Mini 839 -- Mafia Invasion! (Game Over)

[sigma]

Hi folks.

Vote: Jammer

Jammers interfere with the transmission of information. More information is good for town, ergo interfering with it is anti-town. QED.

I like surveys, so I'll answer it despite others' objections.

@vi: Please fill out your own survey. If you seriously contend that this information helps the town, you shouldn't have a problem doing this yourself.

1) 1. See my wiki if you're interested.
2) No.
3) No.
4) None.
5) No preference because of lack of experience with forum mafia.
6) Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes.
7) 3.
8) I like surveys.
9) Yes -- whether or not it's answered by scum.
10) Null-tell.
11) Yes.
12) Not applicable, haven't played any games to a result as town yet.

[sigma]

sigma, like DeathRowKitty, doesn't have much to go on based on not having any completed games. The responses feel vaguely Town; however,

9) [Do you think this survey will be useful in finding scum?] Yes -- whether or not it's answered by scum.

I'd like to know who you find suspicious based on this, considering you random voted in the same post.

Just to clarify, I've completed one newbie game in which I was scum. I have not completed any games as a town. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

Surveys like this seem to be more revealing when they're not answered. People usually go into the reasons why they're not answering, and those reasons can be very revealing.

Y.C. looks like scum.

Delibaretly admitting this either conceales a desire to get lynched, being a jester, or is rude in the extreme. So much in fact, that I will move my vote to her if she does not stop this side-tracking. I will sacrifice a townsperson on the principle that such rudeness should not go unpunished and that I do not wish to have any contact with self-declared trolls.

Huge overreaction -- saying that one is a troll and actual trollish behavior are far off from each other. Policy lynching because of minor rudeness is a worse idea than policy lynching lurkers. If you're actually advocating lynching rude people, I'm forced to come to the conclusion that you don't actually care who gets lynched.

The only other option I see is an appeal to the mod for the removal of Vi from the game. This will serve a similar purpose, but in my opinion he will not consent to this.

Digging in deeper. Asking for people to be mod-killed without a serious basis for it seems pretty anti-town to me -- doesn't mod-killing end the day immediately?

Vi, you should not be forcibly replaced.

Wishy-washy in the extreme. In your previous post, you asked for vi to be mod-killed. Why ask if you don't think vi should be replaced?

This advocating a mod-kill business and then backing off just looks terrible. A vote only brings you to L-2, so I'm going to vote you to make the point that your upcoming analysis needs to be a good one. Obviously, no one should hammer before Y.C makes his post.

Unvote

Vote: Y.C

@tjoe:

Please explain your reason(s) for voting Y.C. You're ignoring questions and lurking, and it looks suspicious.

[sigma]

As for TMJ, coming from a guy who called Vi "dumb head" in his first (?) post, all I'm getting is a null read. I've seen players like him before, and in most cases (when they're not pretending), that kind of behaviour was not indicative of their alignment. Questioning them also proved largely useless because their answers didn't make any more sense than their general behaviour. 82 did raise some eyebrows however, so I'll watch for his future commentaries.

@Cruciare: What kind of behavior from TMJ would indicate a scum-tell, if you don't mind me asking? I assume there's some tells you'd be looking for from an 'erratic' (for lack of a better term) player like TMJ. Voting patterns, maybe? You might not want to divulge your tells, but is there any way to get a read on erratic players, in your opinion?

@afatchic: You never did give us those promised answers to the survey.

I agree with porkens that YC/his replacement is easily the best lead right now -- I'll be watching closely to see how his replacement reacts to coming in at L-2.

[sigma]

unvote

I'm not comfortable with how this lynch is going down. Part of that's my fault for not commenting on pops yet. He'scertainly been apathetic, but this statement in particular looks very townish to me:

I understand if i get lynched here, but i want my "townie time capsule" message (there ought to be a name for those) to be "Lynch TMJ". "

I mean, maybe he's scum and trying to distance himself from TMJ, but where's the gain in making this statement as scum?

@pops: If you're town, do some scum-hunting. Your position certainly isn't irrecoverable, and you still win or lose with the town whether you get lynched today or not. I'm willing to look at lynching someone else, but only if your actions show that you deserve not to be lynched.

[sigma]

It could be an AtE, I guess, but he's not coming off that way at all to me.

I highly doubt pops will change my mind about YC.

That said,

Unvote: James.Denholm; Vote: popsofctown

His first post after pops comes in is a vote that puts pops at L-1. If Y.C was so suspicious that pops couldn't possibly change your mind, then why weren't you voting him to begin with? Why put pops at L-1 when he's barely had a chance to talk, much less claim his role or do some decent scum-hunting?

Vote: Jammer

[sigma]

Mod: Prod afatchic, please?

Done.

[sigma]

Honestly, we've gotten pretty much nowhere the past couple of RL days. I figured we'd get more out of seeing responses to a request for a quicklynch (and seeing if someone was willing to hammer) than we would from prolonging the day.

[...]

I still think a quicklynch wouldn't be so bad.

Can you elaborate on that last bit? Do you think we'll get more information out of lynching pops now then if we lynch the most suspicious person a week from now? I'm skeptical that that's the case, honestly.

[sigma]

Here's why I'm against a hypothetical hammer of pops right now:

1. Wouldn't we want to at least hear a claim from pops before lynch? This is my first closed-setup game, so I could be wrong about this.
2. TMJ isn't the only other person we can question. At least three people have expressed that they find jammer suspicious (me, Cruciare, Porkens), Cathart has FoS'd you and imaginality, etc. You're setting up a false dichotomy between TMJ and pops right now.
3. I'm not convinced that given another week of questioning, we wouldn't find someone that looks more suspicious than pops.

In addition, I don't think hammering to 'keep up interest' in the game is a good precedent -- it seems anti-town to me.

Is your interest in lynching pops completely based on Y.C's scummy actions, or is there anything that pops has done that added to your case against him?

[sigma]

Scummy players first. We can lynch unreadable players later if it's really necessary.

QFT. In my opinion, TMJ is unreadable based on the knowledge we have right now. I'd rather lynch someone else.

[sigma]

Do you think TMJ will remain unreadable if a wagon builds on him?

Probably. Finding out what alignment pops is would be much more helpful in finding out what alignment tjoe is.

I need to re-read the past few RL days, and then I'll have a real post for you guys. Expect at least one today.

[sigma]

So, uh, we have a deadline in less than 96 hours.

The only thing that really jumps out at me on reread is pops' claim and the circumstances surrounding it. I'm really happy that pops is still alive -- it's given us a lot to go on.

That said, pops is looking more and more scummy to me as the day goes on. imaginality's post #210 is a good one -- there are some major contradictions between pops in #200 and #151. Pops' first post or two had more of a unhappy towny feel, but as he's continued to post the read looks less townie and more appealing-to-emotion scum.

Jammer looks more town to me on re-read. His L-1 vote still leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but he's done an excellent job of fighting lurking behavior.

So, I think I'll

Unvote

Vote: popsofctown

Now, the question -- should we lynch a claimed doctor on D1? Doctors aren't very powerful on their own, but are very powerful when combined with a confirmed power role such as a cop, to the extent that this is usually a large consideration in putting a setup together. The problem with closed setups like this, though, is that we're very unlikely to get confirmed power roles of any kind (at least, that's my impression.) Doctors also become a lot less powerful when they're driven into the open, like pops has been. So, lynching a doctor D1 won't hurt us much more than lynching a VT at this point in the game. Obviously, I think pops is significantly more likely to be scum than a doctor, but it's important to think about the consequences of lynching a doctor and be sure that you're OK with the possibility that you're wrong about your lynch-ee being scum.

Summary: currently pops looks scummiest to me, and I'm not convinced that a doc claim should automatically save him for a day. I'm open to convincing on that, though -- most of you are more experienced then I am.

[sigma]

@sigma
I don't endorse lynching a claimed doctor Day 1. Even if he looks scummy, it's very much to the advantage of scum to NK him. If he's town, we're doing their job for them. In the absence of other exposed PRs, if pops is actually doctor, I would expect him to be dead Night 1. If we don't lynch him, the longer he stays alive, the more suspicious he is. Eventually, if he's not NKed, he would most likely be scum and we would lynch him. That's why I was willing to wait. However, I do think he's scummy enough that if deadline comes around, I would hammer. I would still prefer if we find someone else though.

[WIFOM]Won't the scum keep pops alive then, since they know he'll be lynched if he stays alive?[/WIFOM]

That's point's a bit tongue-in-cheek, but there is an element of seriousness to it. The mafia are going to NK in a way that gives them an advantage, and I'm not sure that NK'ing a very suspicious doctor-claim gives them an advantage. Anyway, that's enough WIFOM for now.

More importantly -- who else are we going to lynch at this point? TMJ is the only other player with anything approaching a consensus. Would you advocate lynching TMJ over pops? Do you think we can put together a lynch on another player at this point?

[sigma]

@vi: I wasn't that impressed by the case on imaginality -- it seemed to be built on him musing about 'scum doctors', and that just didn't strike me as being particularly odd. I'll do another re-read of your case, but I don't see him as being a good choice today.

What's up with the lurking, people? deadline's 72 hours away. Let's figure out who we want to lynch. Quickly.

[sigma]

Welcome to the game, sotty!

That's why I wanted to replace into this game, it's stock full of players I have played with before and had a good game with, or players I know though association and want to play with. The only players I don't know in that respect are Cruciare and TJM.

I'm curious -- did I play with an alt of yours? Or did you forget to include me in with Cruciare and TMJ?

sigma

Why aren't you posting more? I really liked your post 148 but since then you have kinda floated under the radar. It's not good.

I don't really have a good excuse. I will say that I've read this thread over a few times, and there just hasn't been a lot that's jumped out at me as being indicative of scum. I'm still fairly new to forum mafia, but I think my playstyle tends to be cautious. My first game was as scum, so that probably exacerbated a tendency towards caution in posting that game.

That said, a thinking-out-loud-so-the-town-can-hear-it approach would be a better way to go about things, and I'll try and fix it going forward.

I will be going into [my ideal lynch] ASAP, it ties into some of my questions.

Interested to hear your thoughts.

However with that said, I would much rather lynch TMJ over Pops today, but neither is my ideal lynch.

The who is, and why?

This is interesting. To me, posts like this are slightly scummy. Pressuring a replacement for thoughts on their lynch candidates before all the questions she asked have been answered seems a bit dodgy to me. Combined with Cathart's "Hamlet" approach to deciding if pops is town or not, makes the colonel look a little more likely as scum, in my opinion.

Leaving the claimed doctor alive is the protown thing to do. Those against that idea are either hard-on to misslynch or not thinking clearly.

The fact that you're saying this after all the discussion we've had, and only when pops' lynch looks fairly likely, makes me wonder about your motives in saying this now. Why didn't you make this point 3 RL days ago?

[sigma]

Another interpretation of your actions is that you're distancing yourself from what you know to be a mis-lynch by defending the lynch candidate, but only doing it when you know it's unlikely to save him.

[sigma]

In case it isn't clear, I agree with DRK and imaginality about pops. imaginality made a great point in his post #210 -- the circumstances around pops' claim were very strange. I'd recommend anyone who wants to understand the case on pops should read this post.

I really feel like lynching TMJ is a cop-out at this point. I can see the arguments for lynching him, but I really feel like we've caught scum with Y.C/pops and would hate to see him survive the day at this point, honestly.

[sigma]

To the rest of you who are voting TMJ becase you are against lynching a possible doctor Day 1, please realise that if he really is the doctor he would most probably die tonight anyway. PLEASE DO NOT WASTE A DAY ON A COMPLETE GAMBLE LYNCH THAT DOESN'T TELL US VERY MUCH (I.E. TMJ).

This post looks scummy to me. The facts are just wrong -- the mafia may want to play WIFOM games by not killing pops if he's the real doctor, as I've said before. Also, lynching PRs is a lot different from seeing them night-killed -- lynching a doctor gives the mafia a free shot at any other power roles or extreme pro-town players.

---

Unofficial vote count is 6 on pops to 5 on TMJ.

afatchic, if he ever shows up, has indicated that he disagrees with a pops lynch, which means we're realistically looking at a TMJ vote from him.

So basically, we're looking at a game of chicken to see which TMJ/pops voter blinks first in the face of a no-lynch. That's not good.

I'll probably get a chance to check the game again before deadline, but I don't want to risk a no-lynch. I feel like this is a random lynch, but random lynch is better than no lynch. If pops' claim is fake, hopefully it'll come back to bite him in the way some of you have suggested.

Vote: TMJ

afatchic, if you ever decide to show up, you should hammer. I'm also going to be inclined to lynch you after lurking so long in the face of deadline.

[sigma]

EBWOP: The 'scummy' post I quoted is Cruciare's.

[sigma]

It's not my preferred lynch either, vi, but it's the best move at this point.

Just noticed that I didn't unvote. Just to make sure there's no shenanigans:

unvote

Vote: TMJ

Thanks for doing that! I missed it and it could've been a real headache if someone pointed it out after the fact.

[sigma]

One more time, with feeling:

Unvote
Vote: TMJ

[sigma]

Yes.

[sigma]

Wow. That makes two surprising flips.

Vote: afatchic

He lurked through day 1, including lurking at deadline when it could have been really detrimental to the town. Basically, he never took a definitive stance on TMJ or pops, and that combined with the general active lurking makes him a great lynch candidate.

Here are his thoughts on TMJ:

TMJ: As i just said, i think he is a newb making a bunch of rookie mistakes, and getting jumped on for it. In my mind they are all Null-tells, and the reason for that is because i remember back in my first newbie game that i acted a lot of the same way (As V.T.). However i realize he has been signed up on the site for quite a while, but I'm not sure exactly how much experience he has. Basically, i am not trying to pull the newb card for him, but thats how i am taking a lot of what he has done, and thus i don't have much of a read on him at the moment. I really don't understand the reasoning behind the votes on him either.

So, he tried to keep us off TMJ at the beginning of the day, but didn't bother defending him when he was close to getting lynched, which looks like scum not wanting to get caught defending their lynched partner.

More on other players later.

[sigma]

@Sotty:
His stance on TMJ isn't a big factor. Hell, I agreed with afatchic about TMJ, for the most part, that TMJ was null, so you could as easily argue that point against me. The vote comes specifically from his lurking, his deadline-lurking , and him never actually telling us who he would have voted for at deadline.

@afatchic:

You're right -- that's a good point. You were definitely against lynching pops in some of your earlier posts. However, when the discussion was centering on whether TMJ or pops should be lynched at the end of the day, you were silent. Moreover, it's not like you've exactly been giving us a lot of information with your posts in general. If you'd been fairly active earlier in the day, the deadline-lurking might have been excusable.

[sigma]

@afatchic:

Let me ask you a question... If someone had been lynched unanimously and i wouldn't have been here, would i still look scummy?

Probably, you'd look less scummy.

I was not about to fight with 6 other people about voting Pops.

Even given that you said in your iso 9 that "it would be an absolute terrible play to lynch a claimed PR?" Even then, you're not willing to fight about it?

I have done that in games before, and it ended in a bunch of townies fighting back in forth and allowed the scum to sit in the background and coast to an easy win.

That's exactly why I will keep voting you if you stay in the background. I'm open to moving my vote, but I need to see some pro-town action from you before I do that.

---

vi's acting very strange about the pops NK.

But what's strange is that the scum didn't have any better targets, considering pops would have been just as useless and suspicious today and pops' protection was probably unlikely to land in the same place as the night-kill. (To answer the objection about a future protection on a Cop, as with a Framer a Cop is expected in this setup: Personally I'd take a shot at the Cop now; it's the difference between preventing follow-the-Cop starting Day 3 and preventing follow-the-Cop in the first place.)
My change in opinion on you began when I realized that as the Doctor I would have protected you, and pops probably would not have done so (as I would have expected him to protect either himself or me or someone chosen by the dice tags), therefore I expected you to be NKd. Likewise there are a few people that I'm reading nicely pro-Town right now that would also have been acceptable targets.

Does this have a point? I don't understand why we're speculating on the scum's motives so much -- it seems kind of pointless and distracting.

[sigma]

Vi, seriously, I think I know less now than I did after your last post.

My change in opinion on [Sotty7]...

What exactly is your opinion on Sotty7? that's not clear at all.

pops was an attractive kill on paper, but hardly ideal from the perspective of someone who isn't scum.

Seriously, no idea what point you're trying to make here. you should either explain what pops dying has to do with someone being scummy/town or drop the subject.

[sigma]

sigma. You're telling me rather authoritatively to drop the subject. But am I suspicious for this line of questioning?

Not exactly -- I told you to explain your point or drop the subject. It looks like your point is that Sotty looks more suspicious because she didn't die. And yes, it is suspicious because it's beginning to look like a "Sotty's too town to be scum" argument.

[sigma]

EBWOP: it's beginning to look like a "Sotty's too town, she must be scum" argument.

[sigma]

A note of warning: I agree that we should be looking first at the set of players who were trying to lynch pops (imaginaity, DRK, Cruciare, Vi). However, I disagree with the players who have said scum are unlikely to be on TMJ's wagon. My guess is that there's one scum on TMJ's wagon. Keep that in mind on later days.

The best place to look today for a lynch, however, is the pops wagon. and afatchic. Future days may not be that way.

Cruciare's point about DRK not mentioning TMJ until page 6 is very interesting, and resonates with me.

Also, looking at imaginality's iso... He voted for TMJ for active lurking in iso 2, and then switched to an L-1 vote for pops in iso 3. I don't think I've seen this mentioned yet, and honestly, that looks pretty suspicious to me.

[sigma]

3 scum and a third-party is pretty standard for mini normal, right? And two of those are dead, so we're almost certainly looking at 2 scum, probably one on the TMJ wagon and one on the pops wagon IMO. That'd be my guess.

[sigma]

There is no evidence of another 3rd party right now (AKA an SK), so I think 2 scum. Pops was the survivor so doesn't that count as a 3rd party death Sigma?

Right. We're likely to have started with 3 scum and a 3rd party, two are dead (a scum and the 3rd party), ergo 2 scum and no 3rd party left over. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

[sigma]

This is going to sound very hypocritical of me, but my top suspects in general are people on the pops wagon.

I agree with your choice of top suspects. Have you had a chance to look at the other folks on the pops wagon in detail? I'd specifically like to hear your thoughts on imaginality and Cruciare. Extra credit for some thoughts on afatchic.

I would be happy with a lynch of afatchic, DRK, or imaginality at this point. If afatchic picks up his prod with another "buying time" type post, I think he needs to go first.

[sigma]

Don't understand your implication. Are you saying I'm coaching afatchic?

[sigma]

I'm not really in favor of an afatchic lynch so much as an afatchic replacement.

You may get your wish. I wouldn't be surprised if he makes an appearance before that happens, though.

DRK, I'll be looking forward to that re-read.

@jammer: I agree with vi:

More doing things other than riding the easy wagon

Can we get some thoughts from you on DRK, imaginality, and Cruciare? seeing as how there's a good chance we'll be lynching one of those three today.

[sigma]

@sigma: was your vote for jammer in post 28 random?

Yes.

[sigma]

tbh? don't know that one.

[sigma]

couldn't come up with the h-word....

@vi -- you seem pretty set on an imaginality lynch. Anything he's done on day 2 to contribute to that, or is it just residual day 1 scumminess?

[sigma]

Sotty, would you still support a vi lynch over a Cruciare lynch?

[sigma]

Holy Wall of Text, Batman!

(As I mentioned, I think it's scummier that Cruciare (and DRK) tried to lead the day in a pops / jammer direction rather than a pops / TMJ one.)

Why is them going after jammer scummy? Obviously, focusing on pops instead of TMJ is a good reason to scrutinize them, but I don't understand the point you're making about jammer. What's your opinion of jammer right now? Do you agree with ojanen's case?

[sigma]

After re-reading, I'm just not getting the 'gut town-read' on DRK that some of you seem to be getting. I know this has been mentioned before, but this just looks terrible:

I'm not willing to lynch a claimed doctor Day 1.

I personally prefer not to lynch claimed PRs day 1 unless there's a very strong reason to believe it's a lie.

I don't endorse lynching a claimed doctor Day 1.

And yet he tried to do it anyway, as we all know. His distancing from TMJ at the beginning of the game still looks very suspicious as well.

I think the evidence favors DRK as being more likely to be scum than imaginality.

Unvote

Vote: DRK

I believe that's another L-2 -- someone correct me if I'm wrong.

[sigma]

I was a little confused. No wonder you didn't want to lynch him

[sigma]

His distancing from TMJ at the beginning of the game still looks very suspicious as well.

Care to point out where? o.O I searched my Iso posts and didn't even find a passing reference to TMJ at the beginning of the game.

Shouldn't have used the word distancing. You didn't mention TMJ until page 6. I find that suspicious.

[sigma]

That last DRK post is really pushing the rules. I don't know how out of bounds flavor quoting is, but I would consider it violating the rules we've been given.

Seriously, though, if DRK roleclaiming townie instead of villager is the main reason you're voting for him, you need to re-assess, because you're playing a game of out-guess the mod.

@Mod: Can we get a ruling on all of this flavor from the PM quoting?

Click here

[sigma]

He's not the lynch because he posted some flavor? You're basically guessing that the mod screwed up by letting a simple quote of flavor text confirm someone as *generic vanilla role*. I'm not willing to go that far. There are plenty of real reasons to lynch DRK, and that's why I'm voting him.

Good God people, let's stop playing out-guess the mod here and play mafia.

[sigma]

I'm sure he had the actual PM, but there's nothing preventing the mod from sending that to people who don't have a vanilla role. That's the whole point of a safeclaim, which it seems to me is borderline mandatory in games where the vanilla PM isn't quoted in the rules. I would think RC would have done that to prevent confirmation.

Competent mods don't let games get screwed up by PM-quoting.

[sigma]

I also don't think he is scum and have said as much before the claim.

Why'd you say this then?

The football stuff is what made me say DRK wasn't the lynch

That's what I was responding to.

[sigma]

I don't see any scenario in which Cruciare or Charter are not Vanilla Townies

Disagree. The mod said that everyone has the pm and the flavor, so I don't see them as confirmed.

I am also interested in who Sigma finds scummy now.

I think one of imaginality or vi is scum. Of those two, I find imaginality by far to be more likely scum. Why is he getting a free ride for blatant role-fishing? He was on the pops wagon D1, he tried to out the cop D2. Sotty believing in his innocence does not outweigh those two pieces of evidence, IMO.

Also, I'm not a cop.

[sigma]

Two things I forgot to do in the last post.

Cruciare and I are neighbors.

I have a gut town-read on Cruciare.

Vote: imaginality

[sigma]

Are we massclaiming or something? What is going on here?

Cruciare and I discussed claiming last night and decided that we would claim today, or at least that he would claim and I would claim as a consequence. It's the same thing, basically. I'm not privy to Cathart's reasons behind claiming.

Oh... Wait a minute. What about Sotty then? She confirmed that she and Imaginality are neighbors. And why do you have any read at all on Cruciare, if you know that he's your neighbor?

Cruciare's alignment has not been mod-confirmed to me. This is also the case for all of the other neighbors, is it not?

The problem is, we got it AFTER Cruciare and Charter already heavily implied that he has Vanilla role PM.

Check the 'we' in your sentence. How do you know when anyone else got PMs? Your assumption is faulty.

Anyway, this is dangerous territory. Timing of mod PMs is generally off-limits to talk about, no? In any case, I think the point that our mod has been repeatedly trying to make is that no one should be confirmed by their knowledge of the flavor.

Why do you have a gut Town-read on Cruciare?

My night-talk with him and his general method of play looks pro-town to me, despite reasons to suspect him, such as his advocacy for lynching pops D1.

[sigma]

Why I didn't counterclaim imaginality: Didn't have time to post last weekend. Cruciare said he would have claimed if I had posted last weekend. Whenever Cruciare checks in, he can confirm his side.

I think charter is unconfirmed and Sotty trying to dismiss that is bugging me. (See what I did there?)

No one's answered my question -- why is imaginality allowed to get away with trying to out the cop? It's a ballsy move, but I think it's scummy, whatever his arguments to the contrary. I certainly didn't see vi as obv-cop yesterday and I question why imaginality was thinking about it in the first place.

[sigma]

Here.[/url]

[sigma]

This is extremely lame. You were posting after the claim, why didn't you counterclaim ASAP?

I was thinking about the DRK flavor stuff, not CC'ing imaginality. I wasn't really thinking in terms of "counter-claiming" either -- I figured two sets of neighbors was perfectly plausible in a mini setup.

No one is saying charter is confirmed, a bunch of us just happen to think he is townie. There is nothing a scum hates more is townies thinking other townies are town.

If you think he's town, that's fine -- I was under the impression that you thought he was confirmed town.

Add this with your almost desperate plea that DRK be mod killed and your town status has been downgraded slightly in my eyes.

Desperate plea to have him mod-killed? Wow. That's blatant misrepresentation. Here's what I

actually

said:

I don't know how out of bounds flavor quoting is, but I would consider it violating the rules we've been given.

[...]

@Mod: Can we get a ruling on all of this flavor from the PM quoting?

So:

A. I never asked for him to be mod-killed.
B. Rules violations don't always result in mod-kills.
C. What I actually said doesn't sound especially desparate to me.

You were right about DRK and I wasn't. That's a perfectly acceptable reason to downgrade my towniness, but the reasons you're stating right now just aren't.

[sigma]

Sotty noticing me hanging out in Little Italy right before D2 made me I was watching both this game and the other one, I believe -- I can be obsessive about this game sometimes...

Given that quite a few people on the TMJ wagon had expressed reluctance to lynch a claimed doc, the chances of someone switching from TMJ to pops were a lot less than switching from pops to TMJ.

Quite a few people had expressed reluctance to lynch TMJ (Cruciare and DRK for example). It could have easily gone the other way. A no-lynch could have possibly happened too, if everyone waited for someone else to switch. I don't think this is as clear-cut as you think.

sigma, who were your suspicions N1?

afatchic, then DRK. also expressed suspicion of you, jammer and porkens, I believe. I'll let Cruciare do the night talk recap, since it was his idea, and you can see for yourself.

[sigma]

Vi dangling the self hammer makes me ugh. All WIFOM aside, it's not really something you see scum be willing to offer up.

Scum have more motive to offer it than town, though, no?

Scum priority: Survival
Town priority: Helping find scum

It is an interesting post, isn't it? I think vi's goal was either to go trawling for a scum L-1 vote when she made her self-hammer threat, or say that she was doing the same. In isolation, I think that post is a null tell.

[sigma]

I stated this at the beginning of D3:

I think one of imaginality or vi is scum. Of those two, I find imaginality by far to be more likely scum.

This opinion hasn't changed.

Since we're still playing, we can rule out 3 scum left (not that this was ever very likely). If there are 2 scum left we're in MyLo, so no imaginality vote until the entire town checks in and we talk some more.

[sigma]

@sotty: how many scum do you think are left?

if you're thinking 2, who do you think my scum-partner is? since you're voting me, i assume you think i'm one of the scum.

@imaginality: same questions.

[sigma]

@Sotty, imaginality:

You guys are both leaning towards one scum. How do you reconcile my TMJ vote on day 1 with me being scum? You're both saying I bussed my mafia framer who was my only scum partner when the outcome of the day's lynch was still in doubt? Sure, bussing gives townie cred, and scum do it, but that's a big hole for one scum to crawl out of, given the likelihood of a cop in the game.

Really, this argument applies to everyone left except imaginality and cruciare. I just don't see bussing as being very likely with only two scum in the initial setup.

[sigma]

As I mentioned to you last night, Cruciare, I think charter is likely to be scum should there be two left: If two scum are left, the best guess is that one is a scum neighbor and the other is not. charter and porkens are the only members of this latter set. Since porkens was investigated and turned up innocent, this makes charter more likely to be scum in this scenario (although not confirmed because of GF possibilities.)

I think imaginality is scum in either a one or two-scum scenario. If we lynch imaginality and he flips town and the game's still going, I would probably be more inclined to lynch you than charter.

I'm going to

Vote: No Lynch

. The night-kill target isn't completely obvious, so we might as well get a little more information before we lynch, IMO.

[sigma]

sigma, where has this 'charter is scum' nonsense come from?

Do you have anything to argue about with my point? If we have two scum left, I'm pretty sure one of them is a neighbor and one of them is from the set of charter/porkens. You're more likely to be scum then Porkens, IMO. So, if we lynch scum on our next lynch, and the game's still going, you're going to be my target. However, if there's only one scum left, that downgrades the likelihood of you being scum a lot.

I wouldn't entitle that analysis 'charter is scum', personally -- if that's what you got from my analysis, I don't think you're reading closely enough.

@Cruciare: Do you want to no lynch? If so, I think you should go ahead -- I wouldn't hold my breath on getting anything from Porkens. If not, I'd like to hear why.

[sigma]

Looks like no lynch is go.

Cruciare, told you porkens wouldn't answer

[sigma]

oof. my gut reaction is that imaginality-scum would be unlikely to kill his main advocate, WIFOM or no WIFOM. I'm going to have to have a major re-think about who should be lynched today.

[sigma]

@porkens: explain your vote, please. it's particularly odd looking at your last post:

Oh right, charter. no-lynching made me so sick I forgot about the question.

He's low on my list of suspects. Were I in a 3-man endgame with him right now, I'd vote for the other guy.

@everyone: How much value do you place on the innocent investigation of Porkens? It seems like almost everyone is discounting this pretty strongly, but I don't see any particular reason to think that we have a GF in this game, and I'd be really surprised to see a non-sane cop.

[sigma]

@Cruciare/sigma, I still think you should show your night chat from the past two nights. Don't worry I won't take offense at any "gotta lynch imaginality, totally obvscum" comments. :p

I'll put something together today.

[sigma]

All right, here's the hot tl;dr neighbor action, starting with two nights ago. Not a lot of talk on the second night; I didn't have much time that weekend.

sigma #1:

So, not particularly happy about that lynch. I don't have a problem with the speed of it, necessarily, but I still think imaginality was more likely to be scum. He's gotta be our scum now that vi flipped VT... I think?

Here's something interesting... if there are 2 scum left, then charter's obvscum. It's extremely unlikely that we have 2 scum neighbors, IMO, and Porkens/Col are confirmed which leaves... charter. With vi's flip, I'm upgrading the possibility of one scum left to be about even with 2 scum left. The danger is that if we have 2 scum left, then we're in MyLo, assuming a town-aligned person gets NKed (almost certainly Col.)

OTOH, is it possible that charter's the remaining scum? I could see it, but I still think a scum neighbor is more likely, especially given that charter probably wouldn't bus his framer buddy if he had to go it alone the rest of the game. Just don't see it. I think we have to lynch the scummiest neighbor next, and then hit charter if the game isn't over after that. Really, what we have to do tomorrow is find the scummy neighbor.

So, the neighbors:

imaginality: seems to be the obvious choice. don't need to go into that anymore.
Sotty: well, we know vi's town, so that downgrades her somewhat. vi getting lynched after suspecting her somewhat makes me wonder about her, although vi pretty much gave up suspecting anyone after that. Still, I can't see her as being scum over imaginality, but I probably need to re-read her.
Cruciare: Again, I'm just not seeing it. You're in a great position to win if you are the scum neighbor... I should probably re-read you too.

cruciare #2:

I'm banking on an Imaginality/Charter scumpair personally. If there are two scum left, then as you say we are in LyLo which is not a great situation to be in. Assuming Col does die, then we have Cruciare/Sigma/Porkens - the ones who want to lynch Imaginality, versus Imaginality/Sotty/Charter - the ones who probably want to lynch me instead (although not necessarily). Col hasn't been counter-claimed and we have a dead framer, so I'll believe him. By all logic Charter should be scum, but my gut doesn't seem to fully agree with that, so I actually want to see what he tries to do tomorrow. Porkens is about 99% clear with me as I haven't ruled out godfather, but framer + godfather = WTF is the point of the cop, so I'll mark him confirmed. I'm gonna try get whoever's alive tomorrow who hasn't claimed yet to do so because I want to more accurately determine the number of scum left (i.e. try to outguess the setup). What we have so far is:

Mafia Framer
Survivor
Cop
(Unconfirmed) Neighbour x4
Vanilla Townie x3
Porkens, Charter

To be honest unless either Porkens or Charter is some kind of nice power role the town looks too weak to have two scum left here. Then again, TMJ's answer to that question in Vi's survey was '3-4 scum', which is what's been scaring me a lot. I sincerely hope that there's only one scum left. I was considering the possibility of Sotty-scum for a while, but after considerations she looks pretty town in my eyes. Imaginality should have been lynched yesterday instead of Vi IMO, so he's still suspect #1 to me. He said yesterday that reading the night-talks made him feel better about me, and I'm interested in how he's going to act on that tomorrow if he does end up being the leading wagon. He's trying to go after you, which is pretty weird considering a Sigma lynch is nigh impossible, so I'm not sure what to make of that. By the way, if you are scum, you've completely fooled me and I want to give my early congratulations etc. =P

What would be a nice surprise tomorrow is if Col doesn't die, although we can only pray. Sad

sigma #3:

Did some more reading yesterday. Didn't change my opinions. I think we're pretty much agreed at this point; hopefully imaginality's the last scum and we can lynch him tomorrow.

It would be really nice if Cathart survived the night, but I don't think it's likely, personally.

I am a little worried about you getting lynched. As you said, I think Porkens is on our side, but that's still a potential 3-3 deadlock...

cruciare #4:

I know I've said this before, but I'm very interested in what Charter tries to do tomorrow. To lynch Imaginality we'll need to get either Sotty or Charter to comply. If the remaining scumpair really is Charter/Imaginality then it should be pretty obvious from how Charter acts tomorrow, but getting him to bus Imaginality in that case is quite impossible. I'm not sure how convincable Sotty is, but if Imaginality/Charter really are scum then we'll have to try our butts off. If Charter is too willing to lynch either one of us, that's also a bad sign because it would probably mean that Charter is scum and Imaginality isn't. If Charter isn't scum, he'll probably still want to lynch me but be more open to the prospect of lynching Imaginality, which is a good thing because it gives us two potential convincees to break the deadlock (assuming Sotty is town of course). Either way, the key to what happens tomorrow lies largely with how Charter acts and what he tries to do IMO. I think I'll need to polish my convincing skills in preparation. Laughing

sigma #5:

Something else to consider: I know porkens briefly mentioned imaginality yesterday, but I wouldn't be surprised if he takes some convincing as well, since he hasn't really expressed a strong preference yet for a lynch tomorrow.

As you also mentioned, I'm interested to see if imaginality keeps up his attacks on me. I really wouldn't be surprised to see him turn and go after you since you probably appear to be the easier lynch.

This is probably the last exchange before the thread opens, so see you in-thread, hopefully with a fresh new cop investigation to mull over...


Last night:

sigma #1:

Worried about charter now, huh? He didn't seem to like my 'setup speculation.'

Not sure if there's much new to analyze. I still think logic points to imaginality, although if you have any arguments for lynching charter instead I'd be interested to hear them.

cruciare #2:

No, after some thought, I still want to lynch Imaginality tomorrow. From my speculation of the setup, I now find it unlilkely that there are two scum left. Thing is, if there is only one scum left, we have two chances to get it right. If there are indeed two left, we absolutely need to lynch scum tomorrow, and IMO Charter is the more logical option in that case. Not to outguess the mod or anything, but I don't really see a balanced setup involving three mafia + a survivor. So Imaginality is still at the top of my to-lynch list.

One of the main sources of my Charter suspicion is that Ojanen was nightkilled, which is a very strange choice for anyone other than Charter to make IMO. It could easily have been made to frame Charter, but no-one's come forward to claim that yet (except me now, but I know I'm not scum). That whole "setup speculation is doomsday" thing was a bit weird too. Funnily enough Jammer seemed to have this same attitude. I was pretty suspicious of Jammer D1 anyway, then again that was before TMJ flipped scum, so I dunno really.

[sigma]

So, the quickhammer charter's been worried about hasn't come yet. That doesn't really give us much info to be honest.

If imaginality-scum wanted to get our attention off of him by killing sotty, it worked to a T. I'm not sure this is very likely, but it worries me. We need a tin-foil hat emoticon to express my feelings right now

[sigma]

Forum ate my post. re-type following:

@imaginality: interesting point about charter not mentioning the GF speculation. I'm not sure two of your reasons for suspecting charter are consistent: "charter's habit of having two suspects on the go" and "being overconfident" -- would someone overconfident really have two suspects? That doesn't make sense to me.

@cruciare: I don't really like your "possibility #3" paragraph. The thing you're not considering is that no-kill may not have been an option for the scum, and porkens-scum could very well have gone with sotty as the kill. I do agree with you that his 180-degree on charter is a daring move that looks like a town-tell.

@charter: do you think porkens is scum? If not, who's our guy?

My take on Sotty's NK:

imaginality-scum:

Sotty's death has worked out really well for him, hasn't it? Doesn't mean he's scum, though, and I think scum in his position would have tried to ride sotty's faith in him to victory. This is WIFOMy, but hopefully correct.

anyone else-scum:

One thing that's being overlooked is that no one, and I mean no one, was even suspicious of Sotty. That wasn't true for anyone else, even porkens. I think that was the largest factor in her death if anyone else but imaginality was scum.

---

and finally: I'm not convinced charter's our guy. I still maintain that in a GF or other PR/framer scumpair, it would be an extremely daring move for the GF/PR to bus his framer D1, especially when he had the opportunity to hammer pops and didn't. This is exactly what jammer did D1, and I still just don't see scum doing this.

Unfortunately, I don't like the other choices either. porkens is obv-town to me because of the investigation and the 180 on charter today(don't see scum making that move at all.) that leaves imaginality and cruciare, who are both gut-town reads to me.

I'm planning on spending some time to re-read imaginality and cruciare in light of sotty's death to see if I've missed anything on them.

[sigma]

Guess we aren't interested in waiting until closer to deadline for a lynch.

Still re-reading.

[sigma]

Reread done. I just don't think charter's the guy, and imaginality's more likely to be scum than Cruciare.

Vote: imaginality

and cross fingers.

[sigma]

Great job Sigma! I kept refreshing the page every 30 seconds worrying that you were going to log off. PHEW.

Let's just say that after my 'check-in' post, I was definitely keeping a very close eye out for your vote. Great job, buddy!

I generally prefer replacing into games to starting as an original, but one drawback is that it's slightly irritating when you catch up a bunch, get a big scumread and case up on a guilty playerslot and then get offed before managing a real impact.

I know I definitely felt a little bad about killing you We were looking for the cop, and you having a bead on charter didn't exactly help your cause for staying alive. Killing you nearly caught up to us since we were considering Cathart as well...

Charter had me fooled but I was onto Sigma.

Yup, that's why you died. you'll see in the QT that charter wanted to no-kill (which was an option) but I didn't. I was afraid that no-killing would make it look like the scum wanted to maintain status-quo. We were definitely aware that killing sotty would take some suspicion off imaginality, but I was actually thinking someone might vote Cruciare. that obviously didn't happen.

Charter had me fooled but I was onto Sigma.

Good to see you again, old scumbuddy! Glad you were following along.

---

Who was your set-up reviewer, RC? I'd be interested in his/her comments.

[sigma]

The player list was also grade A in my book. Made this game a lot of fun.

100% agree. Great players, really enjoyed playing with you all.