scummy to others.

2) Bandwaggoning
Actually I failed at nothing. I provided my reasons in due time. You, however, simply piggybacked other player’s votes and then tried to shield yourself with preemptive defences.

3) Preemptive Defending
Just because it’s the way you play doesn’t change the fact that it’s scummy. This sort of play does two things: firstly, it stifles conversation by limiting other player’s interaction with your posts. Secondly, it’s a cheap way to try and score townie points (from the logic that you’re so pro-town you’d give everyone full disclosure on how flawed your points are) when all you are really doing is undercutting your own scum-hunting. Transparency can be very helpful to the town, but there are better ways to do it.

RE: Pierre
That was an intriguing reaction to a question, Pierre. Let me break the scumminess down for you:

I hereby do stand quite well behind my previous vote for AntiSemantic.

It looks like he/she (?) is trying to mislead us and give quite a lot of reasons, JUST at Semi-RvS.

By the way, is it frowned upon to start a bandwagon, even if you do have some pretty good reasons, and

I am not trying right now to start one mind you.

The key parts of the sentence have been highlighted.
1)

Here you find AS scummy enough to warrant voting.

2)

You’re presenting a case that AS is behaving scummily.

3)

But you’re not trying to bandwagon your suspect.

If you can’t see that disconnect then I can’t help you, Pierre. Scum often play like this to help implicate a Townie but try and distance themselves from the outcome. The awkward overreaction to the question earns you some scum points too, pal. We’re more than allowed to ask questions of our fellow players, doing so isn’t scummy.
*Not necessarily in the way you’re thinking

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@Alvarian: Do you think Swimmer is overstating the case on Pierre? Why?

@AntiSemantic: What’s your read of Stands2Reason? Also, do you not think that Pierre was just being transparent with his argument? Why?

@Einlazers: Who do you think is most likely to be scum, at the moment? So far you haven’t questioned, accused or otherwise scumhunted. All you’ve done is reason that things are null-tell thus far. What do you make of AS’ preemptive defence? Stands2Reason? I disagree with some of your hyperbole early on (I don’t think AS and I were in danger of flaming/derailing the thread) but that’s really neither here nor there.

@Stands2Reason: Your thoughts on Pierre?

@Swimmer: I’m getting some warm fuzzies from this direction, since he saw what I saw (more or less). I’ll also note that so far Pierre has been suspicious of pretty much everyone who has looked his way. Good posting.

Unvote. Vote: Pierre Sickle

Pierre’s last post could be a very fine example of deflection. Hey, look at this active lurker while I avoid posting.

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@AS:
Re: Context.

I took a quick look back and the only person I can find worried about the OOC issue is you. So, what’s your point? The run of play actually supports what I’m saying, since when I took your statement as a comment about the game others were happy to respond to it as that. It’s pretty easy to infer that you were the only person who really understood its significance. Easy to do since Pierre’s question didn’t relate to the plot element of Mafia at all. So, yes, you could have been clearer. If the other players feel I’m painting them with a broad brush then they’re welcome to say so. YMMV re: roleplaying but my advice is: Be prepared to get grilled for it in your average game of mafia.

Re: Bandwaggoning

You’re overreaching again. You came in so worried about the context of your post that you ignored the context of the discussion. My position was clear if you stop looking at it from your palatial estate on Misrepresentation Mountain™. Spinach was the only person who questioned it, but he understood what I was on about but just wanted me to clarify why I’d think it was scummy. Myk understood what I was saying, but disagreed with it. Then he voted me for that giving me a taste of my own medicine. So, my reasoning was there from the get go and was willingly spelled out when that proved necessary. You’ve failed to demonstrate this as scummy.

RE: Predefense

I understand that you were taking pains to prevent anyone seeing a contradiction in your behaviour, and that concern about outside scrutiny is scummy. More often than not, the best way to handle anything in Mafia is to answer questions as/if they come. If your reasoning is truly sound then you won’t have to worry about looking like you’re casting an OMGUS vote (or whatever).

Overall: Yes, more clarity regarding the game/non-game nature of posts would be appreciated and will save my hands from RSI or whatever people who type a lot get.

@Einlazers: Because I’m scumhunting, so my opinions will shift and I only have one vote for eight other players. I’m not sure there’s a lot of value in sitting around waiting for the scum to fire up their neon ‘Dead Giveaway’ sign, so I’ll apply pressure where I think it’s needed. In light of the misunderstanding, the scummiest thing against AS is trying to head off OMGUS claims before they were an issue. Pierre, however, has exhibited some seriously wishy-washy behaviour and it looks like he’s repeatedly distanced himself from his own opinions on a few occasions. I seem to recall mentioning something about this in this post. Maybe you missed it?

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@Einlazers: Do you think a more mobile voter is more likely to be scum?

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Well I needed time posting that : )

Just a bad post. I also give reasons as to why he may not be scum to add information. Sometimes, you have to look at the picture two ways.

I'm not sure I understand. What are you trying to gain by deconstructing your own argument?

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Responding to my prod. Sorry about my absence, work got the better of me. I'll post tomorrow morning, and that's a promise.

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@S2R: Active lurking is something a little different. Yes, you are posting every time you visit (or at least you’re posting frequently enough to remain active) but your posts are totally uninformative one-liners. You vaguely refer to other people’s points but provide no analysis, reasoning or indeed anything beyond a curtly worded sense of where you gut is at. That is active lurking.

Pierre’s 109: Is a pretty wilful misinterpretation of what Alvarian is talking about.
And how does hanging back, cause people to crack? Surely, we want pressure but we just don’t want finality in voting yet? A few townie points go to Alv for calling Pierre on inconsistently playing the newbie card.

I’m finding the way that Myk is engaging with Pierre to be very odd on a gut level. Myk seems to be very quick to call newb on, or turn around, some of the issues that have been sent Pierre’s way.
Here Myk is right at the brink of WIFOM, if not already plunging do the chilly depths of “but if’s”.
The last part of this postseems to contradict the advice that he was giving to AS in post 103.

Again, townies don't care. If the other is scum, and you can make that likely for the rest, you vote him.

This advice applies far beyond the specific situation with AS. To re-use it in Pierre’s situation: make the case that the guy is scum, and it’ll stand on its own merits or not. Field any criticisms and questions as they come up. Hmm, I’m about to head out the door but I’m going to give him a reread.

@AS: Would I be able to get your read of Mykonian?

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Being slowly killed by a wretched hangover. (The "comfort" part of Southern Comfort is a little inappropriate, in my opinion.) I will post tomorrow with a rested mind.

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(Sorry guys, I've had some major disasters with this portfolio that I've been working on and it has set me back quite a way. This is my frazzled analysis.)

RE: Wider Game theory stuff.
PBPA: Personally, I’ve always found these things a massively unfun timesink and little else beyond that. I certainly don’t think they’re as dubious as Myk does. Any style of argument can overlook posts that work against it, misrepresent its target, remove a post’s context, and all the rest. Like everything in Mafia, the burden falls on your own shoulders to determine the veracity of a player’s actions. If that means a reread to fact check, then that’s what you have to do. Oh, I thought Myk’s post was pretty clearly IC advice that didn’t cross any ethical lines. You can’t expect an IC to totally remove their beliefs from advice on how Mafia is played; it’s why they are here after all.

mykonian you need to be careful with your trying to get into the mind of a scum because that can lead to WIFOM territory.

Best to just look for scum tells instead of trying to figure out what scum are thinking.

don't hate wifom, use it. You are basically denying yourself the chance a way to find scum. And believe me, there are enough that play by looking after motivations. It is believed superior by quite a lot of people. Simply following tells is for people who will never understand the game. Since who thought them up?

and people, please explain to me how defending Pierre is good, if we were both scum Would make it a little easy for you, wouldn't it? Since you all get the point that I am defending him. I am absolutely not hiding it. And I know that defending a person is percieved scummy. This is not the first time I do it, though. Now why would I do that...

Finding scumtells and pressing them is very helpful but, sadly, not always accurate. You can also net a lot of simply bad players. It is most helpful when you can reasonably demonstrate that those scumtells indicate scummy intent rather than newbieness/wrong-headedness. A good way to do this is to regard someone’s posts from a “scum mindset”. Trying to explain their play with a scum win condition in mind. A lot of WIFOM can be helpful to consider this way, like examining the Night Kill. It doesn’t hurt to consider it, but it does hurt to use it. If WIFOM is the crux of your argument, you have a piss-poor argument.

The last paragraph provides a perfect example. It certainly pays players to consider the merits of ScumMyk defending ScumPierre. It certainly doesn’t pay to introduce it in the conversation, at least not from an involved party. Why not? Simply, it would make sense to flagrantly defend your partner if you could introduce something to the tune of “Scum wouldn’t play like that, so I’m not scum.” into the discussion and then hide behind this shield of cruddy self-fulfilling logic. That allows a player to set the criteria by which they’ll be judged and then play to it. Very useful for scum. Because of this your defence on this matter is less than useless and can't be trusted.

Out of the whole PBPA-off, I only find the P88 reply to be particularly persuasive. It is dodgy since it was pretty clear that Pierre was saying that he believed S2R might be scum (the reason it was an issue was it then looked like he was pre-emptively excusing a misread) and to pretend that this wasn’t a factor is shamelessly scummy misrepresentation. I also like Einlazers’ quick run through of S2R’s play. The return to one line posts is not a good sign, and neither is S2R totally ignoring Myk’s points in favour of indignation.

Also, Myk is still defending Pierre in a breath-takingly blinkered fashion. The only stated reason for his read on Pierre is the highly-arguable paranoia point, which is interesting that he’s essentially using a checklist mentality here while he decries such play later.
@Myk: Considering this post, hasn’t Alvarian reached a stage where he’s done everything S2R has done (gone with the flow, misrepresentation etc) and you’re pretty sure that he lied and then OMGUS'd when pushed; shouldn’t he be more scummy than S2R?

I think Alvarian has made the scummy shortlist, by the by. It was not a graceful way to admit you were wrong (trying to deflect the discussion back to the guy grilling you).

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I am willing to switch my vote to secure the lynch if Alvarian/Swimmer don't sort out what order they are voting in.

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Well...damn.

newb-scumtell: townies don't have to say they are sorry about the kill/lynch, they already know it isn't that great, but they want to find scum out of it.

You posted, without intention to find scum, only to show you are a good townie.

This increases my suspicion of you.

This about sums up Alviaran's play all through Day 1. He's more concerned about appearances than anything else.

On another note, I'm almost at the end of my Week Of Hell. After this time, I will not be exhausted/braindead and will be able to contribute more thoroughly.

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Not a huge fan of the question in this post. Once again we are seeing a mentality more concerned with appearing above board than securing a necessary result for the town. The town needs to lynch (circumstances depending) and it won't always be done with the surest of cases or in the tidiest of ways. In light of some of his discussion with Einlazers, his hesitancy to hammer is troubling.

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yes, this wasn't a pretty lynch.

TBH, I would have expected PCE and Spinach to play different:

less lurky

they allways seem to be in the background.

I still have to understand swimmers play: would you care to explain why you tunneled that way?

Mea Culpa. I've been a little overrun with many forms of work. I'll post tomorrow night.

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No, I meant his hesitancy. We can call it caution if Spinach prefers, but the fact remains that his play and what he's saying aren't matching up.

Making sure that claimless hammering is okay by the rest of us suggests that he is more concerned with how his vote is going to be received than where his vote is going. Hell, it could indicate that Spinach knew it was a mislynch and wanted to make sure that he wouldn't be attracting suspicion.

(Update: The Portfolio of Doom has been handed in. Now the healing can begin. Thanks for your patience)

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you know what's funny Myk, is that you went after S2R all day trying to derail my bandwagon, and guess what, YOU got your mislynch. I still think Pierre is scum.

subjective omgus attack Swimmer doesn't come with any reasoning why I as scum wouldn't go with the easy Pierre lynch, etc. Rubbish argument, only a subjective way to attack me

Actually, Myk, I'm fairly sure that it's been well covered that your avoidance of a Pierre lynch makes sense if he's your buddy. Also, scum benefit from defending townies regardless. So, let's not play dumb.

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but still nothing that makes me scummy. Only an obvious connection to someone allignment swimmer isn't supposed to know. And it is weird that while he goes for alv, I am becoming the bad guy very very soon after I attack him.

So, which is it, is he tunneling scum or is he making wild accusations all over the place?

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I've never really heard of making up stuff to attack someone as a reason to out their alignment, but whatever. I'll drop it for now.

Anyways, Alv lied, townies died. Not unvoting.

It's not so much making things up, but exaggerating things for the sake of pressure. So, in this case, your 'tunnelling' is not necessarily obvscummy at all, but an opportunity to gauge your alignment by pressuring you about your play. Of course, the danger is that scum could possibly dress up a case against someone and when it ain't taking hold claim the whole thing was all pressure/scum baiting/an elaborate information-gathering strategy. I honestly don't think this is what happened this time around, Myk has overstated your scumminess too much for too long for it to have come from being simply unsure about your alignment (as opposed to suspicious).

So, due to me being a bum and letting this game be put on the backburner (Sorry again. Life, another game in LyLo and all the rest gets the better of me) I’m coming back with a big ol’ post or two.

Ok, I’m having some problems with Myk’s play thus far.

He tries to disown his earlier read of AS in this post. AS was one of Myk’s early suspects, and a part of that had to do with AS’ VT pseudoclaim shenanigans. It wasn’t simply an explanation, as Myk claims when S2R brings it up. Once again Myk is trying to downplay his defence of Pierre, this time he's used it to attack S2R by incorrectly claiming S2R was putting words in his mouth.

I also find a lot of his focus on S2R on the way he’s arguing things, rather than what he’s saying. It’s troubling considering how quickly he was to dismiss Pierre on the grounds of being unable to argue well.

I don’t like it when players offer town reads like this. At best it’s giving Scum a shortlist of Townie targets, at worst it is scum attempting to buddy up. It’s always better to let a seemingly dead-end drop without comment (or a neutral and simple “X is scummier than Y at the moment”).

So now you’ll run with the idea that defending someone suggests that they’re scumbuddies? What happened to all the ‘That’d make it too easy, wouldn’t it?’ Why entertain an argument that you do not agree with? This is a scummy double standard at play.

what I mean is that good town should check everyone

, and not just the ones that are more likely to be lynched. Something I believe I haven't done as a player, I have suspected a multiple of people. So yes, I think there is a difference. doesn't really matter, you got the point.

PCE:

I don't want to talk about alv now

, and the fact that S2R simply deny's what I've said makes him scum that just wants to survive this day. Alv just has a bigger chance at being newby town. With S2R this is not happening, he has read the accusations, but chooses not to react. The choice between Pierre and S2R is a gut one. I simply cannot see how Pierre's actions are done by scum. Like the paranoia point: I cannot see scum reacting that way, when someone tries to push them into a vote.

I can appreciate that Iso 36 was pretty close to the deadline. A day out, I believe. Iso 33 is two days out from the deadline though, which undercuts Myk’s point a little. Either way, it’s not hard to address more than one player but keep one as your primary lynch candidate (as Myk has suggested). So, it’s hard not to feel that Myk is engaging in some “play as I say, not as I do” style of game. I think this suspicion is compounded by how he keeps gunning for S4L for allegedly tunnelling (although S4L has looked at Pierre, Myk and Alv now, so I’m not sure how much that charge sticks). It seems to me that Myk really wanted to control this lynch and was unwilling to let it stray too far from his target (despite all his talk about casting a wide net).

I’m also not sold on the whole gauging vote, from Myk. S4L showed that he was using yesterday’s information and that he wasn’t going to ignore players when he started building a case against Alv today. So, testing him in the way that Myk did (and for the amount of time) wasn't This post really does look like backpedalling with a deflection about lurkers thrown in to help him back off. Especially if you look at post 308 when Myk says he is tunnelling, paranoid and erratic scum before rambling off about... something. It seems like he's basically admitting that he put S4L in a no win situation (a dubious admission that came after people started noticing this and it was obvious that his case was lacking support) and is now trying to excuse it by saying his case wasn't totally in earnest.

btw, that is the so maniest time I use that "tell": OMGUS. Basically, this tell sucks. You shouldn't do it as town, (counterattacking with no reasons), since it is simply counterproductive, and the no reasons thing makes it just as likely that you attack a towny. Doesn't mean that townies don't do it. While the word is used in rhetoric, because it has some power when it is said, it actually doesn't make a strong case.

Please explain this more clearly for me, Myk. I understand that you’re saying that OMGUS isn’t a very strong tell, but beyond that you’ve totally lost me.

@Mod: I'd like a vote count, please.

I’m going to give Spinach a reread and post that soon.

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Ok, Alviaran's player analysis is underwhelming. Unless I'm mistaken he's pretty much echoing other peoples opinions as he straddles that fence spectacularly on all but one read: Spinach.

The S4L read still comes with a hint of OMGUS and is pretty much a repeat of what Mykonian was on about. No original thought or demonstration of analysis here.

The information of the Pierre read is true (Pierre hasn't been scumhunting, imo) but it's totally lost amid Alv's qualifying.

The Spinach one is kind of interesting. I'm pretty sure Myk was the first to point out Spinach's lurking, and Alv is happy to follow such an established path. Despite all this, however, Alv still has a town read. Because? *Shrug*. Yesterday, Alv had a problem with Spinach's attitude and that's all we heard about that. I'm not sure where his townie read comes from at all. Except possibly needing to list at least one person in his analysis as likely town, so he didn't have five 'maybe scum?' reads.

This isn't scumhunting, this is placating other players with the least effort possible. I'm tired, I'mma go to bed for now. A tired mind isn't much good in Mafia.

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Actually, Pierre, your response doesn't clear anything up at all. Elaborate further on Alv and Spinach and what that means. Spinach's questions are a good place to start (and no, you haven't answered them) and so would actually analysing the play.

Allow me to demonstrate:

Spinach’s play has been fairly slender and there isn’t as much there as I thought. The most damning thing against him is how much he worries about appearances. What I was talking about here still stands. His first response is a dodge, plain and simple. This reply is scummy for a whole bevy of reasons:
1) He tries to reframe the issue I raise. See he didn’t have the hammer... Except I wasn’t talking about who hammered S2R, I was talking about Spinach balking when he had the opportunity to hammer and waiting until the rest of us gave our leave.
2) Then he plays a game of semantics. The problem here is that to argue that he hesitated (or was being cautious) Spinach has to understand that what I’m talking about is him passing up the opportunity to hammer, which makes his confusion about what I’m talking about total crap.
3) The whole “best pick for lynch” doesn’t stand up. The question does nothing to determine who the best lynch is, its sole purpose is to establish the safest play for Spinach.
4) Now he’s trying to hide his actions behind a power role flip. Except this isn’t what I’m on about either. I’m not giving him a hard time for wanting a claim; I’m after him for caring about his image too much.

The 2nd reply isn’t any better. This reply pretty much ignores that Spinach believed it highly unlikely they’d claim (so what’s the use in asking us if he should push harder for a claim?) and was ‘concerned’ about a no lynch result (if you are so worried about the deadline, why are you stopping to ask for directions?).

Also, I'd hate to sound pessimistic, but a scum lynch is rare on D1, so a townie being lynched isn't exactly the worst thing in the world, I mean, a town lynch leaves something to go off of, such as bandwagons (if there were any) and looking at voting patterns and such.

In light of such an attitude, I can’t see a good reason why Spinach is as worried about not having a claim (and a mislynch, as he claimed after the fact) as he is a no lynch.

Lies! If the unfortunate thing happens that we lynch a town; there is always something that can be learned from it. Always.

Unless he was worried that the result would get him unwanted attention.

Pretty much all the stuff with Einlazers involves misunderstanding one another, so it’s pretty null for me. It was nitpicky and pointless, in any event. But I don’t like how he chastises S4L for tunnelling, while following S4L’s lead. Cheap townie point scoring.

The Alv stuff is suspicious but I’m not sure yet. Defending Alv’s reaction to the NK feels scummy to me, and the eventual FoS of Alv could be an attempt at distancing

Vote: Spinach

I'll get back to you, Myk.

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@First Quote: I've said this and I am going to say it again, I wasn't trying to sound pessimistic, I was just trying to be real, because face it, most lynches on D1 are in fact town, and I wanted a claim to avoid PR lynching. (like we did..)

I'm not giving you a hard time because you think Day 1 is more likely to end in a mislynch. That's not what I'm talking about and I'd appreciate it if you didn't try to reframe the issue again.

What I'm talking about here (clearly) is that you know the town has to lynch otherwise it isn't chasing leads and isn't gaining information, but when the deadline was looming you were of two minds about whether to lynch because it might make you look bad. This is after you've stated that you don't believe any claims will be coming.

So, you started at a position of:

Scumlynch is better than a mislynch, which is better than a no lynch.

and shifted to:

No lynch is better than a claimless mislynch.

In a position that you thought might bring you unwanted scrutiny.

Then this whole, trying to dodge the NK thing. If you were trying to survive the NK by not being overly townie, why wouldn't you engage in behaviour that you considered somewhat scummy (but defensible none the less)? More to the point, as a vanilla townie why were you trying to dodge the NK at all? Part of what Vanilla does is make nice big pro-town targets of themselves to give the PRs some breathing room. If you value PRs so much that you'd risk a No Lynch to ensure not lynching one, why wouldn't you try and draw the NK away from potential PRs?

Your strategy is illogical and self-serving, your defence doesn't stand up to scrutiny. You are scum. Hell, I don't even need to drag this down into a debate about the merits of PR claims on Day 1.

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This isn't happening with spinach. He doesn't scumhunt.

This. The only action we are getting out of him is defending himself. Even his questions to Pierre are invitations for Pierre to make a case that Spinach can then respond to.

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Is it exam time or something?

It's between Alv and Spinach for me. Their play is not that dissimilar, really.

Einlazers took a long time to get going, in my opinion. A lot of Day 1 was spent discussing the finer points of theory and play. That said, I've found some of it useful today so... I guess I should shut up. I didn't like that he took so long to find a suspect, but he eventually went to the S2R bandwagon, and by no means is he the ugliest vote on the S2R wagon. That still goes to Alv.

Day 2 has been more promising. The vote analysis wasn't bad, but is a victim of offering a little too much information, and too little analysis. Hmm, I'll do something more thorough at some stage.

[PorkchopExpress]

Alv, your latest argument against Swimmer is terrible. Having three lynchable suspects is not the same thing as thinking there are three scum or opportunistic voting.

What's more, you are now trying to wedge Swimmer into an untenable situation where you can attack him from both sides of the argument: Earlier, you are criticising him for tunnelling, but now he has too many suspects (3). How is this not an opportunistic scum move for you, and a no-win situation for S4L? You are going to claim scum on him either way. Scummier and scummier.

Unvote. Vote: Alviaran

Deadline is looming, people.

[PorkchopExpress]

So, on the one hand we have Alviaran ditching arguments in favour of hammer baiting, and Pierre milling around rather than analysing or voting. This is incredibly frustrating.

Pierre, do you find Alviaran scummy or not? Why? If not, who is your big suspect? It's 5 days from deadline and you should have voted one way or another by now.

[PorkchopExpress]

A quick isoread gives me a pretty solid idea of what Myk thinks about Alv. Have you not been reading along, Spinach? Was there something from Alviaran that made you think Mykonian would change his mind? Why do you need his assessment before providing your own and acting on that?

...and while PS has done.. nothing, Alv has actually done things that are scummy.

You seem to be suggesting that Pierre hasn't done anything scummy. Is that right?

[PorkchopExpress]

There's also what Alv posted just up thread in 374. There's also the whole Alv/ Pierre misrep and alleged lie playing a part. Einlazers, you seem to have been playing about as much attention as Spinach.

[PorkchopExpress]

Or better yet, just tell people who you are suspicious of and why. Then vote when the discussion is done. I'm going to reread and I'll post later (no guarantees though, it is as hot as buggery here and I'm working at this place that is being overrun by hysterical people obsessed with this chick and two guys (dead and animal, respectively).

[PorkchopExpress]

Bad play happens, Pierre, but it can be overlooked is some quality scumhunting is delivered. Bring the goods today and we'll see what happens.

[PorkchopExpress]

@S4L: What changed your read of Pierre?

[PorkchopExpress]

Mykonians death was a huge surprise to me.

[1]

I really thought Porkchop was going down since

to me

he was the most towniest.

[2]

This also makes me suspicious of him, because I think the scum would've known I was going to vote mykonian in lylo.

[3]

Right now my two suspects for scum are spinach and porkchop.

[4]

Pierre has since come off as townie to me, although in day 4 lylo I might lean his way depending on who also is still in the game.

Since this is lylo, I'm claiming. I'm vanilla town.

If there is a cop in the game, I'd suggest that person claim to hopefully clear someone.

Bold is mine.

1- Bad grammar aside, Who you consider to be the most townie means nothing unless you are scum. The scum determine who the best NK target is according to whatever method they choose to utilise, how the rest of us feel about it is pretty immaterial. I'm glad that your lylo argument essentially boils down to: "This guy is too townie to be town." You may want to strongly consider that statement for a moment.

2- A terrible, terrible argument that is steeped in WIFOM.

3- I would like to know how you arrived at this pairing, S4L. Was my entirely unprovoked scum read on him bussing for the sake of it? The only reason that case didn't go anywhere was because of dismissive posts like this.

4- Still waiting for more details here, S4L.

I'm not the cop, I am Vanilla.

Still favouring a Spinach lynch today. I'm feeling that S4L could be his buddy considering how little he addressed Spinach at all and then his sudden (and totally unexplained) scum read including a nonsensical pairing with me.

[PorkchopExpress]

Alright, here are some belated responses to Spinach. The heart of our disagreement is based around whether or not there is a disconnect in Spinach’s play. It’s summed up in a few key issues:
1- The S2R hammer.
2- Avoiding the NK
3- Being overly concerned with appearing Townie.

Number 1 is a case that I’ve already made, but Spinach has weakly challenged it so here is my rebuttal. Your counter argument is that you weren’t sure what to do, and that you never stated that you would prefer a no lynch over a claimless mislynch. (In fact, you went so far as to say that you wanted a claim to avoid mislynching a PR specifically.) The second part is easily addressed. You didn’t have to state that position, your actions did it for you. About a day from deadline, you were weighing up the merits of not voting since it seemed that no claims would be forthcoming. This shows that your earlier stance of mislynching wasn’t as solid as you had made out; and that when push came to shove you were unwilling to commit those words into action until other players assured you that your actions were ok. The first part is possible, but unlikely, considering your earlier views (which you conveniently forgot about when rebutting my point). Your play is not matching the stances that you are presenting in the game.

Number 2 and 3 work together in tandem to display scummy flip-flopping. On the one hand, you were trying to avoid the NK by not presenting yourself as townie. On the other, you admit that you’re concerned with how you are perceived and don’t consider it scummy to try and come off as townie. This is an impossibly fine line to take. Either you’re trying to be townie or you aren’t, and your answer to that changes depending on whatever will best defend you at the time.

Seriously, Spinach is terribly scummy guys.

[PorkchopExpress]

@Pierre: your current reads on Einlazers and S4L.

@Einlazers: Your current read of Spinach and S4L.

@S4L: Details about your Pierre and Spinach reads.

@Spinach: Your current read of S4L and Einlazer.

[PorkchopExpress]

(I'm being distracted by this Theme Game that I'm having trouble getting my head around, but I'll be more active guys.)

@Einlazers: I'm pretty sure that PS is suggesting that you're trying to overemphasise towniness (sans scumhunting) with that comment. In the same way that bemoaning an NK or loss of a PR would be iffy play. Am I right, Pierre?

Also in answer to your question, no not really. I just noticed that the thread had gone dark for a little while so I thought I would try and get people to post with some questions. I think Town can only stand a chance in LyLo if they share all the information that they can as clearly, earnestly and as soon as possible. I think it's important to make sure that players aren't afforded an opportunity to ignore other players. Hence my questions. The numbers more or less progress logically from there.

@Spinach: Define make sense? Which ones are bothering you or is it all of them? Currently he's got you as scum, Pierre (formerly scum) as town and me (formerly town) as scum. Mine has been explained (albeit weakly) does it make sense to you? Does a Pierre/S4L pairing make sense to you? If so, why?

@Pierre: Please answer the previous question.

@Everyone: What do you make of S4L's WIFOM-based NK discussion?

[PorkchopExpress]

@Einlazers:
First quote: It's Pierre's argument.

Enough townies believe in keeping cards close to their chest that it isn't scummy in the ways that my other two examples are; but I do disagree slightly with the stance, in the same way I disagree with people who "don't want to put their case up first, so the scum can't take advantage of it". We're at the brink of endgame here, and that's when Townies need to put all their cards on the table. You might not get another chance to share that information, and not discussing people beyond your lead suspects can easily allow scum to coast under the radar. Worrying about NKs is getting ahead of ourselves, since we need to make it through the Day first. But this is theory and we're best off discussing it another time.

Second quote: You've misunderstood me, Einlazers. The reason Pierre is mentioned the least in that post is because he's been mentioned the most by the remaining players. Spinach and yourself have already outlined cases against him today (and earlier). I want more information from S4L because I want him to account for the change in his read. And asking any player to comment on themselves is... kinda pointless.

So, the numbers are meant to reflect how much (or little) mention those players have had.

3rd/4th quotes: Yes, that is what I'm talking about. While it may just be a bad argument, you don't get scummy sensations from the way he has done complete 180 on Pierre and I, and then offered Spinach as a a suspect, with little to no reasoning attached? It's LyLo and after all of his thorough cases, S4L has offered nothing here. That doesn't get your suspicions up?

My Reads:

Einlazers - Has manged to avoid the spotlight for most of the game, but not from lurking. On Day 1, he didn't offer a lot of opinions but has since come good. He comes in with logical and transparent reasoning and asks a lot of questions to guide his play. Which is townie to me. Some of his arguments with other players have ended with the participants talking past each other a little (although, in Day 1, Spinach overreaches in an attempt to spot contradictions in Ein's play that just aren't there).

Pierre - I'm keeping an outside possibility that he's scum, because he is coasting through this game a little. However, it's hard to tell since some of his answers are just totally... inaccessible, for me. His last post demonstrates my point perfectly. I understand that he has a town read on S4L, but I have no idea what he's talking about when he throws in that quote. It looks like he's trying to back up his read with evidence (and he does this on a few occasions) but the evidence isn't self-explanatory and his arguments get a little muddled. It's the age old issue in Mafia: deciding whether play is scummy or just lack lustre. His read on S4L has flipped as well, I'd like to know more about that.

His facts around Spinach are slightly incorrect. Spinach did vote him first (he didn't construct a case, he joined the bandwagon) and Pierre didn't end up mentioning him until well after the fact on Day 2. But I think he has a point that Spinach's support of the Alviaran wagon reeks of opportunism (in the same way that his place on the Pierre wagon did). There are just enough flashes of town mentality at this stage to keep him from being my prime suspect, but more (and clearer) reasoning is required.

@Pierre: More details on why S4L is town in your eyes. Has your case on Spinach developed from bandwagon-hopping? Are you in agreement with the other cases being presented against Spinach? Why/ Why not? Who is ScumSpinach's partner, in your opinion?

Currently: Spinach is my preferred candidate for lynch, with S4L and Pierre just a few steps behind him, but on about equal footing.

[PorkchopExpress]

I then reversed back to split because at that point I thought one of them had to be scum, and

I thought that scum would know if cop existed or not, so I was thinking that one of them would claim cop, and I could deduce from that who was scum

, but they both were Vanilla so that didn't happen.

While you're right that scum will know the set up and would know if Cop was a safe claim, it's not the best way to find scum (I've learnt from personal experience). You should definitely be wary of a PR claim after another PR has been eliminated, but the set up with both happen.

PCE:
By 'make sense' I meant if his explanations of his reads were crap (too townie to be town; too scummy to be scum) or if they contained tells and things that logically made sense.
To me, his read on you makes little sense, due to the things you've already explained. (very WIFOM-y)
And I can't really say if the Pierre read makes sense unless I know why he thinks Pierre is town, same with me.
And the reason of the pairing was why I kept it as slight scum, because a Pierre/S4L pairing little sense, because I doubt a scum would do that much busing D1, but something about the sudden town read makes me think it's possible. (This all depends on S4L's response.)

This pretty much highlights our problem at the moment, we need to hear from S4L.

[PorkchopExpress]

Pierre, questioning is good, but do you feel that S4L's play is scummy? (Pending reply and so on.)

@Ein: You're no longer concerned about Spinach'a tendency to play up pure towniness?

In other news, we really need to hear from S4L because he's coming close to getting replaced.

[PorkchopExpress]

At this point, I'm not really sure what Pierre is talking about.

[PorkchopExpress]

So, Pierre, let me get this straight... you made a case that you didn't believe in during LyLo as part of a gambit to stir up discussion and we're tot take that as town because... they looked real? Despite not being in earnest at all? Also, this was done to entrap players following your lead as you articulated a case that "Seemed real" and would vote on this as bad play, regardless of if it truly indicated mafia alignment or not. Did I miss anything?

[PorkchopExpress]

And this post.

Spinach's defence is pretty ridiculous. Not quite as ridiculous as Pierre's being though. Kyiv are you sensing a PS/Spinach pairing?

[PorkchopExpress]

So, Kyiv, how is that Spinach read coming along?

[PorkchopExpress]

Hey Pierre, who's scum again? I don't think you are solidly on the record for anyone being scum...

[PorkchopExpress]

Guys, Deadline is on the 12th. We don't really have the luxury to wait and see what happens here. No Lynch or running the deadline is not an option since Night= Town is boned. Anyone dragging their feet at this stage is palpably scummy.

So, Kyiv, more opinions now and less questions.

Pierre, those that you actually think are scum.

I'm going to start voting soon.

[PorkchopExpress]

I don't think it would come as any surprise where I weigh in on the Voting.

[PorkchopExpress]

Vote: Pierre

'Cause why not?

[PorkchopExpress]

Yeah, activity was a problem for me this game (and I apologise for it) but sometimes life gets the better of you and you can't go post for post with Mykonian. I'll have more but I'm pretty sure there was a point where I tipped the fact that I KNEW Spinach was VT (or at least claim it) and I was pretty worried about someone finding it. Luckily, Myk weighed in on my side and everything progressed along smoothly. So the moral is: when you're scum pay attention to the language you are using.

[PorkchopExpress]

@Ein: Sure, if you want to sort through those pms.

Mostly our night talk came down to working out who was the night kill. S4L got a pass because of his confident town read on me (which was a nice twist when Day 3 started). Alv and Pierre were too much of lynch contenders to get rid of. When it came down to Spinach or Myk... well, I was a little reticent to get rid of a player where I had a case. Similarly, I wasn't thrilled to get rid of the most active player in the game.

Oh, Kyiv, replacing into lylo is all class. Good stuff.